The ends justify the means. This is the unspoken philosophy that guides a majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. Start out with a whim, and then construct a chain of reasoning to justify it legally. If nothing in our Constitution butresses the argument, inject clauses into the Constitution that aren't there ("right to privacy") or cite the laws and moods prevalent in foreign lands ("overwhelming weight of international opinion"). Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion overturning state death-penalty laws for juveniles employed both underhanded tactics.

Instead of liberals dictating to states that they can't execute juvenile murderers, what if conservatives dictated to states that they must allow juvenile executions? Instead of liberals dictating to states that they can't outlaw abortion, what if conservatives dictated to states that they must ban abortion? Instead of liberals dictating to localities that they can't have prayer in school, what if conservatives dictated to localities that they must have prayer in school?

But conservative jurists aren't doing this. Overturning Roe v. Wade, for instance, wouldn't ban abortion in any state. It would simply allow states to make state law on abortion. In other words, there is nothing extreme about the position of Justices Scalia, Thomas, or Rehnquist. Their course is moderate and sensible. It embraces the Constitution, federalism, and self-government. It's not the mirror image of the ends-justifies-the-means position of High Court liberals. It doesn't impose conservative positions on the states, rather it allows states to chart their own course.

There are a number of good proposals to safeguard the republic from judicial tyranny. One method is to prevent jurists who've discarded the Constitution from interpreting the Constitution. Senators can do this by blocking nominees. Citizens can do this by expressing outrage through voice and vote. It may be difficult for conservatives to influence judicial nominees when liberals are in power. It shouldn't be difficult to influence judicial nominees when self-described conservatives are in power. Unfortunately, the track record shows that it is. Republicans have controlled the executive branch (the branch that nominates judges) for twenty-four of the last thirty-six years, yet we're still stuck with the Anthony Kennedys and David Souters of the world. To avoid more of the same, conservatives must hold a more vigilant watch over the judges that George W. Bush may select to fill Supreme Court vacancies than they have over the president's liberal spending, immigration, and campaign finance policies.

We shouldn't stop talking about impeachment. I hear it come up a few times, but because of the relative impossibility of actually impeaching a federal judge, much less a Justice of the Court, the talk dies down before it really gets started. At the very least, even if not sucessful, a strong campaign might at least scare a few people on the bench.

Like it scared Chief Justice Earl Warren?

Uhh...ok. I probably said something stupid, then. But...I'm too ignorant to get your reference. Warren? Wasn't the guy that shot Kennedy or something like that?

In Friedrich Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom", he talks about socialism and totalitarianism, and how the leader must draw together a population of people who will totally be sold out to the cause, willing to do anything to advance it, sometimes even sacrificing their ability to discern right from wrong, and basically, not think about what they are doing.

This "ends justifies the means" philosophy that Dan is purporting is not so far off from what Hayek was saying. These justices, by imposing their liberal ideology on the country, instead of interpreting the Constitution for what it really is, are trying to "submit that discipline they are to impose by force upon the rest of the people."

The reason it is so easy for justices like Kennedy to impose their ideology on our country is because they have sacrificed their ethics for their ideology. "Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity (liberalism, in this case)...most of those features" which horrify us, follow as neccessity.

Although Hayek is talking about totalitarianism here, it can be seen that juvenile murder, which is murder nonetheless, is no longer viewed as the horrific act that it is. The severity of the action is downplayed for ideological purposes.

And here I thought that the Ninth Amendment protected my right to privacy. In the 'Griswold' case Justice William O. Douglas told me so. If the Ninth Amendment meant anything, he said, certainly it meant to protect so obvious a right as the right to marital privacy, which was "older than the Bill of Rights."
Bork didn't see it that way. That's why he is not on the court today.

Justice Kennedy isn't clearly as liberal as one would think so I propose for someone to research this and you will see what I mean...

AND I guess its ethical for a Justice of the Supreme Court(Scalia) to fly down to Louisiana so that he can go on a fishing trip somewhere within the Bayou w/ Vice Pres. Cheney and energy executives who helped develop the Administration's energy policy. This is clearly moral and ethical.. right??? Especially when he has to rule if the VP must or must not disclose who sat on the energy policy task force... Ethical indeed!!!

If we're to interpret the Constitution then lets put the Patriot Act on trial? You see a person individual right-to-privacy is probably going to be upheld over the use of the Patriot Act? I guess some liberal is using his ideology to impose this upon people when me merely is interpreting The U.S. Constitution and how the Patriot violates this in the broad scheme.

