Another coup? Or is he just getting real close to admitting that the right many years ago took control of the military. How many more military patches and flight suits and uniformed military officers at republican campaign events are needed for the coup to be fully realized?

Yes, but all of a sudden more and more high ranking military officers are starting to come out against the "Surge" and even the winnability of the Iraq war itself. Who's going to overthrow them?

Scratch a conservative, wound a fascist.

I am just in the middle of "Hitler: Nemesis" a recent biography of Hitler by Ian Kershaw, Chair of History at Oxford. The level of detail is extremely high - overkill in many cases.

2 important points:

1) Hitler did not burn the Reichstag but used it as an excuse for reactionary overreach. Bush did not bomb on 9/11, but used it as an excuse for reactionary and fascist overreach. 9/11 WAS Bush's Reichstag fire.

2) Hitler obtained power by the most desperately small margin. Soon thereafter, he had outlawed all other parties, and was on his way to dictatorship. Bush obtained power by the most desperately small margin in the 20th century. SOon thereafter, he and Rove TRIED to set up a permanent Repukeliscum majority, but have been foiled I think.

The Bush-Hitler analogies are much closer than I had remembered.

Wow. Finally, a conservative says what he really believes.

Wait, that's not why this is notable, right?

If there is a military coup then I'll be taking a few conservatives I know down with me before they finish me off.

You better believe that.

"I'm tired off those comparisons between Hitler and George W. Bush! Hitler was a highly decorated combat veteran who won office by majority vote!" - Jon Stewart

But seriously, might Banana Republican (hey, I coined that term back in '88, Kevin) Thomas Sowell actually be saying what more and more of the unhinged right be thinking?

It may not be comforting, but it is certainly a conservative thought.

Does he explain how a military coup would fix those problems? It seems like a bit of a non sequitur solution to "..worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia.."

I am a fervent anti-gunsel, but the rhetoric of conservatives makes me think seriously about arming myself and ensuring that I am prepared for the fascist intefada.

Does Sowell count as "media" or "intelligentsia"? In either case I'm inclined to agree with him.

Haven't conservatives always hated democracy?

People sometimes vote to change things in a democracy.

I guess that is Bush Handlers, Inc. next best choice after their Supreme Court coup in 2000 finishes falling apart.

What will it take to end this nightmare of insanity ?

"...Ambition must be made to counteract ambition..." - Federalist No. 51

Makes you think twice about opposing the Second Amendment, eh, POed Lib?

The context is exasperation with various things in the country today. The coup line is not great writing, just an expression of frustration. You folks are making too big a deal of it, but I think in part that is because liberals often are more critical of black conservatives. I suspect a white could have made the statement and not caused a ripple of interest.

'Does he explain how a military coup would fix those problems?'

Shold I stock up on candy and flowers to greet my liberators with?

Re the majority vote:

Actually, this is not true. Hitler became chancellor in 1934. In the election immediately before he was given the chancellorship, his party lost seats. So, why did he get power?

Hitler's NSDAP had about 34 % of the seats. Thus, to obtain power, he had to go into coalition. He went into coalition with Zentrum and other conservative parties. His cabinet was all conservatives, not NSDAP. Basically, he had a lot of control, but there was no requirement that he be given power. Papen and others believed that if they were in the Cabinet, they could control Hitler. Papen became Vice Chancellor.

Question: what does the word 'country' mean in Sowell's quotation?

It doesn't mean 'the United States', since there is currently no threat either to the Union or to any one particular State.

It clearly doesn't mean 'the Constitution', which a coup would destroy.

It clearly doesn't mean 'the American people', who were originally defined as such by their eternal rejection of tyranny.

I honestly can't think of any answer to this question, unless 'country' = the National Review's sense of self-importance.

Poor, pathetic, traitorous fools.

Shorter Thomas Sowell: "Kids these days, with their crazy clothes and loud music! And get off my lawn!"

'The context is exasperation with various things in the country today.'

As George Carlin said: "they identify with your anger then tell you who to blame for it".

Yea yea yea - it was a great line from Jon Stewart. No need to deconstruct good art.

brian: I suspect a white could have made the statement and not caused a ripple of interest.

You cannot be serious. You cannot possibly be serious. Please tell me you're not serious.

I hope Republicans are the ones to decide how many troops they're going to need.

I rather hope that someone has just spoofed brian. He's a nut and consistently wrong (especially when talking about military matters), but he's seldom just plain stupid.

Brian: liberals often are more critical of black conservatives

Actually, I didn't even know the author of the remark was black until you told me. Batshit is colorblind, pal, and Sowell is batshit.

That is not even the disturbing quote from NRO today. See here for K-Lo fawning all over Jack T. Ripper.

Also, to the liberals contemplating arming up in preparation for the coming coup, don't worry about it. The idea of a coup among soldiers and Marines is akin to suggesting that maybe the solution to our problems is that the army begin burning American flags. The military is extraordinarily professional and patriotic. Suggesting a coup is only something the living embodiment of the stereotype of a "chicken hawk" would consider a viable option.

mouse, I hope you're right. I hope someone is spoofing. But that's a variation on a theme we keep hearing.

Worst Performance by a Jackoff in Defense of the Indefensible: The context is exasperation with various things in the country today. The coup line is not great writing, just an expression of frustration. You folks are making too big a deal of it, but I think in part that is because liberals often are more critical of black conservatives. I suspect a white could have made the statement and not caused a ripple of interest.

Seriously, what happened in your life to make you such a obtuse jackoff? Your worldview has been so discredited — while its sickening rhetoric has become so ingrained in what's left of your withered, feeble soul — you think it's because of racism that we find it grotesque when a conservative muses the positives of a military coup? And it'd be cool with us if some other fascist tool like Limbaugh said it so long as he was white? Seriously?

Thankfully, the fully believeable sentiment proffered by a jackboot-licking warmonger like Tom Sowell is so obviously part of the authoritarian mindset of the modern conservative movement it's now out in the open for the world to see what you truly believe. It's a service to the rest of us, really. Ensuring that the only way you'll ever get back into power in my lifetime is through a military coup, and most in the military wouldn't go along with it.

Slightly longer Thomas Sowell (adapted from Constantine): "Kids these days, with their crazy clothes and loud music! And get off my lawn! Or I'll send in the tanks, kill your parents and send you to camps!"

A Bush Administration move against Iran might trigger a coup...against Bush.

I guess that is Bush Handlers, Inc. next best choice after their Supreme Court coup in 2000 finishes falling apart

Sowell's ilk kept telling me six years ago that the best reason for Bush to have been selected president in 2000 was that he wanted it bad enough to steal it, such zeal for the Fatherland being, well, yeah, un-democratic, and anti-majoritarian, and probably unConstitutional, but that's a good thing.

Because he wanted it more.

For America.

Or something.

(I think the argument was being cross-applied from sports-talk radio...)

And anyways, democracy is for pussies.

First there was polarization and ambition and disorder, then there was Marius and the disorder was put to an end, and then there was Sulla to restore the Republic, and then there was Caesar. I wonder who, back then, was the first to say "A little coup wouldn't be a bad thing."

What does Thomas Sowell think the military would do to the politicians, media, educators, and intelligentsia if it engaged in an armed coup to save the country?

Kill those he dislikes and blames is what he wants them to do. It seems to me there was a nationwide condemnation a week or two ago against acting out this way. Perhaps Thomas Sowell should be institutionalized before he kills and sends a press kit to the WSJ.

I am a fervent anti-gunsel, but the rhetoric of conservatives makes me think seriously about arming myself and ensuring that I am prepared for the fascist intefada.

I recommend every progressive become licensed and learn how to fire a weapon, even if you refuse to own one. I view it like learning CPR -- you don't learn it because you expect to use the knowledge; you learn it because you hope you never have to.

Ironically, the same military he now prays will declare war on its own people is the same military that conservative president George Bush has broken with his failed war in Iraq.

I love these conservatives who keep thinking the military should run the country. Do they not understand that America was founded on precisely the OPPOSITE principle? George Washington turning in his sword to the Congress? The disbanding of the army after the war? The military serves the nation, it does not rule it.

Furthermore, it's so profoundly disrespectful of the amazing honor and integrity that's been shown by our military throughout its history, in which every soldier shelves his own political opinion and follow orders while in uniform.

I mean, there are soldiers who choose not to vote because they believe it's improper for the military to be political. Personally, I think that's taking it a bit far, but that's a measure of the self-sacrifice that our soldiers willingly endure. They're prepared to fight and die to defend decisions, regardless of whether or not they agree with them. They serve the nation.

Conservatives like this are disgusting. They've got a fetish for uniforms & pageantry, so they want to put the guys in the nice suits in charge. They don't understand that the uniform is the trappings of service, not its essence. They're as shallow as the fashion industry.

Sowell's rant was probably prompted by feelings of nostalgia provoked by the upcoming anniversary of the Kent State Massacre.

I recommend every progressive become licensed and learn how to fire a weapon, even if you refuse to own one. I view it like learning CPR -- you don't learn it because you expect to use the knowledge; you learn it because you hope you never have to.

I went thru the gun phase in high school. I got up to Marksman 2nd class, all in prone.

I recommend every progressive become licensed and learn how to fire a weapon, even if you refuse to own one. I view it like learning CPR -- you don't learn it because you expect to use the knowledge; you learn it because you hope you never have to.

If you refuse to own a gun, chances are even if you ever need to use one, you won't have one, unless you happen to be good friends and close neighbors with a liberal without such qualms who has plenty to spare.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your suggestion, just questioning its practical utility even in the ultima ratio.

If he is saying that today the country is ruined, someone needs to remind him that the liberals have not been in charge for some time. So, just exactly is to blame for the ruination????????? I think it has been ruined almost beyond repair by the current group of conservatives in charge. One thing Sowell isn't--he is not an expert of the obvious.

Prosperity, such as that enjoyed during the Clinton years, is the most dangerous time for a democracy. When the prosperity ends, as it always does, the man on horseback arises and promises the restore the good times if the people will only give him a little more power. In the final act of this recurring drama, the tyrant has all the power and all the wealth, and the people have nothing.

It is all made possible because the masses will always trade freedom for prosperity. Blinded by their own greed, they never notice the shackling of their children's feet. Then, who cares; not that many people have children these days.

Bring on the bread and circuses; let's feast.

