This is the point I was making in the Daily Show thread by the way. Don't argue, just score points.

Ethan brought up Iraq, and its invasion. When I respond to it, I want you to tell me why its unrealistic to mention WMD's?

Is the existence (or non-existence as it were) a humanitarian issue without the threat? If we can own said weapons why shouldn't non-allies? Either nuclear weaponry is fair play or its not. Make up your mind.

I'm sure you'd be shocked by this, mainly because you say things like "darwin forbid" (is that cool these days?) but people can say "i wish we'd just take the guy down" and not actually advocate for it to be our foreign policy or to make it our national position legally.

But I was a young activist once too before I grew up and dealt with the world so i'll indulge the argument.

You said "Now despite Saddam being a mass murderer you accused Kim Jong Il, because of his cruel negligence, of being genocidal and said that was justification for assassinating him". At no point have I justified anything.

I brought up the point that you're in favor of action with Darfur, and not with North Korea. The simple question here is, why one and not the other?

I think its because one was suggested by Bush (North Korea) and one has been the talking point for George Clooney (Darfur) and thats the only difference. Are you in favor of a country (any country) defending Tibet from Chinese Imperialism?

I have a tough time going forward here because I never presented any serious position. You made a couple terrible comparisons; North Korea and Iraq, and North Korea and the United States as far as who should own intercontinental weaponry, and I responded to them.

My problem with your positions is that you're hedging your bets. You want to say that these guys are horrible people, but we shouldn't do anything because we don't have the right.

Most people aren't in favor of doing nothing while other people die. Myself, i'm an advocate of severe divestment and unilateral diplomacy to deal with these people. But in the end, if people are still starving, the world needs to say that we're better than that.

Having a non-interventionist policy period is ghastly. It means that no matter whats going on in any country, you don't feel a need to get involved. We can't solve the worlds problems, thats certain, but don't you think theres a time to step in eventually?

On the micro-level, how much don't you get involved? So maybe you don't take a bat to someone’s knees when he beats his wife, fine. But do you still hang out with the guy, or pretend nothing’s wrong.

And yes. it is exactly the same thing philosophically.

You're saying theres no difference between the way our Nukes are handled, and the way their nukes are handled?

Edit: Owning them isn't ultimatly the problem. And Jong-Ill is displaying the exact issue we had concerns about, horrid misuse.

I know the Fed doesn't want people to own them, where I take umbridge is its misuse. I don't think Isreal should go after Iran for having weapons either.

No, I'm saying that until they do something that warrants invasion we shouldn't invade. Falsifying documents to make it seem like they have something which we had no proof of is not the way to go about doing things.

Iraq or North Korea?

Iraq.

Oh yeah absolutly. I agree with that. In the current situation, its a tough call. We invaded for a fake reason, and now it seems there wasn't even a reason.

It reminds me of the JFK position where the had an issue invading Vietnam, because if the communist threat was that troubling, why didn't they invade Cuba.

If you wanted to go into Iraq for a legit reason, then you'd have to conclude that there were many countries to come before it on the list. As Ethan has so accutely pointed out.

But North Korea is actually doing that which we accused Iraq of doing and it binds a lot of liberal platitudes that once were. They covered their silence in protesting the war by saying "well we thought the threat was real." Now there is a real threat, and they believe they'll lose their base (the left) if we invade or they support it.

As someone who is a leftist at least 80% of the time I don't think attacking a threat is a rightist thing.

Well you know how it goes, the last admin went to war, and we needed to demonize them so we get "Strength through Peace" platitudes.

I don't think its a rigthy-thing either, but thats the way the Democrats painted themselves, which is why in '02, '04 they got swept out, and we needed a new breed in there.