Commie.

😀

Oh, come one, coming from me that’s funny. Even if it doesn’t make it to the big board.

Good for you, Sonja!

perfectly understandable.

Good for you!

I see you closed out the other posting that led to your change in “rules” due to the unfortunate passing of your dog (for which you have my deepest sympathies as a fellow dog owner), but not this one…that begs several questions; the most obvious being…did you close out the other one to shut down the discussion when it took a turn you didn’t like?

I mean “paranoia”.

Sonja,
I truly am sorry for the pain I know you suffered on th eloss of your dog. I have two myself, and could not bear to think of them not being around anymore. Please accept my sincere condolenses (sp?).
However, I do disagree that the commenters in question were at all uncivil. Merely offering a dissenting opinion, or pointing out a percieved fallacy in the bloggers line of reasoning does not make for incivility. Morgan, Rick, Chuck and I (and I’m assuming from a quick perusal of the post in question that we are the “rude” commenters) all were entirely civil and rational in our comments on your post. I’ll again suggest you apply the same moderation rules to your answers as you impose on your commenters. Calling John Eldridge’s work “full of secular crap which he thinly veneered with some Bible verses … ” does not strike me as being a particularly logical argument; nor especially Christ-like. I still wonder what exactly about his work you find so destructive of family and un-biblical?
My point here is that, while you certainly have the right to run you blog as you see fit, only allowing in comments that fit into your pre-determined model of “acceptability” stifles dissent and/or debate. You end up with a blog full of adoring, like-minded commenters, and no discussion of topics. I am assuming, from the topics you choose to blog about that you kind of want to spark discussions on meaningful subjects. You won’t get that by setting rules that basically say “If I don’t like how you say something, or think it isn’t ‘logical’ (by MY definition of the word) I’m not allowing you to comment.”
Just sayin!
ps… I WOULD study my fallacies, but since I think my arguments are logically sound, they don’t appear as such to me!

I take my view of God’s intended design for human beings from Genesis 1 and 2 (prior to the fall) and see no hint that God’s intended design for men was killing one another… this is a result of the fall and is always falling short of His intent for human beings. I agree it can sometimes be necessary, but never should be glorified, and a last resort not a first. In Orthodox theology, the killing of another human being is sometimes deemed as necessary, (self defence, “just” war) but is always viewed as a sin requiring forgiveness, as a person made in God’s image has been destroyed. Of COURSE men and women are different… that the key difference should be around killing others is cultural, not biblical.

@ Shifty1 – We’re not commenting on the ChristianityToday.com website here. This is Sonja’s real estate that she pays for, so if she wants to lock things down to only accepting comments that fit into pink ponies and unicorns land, that’s her prerogative. Would you tolerate me planting an Obama sign on your front lawn? I doubt it. My impression is that she’s looking for good honest debate that’s backed by facts and delivered with character in the spirit of good debate. What I’ve witnessed with Rick, and with many other of the rising Right, is rhetorical propaganda delivered with righteous indignation. It just shuts down debate… similar to bringing guns to an arm-wresting match. Let’s arm wrestle a little and see if we can’t learn to respect each other in the process? Why throw assumptions around and think you know your opponent? Why not get to know them first?

And yes, Sonja’s husband here. NRA card-carrying member, graduate of John Eldridge’s Colorado Boot Camp. The debate is rich and entirely worthwhile.

Ross,
As you’ll see by my post, I heartily agree (and have from the beginning) that Sonja has every right to run her post as she sees fit. My ONLY point was that by barring anyone who you deem “unworthy” you end up with debate/discussion stifled by fear of moderation.
Oh and the sympathies on the loss of your dog extend to you also!

