Intermarkets' Privacy Policy Support
Donate to Ace of Spades HQ! Contact
Ace:aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com Recent Entries
America's Worst Previous President, Jimmy Carter, Dead at 100
THE MORNING RANT: Government is Paying Manufacturers to Produce Electric School Buses, and Then Paying School Districts to Buy Them Mid-Morning Art Thread The Morning Report — 12/30/24 Daily Tech News 30 December 2024 Sunday Overnight Open Thread - December 29, 2024 [Doof] Gun Thread: Post Christmas and Pre-New Year 2024 Edition! Food Thread: Raccoons, Brisket, And Latkes...A Match Made In Heaven! First-World Problems... The Progressives Love Lawfare...Payback Is A B*tch! Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024 Captain Hate 2023 moon_over_vermont 2023 westminsterdogshow 2023 Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022 Dave In Texas 2022 Jesse in D.C. 2022 OregonMuse 2022 redc1c4 2021 Tami 2021 Chavez the Hugo 2020 Ibguy 2020 Rickl 2019 Joffen 2014 AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups
|
« Picking up the pieces... [tmi3rd] |
Main
| Stock Market Crashes 312 Points »
November 07, 2012
Catastrophe Across The Country: Mia Love LosesHere are some people who lost: Allen West. Rick Berg, for North Dakota Senate. He just conceded. Mia Love, as the headline mentions. Michele Bachman may or may not win -- the count is close, and her opponent is paying for a recount. While we're mostly looking at Why Romney Lost, we have to also figure out why so many other people lost. People who should have won. Why didn't they win? It can't be "because Romney drove down the vote." In Utah and North Dakota, Romney won easily. Why did some voters vote for Romney but then vote against Mia Love and Rick Berg? The only thing I can think of is that the Republican Congress is even more unpopular than Congress generally, and more unpopular than Romney generally. Why? Not sure. I think the Rape Abortion stuff plays into the "extremist" label but I've made that point already and there is surely more to it. For example, let's face it, most people with less money want those with more money to pay more to give them free stuff, and it's long been that way, and it will almost certainly continue being that way. That aspect of fiscal conservatism is also not terribly popular. I don't know. I was harping on the Rape Abortion thing in the comments last night, and a commenter wisely noted: "Fiscal conservatism also proved to be not so popular, too." One more thing (which I'd meant to include in the Why Romney Lost thread) is that Bush's maximalist military policy is also incredibly unpopular. Romney made a play for distancing himself from that at the very end of the campaign, but probably too late. I think it might be folly to blame any of the three stools of conservatism for the loss, as all three wound up losing to one extent or the other. I've said this before, but I'll say it again: I don't think the public minds bombing foreign malefactors. Given the popularity of Obama's drone strikes -- he brags to the press about his Kill List, so popular is it -- I'd say bombing is just fine. The problem is occupation. Occupation is designed to spare the population of the targeted nation the horrors that will inevitably flow from a power vacuum -- riots, banditry, ethnic cleansing, civil war. All of it. I think the public has now spoken pretty clearly on this: They aren't willing to sacrifice American lives for this latter purpose, this merciful part of military intervention. It costs too many good American boys, and we wind up trading their lives for foreign lives, whose actual worth is subject to some debate. If it's not evident already, the Neocon Project is dead. It's actually been dead since around 2006-2007 (and was very unwell before that), but there has been a cowardly reluctance in the Republican establishment and among Republican pundits to admit this. A lot of us (and I include myself here) have just hoped that no one would notice this fact, so we wouldn't have to admit it, and we could stick to our guns and keep sort of claiming we've always been right. Well, we weren't. We certainly misjudged how quickly we could transform backwards, alien countries during an occupation, and also misjudged the public's patience for such a project. If we could do it in two years and then get out, that's one thing. That is potentially doable. (I don't know if it would be advisable; but it would be politically achievable.) But we're obviously not looking at a two-years-and-gone situation. We're looking at 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years, and the public simply loves their sons more than they like the idea of transforming Afghanistan into a pluralistic democracy. I don't think they think that's even possible, for one thing. I can't say I disagree with them. One thing we got a little too used to during the Bush years, and then during the McCain candidacy, was speaking glibly about doing "whatever it takes" to achieve this result or that. We are now suffering from Vietnam Syndrome-- a national aversion to war. Happens after every long, bloody, grueling struggle. Happened after WWI. Happened after Korea. Nations -- people -- tend to forget how awful war is during times of peace. They then go to war, and are unpleasantly reminded. On foreign policy, we cannot speak in maximalist terms. For every statement we make about what we would do, we must limit that with a clear statement of what we would not do. Otherwise, the public will imagine we want to occupy another country. Obviously we don't -- there is no appetite for that -- but I think we're still trying to pretend we think the Iraq Occupation was just terrific, so the public isn't completely crazy to take us at our implication. I've said this before: I think the public would tolerate a bombing campaign against, and even the injection of ground forces into, Iran, so long as the ground forces were an armored column with the strictly-defined and limited goal of seizing nuclear material and then exiting-- within in days and weeks, not months and certainly not years. A strictly defined mission, always kinetic, always moving, always in mass, always bringing maximum firepower to anyone coming within a mile of the column. No nation building, no protecting engineers as they rebuild electrical grids and bridges. None of that. Nations will rebuild themselves. They always have. They don't need American hand-holding, and even if they do, that's their problem. We continue paying a price for the Bush years. I hope Obama's disastrous second term, and the coming recession, will be the last payment.
