Since writing my missive about why I cannot stand Ron Paul, I’ve been engaged by a group of drooling lunatics who have all called me the same thing:
WARMONGER.
They’ve called me other things, too…sick, brainless, idiot, moron, delusional. I’ve been told that I need to get help. Not one of them has produced a shred of evidence to support most of their claims. They cite op-ed websites that ignore evidence and fail to ask certain questions. The most irritating part of all is when some of these people wave the “gay rights” issue under my nose, claiming that Paul is all for gay rights (actually, he isn’t, and claiming he is is absolutely insulting).
I’ve had an ongoing back-and-forth with Twitter Paulian @hortulanus94 about why I believe Paul is dangerous, and the guy has insulted me at every turn. After he called me a warmonger several times, I asked him to define the term. This was what he said: “Warmngering is an obsession and fascination with war that is excused by false reasons that the government makes up for gains.”
They come across as outrageously self-righteous. It is unfortunate that they are so ignorant.
Paul and his followers (including semi-famous conscientious objector Aidan Delgado, who was caught telling lies to the NY Times and later called on it) claim that we are where we’re at because of “blowback”. Blowback is intelligence parlance that basically defines unintended repercussions befalling the citizenry of a nation engaged in covert operations. They claim that the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis was blowback from the 1953 CIA operation that deposed Iranian PM Mohammad Mosaddegh; on that alone, I call BS. Mosaddegh was actually quite Westernized – he was educated in France and Switzerland. He was very much like the Shah who replaced him. It was the influence of Western culture – not blowback from the 1953 coup – that deposed the Shah. The Shahs and the Ayatollahs had clashed for nearly a century before the 1977 uprising, and every time they went at loggerheads it was the Ayatollahs and their followers screaming that Western culture was destroying traditional Islamic culture (Sharia). That uprising was a long time coming. Sorry, guys…Paul doesn’t know his history, and neither do you.
The next thing they point out is Iraq. In 1979, we became buddies with Saddam Hussein because he stood against Iran. We were allied with the dictator all the way up until 1990, when he invaded Kuwait. The Saudi king approached the US with a request: help us drive him back into his own country. They only had one condition, and that was that we not kill Saddam. We supported his war against Iran. Then, when he took it too far, we said enough is enough – go home and stay there. We didn’t occupy Iraq. We made him sign terms of surrender, but all of the terms were limited to weapons of mass destruction (which we know he had), militarization and no-fly zones. He was allowed to remain in control of his own country. When he refused for eight full years to allow inspectors into the country to prove he didn’t have WMD’s (and made multiple overtures that he did have them), we again said enough is enough. We took him out of power, helped the Iraqi people rebuild their country, and we let his own people try, convict and execute him.
The only place where blowback can possibly exist is Afghanistan. Even that is a stretch. During the late 1980′s, Texas congressman Charlie Wilson pushed for a covert operation that armed and funded the mujahideen in Afghanistan. They had been fighting a losing battle to push the Soviets out of their country, and were paying an extremely high price. Finally, armed to the teeth and trained, they were able to reclaim their country and the Soviets went home. Rather than meddle in their affairs, we left and allowed them to run their own country. What rose up was the Taliban. This was where Osama Bin Laden was trained in the way of war. Then, when his home country refused his offer for help and instead asked us to send Saddam packing, Osama got his knickers in a twist. He hated the Western world anyway – now he had a reason to strike back. (Again I remind you that we’re talking about a guy who believed that drinking chilled water, eating with your left hand, and enjoying any form of music was a sin punishable by death.)
Muslim jihadists believe it is their destiny to rule the world. Most recently, Europe has seen a surge of protesting by enraged Muslims who literally call for the slaughter of those who merely insult Islam. This belief and everything that is going on now goes all the way back to the founding of America. Shortly after we wrapped up the Revolutionary War, pirates from the Sharia-led “Barbary States” (comprised of most of the nations ruled by the Ottoman Empire) began attacking American merchant ships and coastal towns and hamlets demanding that we pay a regular tribute. If no tribute was paid, hostages would be taken. Our leadership paid tribute for years, with the amount steadily rising annually. Thomas Jefferson led a steady dissent to paying tribute; during his work negotiating with the envoy of the Pasha of Tripoli, he wrote this to John Jay: “It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy’s ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once.”