Sonja,
You are right. I do not know you. I only know what you have written; so it is by these “facts” that I have to form opinions. Could I have mis-read your use of the word “tolerance”, and ascribed to it the currently fashionable definition? Absolutely. I did. I assumed, from the overall tone and tenure of your postings that when you claim to be tolerant of something, you do NOT mean that you “put up with it”…like I “tolerate” Hannah Montanna music in order to spend time with my pre-teen daughter. Rather, I took you to mean that you openly welcomed that thing, and respected it’s differences from your own. Sorry if I assumed in error, but that IS the position of so many “liberal” Christians. To those who share the “new” orthodoxy of liberal Christianity, we should never presume to “judge” any behavior as sinful or even “wrong” because we are told “Judge not, lest you be judged.” So if I wrongly lumped you in with the wrong crowd, based on my gleanings of “you” from your posts, I apologize. I do remain unconvinced that such is the case, but I am open to the possiblity.

Janet,
If we go back to Pre-Fall roots, you’d have to agree that God’s design for man was to hold dominion over all the earth, was it not? So by creating man to “rule” the earth, God must have built in a mechanism that would cause man to desire that dominion. THAT is what was perverted by the fall…the God-given desire in man to be “ruler” over everything on earth.
And I absolutely agree that man was not created to kill others. That is just one consequence of the fall. But I still maintain that God “hard-wired” the desire for mastery over all creation within his sphere into man. So while we can decry the perversion of this, we can’t IGNORE it, or pretend that the desire man has to “rule” is inherrently evil.
And, correct me if I’m wrong, but I can recall NO isntances in the Bible where anyone engaged in a “just” war (a God-ordained war…and yes God himself DID ordain wars and killing!) was required to seek forgiveness for killing. David never had to seek forgiveness for killing Goliath; Joshua never had to seek forgiveness for wiping out entire peoples when God directed him to do it. Your point about Orthodox theology doesn’t account for this. In fact, going back to the Genesis Pre-fall account, we find out that God gave MAN the work of ruling creation and gave WOMAN the work of being a companion to the MAN. SO the implied difference is that men are “built” to exert dominion over creation and women are “built” to provide companionship and help to the man. Pretty un-PC, but there it is. So the differences in the way they are “built” is just one of the many areas of God’s creation perverted by the fall.
The point is….today’s culture has elevated these perversion ABOVE God’s intended order. You said it yourself, good, balanced, Christ-like roll models are NOWHERE to be found in poluplar culture. Godly values…I would go so far as to say masculininty itself….are demonized, marginalized, ridiculed and torn-down at every opportunity. Those who promote Godly character are targeted for destruction. What is lifted up in the place of Godly and masculine role models? Will and Grace. “Alternative” lifestyles and “families”. Thuggish, sexually predatory “music” stars. Oprah. Rosie. Joy Behar. Barack Obama. Ted Kennedy. “Gender-norming”. These are the people we are told to emulate. Even our “churches” embrace and endorse sin. So when you sign on for the “tolerance” and “acceptance” train you join in with those who are actively seeking the destruction of all that is Godly. After all, aren’t acceptance and tolerance THEIR buzzwords?

What a beautiful defense of the gospel Janet… very well done

Ross,
I disagree…no where in there does she mention or defend the death and resurrection of Jesus in our stead. How did she defend the Gospel? She defended a pacifism theologically, but she most assuredly did NOT defend the Gospel!

I did not say I opposed all war everywhere. I believe in the legitimacy of having a defence force.

I am not terribly interested in defending “a culture”… cultures change all the time. I am interested in defending people.

I find you keep polarising to extremes, (you either glorify war or TOTALLY demonise it, you either celebrate war or oppose ALL WAR EVERYWHERE) which makes it a little difficult to have a clear and nuanced discussion.

I stand somewhere in the middle. I believe force is sometimes legitimate and necessary for governments in a fallen world… which is why civilized nations have a police force, an independent judiciary, and a defence force.

This should be balanced with the knowledge that all people are made in the image of God and are precious to him… even the very best of us do not “deserve” His love, but it is poured out freely on all. As such, we use “lethal force” as a last resort, and always with a degree of sorrow, rather than of gloating or celebration.

