perfidy

That the weaknesses of the Soviet Bloc did not appear until the seventies is ridiculous. The only thing that changed in the seventies is that the Soviet Bloc was now trying to do two things with an inefficient economy, instead of one. In the sixties, the Soviets were spending 10-15% of GNP on defense, and even higher if you count nominally civilian projects with military uses. They were spending a larger fraction of a smaller economy on defense. But the nightmares of the Soviet economy go back to forced collectivization, the rural electrification projects, and the like in the twenties and thirties. To say that economic problems suddenly developed in the seventies ignores the inefficiencies that were always present in the Soviet system.

Mike, they're good for you. If they get you a raise, I will be happy for you. But are teacher's unions helping or hurting education for our children? Probably not, because it is the job of union to improve the situation of its members. Every union, and every special interest group is a conspiracy against the interests of every other segment of society. We have to look at the balance between benefitting the members of that group, and the larger society. Children's education in this country is in the shitter. I will not send my child into that cesspool. Mrs. Buckethead was forced to be a member of the NEA despite her total disagreement with their agenda. She was a teacher in Ohio and Virginia, and can vouch for the sad state of affairs that has been to some extent engineered by the NEA, even in the best school districts.

Yeah, but over half of the households in the United States are now part of the "Investor Class." This is not exactly all the wealth piled up at the top of the pyramid. And before anyone points out the richest 5% blah blah blah, the fact that there is inequity in incomes and wealth is not the issue. Do we want everyone to make 37,000 a year, or whatever the median income is? It is more important that everyone have the equal opportunity to pursue happiness (or wealth) in their own way, to whatever limits their talents allow. Equality of outcome is incompatible with liberty. If we allow everyone liberty, some will do better than others.

The peoples of the Indian Subcontinent were no doubt happy to see the back of the British Imperial administration. But it was the British trained Indian Civil Service that made that country function beyond the typical third world dog's breakfast that is the normal state of affairs. The British were certainly the most benign of the Imperial powers, and while the subject peoples chafed under imperial rule, the British introduced rule of law, railroads, medicine, education - rather like the scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian:

REG: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us? XERXES: Brought peace. REG: Oh. Peace? Shut up!

The United States, only two years later, experienced a periodic downturn in the economy, which caused a national leader to get the boot. Deficits in the United States also happened, but were soon corrected when the economy had expanded sufficiently. Nevertheless, the economic boom of the nineties in both the US and the UK is the result of the structural reforms instituted by Reagan and Thatcher in the early eighties.

Mike, your description of the "open stratification system" seems to make a distinction without a difference. The extreme fluidity of movement between "classes" seems to render this concept somewhat irrelevant. There are no lasting voting patterns based on class - other breakdowns tend to explain voting better. For example, black voters vote overwhelmingly democratic, no matter what their income.

No one's perfect, sure. And you know that despite my anglophilia, I have always said that British policy in Ireland has been reprehensible for 800 straight years. It is the primary exception to Britain's largely positive impact on history in general. It is a black stain, in fact. No British leader, it seems, from the Plantagenets, to Cromwell, to Churchill, to Thatcher can ever think clearly or morally about Ireland. Granted. 

But as for her activities outside Ireland, I must disagree. Britain's economy in the seventies was in even worse shape than in the United States. Industries nationalized by Labor governments after the Second World War were hemorrhaging taxpayer money, unemployment was high, inflation was high, things were generally shitty. The worst offender of the nationalized industries was the coal industry. The government was throwing hundreds of millions of pounds down the hole every year, maintaining mines and pits that could not ever make money. If you owned something that was losing you a third of your income a year, would you want to keep it? Thatcher's government closed unprofitable mills. What any sensible business owner would do. And, they sold off all the other industries - rail, steel, oil, the lot of them. It isn't government's job to run businesses. 

As in the United States, changing economies meant that some industries would be harder hit than others. Like the steel workers in Pittsburgh, the mine workers in England lost their jobs. But, it is not the government's responsibility to maintain unprofitable mines at the cost of the rest of the nation. If you lose your job, get another one. It happens to most people. You don't have a god given right to a job in the pits, or at the foundry. If the government provides unemployment benefits, and maybe some job training, that is appropriate. But it is not obligated to pay them to do a useless job. 