I understand people's complaints about liberals yet lets be civil and realize that the U.S. constitution is the foundation upon which our nation is built. What that document doesn't interpret is the problems or issues that arise today and the future as they're presented and viewed thus this is where cons get in trouble. They have problems accepting change or other interpretations.. they have problems with ideology when their ideology rules the day.

Homer,

What Guido refers to is that conservative activists tried to get Earl Warren impeached, he was the end-all and be-all of activist judges in modern times. Anyway, the attempt to impeach him failed to do anything, as Warren was dominant during the Johnson years and was promoting the power establishment's agenda.

Apparently Guido doesn't mind the court's activism and agrees that the ends justify the means. So be it. He does have a point that movements to impeach have not gotten anywhere in the past, the reason in my opinion being that populist views and movements are carefully suppressed by both parties, by the political establishment. The Courts have only been effectively stopped at times by the willingness of another branch of government, usually the executive, to assert itself as a true check. For example, Andrew Jackson did this, Lincoln, and FDR as well.

The sad state of affairs today is that the 3 branches of government are in collusion against the common good in the interests of the power of the state rather than acting as checks on each others usurpations of power.

Spitfly, who cares who Scalia goes fishing with? How is that relevant to the unconstitutionality of the Court's self-assumed power? (That was the topic of the Flynn's post, wasn't it?) And who the heck said anything about the Patriot Act, pro or con? Do you have ADD?

short,

I sure do have ADD...

In terms of the Courts self-assumed power, I believe that SC Justices when making decisions should use the Constitution and the ideals of self-government since our country is based on this framework yet when is "the ends justifies the means"... bad philosophy since it is also another way of viewing an issue without being close-minded... I think that its good philosophy along with the ideals of self-government.

BTW... I support the death penalty so I don't want someone calling me some liberal flower who believes otherwise.

ADD over and out...

Spitfly,

Are you related to Nightfly or Le Gadfly? There have been a number of flys commenting at this site.

No one called you a liberal flower yet but why do you think the consequentialist ethic that the ends justify the means is "good philosophy" that is somehow in agreement with the "ideals of self-government"? I say that such an ethic is neither good philosophy nor a legit form of self-governing.

Is there anything that you believe to be fundamentally, in itself unjust? For example, is it just to execute an innocent man?

Come, let us discuss the philosphical merits of the ends justify the means.

Ends Justifying Means

From http://www.conservativephilosopher.com/

"Perhaps I can help, since I work in ethics(broadly construed to include political philosophy). The only people who believe—literally—that the end justifies the means are consequentialists, a subset of whom are utilitarians. Consequentialists maintain that the only morally relevant aspect of action is its consequences. That an action is of a certain type, say, torture, lying, breaking a promise, or killing the innocent, is neither here nor there. Any of these actions can be justified if they produce the best consequences, i.e., if they maximize the overall good.

The denial of consequentialism is deontology. A deontologist is someone who believes that there are other morally relevant aspects of action besides its consequences. Deontologists say that certain types of action, such as torture, lying, breaking a promise, or killing the innocent, are intrinsically wrong. But here things get complicated, because deontology comes in degrees. Extreme (absolute) deontologists say that no amount of good can justify performing intrinsically wrong actions. Immanuel Kant was an absolute deontologist, for he famously held that it is never permissible to lie, even if doing so would save a life. G. E. M. Anscombe was an absolute deontologist with respect to (directly) killing the innocent. (This is standard Roman Catholic natural-law thinking.)

(show)

If we want, we can lump all nonabsolute deontologists together and call them moderate deontologists. But moderate deontology comes in many varieties, depending on where one sets the threshold. Suppose I say that torture is never justified, except when 1,000,000 units of good would be produced thereby. (Torture might lead to information that saves a city.) We can think of this as a high threshold. I’m saying, in effect, that the end can sometimes justify the means—but only rarely. Another moderate deontologist might set the threshold lower, say, at 500,000 units of good. And so forth. What deontologists have in common is the belief that certain act-types are intrinsically wrong. They differ about how much good is necessary to justify performing them. Consequentialists, by contrast, deny that any act-types are intrinsically wrong. All actions, they say, are right or wrong extrinsically—because of their consequences.

