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Aw c'mon, Matt, you don't KNOW they they don't have a nuke yet. Maybe they're HIDING it. Y'know, because they're planning to use it somewhere. If they were planning to use it, wouldn't it make sense that they'd keep it a secret? In fact, I'd say the fact that they HAVEN'T announced they have a nuke is PROOF that they DO have one and are at this moment making preparations to obliterate Tel Aviv. Or at least, our only responsible course is to assume so, and to take out Tehran first.
[Smacks side of head]
Sorry, I was channeling Krauthammer there for a moment.
Posted at August 11, 2006 8:55 AM in response to The Krauthammer Charade, Part I
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Can someone please explain what, exactly, it is about the phrase 'Democrat Party' (or any other use of 'Democrat' as an adjective) that is objectionable?
I'm not disputing that it is deeply annoying, just trying to pin down WHY.
I mean, the obvious comeback from a Republican if an opponent objects is to say, "What's wrong with using that word? Are you saying you aren't a 'Democrat'? Are you saying 'Democrat' is a bad word?" And obviously one can't answer "yes" without weakening one's position in the argument further. And anyway, it's true, members of the donkey party are 'Democrats' and there's nothing inherently pejorative about the word, whether as a noun or an adjective.
I realize it's a kind of rhetorical nod to Joe McCarthy, but it annoyed me even before I was aware that he'd pioneered it. And I'm sure the construction resonates as derogatory even for those (the majority of Americans, I'd guess) who are unaware of that history.
The best explanation I can come up with is that when uttered with a certain sneer, the word 'Democrat', whether used as adjective or noun, can evoke a bunch of other nouns that end with '-crat', all of which have pretty strongly negative connotations. Think 'aristocrat', 'autocrat', and -- the one which probably resonates most powerfully, even viscerally, with Americans -- 'bureaucrat'.
And therein may lie the rub -- Republicans love this offensive construction because it reinforces, even if only subconsciously, the long-standing Republican portrayal of the party of the New Deal as the party of heartless big government. And because it resonates in the same way with Democrats, who, however, resent that portrayal of their party and what it stands for, they resent the linguistic construction.
Am I wrong? I admit some obvious objections are possible. (Maybe it's all about the sneer and repetition, and the rhyme is irrelevant -- think George H. W. Bush and 'liberal'.) But if so, someone please explain why a perfectly inoffensive word like 'Democrat' can be made to sound like a slur.
Posted at August 1, 2006 12:12 PM in response to "IC"-Y
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Yes, please do.
Posted at July 5, 2006 10:38 AM in response to Getting Testy
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The FLQ in the 1970s is about the only instance of organized terrorism directed at Canadian targets.
In 1985 some Sikh Canadians blew up (it is believed) an Air India jet flying out of Montreal. The act is believed to have been directed at the Indian government, though.
Posted at June 7, 2006 3:30 PM in response to Terror and Canada
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On Romney (the only one of the three who's a threat, in my view), three words: Foreign policy virgin.
Of course for this to work, Dems would need to nominate someone with foreign policy cred. But they'd need to do that anyway.
Also: Romney spent the Vietnam War in France.
Posted at March 12, 2006 7:25 PM in response to The Opposition
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With a name like Lemieux surely you know they're called provinces, not states...
That aside, I know Matt's a Canadophile so he's probably only half-serious with this 'get your own house in order before you criticize us' crap, but I would just ask how many Middle Eastern countries he thinks Steven Harper will invade during his term in office.
It's been my experience since moving to the U.S. from Canada that even the most liberal Americans resent having their country criticized by foreigners, and all I can say is: Get over it. The world-wide ripple effect of bad American policy -- whether military, monetary, trade or what have you -- is truly massive. We don't get to vote for or against your leaders, but we're still liable to get ourselves annihilated or impoverished because of the stupid shit they pull. At the very least I think that entitles us to sing a few protest songs, however much Matt disapproves of Steven frickin' Harper.
Posted at February 26, 2006 6:18 AM in response to Protest Music Redux
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Yeah, Newsbusters zeroed in on the black thing but if they're trying to prove liberal bias, I'm surprised they didn't highlight the reference to Tom Paine, irreligious radical whack job.
Posted at February 16, 2006 2:24 PM in response to Gumbel Versus The Olympics
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Ah, the perils of the conventional view. We didn't defend South Korea from the Chinese; we did "force protection."
It's a distinction without a difference. The Army and Marine force the U.S. began 'protecting' in November, 1950 was there because it was already engaged in a war to defend South Korea (and, by then, to reunite it with North Korea) -- a war which, by the way, had begun with almost no U.S. forces present on the peninsula. Your implication is that, having fought its way to the Yalu, the U.S. would have been happy to go home in Nov. 1950 if the Chinese had offered to let it pull its forces out unmolested. That's silly. The U.S. had by then committed itself to defending South Korea from foreign invasion.