The mine unions violently opposed this plan - understandably, perhaps. Organized labor is far less important or needful today, or twenty years ago, than it was a hundred years ago. In our country, the federal workers' and teacher's unions are far more powerful than they should be. 

Dislocation happens to economies. Sometimes some bits get hit harder than others. But in a healthy system, like ours or Britain's, new things come along. Over the last twenty years, we have developed several whole new industries that didn't even exist in 1980. There are more jobs now than before. Unemployment has been very low in this country for most of the last two decades, thanks largely to the efforts of Reagan, and the British economy has been strong, thanks to Thatcher. While the mine workers lost their jobs, the rest of the economy benefited enormously, and in time, the unemployed mine workers joined the rest of the economy. 

On the war angle, if Hawaii was invaded, I think we'd take it back. The Argentineans invaded the Mavinas to detract from the baleful effects of their socialistic economic program. The inhabitants of the Falklands were British, and didn't want to be Argentine. The British went to war only after Argentina invaded - they did not provoke that war, as you imply. (Granted, she did use the big win for political purposes, but that was after the fact.) 

Further, the Soviets were a threat. And Cold War strategy was rather more complicated than you state it. Deterrence may have prevented a full nuclear exchange - but it almost didn't on at least two occasions. But the reason that we formed NATO, and had our troops right on the line, was so that any attack on Western Europe would be considered an attack on us. The reason for that was that if the Soviets, with their advantage in conventional weaponry in the fifties, sixties and seventies, had invaded, we would have lost. And losing Europe to communism would have meant that North America would be pretty much all that was left of the free world. From that position, it would be harder and harder for the United States to fight off the Soviet Union. That would be bad. Our nuclear arsenal kept that at bay. Also, building lots of nukes assured that he Soviets would not try a sneak attack - they were much more sanguine at the thought of losing a few million citizens, and might consider the losses if they could take us out completely. 

By finally driving the stake into the heart of Communism, Reagan and Thatcher removed that threat. Now, millions who lived under totalitarian communist regimes are now free, and some are even becoming prosperous. 

I don't know about the poll tax. I'll look into it. 

No leader or nation, is perfect - but I don't know that Roosevelt did a great deal to limit freedom in this country (though I could lose my membership in the vast right wing conspiracy for saying that.) Or Churchill either. The internment of the Japanese was wrong, certainly, as were the other things. But he did not leave this country substantially less free than when he found it. And some of those problems were solved later. The British lost much more of their freedom under Atlee than Churchill. Reagan did nothing that I can think of that reduced anyone's liberty in this country. Pissed people off, sure, but not limit their freedom. 

Defeating the Soviet Union and Communism was at least as important as defeating Germany and Nazism. The ones who finally managed it deserve credit for achieving it.

When the vaguard of the proletariat is doing the fighting? The masses don't seem very interested. And, what is this class structure you speak of? We have a capitalist economy, true (yea capitalism!) but there are no permanent classes. The vast majority of millionaires in this country are nouveau riche, from working or middle class families, not from the already rich. My grandfather's family was dirt poor, he hunted squirrels to put meat on the table, and was a hobo in the thirties. But he went into real estate, got reasonably rich, and retired to a brick Georgian mansion in Guernsey county, Ohio. His wife's father was a union organizer, worked with the commie John L. Lewis. Most of the poor in this country (lowest quintile of earnings) are not poor ten years later. Poverty in this country is more a matter of timing than anything else. I was poor, now I'm not. I hope to be rich. I am not the member of any permanent class. Nor is anyone else. We have no landed aristocracy, or hereditary rulers. Anyone can become rich, or president.

