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Show Our Strengths
Why Peter Beinart has the right idea about how to win the war on terror.
6 Responses to “Show Our Strengths”
Excellent post. The problem for right-wingers is that they don’t think American honor and integrity are on the line every day – they think America is right because America is America, “the land of liberty.” That’s certainly the gist of Bill Kristol’s critique of Beinart. And Kristol and other right-wingers are completely wrong and arrogant. Honor is ALWAYS on the line. American values are always on the line. Andrew Sullivan has been as eloquent an advocate for this point as anybody.
I think we have feed our people far to much cool-aid since WWII. Way to many Americans are living in the Hollywood version of the American persona, rather than reality.
Twas said: they think America is right because America is America, “the land of liberty.”
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Last night and again this mornings local the most prominent new articls was out of Baytown, Texas just one small spot in this “land of liberty” where a woman was stopped by the police that discovered she had no drivers license and insurance…not too out of line so far..but after running the woman’s rocord..discovered she had a warrent for her arrest for NOT RETURNING A LIBRARY BOOK for which the police promptly handcuffed her, took her to jail and the woman was not released until the paid fine for her gross misdemeanor plus court cost totalling $168.00.
Its hard for me to fathom that any Texas city would make it a statutory misdemeanor, jailable crime for a citizen failing to return a library book in a timely manner, in a state where tens of thousands of illegal aliens prance about and prowl freely about and totally ignored by local constabularies that announce that the illegal aliens or neither their concerns or jurisdiction unless they too violate law, like failing to return a library book.
Anyone that doesn’t think something isn’t wrong with this picture…DOESN’T THINK PERIOD!
Addendum:
We better concentrate on winning the war against terrorism perpetrated on our own citizens before trying to win against terrorism elsewhere.
Warrant for arrest issued, jailed, and heavily fined for failing to return a library book indeed!
That’s what I call godless bullshit.
Great article–it’s exactly why I argue we cannot win a war of ideology such as this when our leaders are out fighting limitations on interrogation methods and renditions.
That is the crucial point where our ability to argue that incidents like Abu Gharib are isolated becomes lost. It shows a willingness to permit abuses under some conditions coming from American leadership.
President Bush swore, with his hand on the Bible, to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. He then proceeded to vitiate the charter of the Legislative and Judicial branches by declaring that this nation, which kept constiutional structures intact through a civil war and two word-wide conflagrations, required him to be the ultimate and sole determiner of what is legal. We suffered a horrific loss in a terrorist attack. If we invest all decision making power in any one man, the loss of our governing civic structure will be even more horrific.
I see no evidence that the President understands either the constitutional structure of checks and balances with its crucial strenghths or the biblical injunction against bearing false witness.