If he is saying that today the country is ruined, someone needs to remind him that the liberals have not been in charge for some time. So, just exactly is to blame for the ruination?????????

Isn't it obvious? GWB and the rubber stamp GOP congress was a liberal plot to embarrass and marginalize the Republican Party....

Victimhood knows no shame.

...the man on horseback arises and promises the restore the good times if the people will only give him a little more power.

Sometimes it isn't even that nobly motivated. Caesar crossed the Rubicon in arms not to feed the hungry or shoe the barefoot, but because the Senate had dinged his auctoritas, and you can't take that lying down. So he plunged the Roman world into civil war.

A war of choice, based on petulance.

Sounds vaguely familiar.

Military dictatorship: that's all they've got left in terms of ideas. Great. At least Sowell's honest. I hope that blurb gets circulated around the blogosphere for many days and weeks to come. It succinctly captures the doomsday paranoia at the heart of contemporary conservatism.

Gosh - if don't like democracy, or a Dem President - just have coop how Ann Counlter of him.

And just like the GOP pigs they are, REPUGS squeal and squeal and squeal...and STILL MOST Americans DON'T like Bush so the Broder cult club members just can't deal with anything except preaching to Cheney about a military coup, anything to get their nasty paritsan way.

Sowell's comment is seditious. Right?

He's not saying there might be a coup, he's saying it will "save" the country.

That's advocacy in my book. Advocating the overthrow of the US government by the military, and all of the ugly things that come along with that idea.

And in National Review - even linked to from the home page.

It's disgraceful.

It will be interesting to see if anyone has the courage to comment on this in The Corner. I'm betting not - silence, I suspect.

Combine this kind of thinking with the increasing evangelism of the military brass and its not hard to imagine the possibility that some rogue general would conclude that a coup directed against a more "secular" leader would be appropriate to remake the country as a "Christian" nation. And there is a significant segment of our country that would have no problem with this concept.

Now I don't think this is really going to happen, but its possible enough to make a pretty convincing movie or book out of.

If I were king of the forest.....

Combine this kind of thinking with the increasing evangelism of the military brass and its not hard to imagine the possibility that some rogue general would conclude that a coup directed against a more "secular" leader would be appropriate to remake the country as a "Christian" nation. And there is a significant segment of our country that would have no problem with this concept.

"7 days in May" x "Dr. Strangelove"

Now I don't think this is really going to happen, but its possible enough to make a pretty convincing movie or book out of.

Already been done, and published in the US Army War College quarterly, Parameters, no less.

The prolog:

The letter that follows takes us on a darkly imagined excursion into the future. A military coup has taken place in the United States--the year is 2012--and General Thomas E. T. Brutus, Commander-in-Chief of the Unified Armed Forces of the United States, now occupies the White House as permanent Military Plenipotentiary. His position has been ratified by a national referendum, though scattered disorders still prevail and arrests for acts of sedition are underway. A senior retired officer of the Unified Armed Forces, known here simply as Prisoner 222305759, is one of those arrested, having been convicted by court-martial for opposing the coup. Prior to his execution, he is able to smuggle out of prison a letter to an old War College classmate discussing the "Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012." In it, he argues that the coup was the outgrowth of trends visible as far back as 1992. These trends were the massive diversion of military forces to civilian uses, the monolithic unification of the armed forces, and the insularity of the military community. His letter survives and is here presented verbatim.

They had their fuckin' coup 7 years ago.

I've been alive in America for just over 50 years, now, and I feel the level of anger that's been whipped up between so-called conservatives and so-called liberals is frightening.

Which is why I'm thinking Hillary should wait another round before running. Too much Clinton hatred out there. Can't we chill with an Edwards for a while?

It seems we've been lamenting the breakdown of the political process for three decades or more, basically since Watergate.

Every few months there are more editorials, more books, more pundits' comments on how politics are dirtier, more corrupt, further afield than every before.

I wonder how much of it is legit and how much is just critics' alarmism.

Isn't Mr. Sowell's a treasonous statement? Is not advocating the violent overthrow of the government a crime? I'd say so - truly bloodless coups are the very rare exception.

Seen from outside the US, one line makes sense:
"When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians (He means the Bush Admin, right?), our media (Fox News, right?), our educators (Regents U), and our intelligentsia (endless list of rightwing lamebrains)."

Most of us who read this and similar blogs would agree that there is a "worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia."

What separates us from the NRO readers, though, is not just our understanding of what's causing this degenracy. It's also that, by and large, we believe our system of government provides the mechanisms for correcting these problems, while Sowell et al. seem ready to ditch the whole experiment and call in the military.

So who's more true to American principles, in the end?

David Mamet said Thomas Sowell was a fucking spectacular economist and social historian.

Think how lucky we are that Bush has been so incompetent. With his contempt for democracy, hardly hindered by a cowardly opposition, it's our good fortune that he bungled the whole war on terror and everything else.

Caesar he is not.

I have read a fair number of statements on dailykos articulating an identical sentiment to Sowell's.

I suppose those were all written by conservatives masquerading as liberals?

It seems we've been lamenting the breakdown of the political process for three decades or more, basically since Watergate.

Nothing new, at all, under the sun. They've been lamenting the breakdown of the political process since Americans formed political parties. Or take when Adams signed the Anti-Sedition acts. Hell, some worried that Washington was a tyrant. It's never stopped.

Except for being black, Sowell is an old-fashioned bigot. Yeesh.

I have read a fair number of statements on dailykos articulating an identical sentiment to Sowell's.

I'm sure they were warmly received. Now, if you don't mind Nate, why don't you actually say something about Sowell's comments -- or are you going to stay with the "Kos Folk do it too!" horseshit.

First, I don't believe you, but, if someone on Kos advocated for a military coup to restore American Greatness, they are as big a bootlicking dupe as Tom Sowell (not to mention a majority of the failed conservative movement).

My word....

From a magazine that accuses just about all liberals of being traitorous scum...we have a writer who seems to advocate military overthrow.

Isn't that...I don't know...somewhat of an Anti-American, traitorous thought? I mean, the man is considering the validity of the government and country, and what it's built upon, being taken down and stampeded upon to put the military in charge.

That's a damn lot more traitorous than saying 'We've Lost The War' in this dangerous lefty's mind. But then again, I'm a liberal. According to the National Review, I'm a traitor by dint of that alone.

Vice President Dick Cheney already has openly discussed, in a speech before the cadets at West Point, the possibility that they could suspend or void the 22nd Amendment, which limits a president's tenure to no more than two terms.

His rationale was that this war's importance to national security is of such sufficient magnitude that this administration might have to remain in place throughout its entirety until its succesful conclusion, because they're the only ones who fully realize the high stakes involved.

What a creepy read, with repulsive sentiments.
Therapy may be the needed intervention because that is a most despondent set of paragraphs...scorched with bad vibes and political grandeur gone haywire.
It wreaks of humiliation and desperation.
Of course, I totally disagree and see all kinds of sophistication emanating around us, the new glamour has appeal, and is liberating.
The crowd he represents has been so beaten down with fear they have lost perspective. A coup??

P.S. Thanks, Mr. Drum, for so many quality reads today. A treat after the long commute and veto.

First Hitler was appointed Chancellor in Jan.'33;
he through the,"Enabling Law,"assumed the office of President,after the death of Hindenburg in '34.
AS for the coup this isn't new or suprising in the
John Birch Society sleeper cells.In,"Americas Last
Days,"Douglas MacKinnon imagines it.Of course if a
leftie said this .................

m

That's rich--Thomas Sowell complaining of someone else's degeneracy!

I have read a fair number of statements on dailykos articulating an identical sentiment to Sowell's.

When y'all start bleating that bad behavior should be acceptable because some Democrat did something once, I laugh out loud, because I envision General Disarray following Professor Chaos through South Park saying "Simpson's did it!" to Professor Chaos' (Butters) every idea.

It's that fuckin' funny to me.

MaxGowan: "Makes you think twice about opposing the Second Amendment, eh, POed Lib?"

Why? Are you actually organizing "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State"?

As long as we're critizing Tom Sowell, how about Sowell's fellow compatriot at the Hoover Institute, Victor David Hanson? That clown actually has a Ph.D in history, but you'd never know it when reading his very questionable assertions, which are based upon cherry-picked historical facts.

I'm going to be sick. George and Laura just made an appearance on American Idol...

Now that's a comforting, conservative thought, isn't it?

Actually it's an extremely conservative thought, since "conservatism", throughout history, has been nothing more deep down than an ideology of power worship and protection of the entrenched privilege, whether that privilege took the form of Royalism, Nazism, Soviet Communism, or our present day GOP.

Went to link. Could not find Thomas Sowell quote as given. Can somebody direct me to the column written by Sowell that has the quote -- I want to bash my son-in-law over the head with it.

Claimsman: the quote is the third paragraph from the end at the link given. I suggest writing it on a wooden bat before doing the bashing.

As if we needed another example of how the conservative mind understands only itself --they are the"..worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia.."

Donald, relax. Cheers. Just a tongue-and-cheek. I don't even want to go into the whole Second Amemdment, blah blah blah. This other stuff is more interesting anyway.

It would be a mistake to characterize them as fascist.

All they are doing is to try to eliminate liberal fascism.

(By the way, a previous post of mine in another thread in which I called conservatives ass---holes has been unceremoniously deleted. Touchy PA, touchy!)

Any number of commentators have noted that the military is one of the best examples of (true) liberal values in our society - providing the support and backing of a community united by values, not personal identities or loyalities, but at the same time holding people accountable for their performance (at least below the politicized command level). Can't support a coup, but the Democrats could do far worse than to seek the support of the retired generals who have spoken out against the disaster that Bush has created.

Yeah, for a few years I've thought one of the biggest mistakes in the 60s was the ovveruse of the word "fascist." Because it's not as effective now as it ought to be, given then versus now. A few years ago, before Bush 43, a veteran Anti-War buddy (Oberlin, late 60s etc) exclaimed, "Back in the 60s we kept saying things like 'Tear down the institutions.' But now I realize it was the institutions that kept the Fascists from taking over!" I've thought a lot about that observation over the past six years, as the real fascists have destroyed one federal agency after another.

I recommend every progressive become licensed and learn how to fire a weapon, even if you refuse to own one. I view it like learning CPR -- you don't learn it because you expect to use the knowledge; you learn it because you hope you never have to.

