perfidy

We both have engaged in a significant amount of moral finger pointing. This person is bad, this person is evil, this person is more diabolical than this other person, naughty, naughty. If you want to level such accusations, feel free. I'm just unwilling to continue it myself.

As to the leftist protestors, I see a consistent amount of vitriol directed at leftist protestors, in so many words liberals who do this, liberals who do that, liberal stupidity, idiot socialists, in actual words "Commie Tommie Daschle" (as if), leftist "ass-hatted fuckwits," and so forth. Extremely negative comments are consistently directed at people whose ideas and statements fall to the left of the political spectrum, and it gets personal. Just because there are occasional caveats, fine shades of meaning, and distinctions, when someone in so many words or in plain language denigrates and insults a group of people to which I belong I am in turn and by extension denigrated and insulted. I don't recall offering myself specifically as a punching bag. Nor do I recall making blanket statements about the stupidity or ass-hatted fuckwittery of conservatives, or people right of center, what have you, of any stripe.

I have made specific criticisms of Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher, and much further outside the realm of credibility herself, Anne Coulter, but when have I extended those criticisms to any group of right-winged people? I have criticized Fox News, not for being on the right, but for reporting inaccurately, and for such instances as when they have a guest who believes that EYE-rack is "full of Buddhists," without correcting that guest, or offering a retraction or correction. The New York Times, many of whose staff members appear to hold leftish beliefs, has also dropped the ball on accurate reporting. Have I defended the NYT and attacked Fox News solely on the basis of political orientation? If you can find evidence that I have done these things I claim to be innocent of, I'll make a public blog apology.

I have after all, in times past, said, in so many words, "Okay, fine, fair enough, alright." When have points ever been conceded to me? Are you still holding a belief that Nazis fell on the left of the political spectrum? Was there smoldering in silence without concession?

Back to the leftist protestors, personal liberties in America were not created in America, but rather maintained in America by people with leftist ideas and through protest. The American Civil Liberties Union is largely left in character, for want of a better term, and has defended personal liberty to the point of arguing that Neo-Nazis should be permitted to march in Skokie, Illinois. Leftish reporters who refuse to reveal their source protect freedom of the press. Anti-war protestors who seized control of Lake Shore Drive in Chicago defended their right to freedom of assembly while simultaneously protesting the war.

And where do those ideas about personal liberty really come from? America? Don't make me laugh. Ideas about freedom of the press, assembly, and speech, as well as societal egalitarianism and responsible government with separate branches came collectively from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was Swiss, Voltaire, who was French, John Locke, who was English, and various other European thinkers, most of whom were your arch-nemeses as Frenchmen and women. And correct me if I'm wrong, but ardent supporters of those rights in the political field, such as Georges Danton, sat on the LEFT side of French assembly houses, hence the term. And let's see, Alexander Hamilton, a rightist of his time and place, OPPOSED the Bill of Rights! Hmm, gee I wonder, who, oh who must have pushed for that Bill of Rights? Well, if Hamilton the rightist opposed it, then maybe it was the left of that particular time and place? You think? Thus, both the creation in Europe and the maintenance in America of individual liberties come from the leftists of the past, the recent past, and even the current time, as I've argued, are thanks to filthy, puking leftists.

As foot-notes:

1) Morocco did not oppose, and technically invited, the American military presence in 1942. The World War II analogies don't work. That was there and then, this is here and now. History is not the present, it is the past.

2) The pronunciation of Iraq is not the same as Paris. Paris in English is Paris. Roma in English is Rome. Deutschland in English is Germany, Espana is Spain, (please forgive the lack of an appropriate diacritical mark), Eire is Ireland, Italia is Italy. Those things are all fine. EYE-rack is not the English word for Iraq. Saying EYE-rack is roughly the same as saying, "last night I had EYE-talian food at the Olive Garden." Which has more than a grain of truth.

3) Hussein has been removed from power. Fine. But there was nothing altruistic about the U.S. government and military initiating his removal. When a consigliare wants a Capo whacked, he gets whacked. It had nothing to do with the fact that the Capo was selling drugs to children in his own mother's neighborhood. All I've asked is that the administration, for once, tell the truth about why it went to war. Improving the lives of Iraqis no longer under Hussein wasn't it. They could give a damn about the lives of Iraqis. That was an unintended consequence. I doubt, for that matter, the Iraqis killed by American bombs and various other American weapons of mass destruction feel all that liberated. Whether or not Iraq was truly liberated has yet to be seen. It depends on what follows. An American puppet state won't protect the liberties of Iraqi's, seeing as Hussein didn't back when he was still taking orders from Washington. There's good in this, and there's also bad. How much bad remains to be determined. Bad in that the administration has lied to the American people and the world. Bad in that civilians were killed. Bad in that American military personnel lost their lives, and their families will never see them again.

4) I do not believe the UN is a cesspool. I think it's a good step toward a single world government. The kinks have yet to be worked out, but these things take time.

5) World opinion is not irrelevant. Americans, though many of them seem to think so lately, are not on this planet alone. We live with other nations. I think we should work with them rather than against them.

6) Dictators are problematic. Perhaps working with the international community might alleviate that.

7) As to salving the fragile egos of the Middle East, it's got nothing to do with that. I'm just tired of people who reveal and indeed revel in their ignorance with gratuitous mispronunciation.