Posted on 06/11/2014 6:23:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
Both libertarians and conservatives want to keep America safe. We differ on how best to do that. Most libertarians believe our attempts to create or support democracy around the world have made us new enemies, and done harm as well as good. We want less military spending.
Some conservatives respond to that by calling us isolationists, but we're not. I want to participate in the world; I just don't want to run it. I'm glad Americans trade with other countries -- trade both goods and people. It's great we sell foreigners our music, movies, ideas, etc. And through dealing with them, we also learn from what they do best.
On my TV show this week, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton will tell me why my libertarian skepticism about the importance of a "strong military presence" is "completely irrelevant to foreign policy decision-making."
Bolton thinks it's dangerous and provocative for America to appear militarily weak. He supported the Iraq War and says that if Iran were close to getting nuclear weapons, the U.S should attack. "I will go to my grave trying to prevent every new country we can find from getting nuclear weapons," because if they do, "it's going to be a very dangerous world."
He criticizes Presidents Barack Obama's and George W. Bush's failed attempts at negotiation with Iran, "negotiation based on the delusion from the get-go that Iran was ever serious about potentially giving up its nuclear weapon program."
That kind of talk makes Bolton sound like a hard-headed realist. Who wants to be naive like Bush or Obama? But hawks like Bolton ignore parts of reality, too.
They are quick and correct to point out the danger of Iran going nuclear. They are not as quick to talk about the fact that Iran has a population three times the size of Iraq's -- and the Iraq War wasn't as smooth or short as then-Vice President Dick Cheney and others assured us it would be.
If it's realistic to acknowledge that America has dangerous enemies, it's also realistic to acknowledge that going to war is not always worth the loss of money and lives, and that it makes new enemies. War, like most government plans, tends not to work out as well as planners hoped.
I asked Bolton if he thought the Vietnam War was a good intervention. "Obviously, the way it played out, it was not," he said, but, "it's always easy after the fact to second-guess."
Bolton also acknowledges that the Iraq War did not go well, but then adds, "Where mistakes were made was after the military campaign." The U.S. was unprepared for the civil war that broke out. The U.S. also failed to turn utilities and other state-run companies in Iraq over to the private sector, maintaining poorly run monopolies on energy production and other essential services, often squandering billions of dollars.
It might be seen as a harsh lesson in the importance of planning for the aftermath of toppling a bad regime. But we libertarians wonder: Why assume government will do better next time?
Occasionally government acknowledges mistakes in domestic policy -- but that doesn't mean it then becomes more efficient. It usually just spends more to try, and fail, to fix the problem. It's the nature of government. Politicians don't face the competitive incentives that force other people to make hard decisions.
Candidate Obama garnered support by criticizing Bush for costing money and lives through a protracted stay in Iraq. But that didn't stop Obama from putting more money and troops into Afghanistan.
In his first term alone, Obama spent about three times as much in Afghanistan as Bush did in two terms. Did we win hearts and minds? I don't think so. The Taliban may still retake the country.
Our military should be used for defense, not to police the world.
Or not.
I have, it seems to be a dead little blog that has never made any headway, or had any effect, more of something for libertarians to use as a prop.
That doesn't tell me much.
With good reason.
There's a good reason to stop your brain working?
All constitutionalists are not liberals. Many of of are sick and tired of the tyranny being imposed by an out if control federal government. State are far better of in governing themselves. The more local the control the better.
You can believe this and still be for lower taxes, pro-life, and a strong defense. Don’t pigeonhole folks who are trying to bring sanity to an insane system. The place to start to restore sanity is with the document it was built on.
Libertarians are to the left of conservatives, it is why they are called libertarians and fight conservatism and self describe their liberalism in silly ways, like calling themselves “constitutionalists” as they come at conservatives from the left, with a new vocabulary.
We know that being “libertarian” is a statement that someone is not a conservative.
We know that being “libertarian” is a statement that someone is not a conservative.
Ansell -Not all constitutionalists are libertarian, liberal or left-leaning. Some, like me, are true Regan conservatives who say it's urgent to decrease the size and scope of the federal government. Our Founders left us the means to do it -the Constitution. Our beloved constitution has been ripped to shreds by liberal and conservatives alike over the generations in the name of security, power, social justice, and the like. We the People know how to govern ourselves best.
I have no idea what you are posting to me.
If libertarians and conservatives are not involved, then why are you posting to me with an undefined term.
As far as Reagan, he was a conservative, a full three legged stool conservative, and social conservative, economic conservative and national defense conservative.
Clear the mud out and try to speak plainly and make some sense.
No lib here... just a conservative CONSTITUTIONALIST! -Peace
You still haven’t said anything, there is no way to know what in the heck you are talking about.
Yep. If all it's doing is processing a program, you aren't even thinking at all anymore. So your brain is just spinning its wheels ... so give it a rest....
My description probably strikes you as being "as clear as mud." To try for perspective, so to gain clarity, let me quote from Thomas Aquinas:
Intellect and reason are different according to their different ways of knowing; because the intellect knows by simple intuition, while reason knows by a discursive process of moving from one thing to another. — Summa Theologiae 1:1.Dear ConservingFreedom, you might ask: What is this "simple intuition," which Thomas Aquinas clearly distinguishes as separate and/or separable from "reason?"