Johno, $4.50 x 280,000,000 = 1.26 billion dollars. That is a lot. The thing is, when you leave the money in the pockets of the people that earned it, instead of giving it to Ted Kennedy, they will use it for many different things. Some will buy beer and pizza. Some will collect stamps. Some will go out for cheap hookers. Others will save it, and invest it. Still other people will take the money that was invested, and give it to some yahoo with a too-clever idea for vacuum-powered hair cutting devices. That guy will hire people to manufacture and sell it. If some money is left over from beer and pizza, stamps or hookers, they will buy it. The economy has just grown. There is more wealth in the system. The new company will pay taxes. So will the formerly unemployed welfare mothers making the doohickeys, and the sleazeballs hawking them on infomercials at three in the morning. So revenue goes up. And as long as we maintain a sound fiscal policy, a low rate of inflation will be the result. This is a good thing. If some people aren't as rich as the new Vacuum Hair Cutter magnate, that's because they didn't go out and found their own company, which anybody with sufficient gumption can do. It's all about liberty. 

This kind of thinking is generally associated with the Chicago school - Hayek, Friedman, and that crowd. Historically, when taxes go down, revenue and the economy go up. Post WWII, post Kennedy, Reagan. When taxes went up in the sixties, by the seventies, the economy was a wreck. (Of course it is more complicated than that. But measures that limit the economy generally go hand in hand with higher taxes. So it evens out.) 

And the real problem with deficit spending is not the military - which is a legitimate function of government constitutionally, but entitlement programs that inexorably spiral upwards in cost. There is no conceivable tax increase that would pay for what's going to happen to Social Security and Medicare. If the economy grows fast enough, we'll have more money for warm fuzzy programs, and for things that kill little brown people. Liberals and Conservatives will live together. Mass hysteria. 

(Considering the vast expansion of the investor class, ironically one of Marx' dearest hope - that the proletariat would own the means of production, has kind of happened.)

Some people are waking up to two things: that the Chinese are serious in their space aims, and that the private drive for space is stronger than it has ever been. Within a year, we will almost certainly see the Chinese become the third nation to send a man into space, and also a winner of the x-prize for the first civilian team to fly twice above the atmosphere in the same vehicle in a week's time. 

The Washington Times has a new report on Chinese space activities. Some time ago, the Chinese announced their plan to set up a Lunar outpost within a decade. As the article relates, the Chinese are moving steadily towards their goal. EVA Training and dependable, simple Russian space technology indicate that they are intending more than simple orbital publicity stunts. In response, India has also announced a Lunar program, and the Japanese may follow. Remarkably, the Japanese source believes that the Chinese will be on the moon within three or four years.

So far, the Chinese have successfully launched four test vehicles. The last, in November of 2002, was considered to be a full on test run that will lead directly to the first Chinese manned flight, probably before the end of the year. Once in space, very few missions could prepare a lunar mission. The United States did its moon missions all in one shot. However, a more cautious Chinese strategy might be to assemble a lunar vehicle in Earth orbit from two or three launches. A lunar shuttle could fly repeatedly between Earth and Lunar orbit, requiring only refueling. It would never need to land on Earth. A lunar shuttle could travel between the Lunar surface and orbit - again requiring only refueling. This strategy would give the Chinese a permanent capability to travel back and forth to the moon. 

A Chinese presence in space, let alone on the Moon, would drastically alter the global strategic situation. Capabilities, rather than intentions are the key factor in military planning - and a space capable Chinese nation is an enormous threat to the United States that depends on space resources for military dominance here on Earth. 

The flip side of this equation is the increasing investment in private space programs in the United States. Many computer industry billionaires are funding private space companies - including Jeff Bezos of Amazon, John Carmack of Id software (of Doom and Quake fame) and the inventor of Paypal, Elon Musk. As I have reported here, Burt Rutan has already flight tested an x-prize competitor, and hopes to take the prize on the centennial of the Wright brother's flight. Rumor is that he has deep pocketed computer industry funding as well, to the tune of over $20 million. 

If we just stand back from this burgeoning industry, and not let NASA or the FAA interfere, we will have an answer for any Chinese strategic challenge. There is no way that the Chinese government effort could compete with an unleashed American civilian effort. Once the door is kicked open - and the X-Prize will go a long way toward achieving that - it could explode; much like the computer industry did.

Have to hate America, or at least agitate for its overthrow?

The working classes that you correctly say constitute the majority of the military are also reliably the most patriotic segment of American society, and have always been. The academic and chattering classes are the only ones liable, as a group, to throw down their rifles like the French. The aims of actual members of the working class have rarely been what leftists always insist that they have to be.

I wasn't imputing that you said Anti-Irishism was widespread, merely saying that that was the first I've heard of it.

