The constitution says “provide for the common defence,”. It is one of the things a limited government is solely responsible for. I believe we’ve gone well beyond “common defense”.
No. It wasn’t.
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Your first paragraph is the reason why the Obama support of the Arab Spring was a ridiculous venture. Given the chance to vote, who would you think the average people of the Middle East would vote for? Some moderate person who wants peace and singing kumbaya with the West and Christians, or the most radical war mongering hateful bastard they can find? History would show us when a dictator in the Middle East is toppled, they are replaced by something even worse, as evidenced in Egypt, Iraq, (ISIS, The Shia Militia ) Iran, ect.
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If you read what was written during the War for Independence there are many references to the new nation being the new Jerusalem and Israel. There was a Protestant millenarianism influenced view of the United States. Then later you have Lincoln calling America the last, best hope of earth.
First of all, it’s not that simple - in Egypt there’s more than 10 million Coptic Christians making around 10 % of the population, so it’s not a clear Islam vs. Christianity question.
Look, it’s simply a matter of survival in a sectarian society - you vote for your guy, because otherwise you lose, and losing means a lot of things, not one them good. The worst case scenario is you, your loved ones, extended family, friends and neighbors are massacred, the least worst scenario is you become a marginalized group in a society with extremely limited economic and social options, slowly dying off and subject to random harassment and outbursts of murderous violence.
Let’s draw a dystopian racial analogy - let’s assume you’re a white guy and there’s an election and your options are:
David Duke
Nat Turner
Saddam Hussein
Who’d you vote for? And no, “none of the above” is not an option. Probably, you’d vote for David Duke. Sure, you’re aware he’s a despicable human being with abhorrent views…but he’s…you know…white as you and chances are he’s not going to go door-to-door hacking to death white people just because they’re white. These are the choices facing people in countries along ethnic and religious fault lines.
And another thing - “the crazies”. They always win, because by definition the intolerant minority wins. For example, the Iranian revolution of 1979 that toppled the Shah wasn’t a nation-wide protest but a determined action of 5 000 people at most, and that’s a very generous estimate.
Same thing with Bolsheviks in Russia - a few thousand at most. But “the crazies” are ready to kill and that’s why after every revolution the worst of worst come out on top, sidelining or outright killing those first drivers of change.
It’s actually very disconcerting when you think how few determined individuals can take down a society.
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For most of US history it was very isolationist… even to the point of it being against our interest. Only in the mid to late 20th century did the USA become the world police/superpower.
We were late to both world wars for instance.
Our position of moral superiority, to the point that it is almost a religion (and Franklin wanted a “Publik Religion”), is at the root of our becoming the world’s police.
A strong military doesn’t necessarily equate to “big government” - it can be a component of big gov, but it’s not sufficient for government to be big. My $.02
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And if a govt is made up of many “little” components does it at some point become big government?
The real answer: depends…
I’m curious what’s the logical conclusion to your line of questioning. I was merely pointing out that a strong military doesn’t necessarily equate to a “big government” … then you decided to add another caveat. If you’re looking for a debate on what constitutes big government or what component are necessary and sufficient for such, I think you and I will have varying perspective on such…
I’m saying that the definition of big government varies. I don’t think either party, even though the Republicans always bring it up, know what big government is.
The US is a huge country so the government is going to be big. What is too big? Do we have something we can use for reference?
Not in theory. Has a strong military ever NOT resulted in “big government,” though?
Good points and I agree. I’d wager most people (probably not on this board - people here seem to be pretty aware of obscurities) don’t realize just how much GOV influences our choices.
What we would use for a reference is we can objectively examine what a small government benchmark might be? Maybe use the US Constitution or some other founding document or writings that influenced the founding as a proper level of government benchmark and go from there. I’d imagine, though, that discussion would get bogged down in language. As per the usual.
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Over time? probably not. But to @zecarlo’s point, what constitutes a big government or how can we arrive at a commonly accepted “definition” or understanding of what constitutes “big government”.
It is a pretty ambiguous term and I’m sure yours and my understanding of it would differ significantly from, say, Eyedentist’s or Thunderbolt
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I am aware of that, but the point isn’t for them to have a western democracy. The point is to clean house in Syria and then of course install somebody western friendly and then let them decide on their government, so long as it remains west friendly.
I did say it’s not a popular idea. An idea who’s time for consideration has long since passed. Requires the stomaching of corrective\ preemptive war. Time,treasure and blood. All for the best possible outcome which would be tentative it’s hold, but resolute in it’s affect.
With the ME I prefer the be feared than loved. They hate us anyway, but they respect power.
The question was, how to solve the Syria problem. In 2012, I believe that answer to have been full scale invasion, before the Russians and Iranians got involved, right after the country tore itself apart and Assad yet again used chemical weapons on his own people.