As soon as Jefferson became president, he stopped paying tribute. The Pasha immediately declared war. After a year or two of bickering, the Pasha captured the USS Philadelphia and anchored her in the bay to use against US ships; war became official at this point, whereupon the first US Marines stormed the ship and burned it so the Pasha couldn’t use it.
History goes back quite a long way. Much further than what the Paulians like to quote. They have so little depth to their argument that I can’t even get my feet wet with them. The final insult is this video. Click on it and watch. I had already seen it when the aforementioned Twitter user sent it to me – and he keeps sending it to me as if watching it again might somehow change my mind.
It angered me from the very first time I saw it. Why? The part where Aidan Delgado says, “if Americans actually listened to the veterans that they claim to respect so much, their attitude would change. But Americans want to honor the veterans in a very cursory way – you know, putting a yellow sticker on their car, having a little parade or a welcome back…” That opening line absolutely infuriated me. My little brother has fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Several of my cousins have gone. MANY of my friends have gone. Two of my friends were killed in action. A handful came back in pieces – limbs missing, shrapnel still in their bodies. Each and every one of them believed in their mission. They became frustrated with a media disinterested in the truth, a public that was being badly misled, and a Congress that sent them to war with rules of engagement that tied their hands behind their proverbial backs.
All of them have enough class to keep their frustration to themselves. Not one of them wanted to go to war – NOT A SINGLE ONE. They went because they believed that it had to be done so that 9/11 would not happen again. None of us is obsessed with war or fighting. There is no romantic view of it to be found among my family and friends. It is degrading and insulting to hear Paulians say what they say.
Another point that Paul and his zombie legions like to spit out is that “71% of all active-military campaign donations have gone to Ron Paul! Listen to the troops!” This is also bullshit, and I’m about to give you two reasons why.
1. The data compiled only lists donors who chose to disclose their employer. That is not a requirement for making a political donation. A number of active-duty military won’t disclose that they’re military.
2. The boast basically claims that 71% of the current troop force is fully behind Paul. This is an outright lie, one on the level with liberals in a way that should be embarrassing. A pretty sizable portion of our troops don’t give a single dime to political campaigns at all, many of them because they can’t afford it, others because they just don’t want to get involved on that level.
When I pointed out to my Twitter stalker that not a single one of my military relatives or friends agreed with Paul on his outrageously isolationist beliefs, this was his response: “Since 1979 blowback has had it’s consequences. It does exist. It doesn’t matter what your soldier friends say.” In other words, “listen to the troops! Not those ones, THESE ones!”
steveflesher
Philip
Mel Maguire
Mark Ciavola
Comments
Some of those Paul people are very, very strange. And I don’t think they’re merely libertarians…it’s not that easy to explain them. I’m a libertarian conservative, and I like much of what Paul stands for — but I can’t support anybody who doesn’t understand how complicated and dangerous the situation is in the Middle East.
Nor can we have a completely open border with Mexico. There are terrorists coming into this country from down there, for crying out loud.
Liberty is the most important value for a free people. But a little common sense doesn’t hurt, either.
I love your arrogance. “We took him out of power, helped the Iraqi people rebuild their country, and we let his own people try, convict and execute him”.
“We took him out of power (where were the WMD’s?), helped the Iraqi people reqbuild their country (why would it need rebuilding? Oh yeah, you blew it up! – and we let his own people, try, convict and execute him” (how noble of you. You LET them. Did they kiss your hand in appreciation? Did they bow down to you? You LET them. How fucking arrogant.
No, the arrogance lies with you. You’re putting words in my mouth and you damn well know it. Josef Goebbels would be proud.
WMD does not necessarily mean “nuke”. Yes, we know he didn’t have nukes. A weapon of mass destruction is any weapon that causes mass casualties and destruction, as the name implies. We know he had them because he used them, and over 500 such weapons were found (some in storage, some still in production) in the form of Sarin and other such chemicals. If he had them, we must believe he intended to use them. He refused, for eight full years, to allow inspectors to come in and make sure he didn’t have anything he wasn’t supposed to have. He also had a squadron of MiG-25 Foxbats hidden in various places – some buried in the sand, others hidden from prying satellites by camouflage netting. He wasn’t supposed to have those, either.