To go a little further on the tax issue, here it is: 

• Axiom A: The current tax code is a kafkian horror.
• Axiom Two: People should be treated equally and fairly under the law.
• Axiom III: a taxation scheme should have only two objects, to provide reasonable revenue for government functions, and not to impede the functioning of the economy or for social engineering.
• Axiom N: a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. 

The current tax system runs to seventeen thousand pages of regulations. It is, literally, impossible for anyone to understand it. With even a moderately complex financial situation, there is no way to be assured that you are in compliance with the law. Every year, journalists will create a fictional family of four, with a reasonable spread of investments and assets, and earning something in the comfortable middle of the income spectrum. They will send this hypothetical tax picture to several IRS functionaries, tax accountants, and HR Block type tax preparers. No return will match any of the others. Better to spend your time figuring how many conflicted, compulsive centrists can agonize on the head of a pin. 

On general principle, the current scheme should be completely scrapped. Vague and conflicting regulations make enforcement arbitrary and predatory. When you speak of fear of the government, most people don't think Big Brother, they think the IRS. There is absolutely no need for a tax system this Byzantine, this elephantine, this cruel; especially in a republic with pretensions to liberty and justice. And beyond the costs of shoveling an average of a third of our income onto the IRS fire, there is the cost of preparing the tax returns themselves. Millions of man hours for the general public, billions spent by businesses and individuals to tax accountants and tax preparers that could be spent more profitably elsewhere. Further, there is the uncalculated effect of tax law on how businesses change practices to avoid punitive tax liabilities, like delaying replacement of aging capital equipment (a factor in the industrial decline in the Midwest), avoiding investment, delaying capitalization and a hundred other things to obscure for me to comprehend. 

But what to replace it with? Conceivably, we could replace the current nightmare with something simpler that worked in largely the same way - tax brackets, deductions, credits - but easier to cope with. But if we are going to go to the effort to replace it, it ought to be something better. 

I feel that the current tax system makes a mockery of our commitment to justice and equality before the law. If it is illegal to discriminate against someone for reasons of creed, color or gender, why is it kosher that a one set of tax laws applies to Mike, completely different set of laws applies to Mr. and Mrs. Two-Cents, and yet a third and even harsher set of laws applies to the Buckethead clan? If Mike were white, and Johnny Hispanic and me black, legions of the unwashed would rise up in protest. Yet, there is not a murmur of discontent when it is shown that these three have different incomes. 

We should always be treated the same before the law. If I kill someone, the same law should apply to me as when Johno kills someone. Even if I did because they deserved it and Johno kills merely because they have bad taste in music. Similarly, the same tax laws should apply to everyone, even if one of us makes more money than the other. This is the primary moral argument for a flat tax. 

If we assume that the current level of revenue is adequate for government needs (sharp internal wrenching pain) we could structure a new tax system that would generate that much money. One of the reasons that our tax system is so complicated is that all the many special interests, over decades, slowly weaved a web of exemptions, shelters, credits and what-have-you into the tax code. Most of these complications have no positive effect on the economy as a whole, and many are probably very negative. One way to eliminate unfairness is to completely eliminate all the complications. If every person, and every corporation, paid 10% of income to the government everyone would be on the same level. No industry would have special sanctions, or considerations. It would limit the government's meddling in the economy. (Tax law is a great sub rosa way to meddle, because it is less obvious.) 

The thing is, if I pay 10%, and Mike pays 10%, that's fair - even though I will pay more in absolute terms. If it's that simple, I can compute my tax return in seconds. Even corporations would have a simpler time of it. In the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation had high taxes. But almost no revenue, because the government was largely incapable of collecting it. When they switched to a flat tax, their revenue skyrocketed. One, because the lower tax rate was fair enough that many who had not paid taxes now paid them, and two, because it stimulated the economy. And if I know every corporation and rich person is paying ten percent, I'm much less likely to think that the fat cats are getting away with murder, because there would be no loopholes or tax shelters. 

