PaleoCon Phobia?
What's up with Sloanasaurus? Has he totally gone off the edge, like Adoph Hitler when his dreams of world conquest were dashed?
Sloanasaurus said:
The reaction to the ports deal from the so called paleo-to hell with them-cons is an intellectual travesity(sic).
It certainly wasn't "paleocons" that were vocalizing about that; it was the Republican party. The American Conservative or Chronicles Magazine weren't the ones who defeated the deal. I no longer read the yellow journalism of neoconservatism (it's pretty boring with all the mea culpas lately), but I suspect the opposition to the deal emanated from neoconservative talk radio or Pat Robertson.
Allthough I lack the historical knowledge of Sloanasaurus and don't know of "Guy Lusignan's march of folly from Jeruselam (sic) to Hattin," nor do I even know which direction to go from Jerusalem to get to Hattin, unfortunately, we are all becoming familiar with a "march of folly," and it wasn't the "so called paleo-to hell with them-cons" who provided the drumbeat for the march.
Buckley, Fukuyama, et al., to their credit, are withdrawing from the "intellectual travesty" which the neocons promoted, whatever their position was on the Dubai deal.
Sloanasaurus sounds like he may have been induced to have invested some money in Dubai Ports.
Sloanasaurus said:
The reaction to the ports deal from the so called paleo-to hell with them-cons is an intellectual travesity(sic).
It certainly wasn't "paleocons" that were vocalizing about that; it was the Republican party. The American Conservative or Chronicles Magazine weren't the ones who defeated the deal. I no longer read the yellow journalism of neoconservatism (it's pretty boring with all the mea culpas lately), but I suspect the opposition to the deal emanated from neoconservative talk radio or Pat Robertson.
Allthough I lack the historical knowledge of Sloanasaurus and don't know of "Guy Lusignan's march of folly from Jeruselam (sic) to Hattin," nor do I even know which direction to go from Jerusalem to get to Hattin, unfortunately, we are all becoming familiar with a "march of folly," and it wasn't the "so called paleo-to hell with them-cons" who provided the drumbeat for the march.
Buckley, Fukuyama, et al., to their credit, are withdrawing from the "intellectual travesty" which the neocons promoted, whatever their position was on the Dubai deal.
Sloanasaurus sounds like he may have been induced to have invested some money in Dubai Ports.
posted by Anonymous | 3/14/2006 08:22:00 PM
S'aurus is member of the Dubai royal family of the United Arab Emirates -- Aha!
Farmer, you've helped to clear the smoke of the murky mystery over why the small faction known as Sloanasaurus was putting so much into this particular battle.
To think I used to consider myself cool to be a DAR.
The ports deal reveals an interesting policy divide. Should we work with the Arabs to try and manage the world's problems or should we say screw em..."let them do their thing let us do our thing." There was no security issue with the ports deal. If you think threough the facts rationally, the security issue is minute. The whole ports deal was a gift to the screw-em side. The screw em side was blessed with a complicated issue and a media willing to deliver false information because they hate Bush.
There is a segment of American society that says screw-em, which includes paleocons. There is also a segment of Arab/Muslim society that says the same thing. The Muslim side is in full bloom with Iran's President Ahmadinejad, who desires and believes that conflict with the west will make his society better. The American paleocon says to hell with them, we can just nuke the whole area if they (a few criminals) mess with us.
These are dangerous times, which require consistant and intelligent management and rational decision making under the light of guiding truths and principles. Paleocons may have principles, most I whole heartily agree with.... they just don't have any management skills.
While I shudder to realize this, I believe I agree with Federal Farmer over S'saurus on this issue. One dispute I had with FF was that I never appreciated being called a neo-conservative. These labels simply aren't useful since who'se a neo-con and who isn't keeps changing. But the same applies to paleo-con. Whatever-con has simply come to mean "conservative I disagree with."
Now the ports deal is an interesting issue. But it wasn't the paleo-cons (ie: Buchanan and the like) who hated it. Almost everyone did.
But both sides are simply making too big a deal out of it. I agree that the security risk wasn't huge. But I also don't see how this substantially hurts our relationship with moderate Arabs. Moderate arabs, like the UAE government, don't have a good relationships with us because they like us. They have good relationships with us because they see that relationship as in their interest. What has changed?
And lastly, what is going on here with the anti-port side is statistical discrimination. That is, it also just doesn't make sense to let a guy named Mohammed run airport security, no matter that he's a US citizen. If the fallout from this makes everyone comfortable with common sense discrimination, I'm all for it.
I ageree with Pencil that the port decision will not on its own affect our relationship with UAE or "moderate" arabs. This argument is not persuasive. UAE wants us around because we defend them. They are the Belgium and Netherlands of the Middle-east... always ripe for the taking.
However, Pencil plays slight of hand with the issue. He says "it also just doesn't make sense to let a guy named Mohammed run airport security, no matter that he's a US citizen...." In this he falls into the trap.
What has airport security have to do with operating port terminals? The security issue is made up. If I say Mohammad is catering the police cafeteria.... do I leap to saying that Mohammad controls the police?
Pencil throws out a term "statistical discrimination." This is no different than the argument made by Scribbler. The problem with the "statistics" is that the probablity is determined from an irrational fear and not from facts or common sense.
Pencil's reference to Mohammad running airport security is not xenophobia it's common sense. However, if Pencil applied the same common sense to Mohammad doing corporate budgets in dubai for a subsidary company, wouldn't the answer be different?
Perhaps I am most upset about the herd mentality with this issue. John Boehner recently commented that it no longer matter what the facts are about the port issue... the issue was now a loser. He was accepting reality. A frustrating and dissappointing reality.
My point was not that the UAE port business had much to do with security. It was that perhaps we are all now willing to admit that statistical discrimination is not always a bad thing. Thus if incorrectly applying it the port deal (which isn't much of security issue) helps nudge us to correctly applying it where it really matters (like immigration policy and things like airport security) then quite a bit of good might come out of this.
I agree with your last point. I support common-sense profiling. Of course most of us at JAS support profiling. So perhaps what you are saying is that the deal would cow some moderate democrats and the media into supporting it as well making profiling more politically tenable.
If the blown ports deal results in more profiling, then the blown ports deal will have been a good thing.
Of course the media and democrats don't care much about being hypocrtical.
Maybe the whole thing is a rovian trick. Bush knows the media and democrats will be knee-jerk against anything he does. Therefore, if he wants to get something done (and needs democratic support), he just needs to be for the opposite.
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