Too much butter on the popcorn.

Even if the Ripuplican party thought they could get away with something like that it would go absolutely nowhere!

And even if it could go anywhere, which will never happen, you couldn't do much with your pop gun except attract attention.

Better to save yourself for the 300 million man march.

Nathan wrote: I have read a fair number of statements on dailykos articulating an identical sentiment to Sowell's.

Then I'm sure you won't have trouble citing one, linking it and providing a quote here to demonstrate how it's "an identical sentiment to Sowell's."

Given your history of misrepresentation, Nathan, your word is no good.

I'm going to be sick. George and Laura just made an appearance on American Idol...

Well, there's no pulvinar at the Circus any more, I guess it'll have to do.

Yeah, well, Thomas Sowell might have advocated the military overthrow of the United States in the pages of the National Review, but I'm pretty sure a commenter on dailykos said something similar, somewhere. I mean, don't ask me to prove that, but I'm pretty sure it happened, sometime in some comment on a diary somewhere. So both sides are just as bad!

G-d in heaven... the far Right fucks things up, the only thing that can save us is the farther Right. What a moron.

Nathan wrote: I have read a fair number of statements on dailykos articulating an identical sentiment to Sowell's.

I'm with Gregory. Prove it, or shut the fuck up.

"I have read a fair number of statements on dailykos articulating an identical sentiment to Sowell's."

LOL... Note the complete lack of supporting evidence and the even more complete lack of any real equivalency between anonymous (and powerless) commenters on a blog and Thomas Sowell. Man, aren't there any honest conservative posters here anymore?

You know, the more nuts they get the more I like it.

But, that's it, isn't it?

They're not getting more nuts, they're just showing their nuts.

As if daring someone to say they're not the biggest nuts they've ever seen.

Substitute the word "Jews" or "Cosmopolitan Elements" for the word "liberals" in this essay, and see what you get.

Look ... I don't want to belabor the point, but disjointed and illogical as they are, Sowell's ruminations read like something out of 1920's Germany or 1930's Russia. Logic isn't the point. The grievances don't have to be logical. But the conclusion is crystal clear.

Is Sowell trying to float an idea here, put it out in the public forum -- and inure us to how radical it really is?

So -- I wonder if the mainstream media will stop reporting on left wing bloggers and their "hate" long enough to ponder this odd little idea that seems to be kicking around in, oh, a mainstream opinion journal of the political right. No biggie ... just the overthrow of the Constitution, martial law, imprisonment of political opponents, that sort of thing. Yawn.

-- Bokonon

That they published Sowell regularly is why I finally quit subscribing to my local paper, The Baltimore Sun. He's always foamed at the mouth.

A coup? Against whom? Who's going to decide which Americans are enemy combatants?

Congress better get cracking at rescinding that apostasy, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, in case Bush-Cheney attempt another coup (besides 2000) before November 2008. Aloha, Donald from Hawaii at 8:29 PM.

And this accentuates how completely unhinged from reality Sowell is:

The last time I saw a Republican express outrage was 1991, when Clarence Thomas told the Senators what he thought of the smear tactics used against him.

busted boomer: ...the Democrats could do far worse than to seek the support of the retired generals who have spoken out against the disaster that Bush has created.

Apr. 28, 2007: General William Odom Delivers Democratic Radio Address on Iraq. Odom is the same general who described the Iraq invasion as "the greatest strategic disaster in United States history."

liberals often are more critical of black conservatives. I suspect a white could have made the statement and not caused a ripple of interest.
Posted by: brian on May 1, 2007 at 6:51 PM | PERMALINK

Brian, I know you won't believe me but I want to help you see the light, your comment reflects your racism. It really says nothing about Liberals, except that you hate them.
Repent.

the military is one of the best examples of (true) liberal values in our society

Hi Busted Boomer. Robert Wright of Bloggingheads was a guest columnist at the NY Times last month and published a fan-freakin-tastic piece laying out that very case. I am a Navy brat. I agree whole heartedly. I'm not a liberal because i rebel against my military upbringing. I am a liberal because I internalized the core values.

oops. Forgot to close my link tag. It works, but I still apologize for shouting in red.

I'm a big fan of Sowell. Most of what he writes is insightful or even brilliant. But, that comment struck me as a clinker.

It's fine for liberals to pick out the occassionial dumb comment Sowell makes, but it would be a mistake to evaluate him based on his worst.

A comment I liked from that same article was:

“Calling an illegal alien an ‘undocumented worker’ is like calling a drug dealer an ‘unlicensed pharmacist.’“

Hey, Globe,

Thanks for the letter boilerplate for use in calling for Gonzales' impeachment at WTWC. Revised and inserted my own disgust at the corruption of the Civil Rights Division in bullying Toby Moore and colleagues in the division's voting section over the Georgia voter I.D. law, a nasty situation that involved your state's western district USA, Bradley Schlozman.

I think Sowell's comments are more similar to Derbyshire's "I like little girls" ruminations rather than actual calls for a military coup.

After all the degeneracy displayed in these last 6 years has almost entirely been republican made, with the media acting as willing hand maidens to said degeneracy. Or is Sowell still mad about Clinton's transgression?

dontcallmefrancis: Or is Sowell still mad about Clinton's transgression?

dcmf, I'm a regular reader of Sowell's column and have read several of his books. I'm a fan. Neverthelss, I have no idea what particular degeneracy he's talking about. Your guess is as good as mine.

Thanks for the kind words, Apollo. And thank you for taking the time to write to your delegation. If I had a mission statement it would have something to do with facilitating direct participation in our democracy.

Sowell's last little rattle until his name is spoken on 20/20 this Friday.

Uncle Tom Sowell's opinion isn't worth the paper it is printed on. He is a moron. I saw him interviewed once and his lips were moving as he formulated his response to a question. He is either a loon or brain-damaged.

Translation of Sowell for Greater Accuracy: "I wonder if the day might come when crazy military officers who believe the same psychotic things I do take over in a military coup and let me run something really important which I could rip off like all Cheney's buddies are doing in Iraq?"

Sowell is no better than Hannity, especially when we consider Hannity's segment, "Enemy of the State," now changed to "Enemy of the Week."

SOURCE: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/29/hannity-abandons-enemy-of-the-state/

That is not even the disturbing quote from NRO today. See here for K-Lo fawning all over Jack T. Ripper.

Posted by: Blue Girl, Red State (aka G.C.)

Just to let you know about Buzz Patterson's relationship to reality, here's a quote from July 6, 2005:

"The war is being won, if not already won, I think," Patterson, who is retired from the U.S. Air Force, said. "[Iraq] is stabilized and we want the soldiers themselves to tell the story."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,161463,00.html

[i]Isn't it obvious? GWB and the rubber stamp GOP congress was a liberal plot to embarrass and marginalize the Republican Party....[/i]

I swear to God my brother, who listens to way too much KSFO, told me this is why Kerry lost on purpose in 2004. Gah. I chewed him up one side and down the other. Well, actually I just said BULLSHIT really loud, but same difference. He was stunned. Sorry, I love him, but he can be thick thick thick. That's what happens when you listen to Rush Limbaugh all the time when you are out on the USS Cole for months on end.

Nathan, You write
"I have read a fair number of statements on dailykos articulating an identical sentiment to Sowell's."

I've spent an hour a day on DKos for the past 3 years and have never seen a sentiment like that uttered - even by conservative trolls. Please provide a couple of links.

Tommy, we don't need a coup, we need Remo...

Tommy, we don't need a coup, we need Remo...

I love that movie! (And I get the highest calling reference).

For god's sake, what greater "degeneracy" could there be than a military coup?

Thomas Sowell: Moral Cretin

Military coup? Why is that so remote a possibility?

Been saying this for a while. What can justify the actions taken by this administration, the wiretaps, the lying, the cronies, the justifications for war, on and on? Bush is destroying our military, destroying our National Guard. If a coup occured, who will fight against it? Those fighting for it of course are easy to justify; mercenaries fight the war in Iraq, their companies make tons of money. Think these people will want to give up their privilige when the Democrats take over? Do you think the faith-based extremists will go quietly? Do you think the hardcore will let go all the gains made for them by bush? Maybe Sowell is doing this country a favor, maybe he's warning us of an ongoing right wing coup. Instead of ignoring the idea of a coup, perhaps we should mull it over, integrate it into our thinking, decide what should be done in the event of. Nobody in this country could ever have forseen what this administration has brought us; it is capable of anything.

I can't remember the last time I read Sowell when he didn't spend most of his time wailing about liberals and/or Democrats. (And that goes for almost any conservative pundit I can name, as Bush gets worse, they get worse - or so it seems to me.)

A reader writes: “Liberals hold us individually responsible for nothing but collectively responsible for everything.”

Since conservatives seem to hold liberals responsible for everything and their own responsible for nothing - this seems incredibly ironic, even if it made sense.

The last time I saw a Republican express outrage was 1991...

I can't begin to say how Bizarro World that sounds to me . Sowell himself is in a constant state of outrage. And he missed Clinton's entire term? Never saw Gingrich or DeLay?

One more..in a sea of more irony and howlers:

The people who are scariest to me are the people who don’t even know enough to realize how little they know.

Meet George Bush - Master of Certainty, Actual Knower of Almost Nothing.

And why doesn't Sowell deserve the "Elitist" label from NR, I'd like to know? He's saying the people who disagree with him are ignorant fools.
And how does he know that? I wish he took that fear quoted above a little more seriously.

Since Lincoln's death, the Republican Party has functioned as a criminal organization, against the interest of the public on every conceivable subject...from women's rights to civil rights to child rights to anything moral.

Under Bush & Thugs, it has become the American Nazi Party. They tried a coup and it failed.

A military coup will result in the murder of every Republican-Nazi in the county.

It's fine for liberals to pick out the occassionial dumb comment Sowell makes, but it would be a mistake to evaluate him based on his worst.

You're right! Under this new, made-up standard you've instituted for conservatives who yearn for military overthrow of the US civilian government, you now have to give your absolution for the following:

Chappaquiddick
The meaning of is
Voting for a procedural vote before voting against a slightly different procedural vote
Briefly a klansman before apologizing for it
Getting a haircut
Winning an Oscar for an important documentary on an actual scientific fact

And even THEN, you're pathetic, bootlicking attempt at rationalizing away the call for a military coup seems, well, dumb for even a willful ignoramous like yourself. When Michael Moore calls for a violent coup, I'm sure you'll feel the way I do now, but since he hasn't, I'm wondering how much of an apologist you plan to be for an open traitor to the cause of American Democracy, you fascist asshole.

ex-liberal: It's fine for liberals to pick out the occassionial dumb comment Sowell makes, but it would be a mistake to evaluate him based on his worst.