You know what else was found? This was even documented by National Geographic – buildings used as heavy weapons storage and terrorist training grounds. Entire centers had been used to experiment with different ways to get suitcase bombs past metal detectors and explosive-detecting equipment. Gee, I wonder what that was needed for.
We went in to take out an inhuman despot who for decades had tortured his own people, a tyrant who had invaded other nations before and posed a threat to our allies and potentially us. Don’t try to tell me he wasn’t a superpower…neither was Hitler when he came to power. He still ended up occupying the whole of Europe.
Just because YOU don’t have the balls to go out and fight when you see an injustice does not mean that the rest of the world needs to tuck their sack and run away when a bully flexes his proverbial muscles.
You say “proverbial” too often.
That aside, sure, injustice exists, but we get back to the whole “policemen of the world” thing. Being a defensive, non-interventionist nation doesn’t cost us trillions of dollars, or create a military-industrial complex so large that it eats resources that could have been better allocated by the free market.
The problem with so many neo-cons is that they scream for war with any country they deem might be a threat with little evidence that they have the power they claim they have, little evidence that we’re their target, and take an alliance with a foreign nation so seriously that they would allow our country to be utterly ruined sooner than let a sovereign, nuclear armed nation on the other side of the world fall. On the subject of blowback, what if China were to invade the US because Fred Phelps’ crazies at the Westboro Baptist Church took out a couple of buildings in Shanghai? They see that Christians always seek to convert more people to their religion and make the argument that Christianity is a threat to their power. They send over their troops and set up shop near your home town. They kill your friends and family in drone strikes, and don’t pull out their troops because there are Christians still here that are still pissed off at them. Don’t you think that even you might be just a little pissed off and think to join a resistance movement against the Chinese occupation? If you answered no to that question, then I think you’re off your rocker. I’m an Atheist, but would STILL fight an invader attempting to take away the rights and property of my fellow Americans. I don’t understand how Republicans can be so blind as to not think, “What if this was happening to us?” or ignore the conclusions they might draw were they to do so.
What I think, and the reason I’m voting for Ron Paul, is that we need peace and less government intrusion into our lives because human rights, specifically freedom, are in violation by both war (the Republican position) and entitlements (the Democrat position). Only going to war to defend ourselves means we keep more money here in the United States. For every helicopter that’s shot down, that’s millions of dollars of taxpayer wealth that’s being -destroyed-. Not invested. Not used for anything that might enrich any of our lives. It’s simply gone. For every soldier that’s killed, that’s one less person who can provide value to society, that could have been productive were they not dead. Fewer “entitlement” programs means that those who create wealth can use their wealth to create more wealth, instead of the sweat of their brow being stolen by the government, at gunpoint, based on the subjectively defined “needs” of others. (And if you don’t think taxes are at gunpoint, I implore you to try not paying them.)
The commonly used words “conservative” and “liberal” to mean “Republican” and “Democrat” are misleading; a slippery slope argument is made such that being pro-war is a “conservative” position and not just a “Republican” position. I would argue that the pro-war Republicans are liberal in their foreign policy position. Ron Paul is a true conservative whose goal is to protect us from the liberal policies of both Republicans and Democrats.
I bring up this thought to make my next argument: Ron Paul’s positions on gay rights is based on true conservatism and a truly fair concept of marriage – that the term marriage and what it means to people is subjective and not within the power of government to objectively define. Under the system of marriage as I interpret Ron Paul being in support of, gay people would be allowed to be married and call their marriage whatever they want, just as straight people are allowed to. The difference? The government wouldn’t recognize, and therefore give no benefits to, people defined as being “married”. This is fair because it not only protects gays, but polygamists, incestuest..amists..? (whatever), and any other paraphilia CONSENTING ADULTS agree to engage in. (It also protects single people, but this isn’t their battle so I won’t elaborate there.) Ron Paul isn’t a support of GAY rights, he’s a support of INDIVIDUAL rights, under which gay rights are implicitly included.
You say “proverbial” too often.
That aside, sure, injustice exists, but we get back to the whole “policemen of the world” thing. Being a defensive, non-interventionist nation doesn’t cost us trillions of dollars, or create a military-industrial complex so large that it eats resources that could have been better allocated by the free market.
