Politics

//A television studio, completely empty. The red light's not on.//

Conservative: I'm so glad you all could join me, on such short notice.

Libertarian: Thanks for convening. As you know, I'm also happy to share ideas.

Anarchist: I'd guess we all feel misunderstood a lot. I'm sure we could connect better as people -- hey, maybe even get some things done that are important to all of us -- if we feel heard and understood.

Liberal: I'm just glad we're here talking, not tossing bombs, or at least firecrackers. The ability to agree and disagree freely is a hallmark of our democracy, and if we don't use that right we'll lose it.

Conservative: Indeed, and it's a right whole generations of young Americans have gone to war to defend. So that's what I want to start with tonight. For years, liberals have complained about the war in Iraq and even Afghanistan as some kind of illegitimate invasion. But now, the great saint Obama himself (as liberals seemed to think he was) has gone and launched a war against Gaddafi, for even fewer reasons than we had to go against Saddam. So, are you eating humble pie? Or are you too Ivy League for that?

Ll: Whoa, my friend. That's a low blow. In all seriousness, the situations are completely different. Libya is a much smaller and more limited humanitarian mission to rescute civilians from a massacre!

C: It's like you swallowed the kool-aid, reading Obama's talking points or something. Where did the realpolitik of the Clinton years go? At least they took national security into consideration.

A: How, look, both of you, do you really think the Libya intervention is so different from other American military escapades? The last few years of "realpolitik" rapprochement notwithstanding, the US government has little reason to trust Gaddafi, as he's always spouting off about empire and corporate colonialism, rather uncomfortable subjects for the Americans. And they want to get in good with the Arab world, especially being so behind the curve before. And if they made the assessment that Gaddafi was doomed -- which everyone seemed to do very early -- then it makes sense they want to maximize their "in" with the next controllers of North Africa's largest oil reserves.

Ln:

...

C: You all have a tendency to see us conservatives as backwards, out of touch, ignorant, and the rest. But listen to me carefully now. War is a painful, bloody mess. I think I'm the only one of you that's actually seen it up close. And what you realize when you see the innder demons of men's souls, what they're capable of when there's no authority and everything's chaos -- well, most sane people realize we've just got to have a strong arm to enforce the rule of law. Otherwise it's warlords and brigands, and you can see that all over in the failed states of the world.

Ln: Look, you're right that governments serve a key function in the defense of the nation -- when there's an emergency, a crisis, and invasion, it's efficient to have a commander-in-chief. But that level of national security can be achieved without the Big Brother-esque snooping and repression that's become almost blase here in Western (so-called) deocracies vover the last few decades. It's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

C: Are you sreeriously telling me that we Aericans would be repressed for expressing our views lawfully? Compared to how the Syrians are getting massacred right now? Aren't you glad you're an American? Well, there's one word for why we're still here and freedom's on the table, and that word is: blood.