What have we really won in Iraq?
Posted in LFA Flashback by R Lee Wrights on February 29th, 2008 by Geoffrey Neale
Iraqis have been freed from the clutches of a ruthless dictator, and that certainly is worth celebrating.
But what else has been gained from the speedy victory over Saddam Hussein’s regime?
Thus far the main justification for the invasion — to protect the United States from weapons of mass destruction — remains unfulfilled, since no such weapons have been found.
A secondary goal of the invasion — to bring genuine democracy to Iraq — appears to be a long shot at best, according to most foreign policy analysts.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principle upon which our government was founded.”
A Rocky Mountain News headline warned earlier this month, “College funding teeters on brink: Officials say huge tuition hikes likely if system isn’t fixed.”
In the classic film Sunset Boulevard, aging silent movie star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) is fixated on a return to stardom. Firm in her delusions that her fans miss her and that Paramount Studios still revolves around her popularity, she sees cameras called to report a murder as being present to film her in a comeback role she’s written for herself. As the film rolls, the thoroughly crazy actress holds her chin high, looks into the lenses surrounding her, and says to an absent director, “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”
Almost as if on cue, anti-gun Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has danced in the blood of slain Northern Illinois University students to push his gun control agenda, yet none of the things on his wish list would have prevented the tragedy at DeKalb, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.
This last week I flew for the first time since I came back from Cincinnati on September 10, 2001. I had kept up with the changes in air travel since then and had prepared myself as much as I could. My bag was packed neatly and left unlocked to make it easy to search, and in all other ways I reminded myself that I never argue with public employees just trying to do their jobs. I may be mad at their bosses or the system, but that’s no reason not to be pleasant with them.
Looking at property rights in the simplest form reveals that a person has the right to his or her own property, using it as the owner sees best fit. This usage includes the self-protection of person and property. This means that if someone comes onto one’s property without consent, the owner shall have the right to protect his or her property by any means necessary as long as the owner does not harm another’s property.
When possible, people gravitate towards jobs they enjoy. People who are scared of heights generally don’t get jobs as window washers on high-rises. People who hate animals don’t generally become veterinarians. While sometimes people just take whatever they can get, given the choice, obviously people are attracted to careers doing something they like.
I’m in the parking lot at the local consumer nirvana (mall) and I find a parking spot, barely notice the back of an SUV in front of me and pull in. I hear a horn as I get out. The SUV has backed up behind me and its owner has gotten out of it to confront me as I journey towards higher retail consciousness. Hold up, hold up, she says. I was about to back into that spot when you took it. That’s my spot, she says. Oh, I’m sorry. You didn’t have a blinker on, you were pulled ahead of me, and I didn’t know. I’m in a hurry, says I, and try to get past her. No, no, says she. We’re about to get into it for real, cause that’s my spot. I am dead on real here, or something, says she.
It was our fantasy. Ron Paul would do better than expected in the early primaries, generating for him increasing media attention. Discussions would break out in coffee klatches, soccer games, NASCAR events and locker rooms across the country. CBS, NBC and ABC would start covering him, commensurate with his fundraising and the American people would have a reawakening. No frontrunner would have enough votes to ensure a first ballot nomination and there would be a brokered Republican National Convention in St. Paul. After several ballots, Ron Paul would become the fall back nominee.
