Bottom line: Don’t break the rules (by leaving the designated area and trying to get to the convention center) and you won’t get pepper sprayed or bothered.

As far as America being a “police state”, don’t make me laugh. In police states, rioters get shot and beaten. Not escorted away.

If I were looking for an analogy, the best would be any of the German or Italian attempts to reassert control over their irredenta in the 20s and 30s. If the West had had the will to stop them at relatively low cost then, it wouldn’t have had to stop them at great cost later. Clearly, Russia is going to push the West as far as it can to try to reclaim its irredenta. Do we stop them now or do we look around in a few years and see a reconstituted Soviet Union that has moved to State Capitalism rather than Communism. BTW, that State Capitalism stuff is what the Nazis and the Fascists were into. Historian Paul Johnson described the old Soviet Union as the last of the Empires; nothing’s changed.

The Europeans could easily stand up to Russia without our help whatsoever. It is like a lion being bullied by a badger.

In all this talk I have still to see any sort of realism in what our limits are. Or if any of you believe that we have any limits.

If being involved perpetually in eastern Europe is in our best interests then so be it, but at least we ought to then rethink some of our other commitments. And at the very least we should insist on the Europeans bearing a bigger part of the burden. If we don’t insist, then they never will.

Just asking…..

(The bit about Europeans being silly children is good one. Way off, but a good one.)

We tried that leave it to them stuff in both World Wars. We wound up getting in anyway and much later and at much greater cost. Taking Germany and Japan off the board in the late Thirties would have been a lot cheaper and easier than it was in 44-45.

I disagree.

As for your low opinion of the Euro’s and their ability to defend themselves, Of course they don’t do any of the heavy lifting, They don’t have to. Uncle Sapp is always there to bail them out. Maybe it is time to kick the bird out of the nest. If they fail a few times, I am sure they will learn. Did you know that Europe has much more wealth, and population than the United states. And if they are so feckless and miserable, the way you say then why do we care what they do?

Somehow I do not see anywhere in the constitution where it says that the government has the right to tax it’s own citizens to pay for the continual protection of an entire overseas continent.

Or did you ever even stop and think about it in that way?

All for the sake of a bunch of ingrates who hate our guts and are using their comparative advantage (after all they don’t have to pay the cost of a military) to compete against us.

Funny but I see another way. I see a way in which we say to the grown up nations of Europe that it is time they begin to bear their own burdens, and when something happens in their backyard it is up to them. You might be surprised what people will do when they are forced to do it.

That said, and as peace offering for past slights, I do hope you understand that a highly developed snark reflex is essential to survive my alma mater in the political science department if one hopes to get out with one’s conservatism alive.

– Proud Survivor of attempted Liberal Indoctrination, Class of ‘98

Yeah, let’s stop liberating oppressed people and… you know… start liberating oppressed people.

Makes me think of the good ol’ days back at CU Boulder…

“Trying to recapture a mythical youth of a previous generation.”

Well put. I almost can’t help but feel sorry for them.