Text 9609, 673 rader
Skriven 2006-12-28 21:07:01 av Vorlonagent (13026.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: My Presidential Pick for 2006
=========================================
Reply delayed till after Christmas...

<gabiks@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1165905297.909721.18970@80g2000cwy.googlegroups.com...

> I think of myself as an average jane.  I don't think my point of view
> or my opinions are in any way new or revolutionary.  So when I say
> 'most people' I guess I'm saying people whom I believe are
> generally more like me then not.   And yes, this could be a huge
> assumption on my part.

You may be mainstream in most areas, but may not be here.  Americans
seem to have some hangup about homosexuality.  I have no idea why.   That's
why I touch on the behviour of gay advocates.  I'm looking for a reason that
makes sense.  We have the "ewwww" factor of not wanting to picture it and we
have the confrontational manner of some gay activists.


>>I agree that nobody and legislate morality, but I also think it's
>>important
>>that morality inform and direct legislation.  That morality need not be
>>strictly-fundamentalist-christian morality mind you, but some kind of
>>self-consistent morality nontheless.
>
> Sure, but I think 'moral values' are best taught at home.   It may
> be more appropriate for governments to inform and direct our culture by
> incorporating/arguing ethics.

Governments should not legislate what is "moral" or try to in cases where
there is no clear-cut victimization.  Governments should legislate morality
in the sense of proscribing murder, stealing, etc.  Along with these laws,
the government has a direct interest in teaching the moral values that
underlie them.  You may be calling this kind of stuff "ethics" but I'm not
sure the word entirely fits.  Honesty and respect in our dealings with each
other is a cultural value.  It is a moral value.

What's less-clear is the degree the government has the right to teach less
objective moral values.  Like you, I'm dubious that the government should be
allowed to define our belief-set.  The government has no right to tell us
that gayness is "wrong", which also means it has no right to tell us gayness
is "right".  That the government should make no laws against non-abusive gay
activity also means the government has no right to evangelize/normalize gay
activity via the schools.  They're two sides of the same "legislating
morality" coin and the government should butt out entirely.  This is my view
of government and religion as well.  A good, solid separation between the
two is best for both.

The thing about gay marriage is that the legal benefits of marraige
are bestowed by the government.  Those benefits are not "rights", they are
priveleges.  Which means that the government must determine who qualifies
for those benefits.  It is within the government's rights and powers to
restrict legal marriage to heterosexuals.  It isn't necessarily the right or
moral thing to do but there are lots of things that governments can legally
do that aren't right or moral.

This is where my comment on morality informing legislation was really going.
The government has too much power to do both good and bad.  A sense of
morality must inform the decisions and laws it makes or they can slide
toward the self-interested or inhumane.  The 2005-2006 Congress paints a
nice portriat of "self-interested".


> I hear you on that one.   I get the sense that people often listen to
> respond, wanting more to express their point of view then to listen and
> understand someone else's.

Talking past each other.  Yes.  I see that a lot too.


>>Did it ever occur to you that the backlash against gay marriage is in part
>>because of the conduct of gay adovcates?  Gay pride parades I've seen
>>pictures of are inevitably carnivals of deviant-behaviour expression.  Gay
>>activists used to make a point of "outing" people in the public eye who
>>they
>>thought were privately gay.  Gays activists have demanded not that they be
>>accepted as your next-door neighbor or fellow cubicle-dweller but as
>>in-your-face bizzarre whackos.  You and I both know that this isn't most
>>gays, but that's how their spokespeople can come off.
>>It is far more likely that "most people" have a hard time accepting the
>>lurid images painted for them by gay activists.  Combine that with
>>fundamantalist christianity and--you bet--gays can very easily look
>>hell-bound and nothing we'd want to accept into mainstream society.
>
> Sure, but I'd argue that this is more a sex thing then a gay thing.
> wouldn't these same people be just as offended by heterosexual
> displays of explicit and/or deviant behavior?  A Gay pride parade is
> fundamentally about sex and sexual expression in the face of danger.
> You only get one day to wear that dress and man are you going to wear
> it!  does it make some people uncomfortable, sure, but I think they'd
> be uncomfortable with any and all expressions of sexuality in public.
> The big three religions do a poor job of fostering a health attitude
> about sex, never mind adjudicating that attitude over a person's
> entire lifetime.  It's best to be a virgin until married, at which
> point you are to engage in sex only to have children, then....nothing.
> as I've over heard one young twerp saying, "Old people having sex?
> How gross it that! "

...But do you want to see your parents doing it?  Do you want to imagine
what your own conception might have looked like?

