No Absolutes

[Bruce Carriker]

"Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is. I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn."

- Governor George Bush, talking about President Clinton's plan for Kosovo, 6/5/99.



"It doesn't make any sense to have a timetable. You know, if you give a timetable, you're... you’re conceding too much to the enemy."

- President George Bush, on why people who insist on "exit strategies" and "timetables" are defeatists who are only helping the enemy.

[Barb Bouldrey]

Sounds to me like the old adage, "If you want advise on raising your children, ask someone who has none."

First comment was made before he was a president. Now he has walked in those shoes and seen a different side of the picture.

Barb

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

Which one do you think is wisest?

"Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is. I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn."

- Governor George Bush, talking about President Clinton's plan for Kosovo, 6/5/99.


"It doesn't make any sense to have a timetable. You know, if you give a timetable, you're... you’re conceding too much to the enemy."

- President George Bush, on why people who insist on "exit strategies" and "timetables" are defeatists who are only helping the enemy.

[Bruce Carriker]

I'd have preferred a clear objective and an exit strategy, up front.

[Stan Hall]

I hadn't heard the 1999 quote from GWB although I should be surprised. Thanks for sharing that.
I would agree that there should be an "exit" strategy, but in a war situation, the exit strategy should certainly include winning. We also must recognize that any strategy is subject to change. Depending on how the battles are going and what the enemy is doing, strategies must be modified and re-assessed sometimes on a daily basis. If you plan how you're going to carry on a war and the enemy does something that takes you by surprise, obviously you have to revamp your strategy.
I also think it would be foolish to publish your plans. One of the key elements in fighting a war is to take the enemy off guard. How would the Normandy invasion have gone if the Germans had known what we were going to do?
What would have been the outcome of WWII if FDR would have declared war in 1941 and stated that we would fight to the best of our ability until 1943 and then we'd pack up and go home?
Plans must change with the situation. In 1945 the US planned a massive invasion of Japan to follow the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But Japan surrendered so that invasion never took place.

Stan

[Bruce Carriker]

Stan, I believe it is from a 1999 interview with the Houston Chronicle. I was unalbe to absolutely verify that because I'm not going to pay to access their archives.

[Bruce Carriker]

"If you plan how you're going to carry on a war and the enemy does something that takes you by surprise, obviously you have to revamp your strategy.
I also think it would be foolish to publish your plans. One of the key elements in fighting a war is to take the enemy off guard. How would the Normandy invasion have gone if the Germans had known what we were going to do?
What would have been the outcome of WWII if FDR would have declared war in 1941 and stated that we would fight to the best of our ability until 1943 and then we'd pack up and go home?"

To whom are you addressing these questions, Stan? To me, in January of 2006? Or to Governor Bush, seven years ago?

The only thing that has changed in the last seven years is that it's now the Democrats browbeating a Republican president for his foreign affaris adventurism, rather than Republicans browbeating a Democratic president for his foreign affairs adventurism.

One side attacks the other for doing exactly the same things they did when the roles were reversed. Go back and grab some headlines from the Clinton years, put Bush's name in there and we've got the same headlines we see today (except this time they're R-rated for violence and language, instead of XXX rated). Go back fifteen years and grab the headlines about Dan Rostenkowski and Jim Wright, but insert Tom DeLay's name...same stuff.
Both parties are utterly, hopelessly corrupt, and totally unworthy of our trust.

Off the top of my head I can't name a dozen elected officials in Washington who I consider "public servants" in the ancient Greek sense of the word...or even in the 18th century American sense of the word.

[Stan Hall]

No Bruce, this was not addressed to you. It should have been recognized by Bush seven years ago. I was really just making a general statement of my position.
I agree completely that both sides are just playing politics attacking the other side for what they themselves did when the roles were reversed.
That's partly why I'm neither Republican or Democrat but Libertarian.
I also heartily agree with your final statement.

[Bruce Carriker]

The problem I have with the Libertarian position, Stan, is that it is decidedly humanistic and frankly, not very Christian. It derives its guiding principles from the Enlightenment and is firmly committed to the idea that the Supreme Being in each of our world's is ourself. At its core Libertarianism believes that humankind, left to our own devices, is basically good and can be trusted. That doesn't mesh with my understanding of our human nature, i.e., that absent God's transforming grace we are not basically good, but basically evil.

Without denying in any way that each of us is invited to have a personal relationship with God, both the Old Testament and New Testament views of that relationship with God are presented in the context of a community of faith. Having a personal relationship with God leads us to live and function IN COMMUNITY with others, not to relate to God as autonomous individuals, responsible to/for no one else in our world.

I have been a Republican. I am a Democrat. I have problems with both. But, ultimately, I believe both accept the premise that humans function in community, and the community acts together for the greater good. (They disagree on what that means, but they accept the basic premise.) Libertarians, as I understand their position, reject the premise.

[Brad Mercer]

As someone with Libertarian leanings myself, I think the fundamental objection is to coercion, rather than to community. Coercion for the greater good is seen as objectionable. Voluntary cooperative communities are seen as commendable, desirable and necessary, as I understand the philosophy.

Brad

The problem I have with the Libertarian position, Stan, is that it is decidedly humanistic and frankly, not very Christian. It derives its guiding principles from the Enlightenment and is firmly committed to the idea that the Supreme Being in each of our world's is ourself. At its core Libertarianism believes that humankind, left to our own devices, is basically good and can be trusted. That doesn't mesh with my understanding of our human nature, i.e., that absent God's transforming grace we are not basically good, but basically evil.