The problem with so many neo-cons is that they scream for war with any country they deem might be a threat with little evidence that they have the power they claim they have and little evidence that we’re their target. On the subject of blowback, what if China were to invade the US because Fred Phelps’ crazies at the Westboro Baptist Church took out a couple of buildings in Shanghai? They marched their troops over here and set up shop near your home town. They killed your friends and family in drone strikes, and didn’t pull out their troops because their troops were still being attacked. Don’t you think that you’d be just a little pissed off and might join a resistance movement against the Chinese occupation? I don’t understand how Republicans can be so blind as to not think, “What if it were us?” or ignore the conclusions they might draw were they to.
What I think, and the reason I’m voting for Ron Paul, is that we need peace and less government intrusion into our lives because human rights, specifically freedom, are in violation by both war (the Republican position) and entitlements (the Democrat position). Only going to war to defend ourselves means we keep more money here in the United States. For every helicopter that’s shot down, that’s millions of dollars of taxpayer wealth that’s being -destroyed-. Not invested. Not used for anything that might enrich any of our lives. It’s simply gone. For every soldier that’s killed, that’s one less person who can provide value to society, that could have been productive were they not dead. Fewer “entitlement” programs means that those who create wealth can use their wealth to create more wealth, instead of the sweat of their brow being stolen by the government, at gunpoint, based on the subjectively defined “needs” of others. (And if you don’t think taxes are at gunpoint, I implore you to try not paying them.)
The commonly used words “conservative” and “liberal” to mean “Republican” and “Democrat” are misleading; a slippery slope argument is made such that being pro-war is a “conservative” position and not just a “Republican” position. I would argue that the pro-war Republicans are liberal in their foreign policy position. Ron Paul is a true conservative whose goal is to protect us from the liberal policies of both Republicans and Democrats.
I bring up this thought to make my next argument: Ron Paul’s positions on gay rights is based on true conservatism and a truly fair concept of marriage – that the term marriage and what it means to people is subjective and not within the power of government to objectively define. Under the system of marriage as I interpret Ron Paul being in support of, gay people would be allowed to be married and call their marriage whatever they want, just as straight people are allowed to. The difference? The government wouldn’t recognize, and therefore give no benefits to, people defined as being “married”. This is fair because it not only protects gays, but polygamists, incestuest..amists..? (whatever), and any other paraphilia CONSENTING ADULTS agree to engage in. (It also protects single people, but this isn’t their battle so I won’t elaborate there.) Ron Paul isn’t a support of GAY rights, he’s a support of INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM, under which gay rights are implicitly included.
Alright, I’m done. I should have made a blog post or something, but I don’t have a blog.
supports** I’m a baddie and didn’t proofread.
supporter.. FML ***** alsdkfjlaskd I’ll quietly await replies now
“On the subject of blowback, what if China were to invade the US because Fred Phelps’ crazies at the Westboro Baptist Church took out a couple of buildings in Shanghai?”
They wouldn’t have to come and attack us because we would gladly give that freak up to spend the rest of his life in a Chinese labor camp. I can’t think of a soul who would cry for that moron.
“I don’t understand how Republicans can be so blind as to not think, “What if it were us?” or ignore the conclusions they might draw were they to.”
First of all, Paul himself is a Republican. Second, it is damn hard to draw a parallel between your fictitious occupation of the US over a terrorist act and what we had to do to bring OBL and his terrorist network down. The Taliban had, for years, harbored OBL and his band of thugs and when we insisted that they be handed over they refused. So we went in and took them. We took the Taliban out so that they couldn’t set up a second terrorist network in AQ’s place.
“What I think, and the reason I’m voting for Ron Paul, is that we need peace and less government intrusion…”
If you want peace, prepare for war. The only way you will avert war is to prove that you have the ability to fight like hell and actually do it when necessary. I will agree that there needs to be less government intrusion but you cannot have peace if all you want is to run and hide. That very position from Clinton was the exact reason why OBL kept attacking us and called us a “paper tiger”.
If Ron Paul were in support of true individual rights – including gay rights, which, I agree, are a part of that – he wouldn’t be writing for the American Free Press and allowing white supremacist groups like Stormfront.org to raise funds for him.