Not me.

When your kids are old enough to have sexualities, probably not them either.
:)

Not most americans, I think.  Europe may be different, I dunno.

My group of friends circa 15 years ago had two of that group fall in love.
They were all over each other constantly whether in private or in public.
As it happens, the relationship was heterosexual, but it was vulgur as hell
and no other combination of genders would have made it any less-so.  They
have a first amendment right to act like lust-crazed idiots in a public
place, but that doesn't mean I have to *like* seeing it.  Nor does their
right to act in a given way demand that I *must* censor myself from
expressing my DISlike.  Same thing with the sexual devience expressed in
your average gay pride parade.  I don't have to be prejudiced against gays
for the expressed sexual devience in the parade to repel me.

This is why I bring the point up.  If "gay" to me is summed up by the 
devience displayed in Gay Pride parades and in-your-face activists, I'm not 
likley to invite someone like that home for tea.  Mix it with any kind of 
religious opposition, I'm likely to be rather closed to accepting gays into 
my world.

If gayness were repackaged more according to its true face, I think gays
would be better off.  Gays are the guy in the cubicle next to yours, the
postman (woman)...they're just people like everyone else.  It's gays 
themselves that have made sexuality and sexual devience a core part of their 
public persona.  It never needed to be that way and doesn't need to be that 
way now.  The activist-presentation of gays seems to say that the US must to 
embrace the full spectrum of sexual devience to embrace gays.  (more 
correctly, the US must embrace gays and every sexual devience they display 
with complete tolerance)  Most people can't make that leap.  Thus they 
reject the devience and gays with it.  Gays are the poorer for it.


> As for outing someone who isn't ready to be out?  No excuse for that.
> As you say if the movement is about acceptance allowing someone the
> right to stay in the closet needs be acceptable as well.

I believe the counter-argument would be something along the lines that the
closeted individual is hurting the gay cause simply by remaining closeted
(capitulating to the demands straight society makes of gays).  By outing
people of prominence, activists demonstrate that their presence cannot be
avoided or denied.  They keep themselves visible and force people to grapple
with their presene and gayness.  It's classic ends-justifies-the-means
thinking.

That said, I agree with you.  It's a vicious and arrogant thing to do.  I'm
glad the tactic has fallen out of vogue.

I'm still not entirely sure why gay activists seemed fixated on constantly 
demostrating that they exist, but a lot of energy seems to go into it.


>>>As to categorization being a human trait (which it is no
>>>argument here from me), as a good friend said to me.....free your mind
>>>gabi, free your mind.
>
>>Categories, not prisons.  I agree.
>
> Tomayto, tomato.  Categorization can lead to a 'paint by numbers'
> understanding of the world.  (With the painters believing they actually
> painted something of their own design and choosing simply because the
> end result was well done or pleasing to the eye.)

But to understand painting requires understanding color.  You can't
understand color unless categories exist that define what a "color" is.

It's not the process of dividing that's the problem.  It's how we relate to
it.  It's how willing we are to have categories and also affirm that life
burs the boundary between them.  "paint by number" occurs when you insist on
strict boundaries that never blur.  Your world then comes to you in
pre-chewed bits where all the colors you need are there in neat little
plastic containers for you in order to paint a picture someone else has
already conceived for you to paint.

Real life means mixing your own colors when you can't find something
off-the-shelf.  But mixing colors still requires you define what a "color"
is.


