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RC3.org on the “weapons of mass destruction”
scam:

First of all, I have to say that I’m not going to use the WMD TLA any more on this site. (Hopefully that
will be the last time.) The coinage of that term was a scam perpetrated by the war or nothing at all group.
The initial bait for getting people to discuss going to war with Iraq was nuclear weapons. The fear was
that Iraq would go nuclear, supply nuclear material to terrorists, and the next thing you know, we’d have a
smoking hole where a US city once was. As it became obvious that Iraq’s nuclear capabilities weren’t what
they were purported to be, suddenly chemical and biological weapons came into the picture, and all three
types of weapon were lumped together in the “weapons of mass destruction” category. Scam.

The second scam under way is the administration’s attempts to redefine the argument they used to drag this
country (and several others) into war. The justification provided was that Iraq’s weapons capabilities were
such that we could no longer afford to let the situation stand — that the danger of Iraq somehow using its
weapons against somebody (either directly or by giving them to terrorists) was too great to ignore. We all
know that wasn’t the real reason for war, but that was the reason provided to us and provided to the rest
of the world. What other justification could there be for saying that we could not afford to wait any
longer to invade? The American people, belligerent as we may be, were not going to go in for an argument
that said that Saddam is a bad man (which of course he is) and that now is as good a time as any to get rid
of him. There had to be something scary, and the scary thing was Iraq’s ability to hurt us. Two mobile
laboratories of undefined use were not going to hurt us, and yet the two mobile labs are now the thread
that Bush clings to to justify our invasion. That’s his choice, not the choice of his critics.

Public Nuisance
on conservative disconnects from reality:

In general, it is quite striking how disconnected many conservatives are from reality. In both John’s
comments and the vast comment section on Calpundit, you can find numerous conservatives complaining about
how liberals want to take their money. To the few of those conservatives who will read this post, let me
put this more bluntly than politely: you are a mark. Have you noticed that your side has been dominant for
most of the past 20+ years? Have you noticed that they have passed loads of tax cuts, yet your tax burden
doesn’t seem to be going down? Have you noticed – will you ever notice – that it’s a feature, not a bug?
The massive tax cuts for the very rich leave no room for anything but token benefits for the middle class,
but one Republican strategist even admitted a few years ago the Republicans wouldn’t really cut middle
class taxes meaningfully even if they somehow could. It’s in their interest to keep gouging middle class
taxpayers, because those who feel their taxes are too high are more likely to vote Republican.

Bush, like Reagan, has passed massive tax cuts while increasing spending. Reagan cut progressive taxes,
especially rates for the highest brackets, then followed up with a very substantial increase in withholding
taxes, the most regressive tax. Bush is cutting estate taxes, dividends taxes, capital gains taxes, and
high bracket rates, massive cuts that will save millions and even billions for a few of the very wealthy.
In addition, he is tossing in tokens such as an increase in child allowances which will mean a few hundred
dollars a year for those middle class voters dumb enough to believe he will help them. The largest surplus
in history turned almost immediately into the largest deficit in history, which was running at about $1 bn
a day before the last set of tax cuts came through. Inevitably, at some point the bill will come due and
there will be hefty new taxes to bring the budget back towards balance. Those taxes will take away all the
benefits that middle class payers received from the Bush tax cuts, and perhaps far more. Your taxes will
rise again, the Republicans will blame ‘tax and spend liberals’ again, and you will probably believe them
again and vote for them yet again. To paraphrase Barnum, there’s a Republican born every minute.

If the war in Iraq was about liberating the Iraqi people, when can we expect the Bush regime to liberate the
Uzbekistani people from people-boiling dictator Islam Karimov?

Might want to stop giving him money first, of course.

Randolph Fritz makes an excellent point in D-Square Digest’s comments:

It’s a common practice of the manipulative to insist that people who they want to shame into inaction follow rules to the letter, and all the while those same manipulative people ignore the rules. William Bennett being a fine example; I believe he was so publicly moral in some areas of his life because he was deeply ashamed of his compulsive gambling.

What I noticed in the discussions about Rachel Corrie (the activist who was run over by an Israeli bulldozer) is exactly that. For many people who didn’t share her politics, it seemed that her burning of an US flag was morally equivalent with her being killed: because she wasn’t a saint she deserved what she got. That way of course, you don’t need to think about her as a human being, but just as an “idiot” (and you put your opponents on the defence). A common but strangely unacknowledged reflex.

Antidotal examines
Straussian ideology and its influence in current government circles:

If we assume that there are people in power who take Strauss’ stuff seriously, though, tit does feature a number of worrying elements. Strauss’ political theory, like his interpretive theory, is unapologetically elitist and infused with esotoricism. He roughly proposes that rights are best protected when an elite class of “liberal gentlemen” are ascendant and that there are truths that the masses are simply not equipped to handle. As such, the impulses of those regular folks should be tamed by the bromides of religion…stop me if any of this sounds applicable to the current situation…