Does This Resonate?
 

They just voted for their leaders. I think they now live in a democracy. If the system gets highjacked, we'll talk about it again.

The Syrian society has, apparently, been full of comment in the last few weeks. Iran is still on the verge of clamoring. I think SA is going to have to start moving this way fairly quickly. There's a tremendous amount of inertia out there. This was, as you say, step one. But it WAS step one. That counts for a lot.

Does This Resonate?
 

Look, it's easy to be cynical about this. You gotta ask who's really running the show, and who they are running it for, when the Iraqi government website is written completely in English.

http://www.iraqigovernment.org/#

Does This Resonate?
 

Does This Resonate?
 

You mean, like, we should hold an election on the question?

Does This Resonate?
 

[cue Bilmore's Owensesque end zone celebration dance]

Does This Resonate?
 

Ha. Like any of them have internet access anyway. Obviously admin propaganda.

Does This Resonate?
 

Usually I know what you're talking about.

Today - not so much.

(ETA - I should add for clarity - Who's Owens?)

Does This Resonate?
 

Hint: read the FB discussion that I just started.

Does This Resonate?
 

Sure, that should settle it. Morality by majority vote.

And when you win the elections, which is all that really matters, you can give everyone medals and never even think about the bad stuff. That's because the _election_ is the "accountability moment" that determines both whether you _should_ have done what you did and whether it was well-executed.

Breath-taking arrogance.

S_A_M

Does This Resonate?
 

I understand why the Bush Administration publicly sets the bar this low. What I don't understand is why so many conservatives profess to agree. And what scares me is the notion that the Bushies really think this.

I gather that you spend a large portion of your life talking to someone who thinks that Arabs aren't interested in democracy -- couldn't care less about it. Because then you come here, and say this stuff as if it's relevant to something, anything that anyone is saying here.

Does This Resonate?
 

If you didn't get the "end zone celebration" part, I don't think the Owens part will give it away. Consider it an effort at being funny that failed more grandly than my usual efforts fail.

fwiw, as usual I'm with SAM. Except that I don't see it as arrogance so much. More like a need for reassurance.

Does This Resonate?
 

You suggested that we come to some definition of "common morality". I suggested one method of, at least on a gross level, measuring where those mores lie. You suggested nothing. And, I'm the one that's arrogant?

Look, if you want a determination, but you can't offer an approach, and you think that any sugestion of an approach is arrogant, you don't leave us with much room to progress on your path. How would YOU measure, define, or arrive at a common morality?

Dear Amerika, whee haf yur suns~!
 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...l=chi-news-hed

This is the greatest practical joke of all time. Joker gets a military doll sold at U.S. bases in Kuwait. Puts a gun to its head, takes a picture and broadcasts it as a captured yankee on an Islamist website. Newspapers pick up the story. Hilarity ensues.

Does This Resonate?
 

when is Iraq "fixed?" I say when it is handling it's own security and we can pull out. how does it get there? it's people join the police and nat'l guard. The bigger bombings and most gruesome kidnapping/murders are of recruits for these. What does that tell you Ty? THERE ARE LOTS OF RECRUITS- and they are targetted- AND STILL MORE JOIN. The people want to get there.

now the people have had a chance to pick what the government is. how can that not make more want to join the security and also narc out the insurgents?

Did you know the South Vietnamese Army was almost all drafted?

Does This Resonate?
 

I'm baffled. They voted. Presumably, the winning candidates will be seated, absent fraud. Isn't that democracy? I don't think I called it peace, did I?

This must be my afternoon for bafflement. How this relates to what I said escapes me. You said, the Arab world doesn't appear to be clamoring for democracy. (Or were you just making a joke with the "look like Iraq" thingie?) I said, here are a few things going on in the ergion which make it appear that people are starting to clamor that way. From this, you get . . . that?