>>I look more right than I am because of my support for the invasion of Iraq
>>and my tendency for having little patience for what I see as
>>un-fair-minded
>>partisan sniping.  These two facets of my political outlook dominate about
>>95% of my political writing here.  If you pay attention to what I'm saying
>>you'll often find I have some asides where I express doubt about aspects
>>of
>>the Bush Admin or qualify my support in some way.  Anyone who sees me as a
>>down-the-line Bush-guy simply isn't paying attention.  If you care to
>>understand me or what I'm saying (not everybody does) those asides are
>>just
>>as important (if you want to understand my outlook) as the points I spend
>>the balance of my time on.
>
> Everyone makes mistakes.  all in all you seem a reasonable fellow.
> Which I must say can be quite maddening at times.  :^)

Ah, good.  I'm doing my job, then.  :)

And to answer a question from a a way back up the thread, no I don't work
for the Bush Administration or any Republican or conservative group,
company, etc.  I just have an interest in this kinda stuff.


> the implication was that left wingers "like me", the target
> audience of dear hugos speech, could be easily taken in by his rhetoric
> because we lack the deep understanding right wingers have of the man,
> his situation and his ideas.

I never said or implied any such thing.  I merely said you were in his
target audience and I was not.  I certainly didn't
suggest that one side of the aisle is generally smarter than the other.

Hugo chose his target audience by choosing to refer to Cholmsky, by using
over-the-top anti-Bush rhetoric and any number of other references and turns
of phrase in his speech.  His target audience is people who are on the
political left, because they're the ones who might react favorably to Hugo's
rhetoric.

Nor it it intelligence that makes conservatives immune.  Hugo is simply not 
saying things the right finds particularly appealing.


> (hmmmm, I don't remember hearing
> anything about the Chomsky website crashing :^)   what struck me was
> the left right thing.  I wasn't personally offended.  I was curious
> why it seemed a matter of course that the people who might have been
> persuaded by hugos talk would be left wing.

The Left wing are the only people that could possibly be persuaded.

I made no comment made on whether Hugo actually reached his audience.  The
fact that he lost his bid for the South America's rotating seat on the
UN Security Council suggests he didn't.


> And how/why did it
> matter.  Was it simply an observation on your part expressed in the
> political terminology of the times or was it more sinister.  An attempt
> to dismiss both hugo and the left (and me) as uninformed simpletons.
> "No, it just looks that way to me," would have been a fine answer.
>  It was more rhetorical and aimed at politics in general then at you
> personally.   The bush administration is very good at dismissive
> statements that sound awfully similar to me.  hence the question as to
> whether or not you worked for the administration.

I hope I have now demonstrated I was not being dismissive.  If not, please
point to something I wrote that could still use some clarification.

The Bush Admin can take care of itself.  I disagree about how "dismissive"
it acts, but I don't really want to take on that particular discussion right
now.


>>I have treated you fairly.  You're the one writing what has come across as
>>unambiguous attacks directed at me, and then back off from them as
>>misstements of what you meant to say.  It's happened twice now.  If I get
>>a
>>little grumpy about it, I have reason.
>
> Do you?  as a lurker I am perhaps more familiar with your writing style
> then you are of mine (although given this part of the conversation,
> perhaps not :^)   You 'believe' it to have happened twice now.   I
> tell you sincerely that that just isn't the case.   If I wanted to
> attack you directly it wouldn't be ambiguous to either of us.

When I started writing my reply here, I thought sure I'd be able to prove
you wrong with your own words.  Rereading them had quite the opposite
effect.  Reposting the first incident went as I expected because your
comment did come out of the blue and did sting a good deal.

Quote: "Parts of this are so delusional; imho, I simply can't go there."

I know you backed away from it as a missatement, but what a missatement!
There's no way to take the word "delusional" as anything but a direct and
unambiguous personal attack.  I accepted your explanation because I wanted
to continue the discussion but I had to delete several stronger replies and
privately I had a hard time buying your explanation.  I've had freindly
discussions like this before.  They turned mean before, too.  My feelings
were still in the back of my mind when I read your post from which I drew my
second quote.

Quote: "Does what I say have any more or any less value depending on which
side of the divide you think I'm on?  Or are you simply playing into the
hands that wish us to believe we are more different then we are the same?"