Which leads me to another question: What is the seat, or essential core, of the human person? Is it to be found in his brain? Or in his heart?
Such a silly question — in an age that increasingly is inclined to regard the heart as a "pump," and the brain as a "computer."
And the human being as a "meat machine" — yet a meat machine that somehow progressively evolves into an "ever-better" meat machine....
According to what standard or criterion of truth this "progress" can be judged, we are never told.
I sense you may self-describe as a Libertarian. The great British Empiricist philosopher, John Locke, is probably the spiritual father of Libertarianism. He is widely credited as having been the prime motivating spirit behind the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Then there is Thomas Paine, whose Common Sense rocked the Colonies in the run-up to the Revolution. (Unfortunately later works suggested the guy was mentally unbalanced, and had Marxist proclivities....) And then, of course, there was Ayn Rand.
For many years I have been trying to forgive Ayn Rand for her meretricious, grotesque treatment of certain great classical philosophers. WRT Plato and Aristotle, I daresay the woman never understood a word that either man ever wrote.
I'm still working on it....
Much more to say. But must run (and give you a break) for now. Thank you so much for writing, ConservingFreedom!
With good reason.
There's a good reason to stop your brain working?
Yep. If all it's doing is processing a program, you aren't even thinking at all anymore. So your brain is just spinning its wheels ... so give it a rest....
My description probably strikes you as being "as clear as mud." To try for perspective, so to gain clarity, let me quote from Thomas Aquinas:
Intellect and reason are different according to their different ways of knowing; because the intellect knows by simple intuition, while reason knows by a discursive process of moving from one thing to another. — Summa Theologiae 1:1.
I don't see what that has to do with stopping one's brain working when one reads the word “libertarian.”
I sense you may self-describe as a Libertarian.
Nope - nor as a libertarian.
For me, it is useful to look for a biblical answer to that question. Getting right to it, I think the core of a person is the spirit of the person, that is, the self-identity. There is only one great "I AM", but each of us has an 'I am", a sense of self, a spirit. It is this which is eternal, along with the soul (life force),those two not being easily 'divided asunder'.
Romans 8:15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ""Abba," Father." 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children
1 Co 2: 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
Reviewing what we are and what are our thoughts is the domain of the individual's spirit, his oversight agency, his self.
However, if the word “libertarian” cause my spirit to discern a problem or sense a problem, then that is a good thing.
Yep. If all it’s doing is processing a program, you aren’t even thinking at all anymore. So your brain is just spinning its wheels ... so give it a rest....
Got a story to tell about this...
About 1997 or so I has a stoke.....
Couldn’t talk for two years....
Actually I could talk BUT the WRONG words would come out..
Amazing to me.. I was thinking “some thing? and when I spoke to others the wrong wrods came out..
So I shut up... and scibbled my thoughts.. I could email and post. BUT not talk..
Ask any of my friends/family.. we laughed about it..
BUT I got to thinking what was going on...
Seems my “BRAIN” got fried in the verbalization part..
Could think clearly and communicate well BUT not verbally..
Wonder how many others ar ein same fix but not explain it to themselves.
“The Machine”(brain part) was mal-functioning.. but not my thoughts..
Made me wonder if thoughts even CAME from the brain.. or
the brain was like a telephone.. just relaying words descibing the thoughts.. I think so..
Anyway not to bore you’all.. I started primeing the brain pump....
meaning I spoke anyway (to my dog).. [loved that dog]... he couldn’t understand english. (you know well)
soon I could get a word, then two and then three out well..
slowly I could speak a sentence IF I was careful.. then two then three..
eventually I became the fine human being you dont see here...
Even NOW.. certain words will JUST not come out sometimes..
I can think them.. BUT they come out garbled...
Lucky for me I had and have a large vocabulary SO I choose other words instead that WILL come out..
I think............ thoughts come from “the spirit” whatever that is..
Wonder what retards are thinking or the autistic... that they can’t get “OUT”..
Nevermind.......... just a story from my never ending Pipedom...
BUT it is NOT science fiction.. it happened AND IS happening..
as I blather this yarn out.. (hope this adds value)..
***
However, if the word “libertarian” cause my spirit to discern a problem or sense a problem, then that is a good thing.
What sort of problem is well addressed by stopping one's reasoning brain working - and how is that problem discerned or sensed by the presence of a single word?
Thank you for your helpful (?) response/reply.
Got anything to add???
I have nothing to add to my previous statement: Whether one's reasoning brain is one's core or not, stopping it working upon reading a certain word seems like a bad policy.
But nobody suggested that reading a certain word in a certain way kicks off uncontrollable Pavlovian ( or magical) responses in some/all human beings. [Certainly not I — that was your implication it seems.]
Otherwise what am I to make of your reference to "bad policy?" To the contrary, "good policy," I suppose, would consist of pacifying the people, who are systematically to be "encouraged" to conform with the "policy" preferences of whatever riff-raff the people were duped into electing in the fist place.
Anyhoot, to me it seems that "stopping [the brain's] working upon reading a certain word" is more like "machine thinking" — the execution of a program — than it is like how human beings actually think. There is autonomy there that no program could ever capture....
Or so it seems to me. FWIW
Thanks ever so much for your reply!
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