Maybe, but that "worst" is really pretty bad. What problem "caused" by "liberalism" could possibly be cured by a coup? I have felt lately that Sowell wasn't as sharp as he used to be. That sounds like a transient despair.

Truly, unless he retracts that, how can anyone take seriously anything that he writes in the future?

Someone stop publishing this senile old man, because America is not a third world country and we don't have coups.

Discussions about coups at DKos? Sure, there've been comments like that over there. There were others, too, particularly in the impeachment threads. A minute or two searching the comment archives for "coup" will uncover a bunch of them.

So what? Whether they were comments by trolls or frustrated liberals, the comments advocating coups at dKos were slammed, as they should have been. The implied argument that "what Sowell said was okay, because some asshat at dKos said the same thing" is playground logic at best, and just illustrates how intellectually bankrupt people like Nathan are.

Once Bush makes the Republicans a permanent minority party a coup will become their only hope for power.

PaulB wrote: aren't there any honest conservative posters here anymore?

No.

This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions (h/t Atrios).

(Of course, PaulB's question implies that there once were honest conservative posters here; a debatable proposition, that...)

I have read a fair number of statements on dailykos articulating an identical sentiment to Sowell's.

I wondered how they would jump to the defense of sowell. Anonymous posters on a web site = the writings of the rights favorite negro conservative published in the house organ of the rethug party. This is pretty weak but they always are.

Why a coup when impeachment will do just fine?

Irony alert: Marler wrote: Truly, unless he retracts that, how can anyone take seriously anything that he writes in the future?

Bonus: He did so in reference to a comment made by "ex-liberal"!

Marler, I think it's safe to say that no one takes anything you or "ex-liberal" say seriously, now or in the future. Your intellectual dishonesty, deliberate obtuseness, imperviousness to reality, incessant water-carrying for the Bush Administration and general bullshit is far too well-established.

And yet you and "ex-liberal" skip gaily from the smoking wreckage of one failed argument after another, blithely ignoring the many times you've been schooled, and post the same old bullshit again -- all the while pretending, at least, that anyone takes you seriously.

Looking at the conservative movement's spokespeople today -- Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, Gingrich, Bush, Cheney, ad nauseum, it defies belief that you speculate that Sowell might lose credibility for some asshat comment at the expense of liberals.

Oh, and Nathan, we're still waiting for you to provide evidence for your assertions re: Daily Kos.

But then, waiting in vain for you to prove your assertions is something we're used to. Only the rich entertainment value of your occasional, pitiful attempts to actually do so -- remember your flailing when you attributed a position regarding sealed indictments to cmdicely and myself that we never stated? Good times! -- make it worthwhile.

Let's listen in on a White House conversation.

Bush: Hey. Have you come up with that Czar guy yet?

Under qualified evangelical Lackey: We're having problems Mr. President. We inputted high profile names and created a values' friendly list of those that hate gays, family planning and abortions; then we cross referenced this list to those that would be willing to let the Rove propaganda section politically sloganize any major ideas or pronouncements they might have: then we tested the then remaining candidates as to could they swallow their most heartfelt opinions if those opinions might be in disagreement with yours, praise Jesus.

Bush: And? Who did y'all come up with?

Under qualified evangelical lackey: Harriet and Brownie top the list for those currently available. George T. was on it but he's been scrubbed. Alberto and Condi got top grades too, but well, they already work for you.

Bush: Well, can't you tweak the inputs a little to get more names? Did you hear that? I said, "Tweak the inputs a little." That's pretty savvy, isn't it. "Tweak the inputs." I like that. I'm not as rigid and uninformed as people think I am. Am I?

Sowell used to be a leading libetarian intellectual. It is sad that he is morphing into a fascist.

Too extreme for the New York Post?!?

The same column ran on the opinion page of today's New York Post, minus five bullet points, including the call for a coup.

When you are more irresponsible than the editorial page of the New York Post, I think you can safely be called a wingnut. Congratulations, K. Lopez and NRO.

The sad thing is that NROthe website is more influential that NR the magainze.

Posted by: Blue Girl, Red State (aka G.C.) on May 1, 2007 at 8:39 PM :

When y'all start bleating that bad behavior should be acceptable because some Democrat did something once, I laugh out loud, because I envision General Disarray following Professor Chaos through South Park saying "Simpson's did it!" to Professor Chaos' (Butters) every idea.

The Baltimore Sun publishes Sowell one day and Cal Thomas the next.

Usually, the topics and the amount of thought going into the columns are identical with Sowell's writing at a slightly higher academic level.

Sowell is published in our local rag, and I make myself read him sometimes.

He NEVER has a context. He ALWAYS writes a list of dyspeptic observations, with no explanation, logic, context, or apparent thought.

MaxGowan wrote, Makes you think twice about opposing the Second Amendment, eh, POed Lib?

Can't speak for POed Lib, only for myself, but I'm not "opposed" to the Second Amendment, but rather in favor of actually reading it. You know, the clause with the word "regulated" in it.

Secondly, having current access to guns is never a necessary or sufficient condition for overthrowing a tyranny. If a resistence movement is politically viable (well-led, has sufficient popular support, etc), it will be able to get the guns when it needs to. If it's not politically viable, it will fail anyway. So current access to guns is simply irrelevant.

Thomas Sowell or Cal Thomas

Yeah, two insightfull writers - Sowell writing about how raising motel and hotel prices astronomically following Andrew, kept the riff and the raff out allowing only those truly needy travelers a place to stay - Or how the young women from Asia, who were forced and interred into slave labor in South El Monte, were at least allowed the "freedom" to come to America.

Or Cal Thomas, writing about a renewal of "Carousel" in London had been ruined for him because of ethnic changes in the case. Why they included Blacks - Not withstanding that "Carousel" was originally set in Hungary and then Paris, and the film was to be first made using a New Jersey beach community, and finally shot in Maine, changing many of the characters to that of the local Portuguese fishing people.

Yeah, two real heavyweights.

It's one bullet point in a long series of dyspeptic observations about how liberals have ruined the country.

... which demonstrate how wrong Republicans have been about everything for years, yes. It was kind of sad.

I think that the Republicans promote Sowell because he helps perpetuate the racist stereotype that black people aren't very bright.

Even the ones with Ph.D.'s.
.

liberals often are more critical of black conservatives

Yes, and I also wouldn't think much of a Jew in the SS.
.

Yes, that cryptic "well regulated militia": You may have a heard time hearing this from a Democrat, but keep in mind a rural Democrat (and a-pox-on-both-your-houses-centrist): Of course this is an individual right, just like the rest of the Bill of Rights; name any part of the Bill of Rights that isn't individual. (And who ever heard of a militia not having the right to keep and bear arms?) I think it's plain English: The government does not have the right to disarm the law-abiding public. (When guns are outlawed,only the government, and criminals, will have guns.) "Regulated" = this does not mean you have the right to a Glock. Or a fully automatic AK-47.

Sowell exemplifies the degeneracy of "our intelligentsia". The only ones who would stage a military coup are the very far right, who would march Sowell and the rest of black America right back to the plantation. If they didn't simply kill us off.

Sowell was, is and will remain--a fool and a tool.

Has anyone noticed the inanity of Sowell's inserting the Babe Ruth pitching comment in the midst of his rant? It is totally without relevance or context.

"Of course, PaulB's question implies that there once were honest conservative posters here; a debatable proposition, that...)"

There definitely were, including folks like John Cole and Sebastian Holsclaw. You have to go back about 4 years or so, but when I first started reading and posting here, this was one of the premier sites in the blogosphere to get a reasoned, and reasonably honest, political debate. That's why it pains me so much to see what it has become.

I can't resist a quick comment on the 2nd Amendment sidebar.

The 2nd references "a well regulated militia". The Constitution itself defines "militia", for purposes of the Constitution and presumably the Bill of Rights.

“Militia” is defined as a body organized, armed and disciplined by the Congress with officers and training provided by the states (Article 1, Section 8), under command of the President of the United States when called up Article 2, Section 2.

(Article 1, Section 8: The Congress shall have Power: .......To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;)

The "People", as individuals, have no constitutional authority to organize, arm, discipline, govern, appoint the officers of, or train the militia. The Constitution has the first, defining word on the subject, whether people like what it says or not.

Thomas Sowell is an intellectual in the clique that has largely been setting direction for the country since early '95. Sowell's ideological allies had control of all three branches of gov't from 2001 until January, 2007. Sowell's allies retain control of the courts and the executive branch.

How does Sowell make any sense?

There definitely were, including folks like John Cole and Sebastian Holsclaw. You have to go back about 4 years or so

I agree, if you go that far back; unfortunately, they were long gone by the time CalPundit made the big time here at WM.

FWIW, I've found Cole and Holsclaw's own blogs to be refreshing in their honesty.

Thank you, zak822, for elaborating on this sidebar. Note that current Constitutional scholars, on a broad spectrum, continue to press the point that every other Bill of Right is individual. And I note you did not challenge the fact that no other Bill of Right is not considered an individual right.

To further sidebar, especially in light of the VA Tech horror, that in New York State, this could not have happened. Handgun owners must be licensed, and it's a highly prescribed process (fingerprints, references, courses to be taken, a months-long process). I see no way out of this particular madness, though, if it continues to ba a state-by-state process; it must be nationalized to work.

Of course this is an individual right, just like the rest of the Bill of Rights; name any part of the Bill of Rights that isn't individual.

Amendment X. If you consider all 11 amendments of the first set of 12 submitted together that were eventually ratified as part of the "Bill of Rights", and not just the 10 that were ratified fairly quickly, then Amendment XXVII as well.

Your point?

I'm sure if Sowell were present in Germany in 1946 he would be telling us how it was the Jews, the Gypsies, and the homosexuals who had ruined that country, not Hitler.

MaxGowan: "When guns are outlawed, only the government and criminals will have guns."

When speeding is outlawed, only the government and criminals will be able to speed.

When assault is outlawed, only the government and criminals will be able to assault.

