Genocide, Compromise, or Withdrawal

Yeah we really don't disagree. In terms of Iraq, and the trickle of reports regarding incidents like the originator on this thread, it remains unclear what we are trying to do. We have no intention of controlling Iraq beyond what it takes to install a government that can exists without USA direct support on the ground perpetually. Meaning, we obviously are not going to go the genocide route. But, it also means we can't simply withdraw. And for that matter since we have no intention of being directly in control, compromise would seem to be out of place as well.

So in the context of those options, incidents like this one are hard to place into context. It doesn't fit any of the three options. And while RK is a fine poet, his surmising of the situation where it costs lots to field an officer and a pittance to field a suicide bomber, we are not in the role of empire building or even a post colonial liberation. The sympathies we might have for in antiquated "white man's burden" simply can't be applied because we are not attempting to establish a dominion for their benefit.

About the only thing that can place our actions into context is the stunning plausibility that we are really just in it for our own selfish interests, without regard to any Iraqi condition except that they happen to have a stable government. We are ironically paying for a government that is running a huge surplus budget, with contracts for infrastructure going to Russia and European firms, and a political system that seeks the ability to essentially install an elected coalition dictatorship.

At this point, given the reality that nothing is actually going to change concerning our regional interests, Maybe we should refrain from ever attempting to remove dictators. Because, we have created a situation where objective evaluations tend to support an improvement across the board for Iraq as a nation whole. Yet, on a subjective basis we can evaluate the situation as one that is not what we either thought or want to be the condition. We look at all the objective data, and then subjectively- if we are being fair- decide that at best it is a C- result from an A+++ effort.

The longer we are there, the more common will be cases where the indeterminate nature of our deployment coupled with the frustration such a deployment brings cases where violence against Iraqis becomes one of objectively judged retribution by our point of view. But to the Iraqis, being unable to evaluate whether we are intending genocide, compromise, or withdrawal, will make all such incidents equally barbaric.

This will result in the Iraqis eventually deciding how to treat the USA forces deployed in Iraq. I have a feeling they will not be in the mood for compromise nor withdrawal by that time.

Leia Mais…

Critical Thinking

In order for a democracy to function in a stable manner, ie it continues to exist, serve its citizens, and provide for a durable legal framework for the society, it must have a citizenry who are capable of informed critical thinking.

This is, ideally, the only purpose for a systematic public education system. The inherent problem in this solution however, is when a public education program becomes encumbered by either a politicized professional corps of educators or the course of study becomes encumbered by idiomatic doctrinal goals. The injection of a political bias into the administration and classroom education can have the unintended result of damaging critical thinking in terms of a biased presentation of study or a requirement of students to subscribe to a particular frame of reference in order to be "successful" in classwork. If a classroom's study programs are also encumbered by dogmas that demand an inherent favoritism over other views on purely judgmental grounds instead of empirical comparatives the class that leaves such an environment will be decidedly disadvantaged when it comes to critical thinking skills.

And these problems cross both sides of the current political landscape. It can be justly and unbiasedly argued that the NEA has simply hijacked education policy to conform to its own political dogma. It can be argued that Creationists are trying to encumber science coursework with an unscientific dogma. Both are examples of my point. For brevity we shall skip over the thousands of other examples.

The founding fathers were, without exception, elites or at least came from an elite class. They publicly stated individually and often the fact that the Republic was intended for a well educated and critical thinking elite. They did not intend for the Republic to be a massively enfranchised citizenship. If you doubt that fact look to the early suffrage standards that were allowed. For that matter look at just how small the eligible pool of voters actually was.

The thing that these early participators in our Republic had in common was that for the most part they were literally the leading men of their individual communities and often educated to a degree that we would find hard to fathom. Imagine if the current electorate consisted predominately of people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, presidents of colleges, leaders of industry, - basically only the hob nobs of the hob nobs.

There wasn't much diversity- and they did not intend such a diversity. The actually reflected that if the voting pool was consistently made up of only those who are most likely to have developed the skill of critical thinking, then the need for political parties would be non-existent and most decisions could be made in an effective and logical manner. They had in mind a fraternity open to the best leaders who would exercise a patrician like benevolence upon the remainder of the citizens in the Republic.