I meant Republicans who hold liberal foreign policy positions (“neo-con”) as opposed to Republicans with conservative foreign policy positions (“conservative”). I know Ron Paul is a Republican, but to be more specific, I consider him a conservative Republican (or that he holds “libertarian principles”, but he’s not a Libertarian, he’s a Republican. He just happens to be as conservative as your typical Libertarian.)
I’m sure we’d easily give up Fred Phelps. But assuming we didn’t, you don’t see the parallel of a large, foreign power occupying and ravaging your country and your desire to defend it? If I were an Afghan citizen and someone, even if they were of a different religion, managed to get my entire country invaded, it wouldn’t matter what started the conflict; if the aggressor is killing my friends and family, I’m going to defend myself and resist the aggressor in any way I can, to protect the lives and property of my friends, family, and self. I might be motivated to join a group that’s staging a counter attack. That’s “blowback”. And I hope my non-parallel makes you think, as we should, about what we might expect and how we might react if the same was done to us.
Right now a lot of neo-cons are calling for war against Iran. We’ve proven we have the ability to fight like hell, but do you think any potential upcoming conflict with Iran is a case where it would be necessary? Using the same logic as the previous argument, I don’t. Iran wants a nuclear weapon. They’re surrounded by countries that have them. Again, what if we were disarmed and surrounded by countries we have poor relations with that were armed to the teeth with them? As for Iran attacking Israel, whose alliance with us I question, I’ll ask you to look up the last time Iran offensively invaded another country and tell me what year it was. (The reason I question our alliance with Israel is, as I mentioned before, because so many neo-cons put our alliance ahead of our freedom.)
As for Ron Paul allowing himself to be supported by groups that are, in my opinion, illogically hateful, why not? White supremacists have the right to free speech, right? As long as all people are equal under the eyes of the law, I would argue that people can say whatever they want. I would call them immoral, sure, but who am I to force my morality on someone else? To paraphrase Paul, he once said that we have the first amendment not so we can talk about the weather, but so we can say controversial things. I would say that a racist’s logic is flawed, but again, as long as all people are equal under the law, I see no problem with a racist supporting Paul. A counter argument to the whole racist newsletter shindig that’s been going around is this: even if Ron Paul indeed wrote the articles that are attributed to him (and he accepts responsibility for the attribution, but refutes knowledge of who wrote them, save to say it wasn’t him), what would happen if Ron Paul were the president? Looking at his record, do you think he would do anything that would promote any race over another? I don’t. He might repeal a civil rights act or two, but because they unconstitutionally infringe upon peoples’ private property rights, and not because he is against anyone of any race.
Racism is a weird topic for me to discuss, solely because I hold a pretty conservative view on it. That is to say, I’m not a racist, and I would never do this, but if a business refuses to serve someone for any arbitrary reason, race included, they have the right to do so. Get into medicine and business and race and it starts to get sticky and becomes an interesting argument, but you’ll have that.
(Now if someone is racist and they kill someone or damage their property? They’ve committed a crime and should be sentenced accordingly.)
*if a PRIVATELY OWNED business makes such a decision. Again, to remove ambiguity.
“I hope my non-parallel makes you think, as we should, about what we might expect and how we might react if the same was done to us.”
Don’t insult me. If you think that has never crossed my mind, think again. I have thought about what I would do if someone tried to occupy my home – just as I have considered what I would do if they tried to force me to convert to their religion or die, which is exactly what the jihadists want us to do. Remember, their belief in their own superiority goes back a very long way, and to them it is ordained by Allah. My morality is based in logic rather than religion.
“We’ve proven we have the ability to fight like hell, but do you think any potential upcoming conflict with Iran is a case where it would be necessary?”
Yes, I do. We’re not just talking about some innocent nation who has never been the aggressor. The fact that they have never actually invaded another country is meaningless. They routinely hold military parades where they carry signs that say “Down with the US” and “Down with Israel”…and now they want nukes? Yeah, I’d say that is enough reason. If a man is standing in front of me, telling me he wants me dead, and he’s searching his clothes for his hidden firearm, I’m not going to wait for him to find it and shoot at me – nor am I going to turn my back to him to TRY to run away. I am going to double-tap the bastard until he isn’t able to keep looking. It’s the same principle.
“White supremacists have the right to free speech, right?”