The question is, should it still do so?
It's true, small countries "can" coexist with much larger and stronger neighbors if they "be sensitive" to their "concerns" -- though this didn't stop the Russians from invading Finland in (I think) 1940. And of course, "be sensitive" is another way of saying "give up a substantial portion of their sovereignty". Granted, that can be a consequence of a U.S. alliance as well -- Japan doesn't get to have much of an army of its own, South Korea has to stop the war in 1953 even when its leaders don't want to, etc. But on balance, isn't the U.S. doing those countries (like it did West Berlin, West Germany, etc. in the Cold War) a great, generous, admirable service by offering its promise of protection and thereby enabling them invest and develop into thriving capitalist democracies with a lessened fear of being conquered by a powerful Communist neighbor? It seems clear the answer is yes.
So the question becomes: Is it worth the entanglement, i.e. the risk that the U.S. will actually have to follow through on its promises which, realistically, it probably couldn't do without great cost to itself? Harder to say. But I'm surprised by the amount of blithe 'throw them to the wolves' sentiment I see in these comments. Without the U.S., Japan could defend itself against a determined China? That's nuts. Have you seen the size of the PLA? Taiwan is part of China, as SF is part of the US? Equally nuts. Taiwan hasn't been governed by Beijing in more than half a century, and while many, no doubt most, of its people wish for eventual reunification, they definitely don't want it on the terms of the current mainland regime. Does no one here mourn the loss of freedom we've seen in Hong Kong since China reoccupied it? And by the way, if I were Taiwanese I'm not sure I'd want to rely on the force of international condemnation to deter the mainland from invading. (What's the world going to do, stop trading with China? With China holding so much American debt?) I think I might put more stock in the U.S. Navy.
Finally:
Seen any PLA plans for the invasion of South Korea?
That's the point. We don't see any PLA plans. It's not a transparent society. We hadn't seen any such plans before 1950 either, re. either Korea or Tibet.
Look, I've already said I think the 'economic rival' argument for being suspicious of China is crap. But China does have a pretty damn big army, it's slowly modernizing its armed forces, and (since this discussion started with an exercise in long-term thinking, i.e. the QDR), it's only responsible on the part of the U.S. to think about what it might do with those forces in the long run (and yes, not let that thinking be driven by defense contractors' lust for profits). The seemingly-cautious Communists won't be in charge there forever. Plans change. In the meantime, the U.S. has made commitments to countries right next door. Matt's right, it need to ask itself whether it wants to keep those commitments. Maybe not. But if that's the decision, let's not pretend it wouldn't be dealing a very significant blow both to the security of some long-time democratic allies and to the U.S. image (and self-image) of being the world's most reliable and strongest defender of free societies. It would be a truly massive reorientation.
Posted at February 3, 2006 7:47 AM in response to The Next War
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Um, Africa's not a "nation", Gettysburg. As for the likelihood of its "spectacular modernization" over the next century, I wouldn't bet the house on that one.
Beyond that, what exactly is China's "economical" threat to the U.S.? That its people will get richer and want to buy more of the stuff Americans make? That it will produce more things Americans want to buy than it already does? Neither of these things seems, on the face of it, like a terribly bad thing.
Or do you mean it'll compete with the U.S. for increasingly scarce resources?
If so, your vision is mercantilist: resources are finite, world trade is zero-sum, and the U.S. needs to fight for the biggest share of the pie. Implicitly, the U.S. should strive to keep other nations poor while it works to maintain or increase its national wealth. We can have spheres of influence all over the globe but we shouldn't let China have them right outside her borders.
OK, say that's your vision. Immoral but not unprecedented. It still implies that if we're going to be anticipating challenges three decades down the road, we should be investing nationally in alternative energy- and resource-saving technologies, rather than (or at least in addition to) spending ever-greater amounts of money on weapons to secure and protect ever-diminishing supplies of raw goods. After all, the kind of struggle you forsee is not the kind anyone wins in the long run.
What I'd really like to hear from Matt is whether he thinks the U.S. should be in the business of making security guarantees to genuine, thriving democracies (Taiwan, South Korea, Japan) which just happen to be way too small to protect themselves against China.
Posted at February 2, 2006 12:52 PM in response to The Next War
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Rude of them to cut you off at the end like that.
You did fine but I do think the Kaus-and-Wright pairing has a special chemistry that they'd be better off not messing with too often. I thoroughly enjoy those episodes of the show but the ones with fill-in guest vloggers... enh.
Posted at January 27, 2006 4:11 PM in response to King of All (New) Media