When trespass is outlawed, only the government and criminals will be able to trespass.

When nuclear weapons are outlawed, only the government and criminals will have nuclear weapons.

When marijuana is outlawed, only the government and criminals will have marijuana.

When . . . [yawn] . . .

Max, saying "I think it's plain English: The government does not have the right to disarm the law-abiding public" begs the question.

It's a Constitutional issue, and the Constitution is clear. There is no individual right to bear arms.

The 2nd Amendment references the right to bear arms in the context of "well-regulated militia". The Constitution tells us what a militia is, for Constitutional purposes. The discussion must take this clear fact into account.

turbino: Sowell...NEVER has a context. He ALWAYS writes a list of dyspeptic observations, with no explanation, logic, context, or apparent thought.

Sowell's column sometimes consists of lists without context, but the majority of his columns are arguments on a single point. It may be that your newspaper chooses to run only the former type.

IMHO Sowell's books are much better than his columns. He's better when he can use more words to develop his points. The extra space allows him to bring forth evidence, to argue pro's and con's, etc. Also, his columns seem to be dumbed down for the general public.

I recommend "Basic Economics: A Citizens Guide to the Economy, Revised and Expanded".

If you start reading his books, you will be impressed with the range of subjects he has researched and written on, as well as his ability to support his point of view.

ex-liberal, far above, “Calling an illegal alien an ‘undocumented worker’ is like calling a drug dealer an ‘unlicensed pharmacist.’“

During my misspent youth I knew a drug dealer who called himself exactly that.

It's a Constitutional issue, and the Constitution is clear. There is no individual right to bear arms.

The Constitution is far from clear, at least in the direction you claim. There is a prefatory remark on the necessity of a "well-regulated" militia as a justification for the RKBA, but the right is not expressly restricted to that context. The right is reserved specifically to the people, a formulation usually attached to individual rights (and is a "right", which always is individual in the Constitution; powers may be ascribed either to "the people" or to governments, whether federal or state, in the Constitution.)

There are several issues with the RKBA: Is it individual or collective? Is it enforceable against the states? What is its scope?

I would say that the Constitution, as noted above, strongly suggests that the RKBA is an individual right. OTOH, the comment on the necessity of a "well-regulated" militia to the state makes it, IMO, quite arguable, if not quite clear, both that the scope of the right is defined by utility in the militia context, and that the right is unlikely to be a right enforceable against the states, but only a right enforceable against the federal government to preserve the security and freedom of the states.

thethirdPaul: "Carousel" was originally set in Hungary and then Paris, and the film was to be first made using a New Jersey beach community, and finally shot in Maine, changing many of the characters to that of the local Portuguese fishing people.

paul, I'm not taking a position on the use of black actors, but your allegations about it aren't quite right. "Carousel" is based on the play "Liliom", by Ferenc Molnár. Molnár was Hungarian and his play was indeed set in Hurgary. But, "Carousel" is not simply a musical version of "Liliom".

"Carousel" is set in Maine in the 19th century. The local color is a big part of "Carousel". There are songs specifically referring to clam bakes and to the fishing business. Any film or production of Carousel would be set in Maine during the 19th century.

ex-liberal: Also, his columns seem to be dumbed down for the general public.

Since the columns are intended to appeal to conservatives, it would appear they are dumbed-down for very good reason.

cmdicely: I would say that the Constitution, as noted above, strongly suggests that the RKBA is an individual right.

Regardless of the nature of the right as individual or collective, no right or power is without reasonable limitations that balance the needs of democratic governance and individual freedoms and to prevent the intrusion of one right or power too greatly on others.

The gun advocates' apparent claim, at times, to an unlimited right to keep and bear arms seems to parallel the current president's apparent claim that there are no constitutional limits on his executive powers, at least for those periods during which he has unilaterally (and self-servingly with respect to his claimed powers) declared the nation to be in war status.

It is surely no coincidence that both memes spring from conservatives.

"just like the rest of the Bill of Rights; name any part of the Bill of Rights that isn't individual."

The right to assemble in the first.
The entirety of the ninth
the entirety of the tenth.

Saved by a military coup? Is netroots infiltrating the armed forces? First I've heard of it, but it's an idea.

...I would say that the Constitution, as noted above, strongly suggests that the RKBA is an individual right.... cmdicely at 2:18 PM

...with the colonial militias normally consisting of all adult white male citizens of a community, town, or local region. Colonial militia served vital roles in the French and Indian Wars and the United States Revolutionary War. Militia service shifted from colonial control to state controlled in the early years of the United States with the Second Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation. With Constitutional Convention of 1787 and Article 1 Section 8 of the United States Constitution, the power to call up the state based milita was transfered to the federal congress. Two years later, with the Bill of Rights in 1789, the congress provided that the federal government could not infringe on the rights of the states to maintain the militia by ratification of the Second Amendment. A "well-regulated" militia means well-trained and well-organized. Thus, the term would not have been properly used to refer to an armed, unruly mob, but only to persons who behave in a responsible, law-enforcing mode, and who might act to control an armed, unruly mob as an "insurrection"....

It is within this context, original intent if you will, that the right to bear arms as adjunct to being required to be in a militia. There is not right to bear arms outside this requirement. Since each state now has a National Guard and the Federal government has a standing army, there is no right to bear arms in any circumstance.

I think many of you missed his point entirely and have focused merely on one provocative phrase.

If you do an author search on Amazon for "Thomas Sowell" you get 107 results -- 5 pages. Check his wikipedia page as well.

Many of you are opposed to some of his political opinions, but rather than challenging those, you do seem to me to collaboratively attack the evil unspoken agenda, just as many conservatives do with liberals. I realize most liberals really aren't Stalinist totalitarians or environmental radicals that actually desire the extinction of the human race, but some are.

I would point out that in most major elections, the ratio of conservatives to liberals has been fairly close. So as you walk through the grocery store, the mall, et cetera, do you really think roughly half the people are secretly jack-booted fascists eager to help load the trains with all the undesirable Jews and poor people?

Has it ever occurred to you that a conservative might actually think what he says he thinks? Do you realize that most conservatives tend to have the very same goals as most liberals, but differing views as to how they might be best achieved?

While it might be comforting to imagine that anyone who disagrees with you must be evil, it doesn't make it accurate. It does, however, provide an explanation for how you get from "Liberty, equality, fraternity" to the mass executions of "The Reign of Terror".

There are certainly whacked out views on both sides, but they tend to be held by a small minority. To ascribe the most extreme views of anybody on the right to everybody on the right is as stupid as attributing Stalinist views to everyone on the left.

Comparing the comments between liberal and conservative sites is depressing indeed. It's as if we're incubating separate tribes who are mutually radicalizing in completely different worlds with completely different sets of facts, and growing increasingly hostile to each other over very little but misconceptions of the views of the other tribe.

While personal character is important, it doesn't make any idea smarter or dumber.

Arguments against a position someone already doesn't have aren't very persuasive, unless the audience is a mob you're trying to mislead.

When I get all pissed-off and want to spout off at somebody, I read old stuff.. Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, even Plato or Aristotle.. Instead of angry vitriolic attacks, you get thoughtful, reasoned arguments, which are especially careful to not misrepresent the opponent's position. Makes me feel considerably more civilized again.

Has it ever occurred to you that a conservative might actually think what he says he thinks?

You mean, say, Sowell pining for a military coup? Of course one suspects that he's saying what he actually thinks, duh.

You didn't read the comments here before posting your feeble defense of Sowell, did you?

"Any film or production of Carousel would be set in Maine during the 19th century."

Um, no. As already noted, "Carousel" took the original premise and modified it. Anyone doing "Carousel" is free to continue that process, just as is true of any other work of art. Plays and movies, in particular, are re-imagined all the time, moving in locale, time, emphasis, even fairly major rewrites. Thomas's growsing about the changes in the new production were silly.

My local paper carries this assholes column and the only time I have written to them to complain about a columnist has been because of one of his venomous anti-liberal screeds. What a pompous dick!

"Has anyone noticed the inanity of Sowell's inserting the Babe Ruth pitching comment in the midst of his rant? It is totally without relevance or context."

But showing a knowledge of baseball qualifies the author as "A REGULAR GUY"(TM). Look what it did for George Bush...er...George Will...er...nevermind.

Has it ever occurred to you that a conservative might actually think what he says he thinks?

Yes. They'll buy anything, apparently, if the con man gives them a sense of closure, because they never follow through to the consequences of what they are thinking about or proceed to any logical conclusion but stop at the point where they may have to take responsibility for something.

Do you realize that most conservatives tend to have the very same goals as most liberals, but differing views as to how they might be best achieved?

No. These goals, to whatever extent they may be similar, would never be realized through conservative ideas or methods, because a conservatives will always disrupt the procedure any way they can at the point where someone may have to take responsibiliy for something.

Stalinist views are views on the right because they are authoritarian regardless of any whatever color he used to express his authoritarianism.

To say we are inculcating separate tribes is a conservative idea specifically alien to liberal thought, which is antagonistic to everything about tribalism in the first place. I do not, however, deny that conservatives may be speciating.

Gregory,

I've read the entire column, as well as many other works of Mr. Sowell, and while I do not agree with all of his views, I do not believe any other reasaonable person could have done the same and still come to the conclusion that he's "pining for a military coup", or anything remotely of the sort.

"I am so old that I can remember a Democrat, at his inauguration as president, say of our enemies: 'We dare not tempt them with weakness.'"

Sowell is also apparently too old to remember that two paragraphs later that same Democrat said the following:

"Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate." Something the current administration greatly fears.

Actually, Sowell loves to fall back on that Kennedy quote. He used it as a major talking point in his column of September 14, 2001.

"Carousel" is set in Maine in the 19th century. The local color is a big part of "Carousel". There are songs specifically referring to clam bakes and to the fishing business. Any film or production of Carousel would be set in Maine during the 19th century.

Unless, of course, it wasn't. Just because something is set in a particular time and place (like, say, Shakespeare's Richard III) doesn't mean that later versions of the same work will be set in the same time and place (as demonstrated by, for instance, the 1995 film Richard III.)

Many of you are opposed to some of his political opinions, but rather than challenging those, you do seem to me to collaboratively attack the evil unspoken agenda, just as many conservatives do with liberals.

His longing for a military coup is, actually, a spoken agenda. You did read the front-page post to which this comment thread is attached, right?

