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July 4, 2008 at 2:15 AM in reply to: McCain should win in landslide. Obama turning out to be a lightweight. #233024July 4, 2008 at 2:15 AM in reply to: McCain should win in landslide. Obama turning out to be a lightweight. #233035
afx114
ParticipantFor every Neville Chamberlain there is a George W. Bush.
I mean, if you only need one example to disprove a philosophy, George W slices through your precious neocon philosophy like a hot knife through butter.
I haven’t been schooled in the genre of logic since my high school IB “Theory of Knowledge” class, but this is some sort of fancy latin-named fallacy. Saying “all diplomacy will fail” is like saying “all Republicans are racists.” It might be fun to say, but it’s a fallacy.
P.S., as long as you’re allowed to turn ‘left’ into a bad word, we’re allowed to turn ‘neocon’ into one.
July 4, 2008 at 2:15 AM in reply to: McCain should win in landslide. Obama turning out to be a lightweight. #233075afx114
ParticipantFor every Neville Chamberlain there is a George W. Bush.
I mean, if you only need one example to disprove a philosophy, George W slices through your precious neocon philosophy like a hot knife through butter.
I haven’t been schooled in the genre of logic since my high school IB “Theory of Knowledge” class, but this is some sort of fancy latin-named fallacy. Saying “all diplomacy will fail” is like saying “all Republicans are racists.” It might be fun to say, but it’s a fallacy.
P.S., as long as you’re allowed to turn ‘left’ into a bad word, we’re allowed to turn ‘neocon’ into one.
July 4, 2008 at 2:15 AM in reply to: McCain should win in landslide. Obama turning out to be a lightweight. #233083afx114
ParticipantFor every Neville Chamberlain there is a George W. Bush.
I mean, if you only need one example to disprove a philosophy, George W slices through your precious neocon philosophy like a hot knife through butter.
I haven’t been schooled in the genre of logic since my high school IB “Theory of Knowledge” class, but this is some sort of fancy latin-named fallacy. Saying “all diplomacy will fail” is like saying “all Republicans are racists.” It might be fun to say, but it’s a fallacy.
P.S., as long as you’re allowed to turn ‘left’ into a bad word, we’re allowed to turn ‘neocon’ into one.
July 2, 2008 at 12:47 PM in reply to: McCain should win in landslide. Obama turning out to be a lightweight. #232381afx114
ParticipantChina is interesting because without us they don’t have much of an export market. That is changing as their middle class grows, but I wonder what they’d rather lose: their #1 market or their #1 supply of oil. Chicken or the egg, it seems.
I also wonder where India would align themselves. I’m not very privy to India’s current geo-political position, but they are turning out to be quite the oil consumer as well.
I can see it now:
USA/Israel vs. Iran/Syria/Russia/China/India/Everyone Else … odds don’t look too promising.
July 2, 2008 at 12:47 PM in reply to: McCain should win in landslide. Obama turning out to be a lightweight. #232503afx114
ParticipantChina is interesting because without us they don’t have much of an export market. That is changing as their middle class grows, but I wonder what they’d rather lose: their #1 market or their #1 supply of oil. Chicken or the egg, it seems.
I also wonder where India would align themselves. I’m not very privy to India’s current geo-political position, but they are turning out to be quite the oil consumer as well.
I can see it now:
USA/Israel vs. Iran/Syria/Russia/China/India/Everyone Else … odds don’t look too promising.
July 2, 2008 at 12:47 PM in reply to: McCain should win in landslide. Obama turning out to be a lightweight. #232513afx114
ParticipantChina is interesting because without us they don’t have much of an export market. That is changing as their middle class grows, but I wonder what they’d rather lose: their #1 market or their #1 supply of oil. Chicken or the egg, it seems.
I also wonder where India would align themselves. I’m not very privy to India’s current geo-political position, but they are turning out to be quite the oil consumer as well.
I can see it now:
USA/Israel vs. Iran/Syria/Russia/China/India/Everyone Else … odds don’t look too promising.
