September 14, 2008

Invade the World. Invite the World. In Hock to the World.

So, how's that working out for us?

By Steve Sailer on 9/14/2008

40 comments:

Anonymous said...

"In Hock to the World."

Steve,
I'm not a native English-speaker. I get the first two phrases. But what's the meaning of "In Hock to the World."?

9/15/08, 12:39 AM
Anonymous said...

We didn't invade the world, any more than China (invaded and occupied Tibet), or Russia (Georgia), or much of West Africa (Congo War) did.

We invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, and Saddam's Iraq after he reneged the 12th time on inspections.

If we can't manage that in a dangerous world, we might as well put a "Nuke Me" sign on NYC and be done with it.

Far too much immigration? Most of it illegal? Yes but steady enforcement is slowly driving that down. Spending too much? Yes but that's due to welfare, entitlements, corporate giveaways and pork. Iraq is a drop in the bucket, we still spend far less on the military per GDP than we did under Reagan (Grenada), Bush 1 (Panama, Gulf War), or Ike for that matter.

We have the politics we have because the elites are deadlocked among 68-era post-radical Wall Streeters like Hillary's backers, and Obama's, and a populace that wants to be safe from the odd nuke or two.

9/15/08, 12:53 AM
Anonymous said...

"a populace that wants to be safe from the odd nuke or two."
How odd of the populace! No good proles, not being able to cope with a nuke or two!

9/15/08, 1:23 AM
Steve Sailer said...

"In hock" is vernacular for "in debt."

9/15/08, 2:54 AM
Anonymous said...

Do you see it being any better under Obama? Obama is going to cut spending, withdraw from Iraq, and cut immigration?

9/15/08, 3:24 AM
Anonymous said...

So, Ben Wattenberg was on to something when he called the US "The first universal nation"?

I just don't how that's good for the US. But, hey, that's me asking questions.

9/15/08, 4:55 AM
Anonymous said...

Thanks for explaining the term Steve. The thing that I see is that the US is running out of money. In the past foreign wars either brought lots of money with it, such as WWI and WWII, or the US got others to pay for their wars, such as Desert Storm (mainly Japanese and German money). I dunno who paid for Vietnam. But increasingly the EU and Asians do not want to pay for the GI's anymore. So where is the dough going to come from. Things at home are not looking too good judging by the Stockmarket this morning.

9/15/08, 6:40 AM
KlaosOldanburg said...

testing99:

International airspace and seas belong to the US armed forces.

9/15/08, 6:57 AM
Anonymous said...

I don't care if it's any better under Obama. The GOP needs to be held accountable for eight disastrous years where the national debt doubled, the number of illegals tripled, and the country started a never ending war. If the GOP is not held accountable, it's giving a license to steal to the elites of this country.

9/15/08, 7:05 AM
Anonymous said...

there goes testing99 again...Tibet and Georgia have been occasional parts of the Chinese/Russian empires going back centuries. It'd be like us invading Puerto Rico or something. In contrast, you get the U.S. invading distant foreign lands with no connection to us on very flimsy rationales.

a populace that wants to be safe from the odd nuke or two.

when will you get through your head that pissing off a billion Muslims does not make you safer from nuclear terrorism?

9/15/08, 7:14 AM
Anonymous said...

I don't think testing99 is capable of uttering a truthful sentence.

We ARE invading the world as we have bases in some 80% of the countries of this world.

Most countries don't have any military bases and they don't fear a nuke in NYC.

In fact, it is these very bases - and our support for the sectarian state of Israel - that puts us in danger of being nuked. You have the connection backwards, but I am sure you know that.

AND, these activities cost us a LOT of money too.

Military spending is as high as it was during WWII, in inflation adjusted dollars. Using the percentage of GDP measure is something teachers unions due to cover up the failure of the public schools.

If every expense stayed at the same percentage of GDP we would never have any money for new industries. It is a bogus measure.

