Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. -- MaxedOutMama

I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. -- Kim du Toit

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.-- Moshe Ben-David

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. -- Sultan Knish

All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war. -- Billy Beck

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

I Call "BULLSHIT!".

Via Instapundit we get a story in the Asia Times Online about how "emergent powers are primed to erode US hegemony, not confront it, singly or jointly." That part I don't disagree too much with. It is, in fact, pretty much inevitable in a world that has competition. The part I call "BULLSHIT!" on is this:
The George W Bush administration's debacle in Iraq is certainly a major factor in this transformation, a classic example of an imperialist power, brimming with hubris, overextending itself. To the relief of many - in the US and elsewhere - the Iraq fiasco has demonstrated the striking limitations of power for the globe's highest-tech, most destructive military machine.
Here's a clue, Hiro: The U.S. is not an "imperialist power." We do not invade nations to make them our vassals and demand tribute. That is what an empire does. Or it decimates the population and takes everything. We go in, liberate populations, try to build democratic structures for the good of the people living there and then we leave. Oh, and then we trade with them, to our mutual benefit.

The only limitations on "the highest-tech, most destructive military machine" in the world is the decency of America and Americans.

We tried the "empire" thing around the turn of the 20th century, following the major European powers, but it just doesn't play well with Americans. If we were truly an empire, we'd OWN the Middle East, even if that required making glass craters out of some of its major cities, but we don't think that way.

Here's what other countries (and journalists) just don't get about America, as so eloquently expressed by Eric S. Raymond:
I was traveling in Europe a few years back, and some Euroleftie began blathering in my presence about America's desire to rule the world. "Nonsense," I told him. "You've misunderstood the American character. We're instinctive isolationists at bottom. We don't want to rule the world — we want to be able to ignore it."

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