I've read the entire column, as well as many other works of Mr. Sowell, and while I do not agree with all of his views, I do not believe any other reasaonable person could have done the same and still come to the conclusion that he's "pining for a military coup", or anything remotely of the sort.

My point was that you didn't seem to have read the comments in this thread before launching into your straw-man-ridded post of 3:38 pm. Nor, as cmdicely points out, do you seem to have read the column Kevin quotes, in which Sowell actually said -- his words --

When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can't help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.

and then asked "Has it ever occurred to you that a conservative might actually think what he says he thinks?"

That's exactly the point -- Sowell said that. Now, you seem to advocate the point that he didn't actually mean that, but your defense is, frankly, unconvincing.

And if Sowell doesn't believe that "the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup," one wonders -- again, as expressed in this thread you don't seem to have read -- why the flagship publication of conservatism published his words and paid him for the privilege.

I'll let the implication that you agree with most, if not all, of Sowell's views slide without comment.

"I do not believe any other reasaonable person could have done the same and still come to the conclusion that he's "pining for a military coup", or anything remotely of the sort."

I don't see how you get anything else from Sowell's column. That is, if you start from the premise that he wants to "save the country".

If Sowell wanted his readers to take something different away from reading his column, he should have said so.

cld,

In response to your 3:33pm comment, I agree with you on virtually everything you said, but sort of backwards.

..."they never follow through to the consequences of what they are thinking about or proceed to any logical conclusion but stop at the point where they may have to take responsibility for something."

I heartily agree that this is a bad thing, and that the reverse (logical critical thought, full accountability and responsibility for the intended and unintended consequences, etc.), but I personally see this as feature of liberal thought, not true conservative (classical liberal) thought. I can provide a number of examples where I think the conservative position could be shown to be considerably more empirical than the prevailing liberal position. This is an are where an actual discussion could be quite productive, and I suspect you and I would find vast areas of agreement.

"conservatives will always disrupt the procedure any way they can at the point where someone may have to take responsibility for something."

Again, I'm all for personal responsibility for one's actions, but I do not see this a feature of conservative thought. I also do not see this as behavior that can honestly be attributed to any large group, but an individual failing, regardless of position. In any case, we agree that disruptive behavior to shirk responsibility is bad.

"Stalinist views are views on the right because they are authoritarian regardless of any whatever color he used to express his authoritarianism."

Well, again we agree, authoritarianism is bad. However, I do not think describing Stalin as a right-wing fascist is intellectually honest, unless you and I have completely different conceptions of what right and left means, in which case the discussion would have to take a considerable remedial detour. I agree that extremist radical regimes on both sides become authoritarian and become virtually indistinguishable in their practical consequence, but that doesn't make them all on the right.

"To say we are inculcating separate tribes is a conservative idea specifically alien to liberal thought, which is antagonistic to everything about tribalism in the first place. I do not, however, deny that conservatives may be speciating."

Well, again, I'm glad we agree that tribalism is bad, and I personally wish either side were considerably more against it. This was the primary point I was originally trying to make. I do personally see this tribalism as a natural extension and consequence of Marcusian thought rather than anything I see as conservative or classical liberal thought, but I realize it exists on both sides.

I suspect you and I would actually agree on almost everything except which tribe is to blame for what, and perhaps whether or not this is a productive pursuit.

Gregory,

As I read it, Mr. Sowell is lamenting the degradation of discourse into what cld and I have sort of agreed could be described as tribalism. He describes this as "worsening", which would certainly indicate that he thinks it's bad, and that the eventual outcome of continuing "worsening" could eventually lead to a point at which the country might need to be saved.

Perhaps the argument could be made that he's jumping to the conclusion that saving the country at that point would be worthwhile, or that his view is an alarmist overreaction, or any number of actual arguments to his position, but imho, to describe his position as any sort of yearning, pining, or anything else that indicates he thinks this is a good idea or desirable outcome is either to have profoundly misunderstood him, or an intentional misrepresentation of his position.

theWilliam: While it might be comforting to imagine that anyone who disagrees with you must be evil, it doesn't make it accurate.

Well, according to a large percentage of the conservative leadership and public commenters in this country, liberals are evil precisely because they disagree with [allegedly] conservative principles.

As for conservatives supposedly having the same goals, I imagine you can look at what conservatives SAY their goals are and conclude they are essentially the same as what liberal goals are, but conservatives lie.

For instance, Bush said his goal was to disarm Saddam of his WMDs, especially nuclear capabilities, despite convincing evidence that Saddam had no such chemical or biological WMDs and despite overwhelming evidence that he had no nuclear capabilities.

Bush also claimed a goal of bipartisanship when he was campaigning for president. Oops.

And finally, Bush claims he is a "compassionate" conservative, i.e. his goal is to embrace and implement compassion, something utterly refuted by his every action.

Conservatives also claim that they are in favor of civilized discourse, yet embrace ranting lunatics such as Limbaugh and Coulter and you would be hard-pressed to find any similarly popular commentator on the left with such vitriolic wordsmithing.

Gregory: Marler, I think it's safe to say that no one takes anything you or "ex-liberal" say seriously, now or in the future.

true enough, but Sowell has been paid, and he has been very good for a long time.

As to "schooling" me, not much said in argument against me has been very good. A few things, but not most. I appreciate it when a few people take my comments seriously enough to point out actual flaws.

And if Sowell doesn't believe that "the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup," one wonders -- again, as expressed in this thread you don't seem to have read -- why the flagship publication of conservatism published his words and paid him for the privilege.

Here you and I are in agreement. They should have told him to revise and resubmit. It was an irresponsible thing to publish. He may have merely meant to express despair, but what he wrote should not have been published.

Gregory,

Just a couple nitpicky points for clarification..

"I'll let the implication that you agree with most, if not all, of Sowell's views slide without comment."

Well, you did comment, you didn't let it slide.

And there is no indication whatsoever that I agree with "most, if not all, of Sowell's views". Which, exactly, of Dr. Sowell's positions do I agree with and which do I not? Your response requires a familiarity with me and my opinions well beyond what I have shared. All I said on the matter was "while I do not agree with all of his views", and then indicated that I have read some of his works and share his concern over the "worsening degeneracy" of discourse. I also pointed out that he has written a bunch of stuff that's for sale at Amazon and has a wikipedia page.

For me to agree with "most, if not all" of his views would require me to at least know what "most, if not all" of his views are, which I do not. And for you to divine that I agree with "most, if not all" of his views would require a knowledge of both of our views that exceeds even our own.

The only implication that can be drawn fairly, is that I agree with him that there is a "worsening degeneracy" of discourse. I have not mentioned any other views of Mr Sowell, let alone whether or not I agree with them.

theWilliam,

You seem to exhibit a strong bias toward seeing virtue in conservatives, virtues that they enjoy hearing themselves talk about endlessly. Yet when any specific occasions appear where these virtues may be put into action the conservative, in every case, will opt to do the easiest thing, the thing that most limits responsibility, as if that were the effective and central virtue to be built upon, and then brag about it as if they'd solved something.

However, when, as in Iraq, when faced with building a case for doing something and a case for doing that thing based on virtue could easily be made (that invading the country was right because Saddam was an evil tyrant who tortured and murdered) conservatives famously rejected it out of hand preferring to fake evidence and create a fraud to trick the country into war.

Liberals don't think that some people, because of who they are, should have less or more constrained civil rights than others, while conservatives, every single time the question has come up, have turned themselves into pretzels trying to prevent others from enjoying the same legal and civil rights as the majority. Except, in the notable case of people who don't even exist, the Unborn, a placebo constituency for whom they need to take no responsibility at all in real life and whose 'protection' ruins the lives of thousands. So conservatives, in every case, work against doing something that would help others while actively working for something that will cause injury to others while pretending it's their own faultt.

Conservatives are the only part of modern society (outside of actual tribes) for whom tribalism may be an accurate description, but I think it's only for lack of a better generic term. What conservatives have is a learning disability that may reflect a more primitive stage of social evolution when their behaviour simply would not have been noticed. Once people evolved into more complex social environments conservatives found their most effective behaviour was intransigence. The rest of society, in a suddenly accelerated evolution, and incapable of directly addressing a problem that on its surface for the most part seems like traditionalism, simply adapts around them, leaving the conservative genotype, like the genotype for red hair and freckles, intact, but, you might say, Left Behind.

In this way conservatism is more like parasitism than anything else.

Someone like Stalin doesn't give a damn what the excuse is as long he achieves power and no one like that could be a democrat because a democrat necessarily must have a rationale for why what he is doing is an explicit benefit to society. Conservatives offer no such rationale outside the increase of personal power with an attendent abnegation of responsibilty because responsibility, by definition, limits the excercise of power.

Someone just left a link on another thread to this great article about conservatives, actually written by a consertive.

(Social conservatism isn't limited to political conservatism. Some of the most excessive social conservatives I know are leftists, but they're not real leftists. They're social conservatives who are socially conservative to the environment of their earliest memories and wherever they might learn something in addition to that they are overcome with excessive anxiety, this is why social conservatism is a learning disability and almost inevitably leads to an authoritarian personality.)

Deep down inside, Conservatives are scum.

This is just item #99784287 in the mountain of evidence proving it to be TRUE.

Water is wet, fire is hot, 2+2=4, and CONSERVATIVES ARE SCUM.

There is no virtue in Nazis, serial killers
or Conservatives.

It is very convenient for the right to blame media, the intelligentsia and educators for our "moral decay" but they conveniently omit the major player in all this- the corporations who profit greatly from the promotion of these values they so abhor

As to "schooling" me, not much said in argument against me has been very good.

In point of fact, what usually happens is that your arguments are first eviscerated on factual grounds as you rarely achieve anything nearing accuracy, and then they're taken apart for their poor logic and false premises, which usually results in your mysteriously disappearing from the thread, often reappearing later under a different handle, presumably to diffuse the embarrassment.

As this happens repeatedly and in public, it's no secret to anyone. That you would characterize it otherwise suggests (yet another) disconnect from reality. Your inability to acknowledge this shortcoming gives some insight into your inability to acknowledge uncomfortable political realities. Apparently you've developed a powerful sense of denial as a buffer or coping mechanism, along with a persona of "being reasonable."

That does nothing to change the fact that you are, as someone recently pointed out, a soulless scumbag, a moral coward more concerned with your pretensions, your ego, and Bush's poll numbers than human life.