The implication I originally came away with was that you were saying my
thinking was flawed by partisanship.  That I react prejudicially, being
dismissive toward opinions I don't agree with.  I was still smarting from
that first shot, which meant I didn't really question that this was your
meaning.

The problem is, when I read the entire paragraph to write my reply, I could
no longer be sure you were attacking me as I was when I first read it.  I
realized there was a substantial chance that you were merely posing a
question, just using personal terms to phrase it. Your replies to me have
been saying exactly that:  You weren't attacking me, which means I have been
unfair to you.

I apologize for overreacting.

The rest of this particular conversation thread has been snipped because it 
is now
irrelevant.


>>In the short-term yes.  Not in the long.  We go back to Chamberlain and
>>appeasement again.  al Sadr isn't going to be happy just staying a
>>powerful
>>and charismatic religious leader.  He doesn't have a small army just for
>>show.  He already tipped his hand by attacking US troops directly in 2003.
>>the Iraqi government deals with him now or deals with him later when he's
>>stronger, but they will have to deal with him.  Over time he will grow
>>more
>>demanding, more easily offended and harder to placate until he has the
>>power
>>he feels he needs to take the dominant position in his relatioship with
>>the
>>government.  At that time he will likely either carve out a
>>Hezbollah-style
>>state-within-a-state or if he's feeling really ambitious, he'll try to
>>knock
>>over the Iraqi government.
>>The thing about arab armies is that they are notoriously poorly trained
>>(the
>>exception is the British-trained Jordanians).  It's why israel was able to
>>hold out against hugely larger arab armies.  It's why US forces in 2003
>>utterly destroyed any iraqi unit that stood and fought.  We're trying to
>>build a western style army in iraq and it isn't going as well as I once
>>thought.  Corrpuption and desertion are still huge issues.
>
> I don't disagree with your assessment of al-sadr.  I'm just hoping
> he's smarter than that, more of a leader and less of an egomaniac.
> But then maybe I'm delusional :^)  You'd think 300K US trained men
> could maintain order and provide security.  But then most men in the
> Iraqi army are in it to collect a pay check.  We need to help iraq
> rebuild it's economy fast.  As you say to many angry young men
> running around with guns and little else to occupy their time.

Indeed.  In 2003, thinking about an Iraqi occupation, one of the first
things that sprang to my mind was the notion of putting lots of money into
giving everybody a job.  There was (and is) lots of work to do, clearing 
away the destruction from two wars with the US, repaving roads, building 
schools, hospitals, power plants and police stations, stringing new power 
lines. Lots of work to do and professional skills to be taught.  The US Army 
and Marines has been doing a lot of this stuff and it's underreported. 
Really, it's the Iraquis who should be doing it.  For all I know they are, 
but then, this stuff is underreported.

Also I'm hearing reports that the US has focused on training officers, not
enlisted men, which is a huge mistake.   A western-style army runs on its
NCOs (seargents), as much as its officers.  Maybe the iraquis were too
uncomfortable with the culture that comes with a western-style army and we
backed away from training the footsoldiers

Western armies cross-train so when one guy is killed someone else can step
in and keep things going.  Arab soldiers hoard knowledge as a way of
boosting their standing in the organization.  Western armies are
de-centralized giving great leeway for judgement calls down the line.  Arab
armies are very top-down.  A rule of thumb I have heard is that an arab
colonel has about the same discretion with his orders as a US Seargent.
That's why destroying command and control is so devestating to an arab army.
If the higher-ups lose contact, nobody's going to take any initiative.  As I
said, this is why Israel has held out against arab armies in though any 
number of wars.

300,000 men trained in the standard arab style can't "keep order" their way
out of a wet paper bag.  The Iraqi army is plagued by tribalim/militia ties,
corruption, desertion, infiltration.

As for al-Sadr, I would never call you or hope "delusional.", but hope
should be tempered by a dose of realism.  All signs that I've seen point to
him being exactly as I describe him (or I wouldn't describe him that way).
The only thing about al-Sadr that points away from him as an ambitious
megalomaniac is his upbringing.  His father is/was revered as a good and
pious man.  If you've got more than that to hang some hopes on, I'd love to
see it (really).