Yes, Israel was commanded to destroy the Canaanites because of the extreme wickedness of their practices. I personally think that a unique event, and I’d be very cautious about believing any particular country today to be the chosen force of righteousness… for the Christian, our kingdom is “not of this world”… we are told to not to judge, but to trust in the One who judges justly.

I didn’t “chide” you about “God will defend us”. I was more pointing out that the Old Testament has a number of unique events, so our touchstone is the clear teaching of Jesus, rather than an interpretation of this or that event.

A lot of war (not all) could be avoided with greater patience, generosity, a commitment to dialogue, working for justice, endeavouring for understanding… blessed are the peacemakers. I am not advocating either/or, but both/and.

Janet,

Your points regarding war being a “neccessary evil” are valid, and I happen to agree with you. What I don’t agree with is the philosophy that because of the “turn the other cheek/love your enemy” teachings of Jesus, that we Christians are NEVER to fight or defend ourselves. Sorry for mistaking your for a follower of that camp, and thanks for clarifying. We were kind of speaking in generalities…War is bad, guns are bad…etc. Getting into specifics clarifies things quite a bit.
One thing I will say is that as far as using lethat force with a measure of sorrow, in the heat of battle there isn’t much time for sober reflection on the consequences of each squeeze of the trigger. Whether you are a rifleman in an infantry company, or a sailor on a warship, when the bullets start flying, you do what you were trained to do. If you do it successfully, you live to fight on and the enemy does not. Often we are treated to images of soldiers “celebrating” the taking of lie. In reality that is no more than the overwhelming emotional release from survivng a life and death struggle. It is only later that most of us reflect on the fact that our actions brought death to someone else. Same for LEOs. That is why so much money is spent on “after-action” couselling in the civilian sector, and why so many of our returning heros need “psycholocial” help.
You are spot-on with your observation that believing that ANY country (except the remnant of Isreal mentioned in the Bible) is God’s chosen nation. I have argued long and hard against people who think that somehow America has supplanted Israel as God’s chosen. I beleive that any nation that actively acknowledges and includes God in it’s public life, will enjoy blessings from Him. I also beleive that once a nation turns away from God, the outcome can be read over and over again in the Bible! Honor God and shun evil and your nation flourishes. Shun God, sacrife your children to Molech(abortion), promote ritual prostitution (name your sexual perversion here!) and raise up Asherah poles (what HAVEN’T we raised up to worship in place of God?) on all the high places, and your nation will cease to recieve God’s blessings.
While I agree that Jesus is the touch-stone of our faith, I’ve got to ask…do you think that Jesus ever taught anything that was contrary to ANY aspect of God’s character? I would agree that you shouldn’t go through life thinking…well God miraculously provided food for the widow and her son when they sheltered Elijah….I’m going to invite that guy on the street-corner shrieking about “Turn or Burn” to come live with my family so WE will have food without me getting a job! (Okay so admittedly not the BEST illustration of this point, but I think you get my drift…) But neither can you ignore the OT as a collection of neat stories about unique events. Remember, Jesus came not to destroy the Law (the OT), but to FULFILL it!
A challenge for you…can you name ONE war that has occurred since 1700 or so that could have been avoided by greater diplomacy, or more patience, or increased generosity? Or one that resulted from a lack of understanding on ALL parties parts? Or one that could have been prevented if allinvolved had been just a bit more committed to justice? I don’t think you can!

The two current ones come to mind immediately… Afghanistan and Iraq.

Indeed, I would say most of the wars since 1700 might have been avoided with greater diplomacy… but I’d except World War II (where force should have been exercised as soon as the treaties were broken) and the Napoleonic wars.