Now that we have some distinctions to hand, we can address Jonah’s question. Is there any correlation between normative ethical theory and political morality? Are all conservatives deontologists, for example? Are all liberals consequentialists? I hate to disappoint, but I don’t see any necessary connections. In other words, all four logical categories have (can have) members: liberal consequentialism; liberal deontology; conservative consequentialism; conservative deontology. If the question is how many members these categories have, I would say this:

1. Most liberals are deontologists. This is true of John Rawls, Thomas Nagel, Ronald Dworkin, and Joel Feinberg, for example. Anyone who believes in rights is a deontologist, although consequentialists (e.g., R. M. Hare and L. W. Sumner) have tried to make sense of rights within their theory. To say that I have a right is to say that there are certain ways of treating me that are unacceptable, which is to deny the central claim of consequentialism. Rights theorists affirm, or take seriously, the moral distinctiveness of persons. Remember: John Rawls’s main target in A Theory of Justice was utilitarianism. Ronald Dworkin wrote a book entitled Taking Rights Seriously.

2. Most conservatives are deontologists. This, I think, needs no defense.

3. Most consequentialists are liberals. This may seem to conflict with 1, but it doesn’t. The class of liberals has more members than the class of consequentialists. To see this, draw two partially overlapping circles, with the circle on the left being significantly larger than the circle on the right (to signify more members). Draw the right (smaller) circle so that most of it is inside the left (larger) circle. The left circle represents liberals and the right circle consequentialists.

So far I’ve been dealing with just two categories: consequentialists and deontologists. But deontology, as we saw, comes in degrees. We can think of absolute deontology as 1 (meaning no amount of good can justify performing intrinsically wrong act-types) and consequentialism as 0 (meaning there are no intrinsically wrong act-types). Everything in between—.9, .75, .5, .25, .1—is moderate deontology. That’s a lot of space! Perhaps Jonah is wondering whether liberals have lower thresholds than conservatives. My sense is that they do, but I have no evidence for it other than my experience over many years. Liberals are more likely than conservatives to allow the ends to justify the means. We might say that while most liberals believe in rights, they take these rights to be defeasible or overridable by sufficiently good ends. Conservatives, it seems to me, are more likely to resist such overriding. If I’m right, then the average conservative is closer than the average liberal to the absolute deontologist end of the spectrum."

Too bad Bork got Borked and we ended up with Kennedy. George Will has a brilliant piece in Sunday's Post about Kennedy's opinion on the execution of juveniles. Will rightly characterizes Kennedy's rationale as an "intellectual train-wreck."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8745-2005Mar4.html.

Brian - as far as I know, SF is same genus, different species. If Dan doesn't mind attracting more bugs, I won't say anything!

The prolife movement would very much like the court to ban abortion federally in the same decision that it overturns Roe vs Wade in. It severely undercuts conservative arguments against judicial activism.

"The prolife movement would very much like the court to ban abortion federally in the same decision that it overturns Roe vs Wade in. It severely undercuts conservative arguments against judicial activism."

Bull, Obi. Bull. Your argument's a double threat: s a tu quoque and free from what I have seen in what I would guess is my greater exposure with fundamentalists and conservativism.

That's like me saying that the only thing liberals find wrong with conservatives locking up dissenters, is that system would prevent liberals from locking up dissenters.

Short,

You must have missed that fishing clause in the Cons. I hear that it is central to the stability of the republic who a jurist goes fishing with.

Obi Juan: I've known prolifers of both varieties. I don't think it's fair to that that's want the movement wants as a whole. As a whole all they want is Roe overturned. I guess the argument on behalf of the prolifers who want a federal ban on abortion is that the concern for the constituion is atavistic and naive: that battle was faught and lost, so now let's fight fire with fire. Among prolifers, though, who do want a federal ban, most (I think) assume it would be a legislative, not judicial, decision.

I'm a federalist myself.

Sea King, you obviously missed the overwhelming support for the partial birth abortion bill, something that, like abortion itself, the federal government has no authority over. But prolifers found within the interstate commerce clause the necessary justification. I stand by what I said.

Obi,

You were talking about judiciary overturning and banning "in the same decision". Supporting a "partial abortion bill" does not invalidate the right's argument against judicial reinterpretation.

I have little doubt that were Roe v. Wade vacated that some states would take the occasion to ban abortion within their state. That would be pretty much what an adverse ruling would be saying. "Whoops. Bad decision. Go back to doing what you were doing." I'm not arguing that it's crap that conservatives will try to eliminate the "right" to abort.