It lasted about 8 years.

What we have now is a hodgepodge of precedents which has either expanded the voting public membership or sought to influence that voting public into becoming blocks of votes for programs that can be offered by politicians.

I think Ben Franklin made the remark that once the voters realize that they can vote themselves blank treasury checks, the Republic would fail. And to some extent we endure that situation. About the only check to that disease is the fact that there are still an active minority of people who exhibit the facility for critical thinking. On both sides of the aisle. Thankfully the average great unwashed pool of eligible voters member is simply not even interested enough to register or vote.

I say thankfully because such voters eliminate the votes of people who have considered both sides of an argument and cast very reflective intelligent votes. People who vote straight tickets, or party line votes, or randomize whom they pick without any critical evaluation are collectively doing a disservice to themselves and the remainder of the country. And it is largely due to such uneducated voters that we have what is essentially political deadlock in Washington.

This deadlock isn't between just the two parties. Rather it is a deadlock which derives from individual elected officials being so mindful of the lack of critical voting of the citizenship, that they instead pander to the lowest and most populist sentiments of the voting public.

The ultimate cause for this decline is education. Children today are exposed to social science that often contain only the most cursory examination of Constitutional Law and even basic civics and government. Children now can explain what political correctness is- without ever even realizing that they are being politically correct nor recognizing the self inflicted bias such a dogma imposes upon their thinking. Often, they do not even know what the term Political Correctness is. It is part of an inherent dogma that is now part of the educational norm. They often cannot explain the actual rights retained by the citizens of the country- but they will willingly jump on the ideas of wealth envy, fairness, and victimology. They replicate a point of view which isn't exampled critical thinking. It is instead an example of what happens when students do not develop the ability to critically evaluate a problem or issue without an imposed external framework. It is in a way, an example of the way citizens of China reply as to what the freest nation on Earth is. They almost always respond "China" although to the rest of the world, China is better known for its repression, dictatorship, and systemic abuses of its citizens.

While they have the right to vote without a single critical judgement or evaluation of facts, they are setting the stage for a governmental collapse in the future. Brought on by the needs of populist support, the ever increasing payout to voters in entitlements, and a stagnation of actual action in solving problems instead of group thinking things to a permanent committee- the role of an elected official is rapidly becoming one of pandering offers of money in exchange for the votes of the self interested.

That situation has happened a few time in the last sixty years. And in all cases the outcomes were abysmal.

Leia Mais…

Emperor's New Clothes

I BELIVE i said, his relationship with his current wife started before he was divorced. I don't think the question I answered was about any other women.

As to Booster seats.. Obama has gotten one since this whole race started and the media has found itself unable to remove it. Any time any of the major outlets attempt to retract the artificial support/ awe they lent to Obama to make a horse race out of the Democrat Party primaries- you get the issue of unfairness/race-card/hate radio expletives.

The issue of horse race press and yellow journalism isn't new- or even unnoticed by me.

What is seemingly going unnoticed by most people is the white gloved treatment Obama has enjoyed throughout this process. Were it not for Fox News and WSJ- therte would have been absolutely no negative events on the way to Obama's coronation gala.

The slowness isn't whether I recognize the media need to have a nose to nose stretch at the tape. What is slow, is the fact that you and many other people like you- haven't realized what a crap candidate Obama is- and were it not for the media life-support system, the guy would not be on the final ballot card in November.

McCain ain't much of a candidate either. But then the Republicans didn't really fight to hard amoungst themselves over trying to get elected in a year where almost no one thinks any Republican is going to win. If McCain wanted it- not to many people seemingly cared- especially the media. In fact the most controversy on McCain was the generalized grumbling in the conservative world over the fact that McCain isn't even a Republican.

Obama is literally on a media life support system.

He should be 20 points lear of McCain at this point.

He isn't.

The Emperor seems to have no clothes on... its just the media refuses to report it because they created the fiction of his clothes in the first place.

Leia Mais…