While I said earlier that the government shouldn't use the tax system to meddle with the economy, or use it for social engineering, that is only generally true. While staying within the flat tax format - so that the same laws apply to everyone, we can fudge it a bit to have beneficent effects. For example, a certain standard set of deductions would apply to everyone's income. A personal deduction, child deductions, mortgage interest, marriage deduction are all good candidates. These deductions would be set amounts, so the effect on someone with a low income would be proportionally much larger than for someone with a large income. You could finagle these deductions so that someone or a family at the poverty level would pay no tax. Then, as income increases, taxes would increase. By the time income got to a couple hundred thousand, it would look more and more like 10% as the deductions became a smaller and smaller proportion of the total income. This would help the poor, encourage marriage and children - but the same law would still apply to everyone. A similar situation could be imagined for businesses. 

A flat tax of 15 to 17 percent would probably generate about the same revenue as the current system. And the rich would pay more taxes than they do now (though Democrats would still claim that it's a tax cut for the rich.) But everyone would have the same, understandable law.

Johno, I agree that the sending rebate checks is fairly ridiculous. But probably not for the same reason. While a rebate check sent to every tax payer might provide a transitory boost to the economy, it is at best a short term solution. The way to effect the economy with tax cuts is to, well, cut taxes. When people know that their taxes are lower, then they will change their behavior in a way that could effect the economy. This applies to regular income taxes, which might affect consumer confidence, consumer spending, housing starts and the like. Lowering, permanently, dividend taxes and capital gains taxes would increase investment and capital development. It has been shown that lowering taxes increases revenue - because the larger economy that is spurred by lower taxes yields more money in absolute terms, even though percentage of the government's take of the total economy is smaller. These rebates will not have this effect, because people - individuals and businesses - have no confidence that taxes will remain low. The economic picture is indeed muddled. Lowering tax rates would be a solid thing that people could count on.

While even full production from the Iraqi oil fields would remain a relatively small part of the total oil production (even the Saudi's immense reserves are only a quarter of total proven reserves) the effect of that production would be to drive down oil prices. And oil prices are one of the key factors in the world economy, because in some way or other, almost every business and industry is affected by oil prices. Shipping, energy, heating, plastics - the costs of all of these are all directly dependent on oil. Every other industry uses these services. When oil prices went up by 50%, it had the effect of a tax increase, because it increased the cost of doing business, or the cost of living. When they go down, it will act like a tax cut. And it won't effect the government's budget. 

As the effects of this percolate through the economy, eventually the job market will catch up with the growing economy. Jobless rates are always a trailing indicator. If the economy is already recovering, great. The lowered oil prices will be a shot in the arm, revving up the recovery.

Mike, the reason I asked you that is so that I could ask you this:

So what?

Young men fight in wars, and older men are usually at the head of governments. This has always been the case. Despite the whines of pollyannas, putting old men in the firing line would not really change things. What matters is why wars are fought, and what the result is (who wins.) The Civil War was won by the right side. Slavery died. This is good. WWII was fought by young, often poor, men while the Rockefellers, Fords, Kaisers and Roosevelts stayed at home and ran the government and industry. But we kicked Nazi ass, and that is good. American wars have (largely) been for good reasons, against bad people.

If American historians hate and villify the Irish Americans, they are the only ones doing it. I haven't noticed any anti-Irish bigotry in the wider world.

Mike, you should get a pat on the back for winning fights. They probably deserved it. But you lost fights? What a wuss...

heh.

full disclosure: I have never won a schoolyard fight. I might be able to now, if I picked on a sixth grader.

Let's talk about why that was a good thing. BFD, you say? The two stage world war defined the first half of the twentieth century, and the cold war defined the second. On that basis alone, winning that schoolyard fight must be a big fucking deal. And the people that won it should get medals - because they won it, people like us aren't in gulags. And Mike, you would probably be in their ahead of me, because the communists always purged heretics before they purged the infidel. 

The Cold War was a ideological contest between, not to put to fine a point on it, freedom / goodness / light and enslavement / evil / darkness. On any given Sunday, the Communist empire was every bit as evil as the Nazi one, but it lasted for seven times as long, and killed at least three times as many people. If we had rolled over for the Soviets, or allowed ourselves to become like them, we would not be living in our peachy keen, if imperfect, republic of liberty. Secret police, reeducation camps, show trials, total state control of every aspect of your life: this is what we avoided. And Reagan and Thatcher, by resisting it, and calling it what it was, (and by shoveling money into the fire faster than the Russkies could ever dream of hoping to do) drove the beast over the cliff. Solzhenitsyn and other dissidents, told of the way that the Evil Empire speech heartened them in their resistance to the Soviet state. 