Please elaborate on how EXACTLY more time, patience, understanding etc would help when dealing with people who have sworn to destroy western civilization and replace it with a world-wide caliphate? How would more dialog help? How would mor eunderstanding help? The war in Afghanistan was a DIRECT result of the attack on 9-11. The base of operations, training camps and safe havens for the al-queada was in Afghanistan. We were attacked not by a nation-state who could be negotiated with; no dialog was possible. They are not interested anyway! Unless you are willing to concede the destruction of Israel, the abandonment of a large chunk of the world to a philosophy that marginalizes and virtually enslaves women AND no guarantee of any cessation of hostilities toward the “west”…no dialog is useful!
Iraq…well I’ll just use your justification for WWII for that one. As you said, “force should have been excercised as soon as treaties were broken”. By that token, the UN should have led the charge to remove Saddam…oh around 1993 or so! Since one of the conditions of the cease-fire agreement that ended the FIRST Gulf War was for Iraq to aloow international agencies to verify the destruction of their WMD and long-range offensive weapon capability, the first time Iraq started playing cutsie with the inspectors, should have been the last. BUT NOoooooo…we had over 12 years of dithering, “diplomacy”, corruption, and endless “resolutions” out of the UN while Saddam thumbed his nose at the world! Seems to me the whole “time and talk” path was given a fair shake….and failed miserably!

So many points… for starters, there’s no real possibility of dialogue with networks of terrorist cells… it is unambiguous criminal activity. Dialogue with legitimate government representatives and NGO’s involved in nation building, improvements in governance and policing are the only realistic possibilities. We have room to improve on these fronts. I can’t think of a legitimate nation state whose constitution swears to destroy Western civilization. Enlighten me if one does exist.

I agree with you that if Iraq was to be conqured at all, it should have been done properly in the first Gulf war.

The fact is though, the US really shot its credibility in the foot with Muslim nations by invading Iraq the second time because “we have clear evidence of weapons of mass destruction”. (Oh, oops, you were right, there weren’t any). When the Al Queda propraganda warns that the evil West is plotting to take over the Muslim nations by force, it can actually help their cause.

It also damaged its credibility in (my parody of) the Afghanistan situation:

“Hand over Osama Bin Laden”
“We don’t know where he is”
“Hand him over or we’ll invade” (boom, boom)
“Oh you’re right… he is hard to find”.

I don’t get it. Old fashioned spying may well have been more effective at tracking down Osama Bin Laden than war. Cheaper, smarter, less violent, less loss of international credibility.

Most of the masterminds of 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia, not from Afghanistan, which is a notoriously difficult spot to control anyway because of its geography and history. It simply wasn’t the only hot spot for terrorist activity… but where do you start with such a slippery cell network? As I said… energy in old fashioned spying/intelligence/international policing is probably money better spent.

As for the other comments… Israel does an impressive job of defending itself, don’t you think?

It’s not realistic to conquer every unpleasant undemocratic country that abuses human rights (and perhaps has resident terrorists) through agressive war, is it? China, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Zimbabwe, Libya… gosh, where does the march of agressive warfare stop? Other ways forward need to found. Of course, if such a country were to attack your country or an allied country, you would need to exercise military defence… but that’s a different issue.

I think it more pragmatic to dialogue with nations more often… Indonesia and the Philippines are examples of countries that have transitioned from dictatorships to democracies… one predominantly Catholic, one predominantly Muslim. It’s possible. Not everything has to be solved down the barrel of a gun. The more we find alternate pathways, the better. I do not believe alternate pathways solve everything, or that warfare can always be avoided… but much warfare can be.

Thinking back to biblical times, the Roman Empire was in many ways quite harsh and cruel… but Paul still recognised it as God-ordained. I believe this is because for most people most of the time, even very imperfect governments are preferable to anarchy, to feuding warlords, and to chaos.

As for the women and men issue…

What is clear from pre-fall times is that killing of all kinds (including killing animals) was not part of God’s original intention. Your “husband ruling over you” was one of the curses as a result of the fall.

There is virtually no biblical information about what gender roles would have looked like before the fall, apart from Eve helping Adam and being “flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone”. We really can only speculate what that might look like in detail, and I don’t really intend to, because we live after the fall. So there doesn’t seem much point exercising my imagination about roles.

