Damn. I'm reeling in my own glory. It seriously kicks ass. I mean, I know it's sad and all to be like all stoked off stuff like this, but it was great. I live for these things.
High points of the debating night:
Dissenter 1: "I'm against the war on Iraq because I don't think America's going to establish real democracy there. America always pick set up puppet dictators and that's bad for the people."
Me: "That's not an argument against war on Iraq. That's an argument regarding American policy toward Iraq after the war's been won. There's no reason you can't be for the war in Iraq, and for the establishment of democracy in Iraq following American victory. Besides, you’re wrong about Americans only setting up dictatorships. We set up democracy in Japan and Germany; we’re doing it in Afghanistan now. There’s absolutely no reason we can’t do that in Iraq. "
Dissenter 2: "I'm against the war on Iraq because we're not going up against other nations like North Korea, and Saudi Arabia, which are equally anti-American and probably just as dangerous."
Me: "There's no reason to have the exact same policy toward every country in the world. Different nations have different status. North Korea for instance has known nuclear weapons, and can use them against not only our allies, like Japan, but they can also reach Alaskan soil. There's good reason to treat North Korea differently than Iraq. In fact, we're trying to stop Iraq from having the leverage against us that North Korea has. But nevertheless, even if some of our world policies are unjust, it doesn't give us an excuse to avoid doing what we ought to do in Iraq. If it's right to go to war with Iraq, it's irrelevant to the issue at hand that it's equally right to go to war with North Korea. The point is, we still have to go to war with Iraq."
Me: "Hussein is indefensible. He's a second Hitler. And we're making the mistakes of the past all over again."
Angry Hippy: "You people are always calling everyone Hitler! He's nothing like Hitler!"
Me: "Nothing? Because both Hitler and Hussein are genocidal dictators with a penchant for invading their neighbors. Both were subject to disarmament, which they defied. And in both cases, we turned the other cheek. Are we going to continue to do so with Hussein until he's gotten the chance to build up to Hitler-like proportions?"
Angry Hippy: “That’s the whole point of inspections!”
Ex-Dissenter 1: “Yeah, but the inspections aren’t working. We know he had weapons of mass destruction. We don’t know where they went, and he’s not telling.”
Angry Hippy: “The whole world is going to hate us if we go into this unilaterally!”
Me: “But we’re not going into this unilaterally. We have all of Europe with us except France and Germany, and just wait until we’ve won, they’ll jump on the bandwagon too.”
Angry Hippy: “If we have all of Europe with us, why is it so hard to get UN and EU approval?”
Me: “Because France and Germany dominate those organizations. We know Britain’s with us. We’ve also got Spain, Greece, for God’s sake, Albania is even with us. Every, or very close to every, country in Europe has signed petitions to join us in a war in Iraq. It’s wrong to conflate France and Germany with mass European dissension.”
There was more, but probably no one gives a damn except me. Anyway, I felt all G.K. Chesterton tonight, and I loved it. Sometimes, I think I should become a political commentator or a journalist. The only problem is that I don't dress right. My All Stars scream punk liberal child, not conservative pundit. And I distrust any endeavor which requires new clothes.
On the plus side, tonight was the most honest exchange I've heard regarding the war on Iraq thus far. Of course, so far all I've heard are White House hawks versus Hollywood dopes like Susan Sarandon, so it didn't take much.
posted by Sarie @
9:04 PM
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