It seems to me that your central point is that conservative opposition to judicial activism is inconsistant with "our" desire to ban abortion through the courts. What I stated was unevidenced in my ~20 years as a self-pronounced conservative and ~15 years as a fundamentalist.

If instead you are arguing that your agenda needs to be protected from the populus by sophists in robes, then I have no answer except to say that some of us still believe that democracy works, and whether it works "perfectly" is not a disproof that it works.

But I will grant you this. We could perhaps see a time, when social conservatives aren't so embattled that they start to think that their agenda can best be advanced by the courts. It's possible that the attempt to "rebalance" the left and right might continue with people on the right pushing farther and farther still. This is not unknown in humankind. I even expect that it would happen in a certain segment of the right. I expect some amount of distribution in most attitudes. Some will think we haven't gone far enough, even after we've stepped over the line.

That too is human nature. But arguing that judicial activism in one direction provides a hedge against judicial activism in another direction is just stating the all too human concept that I like my side better than your side.

Incidently, the one time that conservatives have had to rigidly enforce the cons. they chose to do nothing. (And that is a good thing.) The cons says that nobody who is cannot be the president is elligible to be VP. The only time the cons uses "he" or a masculine pronoun or general noun is in relation to the president. Thus, the conservative inaction on this issue rather invalidated the ERA claim made 7-10 years before this time that "sexist" wording in the cons. would be used against women. Thus the only time in recent history that the libs have actually tried the proper way to reargue the cons., they lost and turned out distractedly concerned about a conservative bugaboo.

"Perhaps I can help, since I work in ethics(broadly construed to include political philosophy). The only people who believe—literally—that the end justifies the means are consequentialists, a subset of whom are utilitarians. Consequentialists maintain that the only morally relevant aspect of action is its consequences. That an action is of a certain type, say, torture, lying, breaking a promise, or killing the innocent, is neither here nor there. Any of these actions can be justified if they produce the best consequences, i.e., if they maximize the overall good."

I suppose then the Bush Administration has a set of consequentalists amongst its flock. AG Gonzales is most certainly one according to the above which is taking out of Robby's post from the Conservative Philosopher.

Short: I believe it is unjust to borrow trillions of dollars to create private retirement accounts while the deficit hole grows ever deeper. I also believe it is unjust for one's privacy to be violated. I also find torture unjust and abhorrent.

Is there anything else you need to know?

Do you like tax-cut and spend Republicans?

Sea King, shouldn't the judicial philosophy and the legislative philosophy of the right be somewhat in sync?

Fellow Viking Spitfly,

If the US captured terrorists that knew the location of Bin Laden - and we could only get that info by using torture, should we use torture? Yes.

Private accounts on social security- the most obvious solution it's sickening.

Obi,

I'm confused why you think they should relate to each other. Their roles are to check the powers of each other. I think that even should the SC rule that a 3rd trimester fetus is a "life" deserving of constitutional protections, it should be wary of striking down state legislation that differs in interpretation, esp. if the people of that state preferred that legislation.

Legislation embodies the current will of the people. The SC stems abuse of powers of the federal government and enforces existing civil contracts. If the current will of the people is against the existing contracts, they have the right to reform by super-legislation such as amending the cons of states or the federation.

Fellow Viking Robby,

Well... if the end justifies the means then sure yet should we believe every terrorist or insurgent we capture is going to have information on the whereabouts of Bin Laden or Zarqawi? Is it necessary that for us to continue an interrogation policy shrouded in secrecy? I agree if some tactic is proven to assist us in gaining key evidence then I am sure it is necessary however the line must be drawn. The U.S. should be the leader when it comes to moral values and accepting torture will undermine this altogether. Heads are going to roll over the whole torture thing... Rumsfield has got to go.

Social Security... What is the most obvious?

to have private accounts on Social Security.

So you accept torture when stating "I agree if some tactic is proven to assist us in gaining key evidence then I am sure it is necessary" if torture is that tactic?

Goldberg noted on The Corner:

I understand the point that some ends justify some means. I believe Buckley put it sort of like this, we are all against shoving an old lady, but we will do so if she's about to be hit by a bus. Some ends most certainly justify some means. But few ends justify any means.

Spitfly,

Personally, I see this as a false dichotomy. I find that the deontologists also have a means-end balance inherent in their view. The end of having a "clean record" justifies anything that happens afterward. Chamberlain definitely had a clean record, having never violated diplomatic ettiquette.