July 2, 2008 at 12:47 PM in reply to: McCain should win in landslide. Obama turning out to be a lightweight. #232553afx114
ParticipantChina is interesting because without us they don’t have much of an export market. That is changing as their middle class grows, but I wonder what they’d rather lose: their #1 market or their #1 supply of oil. Chicken or the egg, it seems.
I also wonder where India would align themselves. I’m not very privy to India’s current geo-political position, but they are turning out to be quite the oil consumer as well.
I can see it now:
USA/Israel vs. Iran/Syria/Russia/China/India/Everyone Else … odds don’t look too promising.
July 2, 2008 at 12:47 PM in reply to: McCain should win in landslide. Obama turning out to be a lightweight. #232562afx114
ParticipantChina is interesting because without us they don’t have much of an export market. That is changing as their middle class grows, but I wonder what they’d rather lose: their #1 market or their #1 supply of oil. Chicken or the egg, it seems.
I also wonder where India would align themselves. I’m not very privy to India’s current geo-political position, but they are turning out to be quite the oil consumer as well.
I can see it now:
USA/Israel vs. Iran/Syria/Russia/China/India/Everyone Else … odds don’t look too promising.
July 2, 2008 at 12:07 PM in reply to: McCain should win in landslide. Obama turning out to be a lightweight. #232361afx114
ParticipantThat brings up another question. If all hell breaks loose in the Middle East, essentially stopping all oil from leaving the region, whom will side with whom? The US will obviously side with Israel, but who do you think Russia and China will side with? The side with the oil, that’s who.
July 2, 2008 at 12:07 PM in reply to: McCain should win in landslide. Obama turning out to be a lightweight. #232485afx114
ParticipantThat brings up another question. If all hell breaks loose in the Middle East, essentially stopping all oil from leaving the region, whom will side with whom? The US will obviously side with Israel, but who do you think Russia and China will side with? The side with the oil, that’s who.
July 2, 2008 at 12:07 PM in reply to: McCain should win in landslide. Obama turning out to be a lightweight. #232494afx114
ParticipantThat brings up another question. If all hell breaks loose in the Middle East, essentially stopping all oil from leaving the region, whom will side with whom? The US will obviously side with Israel, but who do you think Russia and China will side with? The side with the oil, that’s who.
July 2, 2008 at 12:07 PM in reply to: McCain should win in landslide. Obama turning out to be a lightweight. #232534afx114
ParticipantThat brings up another question. If all hell breaks loose in the Middle East, essentially stopping all oil from leaving the region, whom will side with whom? The US will obviously side with Israel, but who do you think Russia and China will side with? The side with the oil, that’s who.
July 2, 2008 at 12:07 PM in reply to: McCain should win in landslide. Obama turning out to be a lightweight. #232543afx114
ParticipantThat brings up another question. If all hell breaks loose in the Middle East, essentially stopping all oil from leaving the region, whom will side with whom? The US will obviously side with Israel, but who do you think Russia and China will side with? The side with the oil, that’s who.
July 2, 2008 at 10:49 AM in reply to: McCain should win in landslide. Obama turning out to be a lightweight. #232296afx114
Participant[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]afx: Which does beg the obvious question: Which is the best type of diplomacy?[/quote]
I don’t think there is a right/wrong or best/worst. It’s not so black and white. The whole point of diplomacy is that it’s a nuanced dance between two parties. One situation may call for military action, one situation may call for silence, one situation may call for talking.
Consider this analogy: Say you have a child who does something horribly bad. Maybe crashes your car on a drunken binge on prom night, who knows. What’s the best way to handle the situation? Send Dad in with a belt in one hand and a paddle in the other to back the kid into a corner and teach him a tough lesson? That might work. Or maybe sit the kid down with Dad, Mom, the siblings, Grandma, Grandpa and have an intervention? That might work too. But you have to ask: would you rather have the kid hate you for the beating, or respect you for sitting him down and having a chat?
You don’t back a snake into a corner and not expect it to strike.
Bottom line is, we’ve taken the silence/shun/beating route these past 8 years and it hasn’t gotten us anywhere. Maybe it’s time to try the talking/intervention route.
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