I know you don't like Churchill, either, Mike; but Churchill and Roosevelt, Reagan and Thatcher were the four greatest defenders of liberty and the free world of the last century. 
 

Some in the Pentagon are saying that Iran is the proper target, and are proposing the use of covert operations to engineer the collapse of the Iranian fundamentalist theocracy. Those pushing this plan feel that the collapse of the Iranian government is the only way to forestall the development of nuclear weapons which could be used against American targets. 

One disturbing aspect of the plan is that it would include the use of a group currently classified as a terrorist organization by the US government. The MEK was a group sponsored by Saddam's regime in an attempt to destabilize it's rival neighbor. After the fall of the Baathist government in the wake of the American libervation, the American government and the MEK agreed to a ceasefire, and the MEK disarmed. However, MEK forces are still in existence and the weapons are in storage. 

Many of the arguments for regime change in Iraq apply equally well to Iran - a government resolutely inimical to American interests, state support of terrorist groups, development of WMD, and oppression and brutalization of their own population. With Iran, we get the added bonus of payback for the hostage crisis. Where the population of Iraq seems genuinely happy to be rid of Saddam, but lukewarm about the American presence; word is that the Iranian people are very much pro-American. Numerous articles by Michael Ledeen of the National Review, among others, have told the story of the widespread protests against the regime in Tehran and Qum, as well as many other regions. The people of Iran, I think would greatly support any effort by the US to overthrow the Mullahs. 

As a charter member of the Axis of Evil, Iran should certainly be on our list. And given the new strategic situation, we are in a prime position to move on Iran - we have them bracketed on two sides - Iraq and Afghanistan - three, really, if you count the Persian Gulf. I don't think we need to use some of Saddam's thugs to achieve our goals, however. We should be working with the Poles, the Australians and the Brits if we choose to go down that path. 

But we should not be too quick to jump into another conflict while we are still committed to Iraq, and while the Palestinian situation is still unresolved. We should give the UN time to work the diplomacy angle, and see if... Aw, fuck it, let's just nuke 'em. 
 

Many Democrats seem to be hoping that the economy tanks, or at the very least fails to improve, in order that they may regain power. That hope may be misplaced, in addition to being reprehensible. When the Iraqi oil fields come back on line in the next couple weeks, I think that they will be running full tilt. All the money will go into the Iraqi college fund, or whatever they're calling it. But the real benefit will be plummeting oil prices, and sticking a knife in OPEC. If Iraqi oil production maxes out, oil prices will be sub $20/barrel in a matter or weeks. This will be a massive shot in the arm for the American (and world) economy, equivalent to a tax cut much bigger than the one we actually got. Between the low oil prices, and the tax cut, I think we will see real improvement.

I do not support, as a rhetorical device, the shouting down of one's opponents and describing what they think without asking them. I am all about reasoned discourse. When I hear people on the left whining of the perfidy of American aims and actions; ascribing almost every conceivable ill in the world to American behavior (global warming, poverty, species extinction, you name it); and attacking American institutions as racist, bigoted, and generally inherently oppressive; these things make me consider the possibility that they really don't like America, and what it stands for. I can provide examples of all of these things. Noam Chomsky embodies all of them, and is apparently well respected on the left. 

Saying that the left "hates America" is certainly a broad brush. But there is a large element of truth to it, and it is for some conservatives a convenient shorthand to describe behavior that they see in the left. I do not have to take polls to notice these things in the media, in the words of actual leftists. When I fail to see other leftists castigating them, I presume that these beliefs are commonly held. While the left is no more unitary than the right, there is a core of beliefs that are generally held by most people on the left. And just as with conservatives, leftists are self-identified. When I hear some one describing himself as a liberal, or leftist, I take them at their word. Mike, don't pretend that this isn't the case. "What left?" We both know what it is. 

