Reply #17: It depends on who was in power [View All]

Many of you are still under the mistaken belief that Republicans believe in anything except what they want right now. They don't.

Perhaps you'll remember how adamantly, how vociferously, how deeply-felt was their conviction that we have absolutely no business in 'nation-building'. You haven't heard that slur in a while. It was none of our goddamn business what those other people are fighting about. We should be concerned with Murka. Period. 'We aren't the world's policeman.'

What that means, just like what their heartfelt charge now to 'spread democracy' means, is nothing. It's total bullshit. They didn't believe that then, and they don't believe this now. Even today, within the context of the current self-serving mindset, they have no inclination to 'spread democracy' to any of the other petty tyrants around the world. Only where 'commies' threaten their ideology by their very existence, or where oil is needed to maintain it. What they want.

What they believe is that Democrats don't have the right to spend their money. What that means in larger terms, if you want to get at the base of how they think, is that nobody else but them gets to exercise power. That means the right to institute social policy. It means the right to spend money - that's stealing from them when you do it; it's your patriotic duty when they do it. It means the right to use the military - you don't have the right to use the military even for humanitarian or peacekeeping needs, or to fight in a world war; they on the other hand have the right to start and prosecute any damn war they want. For any reason they want.

They didn't want to fight that 'European war' even while some of our ships were being attacked. The only thing that got us into World War II was Pearl Harbor being attacked because that was an undeniable act of war. Without that Roosevelt would have had less justification to fight Hitler than Bush did to attack Iraq in their mindsets. Dissent wasn't treason while American ships were being attacked attacked. Dissent is treason even though Iraq attacked nothing.

Nobody else has the right to exercise power but them, and when they want to exercise power - political, economic, blocking judges or anything else, then they'll accept any excuse, even blatant lies, as justification. They'll do a complete 180 on your exercise of power and theirs, and you don't get to question it. Their reasoning and justifications will be stunningly contradictory within themselves, and you don't get to question it. They are completely self-centered, on everything from what you get to put on TV or what you smoke, all the way through economics and up to national security.

They'll justify why you can't, and why they can, after the fact. And they'll change those justifications, or lie about those justifications, any time they want. They get to do what they want. You don't get to do what they don't want. Always and in everything they have the right to power and you don't.