[MD] Hippies in Sodom and Gomorrah

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

Greetings Platt,

I will try to consolidate my thoughts on your questions as best as I am able.
You asked, what do I think Rush has been right about. In fairness, as I already
said, I don't have the opportunity to listen to Rush these days. From what I
gleaned from his website, he is a "cautious supporter" of the Dubai deal. I
agree with him on that. But, the Dubai port deal is an interesting item because
it flipflopped a lot of pre-established ideology, on both sides of your
dichtomy. You have Carter and Rove on the same side of an issue. Holy Smokes!
But, the Dubai saga is, I believe, a distraction from the truth that we inspect
less than 5% of all containers arriving anyways (according to CNN). If security
is our real interest, then we need to find a way to inspect all containers
arriving in our ports, no matter the manpower or the expense, and the taxpayers
must be willing to accept that.

And as for Franken, I don't listen to him at all, so I really don't know one way
or the other what his stance is on issues. I'll try to sign up for his podcast
and see if I can get you a specific example. But since I already several
stances I hold that are typically "conservative", I'm not sure what else I can
add (on gun rights, abortion, euthenasia, lawsuit awards and zero tolerance for
sex offenders to name a few), as I'm sure if he is as ideological bound to the
left as Rush is to the right that I will disagree with him on these issues.

Since you label me as "liberal" for supporting a social safety net, I do want to
add a comment here, an extension from recent posts with Ham. Namely, I think
there are more alternatives than being a commie and dismantling all social
programs completely. This is where the dialogue is, but as I tried to explain
to Ham, I do not favor the safety net being anything other than a temporary
assistence to families who've fallen because of a myriad of reason (skill being
the least realistic one).

To characterize anyone who believes that society should provide such a net as a
communist who wants to "redistribute wealth", is to make two extreme poles as
the only choices, and then caricature the opposing one. Yes, there are big
problems with the way the net has been implemented and used, and I am no more
happy about my taxes supporting state-dependency than you are. But you can
better believe that I have no problem with my taxes helping a miner feed his
family while he looks for other work. Just like I had no problem with my tax
dollars going to maintain the life of Terry Shiavo. The critical problem in
this dialogue, as I've said umpteen times, is the polarization and extremist
portrayls of "the other". And I still have yet to hear from Ham what will
happen to the poor if we cut all social programs entirely, from worker's comp
to minimum wage, from social welfare to unemployement, from workplace safety to
legal assistance. Charity? Social Darwinism? What?

[Arlo previously]
Here is where you just fall back to your typical distorition. First,
these values you mention are as dear to "liberals" as "conservatives".

[Platt]
But are they willing to fight for them? That's the question. 

[Arlo]
My personal disgust is to be asked to fight when it is clear that we have not
learned on ounce of lesson about our role in this dance. If I thought for one
minute, that we learned something here today, I would fight tooth and nail. But
as it is, with the right-wing so bound up in their ideological righteousness,
fighting today will simply mean we'll always be fighting.

You want to go in and stomp Iran for developing nuclear weapons (supposedly).
Okay, but where is the "Golly gee, Batman, maybe we shouldn't've sold that
dictator all that nuclear technology in the first place." Or, if you want me to
fight to "defend the civil liberties of these nations", then where is your "Gee
whiz, Skippy, maybe giving Saddam all those weapons back when Reagan was
president, so that he could kill Iranians, and completely ignore all his human
rights abuses wasn't such a "moral" thing to do". But I see no evidence that we
learned anything here, other than how to wag our righteous dicks and pretend we
are somehow superior beings. You want me to support the state of Israel, then I
want to see a little, "Gall darn it, Gomer, maybe we really overstepped what we
had to do in setting this thing up, I think maybe I'd be pissed to." 

In other words, I'll give you my active support willingly when there is evidence
that we've learned from our mistakes. Then, you want to topple a dictator, I'll
be right there. You want to keep nuclear weapons out of ANYONE'S hands, I'll be
there. But if you want to fuck over and fuck around indiscriminately, despite
the warnings and the resistence from those who knew better, and then expect ME
to pick up a gun to bail you out, then I say "piss off". Bring on the Holy War.
Let's kill ourselves and get it over with. You want me to get behind this war,
then show me some evidence that you are capable of learning from "how we got
here", otherwise the war is pointless, and will be a repeated tragedy until the
end of days.

And yes, if all efforts at prevention fail, and there will be times when it
does, then I through my full support behind force. But right now I'm just
thinking we deserve what we get. On both sides. For all our short-sighted
arrogant righteousness, as they say, "bring it on". 

[Platt]
I hate to keep repeating Pirsig's advice on how to deal with criminals, but I
guess it's necessary since you don't seem to get it.

[Arlo]
And what you don't seem to "get" is that I have no problem dealing with
historical "crazies" with force. But if your hero Reagan would not have sold
arms to Saddam, despite his brutal actions over his people, so that he could
kill Iranians, and if maybe Reagan showed a little more concern for the Iranian
citizens and the Iraqi citizens, then maybe, just maybe this wouldn't be the
fucked up problem that it is. Maybe it would be a little fucked up, because god
knows that THEY are to blame for a lot of this as well. I mean, maybe the
Iraqis should've been more concerned with their own civil liberties than
slaughtering Iranians, and vice versa. Anyway, yes, I have no problem with
using force. But don't smack some guy around for years and then come running to
me when he threatens your life. If he threatens your life, however, despite
your trying to deal with him humanely and civily, then I'll be the first to
defend you. And, if it is the first (you smacked him around), at least show the
balls to learn something, and maybe then I'll jump in and defend you as well.
But to just come to me and say "we have to kill him, he's a germ for
threatening my life", then its pointless, because as soon as we kill him,
you'll be off to smack around someone else. (By the way, lest you think I am
"unfair" to single out Reagan, Carter (and Nixon) all had hands in this as
well.)

Arlo