9/15/08, 7:16 AM
Anonymous said...

"Far too much immigration? Most of it illegal? Yes but steady enforcement is slowly driving that down. Spending too much? Yes but that's due to welfare, entitlements, corporate giveaways and pork. Iraq is a drop in the bucket, we still spend far less on the military per GDP than we did under Reagan (Grenada), Bush 1 (Panama, Gulf War), or Ike for that matter.

We have the politics we have because the elites are deadlocked among 68-era post-radical Wall Streeters like Hillary's backers, and Obama's, and a populace that wants to be safe from the odd nuke or two."

Thank God, I was concerned for a minute...Nothing to worry about I suppose. I mean, holy shit, have you ever left the house? Steady enforcement of illegals? Where? Spending too much? No shit! Has it been even minimally curtailed? Of course not, even more will be spent, doesn't matter which clown is in the White House. Dead end liberals/hippies/communists running the gov't? Just great. How much damage can they do? See above. And those fucking regular people, wanting to not be nuked! Pussies. What's an odd nuclear bomb or 3? if we have no muslims in the US, then we substantially cut our risks. And kicking them out is cheaper than fighting in the ME.
I'm not worried about an Iranian ICBM landing on NYC. I'm worried about the loony muslim who has lived in Brooklyn, legally, I might add, for years deciding to suicide himself with something smuggled in. Kind of reminds me of a bunch of other muslims who ived in the US legally and then got on some planes...At least they weren't in their 50s when they were briefly pilots!

9/15/08, 7:41 AM
Anonymous said...

Far too much immigration? Most of it illegal? Yes but steady enforcement is slowly driving that down.

You are terribly naive. The tax base MUST be expanded if we are going to pay for Hummers in Baghdad and the sprawling CENTCOM base and pensions and health care for Baby Boomers. It's either that, or we see what happens when we find out that not even US soldiers fight for free.

--Senor Doug

9/15/08, 8:08 AM
Michael Carr - Veritas Literary said...

Iraq is a mere drop in the bucket? Just a half trillion or so, eh? What's that among neocon friends?

Imagine if we'd spent that money on a real economic stimulus (not this Wal-Mart coupon they gave us) such as repairing our bridges, rebuilding our roads, and investing in our energy infrastructure.

And I can't believe you guys are pulling out the old nuclear weapon canard. I'm pretty sure the Hussein WMD/Al-Qaeda link has been debunked, and thoroughly.

9/15/08, 8:26 AM
Anonymous said...

Obama is going to cut spending, withdraw from Iraq, and cut immigration?

Obama during his presidental campaign has pledged to double foreign aid to $50 billion. (Those foreign aid totals never include the benefit the world gets from a stable international order created by a strong US military.) An earlier bill he introduced just last year would have increased foreign aid by $845 billion over the next 13 years by committing 0.7% of US GNP to aid.

And where would the federal government get the money to commit nearly $100 billion annually to foreign aid? By borrowing it from China and the Saudis, of course.

We all know Rule #1: when you're in a hole, stop digging.

we still spend far less on the military per GDP than we did under Reagan

And your point would be? If we can cut military spending by $100 billion annually without leaving Americans less protected, why wouldn't we do so?

Historically, one of the biggest threats to a nation's security and propserity has been the indebtedness caused by excess military spending.

9/15/08, 9:41 AM
Anonymous said...

I cannot say anything about the military adventures of the US except that the 2 countries I am genetically affiliated with, South Africa and Germany, both had seriously good armies in their day but did not profit from them in the long run. The only good that came about in those countries was through hard work, thriftiness and religion, more so of course in the case of Germany. Both countries are nowadays mainly off the war drug, for the better I think, even though I am a fan of solid defence in the strict sense of the word.

