You’ll have to break 500 without me. Duty calls. See ya round, just not for a while.

Do you know why Kerry voted against going to war in 1990? Well here it is. The “coalition was too fragile and not inclusive enought to support a war. Alternatively, he said that the public wouldn’t support it. Kerry talks like that when he wants to disguise his support for anti-American, left wing dictators. Remember in 1990 there was still an USSR and Iraq was its prinicpal ally in the region. Kerry supported Saddam’s takeover of Kuwait because he believed that Saddam was a progressive leader worthy of support while the Kuwaiti rulling party were tools of the United States. He still believes that today.

I still don’t know much about you, but I’ve begun to infer — from your job and what you seem to know well — that you’re significantly younger than I am. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

But I remember really clearly what it was like living in Germany during Reagan’s first term — in fact, I arrived in Frankfurt on Inauguration Day. Reagan was called a “posturing cowboy” and was supposed to be horribly abtrasive and losing us allies.

Ten years later, I was watching Pink Floyd perform “The Wall” at the place where The Wall really was.

The fact is, we haven’t lost any allies except — perhaps — Germany, and it looks more and more like the next election will put an administration that’s a lot more friendly to the US into power. Of the supposed allies we’ve “lost”, it turns out that they were being bribed — literally, and with billions of dollars — to subvert things for Saddam. Had been since long before Bush was elected.

Those weren’t allies: they were perfidious, faithless, and dishonorable fakes.

In the mean time — well, read Michael Totten’s articles about traveling through Tunisia. Read some things from elsewhere than the New York Times. The Poles don’t seem to think we’ve lost our “moral authority”.

Or explain to me: why do you think someone who has freed 50 millions from fascism has no “moral authority” — but the people who would have left those 50 millions to the murderers and torturers, the men who would keep women illiterate and in chadoors, can confer some kind of “moral” authority.

Or, if you don’t want to try either of those: figure out your own opinion. Which was more moral: ending Saddam’s regime, or continuing the sham of sanctions that was making him and his cronies rich, while they used the sanctions as an excuse to starve the children, withhold medical care, crush the people of Iraq?

It comes from spending 18 plus formative years in Texas, dealing with guys all too much like W. and not liking it (and them not liking me). I gave Bush the benefit of the doubt after 9/11 and my hopes for a better Bush were not realized. Just my opinion.

Support it. So far, you say you don’t like Bush because he reminds you of the guys who bullied or mistreated you in Texas. Are you still 11? Are you concerned with “moral authority” — or just getting revenge on Billy Ray who gave you a wedgie?

“So, riddle me this: what action do you expect Kerry would take that would be different from Bush, why do you think that’s what would happen, and what would you predict happening as a result?”

Holy conundrum, Batman! I think/hope he’d be less abrasive with our (hoping again) allies, not act like some posturing cowboy and take a measured/nuanced approach to building a consensus thus resurrecting the moral authority we had after 9/11 and before the Iraqi invasion.

“It’s not a matter of whether Hollywood prefers Kerry over Bush, it’s that Hollywood really does think anything Bush does is intrinsically wrong. (See above, w.r.t. “axioms”.) If we start out with the pre-rational — not “irrational” because “rational” refers to a process of reasoning, and axioms are what you need before you can start to reason — with the pre-rational assertion that “Bush is bad”, then no process of reasoning can arrive at any other conclusion.

“So, Hollywood — where does this axiomatic assumption come from?”

It comes from spending 18 plus formative years in Texas, dealing with guys all too much like W. and not liking it (and them not liking me). I gave Bush the benefit of the doubt after 9/11 and my hopes for a better Bush were not realized. Just my opinion.

I think this says, pretty succinctly, what the problem is. It’s not a matter of whether Hollywood prefers Kerry over Bush, it’s that Hollywood really does think anything Bush does is intrinsically wrong. (See above, w.r.t. “axioms”.) If we start out with the pre-rational — not “irrational” because “rational” refers to a process of reasoning, and axioms are what you need before you can start to reason — with the pre-rational assertion that “Bush is bad”, then no process of reasoning can arrive at any other conclusion.

So, Hollywood — where does this axiomatic assumption come from?