Ends do tend to justify means. We just don't want draconic means to be perpetually excused by castle-in-the-sky ends. There were probably as many deontologist that got driven out of their towns and tarred and feathered as "toreys" in the establishment.

If you own a gun to defend your property, you are in fact accepting that the cost of a potential serious injury or death to another person is trumped by your right to defend your property. The end of personal property justifies the means by which I defend it. We also think that the end of staying alive justifies the means of killing your attacker.

An strict deontologist would likely define these as "justified" or "right" from base. But IMO, that shows little ability to examine how we decdided what was right in the first place.

Like I've stated I accept tactics that can assist us therefore proven them necessary but only in the most subtle of ways. Doesn't mean I approve of torture yet in some cases it maybe necessary if the ends justify the means. I still think its abhorrent.

I say increase taxes on those who make $90,000 or more in helping w/ Social Security

So we agree that torture is abhorrent. And we agree that abhorrent things happen in war - and war is sometimes necessary.

Therefore, torture is sometimes necessary.

Like I said. If I knew that torture was the only way to get Bin Laden (in the war on terror) I would support it.

Look at it this way. Murder is the ultimate torture - and you support the death penalty for murderers (crimes committed in the past).

Think of torture as less-severe as murder for the purpose of capturing Bin Laden (committed crimes in the past) but has the added benefit of securing our safety from future attacks that he is planning.

Abhorrent things definitely happen during times of war and yes torture although unjust is sometimes a necessary evil in order to attain certain objectives. Like I said...

I accept tactics that assist us therefore proven them necessary.

On Bin Laden... I agree with you there as well.

My biggest fear is the overuse of torture on all prisoners of war that we capture. Not all of them are going to have pertinent information thus the line should be drawn somewhere.

...and yes I do support the death penalty for murderers.

OK. This comment is going to break the 30 mark on FF, so it's time to retire this and continue with future FF blegs.

Bin Laden is nothing but a state of mind. OOOh wow, so we get him... like it'll make a freakin difference. There are thousands to replace him. Oh yeah, the Pakistani government reported that he died in their country in summer 2002. This news never reached most, Just like the chemical weapons we dropped on civilians in Falluja last week (incendiary phosphorous. By the way, on the torture thing?.... it has never been documented that torture actually extracts any uselful information. Most of you republicans will be surprised that conversely, it is the more civil techniques that provide us with usefull stuff. Also, any one of you that supports torture, in the end, are destined to have a taste for yourself. "Semper Fi"

Nobody in the know thinks capturing Bin Laden will do a thing. Read my post, im a NeoCon of the worst kind, and you will find I consider the main enemy in the War on Terror to be Iran, not Bin Laden. But then again im just a Fascist American who wants to despose all those poor Mullahs.

The effects of Iraqi Election Day have taken away the moral high ground from people who hold Truth's position, and there is no way they will ever be able to get it back.

Ben-T, you are the lowest of the low. It is the main duty of any person to develop morality. It is clear that you do not even possess a fiber of rightiousness in your entire molecular assemblage. You are slime, dog feces, and it is people like you who in fact, are speeding up the extinction of the human race. In a larger perspective, your intolerance and ignorance speaks volumes for today's collective consciousness. I hope you do not have children. Your mind is shut off to growth, and it needs to be cracked open (metaphorically speaking). Or, maybe you can die as a martyr over in the dirty oil war. Oh yeah, that "election" that was implemented, was a puppet election and will not pan out the way you perceive it might. Demo-Crazy

Oh my god Truth your right! I only wish I could have the moral uprightness of you to leave radical dictatorships in power to keep murdering! Why didn't I realize that arabs simply LOVE IT when they are killed for political dissent! They just arent as enligthened as us whites in wanting a democratic system of government!

Truth, you are an ignorant jackass. Never once have you posted something on this site that wasnt someone else's writing, a link to your 9/11 was a lie site, or a flame. Just as you offer no hard evidence that 9/11 was a lie, I am sure you will offer no actual evidence that the Iraqi election was a puppet one. But for purposes of the record, yes I am asking you to provide evidence.

Truth, your morals are nonexistant. Since you are so fond of posting links, I shall post one of my own.

www.massgraves.info

bask in the glory of dear leader Saddam Hussein.

I shall once again request you return with an actual structured argument, complete, with, lets say, talking points, and something that lends real credence to your claims. Being the troll you are, I am sure you will not do so, but will instead come back with such brilliant arguments as

"You are slime, dog feces, and it is people like you who are in fact speeding up the extinction of the human race."

