is the US sliding into Fascism? Evidence for and against

I did not say no monitoring but there is a lot of monitoring that could be done without an invasion.I also do not preclude other folk taking action. There is no reason I can see that the UN shouldn't have a lead role in such situations.

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

There's tons of messages in your link, be specific

That makes sense. Success and hope you get some fame!

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

We are in agreement on this point. Perhaps you do not realize that your statement to Monk read stronger than you actually meant it.Part of your critique was to end containment. In this case, containment was necessary for appropriate levels of monitoring as well as creating both Carrot and Stick. I agree and I am very concerned that the US has taken such an antagonistic role against the UN that it is now advocating revamping the UN, not for reasons it needs to be changed, but because its lack of support on Iraq was viewed as something bad.As far as I can tell the UN performed its job well in negating support for a needless war founded on bad intel and against international law, and its only failing being that it did not have the capacity to actively impede US aggression.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

So, what does that prove? That enemies can at one point in the past appear as friends? Here's one of FDR and Churchill having fun with Stalin.

Excuse me? I can disagree with anything you post without being a liar. You don’t hold a patent on truth. Let’s put that paper box away shall we?I do see however, that when intelligence is used to support your positions, then it is absolutely correct and without question. We don’t need to investigate and find out for certain what is going on in Iraq because we have intel that says nothing is there, right? BUT when similar intel sources are used as justification for war it’s completely bogus. Can’t have it both ways Holmes You must like flogging a dead horse. All of these have been tried repeatedly, over and over again, during the course of 12 years between the Gulf War and the Iraq War. 16 UN resolutions ignored. More than 30 publicly issued reprimands by the UN security council, ignored. Repeated warnings, multiple carrot-stick programs. The oil for food "carrot" turned into a multi-billion dollar fraud.Do you think Clinton would have authorized a CIA plot to assassinate Saddam if more conventional policies had proved to be effective?Only a fool repeats the same actions over and over again yet expects different results.

All of the messages from me on page 8.Or, at least all of the issues I raised if they span several messages.

quote:

---

All of the messages from me on page 8.

---

Gee schraffy, let's see, we have:

• Ted Kennedy / Howard Dean positions on death penalty, taxes and gun laws
• The contradiction in your voting record source
• Democratic filibustering
• Bill Frist and the FRC
• Who’s who in left wing politics
• Political relativism
• And just for fun, you threw in the Barry Goldwater quote

I have responded to most of these already, but if you want to continue, let me know which one of these you’re interested in and I’ll rehash the topic with you.Admins may not view all of these as consistent with the OP. But wait, you’re an admin, shouldn’t each of these be a separate topic?

Disagree with what you want, but accusing me of monday morning quarterbacking (basing my opinion on evidence found post invasion) would be a lie. That is what you would cause you to be a liar, and so I am pointing it out.This has been asserted before towards me and others have been kind enough to repost my posts PRIOR TO INVASION, which showed my position was the same. There is a difference between good intel and bad intel. The fact that you can't tell which is which is not my problem. The fact is I relied on goo publicly available intel BEFORE THE WAR, and have been proven right. Indeed the Congress has now made findings which show anyone that had been able to make the distinction was right, and those that had not were wrong.That is why Bush himself is now publicly stating that the intel was wrong and so he was not to blame.... except of course there were plenty of people telling him he was wrong beforehand including retired senior members of the intelligence community.The nuclear weapon question was over before the invasion and even Bush recognized this. If you continue stating that that is false, I am warning you in advance that that will make you a liar as well. The IAEA had proven the yellow cake accusation false, as well as members of our intel community (who later got unmasked by the press in a felony revenge move), without the yellow cake accusation being true there was ZERO NADA NONE NOWAY IN HELL that we were going to find nuclear WEAPONS.That is unless he had connections with aliens or god gave them to him. Read Bush's own speeches and you will find as we closed on the war he switched to saying nuclear weapons would be a threat in 5 to 10 years. In stating this you are ignoring the quotes I have posted by Powell regarding Bush's policy toward Iraq early in his administration... not to mention some measure of logic.There is absolutely no reason to say that because one version of diplomatic or containment measures have failed, that no measures of that kind would work.They were failing do to corruption (on our side as well as his), a weakening of international support, and lack of stronger mechanisms for monitoring and compliance enforcement.In the wake of 9/11 we backing for increased international support, and could easily pass stronger revamping of mechanisms.Is there a reason you feel it is logical to pose stock dilemmas? So you are a Democrat? I disliked Clinton, as well as Gore. He made some really bad decisions and if he did what you just suggested then I guess that would be another one. Remember Clinton was the guy that bombed a poor nation because they were building chemical weapons and he felt there was no other option... then it turned out they were only making milk.Remember, back then Republicans were blasting Clinton's international exploits and Bush ran on a platform that Gore would continue such poor thinking and he would be different? Do you remember this? Who did you vote for?In any case I will point out that Clinton's use of assassination indicated that he was not feeling like INVASION was a good mechanism.But all of this is also to forget context. My guess is even Clinton would not have been bothering with Hussein after 9/11. Even before that Clinton had a hardon for wiping out OBL and the AQ network. After 9/11 he'd probably be working on that threat and not get side tracked into possible regime change.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Look back upthread to see what it proves. Remember how this began? Saddam was always a monster because he was busy using chemical weapons and killing his own people? Remember that claim? Remember also that it was claimed that teh liberals were letting him get away with it?Then what I did is point out that it has been Republicans that were letting, no wait, encouraging Saddam to do those very things while liberals were petitioning them not to do so. And now, quite hypocritically, republicans are claiming that they CARE about what he did and that he needs to be removed from power?You let me know when you understand what's going on.Oh by the way, the picture you linked to does not indicate that these people were friends or friendly. We DID NOT encourage Stalin to expand his empire as much as possible and slaughter his own people. We were fighting a war against a major threat, Nazi Germany, and had to ally ourselves against that threat.If you cannot tell the difference between the implication contained in the photo of Rummy and Saddam and the photo of WC FDR and Stalin, then you have a problem with understanding context.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