But clearly the inclination of the US to live on debt, both personal and governmental, is busy causing you people some serious headaches. Whoever gets in has to try and get back to fiscal sanity and also prod the average citizen to stop taking the debt drug. And do something about those hooligans in Wall Street. I have never had any personal debt. The downside is I live modestly. I don't own a car or a house, i.e. a lifestyle which whiter people would equate with being in a monastry. The upside is I can sleep fairly well at night. That's when I'm not worrying about genocide in South Africa or the Muslim invasion of Germany... so many problems!

9/15/08, 9:58 AM
Anonymous said...

Working better than the likeliest alternative.

I don't see Tom Tancredo or anyone like him getting elected to President anytime soon so I am not holding my breath.

I shudder to think what Al Gore would have accomplished as President had he won.

You never waived the pom-poms but you were mostly content to let Bush run things until he became so openly pro-illegal immigration. I don't like it either but show me one Democratic candidate for President that would have done better.

As far as invade the world goes, I like fighting the Islamists in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. There is no way could keep them out of the US unless we completely sealed the borders.

But for some reason, we've kept them from launching any domestic attacks. I don't know the exact mechanism but I do know that so far, it has been working just fine.

9/15/08, 10:00 AM
Anonymous said...

I believe "invade the world" refers not just to Iraq and Afganistan, but a pattern of neocon / progressive policies calling for the US to intervene militarily where the mainstream media orders it. It started with the Spanish-American war, of course. More recent example were Panama, former Yugoslavia, Somalia, etc.

Granted, there's no specific political ideology whose adherents refuse to intervene militarily in other countries. Real small-government anti-colonialist (or even non-colonialist) Presidents are hard to find.

"Invite the world" is also more about policy than anything else. If immigration is going down (I don't know myself, but I see no reason to disbelieve Testing 99's assertion), it is because the paleocons in Congress defeated the Big Neocon Invitational.

9/15/08, 10:06 AM
Tino said...

In all fairness, how is this crisis related to any of these themes?

1. “invade the world”: Did the Iraq war cause the crash, 5 years later? How? Because it increased the deficit with 0.8% of GDP per year? Tenuous link.

2. “In hock to the world”: Again I don’t see the connection. The banks are not failing because of foreigners leaving American capital markets. If anything foreign capital has cushioned the blow (just as increased exports cushioned the recession).


3. “Invite the world”: I know Steve has made a compelling case for a link between bad lending and minorities. About 50% of the subprime loans were to blacks and Hispanics (I have never managed to find any data about how much of the subprime default that is by blacks and Hispanics). But most of these people were not recent immigrants.

Finance is abstract, and financial shocks can be used with vague references by anyone to make almost any demagogic point they are already inclined to believe. I demand a little more intellectual stringency.

Seems traditional free-market theory is perfectly good at explaining this. The government implicitly guaranteed these people, who therefore made bad decisions. When they failed the guarantees set in, taxpayers pay the price (that is not to say financial institutions don’t make bad decisions on their own, they do, that’s part of reality. If you want to make investment decisions in a reality with uncertainty and want to reduce the probability of bad decisions to zero it will be very hard to make any money. The question is systematic bad decisions, which is what seems to have happened).

Ps.

Reading the comments, can you guys distinguish between the arguments
“illegal immigration is bad, the Iraq war was to costly” and “Illegal immigration caused Lehman Brothers investment bank to fail, the Iraq war caused Fannie and Freddy to go bust”.

Any difference?

9/15/08, 10:32 AM
Anonymous said...

I don't care if it's any better under Obama. The GOP needs to be held accountable for eight disastrous years where the national debt doubled, the number of illegals tripled, and the country started a never ending war. If the GOP is not held accountable, it's giving a license to steal to the elites of this country.

You got it all wrong. The Dems need to be held accountable for being a lousy opposition party. All the GOP has to do each election is be less evil than the Dems. That's taking candy from a baby.

9/15/08, 10:37 AM
Tino said...