Why not? I can’t think of a single time that Bush hasn’t acted more or less exactly as he said he would — with the exception that he decided that nation-building was necessary after 9/11. In that one case, he changed his direction in response to a clear and specific event, clearly stated his intention, stuck to it — and, as far as that goes, changed it to agree with what I thought.

As I said, if it’s a choice between someone who says he’ll do what I think he ought to do, and gives me reason to believe it, versus someone who says he’d do something, but he can’t tell me for sure what, except that it’d be better … it’s not difficult.

I go by sort of a gut feeling, and in the case of this election, I’ll admit my gut is more anti-Bush than pro-Kerry.

Right. We’re back to that point where your opinion isn’t being stated based on some argument, but effectively as an axiom. Again, as a logician, I accept that. But when you state an axiom and try to apply it to the real world, you have to test it against that real world.

So, riddle me this: what action do you expect Kerry would take that would be different from Bush, why do you think that’s what would happen, and what would you predict happening as a result?

“Now I’ve got some ire and this is how I show it. [ok]Open your fucking eyes and, better yet, open your fucking mind. [I do the best I can with my highly limited faculties.]Your small mindedness is not healthy for you.” [Is this some kind of mind-body dualism problem? I think I'm too inconsistent to be entirely smallminded.]

My thought is that there’s this fear that Kerry would withdraw mammoth amounts of troops from Iraq as if he could do this overnight. Yet at the same time, here’s Bush floating the idea of withdrawing some troops from other areas in what seems like an attempt to say I can withdraw troops, too; I’m just more thoughtful about whre I withdraw them from. I guess I don’t buy it.

Can you really not see the sheer idiocy of what you said there? Is every-freakin-thing in the world nothing more than political ping-pong to you?

Drawing down troops from Europe is not a new idea spit out in reaction to John Kerry’s moronic pronouncements. It is the right thing to do and has been.

Kerry blathers about pulling out troops from where they are needed and you think its a great idea. The president talks about pulling troops from where they have long sinced ceased to serve a purpose and, at the same time, identifies the types of units that will replace them to maintain our commitment to NATO, and you see that as nothing more than an election cycle reaction.

Now I’ve got some ire and this is how I show it. Open your fucking eyes and, better yet, open your fucking mind. Your small mindedness is not healthy for you.

While I can appreciate your ire…

There was no ire involved. I’d hoped you would read the article including the links. I came across it while searching out something else and was legitimately interested in what you thought about it. I suppose I discovered that.

I thought we were talking about boots on the ground, not boots in the ground.

One cannot talk about “boots on the ground” without taling about why they are on the ground where they are. Why they went there and whether or not there is still good reason to put them there. The article I pointed to, and asked your opinion about, if you would have avoided your visceral reaction, might have shown you that American boots have gone to ground in Europe on several occassions for good reasons. And they’ve been withdrawn on several occassions and from varous portions, for different reasons.

It would also have shown that not only have many good young men died, but that their deaths are not long appreciated by those for whom they’ve died – the presence even of their cemeteries becomes a source of anomosity and resentment.

It also shows that France, as an example, has had less commitment to NATO than has the US for many years.

What reason remains for the US to have a larger commitment to NATO than, for example, France?

[Of course, when we do bring dead soldiers home, Bush doesn't want us to see that.]

Do you never tire of preposterous memes? Do you ever do homework to figure out if the meme that is about to burst forth from your fingertips has any basis in truth.

Spare us the memes. You may be rigid enough in your thinking to believe this sort of tripe, but few others here are.

Basically, I think we’ve got real stuff to worry about as opposed to thumbing our noses at France.

Do you mean, perhaps, important stuff like where our troops should and shouldn’t be deployed, whether or not they’ve oulived their usefulness and, even, their welcome on the soil of former allies? Important stuff like that, perhaps, rather than petty horseshit like whether or not Germany will “be happy” about a redeployment or whether or not their is some petty political benefit to be gained by yet another infantile whine about “the timing! the timing! Bush just wants to do this NOW for political gain and the fact that its been talked about and proposed and entirely sensible for years now is irrelevant!”

You really need to start thinking about growing up, Hollywood. You can’t reamin a recalcitrant adolescent forever.