This is a horrifying thought, but here's where I think we are: Obama is pretending he's going to stop Iran's bomb production, but he's actually lying. He intends to let them have the bomb, then hope for the best. Hope that containment and deterrence work. But the horrifying thing is that I think the public knows he's lying, and is on board with that. They just don't have the resolve -- or understanding of the future -- to stop it. So they want to lie along with Obama. So, the course I laid out is something that could never be announced in a campaign. Once already in office, though, it's possible the public would withhold judgment long enough to accomplish it. So long as it was in-and-out. One big difference between anti-war conservatives and anti-war liberals is this: Liberals talk endlessly about foreign deaths, while conservatives are pretty focused on American deaths. I think, on that point, the general public is on the conservative side. No one's happy about foreign deaths, either, but when push comes to shove, when America is threatened, they will tolerate them. They won't cheer foreign deaths, but they'll chalk it up to the Way of the World. But when it comes to American deaths, most independents, and a lot of conservatives, start balking. | Recent Comments
Seems Legit:
"How odd, I thought everyone understood that electr ..."
rickb223 Gold & Silver Spot Prices [s][/b][/i][/u]: "You’d think they would’ve come up with ..." Commissar of Plenty and Lysenkoism in Solidarity with the Struggle : "MiG-29 has two sets of intakes Bonus hole. ..." It's me donna : "270 242 To be fair, Elon did advise that there isn ..." West Frisian Women's Auxiliary : "The red head gene mutation also enables them to dr ..." eleven: "If there wasn't a steel re-enforced concrete wall ..." SMOD: "DC_Draino @DC_Draino Think about this If Tr ..." Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden: "[i]thus, his push to ship congolese lithium mining ..." garrett: "What is the increased Mass of an Electric School B ..." Thomas Paine: "242 To be fair, Elon did advise that there isn't e ..." Skip : "Bet they won't get 10 years of use out of a EV Bus ..." Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden: "[i]They handle 25% more pain than others, and repo ..." Recent Entries
America's Worst Previous President, Jimmy Carter, Dead at 100
THE MORNING RANT: Government is Paying Manufacturers to Produce Electric School Buses, and Then Paying School Districts to Buy Them Mid-Morning Art Thread The Morning Report — 12/30/24 Daily Tech News 30 December 2024 Sunday Overnight Open Thread - December 29, 2024 [Doof] Gun Thread: Post Christmas and Pre-New Year 2024 Edition! Food Thread: Raccoons, Brisket, And Latkes...A Match Made In Heaven! First-World Problems... The Progressives Love Lawfare...Payback Is A B*tch! Search
Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Primary Document: The Audio
Paul Anka Haiku Contest Announcement Integrity SAT's: Entrance Exam for Paul Anka's Band AllahPundit's Paul Anka 45's Collection AnkaPundit: Paul Anka Takes Over the Site for a Weekend (Continues through to Monday's postings) George Bush Slices Don Rumsfeld Like an F*ckin' Hammer Top Top Tens
Democratic Forays into Erotica New Shows On Gore's DNC/MTV Network Nicknames for Potatoes, By People Who Really Hate Potatoes Star Wars Euphemisms for Self-Abuse Signs You're at an Iraqi "Wedding Party" Signs Your Clown Has Gone Bad Signs That You, Geroge Michael, Should Probably Just Give It Up Signs of Hip-Hop Influence on John Kerry NYT Headlines Spinning Bush's Jobs Boom Things People Are More Likely to Say Than "Did You Hear What Al Franken Said Yesterday?" Signs that Paul Krugman Has Lost His Frickin' Mind All-Time Best NBA Players, According to Senator Robert Byrd Other Bad Things About the Jews, According to the Koran Signs That David Letterman Just Doesn't Care Anymore Examples of Bob Kerrey's Insufferable Racial Jackassery Signs Andy Rooney Is Going Senile Other Judgments Dick Clarke Made About Condi Rice Based on Her Appearance Collective Names for Groups of People John Kerry's Other Vietnam Super-Pets Cool Things About the XM8 Assault Rifle Media-Approved Facts About the Democrat Spy Changes to Make Christianity More "Inclusive" Secret John Kerry Senatorial Accomplishments John Edwards Campaign Excuses John Kerry Pick-Up Lines Changes Liberal Senator George Michell Will Make at Disney Torments in Dog-Hell Greatest Hitjobs
The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny More Margaret Cho Abuse Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed" Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means Wonkette's Stand-Up Act Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report! Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet The House of Love: Paul Krugman A Michael Moore Mystery (TM) The Dowd-O-Matic! Liberal Consistency and Other Myths Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate "Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long) The Donkey ("The Raven" parody) |