AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

I dunno, Debra -- Sowell does have his moments as a prophet. For example, there's an article from the distant past titled The Do Something War, in which he chastises in no uncertain terms the administration of the time for planning to go to war in Iraq. I dug out an excerpt for ya. Here is the core of Sowell's objection to the Iraq war:

Thomas Sowell wrote:

George Bush has failed to tell us what his "exit strategy" is. When will we stop the war and go home? When Saddam Hussein agrees to unlimited U.N. inspection? What if he never agrees? Will we keep bombing the Iraqis forever?

Saddam Hussein doesn't care how many Iraqis we kill. But the American public will, especially when the dead Iraqi women and children are televised in Baghdad and brought into every American home at dinner time. Add to that the dead Americans coming home in body bags and you do not have the conditions needed for lasting public support for extended military action.

In the 1991 Gulf War, we had clear objectives and the ability to win those objectives in short order. The objective was to drive the Iraqi army out of Kuwait and destroy its equipment. When that was done, we could declare victory and go home.

The Bush administration shows its usual pattern of playing everything politically by ear on a day-to-day basis. But, in war, such short-sightedness has often been the road to long-run tragedy.

Source

Of course, I had to do one minor edit to make Sowell sound that good: I had to replace "Clinton" and "Bill Clinton" with "Bush" and "George Bush". But with this teeny little qualification, you can't deny that Sowell is coming across as a genuine prophet here.

Thomas wrote:

Of course, I had to do one minor edit to make Sowell sound that good: I had to replace "Clinton" and "Bill Clinton" with "Bush" and "George Bush". But with this teeny little qualification, you can't deny that Sowell is coming across as a genuine prophet here.

Eerily prescient.*

*as amended

Someone, but I don't know who wrote: Saddam Hussein doesn't care how many Iraqis we kill. But the American public will, especially when the dead Iraqi women and children are televised in Baghdad and brought into every American home at dinner time.

Thanks for the criticism, Debra. I'll be more diligent with my asterisks in the future.

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off the record, non-confrontational access to "those powerful few" " Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.


The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health-care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff."


The offer"which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters"is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.


And it's a turn of the times that a lobbyist is scolding The Washington Post for its ethical practices.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24441.html

Foxfyre wrote:

... if a state, say Texas or New Mexico, should advise the President that they are seceding from the Union on the grounds that you just laid out here, and advised that they were herewith no longer submitting taxes to Washington or otherwise handing over any resources, what would the response of the U.S. government be?
... What would President Obama do?

(1) Negotiate!
(2) Failing in that, take the case to SP (i.e., Supreme Court) to determine the legality of secession under the conditions alleged.
(3) Threaten to arrest the perpetrators (i.e., the governors and/or those members of the state legislatures who declared they were seceding), IF SP decides against the seceding states--SP will probably decide against the seceding states.
(4) Back off when the Texan and New Mexican members--probably other members as well--of the federal military/FBI refuse to invade the seceding states to arrest the perpetrators.
(5) Try to convince the voters in the seceding states to impeach their perpetrators.
(6) Failing that, try to convince the voters in the USA that Obama and his cohorts have not violated the USA Constitution as amended.
(7) Failing that, oppose the efforts of the House to impeach Obama.
(8) Failing that, oppose the efforts of the Senate to remove Obama.
(9) Failing that, Obama will return to Chicago to run for the Senate and probably lose.

The scary thing to me though is that I watched another 'man on the street' segment this morning in which random citizens were asked the simplest of questions re our government, the Constitution, elected leaders, etc. Most knew who our first President was. Most didn't know who our second President was. Few knew what the First or Second amendments were about or whether those were freedoms protected by the Constitution.

And the government is wanting to take even more control over our education system.

So do we still have a majority of those who do know what freedom is, what our unalienable rights are, and what is right and just to fight for?

Maybe we're already screwed and the tide can't be reversed.

Foxfyre wrote:

... if a state, say Texas or New Mexico, should advise the President that they are seceding from the Union on the grounds that you just laid out here, and advised that they were herewith no longer submitting taxes to Washington or otherwise handing over any resources, what would the response of the U.S. government be?
... What would President Obama do?

(1) Negotiate!
(2) Failing in that, take the case to SP (i.e., Supreme Court) to determine the legality of secession under the conditions alleged.
(3) Threaten to arrest the perpetrators (i.e., the governors and/or those members of the state legislatures who declared they were seceding), IF SP decides against the seceding states--SP will probably decide against the seceding states.
(4) Back off when the Texan and New Mexican members--probably other members as well--of the federal military/FBI refuse to invade the seceding states to arrest the perpetrators.
(5) Try to convince the voters in the seceding states to impeach their perpetrators.
(6) Failing that, try to convince the voters in the USA that Obama and his cohorts have not violated the USA Constitution as amended.
(7) Failing that, oppose the efforts of the House to impeach Obama.
(8) Failing that, oppose the efforts of the Senate to remove Obama.
(9) Failing that, Obama will return to Chicago to run for the Senate and probably lose.

Excellent use of the asterisk!

Why do you think this happened after Obama was elected?

ican711nm wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

... if a state, say Texas or New Mexico, should advise the President that they are seceding from the Union on the grounds that you just laid out here, and advised that they were herewith no longer submitting taxes to Washington or otherwise handing over any resources, what would the response of the U.S. government be?
... What would President Obama do?

(1) Negotiate!
(2) Failing in that, take the case to SP (i.e., Supreme Court) to determine the legality of secession under the conditions alleged.
(3) Threaten to arrest the perpetrators (i.e., the governors and/or those members of the state legislatures who declared they were seceding), IF SP decides against the seceding states--SP will probably decide against the seceding states.
(4) Back off when the Texan and New Mexican members--probably other members as well--of the federal military/FBI refuse to invade the seceding states to arrest the perpetrators.
(5) Try to convince the voters in the seceding states to impeach their perpetrators.
(6) Failing that, try to convince the voters in the USA that Obama and his cohorts have not violated the USA Constitution as amended.
(7) Failing that, oppose the efforts of the House to impeach Obama.
(8) Failing that, oppose the efforts of the Senate to remove Obama.
(9) Failing that, Obama will return to Chicago to run for the Senate and probably lose.

You forgot the part where pigs sprout wings. I think it's somewhere around step 3 or 4.

Perhaps, but first you have to establish that it is a fallacy, and the member didn't really specify a rationale for his statement. Shouldn't we leave open the possibility that he would be able to make a logical argument to defend it?