Child of the Enlightenment

This article is a little too dated for my friends, but many of the principles apply to some of them.

Settling is acceptable under certain circumstances from my perspective, but for people my age, go for the idealism while you have it.

I disagree with McCain’s Cuba policy as I do not think the embargo is working, but I have to say he brings humor to the issue:

“I hope he has the opportunity to meet Karl Marx very soon,” McCain told a town-hall style meeting of about 150 people, referring to communist theoretician Marx who died on March 14, 1883.

I am not the biggest Clinton fan in the world, but this is one of the better statements I have heard from anyone in awhile.

While I got everything more or less planned out, I do not want to graduate. I am not afraid of going to law school to say the least… I do not get scared of academic affairs. For some reason, I wish my undergraduate experience was not nearing completion. I guess the reason is that I fear I will lose contact with a number of good friends that I am really attached to.

This is a serious question the Democrats need to ask themselves before nominating Obama. He has been slow in responding to the attacks from Clinton in many respects like Kerry was slow in responding to the attacks from Bush and the right in 2004.

Obama needs to be ready to respond to every Republican attack quickly and ruthlessly or they will eat him alive.

I am not someone who beats the drum of patriotism like many on the right, but please. The McCain people love this quote in the general to the point that they might outright marry it. Mrs. McCain should start touring the White House because these clowns are paving the way for them.

For the record, I could name a lot of great thing this nation has done since she became an adult, but I will only list a few:

1) Oversaw the fall of communism in eastern Europe. (200 million relieved of the pressure of communism behind the Iron Curtain)

2) The liberations of Grenada, Panama, Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Haiti (twice), Liberia, and even Iraq.

3) The education level of this nation has never been higher. We have more people from a far more diverse set of backgrounds that are college educated than ever before. The Obamas should know this themselves.

It appears the Clinton camp is accusing Barack Obama of being a plagiarist. Should we be shocked that the Clinton camp is making such charges? No for two reasons:

1) There is no substance behind Barack Obama. It is all hot air and sexy words/phrases like “change” and “yes, we can.”

2) The Clinton camp will not go down without firing off everything in their arsenal. Barack should get ready for more attacks that will be far more nastier.

The UK Independent has a wonderful piece on why liberal interventionism works and Kosovo is a good example of it:

Today, Kosovo becomes only the third new country of the 21st century. Its declaration of independence will be recognised by a majority of the European Union, including the United Kingdom, and by the United States, but not by Russia. Its birth is more contested and difficult even than that of Montenegro in 2006, which was also detached from an unwilling Serbia, or of East Timor in 2002, which was wrested from Indonesia.

The pessimists have had free run of the Balkans recently, so let us for one day at least join in the celebrations of most of the Kosovar people and reflect on why their statehood is a good thing. Of course, as the nay-sayers point out, Kosovo is a barely viable statelet where life for most of the population is poor nearly a decade after a Nato intervention to “save” them. Unemployment is around 50 per cent; national income per head is little more than £800 a year.

Relations between the ethnic Albanian majority and the tiny Serbian minority that remains are still bitterly hostile, and Serbia refuses to give up its territorial claim. The state will depend for its existence on financial and security support from Nato and the EU for the foreseeable future.

Yet, for all that, Kosovo has been a success of liberal interventionism. Two things are clear. One is that it was absolutely right to stand up to the Serbian nationalism epitomised by Slobodan Milosevic. The most shameful policy of John Major’s Government was its appeasement of aggression in the Balkans, standing aside from “ethnic cleansing”. The Kosovo war of 1999 finally put an end to all that. As a result, Milosevic fell and Serbia began the long journey to joining the international community.

The other is that it should have been obvious in 1999 that Serbia had lost Kosovo, although it would have been tactless to say it. It has taken a long time for that inevitability to work itself out, but that is no bad thing. The intervening years have allowed adjustments to bruised Serbian pride. In that time, the Serbian people have come to see their future as lying in the European Union, and that pragmatic ambition has brought about, at some level, a grudging acceptance of the facts on the ground.

Only two weeks ago, the Serbians chose Boris Tadic as President in preference to the more nationalist candidate. This may seem a distinction without a difference to outsiders. Mr Tadic sounded uncompromising last week: “I will never give up fighting for Kosovo, and I will, with all my might, fight for Serbia to join the European Union,” he said. But the second half of that sentence takes precedence over the first.