>>I guess we're both arguing the same sides with different language.  Arab
>>culture makes any tooth-hair growth an distinct unliklihood.  Giving way
>>before apparent power (appeasement) is a cultural norm there, which is why
>>repressive governments are so common.  Bu when you have two or more
>>distinct
>>centers of power, Islamic hyper-macho kicks into play as each side tries
>>to
>>win total dominance over the other(s).  From that you get human rights
>>disasters like Darfur.  Or Iraq's gassing of the Kurds. And you get Arabs
>>vs Israel.
>
> True, arab culture is hierarchical. Starting with the family and
> continuing on up through the community and governing body (religious
> leaders).   Is it really giving away to apparent power or is it more
> power brokering based on respect and mutual interest?    He/she/it who
> establishes some sort of common ground on which the people/parties can
> stand will be given authority to negotiate on their behalf.   What that
> common ground is/will be....don't know.

When giving way mean putting yourself in a position that is understood to be
inferior, it's really hard to estabish mutual respect or interest.  A
well-intentioned superior who is kind to his inferiors first looks "weak" 
because that's what *they'd* be doing if they were in the superior position. 
This is the problem the US faces. Actions we take that are intended to show 
respect or common interest are actions associated with inferior-status 
there.  We look weak.

I dunno what common ground might be established now either.  And with lots
of forces pushing unrest in Iraq, such ground it hard to come by in any 
event.


>>>>>iran is on stand by and will 'come' to the aid of which ever side it
>>>>>feels is more
>>>>>sympathetic to its point of view.
>
>>>>No.  They were or are shopping for a proxy to start the equivalent of
>>>>Lebanon's Hezbollah in Iraq.  Carve out a "state within a state."  I
>>>>think
>>>>they're down to two finalists: Al Sadr and some other guy whose name I
>>>>don't >>>remember.  :)
>
>>> no.   the question for iran is where will it have more influence, in a
>>>divide or a unified iraq.
>
>>The answer is obvious: a divided Iraq.  A divided Iraq allows Iran to win
>>control piece by piece until it is united again, as a part of Iran or as
>>an
>>Iranian client state the way Lebanon was a client state to Syria or
>>eastern
>>europe were client states to the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
>
> Not so obvious then, as I would have said a united iraq.   To much
> competition and outside influence possible in a divided iraq.
> Although the piece by piece approach could work, but it would be very
> messy and we would be right in the middle of it.

We're short-timers.  The 2006 election telegraphed that very clearly.
In a divided Iraq, Iran can win influence and control first in shia south
iraq, then invade and ethnicly cleanse sunni central iraq and then deal with 
the Kurds in the north, who would be surrounded and friendless (the Turks to 
their back certainly don't like them).  Likely, all Iran would want to do is 
take the Kurdish-controlled northern oil fields.  Iran can wait till 2009 to 
do this, if waiting out Bush's term of office is what is required to clear 
the annoying americans out.  By then they could very well have an atomic 
bomb to make them untouchable to any military action short of nuclear 
weapons used against them.  The smart money says Iran doesn't do more than 
foment unrest until they have an a-bomb in their pocket to keep reprisals at 
bay.

The Iraq Study Group recommendations play right into the scenario.  The ISG
recommends that we talk to Iran and Syria and ask them please, pretty please
(inferior position), to take Iraq off our hands, which they would be only
too happy to do.  We would be giving them what they want without them firing
a shot.  By giving Iran, the superior position, they can also extract from 
us tolerance for their nuclear weapons program and economic concessions in 
order for them to do us the favor of advancing their goals.

"What fools these mortals be"...


