Weak Assault
Andrew Sullivan characterizes my characterization of Libertarians as “silly.” Of course, Sully then goes on to accuse me of “defending or ignoring every abuse of government power under the Bushies.”
My take on wartime power grabs? Don’t play “slutty cheerleader for the Feds.” My take on Abu Ghraib? “Heads must roll.” My take on Mission Accomplished? A “fiasco.” My take on Bush’s buddy Sam Alito? “We’re about to get a new Supreme Court justice who never knows when to say no to executive power.” And those are just four links I stumbled across in the space of a minute.
Let’s face it. In Sullivan’s mind, it’s not enough to disagree with Bush, or to call him on his many blunders. Nope. You’ve got to hate Bush with the same cleansing fury Sullivan has. You know, enough to rinse your soul clean, after going all giddy about Bush in the awful days immediately after 9/11. I never went giddy for Bush then, so I guess it’s easier for me to keep my perspective today. And if I haven’t spent enough time criticizing exactly the things Sullivan wished I had, well, it’s my blog, and my opinion is: There are currently greater dangers abroad than at home. I choose to focus on those. It is, I think, possible to do so without having to check in first with the Daily Dish & Moral Rehabilitation Center.
I also seem, unlike Andrew, to have at least read and experienced the things I criticized today. Sully says he’s relieved that I no longer self-identify “as a libertarian,” which is an odd complaint coming from someone who never did. Anyway, had Sullivan spent five minutes in my archives, I’m sure he would have thought twice, or at least maybe once, before posting his little hit piece.
RELATED: Doug Mataconis took the same journey I did. Does that make him “silly,” too?
UPDATE: Much more here and here, from a couple guys who really know the ins and outs of this stuff.
ONE LAST UPDATE: Um, dude… Nick G runs a magazine called “Reason.” I run a blog called VodkaPundit. I know what claim I’m making. Does Nick? At “Unqualified Offerings,” I thought you’d catch that tiny little wee small detail. And it is possible to understand the Libertarian critique of the government’s war-making powers without agreeing with it. Truly! Not even all Big-L Libertarians need to goosestep to the exact same offbeat drummer.
Im sure all will be forgiven once he is aware of your feelings on gay marriage. At that point, you will be placed back into the annual christmas card list.
Read his post again, he’s saying that stuff about Reynolds, not you. He just called your work ‘silly’, engage him on that, not words directed at Reynolds.
For the love of God, dont make me read Sullivans post again! I thought we were all against torture!
Waterboard me if you must, make me wear panties on my head, put me on a leash, but for the love of all that is holy, dont make me try to make sense of the pretzel logic of his mind, ok?
Dan,
Maybe I’m mistaken, but I thought Sullivan’s fury was directed at all of us former (maybe-someday-again) Libertarians.
Andrew Sullivan’s fury was, as always, directed at the person(s) standing in the direction he has elected to be furious towards. That moment.
Please explain to me why people care what a once-talented, but now genuinely demented, commentator has to say. Leave him alone. It’s not nice to torment the mentally ill.
(My last sentence was genuinely serious.)
I wouldn’t worry about being too mistaken there, Steve, Sully was clearly painting both of you with a broad brush, although he was trying to specifically bait Glenn moreso than yourself at the end. He clearly was talking to you when he said:
“But the caricature of many freedom-lovers offered by Stephen Green is silly. Yes, the more doctrinaire libertarians are too wedded to ideology and unable or unwilling to look at the empirical world and make adjustments. No sane freedom-lover would, in my view, believe that 9/11 changed nothing. Of course, it required sacrifices of liberty. What it did not require was the permanent suspension of habeas corpus, the transformation of the executive branch into a de facto extra-legal protectorate, the breaking of laws by the president, the authorization of torture, warrantless wiretapping, a war based on intelligence that simply wasn’t there, and a ramping up of the drug war.”
Somehow he uses this counterargument to jump all over Glenn. Sully’s philosophy–political, moral, metaphysical–is solipsism. I thnk it is a supreme act of obessession that he’s reacting like a 7th grade girl who’s been dumped by Bush, Glenn, you, etc. this far removed from his meltdown over FMA. Even 7th grade girls eventually get over being dumped.
Permanent suspension of habeas corpus?