OK, so we’re saying the same thing regarding men and women. Your last paragraph quite aptly summarized my point….since we can’t really know what “pre-fall” gender roles were intended to be, EVERYTHING in speculation. And since we live in a fallen world, better to just deal with reality as it is….

Now on to the other issue. First, I’m amazed at your mention of Paul’s admonition to live peacably under whatever government we find ourselves under….I had actualy typed that in my respone in #28, but felt it was a bit off-topic for the point I was trying to raise! What’s that saying about great minds….:)
As far as a legitimate nation-state calling for the destruction of the West….Iran. Although that kinda stretches the definition of “legitimate”, given the shennanigans surrounding the recent “election” over there! But Achmidiawhattheheckever has definately called for the destruction of the “Great Satan”, Israel, etc. Further, I would submit that ANY nation that knowingly harbors, aids or abets terrorist groups whose stated purpose is the destruction of the West fit into that category.

Israel does an amazing job defending herself. But up until the current administration, the US has always been solidly in Israels corner. If we weren’t actively helping (providing weapons systems, training etc), we were at the very least not actively undermining their efforts. Unfortunately, that is changing. Now the US is joining the crowd chastising Israel for every move they make to deal with the security of their nation.

As far as the whole WMD deal, I’d ask you to consider this. The President is briefed daily on known or suspected threats to the US. During the first 8 1/2 months of his presidency, George Bush was presented with ONE briefing that mentioned that islamic terrorists funded by OBL wanted to use commercial airliners as weapons. Since no one had ever done this before, and since it was all “rumor” and “conjecture” at that point, it was dismissed as low-priority. After 9-11, when news of that briefing came out, he was CRUCIFIED because he “knew” about this before it happened and didn’t stop it. On the basis of one briefing citing “unsubstantiated” rumors….
Conversely, when considering whether Iraq’s SELF-PROCLAIMED WMD capability existed, and could threaten the US, Bush had EVERY credible “spy” agency in the world telling him that Iraq did indeed posess WMD….MI-6, CIA, DIA, heck even Russia and France! In addition Saddam’s regime let all their neighbors know they still had the WMD, and the regime’s actions viz the IAEA inspectors seemed to suggest they were hiding something. Given the MOUNTAIN of credible evidence, and the mole-hill of naysayers who suggested that Saddam MIGHT not have WMD capability, Bush did the prudent thing and went with the “worst case” scenario. Had he waited, and weapons supplied by Iraq were used against the US or anyone lese, he would have been impeached…and rightly so for dereliction of his duty.

And….it’s not like there was NO WMD material found in Iraq. True, we never found a fully funtioning bio-weapons lab, or a ICBM field…but we did find plenty of chemical-tipped artillery shells, weaponry, including delivery systems that had been forbidden to Iraq by UN resolution and tons of other stuff, mostly in small caches scattered throughout the country. Just because Bush couldn’t stage a photo op standing in a huge pile of Chemical weapons, nuclear warheads and a couple of those mobile bio-weapon labs, or that a world media largely invested in de-legitimizing everything Bush did failed to report the WMD finds that were made, doesn’t mean that he was wrong about it.

None of which answers the question what would even MORE “diplomacy” have done to prevent the Iraq invasion? Were not 12 years of the world’s “premier” diplomatic establishment’s efforts enough…well they would have been except for the whole pesky Oil-For-Food corruption gig? Was not, what, 15 seperate UN Resolutions enough? Where do you draw the line? What would have made Saddam suddenly see the light and reform after almost a decade and a half of doing whatever he wanted with no consequenses?

Afghanistan, under the Taliban, gave aid, support and shelter to al-quaeda. The Afghan government allowed the terrorists free access to their country to set up training camps and bases of operation, which were used to train the jihadists. After 9-11 this made them the prime target for the efforts to rid the world of the menace of the islamic terrorists. How does that Proverb go….”Can a man hold hot coals in his lap and not get burned?” or even better “bad company corrupts good character”.