>>> Sistani seems to me to understand human nature.  Realizing that nothing
>>> he says at the moment will have any positive affect.  He's opted for
>>> silence.  Waiting for things to settle themselves.   Iran is the home
>>> of a reported 200K plus Iraqi refugees, many of them having fled when
>>> saddam *came to power.   Any expatriation of refugees on irans part is
>>> greatly affected by how things play out in iraq.  These 'iranian
>>>iraqis' will likely own a debt of gratitude to a government that has
>>>taken them in for almost a generation; teachers, doctors, independent
>>> thinkers, all now able to rebuild their native country though
>>> democratic elections and appointments to government office.  No place
>>> is as black and white as our political strategist would like them to
>>> be, including places here in America.
>
>>But you can measure them along a gray scale.
>>Iran is a US enemy.  Was from the moment revolutionaries seized the US
>>embassy in the 70s.  The Carter Admin's hand-wringing approach to the
>>hostage crisis stands as a cautionary tale in how NOT to deal with the
>>mideast.  Why liberals today think Carter is some kind of super-diplomat
>>is beyond me.
>
> Because he is a kindly old man who helps the poor by building houses
> for them with his own two hands.  he doesn't just talk the talk of
> empowering the poor he is actively doing it.   that and he is a man
> 'living' his faith, which carries a lot of weight in the mid-east.

Unfortunately, being charitable and being globally smart aren't the same
thing.  For all his good works on a personal level, Mr. Carter doesn't have 
any better grasp of global politics now than when he spent half his time in 
the White House wringing his hands over the hostage crisis.  Building houses 
for Habitat for Humanity is commendable, but it doesn't give him any insight 
into how the US should deal with Haiti or North Korea.


>>The US took in plenty of Iraqi refugees too, y'know.
>
> Yes, you'd think this would have a calming effect.   Wasn't maliki
> a refugee at some point?

I don't know.  I wouldn't be surprised.


>>> Much as this makes me cringe.  I think this is correct and have often
>>> argued we should all just pull out of the region and let them kill each
>>> other off if they need to.  Plenty of people on this planet willing to
>>> bury the bodies and move into the empty houses, or what's felt of
>>>them.
>
>>Are you sure?  That same argument would support abandoning Darfur to the
>>depradations of the Sudanese government.
>
> No it doesn't.  we haven't been meddling in the affairs, both
> friendly and not, of sudan and its neighbors for 50 plus years.   If
> the only thing preventing resolution in the mid-east is our foreign
> policy, we need a better policy, one that's more hands off.

Then the next time the Hezbos or Hamas or Fatah or whoever starts shooting
missiles at Israeli civilians we should tell the Israelis we won't stop them
from taking as strong a military response as they like.  I can deal with
that.

You may find that the US didn't really make common cause with israel until
either the late-60s or eraly-70's.  I'm not sure if it coincided with the
dawn of mideast terrorism, but it's close.  That might not make any
difference to the Palentinians who might very likely see Israel as imposed
on them by the west


>>Closer to home, that argument
>>would support pulling police out of drug-infested inner cities and letting
>>the gangs shoot it out and kill each other.
>>A lot of those empty homes will have belonged to people who were merely
>>born
>>in the wrong part of the world and got caught in the middle.  I guarantee
>>that it's these people who are starving and dying in Darfur.
>>The really nasty part of the whole thing is that the two (or more) sides
>>are
>>just going to kill a lot of people and cause a lot of misery.  They're not
>>going to kill each other off and free up the land for "decent people".
>>Neither the mideast not the inner city is going to run out of angry young
>>men willing to carry guns and shoot at the first sign of a slight to their
>>pride.  The culture's >the problem.
>
> Yes an angry youth no matter where its found on earth is a cultural
> problem.  As I've said ibefore, I have total faith in the ability of
> economics to subsume the planet.  We don't need to overthrow
> governments and force feed democracy to the masses.   Exporting
> Wal-mart, mcdonalds and coca cola is a far more affective way to go.

You can't force democracy on anyone.  You can only give them the opportunity
for it.

You can't put a starbucks on every streetcorner of the globe if the people
can't afford the coffee.  For that, they need incomes above subsistence.
Freedom and democracy create conditions that foster the incomes.  that's why
it's important to give the people a chance at it.