I thought Lincoln did that with the aid of Congress.
Just ask a real Libertarian like Lew Rockwell.
It is a real shame about Sullivan. He didn’t even mention my name. Or the notorious pro war, pro gay, pro gun blogger Eric at Classical Values (where I might add I also blog).
If Sullivan wants more traffic he is going to have to enlarge his hate list.
“and unable or unwilling to look at the empirical world”
Well,hellooo Mr. Pot.
Sully has become a bore.The only interest,and a mild one at that,is which of his own positions he’ll turn against,the 1 he took 5 minutes ago or the one he took 15 minutes ago.
BTW my pro gay friend Eric is no friend of FMA.
You would think he deserved at least an honorable mention.
rhodium posted, “It’s not nice to torment the mentally ill.
(My last sentence was genuinely serious.)”
I discovered blogging through Andrew site back in 1998. It was the second blog I read. It was great and through him I discovered all the other bloggers.
But sometime around early 2003, he started to change, to make no sense.
It was startling and fascinating. I thought he was clearly selling out to fit in at “Time” magazine, which would have made him a hypocrite, since his early postings were mainly pointing out how others sold out, but it slowly got worse. He made less and less sense.
Now, forget it, he is gone. Everyday its about torture and/or pointing out how great Obama and/or how bad Bush and Cheney are.
I am not a Doctor, but you don’t need to be to see that Andrew Sullivan is suffering from AIDS dementia.
The evidence is right there in his own words. He is sinking into insanity, seriously.
If Nietzsche was correct, that ‘every philosophy is a species of autobiography’, then Sullivan’s endless preoccupation with torture tells us more than we need to know about his psychosexual life.
I remember the night Sully declared to Bill Maher on Politically Inthedreck that he was mistaken to have ever supported GWB for invading Iraq. I deleted him from my bookmarks page the next day and never went back.
It’s a mystery to me how someone who articulated his initial support so logically and earnestly and with such reason and passion for years(?) could suddenly just say, never mind. The war is being managed poorly therefore all the reason and logic for supporting it are wrong too. Oh and Bush is a war criminal why we’re at it.
But suddenly it became clear when the audience applauded so warmly and Bill Maher gave him the tilted head with a fawning smile look of forgivness/approval. He was now back in the fold of the “right minded”. Back from the wilderness of logic and reason.
Why anyone takes him seriously anymore is a mystery to me.
Regards.
Stephen,
The world doesn’t care what Andrew Sullivan’s latest attempts at garnering attention entail. Nor should you.
Ignore the little fool.
To Steve Ducharme (where’d all these frickin’ Steve’s and Stephen’s come from
?)
I too was introduced to the blog world in large part by Sullivan. But I would say that logic was never his strong point (have you ever heard him attempt to talk about economics and fiscal policy? Makes your head hurt). It was his passion. So, when you agree with him, its easy to be impressed by what he writes because he’s channeling the same emotions you feel. I know that is a big part of what I found appealing about him. But, passion and emotion only go so far, and I would argue that so much of his writing style is raw emotion. That’s why he’s all over the place on so many issues and starts to sound irrational and childish. Its also why he takes disappointment in someone he invested a lot of emotion in (The post-2000 GOP) so damn personally. I honestly believe he thinks the GOP turned on him, not the other way around.
I do think saying he has AIDS induced dimentia is simply crazy. He’s probably no more or less stable than he was 10 years ago. He just has a greater body of work to judge him from. The thing with a blog, is that you really get a good feel for someone’s actual personality. A weekly column with rigid rules doesn’t tell you THAT much about the person writing it. Argue against poor logic and self righteous posturing. Don’t try to make a medical diagnosis. It really cheapens the larger point. Sullivan gets a lot of pub, especially as he gets to play the latest version of David Brock. And he’s got a big platform. His demagoguery needs to be challenged and faced head on.
That said, he does post some nice pictures. Those posts have the added benefit of little to no commentary by Sullivan. And the guest bloggers are usually pretty interesting, if increasingly disagreeable.
And Vodka man, keep up the great work. Your journey to being a true un-satisfied independent mirrors my own and it sounds like a lot of other people disappointed that the Libertarian party never moved beyond high school debate club with a big budget.
