Afterthought:

My whole train of thought on this reminds me of Ms. Rice’s bogus responses to Russia’s opposition to U.S. missile defense in Poland (”You don’t want us to be implicitly aggressive? Then we HAVE to be!”) and Iran’s will to defend itself (”You want us to not invade your country? Then we HAVE to invade!”).

Republicans don’t hold a high standard of logic or reason.

Dwight, because the US is the only nation to have used nuclear weapons on human populations is the why those with very differing interests and ideologies are soo intent on getting their own.

We don’t screw with France do we?

Briefly, let us remind ourselves that this attitude about nukes that you have used to make your spurrious argument, is entirely bi-partisan.

Here is another link re the Bush connection to the report:

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/15/fox-dhs-bush/

Haha!

What’s the big deal? If you haven’t done anything wrong and have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about.

Isn’t it telling that Janet Napolitano has no problem using the word terrorism in connection with “right wing extremists” but refuses to use the word terrorism in connection with militant Islamists.

Gosh, Glenn (if that’s your real name), your apparent inability to spell- or grammar-check your work explains a lot about your show.

My argument has little to do with the reasons why other countries want their own nukes, less the basic concept of sovereignty. Your argument is not a counter to mine, and I would ask you to approach my premise, not present a sideshow. I am not disputing the rights and risks of other nations possessing nuclear weapons; rather, I am discussing the “peace through strength” bully stance of Republican foreign policy and the double standard they use to justify it. This (and each of the other instances I and Richard cite) are as though a playground bully had punched someone and, seeing the damage, held up his clenched fist and said “For everyone’s safety, no one is allowed to clench fists but me.” To sovereign entities (sovereignty being a right Republicans claim to support), such a statement is seen as a threat–from a tyrant who must be overthrown for the good of the playground community.

And what’s this about France? Do you perceive that France is a threat we would have considered using nukes on, anyway? We invaded Iraq under the pretense that he already possessed WMDs, yet that was hardly a deterrent; we charged right in. So the deterrence concept for possessing WMDs doesn’t work so well. France doesn’t want their country to be a wasteland, now do they, so the tactics of using nukes to repel a nuclear superpower are questionable. To make your argument work, maybe you should have used China or North Korea–entities which, according to intelligence, are far more likely to be willing to use nukes than France.

In defense of my “spurrious [sic]” argument: I don’t believe I have heard that many Democrats defend this position. . .Democrats tend to support disarmament and reduction, limited sharing of technologies, and peace through diplomacy. Hmmm. . .help me out here. What’s common between Democrats in Congress and European liberals (such as France)? Something about using diplomacy, inspections, and international pressure to facilitate global peace. The other side was all for strongarming. That’s about as partisan as it gets. I don’t really understand what’s so “spurrious” about my argument. You seem to agree with my assessment, except that you believe Democrats fall in the same category as I’ve described for Republicans. Does that make your argument spurious, too? Or are you just pumping up your paragraph with an insulting and unfounded accusation? Straw men take more stuffing than that.

JD–Now YOU’RE a guy who knows how to create a straw man: red herring ad nauseum! Speech is irrelevant here. The DHS report does not state that speech of any type will be cause for arrest, or that believing in any specific category of ideas within conservative ideology is cause for suspicion, let alone arrest. It has ALWAYS BEEN the practice of law enforcement, especially in investigations, to observe extant behaviors. This is sort of like what the Bush folks did with their profiling, except that this is utilizing observation of restricted extant behaviors, not merely broad cultural markings. Just as it would be important for law enforcement to know of specific markings worn by members of militant muslim groups (and not merely by ALL muslims), or markings worn by street gangs within certain city districts, it is likewise important for them to recognize the warning signs of potential domestic terrorists and be on alert. I disagree with anything that promotes increases in causeless detentions, arrests, etc., but the DHS report, if read without the FoxNews filter over your eyes, doesn’t promote these things. It most certainly does NOT relegate free speech to the already overloaded wastebasket of “probable cause,” as you seem to be implying.

Dwight Sheldon Adams

Probes–Party is irrelevant after so long. Besides, “classical liberals” like Truman are considered conservative today–like Republicans. The historical chairs party game is a fun game the country plays every so often. It’s interesting to examine, and people like you seem to be incapable of understanding its function. I guess, of course, we could always go farther back and remind ourselves what the Republican Party of Rome was capable of, or the Democratic Party of Athens, and compare the equally abhorrent practices of each. But it has little bearing on today’s parties. The policies, beliefs, and arguments of today’s parties, on the other hand, do.

I’m sorry for so vehemently attacking the Republican Party, but my rancor is largely a product of the recent stupidity and/or lies of representative Republican and neocon pundits. What I really wish to attack is the “peace through strength” canard that is more commonly held by Republicans. Peace is provided by consensual international respect, which is obtained primarily through compromise and diplomacy, not through the threat of aggressive destruction. Case in point: the Cold War was called a “war” for a reason, despite the apparent “peace” of mutually assured destruction. Perpetual tension is not “peace,” even if no one dies.

Surely we would try to intimidate France if they were not so armed.

Really? Are you implying that we are so afraid that France will attack us with its nukes that we won’t push them diplomatically? Or are you revealing a foreign relations perspective in which lack of nukes makes a country a justifiable and “sure” target for intimidation? The prospect that France would reply to pressure by threatening nuclear war or that our country would “surely” threaten them with nuclear annihilation if they didn’t obey our wishes is neither evidenced nor obvious. Is this what you meant to imply?

Nobody seriously believes the U.S. would use nukes for intimidation–except those countries which we have so threatened under the “leadership” of people who profess such stunted foreign policy beliefs. When the stick gets big enough to destroy the world (including those who have the stick), no one dares swing it but the psychopaths. The credibility of the big stick people’s threats diminishes rapidly–unless the leader is perceived as a psychopath.

Gosh. 38% of Americans (and possibly more, at different times) believed that Iraq actually HAD WMDs in 2004, despite emergent data, and 72% of those wanted to vote for Bush–indicating a likely Republican party affiliation. We must have a LOT of “morons [who] believed the rhetoric” in this country, and it appears that a record-breaking mandate’s worth of them are Republicans. Many Democrats did believe, yes. I’m sure that all of us (maybe even you) are denying it now. I certainly didn’t believe such nonsense (hmph!) and I will take liberties in my judgments of the empty statistics’ worth of people who did! Isn’t it cool how morons run for cover when the lights are turned on? And how about that cute little scuttling sound they make? Sort of like the sound Glenn Beck makes.

Thanks for the self-described superfluous diction lesson. Strong-arming is actually a compound word. As with all compound words, it is likely to transform gradually into a single word. William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White note in “The Elements of Style,” Chapter III, that one should “not use a hyphen between words that can better be written as one word,” and acknowledge the trend towards union. Nonetheless, I must confess myself in error; until the word is colloquially accepted, the hyphen is the more “correct” usage, by prescriptive grammatical standards. Descriptively, however, the linguist would back my use while the prude would not.

FYI, I was responding to “Glenn Beck’s” incredibly inept writing, in which no clear statement is made and assumptions are the order of the day–all of which is aided by the lack of adequate skill with the written language. Only after several re-readings did I finally have any hope of grasping his meaning. Misspellings are inevitable, and it gratifies me that you could only find one slightly suspect “misspelling” in my rather long post. Hardly comparable to Glenn’s creative rendition of comprehensible composition.

Dwight Sheldon Adams