>>Worse, the world is getting smaller.  It's getting easier and easier for
>>what's happening there to come here.  What do you do when it does?  That's
>>why Bush invaded Iraq.  To try to change "there" before they start tocome
>>here on a regular basis.
>
> Sounds reasonable.   But did it ever occur to bush and co that this
> very thing, the world getting smaller, is if fact what's driving much
> of the hatred embodied by fundamentalist and extremists?  Might not the
> alliance of Islamic nations portent an attempt to stop us from invading
> and diminishing their culture and way off life through imperialistic
> tactics (capitalism, democratic regime change)?  Might they not watch
> MTV and decide that we are hedonistic, materialist, selfish, thugs who
> represent the worst kind of evil imaginable?  Might they be trying keep
> us from coming "there" by frightening us into staying "here."

They might.  You might hear exactly those sentiments expressed in any number
of mosques on any given saturday.

If they want to preach against our culture, go right ahead.  It gives a lot
of us over here dismay too.  But to come over here and kill us for
it...that's where I draw the line.  Bin Laden thought 9/11 would "frighten"
us into crawling into a corner and whimpering.  He was wrong.

Some far-leftists like Ward Churchill say that we're to blame for for 9/11.
"Little Eichmanns" he said of the people who died that day--collaborators
(as Eichmann was a collborator) in a monstrous crime.  In this case, the
crime was importing and exporting goods and services.  By exporting coke,
wal-mart and mcdonalds, and importing electronics, DVDs and tennis shoes,
the US is complicit in a crime to which 9/11 was just and inevitable
punishment...at least to Ward Churchill.  I don't buy that BS for a second,
but saying it gets WC invited to speak at a lot of universities.

Even if I grant that arabs have some legitimite grievance with the US and
the culture it exports, killing US citizens is NOT an acceptable response.
Murder is never justified or justifiable and that is what 9/11 was.


>>>>In this country, we don't like the government sticking its nose into
>>>>that
>>>>sort of thing.  That's one of the perils when power is centralized in
>>>>the
>>>>state as european socialism does.  The elite cadre of people in power
>>>>get
>>>>a >>>decidedly uncomfortable degree of control, which will inevitably
>>>>lead to
>>>>their prejudices getting an uncomfortable degree of control.
>
>>> Oh, I don't know that we're immune to the same perils.  We are at
>>>the moment engage in a discussion on whether or not to establish a
>>>guest worker program.  Will guest workers be allowed to own property?
>
>>Sure.  Why not?  We'd have to pass a law that forbade it.  *Illegal*
>>aliens can own property here.
>
> Not legally.

I believe they can.  Few do because they don't have the money and the 
process of buying property creates a paper trail that could end up with them 
getting booted out of the country. I know of no law that says you have to be 
here legally to own property in
the US.

> Agreed.  To which I add there are plenty of laws on the books already.
> If we as a nation are unable/unwilling to enforce them building a fence
> along the boarder will amount to little more then a speed bump.

Depends on the fence, where it's located and what else we put in place along
with it.  Nobody should expect it would do the job all by itself.

We have to decide if we wish to allow unrestricted access across our border.
If we want control over who comes here, we damn well better act like it.  A
fence would be a start, as well as staffing the INS at level necessary to
put some spine in the laws we have.  We may want US soldiers on the border 
for the short term, while the INS gets up to speed.


>>You're here in the US, right?  It appears he stayed anyway, but I may be
>>reading too much into limited info.
>
> My parents and I immigrated to this country together in 1968.   we're
> sill here :^)

Much-belated welcome.  :)


>>>>The promise of american democracy is "citizen = member" in several
>>>>important .  Not in every way.  That's the promise of communism and you
>>>>can see >>>how well that worked out.
>
>>> Communism as a socio-economic model is, imho, flawed - people who have
>>> equally are not necessarily equals.
>
>>Fatally flawed.
>
> Communism or my opinion?  :^)

Communism, of course.  :)



-- 
John Trauger,
Vorlonagent

"Methane martini.
Shaken, not stirred."

"Spirituality without science has no mind.

Science without spirituality has no heart."

-Methuselah Jones
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