Blode:

“it is because the paleocons in Congress defeated the Big Neocon Invitational”

I am sorry, but people like Jeff Sessions and Tom Tancredo are NOT “paleocons”. They are traditional conservatives: Hawkish realists on foreign policy, pro-trade within reason, and economic free marketers.

Palecons and neocons are both mutant intellectual species with small number of actual followers, more common among intellectuals than politicians or even voters.
Even most of the pro-amnesty republicans were not “neocons”, they were moderates like Hagel, Luger, Martinez and Mccain.

The traditional right-left line is still king.

9/15/08, 10:44 AM
Anonymous said...

The very idea that we can strengthen our economy by importing tens of millions of the least educated people in the world reminds me a bit of this video: "The Donuts of Champions."

Since 1965: soaring government debt, soaring consumer debt, soaring income inequality, declining quality of life (adjusted for technological improvements), soaring commute times, declining levels of personal satisfaction. How's that immigration thing working out for us?

9/15/08, 10:53 AM
Tino said...

Anon:

I completely agree with you here. The Democrats are running with a guy on a platform of ca 500 billion in additional spending and 80 billion in tax increases, and have the audacity to complain about the deficit?!

Also with the conduct of the Iraq war they made it more difficult to hold the administration accountable. It’s hard to punish Bush for the initial mistakes, when the opposition started to rant about "treason" and “Bush knew there were not WMD:s” and "no blood for oil" 5 minutes into the war they initially voted for.

They were clearly working to lose Iraq, not to manage the war better.
Ultimately it was other Republicans, like McCain, that did the “opposition” job in Iraq (pointing to better policy), not the democrats. On illegal immigration it was conservative republicans(!) that were the “opposition”, with the democrats actually supporting the administration.

On the deficit just ask yourself: why is Democrat congress constantly pushing for increased spending if they are against the deficit?

The democrats had a choice when the republicans screwed up: either go to the center on issues like immigration and spending and become the majority party for the next 10-15 years, or use the space created by republican mistakes to go EVEN MORE to the left. They chose the latter.

The only thing to do is vote in real conservatives in congress to police Mccain or Obama, it’s quite clear the Democrats will not do that on issues that matter.

9/15/08, 10:55 AM
Anonymous said...

We didn't invade the world, any more than China (invaded and occupied Tibet), or Russia (Georgia)

Your analogy sucks. Tibet and Georgia share borders with China and Russia. In other words, Iraq is obviously "more" of an invasion than China-Tibet or Russia-Georgia.

and Saddam's Iraq after he reneged the 12th time on inspections

So when do we invade Israel for not even agreeing to inspections in the first place? Pakistan? Korea?

9/15/08, 1:22 PM
Anonymous said...

"I am sorry, but people like Jeff Sessions and Tom Tancredo are NOT “paleocons”. They are traditional conservatives: Hawkish realists on foreign policy, pro-trade within reason, and economic free marketers."

If you say so. But I still don't know how you feel the traditional conservatives differ from the paleocons, except that the latter are mutants. To me, paleocon means "like Robert Taft".

And if McCain isn't a neocon, who is? I can't think of any member of Congress who the tag fits more perfectly than John McCain. To me, neocon means "like Irving Kristol".

9/15/08, 3:01 PM
Anonymous said...

Tino writes:

In all fairness, how is this crisis related to any of these themes?

We're not talking about a "crisis". We're talking about the gradual dissolution/digestion of our nation and its resources.

9/15/08, 3:26 PM
Anonymous said...

"Invade the world; invite the world" is catchy but redundant. The "invitation" prong is simply the manner in which the invasion of *this* country is effected.

9/15/08, 3:28 PM
Tino said...

How “traditional conservatives differ from the paleocons”

1. Traditional cons, even Iraq skeptics like Tancredo and Sessions, are not in denial about the success of the surge (or worse, actually seem to be sad about its success). I don’t understand what kind of nationalist is upset when their country goes from clearly losing a war to the path of winning it?!?