Of course they do. And I would fight to the death for their rights. But the fact that they have a right to free speech does not mean that a political candidate has to accept their endorsement. Their freedoms protect them from the government’s intrusion, not from private citizens – and in my mind, if you are accepting the endorsement of ANY hate group, you are aligned with their belief. I would say the same to any liberal group that was aligned with the NBPP or other extremist groups.
There are some things we agree on, I’ll hand you that – but you’re not changing my mind. No more than I am going to change yours.
No, of course not, but I do enjoy the exchange of ideas. People often get too heated to talk about “philosophy” in person, at least when the subject is controversial. So it’s not often I get to shoot ideas back and forth with someone in a logical manner that doesn’t devolve into “no, you’re dumb!”
Back to business:
I’m sure you’ve thought of it. But I think you put too much emphasis on ISLAMS goal being to convert the entire world to their religion (or kill them, as you suggest). At that point you’re not waging a war with a country, you’re waging a crusade against a religion, and the country just happens to exist. I’d hate to call you an Islamophobe, but if the shoe fits.. Your parallel would be more correct if there’s a man standing in front of you and you’ve got a cannon pointed at his head, and so do your three friends. And you’ve been picking on him for the past 50 years and he’s finally sick of your bullshit. We as Americans don’t plan on “running away”, but we should defend ourselves if he attacks, and it’s not as if we shouldn’t expect him to retaliate, really, but the answer isn’t to kill him, but to either talk him out of trying to find his gun, or, if he’d feel safer with it, treating him such that he doesn’t ever need or want to use it.
In regards to accepting the endorsement of a hate group, it’s logically fallacious to say that by accepting their endorsement he is aligned in ALL of their beliefs. White supremacists might like him because it allows them to more easily be racist, sure, but that doesn’t mean he’s a racist by allowing them to support his positions.
“At that point you’re not waging a war with a country, you’re waging a crusade against a religion, and the country just happens to exist.”
I disagree. If the state is run by religious law, it is the state. The religion may fuel it, but it is still the state. If we can manage our country without one religion demanding its own set of laws, they can as well, and they fail miserably and call it a triumph.
“And you’ve been picking on him for the past 50 years and he’s finally sick of your bullshit.”
Picking on whom? Who, exactly, have we been picking on? Please don’t tell me it’s Afghanistan, because we armed them and then stood back to let them handle themselves. It’s not Iraq, because we were allies with them until they invaded Kuwait. It certainly isn’t Iran, because their issues between the Ayatollah and the Shah/PM went back WAY further than 1953. BTW, you can only reason with a man who is willing to be reasonable…I think we’ve demonstrated that when religion tells you that your god commands you to commit certain acts, you’re not exactly reasonable. Try talking a man out of using his weapon when he thinks you’re the devil. I should know, I’ve been there.
“In regards to accepting the endorsement of a hate group, it’s logically fallacious to say that by accepting their endorsement he is aligned in ALL of their beliefs.”
When the overwhelming majority of their beliefs are so far out in left field that they cannot be logically defended, there’s nothing fallacious about it. You can swear until you are blue in the face that you believe in freedom, but when you break that belief down and your idea of “freedom” includes no rights at all for minorities, gays or women, it’s a little over the top. Either you denounce those people or you agree with them, you cannot have it both ways.
Scaring the hell out of everybody and alienating people may not be the most libertarian way of instituting libertarianism. We’re not living in the Garden of Eden. Right now the world is what it is — and it’s such a crappy, screwed-up place largely because of rampant statism.
This presents many teachable situations for libertarians. We need to explain how things got this bad, and why so many people are so corrupt. But that doesn’t mean we can wave a wand and magically change them.
Actually, the notion that we can change things by flipping a switch or waving a wand is, itself, yet another statist corruption. Again, there’s nothing libertarian about it. Shrieking at people about being “warmongers” — when they’re only being realistic — isn’t very libertarian, either. It’s just striking an empty pose.
Mel is right. Statism — meddling in the politics of the Middle East — did a lot to cause the situation there to be so dangerous to us. But that doesn’t change the fact that it IS dangerous. Pretending that it isn’t is just nuts. Sure, we need to point out that statism did the harm, and begin to turn things in another direction. But we won’t live long enough to accomplish that if, in the meantime, we aren’t grounded in the reality of how dangerous the situation has become.