Russ, that’s one of the best things I’ve ever read about Sully.
Like you, he’s the guy that brought me into the blogosphere, a good year or so before 9/11, and before I’d ever heard the word “blog.” And he’s been honest and up front about his medical condition — so much so, that there’s no chance I buy into the idea that he’s suffering from AIDS dementia. Far from it. He’s been a real success story for anti-virals.
What does bug me is, him calling my personal journey (and yours) “silly.” If he wants to see a really silly trip, he should read his own archives, sequentially, from about mid-2003 to today.
IMO, Andrew is a gifted and highly skilled writer and communicator.
And a complete political sell out.
But the libertarian in me can
Russ,
You make an excellent point (several actually). Thinking back on it, his very well versed passion was really the primary part of his appeal.
I was angry about 911 and wanted an aggressive pursuit of those responsible. He expressed the feelings brilliantly. It was easy to get caught up in the daily posts and cheer along his defense of our goals. Even (or especially?) if they were primarily based in raw emotion.
Live and learn.
Oh and to Stephen er… Green. Yeah that one! I’ve been away for a while. Just wanted to say that it’s great to have you back at full strength blogging up a storm.
It isn’t very complicated. Sullivan is like a lot of recovering alcoholics and ex smokers I’ve met; what was once something he was passionately, irrationally, devoted to, in his case George W. Bush, has become such a Bogeyman to him that he can’t talk about anything else, and anyone who doesn’t feel his same passion, now tacking 180 degress in an opposite direction, is as Evil as the Bogeyman himself.
Those of us who were voicing substantial reservations about George W. Bush, for many reasons, a long, long, time ago can put his misdeeds and mistakes in perspective. To Sullivan, everything about George W. Bush must be an unprecedented Descent into Darkness, and anyone who does not see this obvious Truth has been corrupted, and is now a Minion of Darkness. The world, for Sullivan, is in full melodrama mode 24/7/365. Good gravy, what a pain in the ass it must be at times to be his friend! Such people are to be commended for their patience.
“Good gravy, what a pain in the ass it must be at times to be his friend!”
I’m not sure that’s the best choice of words….
You know how sometimes the news has a story about a homeless person or a recluse who turns out to be a millionaire, but nobody knew it? Sullivan is the other side of that coin. He’s a famous person, but once you spend some time getting to know him through his writings and public talks, he eventually proves to be nobody special.
It saddens me how demented Andrew Sullivan has become. I used to read him and tip him all the time and then GWB came out against gay marriage and Sullivan seemed to lose it. (Sullivan is bright guy, I have no clue what he expected)
He was never the most even keeled of chaps, but now he’s not even worth reading or engaging.
I’m saying Goodbye To All That too!
I still read Sully. I just disagree with him A LOT more than I used to.
PS. Hitch – Sully’s alter-ego (better one too) – has a new book coming out on Thomas Paine that will be found in my clutches soon.
Can we PLEASE stop paying attention to Sullivan now? In 2003, he did an about-face once he realized that Bush wasn’t in favor of gay marriage. Everyone has been writing since about how terrible it is that Sullivan’s demented ravings have tarnished his prior image.
Well, you know what? 2003 was in 2003. And 1998 was 1998. Now it’s 2007. To hell with Andrew Sullivan. All these “oh, he introduced me to blogging” posts are really, really wearing thin. I can’t stand it that Jonah Goldberg still thinks anyone gives a crap about Sullivan.
Ignoring this guy can only help you. Trust me. Ignore him. He is an insignificant nobody in the blogosphere nowadays. Just let his blog die.
Ed, that’s an interesting frame of reference. As a blogger, Sullivan is pretty scatterbrained, inconsistent, and venomous; but as a famous person, he’s not that bad.
Russ, that was a pretty darn good comment.
Look … Sullivan hates Bush because Sullivan is gay. Period. It’s required by all his gay friends that he hates Bush, or he’ll be banished from the community of gay people.
You can’t BE gay and for anything that Bush is for. Pretty simple really. The community won’t allow it.
If Bush came out tomorrow and said he supports a Constitutional amendment to allow gay marriage and also a Constitutional amendment to allow torture by dipping in fresh lava … Sullivan would be back in the Bush camp quicker’n you could say “You go girl.”