A couple further points…
As far as where to draw the line regarding state sponsors of terrorism, I like the Bush Doctrine. If you are a nation who harbors, aids or abets any of these shadowy criminal enterprises, especially if those enterprises pull off terrorist attacks, then you are just as culpable. In realpolitick terms, larger nations…oh say China and Russia probably can get away with more than say Yemen, or Syria or North Korea. Just reality. (Although since the ascendency of our Glorious Leader, Emperor Barack I, pretty much anyone BUT Israel can do whatever they want and the US won’t say a word!)

And I agree with you on the whole “old fashioned spying” thing. Unfortunately, no western government has adequate assets on the ground to do a good job of this. The resons for that are varied, but in the US at least, the roots stretch back to the Bay of Pigs and the Congressional witch-hunt that followed. The CIA was gutted, and everyone who was left sort of hunkered down and tried to escape notice. Couple that with the emergence of all the whiz-bang new technology, and the decision-makers pulled back from HUMINT (intellegence derived from real flesh and blood people…spying!) to SIGINT (Intellegence derived from intecepted “signals” – telephone, radio, cell phone, email..)and satellite imagery. And it takes a looong time to re-build those human assets and networks, especially in a part of the world where the natives don’t look like you do! For a much more detailed treatment of this check out “See No Evil” by Robert Baer. That festering turd of a movie “Syriana” is loosely based on Baer’s life and work.

Thanks for the discussion…and I figured out why you’re the only other person besides me posting at such God-awful hours…g’day mate!

G’day mate back! But what are YOU doing at such an unearthly hour? It’s quite a civilized time here… 8.00 pm, Monday.

Look, I wouldn’t want to be the President of the United States… it would be a cow of a job. I personally think everyone was jumpy and looking for someone to blame for 9/11, and less than fully rational decisions were made as a result. The UN certainly didn’t find the evidence of WMD compelling… the evidence wasn’t strong enough.

Terrorism creates a very difficult terrain… probably all countries “harbour” terrorists… to what extent their activity is aided and abetted is also a shadowy matter. Don’t forget was the CIA who armed the Taliban in the first place. As the saying goes, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. It’s not an issue of black versus white: there’s shades of grey everywhere and blood on a lot of hands on all sides.

I don’t think there are any simple answers to this… as a follower of Jesus, “blessed are the peacemakers” is a statement worthy of careful reflection. To me this suggests our first impulse is peacemaking: our last impulse is force. The real world is a minefield where we need to tread carefully… but our instincts should be toward peace wherever possible.

They say when your only tool is a hammer you see every problem as a nail. I think we need to invest in a diverse “toolkit”… not only weaponry, but diplomacy and aid and justice and governance assistance and peacemaking skills… to make the world a safer and more just place. I don’t suggest throwing all weapons out of your toolbox, but don’t have them as your only tool, and invest heavily in the alternatives.

Me…Ummmm…I’m technically AT work, but to say I was working would kinda be stretching the concept of “work” a bit thin! Oh well somebody’s gotta make sure that when Aunt Agnes gets up in the middle of the night for a nip of gin, the lights come on when she flips the switch!

I agree about being president…not so much! Too much soul-selling to get a job that ages you faster than a meth-head, keeps you up nights and only pays $400K. It’s to the point where I almost don’t trust the motives of anyone who goes seeking the job!

I hear what you’re saying about having a full toolkit, and agree. I think the problems arise when the handy-man either doesn’t know which tool to use for a particular job, or falls in love with his favorite tooll and uses it regardless of the situation. Its all in knowing which tool to use when. I mean I love me my cordless reciprocating saw..but it’s not much use in stopping the faucet from leaking! You also have to know when it’s time to admit the tool you originally grabbed isn’t working, and move on to another one. Presidents, especially left-leaning ones tend to NEVER want to admit that the diplomacy tool isn’t working anymore and go rooting around for a better one. Most of that breed (the leftists) will never grab the big ol’ sledge hammer of the Military, but would rather spend eternity chipping away with the tack hammer of Diplomacy. (C’mon..ya gotta love the whole toolbox theme here!) Unless of course the Serial Molester in Chief needs to distract everyone froma certain un-laundered blue dress….