"As for conservatives supposedly having the same goals, I imagine you can look at
what conservatives SAY their goals are and conclude they are essentially the
same as what liberal goals are, but conservatives lie."

Oh really? Lots of people lie. As far as I know, conservatives, liberals, redheads, brunettes, left-handed and right-handed, tall and short, fat and thin, have all lied. If you have references to studies or other evidence that demonstrates a statistically significant causative or even correlative relationship between political orientation and honesty, please do share. This would be a historical revelation indeed.

Whether and to what extent Mr. Bush lied is not evidence of the character of any other individual or group. To suggest that his behavior is representative of all conservatives, or all Texans, or all men, or all Caucasians, or all Christians, or all short-haired people, or all Americans, or all of practically any other group is a logical fallacy; a sophistical argument.

For the record, my personal opinion is that Mr. Bush's election itself is compelling evidence of the degradation of political discourse. I believe he has fundamentally misunderstood several things of potentially drastic consequence to this country and the entire world. His lack of eloquence and attempts at wit and humor make me cringe, and I would personally prefer the commander of the world's largest nuclear arsenal be able to at least pronounce it.

As for Iraq, I used to scream and throw stuff at the television when Dan Rather and other commentators would casually state as fact that Bush Sr.'s decision to "not finish the job and take out Saddam" was a mistake, as if there was no other point of view. Iraq is a complicated mess, that much seems apparent. Beyond that, I'll simply say that I think there are a number of significant points for which the facts are not all in.

Neither all conservatives or all liberals agree on anything about which there is any disagreement at all. While I think all reasonable people have managed to agree the earth is round and the moon isn't made of cheese, all other points of contention I'm aware of have people that would describe themselves as liberals and conservatives on both sides, so to say all conservatives or all liberals think this or that is highly suspicious on its face. If you do know of some issue that clearly delineates liberal from conservative, by which I mean all conservatives think one thing and all liberals think some other specific thing, please let me know. This would be another historic revelation. Otherwise, for anyone to claim to speak for all liberals or all conservatives is arrogant and misleading.

I hadn't planned on getting sucked into this, but whatever.. I consider myself a conservative, so what specific views do I have that make me scum?

"the conservative, in every case, will opt to do the easiest thing, the thing that most limits responsibility". Some deity told you this, or this is on your own authority? Your assertion is that since I'm a conservative, I have opted for the easiest, least responsible alternative in every decision I've ever made, and further that this is true of all conservatives as well. Can you please provide specific examples for me and every other conservative, or at least explain how it is you are familiar with all of the trillions of personal choices we've all made throughout our lives? Further, since we know of no individual choice where all conservatives have all chosen the same option, and one option must have been less easy or more responsible than the other, please explain how your assertion isn't impossible and absurd on its face -- or why you made an assertion that you do not believe to be true.

Among the other assertions in just one post of this thread are that Stalin's Marxist ideas were actually supported by all conservatives; that as a conservative I'm a racist bigot; that I value the lives of unborn children above and at the expense of everyone who isn't a middle-aged straight white male of European descent (which is what I assume you mean by minority, please correct me if I'm mistaken); that I take no responsibility for my children whatsoever, regardless of whether or not I have any; that I not just sometimes but in every case actively work to cause injury to all others (all creatures or all humans?), presumably including my own family as there's no limitation on minorities this time; that I have a learning disability; that I'm at a more primitive state of social development; and that I have an authoritarian personality.

Do I understand you correctly?

theWilliam you seem to have a severe misunderstanding of the use of Stalinist here. This is not a reference to his Marxism (otherwise why not skip the middle man), but a reference to his authoritarianism. The Stalinist right would have it that those who dissent from the state are, by virtue of that dissent and nothing else, traitors. Sure, that's insane, but look at the rhetoric coming out of Coulter, Limbaugh, Fox News, and the White House.

As to Marler, who still hangs onto the laughable notion that someone could be "seeking" something that he didn't need from people who couldn't possibly deliver it to him, the fact is that your arguments are so devoid of factual basis that they aren't so much destroyed as allowed to collapse under the weight of their own stupidity.

there is no indication whatsoever that I agree with "most, if not all, of Sowell's views". Which, exactly, of Dr. Sowell's positions do I agree with and which do I not? Your response requires a familiarity with me and my opinions well beyond what I have shared. All I said on the matter was "while I do not agree with all of his views"

Yes, exactly! You said you do not agree with all his views. Since you said that, and not "I do not agree with *any* of his views, it's a fair inference that to you agree with some of his views -- and since the phrasing you adopted sounds like the views you don't agree with are in the minority, it follows you would share most of his views.

As for Marler, you have got to be kidding me. trex has your number. But now I see why intellectual dishonesty is so important to conservatives like you -- it lets you pretend you have the better of a debate.

Tool.

I'm sorry, I seem to have misunderstood Stalinist.

You see, answers.com has:

Stalinism
The bureaucratic, authoritarian exercise of state power and mechanistic application of Marxist-Leninist principles associated with Stalin.

Merriam Webster has:

Stalinism
: the political, economic, and social principles and policies associated with Stalin; especially : the theory and practice of communism developed by Stalin from Marxism-Leninism and marked especially by rigid authoritarianism, widespread use of terror, and often emphasis on Russian nationalism

Imagine my embarrassment. I shall inform them straight away that noel, distinguished commenter at washingtonmonthly.com, has informed me that Stalinism is not, in fact, related to Communism or Marxism, as has been widely reported for decades, but merely any sort of authoritarian despotism.

Or have I misunderstood again? You refer to the use of Stalinist "here"? Do words have different meanings here? Is there some sort of lexicon?

This would explain a lot, as I had assumed we were using ordinary common US English.

What else have I misunderstood?

It's fine for liberals to pick out the occassionial(sp) dumb comment Sowell makes, but it would be a mistake to evaluate him based on his worst.

ex-liberal ? ok, not much of an identity, but it works for you, despite being more revelatory than you would probably hope.

You conjecture it to be a moment of lunacy on his part. I don't see it. It fits in perfectly with his current position and his previous writings.

It is a most unguarded and honest statement. this from a man that often practices going near speaking the unvarnished truth of conservative views. He is most clear about his loathing of "hippies" that he sees hiding behind every initiative he disagrees with.

It is just short of what he probably truly wants to happen.

Do you have some counter quote that would indicate that we might be misinterpreting him ? I'm willing to hear exculpatory evidence.

your quote that you gave equating illegal aliens to drug dealers would be an example of the opposite of exculpatory evidence.

theWilliam,

Can you provide us with an example of one conservative who voted for Al Gore?

Your assertion is that since I'm a conservative, I have opted for the easiest, least responsible alternative in every decision I've ever made, and further that this is true of all conservatives as well.

No, my assertion would be 'the easiest, least responsible alternative in every decision of general societal consequence', which is what is what we are speaking about, not decisions that pertain exclusively to yourself, a field where conservatives are always proud to be single-mindedly generous.

No, you don't understand me correctly.

I am struck by this part of your definition of Stalinism, especially : the theory and practice of communism developed by Stalin from Marxism-Leninism and marked especially by rigid authoritarianism, widespread use of terror, and often emphasis on Russian nationalism.

Just as contemporary American conservatives have perverted a body of traditional virtues to support the wonder filled swamp of Republicanism, so Stalin perverted whatever innate virtue lay in communism to support his own brand of gangsterism. It was simply the vehicle he rode to power, just as the American flag is the vehicle the Republicans ride to power.

Whatever name you give it authoritarianism takes an identical form everywhere and attracts and gratifies the same kind of people who will justify their actions as being expressions of normal human nature or a response to the expected villainy of others.

Further authoritarianism is never free of corruption but is always an instiutionalization of corruption. The Republican party was created as a convenience to the railroad industry, it's a function of corruption and has never had any other purpose. The principal distinction between the people of the contemporary Republican party and those of generations past is that the Republicans of today first swallowed all of the horseshit of the past (the gift of Reagan, horseshit is true!), then added their own layer of corruption on top of what was already nothing but corruption, not realizing that they weren't inventing it, as if it were newly discovered. Lacking the discretion of their forebears, they set about trying, with a kind of psychopathic pioneers egotism, to prove that whatever they said was true was true because it they who said it.

Come to think of it Stalin was a lot better at this than Dick Cheney, he only wanted to abuse his own country.

But I am open to the suggestion, and I would hope that you are as well, that perhaps you are not really a conservative, but have simply been lead to believe that through bad upbringing.

Here you and I are in agreement. They should have told him to revise and resubmit. It was an irresponsible thing to publish. He may have merely meant to express despair, but what he wrote should not have been published.

Gregory: As for Marler, you have got to be kidding me.

No really. the editors ought to have told him how awful that was. That they paid him was irresponsible. On that we agree. Probably not exactly, but pretty much.

That you and trex (and others) believe my opinions have been "eviscerated" just testifies to how much you yourselves willingly ignore. Somebody criticized me when I said that "thousands" of al Qaeda have departed Baghdad since the surge. I suppose that was an evisceration, yet the "thousands" claim has been widely reported since. Nobody "eviscerated" my claim that the annual pilgrimmages of the Shi'ites were prohibited under Hussein, or that the Shi'ites value their freedom so to travel. Now in Tenet's book he has repeated his belief that the Saddam Hussein regime was indeed trying to buy yellowcake from N. Africa, not just Niger -- and he was the one who recommended that Bush not say it in speeches; however illogical it might be for them to have tried to purchase ore that they had no way of transporting, the evidence is that they were indeed trying to do that. Unless you have decided that Tenet's book isn't true.

Most things in Iraq are just more complex than you are willing to admit.

They didn't need it and could do nothing with it. They couldn't get it. Things are complex, but the fact is there was no evidence and there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy something that would have done him no good if he had been able to get it. At every level the story is stupid and only someone with no intellectual honesty could continue to make the argument long after it had been discredited on every level:

1. Could he buy it? No.
2. If he could buy it could he transport it in secret? No.
3. If he could buy it and transport it in secrecy could he process it? No.
4. If he could buy it, transport it in secrecy, and process it could he keep that secret? No.
5. If he could buys it, transport it in secrecy, process it in secret, would he then be able to transport it in any fashion to the United States to create a mushroom cloud over one of our cities? No.

Being on the Bentley lot does not mean I can afford to buy or insure one.

