Re: "smoked salmon socialists"

Jonathan Ball wrote:


<snip>

> You need to be careful.  Not everyone who criticizes what a country is 
> *doing* is being unpatriotic.

How true....


> However, extreme leftists like the loony 
> "aras" - none worse than 'Rat' - hate everything their country *is*. 

No, jonnie.  Most of the strong liberal and left Americans I've
read and talked with don't hate what their country is -- or at
least not what their country could be.  Most of us grew up as
patriots -- I know I did -- fed on the idea that America was indeed
supposed to stand for or advance freedom, respect for others, and
so on.  The problem is when we began learning about all the ways
our government and groups of Americans have betrayed, and still
betray, those ideals.  It is the thwarted affection of someone who
sees someone he once respected turn into a hypocritical and greedy
bully.

<snip>

> > During all the protests against the war, if I talked to an anti-war
> > individual, they'd say "Oh, I'm not in favor of Saddam, not any more than
> > you are!" However, they only got angry with me if I said "Well you 
> > certainly
> > don't seem to want to do anything about him."

And what right do Americans have to engage in preemptive military
force against a sovereign foreign country which is not providing
a direct threat?  If a country can come in and kill civilians and
depose a government just because they don't approve
of that government, why should we attack Saddam for invading in
the First Gulf war -- or, for that matter, any of the Communist
or Nazi takeovers?  Aggressive attack and "regime change" don't
become right just because it's Americans who do it.  It's highly
suspicious, too, that we do it to a country with lots of oil, but
ignore a much more genuine threat, like North Korea, because Korea
doesn't have anything the U.S. wants.

Try asking yourself -- how would we feel if Iraq decided they
didn't like our government and engaged in violent attack to try
to depose our government?  Oh -- that was what the Al-Qaida did
(in much less violent form than our invasion of Iraq) on 9/11.
Doesn't seem we accepted the rationale when someone used it on
us.

Rat