Without denying in any way that each of us is invited to have a personal relationship with God, both the Old Testament and New Testament views of that relationship with God are presented in the context of a community of faith. Having a personal relationship with God leads us to live and function IN COMMUNITY with others, not to relate to God as autonomous individuals, responsible to/for no one else in our world.

I have been a Republican. I am a Democrat. I have problems with both. But, ultimately, I believe both accept the premise that humans function in community, and the community acts together for the greater good. (They disagree on what that means, but they accept the basic premise.) Libertarians, as I understand their position, reject the premise.

[Stan Hall]

I have known Libertarians who were not Christians, some in fact who were anti-Christian. There are others who are devout Christians. Libertarian philosophy is not antithetical to Christianity. In general it views religion as a personal choice and personal choice is one of the key elements of that philosophy. As Brad said their main beef is against coercion. They also believe that the Constitution is the highest law of the land, not a political football to be distorted to advance the current faddish agenda.
I should add that I don't agree entirely with the Libertarian party either. I read about their 2004 convention and sadly, it was rife with the same political intrigue and backbiting as the two major parties. I guess a politician by any other name...
I do believe that limited Constitutional government, individual freedom along with personal responsibility is the best system.

Stan

[Bruce Carriker]

I think the fundamental objection is to coercion, rather than to community. Coercion for the greater good is seen as objectionable.
Brad

Brad, it is my opinion that the Libertarian view fails right here. ALL LAWS are coercive, to one degree or another. If coercion was not required to promote compliance, then laws themselves would not be necessary. "Coercion for the greater good" is precisely what government is about. It serves no other purpose. Libertarianism is anarchy, hiding behind a thin veil.

[Brad Mercer]

Brad, it is my opinion that the Libertarian view fails right here. ALL LAWS are coercive, to one degree or another. If coercion was not required to promote compliance, then laws themselves would not be necessary. "Coercion for the greater good" is precisely what government is about. It serves no other purpose. Libertarianism is anarchy, hiding behind a thin veil.

Yep, that's the critique that keeps them a tiny minority party. Of course, no third party ever takes full, veto-proof control of all three branches of government in a single election. They just take a few governor's chairs, a couple of senate seats and a couple dozen congressional seats. That's what the Progressive party did in the 1890's. Then the major party that can most readily make the leap embraces their most popular positions themselves and the minor party fades back into insignificance again.

I just think it would be interesting to see the Democrats and Republicans scrambling to get the Libertarian vote if they ever became popular enough to be a threat. Of course even that shows no signs of happening, so I'm not holding my breath.

Regardless of who wins elections, the scope of government control seems to just continually increase. Federal spending keeps going up and new cabinet-level agencies keep being created, whether I vote for Carter or Reagan, or Bush or Clinton. Things that used to be under local or state control continually move toward state or federal control. The 9th and 10th amendments, 1/5 of the Bill of Rights, have effectively ceased to exist.

We're certainly a long way from either anarchy on one hand or totalitarianism on the other, and I doubt if we'll really ever reach either extreme. But a withering away of the state from Libertarian impulses certainly doesn't look like the trend of American history, or of the history of any other government. If a state like the Soviet Union which starts with the pronounced goal of presiding over the withering away of the state winds up with permanent totalitarianism instead, it's not likely that we have a lot to be afraid of from a 10-20% libertarian vote in congressional or presidential elections.

Well, that's enough wild-eyed political rambling for me today. :rolleyes:

Brad

[Stan Hall]

Bruce, you're absolutely correct. All laws are coercive.

Libertarains recognize that while some people are ethical and moral, others clearly are not. So when the Founding Fathers acknowledged that we are granted by God the unalienable right to pursue our own path, government was established and laws created to protect us from those who would usurp our rights, both foreign and domestic. As you stated, government is force and the founders knew it so they tried to establish a federal government that would be limited to only essential functions.

For example the fedgov is authorized to create and run the military to protect us from foreign incursion. There are also certain administrative functions that make sense for the fed to run. Like money. There's nothing right or wrong about what kind of money we use, but carrying on an economy requires that we all use the same money. There's nothing inherently right or wrong about which side of the road we drive on, but it's essential that everyone follows the same rule.

So they wrote the Constitution to define how our government would be set up and organized and what authorities and responsibilities it would have.

{It's interesting to note that while many Americans think of the federal government as being the highest authority, when we look at the wording of the Constitution and Amendments, we see that federal authority was considered delageted to it by the states and the people. So they considered the highest authority to be the people.}

Following the Constitution, many thought it didn't go far enough in limiting the federal government, so the first 10 Amendments were created (the Bill of Rights) specifically to limit the power and authority of the government. As Brad mentioned, we have trashed most of these, the most important being the 10th Amendment. It essentially says that anything not authorized to it by the Constitution, is not a power or authority of the federal government but of the states and the people.

Which means that most government agencies and programs with which we are inundated today, are in violation of the Constitution. Including, for example, the Department of Education.

Libertarians believe that some amount of government is necessary albeit coercive. They just seek a return to Constitutional government and keep it limited as the founders intended.

Sorry about the length of this post.

Stan