Yes, it has been a long time and economic progress has been slow. But that is one of the most important lessons of liberal interventionism, in Kosovo, East Timor, Afghanistan – and even in Iraq, although the disaster of the US-British invasion nearly destroyed the case for interventionism altogether.

Last week, the president of East Timor survived an assassination attempt. Nine years after the Australian-led intervention, its polity too is fragile. In Afghanistan, the support of nations all round the world for the overthrow of the Taliban has not been matched by their willingness to shoulder the burden of nation-building. While US policy may have alienated many countries, it cannot absolve UN and Nato members of their responsibility to the Afghan people for decades to come.

It takes a long time to build the structures of statehood in poor territories torn by conflict. It is expensive and it requires political skill to overcome the inevitable resentment of foreign troops. The difficulties should make us cautious about intervention but, where intervention is justified, they are a challenge to be faced, not an excuse for inaction.

The success of intervention in Kosovo – however qualified and partial – should make us hopeful about such apparently intractable conflicts as those in Darfur and Palestine. But that hope should be restrained by realism and an honest understanding of the long-term commitment required. That means a greater awareness of the geopolitical forces in play over Darfur, for example. George Bush’s visit to Africa should make the point that the US is not the obstacle to effective global pressure on the government of Sudan; the main obstacle is China, and the Olympic Games this year provide leverage against Beijing.

Independence for Kosovo, therefore, ought to be welcomed as a step on a long road towards normalisation in a zone of historical conflict, a reminder that human rights can be defended and conflicts slowly mended. Today the members of the EU and of Nato should re-commit themselves to seeing Serbia and Kosovo eventually take their place, side by side and with the other Balkan states, as members of a united, democratic Europe.

These nations all love Kosovo.

The map of Europe continues to change. It appears we are the in small state phase again.

Haaretz gives a good rationale for recognizing Kosovo’s independence.

Some ways Kosovo is going to complicate things:

Some former Soviet regions are taking note, especially the pro-Russian ones. Here are some more breakaway regions that are taking note too.

Irish neutrality might technically speaking be over.

Only one more American veteran from the First World War remains alive since Harry Richard Landis passed away earlier this month. Now only Frank Buckles of Charles Town, West Virginia remains from those who served for this nation during the First World War, a conflict I find too many Americans lack a sufficient interest in to say the least.

The last part of the former Yugoslavia under the control of the Serbian core of the now defunct state will break awayto freedom on Sunday. After nearly two decades of disintegration, the last part of the multi-ethnic Yugoslavian state will break away.

Putin appears to have his match in McCain. The people of Eastern Europe would be able to sleep easily at night without fear of being rolled over by a Russian imperialist.

Chinese tyrant Mao Zedong offered the United States millions of Chinese women in 1973 during trade talks.

“You know, China is a very poor country,” Mao said, according to a document released by the State Department’s historian office.

“We don’t have much. What we have in excess is women. So if you want them we can give a few of those to you, some tens of thousands.”

A few minutes later, Mao circled back to the offer. “Do you want our Chinese women?” he asked. “We can give you 10 million.”

After Kissinger noted Mao was “improving his offer,” the chairman said, “We have too many women. … They give birth to children and our children are too many.”

“It is such a novel proposition,” Kissinger replied in his discussion with Mao in Beijing. “We will have to study it.”

Happy Valentines Day to all the women in my life.

Yet another tragedy in a gun-free zone. The fundamental problem is that in a free society these things are going to occur unless you do some of the following:

1) End this gun-free zone nonsense. Let professors and administrators carry firearms on college campuses.

2) Vastly increase the number of police and deploy them through. I am not calling for a police state, but increasing the number of cops in the nation by four times would definitely improve the security situation.

3) Strip those with mental problems of gun rights. If you are a danger to yourself or others, you should be prohibited from owning or possessing a firearm until your mental condition is corrected.

4) Our society has become a culture of outcasts where death is almost glorified. The media is partially to blame, but absentee parents and families are just as responsible. The fact is that the majority of Americans cannot handle their problems and lack a basic grasp of responsibility.

Tragic to say the least and in many respects scary. Makes us all wonder when and where it will happen next!