Of course we all know why, it’s about cognitive dissonance and ideology. People like to be right, so if you were against the Iraq war you like to win the debate, and if you were against the surge you don’t like to admit you were wrong. But it’s a horrible sign when people winning put an internal policy debate (Sailor thinks it’s about prestige and status, or maybe just the utility of feeling you were right and the other guy wrong) over the welfare of their country.


2. Traditional cons are not doctrines protectionists when it comes to free trade. I think it’s a strategic mistake to act as if illegal immigration and with free trade are the same issue.

Let me emphasize: I don’t think reducing trade would be that big of a problem, the difference between having 10% tariffs or 20% isn’t that big. But there is something wrong with people who claim Americas economic problems are due to free trade, when there is no evidence for that.

By bundling a strong intellectual position (opposing illegal immigration) with a weak one (opposing trade) paleo ideology is self-defeating.

Illegal immigration, importing low skilled labour, is the OPPOSITE of free trade, where you import goods produced by lowskilled labour. If you trade with Mexico you reduce the incentives for immigration, by lowering prices of these goods in the US, and by raising wages in Mexico.



“We're talking about the gradual dissolution/digestion of our nation and its resources.”

What happened in Wall Street today has nothing to do with the gradual dissolution of your nation. It’s a temporary financial crisis, the kind capitalism has seen and overcome in the last 150 years, and that Marxists always want to use to subvert the system.

There may well be a gradual dissolution (more likely reduced growth), for example a reduction in the quality of the work-force. But I don’t see any link between these different problems, and you guys are not even trying to outline an argument, just waiving your hands in a general direction of misery.

Maybe someone can make the argument that the demographic shift has changed the political reaction to the financial crisis. Poor/uneducated people with weak norms and a populist ideology are more prone to socialist “let’s kill the rich bastards” rhetoric during a wall-street downturn, that they don’t really understand. I do have to say the commentators here are not exactly helping.

9/15/08, 4:58 PM
Anonymous said...

I'll tell you in 100 years.

9/15/08, 5:22 PM
Anonymous said...

Of course we all know why, it’s about cognitive dissonance and ideology. People like to be right, so if you were against the Iraq war you like to win the debate, and if you were against the surge you don’t like to admit you were wrong. But it’s a horrible sign when people winning put an internal policy debate (Sailor thinks it’s about prestige and status, or maybe just the utility of feeling you were right and the other guy wrong) over the welfare of their country.

I'm awaiting Steve's review of Burn After Reading to see if he recognizes John Malkovich's character as a paleo-conservative (It would be difficult to come up with a more paleo name than Osbourne Cox.) He's a Princeton educated, bow-tie wearing CIA analyst who is demoted within the Bush administration. He's also a bitter drunk and cuckold who keeps his computer in the basement. His justification for placing internal policy debate over the welfare of the country is "higher patriotism." I won't reveal his fate, but it's the inevitable outcome of his paleo-conservatism.

9/15/08, 6:13 PM
Anonymous said...

Did the Iraq war cause the crash, 5 years later? How? Because it increased the deficit with 0.8% of GDP per year? Tenuous link.

So the Iraq war only costs 96 billion/year? More fuzzy neocon math.

Looking at the real costs it is easy to get to triple that amount and Siglitz says 2-3 trillion.

But, hock does not mean just the war. The federal deficit doubled under Bush and his neocon team. Neocons like to spend in general, both on war and other programs.

I can't tell you how many times I have read deficits don't matter (or they are good!) in neocon rags like National Review.

[And the war point ignores indirect costs like the price of oil, which were clearly impacted by Iraq and the threats towards Iran. The US auto industry has been decimated from these costs, not to mention other growth slowing effects. ]

This government spending has had an effect on the debt market and the currency valuation. Lose money is at the root of this crisis.

. “In hock to the world”: Again I don’t see the connection. The banks are not failing because of foreigners leaving American capital markets. [No one made such a claim.] If anything foreign capital has cushioned the blow (just as increased exports cushioned the recession).