Additionally, you have the armchair Mr. Fix-it’s on both sides of the political aisle that are going to criticize whichever tool a president uses. If he opts for diplomacy….he should have used force. If he opts for force…he should have used diplomacy. Again..who needs THAT headache for $400K? With 24-hour, live-streaming on demand coverage of EVERYTHING, no one takes a longer, historical view of the decisions made today. How will future generations view the ouster of Saddam? American aggression? Or will the fact that 40 some million people were freed from a tyrannical despot and his twisted kids be the fact that outweighs all else?

That is the main criteria I use to determine whether I agree with a decision: does it promote or curtail freedom? I am all for promoting freedom….in all forms. I am against ANY kind of curtailing of freedom.

As far as your point that the UN didn’t think it had enough info onn WMDs to justify invading Iraq…the UN (especially under Kofi Anan) would NEVER have had enough info. Even if Udday Hussien himself had ridden a Nuclear-tipped missle into Tel Aviv, a-la Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove, the UN would still have had reservations. France, germany and Russia (who all hold veto power in the Security Council) all said at the time that NO amount of proof would make them ok a military option. And as time went by we found out at least ONE of the reasons for this….$$$. Remember the Oil-For-Food scam, where Saddam was basically giving cash money to members of various European governments and the UN (including Kofi Annan’s SON) for them to look the other way while he sold oil for profit..not food! IMO the UN is a worthless sham…no a traveshamockeery! Thouroughly corrupt, blatantly anti-semetic, anti-American and anti-capitalist bunch of despot/terrorist appeasers…and incompetent to boot! And this is the body that leftists want to place in charge of ALL world afairs?! No thanks! Don’t even get me started on the lying, bullying, fear-mongering attempts to loot the pockets of successful countries the world over (including the “Land Down Under”) over the farcical “global warming”, no wait “Man-made global warming”, no hold on…”climate change” CRISIS! All I can say is “Chicken Little”!

I’ve always wondered about the term “peace-maker”. I’ve had, ahem…discussions, with liberal Christians who use this beattitude to excuse virulent pacifism. Is it being a peace-maker to appease a brutal dictator like Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Saddam….etc in order not to have to fight a war? How about appeasing (or negotiating) Islamists? I’ve always felt that an intregal part of being a peace-maker is in swiftly and decisively dealing with those who have proven themselves to be the ENEMY of peace! Its not making the peace to continually give in to the demands of a group of people who insist on “negotiating” their demands by strapping explosives on themselves and blowing up busloads of school kids. Not to mention that when those “demands” include the erradication of an entire nation…..who are you kidding? So while I agree with your overall philosophy that force shouldn’t be the de facto first response to every situation, I think that at times, fulfilling our call to be peace-makers can require us to remove some of the opponents of peace from the gene pool permanently!

Well, why don’t we let Sonja make the call? She may find the sparring interesting… on the other hand, she may find it tiresome and rather we left her in peace.

I don’t personally agree with the “peace at any price” approach either… there is a place for defence IMO.

I don’t think anyone’s claiming that Saddam was a nice guy… but Iraq was not invaded because he was an unpleasant dictator, but because of WMD’s. As stated previously, you can’t invade every undemocratic and unpleasant country, and as also stated earlier, there would have been more moral auhtority for a full invasion in the first Gulf war… I don’t personally believe the point of no return had been passed in the second Gulf war. It should also be noted that life for ordinary Iraqi’s was for the most part OK under Saddam’s regime… of course, if you were Kurdish or said something dreadful like “I don’t like Saddam” you might die for it… but most ordinary citizens were safer then than now.

But changing tack again… what do you do as a citizen of a country which actually HAS sponsored terrorism in Afghanistan and other places? I don’t think it’s possible to get terribly self-righteous about it.

Oh and the other link….The International Socialists Review?!? Yeah THATS an unbiased source with no absolutely no axe to grind with the US!!!