What I'd most like to discuss is the difference between what I have always meant when referring to "liberal" and "conservative" and what you have refused to ackowledge.I have never been referring to people's liberalness or conservativeness relative to each other.I have always been measuring them against the unchanging entire political spectrum, with Marxists and Socialists on the far left, and Authoritarians and Facists on the far right.It is my contention that there are many conservatives who are quite far right and Authoritarian in very high, powerful positions in our government right now, and there are no Marxists and no Socialists in our government right now.You continue to use the term "far left", but there is no significant, influential Marxists or Socialists in our governent right now, so I would like you to explain why you keep using the term. So, do I have it right?

This is also important:

quote:

---

Did you catch that? Never in 214 years has a vote been denied.

---

quote:

---

Republicans have filibustered sure, but not to this extent and not with judicial nominees.

---

Ok so Marxist and Socialist are far left and Fascist are far right. I’m with you here Now here is where I disagree with you. There are no Fascist in our government right now just as there are no Marxist or Socialists. I agree there are no Marxists or Socialists in our government right now so since that’s how we agreed to define the term, I won’t use "far left anymore.

I thank you.It would be much more productive if you would just read what I write the first time I write it and respond to it in a direct, forthright manner instead of trying to do an end run around it.And I do agree that there are no outright, 100% Fascists in our government right now.But there are quite a few high-ranking politicians with some very Authoritarian tendencies, which they have acted upon.Hence, we now are subjected to the Patriot Act which gives law enforcement and government intelligence agencies unprecedented power to spy on us, collect information on us, and imprison us without any due process. You do know that law enforcement can get a secret order from a secret court in order to spy on you without having to provide any evidence that you have done anything illegal, don't you?I mean, have you actually read anything about the Patriot Act 2 that they want to get passed? Here are some highlights: We also see that Frist is obviously connected with one of the most powerful radical Christian right lobbying groups, the Family Research Council. The FRC seeks to get it's particular morality imposed, by law, upon everyone in the country.We see that well-respected, long-time Republican members of congress like Arlen Specter and John McCain are being attacked by the current leadership of their party simply because they did not roll over and go along with everything this Radical Right leadership thinks should happen.Tell me, do you actually agree with Bush, Cheney, Frist, DeLay, Hastert, Dobson, and Santorum on everything?They don't care if you don't.Isn't traditional conservatism supposed to want to keep government out of people's lives as much as possible, and strive for smaller governement, and fiscal responsibility in government?In your estimation, is the current Republican leadership following these ideals?

Your welcome, and it would also be much more productive and conducive to getting a more timely response from me if you didn’t shotgun twenty topics in the same post then get upset when I don’t deliver a dissertation on each one.Just look at the post I am responding to: We have: Authoritarian radical republicans, Patriot Act, Patriot Act II, the radical Family Research Council, radical republican attacks on Specter and McCain, a request for my opinions on Bush, Cheney, Frist, DeLay, Hastert, Dobson, and Santorum. Anything else? The kitchen sink? Wow, we are making progress. I know how much you had to choke while typing this statement. I would say.......as my fingers hesitate while typing........that.......considering certain people......you may have a point.........and.......I........agree. There I said it. Most of the rest of your post deals with quotes (without source link I might add), about the Patriot Act II. But before I address that, I would like to hear your view on Patriot Act I. Is there anything at all you agree with? Any provisions that, given the reality of 911, you view as necessary changes to previous legislation? Or do you consider ALL of it an unnecessary trampling of civil liberties?