Be gay (figuratively) or Sullivan and his ilk will point out only your perceived flaws and out your relatives.
Pretty simple really.
If Bush came out tomorrow and said he supports a Constitutional amendment to allow gay marriage and also a Constitutional amendment to allow torture by dipping in fresh lava … Sullivan would be back in the Bush camp quicker’n you could say “You go girl.”
He’s clearly a single issue voter/blogger. I can respect that, especially since I’m becoming one (war on Terror) and was one a few years ago on a different issue (The 2nd amendment).
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the single issue voters, as long as they realize their condition and admit that it taints their opinions about other issues.
And yes, I was somehow drawn to this thread. Must be the name thing…
There are some pretty thoughtful comments here and a lot of Steve/Stephens. Hmmmm…. Coincidence? Hey Russ is you middle name Stephen by any chance?
Regards,
Sullivan . . . Sullivan. The name rings a bell. There used to be a good writer named Andrew Sullivan, who was pro Bush & GWOT; then, I believe, he went away one August for a vacation. I think his boyfriend straightened him out (pun intended) that being gay meant you had to hate Bush.
Sad, really.
As for the whole marriage thing, I’d rather get the state out of it and just have private contracts between consenting adults.
then, I believe, he went away one August for a vacation.
After running a pledge drive & racking up 6 figures in donations for a web site that costed less than $500/year to maintain (he was strictly text, back then, no pics, so no bandwidth issues, at all). Many have asked what happened to their donations….Andrew – he of the “silence = cowardice” sneers – falls silent. BTW, he had another one that garnered over 80 grand, so we’re near 200 grand in donations.
What happened to the money, Andrew?
RW,
Don’t begrudge a guy for making money. If I could figure out how to get a hundred grand out of this blog, believe me, I would do it.
So he scored big on donations. People gave because they felt they were getting value for their money. That’s their business.
Just curious RW. since no pre-conditions or promises were concerning the donations, what do you suggest “should” have been done with it?
I voted for Ron Paul in 1988, after voting against him at the Lib convention (in favor of the more glamorous, although admittedly more opportunistic and less Lib pure Russell Means). Stephen, your post on “L”ibertarians seems excellent to me. I’ve always been against the “purity police”, though I do like to occasionally bad mouth the Randroids.
Libs like:
“Free as long as you don’t hurt some BODY else”… unfortunately for most Libs, since a fetus has a body with different DNA than its mother, killing it certainly deprives it of life and seems wrong. Although laws against it don’t seem so good, either.
(Lib split 1) The Gay Marriage debate is mostly a surrogate for the abortion debate we should be having, but the US SC decided to make “unnecessary”.
Milton Friedman on open border immigration: “As long as we have a gov’t supported welfare state, we can’t really have open borders”. This seems the right Lib position. Open borders AFTER replacing the gov’t welfare system.
(Lib potential split 2, but not really too much)
“War is the health of the state”. But how to stop Islamofascists, or anybody else, from terrorizing the US? Tighter internal security, and a smaller global gov’t footprint (a la Ron Paul), seem most likely to minimize the state, if done consistently. But I say, since I haven’t heard other famous folk say it (yet?) “If we stay in the UN, if we give gov’t aid to other countries, if we have US bases in other countries — then we have to do some of the dirty World Cop work that everybody else wants to avoid yet have done (and secretly they want to free ride, while even more secretly they hate the fact that they’re free riders)”. (No wonder nobody famous says that…)
Fight for freedom in Iraq; fight until we win. They can’t beat us … but we can decide to lose.
Oh, was this about Andrew? There’s too much about him, what about MY ideas??? (Yet Another Boring Libertarian Wonk…)
Post some more pictures of your baby, maybe with your wife, maybe with you!
Just curious RW. since no pre-conditions or promises were concerning the donations, what do you suggest “should” have been done with it?
Uh, yeah, there were preconditions. It was supposed to pay for bandwidth.
I’m a capitalist and I’m all for anyone making money (of course). But, if Stephen will recall – whichever version of SteveStevenStephen is reading – Sully hinted in creating the fundraiser so that it was necessary in order to keep the blog going.
“
I just headed over to Sully’s site for the fist time in over a year to search his archives for a particular post(clanging around my memory banks) relating to the topic of his donations and their use.