Again, you argue with a strawman.

People are not "blaming" the foreigner for lending us money per se, but rather the US policies that make such easy money available.

3. “Invite the world”: I know Steve has made a compelling case for a link between bad lending and minorities. About 50% of the subprime loans were to blacks and Hispanics ... But most of these people were not recent immigrants.

Your whole point rests on the definition of "recent" which you can make so short as to be pointless.

And, while your numbers are sufficient to prove steve's point, I think they are low.

I think it is 50% of the bad subprime loans are to hispanics, and some other substantial number to blacks.

This is what their own advocacy groups claim.

I don't know how recent you need these people to be but just going from 1986 to the present probably represent about 50% of all Hispanic immigration into the country, 22 years or less is pretty recent to me.

9/15/08, 8:01 PM
Luke Lea said...

For tino:

immigration and free trade (with poor countries like China) are similar in that they both increase the supply of labor, and hence reduce its price

The economy grows, but the workers get poorer. Go figure.

For the more academic version, Google "factor-price equalization."

Better yet, read "World Trade and Payments," the classic teaching text on modern trade theory by 3 guys from Harvard.

And please don't mention "comparative advantage" unless you know what "comparative advantage in the relative endowments of the factors of production" means.

God, I am pissed off and pessimistic about where this country is going. I have never been so depressed.

9/15/08, 9:09 PM
Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...

As far as invade the world goes, I like fighting the Islamists in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. There is no way could keep them out of the US unless we completely sealed the borders."

Actually, we'd only need to exclude them at the air terminals and regular border crossings. We could also make it clear that they're unwelcome by, for example, not permitting them to establish mosques here.

So you like fighting them in the middle east? (of course chances are that YOU are not fighting them - someone else is). Well, consider this: the cost of this war is not negligable. And the costs don't stop when we finally leave either. Thanks to improvements in battlefield medicine, the ratio of wounded to killed is much higher than it used to be. This is of course good, but it will lead to a lot of costs down the road treating all those veterans for the next sixty years (many of whom are multiple amputees). We absolutely have to do it too, so it's an unavoidable cost at this point. But it would have been cheaper and better for this country from the get-go to have those guys here and whole and raising families.

US Central Command was founded in 1983. It has now already fought three wars - two of them have become open ended occupations. Certainly, we had to fight in Afghanistan, but we should have been outta there by now.

But wait, it gets better - just last year, the Pentagon formed US AFRICOM - the African Command:

http://www.africom.mil/

Imagine all the wars we can get into in Africa - and our opponents won't just be crazed Musselmen, but even more interesting foes - like teen-aged voo-doo armies. And as no African nation can govern itself even under the best of circumstances, our occupations are guaranteed to last....until approximately the end of time, or of our nation, whichever comes first.

Are you interested in joining up to fight for Burkina-Faso? I didn't think so.

9/15/08, 9:31 PM
Anonymous said...

"Tino said...

1. “invade the world”: Did the Iraq war cause the crash, 5 years later? How? Because it increased the deficit with 0.8% of GDP per year? Tenuous link.

2. “In hock to the world”: Again I don’t see the connection. The banks are not failing because of foreigners leaving American capital markets. If anything foreign capital has cushioned the blow (just as increased exports cushioned the recession).


3. “Invite the world”: I know Steve has made a compelling case for a link between bad lending and minorities. About 50% of the subprime loans were to blacks and Hispanics (I have never managed to find any data about how much of the subprime default that is by blacks and Hispanics). But most of these people were not recent immigrants."

First of all, it may only be 0.8% of GDP, but it's a large fraction of federal outlays. And even GDP is a deceptive measure. It is just a tally of goods and services bought and sold. And nowadays, a lot of those goods and services we are buying consist of.....hellfire missiles, ammo, paying truckers $200,000/yr. to work in Iraq, bribing Iraqis to not kill us, putting up spy cameras on street corners, hiring ex-cops to harrass us in airports, etc. In short - an increasing fraction of GDP is now spent on....the War on Terror.