It was a colorful and creative ad hominem to be sure, but nothing more. You could even say something about how closed my mind is. Then again you might look at any of the other perfectly civil, intelligent, talking point based disagreements I have had with anyone else on this blog about these very same issues, and you will realize you are the only one here who is treated with such mutual and callous disrespect by all.

For one with such a free and open mind, Truth, you have an odd penchant for immediately resorting to personal attacks on anyone who disagrees with you.

We put Saddam in power...

We put him there and got rid of him...

How were we to know that his time in power would lead to tyrrany and oppression?

We didn't and now we've rid a country of him and giving them hope... lets be honest here... We all know that America has sold weapons abroad and supported certain governments/regimes in the past however we must look at the fact that freedom and equality is something we should always strive for... something we should promote without being overbearing. Those should be concrete principles set within the bedrock our great republic while we try to influence others that freedom is a better alternative than tyrrany. We should tread carefully however and fix things within our republic as well so we can talk the talk and walk the walk.

Hey Spitfly, we do these things for one reason; to create long-term instability. Our CIA knows exactly how the situation will pan out. We put them in, they create a stibile, but not too stabile, political situation and then when we have to, we "fix" the problem. It is the old, problem, reaction, solution trio that our leaders and policy makers thrive upon. You are extremely mislead, and deceived, that our Republic is on a witch hunt to spread freedom. This is certainly not the case. You are buying the front, the deception, and cover story that the mainstream media exhibits. Sorry boss, time to wake up from your sleep. Just for a quick example, in the 80's during the wars between Iraq and Iran, our CIA gave both countries inside information about one another, Why you ask? So that we could create an instable scenario and so that they could keep each other at bay. This left the fruit ripe for the picking. You will continue to see this over and over, just read between the lines chief. We create the tyranny and we take it away. It all appears to most that we are in there for moral motives... we are not. Rise and shine.

We generate the PROBLEM, gain the peoples' approval and trigger a REACTION, then we implement a SOLUTION... or at least what appears to be one. Didn't you people take a genocide class in college?

http://www.911inplanesite.com/debunking_the_debunkers.htm

Truth has to be a joke. He seems like a parody of the mindless, cliche-wielding leftists we love to hate. Let's not waste too much time on his nonsense.

We have better things to do with our time than taking instruction in fever-swamp ranting.

Hell yeah we used Hussein as a counterbalance to the Ayatollah. And hell yeah we helped train bin Ladin (in part to help fight aggressive Communist annexation of Afghanistan and their proxies). And then the ungrateful so-and-sos turned on us. If that's not our problem to fix, then what is?

And the torture thing is a straw man. The US Military is sending soldiers to the stockade for Abu Ghraib - the media didn't catch wind of it until the they were told later on, and military prosecution was already being prepared. The Magic Boys over at the UN do far worse, far more often, to the innocent - usually people they purport to be there to help. How is it again that we have the bigger problem?

The only partial point you have is the Rule of Unintended Consequences - the West tinkered over there for a long time, colonizing and annexing. So we get there, not to annex but liberate, and people are naturally quite suspicious. Fair enough. But, like everything else, this is a point you borrowed from others - in this case, the right and not the left, but oh well.

We didn't find WMD, but we had good reason to worry about it (as did many other intelligence agencies around the world) - and we would NEVER have proven the suspicions either way without doing what we actually did. Again, oh well. I never bought that as the 'real' reason anyway (so much for lockstep neocon thinking). Our primary motive is defending ourselves, and the liberation and nation-building thing is only the means to that end. It's messy and if it all went smoothly I'd be suspicious that there really was a coverup; as it is, too many people have too many axes a-grinding to fail to expose any sort of scheming on the Illuminati scale you conjure up in your posts.

Not much to say as it has been pretty much covered. Some interesting notes.

1.) We did not put Saddam in power. Saddam gained power with help from France and the USSR's eastern bloc.

2.) We supported Saddam's regime in order to stop Iran's Islamic Revolution from sweeping the mideast. As soon as it became clear that Iran was contained for the moment, we immediately turned against Iraq.

3.) It was moreorless Political Lingua Franca throughout the Bush I and Clinton years that Saddam was accumilating WMDs. French, British, Russian, and American intelligene all agreed that there were WMDs in Iraq. This was not some trumped up charge Bush pulled out of his arse. It was a genuine surprise to at least 80% of the world when WMDs were not found.

