I've often thought people were kidding, only to find out later that they were sincerely paranoid. That's why I don't often give the benefit of the doubt anymore. Nothing personal, I assure you.

Come to think of it, James Carville looks like a human-alien hybrid. And Michael Moore looks like an alien planet. With stubbly vegetation, and large deposits of hydrogenated fats.

I don't recall that the hard Left ever cared much for either as such.

As for the rest, it's hardly distinctive. You may as well argue that Dubya is a commie because he has two eyes and one nose, just like Stalin. There's not an interest group in the world that doesn't want to run the whole shebang.

I'm the last person to unconditionally trust the government. I trust the government because - and when - I see no better alternative. But that trust is never unconditional

But I don't trust the mob, either. The problem with a mob is that the mob is only as good and smart as the worst of its constituent members. People don't think for themselves when they're in a mob. That's how they become part of the mob in the first place. [link|http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/03/Initiationceremonies.shtml|The mob is stupid]. the mob is not the people. The people are (note the plural) a collection of individuals. A mob is the death of individuality.

Like any sensible person, I believe in checks and balances. Neither the government nor the mob should be in complete control. Not big business, either, or any other special interest. Liberty under law. The way it works is, you have a system of laws that tend to enforce themselves automatically, by the action of human nature. Everyone's keeping an eye on everyone else, looking out for himself, plus a few decent folk looking out for the law as such. It doesn't hurt to have individuals with altrustic motives in such an arrangement, but the arrangement can cope with the unpleasant fact that most humans are selfish and shortsighted. It's robust that way.

In the American system, every legitimate interest has a share of power and the means to protect it. The Constitution channels all this self-protecting activity into a big mutual feedback system, that prevents any one interest from getting out of control. The balance of power will fluctuate, and that's healthy. It stays within parameters. Parameters broad enough to guard against societal stagnation. You get the power you earn, but only up to a point. No one can afford to be complacent, and no one can hope to grab it all.

That's how a democratic republic works. We don't just put high-minded but meaningless language in the "law" and leave it at that, like the Soviet Union did. We have a living, active, self-regulating system. It's a living document, but not in the squishy-left sense. It's living because it's alive. It maintains equilibrium. (Granted, the constituent special interest groups may not perceive the equilibrium as such. It's a big picture thing.) It responds to [link|http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/chronology.attack/|stimuli]. And when healthy, it seeks to reproduce. More on that below.

This all makes it hard to get away with bad stuff. It's [link|http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/lj36.html|not quite bulletproof], but it works better than anything anyone else has come up with. We may have [link|http://www.zpub.com/un/un-jr.html|crap like this], but at least we don't have [link|http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6539723%5E25777,00.html|crap like this].

"The worst system of government except for all the others" a great man once said. I say let's spread our style of democratic republic throughout the globe, so everyone can enjoy a better grade of crap.

Oh, and how often do democracies go to war against each other? Not often, as far as I can tell. Why, we haven't even nuked France, and they sure hell have been asking for it for years now. Now that's self restraint. Seems to me that if anyone sincerely wants world peace, he should drop the stupid WWP signs with the stupid slogans and start supporting the spread of democracy, by the forceful removal of tyrants.

[Let me qualify this. It's virtually unheard of for democracies to have shooting wars with each other. But, as France has demonstrated, they may resort to war by other means, turning Clausewitz on his head. Still, it's an improvement. When no Saddams are left, this sort of thing will be rendered relatively harmless.]

Saddam started wars all over the place. To support Saddam is to support endless bloody wars. That's what he was about. And he's just an example. There are still plenty left like him. Get rid of as many of them as we can, and the world will be a safer place.

Don't you think you're perhaps distorting the picture a wee bit?

What's Babylonian province got to do with anything? And what of the Kurds and swamp Arabs? They don't count?

Hey, I was a peacenik once, a very long time ago. And even now, I advocate world peace - by the means of universal republican democracy, with American hegemony as a means toward that. So does that make me a smelly sandal-wearing hippie? Would I like to buy the world a Coke? Take the treacle and the saccharine out of humanist idealism, add some common sense, and I'm what you get.

First, try beathing into a paper bag. And then go through your list of grievances against the current administration, one by one. Cross off every one where the evidence is... shall we say... open to interpretation. Then cross off every one where previous adminstrations of the other party have attempted the same, or worse. Let me know if there's anything left.

And then let me know if anyone ever got away with any items on your list. Only Lincoln and FDR even came close to turning our Constitution into meaningless pap. They both had emergencies to deal with. The emergencies ended, and the Constitution survived.

There is absolutely nothing novel about anything you're hyperventilating over. It happens all the time. Constantly. Always has, always will, under either party. And our democracy survives. The pendulum of power swings, but it never breaks loose from the fulcrum. The system works. It defends itself.

Get a grip, man. You're sounding like a PKD novel. Ferris Fremont is a Red! ([link|http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/dialogue/hayward.html|And he was, sort of. But in the end it didn't much matter.])