Category Archives: Neoconservatism

UPDATED: Levin Claims Liberty’s Language (Levin/Mainstream Media & Object Permanence)

It’s not saying much, but Mark Levin is better than most radio talkers in that he crafts thoughtful commentary daily, rather than resort to taking calls, or to frivolous banter with bimbo producers. It’s, however, truly bizarre for “The Great One,” as Sean Hannity has dubbed Levin, to claim to have originated the term “statism,” coined by, I believe, Ludwig von Mises. Via Ludwig von Mises Institute:

Statism is a political ideology where the central state, rather than the people, are the ultimate source of authority and power.[1] Statism tends towards increased central planning in the economic sphere and a curtailing of civil liberties, which may be deemed necessary by those in power to achieve social or militaristic goals. The term statism is derived from the French word etatism, a term which was preferred by Ludwig von Mises as he believed it expressed the fact that the ideology did not originally emerge in Anglo-Saxon countries but rather was later adopted by them.

It would be comical were it not true, but, in similar vain, Levin could be heard the other day, laying claim to popularizing the use of the term “civil society.”

Plain dumb.

Here is just one use of liberty’s language, in 2003: “… paleolibertarians care first about the effects of the state on civil society.”

Another: “To liberals, the U.N. is the embodiment of civil society.” Here.

Google “civil society” at the ilanamercer.com Articles Archive, and the search will spit up over two pages.

UPDATE (9/26):: Levin/Mainstream Media & Object Permanence.

Most good libertarians use “civil society” and “statism” without second thought. Perhaps Levin has figured that good libertarians are marginalized enough to ignore … Mainstream media generally believe that unless they personally have arrived at certain eternal truths—these truths and their champions do not exist. In psychology we’d say that they lack object permanence, a facility a baby acquires in his first year. What is out of sight doesn’t exist.

Back Into The SAME Shiite-Sunni Cesspool

Iran, Iraq, Neoconservatism, War

On “Fighting in Iraq Until Hell Freezes Over,” courtesy of Peter Van Buren @ The Unz Review:

… The staggering costs of [Iraq] — $25 billion to train the Iraqi Army, $60 billion for the reconstruction-that-wasn’t, $2 trillion for the overall war, almost 4,500 Americans dead and more than 32,000 wounded, and an Iraqi death toll of more than 190,000 (though some estimates go as high as a million) — can now be measured against the results. The nine-year attempt to create an American client state in Iraq failed, tragically and completely. The proof of that is on today’s front pages.

According to the crudest possible calculation, … America’s war of terror resulted in the dissolution of a Middle Eastern post-Cold War stasis that, curiously enough, had been held together by Iraq’s previous autocratic ruler Saddam Hussein. We released a hornet’s nest of Islamic fervor, sectarianism, fundamentalism, and pan-nationalism. Islamic terror groups grew stronger and more diffuse by the year. That horrible lightning over the Middle East that’s left American foreign policy in such an ugly glare will last into our grandchildren’s days. There should have been so many futures. Now, there will be so few as the dead accumulate in the ruins of our hubris. That is all that we won.

… And then came the Islamic State (IS) and the new “caliphate,” the child born of a neglectful occupation and an autocratic Shia government out to put the Sunnis in their place once and for all. And suddenly we were heading back into Iraq. …

… The truth on the ground these days is tragically familiar: an Iraq even more divided into feuding state-lets; a Baghdad government kleptocracy about to be reinvigorated by free-flowing American money; and a new Shia prime minister being issued the same 2003-2011 to-do list by Washington: mollify the Sunnis, unify Iraq, and make it snappy. The State Department still stays hidden behind the walls of that billion-dollar embassy. More money will be spent to train the collapsed Iraqi military. Iran remains the foreign power with the most influence over events.

One odd difference should be noted, however: in the last Iraq war, the Iranians sponsored and directed attacks by Shia militias against American occupation forces (and me); now, its special operatives and combat advisors fight side-by-side with those same Shia militias under the cover of American air power. You want real boots on the ground? Iranian forces are already there. It’s certainly an example of how politics makes strange bedfellows, but also of what happens when you assemble your “strategy” on the run.

Obama hardly can be blamed for all of this, but he’s done his part to make it worse — and worse it will surely get as his administration once again assumes ownership of the Sunni-Shia fight. The “new” unity plan that will fail follows the pattern of the one that did fail in 2007: use American military force to create a political space for “reconciliation” between once-burned, twice-shy Sunnis and a compromise Shia government that American money tries to nudge into an agreement against Iran’s wishes. …

Here we go again.