Also, waging two open-ended wars has probably contributed to the decline of the dollar. A lot of the world looks at us and sees a nation stretched to the limits, that sends armies to far flung corners of the world, but can't even take care of business here at home.

Yes, foreign capital may have cushioned the blow of recent bankruptcies, but it's still not a good thing to be in debt, especially not to other nations, especially not to nations that despise us. Also, that weak dollar means that foreigners can start buying up US assests cheap.

And actually, a lot of the housing market is due to immigration - people moving around to avoid minorities, even leaving their home state to do so.

"Tino said...

I am sorry, but people like Jeff Sessions and Tom Tancredo are NOT “paleocons”. They are traditional conservatives: Hawkish realists on foreign policy, pro-trade within reason, and economic free marketers."

That's true, at least in the case of Sessions. However, I would not say he's a Hawkish realist on foreign policy as he supports the war in Iraq, and that is a policy of fantasists, not realists. He is solid on immigration, though.

9/15/08, 9:47 PM
Anonymous said...

Born Again Democrat said...
"God, I am pissed off and pessimistic about where this country is going. I have never been so depressed."

Born Again Dem, to paraphrase Clinton "I feel for you". The thing that must drive Americans crazy is that they could have avoided most of these problems if they had just sat down for about 5 minutes to think about them. Many countries have had change forced on them by large bullies like Russia, and ahem... the US. In a way that's even more bitter, but the upside is you know there was nothing you could do about it. I think it must really suck to live in the US and know you yourselves are ultimately responsible for your mess.

9/16/08, 1:07 AM
Robert said...

Very important article on the Financial Crisis

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2008
The Denouement (Updated)

9/16/08, 1:10 AM
Anonymous said...

Traditional cons, even Iraq skeptics like Tancredo and Sessions, are not in denial about the success of the surge....

Anyone who even knows what the "Surge" is is not much of a conservative. Knowing about the surge is like knowing about Lindsay Lohan's latest substance abuse problem. It's a pointless distraction from the real issues we must address.

I don’t understand what kind of nationalist is upset when their country goes from clearly losing a war to the path of winning it?!?

This so-called "war" can't be won or lost, since our nation has NO INTERESTS AT STAKE.

9/16/08, 9:38 AM
Anonymous said...

"Many countries have had change forced on them by large bullies like Russia, and ahem... the US. In a way that's even more bitter, but the upside is you know there was nothing you could do about it."

Yeah, we've all wept bitterly because of the changes forced on Germany and Japan by that bullying America.

9/16/08, 6:38 PM
Anonymous said...

Thanks for your answers, Tino.

"2. Traditional cons are not doctrines protectionists when it comes to free trade. I think it’s a strategic mistake to act as if illegal immigration and with free trade are the same issue."

I couldn't agree with you more. I'm aware of some protectionist paleocons (Buchanan) but I hadn't really thought of that as a defining feature of the group. You're probably right though.

I did think that most folks considered Tancredo a paleocon but I'm not sure why I picked that up. I hope your big "traditional conservatives" become more visible as a category. (Beats the "meso-conservative" category I was proposing!)

9/16/08, 7:21 PM
Anonymous said...

ben tillman:

Yep. The good news is, the pointless bar fight we picked with a bunch of losers is going our way, now. Soon, we'll be able to walk out of that bar with our heads high, and only a few scrapes and bruises and a bill for the damage to the bar to show for it. The bad news is, the bar fight is absolutely pointless, and victory wins us nothing we want.

all:

I'm pretty sure the decrease in the number of hispanics in the US is due to the tanking economy, and in particular to the way smaller amount of construction going on. Lots of immigrants were here entirely to make better money than they could make at home--now that the money's gone, there's less reason for them to stick around.

9/18/08, 5:07 PM

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