The first thing I laid my eyes on is the following:
“I’ll be on the Bill Maher show tonight on HBO. I think I’m on with Martina Navratilova and Wesley Clark, which means I’ll be the least butch one on the panel.”
After that one, I’m really am not interested in soiling myself further by spending any more time over there so I will gladly concede your well supported point. Furthmore, I am NOT inclined to disagree with the analysis of Tim Blair. Supermans cape and all that.
Now please excuse me but I think I’ll go wash my hands.
Regards,
Hey Steve, at least Sully still reads your blog. That has to count for something.
TO: Stephen Green, et al.
RE: Please Excuse Me….
….for repeating myself…here and elsewhere….
….but Andrew Sullivan seems to me to be suffering from the advanced stages of HIV infection, i.e., active AIDS.
Dementia is one of the indicators.
Regards,
Chuck
P.S. And…judging by some of the other comments here….
….I think my understanding is ‘accurate’.
Chuck I think you’re out of line on that one. Nothing is wrong with his faculties. His reasoning perhaps.
Besides last I heard he had his HIV so under control that it wasn’t detectable. Dementia generally doesn’t come from HIV it manifests itself from full blown AIDS.
Has his condition gotten worse recently?
“Nothing is wrong with his faculties. His reasoning perhaps.”
What? And his reasoning, his thinking has nothing to do with his faculties?
That’s nuts.
The guy makes no sense. He contradicts himself over and over. So much so, it is obvious that he is completely oblivious to it.
Here are just two examples, from many and these are from todays posts.
“It is no surprise to me that the GOP establishment – now one of the most powerful forces against individual freedom in this country” and ” You’re not hallucinating. I doubt if George W. Bush himself ever dreamed of spending so much of other people’s money:”
And who is Andrew promoting for President, Barack Obama.
Barack who wants to abolish private gun ownership, nationalize health care, great increase federal involvement in elementary school education and bunch of other bigh socialist programs that will both decrease freedom and cost trillions.
His post today on the Beauchamp case is another expamle of his delusions.
You don’t need to be a doctor to tell that someone is slowly but surely going insane. And there it is, in black and white in his own handwriting.
It is not out of line to call a spade a spade when all the evidence points to it being a spade.
P.S.
AIDS is a young disease. We don’t know everything about it, especially the long term effects of it. Consequently we don’t know the long term effects of the drugs used to treat it either.
Sullivan thankfully has his HIV under control. While I am not sure there will ever be a “cure”, HIV will probably end up like diabetes — sufferers will have to take drugs and watch it closely for the rest of their life, and they will die at an old age of something else.
I think what has happened to Sullivan is that on September 12 he went compeletly overboard. He then got really annoyed about Bush and gay marriage that when Iraq started to go bad, he went overboard the other way.
I think what has happened to Sullivan is that on September 12 he went compeletly overboard. He then got really annoyed about Bush and gay marriage that when Iraq started to go bad, he went overboard the other way.
I think we all know what type of person elicits that sort of narcissistic argumentative schizophrenia, it’s just politically incorrect to say so in public (especially in the case of an openly gay male). But, I have nothing but abhorrence towards PCness, so I’ll say it (and it’s the real thing that so many mean when they say “excitable”): a high-maintenance chick.
NTTAWWT.
Come on, we have ALL been chuckling about it for a long time, it’s just that no one said it….don’t want to seem mean & hurt someone’s feelings. Feh, if it’ll make Andrew feel better, change it to “high-maintenance chick-ianist”.
Certainly don’t want to damage delicate sensibilities.
Anthony, Sullivan started going overboard in early 2003. That is almost five full years and he is getting worse, unbelievable worse.
This is not some emotional bender, it is something biologically or psychological wrong with him. The evidence is overwhelming.
First of all thanks for putting me in the position of having to actually spend time over at the dish to see if I’ve missed something in the last year. There’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back.
Sooo…. What you’re suggesting is that when 2 people look at the same set of facts and come to vastly different and/or inconsistent conclusions that one of them must have AIDS related Dementia. If that’s grounds for calling someone crazy then my name must be RP McMurphy.