UPDATED: D’Souza’s Epic ‘America’ Error (Readers Can’t Reason)

America, Government, History, Neoconservatism, Pseudo-history, Pseudo-intellectualism, Reason, Uncategorized

“D’Souza’s Epic ‘America’ Error” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

There are certainly good things about Dinesh D’Souza’s film “America: Imagine a World Without Her,” as sharp-eyed critics like Jack Kerwick have observed. But those don’t matter much for this reason: The central question asked and answered by the film maker is premised on an epic error of logic. …

… D’Souza’s theories about “America,” good or bad, can be dismissed out of hand because of rotten reasoning. The reader will recognize the central error of logic in the following excerpts from interviews conducted by D’Souza’s biggest booster, Fox News host Megyn Kelly.

In “Bill Ayers, Dinesh D’Souza debate [on]American values,” both Kelly and D’Souza “challenge” the “Weather Underground” terrorist-cum-educator Ayers for his part in the “blame America first” crowd; for holding that “American history is a series of crimes visited upon different [peoples],” for his contention that, in their words, “America is bad,” “America is a force for evil.”

Noodles neoconservative D’Souza: “America is benign in the way it exercises its power.” “America has made mistakes. But there is a difference between making a mistake and doing something inherently wicked.”

Is the reader getting the gist of the D’Souza doozie?

The duo’s almost-identical exchange with Ward Churchill, former chairman of the ethnic studies program at the University of Colorado, should instantiate D’Souza’s cock-up, amplified by megaphone Megyn Kelly:

“Is there anything good about America?” the anchor asks the author of the screed “Some People Push Back.” Kelly continues to conflate the “we” pronoun with the U.S.: “The United States of America; have we done any good?” D’Souza, for his part, doubles down with the example of immigrants to the U.S.: “They’re coming here, voting with their feet, leaving everything that matters behind. Are they coming to an evil empire?”

My reply to Dinesh should give the game away …

… Read the complete column. “D’Souza’s Epic ‘America’ Error” is now on WND.

UPDATE: No wonder people quit writing for the public. What’s the point? One is writing for individuals who are incapable of comprehending anything beyond an eighth-grade tract. The article is at pains to explain the D’Souza error of 1) equating “America” with the government. 2) Referring to those who oppose government actions as anti-American. For if America does not equal the government, then to be anti-government is not necessarily to be anti-American.

What is it about this simple logic that these people fail to grasp?

When D’Souza says “America,” he means the government. Don’t these simpletons understand that the government is not the same as the people? Apparently not. So you get called a leftist for liking logic. You get bombarded with letters from people who clearly have very basic comprehension levels. To wit:

—–Original Message—–
From: rcarrows15@yahoo.com [mailto:rcarrows15@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2014 8:21 PM
To: imercer@wnd.com
Cc: rcarrows4@mi.rr.com
Subject: America

I disagree with your article.

The US saved the world not once, but twice. On balance, America is a good nation. Read history. Do you really believe America is or was (under a few leaders) as bad as tyrant nations?

By the way, when people come to the US, they accept government handouts and kick the citizens in the teeth. Most have no respect for our flag, language, culture, etc.

Liberals will always blame America. But, without America, the world would have been purged of all races, save one, in the 1940’s.

I think you owe the readers an apology. Also, more than 75% of present Americans trace their lineage to other nations and were not even here during the time of which you speak.

RCA

From: Terry Flick [mailto:leenterry@sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2014 7:04 PM
To: imercer@wnd.com
Subject: Who were the true Americans

Probably the people that were here when the oriental tribes now known as the american indian came across the land bridge to America. Those oriental tribes/american indians did away with the then natives to take control of this land. Estimates that before the europeans ever came to America so we will say 1500 there were somewhere in the vicinity of 750,000 oriental/american indians alive in north america. One ethnic group invading and taking over the land from another group has been going on throughout recorded history. It’s time the american indian quit their wining or at least those liberals that love to continue that mantra.

He Doesn’t Have a Strategy. OMG!

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Middle East, Neoconservatism, War

Hussein doesn’t have a strategy to police the world. Good. I have one for him: First do no harm. The chicken hawks at Fox News, however, are hot for war. The headlines there practically scream:

Obama on Syria: ‘We don’t have a strategy yet’
Krauthammer: Obama’s strategy ‘is to do absolutely nothing’

What precisely did Obama say that has chicken hawk Chucky so cross with the president: He “told reporters Thursday that ‘we don’t have a strategy yet’ for confronting ISIS on a regional level.”

Megyn Kelly, whose show has degenerated into a rah-rah, flag-waving, hour-long session, bemoaning outrages over diminished US world hegemony, shook her head in dismay at Mike Huckabee’s excellent suggestion: Let the Arab League deal with ISIS.

Yeah, the neighborhood, Israel included, doesn’t seem particularly concerned about ISIS. Or perhaps the US has enabled inertia and apathy with its interventions.

The illogic I don’t get is this: How can media members worry about ISIS in the Levant, when America’s southern border is utterly open? Can they be that stupid? Why not challenge the president about the real danger of failing to defend the homeland’s borders?