KazooSkinsFan wrote:Redskin in Canada wrote:I've also REPEATEDLY said the Republicans aren't militarily conservative because ...
Where is the ideological textbook on "conservative military"???
Show me any reasonable definition of "conservative" that advocates "nation building" or interfering in the affairs of others, particularly with the use of the military.
Glad you ask:
The entire
History of the United States of America is filled with a countless list of armed conflicts and interference in the affairs of other States. (Or read instead the controversial
A People's History Of The United States by Howard Zinn)
For a country with less than a short 235 years of existence, the USA has fought and won more wars within and outside its territory than almost any other country I can think of. It is sometimes a painful history. It is sometimes a glorious history.
In fact, it is easier to ask what country would the USA may not have fought against throughout its entire history than to compile a complete list of adversaries. Your neighbours are no exception:
From the Halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli ...
In the snow of far-off Northern lands
And in sunny tropic scenes ...
Of course, anybody can argue that the USA is or is not a "conservative" country. But nobody can argue that, under any definition, it has had conservative and liberal governments who have acted violently against others in defense of its interests. Sometimes legitimately and others illegitimately.
Republicans got into Iraq under the proximate rationale of "terrorism," which would make sense if it were not belied by the underlying issue of oil.
I do not feel that any rational individual today would argue that the MANNER in which that war was initiated and managed, particularly the ensuing occupation, was legal or well implemented. Recent reviews conducted by the US DoD point at inherent flaws in planning (or lack thereof) after the initial brilliant military victory.
I assure you that oil is only one factor involved in this conflict and your sentence is a tremendously gross over-simplification of several legitimate concerns for security that the US has in the Middle East.
We are clearly NOT in many parts of the world that are as bad as the Middle East, but have no oil.
Yes, you are. You may not know it (or even the form) but you are.
A true "conservative" would not advocate a presence in the middle east in the first place and would question the underlying issue that the reason terrorists attack us there is because we did not belong there in the first place.
WRONG. Conservatives -and- Liberals, Americans in general, have NO OPTION but to have a presence in the Middle East.
This is not an ideological issue, it is a geopolitical and international security issue.
This does not justify the terrorists. If you walk through a bad neighborhood and are robbed, it doesn't justify the criminal who robbed you. But you don't walk through bad neighborhoods if you are overwhelmingly likely to be robbed there. And if you are robbed while walking through the neighborhood while you would call the cops, you would also realize you should not have been there in the first place either.
Peace in the Middle East or at least the development of confidence building measures, like it or not, cannot and will not take place without the most important player for Arabs and Jews in the region. The assistance that the US government provides to Israel and Egypt, for example, is key to their peaceful survival.
And Iraq is a great demonstration the Democrats are not liberal either.
The mistake of Iraq transcends political lines because it is not an ideological creation. It is a geopolitical issue.
RIC wrote:The creation and implementation of military strategy has absolutely NOTHING to do intrinsically with conservative or liberal philosophical views.
Yes and no.
A least G.F. Hegel developed (after Kant) his own
dialecticwhen he links yes and no in the same proposition with a conjunction. At least he conceived a
thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis in order to get away with the most important violation in Western two-value logic: true or false.
So in the Middle East, yes, a conservative or a liberal could theoretically support or oppose American involvement, but the way the Republicans are doing it is fundamentally inconsistent with "conservatism" because of what we are doing and the way both the Democrats and the International Left are oppsing it is fundamentally inconsistent with "liberalism" because it places their political objectives above their ideology.
Are you trying to suggest for a slight second that the job of any political leader of any persuasion, take a conservative as an example, is not to advance the national interests (economical, political, diplomatic, ideas, etc) of his State???
THAT is the job of ANY government leaders regardless of their political persuasion!!! Surely that must be achieved under international law and hopefully through cooperative and peaceful means but war is also contemplated as a legitimate response in certain circumstances under international law, particularly as a proportional response to armed aggression.
RIC wrote:You are going to have a tough time convincing a few fellows everywhere that your brand of conservatism is the "true" brand of conservatism in the abstract when confronted with Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell.
I don't have to convince them of anything. I'm stating my view on a message board. So sue me. But they are at best contradictory in conservatism.
So, the "true" conservative is Kazoo. Those religious conservatives are impostors or living contradictions.
I am sure Cheney and Rumsfeld are shaking in their boots as a result of the threat to be called also "false conservatives".
RIC wrote:Give up?
If you mean by do I "give up" trying to win a labelling war against liberalism, I concede that. Liberals are the master labelers, and I surrender.
As they say in military engagements: I accept your terms.
But I haven't seen you advocate anything liberal, ever.
True. I rarely get involved in political discussions in this board.
Only the lazy (moral, economic, whatever) turn to government as a solution for anything.
Who do you go to when a law is violated against you?