Saddam was no closer to having a nuclear weapon than you MatthewRmarler are and your idiotic grasping at this straw demonstrates your commitment to ideology over rational thought.

cld,

I'll start with the last assertion. "But I am open to the suggestion, and I would hope that you are as well, that perhaps you are not really a conservative, but have simply been lead to believe that through bad upbringing."

How gracious of you to be open to my suggesting that I'm an idiot who doesn't know what a conservative is, and suggesting that I was raised poorly.

"Can you provide us with an example of one conservative who voted for Al Gore?"

Yes. Jonathan David Morris
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/11803.html

Google it, there's lots of them.

"No, my assertion would be 'the easiest, least responsible alternative in every decision of general societal consequence'"

In other words, your prior assertion that "the conservative, in every case, will opt to do the easiest thing, the thing that most limits responsibility" was, in fact, stupid, and you'd now like to amend it to one that's equally indefensible and already refuted by the existence of Mr. Morris. But I am open to the suggestion, and I hope you are as well, that you might not have a clue what conservatives think or do and are simply prone to wildly speculative assertions based on irresponsible generalizations due to your having been raised poorly.

Your continued rant about authoritarianism is directed at who, exactly? I've not read a single post indicating an affinity for authoritarianism or totalitarianism. Although your insinuation as to the innate virtue of communism does tend to make me wonder about the ease with which you dissociate reality.

"The Republican party was created as a convenience to the railroad industry, it's a function of corruption and has never had any other purpose."

What? Are you insane? The whole Lincoln/Civil War/slavery thing was a conservative cover-up for the corruption of the railroads?? And all the Southern Democrat slave owners were liberals? Are you institutionalized? Do they let you go outside?

"Come to think of it Stalin was a lot better at this than Dick Cheney, he only wanted to abuse his own country."

Again, which planet is this we're discussing? Do you think all the former Soviet republics volunteered to be part of the Soviet Union, and that it had no expansionist agenda? What the hell do you think the Cold War was about? Here's a clue, we didn't spend hundreds of billions of dollars on military hardware for a humanitarian invasion to save the Russians from socialism.

Have you actually ever met a conservative? Were you alive during the cold war?

When I read this:
http://antichomsky.blogspot.com/2004/09/my-road-to-damascus.html

I thought he was exaggerating. Guess not.

At every level the story is stupid and only someone with no intellectual honesty could continue to make the argument long after it had been discredited on every level

And here we have Marler. QED.

Nobody "eviscerated" my claim that the annual pilgrimmages of the Shi'ites were prohibited under Hussein, or that the Shi'ites value their freedom so to travel

Shorter Marler: "nobody eviscerated me when I said the sky was blue or that Iraq is spelled with one 'q'."

I'd be happy to begin providing a list of your mistaken facts and refuted claims with every post.

Most things in Iraq are just more complex than you are willing to admit

In point of fact Iraq is more complicated than YOU are willing to admit, or at least have shown any awareness of here. Your analysis is alway the very facile "Al Qaeda vs. everyone else is the only problem" ignoring the intra-Shi'ite violence, the corrupt and fractured government, the potential Kurdish problem, the fact that the violence has only gotten worse the more troops we've added, et al.

Do you actually wear blinders, or are they just metaphorical?

I've not read a single post indicating an affinity for authoritarianism or totalitarianism.....theWilliam at 2:45 AM

theWilliam,

I know what planet I'm discussing and it's not the one where Pat Robertson scares away hurricanes with his holiness.

Was I alive during the Cold War? I'm afraid I was. In the 1980s all the talk was about 'liberalizing' the Soviet Union --and that was Reagan's phrase, and it was used because the place was trapped in an excess of social conservative and authoritarian mental disorder, a problem independent of political orientation, though people suffering from it will disproportionately identify with rightist characteristics as they are more likely to directly validate simple black and white ideas and bullying.

How gracious of you to be open to my suggesting that I'm an idiot who doesn't know what a conservative is, and suggesting that I was raised poorly.

You're welcome. But I was not suggesting you're an idiot, though leaping to that conclusion is symptomatic of conservatism, which is all about social hysteria.

It's hard not to notice that your objection to my remarks occurs when you move them out of context and into their most hysterical extremity.

There are many good recent books on authoritarianism. This is an excellent article written by John Dean in advance of his book on the subject.

You really must not get out very much. If you don't know any of that, I don't think there will be enough time today to talk you down to earth.

When I wrote about how conservatives will take an idea to the point of their presumptive un-responsibility and will not proceed further and will disrupt or fail to acknowledge anything further on the matter, that fairly well describes your understanding of history.

The first time Lincoln ran in a presidential primary he was in last, or nearly last, place going in to the convention, a week later he was the nominee. Do you wonder why, or, as a conservative, do you glory in the mystery of things you cannot know, because it's good that you cannot know them?

I would suggest that anyone who voted for Al Gore could not have been a conservative in the first place, but was someone who was trapped by his tragic upbringing and has found the courage at last to move forward.

My assertion that "the conservative, in every case, will opt to do the easiest thing, the thing that most limits responsibility" remains literally correct in the context of what we are talking about, which is not every possible element of existence, but political life. If I had thought you had thought we were dealing some grander existentialism I would have bracketed the statement so you could have such qualifiers.

And if you don't believe me, there's always the Whiny Kid Study,

In the 1960s Jack Block and his wife and fellow professor Jeanne Block (now deceased) began tracking more than 100 nursery school kids as part of a general study of personality. The kids' personalities were rated at the time by teachers and assistants who had known them for months. There's no reason to think political bias skewed the ratings the investigators were not looking at political orientation back then. Even if they had been, it's unlikely that 3- and 4-year-olds would have had much idea about their political leanings.

A few decades later, Block followed up with more surveys, looking again at personality, and this time at politics, too. The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity.

The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests. The girls were still outgoing, but the young men tended to turn a little introspective.

Block admits in his paper that liberal Berkeley is not representative of the whole country. But within his sample, he says, the results hold. He reasons that insecure kids look for the reassurance provided by tradition and authority, and find it in conservative politics. The more confident kids are eager to explore alternatives to the way things are, and find liberal politics more congenial.

You're all missing the point!

The United States already has undergone a military coup - at the hands of its Commander-in-Chief from 1861-65.

Because the Civil War lifted America's great moral burden of slavery, there is a tendency to treat Lincoln hagiographically rather than critically, and to be blinded to what the war accomplished apart from ending slavery:

- It altered forever the nature of the Constitutional compact between the states. Before the war, it had been commonly accepted doctrine that states could secede at will from the union that they had willed into existence. An anti-secession clause was rejected by the Framers during the Constitutional Convention. Some states - and not only in the South - included provisions reserving the right to secede from the union in their acts to ratify the Constitution. Indeed, the idea of secession was first seriously proposed not by southern states, but by free states in the Northeast, at the Hartford Convention. All the antecedent legal theory about the rights of the states with respect to the union was set aside by military force from 1861-65.

- The war was financed by an income tax, of a type later found unconstitutional, and paper money - "shinplasters" or "greenbacks," not backed by specie - was issued by fiat of the Federal government, in violation of the Constitutional provision that only gold and silver should be legal tender.

- During the war, Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus, set up military tribunals with rights to try civilians on capital charges, and placed large areas of the country under martial law. Members of Congress who spoke against his designs, e.g. Clement Vallandingham of Indiana, were silenced. The Supreme Court was treated as an irrelevancy.

- After the war the former Confederate states - which according to Lincoln's own legal theory had never ceased to be part of the union - were placed under military occupation, which did not end in some parts until 1877. When limited civilian government was allowed to resume, large numbers of potential voters were disenfranchised, in order to achieve the desired political results, including the forced passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments.

One might go on with more examples - but it should be evident that while the name and nominal form of the United States of America were "saved" by the resolution of the Civil War, what survived was not the Old Republic of the Founders.

Looking back at history from the perspective of centuries or millennia, its image is foreshortened. We imagine, for example, that there was a clear-cut end to the Roman Republic and a similarly clear beginning of the Roman Empire. In fact, it was not immediately evident to the Romans that the form of their government had permanently and radically changed. The old institutions and offices of the republic - the Senate, the consuls and tribunes, quaestors and aediles - were allowed to persist, with the appearance that the principate of Augustus Caesar was only a minor alteration to the Republic's long-standing laws and customs. Acts of government continued to be taken in the name of "senatus populusque Romanorum." Indeed, as long as the basically benign and sensible rule of Augustus continued, the ordinary Roman citizen noticed little difference. Only when it was too late to change course did it become apparent that the Senate and all the rest of the old Republic's institutions were mere mummery, and that the state was in the hands of absolute tyrants like Tiberius, Caligula, or Nero.

Similarly, it took time for the effects of the Civil War to be felt fully. The extent to which the Federal goverment had been empowered at the expense of the states was obscured by the expiration of Lincoln's income tax in 1872, and the subsequent striking-down by the Supreme Court of efforts to reinstate it. For rest of the nineteenth century, and the first decade of the twentieth, Federal power was constrained by relatively modest Federal revenues. Only with the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment, in 1913, did the Federal government acquire the means to finance its expansion to the full potential that Lincoln's use of military force had bequeathed it.

Without the Lincoln's achievement, Wilson's reckless internationalism and attempt to "make the world safe for democracy" would never have been possible. Without Lincoln's achievement, the second Roosevelt's arrogation of Federal power in the New Deal would never have been possible, nor would the actions of virtually every Congress and presidential administration since the end of World War II.

We may expect to see further usurpations of power by force in consequence of the collapse of normal political dialogue, negotiation, and compromise. Such collapse had occurred by 1861. It was Lincoln's decision to seize powers to which he was dubiously entitled, if at all, under the Constitution, that brought us to the pass at which we now stand. It should not surprise us that the Americans who went to fight for the Communist side in the Spanish civil war chose to call themselves the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. They knew why they celebrated his memory!

Our politics seem in many ways to be approaching collapse - the factions have basically ceased to negotiate and compromise, but have retreated to their bases from which they shout slogans at each other. Should what remains of our constitutional structure prove as dysfunctional in resolving their differences, it will not be surprising that some popular figure sweeps into authority with promises to resolve them by force - just as Lincoln did in 1861-65. If history is any guide, that person will also be lauded for "saving" the country, and maybe even revered as a saint.

Remember that predicting something is not the same as wishing for it!