What in God’s name are you talking about??? Have you run out of dope or something? You sound cranky and incomprehensible.

I don’t have a clue “what America wants when push comes to shove.” And why should I try to predict popularity when formulating my own political judgements anyway?

I certainly don’t feel that dialogue with a staunch conservative such as yourself is impossible or a waste of time, and in general I usually prefer it to one with another liberal.

Anyway, here’s to the Revolution!

The dems just don’t get it. They know that they can’t filibuster Roberts, McCain and Graham have come out and basicaly said they will bolt the compromise if they do. I expected them to slap Roberts around a bit at the hearings and then pass him on to the court. but they are in full battle mode. They are doing their “look out everyone, he’s a papist” code routine, thus offending the Catholic vote that was smaller then normal in 2004 and that they desperatly need back. They are promising to stall with the memo’s and are trying to present him as some sort of Pat Buchannon cave man. They are even going after the wife and kids.

The problem with this strategy is that Roberts is going to come off to the American people as the complete opposite of the democratic portrayal. He is brilliant but not a snob, he will make Schumer and Leahy look like idiots if they go after him in the hearings but in a gentle way. They are portraying him as a rabid ideologue, he will come off the complete opposite, and when they go after Bush’s next appointment the American people will remember the boy who cried wolf story.

Roberts will be the next SCOTUS appointment.They can start fitting him for the Robes today. The dems are wasting all their ammo. They are going to try the “you must answer questions” routine, Roberts will shoot them down, and then they won’t be able to use it on the next appointment. If the Dems keep going down this route they are going to lose the filibuster for judges too. A year before the 2004 elections I didn’t see how Bush was going to win. Now I can see why. These people are just politically tone deaf.

Kevin Peters

Picking Roberts just kind of points out that the Democrats are more than a little paranoid when they say Bush is extreme.

“the agreement on the meaning of certain words is a common problem, so common that I don’t understand why you view it as a particular challenge.”

Many problems are “common”, markus. Crime is a common problem, for example. The mere fact that there are many people who think it acceptable to steal does not make it acceptable, does it?

I am not asking you to agree with my positions. I would be alarmed if somebody like you agreed with me. But at a very basic level, we all have to assume that words have uniformly accepted meanings. If what you mean by “No” is what I mean by “Yes”, then verbal communication becomes impossible and civilization collapses. The need for accepted definitions of words is why dictionaries were created. It creates an underlying set of understandings which all can agree on. If you are unwilling to accept that advocacy of revolution is sedition, then you are saying that there exists nothing but raw power.

When verbal communication becomes impossible, the default means of expressing ourselves becomes violence.

Words mean what they mean. Debasing the language in pursuit of your immediate political advantage may seem very clever right now, but its a dangerous game.

It is precisely the fact that words have meanings that protects us all from arbitrary power. The law is written in words. Once you say that words are plastic and can take any meaning you want them to, you are tossing the law in the garbage.

All of this, of course, will go over your pointy little head. You are convinced that, when push comes to shove, the American people will decide to throw in their lot with you. Now matter how many times you people end up on the ash heap of history, you continue to imagine yourselves as the wave of the future.

You come close to stating your real position at the end, where you invoke the bit about how the people have the right to alter or abolish their government. This, as you may be aware, precipitated what might be called the First Civil War, but was dubbed the War of Independence.

My own feeling is that you will end up getting what you want, markus. If you do, I guarantee that you will not like it. Your side will lose the war, and with it, all that it has managed to gain over the years. But as I say, there is no communicating with you by words.

It’s only the last few decades when people have been getting away with it.

***

But of course, I wouldn’t question their patriotism.

Regarding your frustations in discourse with those who disagree with you, the agreement on the meaning of certain words is a common problem, so common that I don’t understand why you view it as a particular challenge. It’s like saying “one of the things that makes it so hard to fly is the ubiquitous presence of gravity.” O-K.

In this instance you are correct: advocating revolution is sedition.

To restate my point: our Constitution does not explicitely prohibit sedition, and implicitly permits it with the 1st Amendment. Meanwhile, the Declaration of Independence implicitely mandates sedition, as a matter of natural law, under certain circumstance (“when in the course of human events…”)

One might say that sedition is as American as apple pie.

“He [Anastaplo’ is really big on the idea that the legislature ought to be the preminent governing institution.”

You mean, he is a member of the “Constitution in Exile” movement?

One reason it is so very difficult to have any sort of sane dialogue with the left is that they do not know the meaning of words. You are a perfect example.

Consider this;

“Dissent and advocacy of revolution or appeasement is NOT treason or sedition.”

This is simply wrong. Wrong as a matter of fact, not of opinion. The dictionary definition of sedition is below.

se∑di∑tion n. 1. Conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state.

Advocacy of revolution is sedition. Period.

Dissent and appeasment may or may not be treason, depending on the circumstances. If your wife “dissents” from you as to what TV station to watch, it is not treason. But “dissent” in a war situation which consists of advocating the case of those we are at war with comes close to treason, cerainly.

And those who openly suggest that the soldiers in the US military should murder their officiers are clearly guilty of treason.

Vegetius — Glad to turn you (and hopefully others) on to Anastaplo, the “socrates of chicago” and the world’s coolest Straussian. You’re right, he’s more of a gadfly, than conservative. He’s a conservative in the sense that he hates moral relativism as well as what he considers to be judicial activism. He is really big on the idea that the legislature ought to be the preminent governing institution. His exegesis on the Constitution — “The Constitution of 1787: a Commentary” — and its sequel – “The Amendments to the Constitution: A Commentary” – are stellar.

If you really believe that the Democrats are just being reaonable in their endless character assasination of Bolton and redundent demands for information, well I have some swamp ground to sell you.

Rockefeller looked at that information and said there was nothing there. no smoking gun whatever.

I realize that the Democrats are all worried about the delicate sensibilities of dictators and thieves at the UN but considering how obnoxious Kennedy, Kerry and Leahy really are I don’t think it is fair to hold Bolton to some weird Miss Congeniality standard.

It is the typical obstructionist nonsense and if they try it with Roberts I hope it blows up in their faces.