The previous comment posted under Ben Litchman's name was my own. Accident, sorry.

"1.) We did not put Saddam in power."

Unless of course, we made him Bakr's vice president and then progressively poisened Bakr so that he would hand more power over to Hussein.

"Put him in power"? Saddam's ascent is pretty steady and no mystery: from important figure in a coup to general to vice president to president. If we can do that, we already control the country!

Plus that you'd have to wonder why, if we are so hot after the oil, we wanted somebody in power that would sieze oil assets, kick foreigners out of the oil bi-z in Iraq, and petition OPEC to raise prices.

But that's just how crafty our plan is. It's so crafty, it almost doesn't make any sense!

This is Ben L again... To clarify this:

"The previous comment posted under Ben Litchman's name was my own. Accident, sorry."

Ol' Ben-T is a friend of mine. He was over my house, and feverishly went to FlynnFiles to argue, forgetting that I had my personal info saved.

Advanced homeland security steps

Complete recommended steps at levels green and blue.
*

Ensure disaster supply kit is stocked and ready.
Make sure the beer is in the fridge.
*

Check telephone numbers in family emergency plan and update as necessary.
Yes, your mother-in-law is part of the family too, don't pretend you lost her number.
*

Develop alternate routes to/from work or school and practice them.
And I must add that if by now you don't know several way to go to/from work or school, you're a complete moron.
*

Continue to be alert for suspicious activity and report it to authorities. Remember, if he's an Arab, there are good chances he's a terrorist.
*

Terrorists are in the country, be afraid.
*

Believe everything that the President says.
*

Do not stop (not even reduce) buying stuff.

*

Complete recommended steps at lower levels.
*

Terrorists are in town. Be paranoid in planes, high rise buildings, stadiums, etc.
*

Do not trust any leftist commie that could be part of your family. Actually it's a good time to disown them.
*

Be Patient. Expect some delays, baggage searches and restrictions at public buildings. We're stripping you off your civil rights, but that's for your own good.
*

Watch FOX News or CNN.
*

Denounce any non-white foreigner you know to the police, they gotta be terrorists at this point.

*

Complete all recommended actions at lower levels.
*

Terrorists are in your building. Ready to slaughter you, to eat your babies , rape your wife and steal your SUV.
*

Don't stop watching TV. The government is long gone in a hidden place and is not in charge anymore, but as long as you're watching TV, you won't realize it..
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Prepare to die. Pray your god, if you have one, find one if not. It's not OK to invent one at this point.
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Shoot at any stranger that gets close to you as they must be terrorists.
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Change pants, you shitted in those ones.

Is there is a point to this post?

Oh wait I forgot, it was made by Truth. My mistake.

A few fun facts about Our misnomered pal Truth. Assuming that we can derive his beliefs from the website he links us to in his name, the following things are true.

-Truth is a Pagan
-Truth believes in the Illuminati, or at least a Shadow Government/New World Order of some kind
-Truth believes in UFOs
-Truth believes rock and roll music is a form of mind control. No, I dont mean a brainwashing/marketing technique, I mean literal mind control.

Click on Truth's name for some more fun theories.

Truth: This is the second time you've copied and pasted someone else's work and attempted to pass it off as your own. I think it's time for you to move on to a different site. You don't seem to have anything of your own to say, prefering instead to crib the words of others or mindlessly insert the web addresses of conspiracy theory sites. People of all viewpoints of are welcome on FlynnFiles. Serial plagiarists, Internet trolls, and de facto spammers of any viewpoint are not. Please leave.

Wow, Dan, that was the most pleasant-tempered reply to a troll I've heard in a long while - the moreso since it's your site he's been projectile-vomiting in. No joke, I feel a little cheap now for blazing away at him.

Abashedly yours, NF

"Truth: This is the second time you've copied and pasted someone else's work and attempted to pass it off as your own. I think it's time for you to move on to a different site. You don't seem to have anything of your own to say, prefering instead to crib the words of others or mindlessly insert the web addresses of conspiracy theory sites. People of all viewpoints of are welcome on FlynnFiles. Serial plagiarists, Internet trolls, and de facto spammers of any viewpoint are not. Please leave."--Dan Flynn

Bravo is right... He has has been spewing pessimism for days. When are people gonna start viewing things optimistically?

Cheers,
Spitfly