The Hall of Fire

Only downside I can think of: There would be less work for lawyers who specialize in church-state issues.

That's a downside????

We have similar groups in America, though their numbers are small. Officials of the government have hunted and killed them I'm not getting the reference. The Branch Davidians? Sure, they were wacko, but they hardly posed a threat to the greater public. I'm not aware that we have any groups 'similar...

Actually, Jny, Rummy was more-or-less a "new" generation- he came in full of clever ideas about 'transforming' the military into a small, light, high-tech force. I'd be thrilled to get back the 'older' generation like Colin Powell. Problem is, in the great part of the world which remains s...

How very - - - Churchillian, Voronwë. I can't help but think of some other classic partitions: Palestine 1947 and India 1948. Not an encouraging record there. It's also the case as a very practical matter that neither Turkey nor Iran will ever, ever, ever in a million years agree to an autonomous Ku...

I think all three of you misunderstand what I was getting at. I'm not rehearsing the many and varied reasons for opposing the war- either ab initio, or now that it's gone sour. I'm wondering about those people who seem to think that when we go home, the killing will stop. The Root of All Evil contin...

Tuckoo, baby: In point of fact I agree with you. I also agree with Elsha's very good analysis of the problem, but will go out on a limb and say that an immediate pullout is the least worst option. Where I get annoyed is when people are so self-deluded that they believe that Everything Will Be All Ri...

That can't be constituional.

'Fraid it is. Commissioned officers serve at the pleasure of the President. He'd hardly be Commander-in-Chief if he couldn't fire his generals- and I really, really doubt we'd want that, either.

And the worst part of it, is that we aren't achieving anything by being there. We're just making the situation worse and worse. Are you seriously suggesting that our pullout won't be followed by things getting a *lot* worse, very fast? I'm alternately amused by or ticked at folks who demand that Du...

The reason that I started wondering about this is after hearing that some studies had found that young black children (even toddlers) often believed that lighter skin color was more desirable than their own skin tones – at an age when I wouldn’t have expected race-conscious socialization to play as...

Nerdanel: That's horrible, and *blatantly* unconstitutional. But of course you knew that. On the contrary, one case that I have located involved a suit against a school district in New Jersey that limited the school's band to playing nonsectarian selections such as "Winter Wonderland" and ...

But, Prim, many school systems have banned Frosty and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and any mention of Santa Claus, apparently on the theory that anything remotely associated with "Christmas", no matter how secular, is somehow an Est. Cl. violation.

Well, what Christmas 'carols'? I can understand banning Silent Night and Adeste Fidelis, but Jingle Bells and Frosty the Snowman? Some sort of winter-solstice festival exists in virtually all cultures, at least those originating in the temperate zone; and I don't see a classroom Christmas tree as re...

Probably, yov, but don't forget that there are people who think that gay people, people with disabilites, and anyone outside their view of 'pure' should be brutally murdered.

People with disabilities????????

I'm not nearly so optimistic. All I can think of is Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, Jacobins and Girondists: the more radical and ruthless faction will almost inevitably overpower the more moderate and restrained, and what follows is horror. I'm afraid I see coming a radical, even Taliban-like Hamas regi...

No one here has made any such comparison. That would be an extremely dry and inflammatory straw man you're punching.

One only has to look at the video from the G8 protests (or any anti-Bush rally) to see that comparison being made a lot.

Agreed, "White Guilt" was hyperbolic, and I apologize. However, I think there is a certain oikophobia fashionable in intellectual circles which tends to sneer at the achievements of Dead European Males (a loaded term tossed about by the Other Side with alacrity). I was very, very pleased t...

It is my desire to see a world in which no one could even FORMULATE that comparison.

I think what we really desire to see is a world in which there is no extant country to which the comparison could be made...

Thank you, YV. Speaking as someone who grew up with neighbors who lost most of their family in the Holocaust, I personally get very, very offended at people glibly trivialising that monster Hitler by equating him with Shrub.

Freedom House receives funding from several other governments and the EU as well. Similarly, the United Nations is hardly a US mouthpiece just because we provide most of its money! But that vigilance must be directed not only at perceived enemies, but at the vigilant as well. Quis custodiet ipsos cu...

BT, the RR's rise certainly began back then, but it took years before they really took over the leadership of the party. Bush 41 put foreign affairs in the hands of pragmatists like Brent Scowcroft and James Baker (much to the dismay of the Messianic Republicans). Balanced budgets remained at the to...