Category Archives: Democracy

Capitulating On Canada (But Only a Bit)

Canada, Democracy, Drug War, Free Speech, Individual Rights

In response to readers’ responses to “Canada: Crap County“:

To be fair, in many aspects, Canada is less regulated than the US. Their SEC, for example, has nothing on our soviet-style apparatus. They do not conduct the kind of war on drugs we prosecute. Writers here are right: subjugation exists on a continuum and we are sliding toward enslavement. Still, as far as regular folks go—people like us who are not likely to come to the SEC’s attention, and care more about keeping our property and guns than toking it up—the US is far and away the better place.
When you go through customs, Canadians will want to tax you; Americans to ensure you aren’t a terrorist. In the US, although heavily circumscribed, the right to self-defense still exists. In Canada one can’t even purchase mace—it’s illegal, as is self defense—practically. As an outspoken writer, I’m safe in the US. So far, at least. In Canada, there’s a “human rights commission.” As in Europe, it prosecutes and can bankrupt those it deems guilty of “hate” speech. I’ll be staying in the US.

Democracy à la Dubya

America, Bush, Democracy, Iraq, Middle East

For someone who is willing to kill for the false idol of democracy, Dubya sure flouts the will of the people.

Polls indicate most Americans want to see troops withdrawn from Iraq; Bush refuses to listen or obey his bosses.

A majority of Americans wants the bleeding on the Southwestern border stopped and immigration levels vastly reduced; Bush doesn’t and won’t hear of abiding by the people’s wishes.

In Politics, Rubbish Rises to the Top

Bush, Democracy, Iraq, Israel, Middle East, Politics

When Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, piously pontificates that the actions of the Israeli government are for the benefit of the Lebanese people (of which, in his atomistic mind, Hezbollah is not a part), and aimed at “freeing them of the cancer of Hezbollah,” I feel bilious.

It’s the same sickness rising one gets when Genghis Bush promotes his actions in Iraq as of benefit to the Iraqi people, a million of whom are now impoverished, displaced, aid-dependent refugees in their own country.

If these pols are such populists and democrats, why did they not let the beneficiaries of their humanitarian humbugs vote to accept or reject their ‘good deeds’? Why not ask the people you are supposedly helping if they want your liberating bombs? Or is this ‘charity’ compulsory?

I’d disrespect Gillerman less if he cut the treacle, and said, “We hate what we’ve become, but we have no option but to kill more innocents than guilty?

Israel in Lebanon is coming across in a worse light than is America in Iraq, even though the reverse is true. The first incursion, as bad as it is, was a response to provocation; the last, nothing of the sort. Iraqis had nothing to do with 9/11 and Saddam and Osama never sat in a tree kissing.

But so stupid are the Israelis that they keep commandeering the American rhetoric with respect to Iraq to justify their actions. I guess their thinking goes something along the lines of, “Iraq: hmm, that went well, so let’s take that ‘experience’ and its language and put it to work for us Lebanon.”

War-Withdrawal Syndrome (WWS)

Democracy, Iraq, Neoconservatism, War

Neoconservatives are suffering from War-Withdrawal Syndrome (I just made that up; it’s not yet in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). We haven’t launched one in quite a while and they’re growing restless watching Israel steal their thunder. “Where is our cowboy president,” they’ve been groaning lately.

The main complaint assorted Beltway types make is that the President hasn’t been sticking his nose as much into affairs not his or ours. Come to think of it, that’s not entirely true. The other day I was watching news while on the awful elliptical at the gym (were it not necessary to cross train to keep strong for outdoor running, you’d never catch me in the place), when I almost fell off laughing.

With Putin at his side, Bush launched into a lecture—albeit a watered-down one—about democracy. Then he stepped into the doggie doo-doo of Democracies: Iraq. To illustrate his “point,” he mentioned the wonders of that “democracy” (minus the 150 people plus dead daily). Putin shot back as quick as a whip: “I would not wish for a democracy such as Iraq’s.”

In any case, WWS is easily cured. For neocons expressing a yen for war and framing any lack of aggression as appeasement, I recommend special camps. Ship—em over to Iraq, for a couple of months (as needed) in the war zone.