The guy’s a narcissist who lives in his own echo chamber. That could describe a LOT of bloggers I’ve read. Are they all crazy too. Gay marriage has always been a pet issue for him. So what. Now he’s trying to make up with his peer group (for the sin of supporting GWB) by going overboard the other way. At least (from my short visit) the Catholic church snoozefest seems to have been taken off his radar.
So now he’s become a 2 issue blogger with an army of like minded readers. Big whoop. It hardly makes him deranged. Mind numbingly boring? You Bet! But legitimately insane? Hardly.
Oh and since we are in total disagreement. One of us must therefore be crazy!! So just for the record, I’d rather have bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy!!
TO: Steve Ducharme
RE: Hardly
“Chuck I think you’re out of line on that one. Nothing is wrong with his faculties. His reasoning perhaps.” — Steve Ducharme
It’s a known fact that he is HIV infected.
How is that ‘out of line’?
It is a known fact that deterioration of mental skills is a symptom of AIDS.
How is that ‘out of line’?
It is a known fact that dementia is detrimental to reasoning skills.
How is THAT ‘out of line’?
Get off your Politically-Correct Horse and smell what it’s been dumping.
“Besides last I heard he had his HIV so under control that it wasn’t detectable. Dementia generally doesn’t come from HIV it manifests itself from full blown AIDS.” — Steve Ducharme
You may have better information than I do, as I don’t pay much attention to the fellow anymore.
“Has his condition gotten worse recently?” — Steve Ducharme
Posted by Steve Ducharme
My Father died of AIDS in ’79, before any of us knew it was out and about.
He was perfectly cogent in August of ’79 when we met for my Sister’s marriage.
Two months later he was ‘gone’. His mind went south and he died in Walter Reed in November, of complications with a very mild form of pneumonia.
We didn’t figure it out until ’84, when I had the chief of Pathology there reopen the case. He took one look at the autopsy and said, “Yes. It looks like it was AIDS.”
Regards,
Chuck
P.S. We figure he contracted it in ’77 when he had massive hip surgery in Florida, where he had retired, and required large amounts of the rarest of all blood-types. We suspect he got blood from a druggie trying to maintain his habit.
TO: Anthony
RE: Going South
“I think what has happened to Sullivan is that on September 12 he went compeletly overboard.” — Anthony
Actually, Sullivan was pretty much behind Bush in the War on Terror. Up until Bush came out against homosexual marriage. Then he let his sex organ over-ride his rational self-interest and he’s been deteriorating ever since.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. By rational self-interest, I mean that if the Islamofascists had their way, he’d be compostable materials.
Go ask Ahmy…..
I’m gonna cry.
Why is that Cancel button down there!!!!
Put it someplace else!
It’s like stupid POS machines at the store that have the cancel button where other machines have the enter button.
My comment was brilliant! And even if it wasn’t, it was a lot of work. Bah!
TO: Synova
RE: Sympathy?
“I’m gonna cry.” — Synova
I can sympathize with you.
“Why is that Cancel button down there!!!!
Put it someplace else!” — Synova
Actually….
….it shouldn’t be there in the first place. If the user doesn’t care to post a comment, he simple disconnects from the web-site.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[So large a comment.
It must have been important.
But it is no more. -- Haiku Error Messages]
Chuck RE: Hardly
>>”It’s a known fact that he is HIV infected.
How is that ‘out of line’?”
Pointing out the obvious isn’t out of line at all. I wasn’t suggesting it was.
>>”It is a known fact that deterioration of mental skills is a symptom of AIDS.
How is that ‘out of line’?”
“It is a known fact that dementia is detrimental to reasoning skills.
How is THAT ‘out of line’?
Get off your Politically-Correct Horse and smell what it’s been dumping.”
Well, when you got off your horse you apparently stepped in something that smells as bad as your argument.
You’re being selectively fast and loose with the facts to try and slander Sullivan with a mental illness tag. And YES I think that is WAY out of line. Dementia is a symptom of the LAST STAGES of FULL BLOWN Aids. It’s not present when the disease is under control or when you’re merely HIV positive.
Sullivan my well be the healthiest HIV positive person I can think of. He’s on record as being in significant remission with a great T-cell count. This is NOT a person in late stages of AIDS related dementia and to casually throw around the charge just to be colorful in a blog comment is sophomoric.