I have given all the proper predicates and admonitions before, I don’t care to list them again. I know its unpopular, I don’t pretend it would have been pretty, but providing we actually fight the war to win the war, including but not limited to actually holding on to captured territory. Then it would have ‘solved’ the problem with Syria. no Assad, no ISIS, no Al Nusra, no Al qaeda, etc.
Then we install a Kurd as president with Jewish and Kurdish parliament, put Kurds and Jews in charge of the military, build a nice war prison in Israel. And we take about 1,00,000 acres for a shiny new American Military base on the lovely banks of the Euphrates.
The outrage machine would have been rolling in full force, but the Syria problem would be solved as we know it.
Yes, but you didn’t answer my question - is the “somebody” Sunni or Alawite/Druze/Shia/Christian?
They couldn’t do that Iraq, even with the Shia-dominated goverment installed and financed by the US.
Which means the minority Alawites lose, Sunnis win and you’ve got a new hotbed of radical Islam because Saudi madrasses start operating as soon as US forces roll in.
For that you’d have to do some serious murdering, Ottoman or Russian style. During the previous Sunni challenge to Assad’s power in 1983, the butcher’s bill was around 25-30k sunnis, with around 5k anually for the next decade or so.
During the Russian “pacification” of Chechnya, which included very generous deals with radical islamists and a virtual handover of rule to former terrorists in exchange for flying the Russian flag, the Russians still killed around one third of the Chechen population.
So you’d have to top current casualties in a three-year war by around 10x.
Not gonna happen, because even Israel, and they knew what they’re doing, failed to create a viable Christian statelet in Lebanon in 1982.
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Really, out of 242 Congressional Republicans, all of them refused to work with obama? I distinctly remember a different tone. I am not the one with the skewed view here. There’s more than a couple of shouting idiots on CNN or MSNBC that made up that congress.
All of the above… Though I frown on the flexibility and reasonableness of the Sunnis, so I would pretty much take anybody else.
It’s more west friendly than it was under Saddam.
Are the Alawites ‘winning’ in any way shape or form now? The hot bed of radicalism depends on whether or not you abandoned the territory. As a wise Vietnam vet put it “War is a real estate game”.
Serious murdering happened anyway. And if people are going to to die, I prefer it to be mostly bad guys, I.E. terrorists, Assad regime… No shortage of murdering in Syria. It’s not impossible to believe that said invasion would have been less bloody than the alternative. Syria essentially did get invaded anyway, by Russia. Assad is merely their puppets now. And together, they have inflicted heavy civilian casualties. Some say half a million, maybe more, nobody knows to true numbers, but there are no “good” alternatives, only various degrees of bad ones. I was postulating an option that at least gave us the leverage in the end and perhaps even possibly have saved some lives. Difference between the U.S. and the Syrian- Russian coalition, is that they directly target civilians while our rules of engagement try to avoid civilian casualties. It doesn’t mean there wouldn’t have been any, but American would point a 30 CM cannon at a house with a little girl standing in the window and deliberately pulled the trigger. We’re nicer; compared to the Russians and Syrians for sure. I don’t think that is arguable…
I was clearly kidding in that last paragraph or so. If we put a Kurd at the head of Syria, Erdogan’s head would literally explode. I’d do it just to see the look on his face.
Hell, I would make the new Syrian flag look like Turkey’s, but replace the star in it with the Star of David. Now that would be funny…
“Hey guys, you remember when a 10% minority oppressed you for five decades? Well, we invaded your country, overthrew those guys… only to put another minority on top! Can I get an yay?”
Yes, because they’re not dead. Two years ago it was widely believed that they will be exterminated.
Yes, because you’re bribing them constantly with financial support and military hardware. They’re already listening to orders from Tehran, imagine what will happen when the aid stops…
Yes, and therefore US soldiers, as well as other soldiers from free societies, are singularly unsuitable for “pacification” approaches. As I stated, in order to “pacify” a country, you have to do some serious indiscriminate murdering.
Edit: This is how “pacification” unfolds - there is just over 1 million people in East Timor and 180k were killed.
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There is a difference between “bad guys” and terrorists. A fundamentalist might be a bad guy, by our standards, but is he a terrorist? And if we decide to kill any future terrorists then we might as well kill everyone and let God sort them out. And by everyone, I mean every Muslim everywhere.
You are when you somehow believe the heads of the Republican party within Congress were on record saying they’d vote against anything he proposed simply to make him a 1 term POTUS and somehow think there’s a chance the rest of the republicans were willing to play with Obama.
That and with the joy of hindsight, we see Obama had no chance of getting enough votes for his actions, simply because he was Obama.