I do not believe that saying there are significant injustices in America means that the speaker is un-American, or hates America. I have said this myself. But where does that statement lead? Do you condemn the institutions of our nation, and advocate their replacement entire through revolution? Or do you think that reform of our oppressive society is impossible? Do you think that things are as bad as they have ever been? These seem to be typical attitudes on the left. What solutions do you propose for these problems - do you propose more liberty, or less? More state control, or less? More personal responsibility or less? Do you ascribe blame to groups or individuals? Do you believe more in equality of opportunity or equality of outcome? What follows the first question indicates what the speaker thinks of America. 

When I see the left, embodied in the Stalinist group International ANSWER, (but certainly represented elsewhere) protesting the war - making the most outrageous claims about America, and openly supporting a murderous thug over our liberal, tolerant nation, I am outraged. When leftists openly wish for a thousand Mogadishus, and for the death of American soldiers, I begin to think that the speakers hate America. We have found mass graves with thousands of victims in Iraq, but we were evil to remove Saddam's regime? Supporting the enemies of America must mean that you don't care too much for America. 

So, why don't we take a poll? Mike, you're a low-income grad student/adjunct professor in a major urban area. Do you hate America? I know that you hold socialist beliefs that are completely at odds with the ideals of the founding fathers. No problem. Part of my belief structure insists that I accept that. I oppose it, but I do not deny your right to hold those beliefs. But do you think that revolution is necessary here, as Marxist orthodoxy would insist it is? I never got the sense that you hated America, even if you have rather more issues with things as they are than I do. 

For many of your fellow leftists, it goes further. I see contempt for everything that America stands for, for patriotism, and for the choices of actual individual Americans, when they disagree with leftists. Calling Michael Moore a liar is not name calling, because he is. Saying that Noam Chomsky hates America is not name calling, because it's true. Saying that I think someone's entire political belief structure is inimical to the ideals and history of our nation is not necessarily hateful. Sometimes it's just fact. When I see many, many leftists offering the same viewpoints, it is not so unreasonable to say, in general, that the left hates America. It is ridiculous to complain endlessly of "negative campaigning" when what you're complaining about is your opponent pointing out your voting record, or saying he disagrees with you. Negative campaigning is saying your opponent's wife is a whore. 

But as I have said before, on this site and elsewhere, America is unlike every other nation on earth. We were founded on the most perfect set of ideals ever conceived, and we come closer to the realization of those ideals every day. Slavery is gone. Institutional racism is gone. Racism in public discourse is gone. Racism in general is in rapid retreat. This is the progress we have made on one issue. The office I sit in right now has four white men, two black men and a Hispanic woman. Out of seven random people in the tech industry, this sample shows no evidence of the racism that the left insists is still dominant in our culture. 

As a conservative, I am conserving the ideals of the founding fathers. I feel confident enough in my arguments about any issue - taxes, the war, welfare reform, affirmative action, anything - to win debates. And if you convince me, I'll change my mind. I am not dogmatic. But it is the left seems to go out of its way to avoid debate - on college campuses, by invoking racism whenever a conservative questions affirmative action, by calling conservatives "mean-spirited" when they advocate change in welfare or social security, by calling conservatives Hitler, etc. When you have been called a racist, a bigot, a fascist, and worse as much as I have, because I am a conservative, the temptation to rochambeaux my political opponents is strong. Conservatives, with the exception of Anne Coulter, almost universally stipulate the good intentions of their left leaning opponents - while disagreeing with their policy solutions. But the reverse is not the case. 

PS. Reagan (and Thatcher) did win the cold war. And, I don't fear the French, I hate them - very, very different. And was the Civil War a rich man's war and a poor man's fight? 

PPS. The Democratic Party will discredit itself. Over the last decade, it has proved that it is a tired dinosaur. The ideas come from the conservative side, and the Democrats define themselves in opposition. The democrats are not as conservative as I am. They do not approve of tax cuts. (by the by, the poor don't pay income taxes, so by definition any tax cut is for the middle and wealthy classes.) Lieberman was the only significant Democrat who supported the war. There are liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats. (Johno is both of those categories.) But the parties are different, and have a different outlook on what is best for our nation. Compromise means that the actual policies implemented by either party will be closer to the mean than people like me (or you) would like.