And what the hell does being PC have to do with it. Look, I can’t stand the guy and being put in a position to defend him is as much fun as going to the dentist. But assassinating his character or mental health status without very solid evidence is just plain wrong.
Oh and politically correct is not a phrase anyone who knows me would ever use. If I thought the guy was nuts I’d say so. But I’d be reeeeeealy freaking sure about it first.
Chuck:
That is what I meant by saying he went overboard on September 12. The guy was posting Auden poems and stating that it was war, not terrorism.
The prolem with Sullivan is that he tends to go head over heels with political leaders, so when they turn out to be human, they break his heart. Right now, Sullivan is crazy over Obama. At some point, Obama will do something to break his heart (Obama’s inroads among religious conservatives is already starting to annoy Sullivan). At that point, Sullivan will be just as angry with Obama as he is with Bush.
I know it is unfair, but Suillivan turned against Bush on gay marriage. I say unfair because on torture and the incompetency in running the Iraq war, Sullivan is right. But you get the feeling that if Bush came out for gay marriage, all would be forgiven. Right now, Sullivan saves most of his invictive for Cheney. Yet, a few years ago when Cheney was making statements defending his daughter and the right of gays to be free from fear, Sullivan was quoting Cheney with approval.
Responding to Sully – Short version: 9-11 didn’t change anything for anyone who was paying attention, nor did it require any giving up of our liberties. The global nature of our lives and our children’s lives *is*. None of that can be undone or should be undone. The reality of that world existed equally on 9-10 as on 9-12.
The stupid domestic measures (with the exception of things like better security at airports or other places where security previously was in place) were useless measures to reassure frightened people that “something is being done.” Because when it comes to politics “doing something” is far more important than “doing something that works.”
The complaints about Bush’s lawlessness and abuses of the constitution are essentially opportunistic. Not that complaints shouldn’t be made but none or nearly none of it is new. They generally don’t represent greater loss of liberty. Those programs existed under Clinton and no one cared. As a stick to beat Bush people (ie. Democrats) suddenly care about liberty. Yet none of them care about the IRS or the invasions of privacy undertaken daily “for the children” or for pet social projects.
War is the health of the state!
Confederate States of America, Nazi Germany, Baathist Iraq…
War is the health of the state!
Vichy France, Carthage, Imperial Japan…
War is the health of the state!
South Vietnam, Kingdom of Judaea…
War is the health of the state!
Rinse. Repeat. Makes you feel all better inside, you have it all figured out now. Shine up your Libertarian Badge. War is the health of the state!
“Leave him alone. It’s not nice to torment the mentally ill.”
LEAVE SULLY ALONE!!!!
*sobbing*
HE’S A HUMAN BEING!!!!
Haha, that whole ‘I need money to pay for bandwidth’ is probably still the sleaziest thing in the short history of the blogosphere. If I was one of those suckered into giving him money that would bother me a lot.
Hey Truther.
Really deep Bourne quote there but it’s really a little too complicated for a bumper sticker.
Bourne also wrote “War is a function…of States,” … “and could not occur except in such a system.”
So are you for disolving the “Government”, the “State” (and by extension, patriotism)? If so I’m curious as to which “system” you feel should prevail? Or are you also an anarchist?
Just wondering.
Actually my point was that war is unhealthy for at least one state, hence the stupidity of bumper sticker mantras. Sorry my irony wasn’t thick enough, I’ll try to lay on more sarcasm next time.
War is a function of States is… a limited statement.
Non-State war is probably the future of it. It is no longer necessary to have the scope of industrial and economic resources which are available only to States to wage a war.
How about this one, “If there were no Military there would be no War.” It’s my version of “When you have a hammer all problems look like nails,” taken to the obvious “logical” conclusion, “If there were no hammer there would be no nails.”
I’ve heard enough people suggest that war can only be waged between nations that I expect my logic to be convincing to a disheartening number of people.
To Truther.
Reading it again I see your point. Sorry about that. My sarcasm detector really does need a good tune-up.
To Synova.
I’m certainly convinced. 9-11 was proof enough for me. But plenty of people will continue to disagree with your logic. There are still elements (even in government) that think of 9-11 as a law enforcement issue rather than an attack in an on-going war by a non-nation state.
Regards,