So where do we fit in? Our leaders lie in their campaign promises, get elected, and don’t fulfill the wishes of the people who elected them. Or as mentioned elsewhere, a near majority of the people do not get the person they voted for at all. Or in the case of Bush in 2000, the MAJORITY did not even get the person they voted for.

I read George H.W. Bush’s lips and voted for him so we would get no new taxes. We got new taxes. I did not want Bill Clinton in office. He governed me for eight years. I voted for the Republican Contract With America in 1994 and saw very little of it happen. I voted for George W. Bush’s humble foreign policy, not realizing that he was stacking his administration with rabid interventionists prior to his election. And when all the years of Republican rhetoric about social values, smaller government, individual liberty, and constitutional responsibility led to my decades-long dream of Republican control of the presidency and both houses, I watched as they violated virtually every conservative talking point they ever used. One of W’s first “successes” in office was the largest expansion of the federal role in education since 1965.

This nation has endured a virtual 20 year monarchy by two families, the Bushes and Clintons, with perhaps four to eight more to follow. Despite this, we are a sovereign nation. I guess I can be thankful that there’s no stronger power on earth that can see the obvious and “save” us from ourselves.

Even if we accept that a near majority of the people do not consent to be governed by people they did not vote for, we now have a solid, overwhelming majority of people who have not consented to our dear leader for years, yet we have no “vote of confidence” type system built in to throw the bum out. Yes, we have impeachment, but our “opposition” party refuses to govern in the manner in which those who voted them into power would like. There are endless examples of our government not governing in the manner in which “the people” consent, whatever on earth that’s worth: you may consent with Bush, but did you consent with Clinton? I consented with neither.

“…and giving their governments an air of legitimacy they don’t deserve.”

And GIVING their governments an air of legitimacy they don’t DESERVE? Wow. And just where does this august body reside which presumes to decide who “deserves” airs of legitimacy and then “gives” them? This sounds like more political hot “air” to float a lame argument to me. Does this body have a written standard by which to judge foreign countries or are these standards set by the whims of people whose authority rests on being voted into office by a public that doesn’t consent to their post-election actions? Does their authority rest on a public that can’t even begin to recognize the most superficial differences of these cultures they disrupt so deeply, much less understand the complex nuances that have driven them for millenia? Does their authority rest on a public that by an embarrassing percentage can’t even find their own country on a globe?

One assumes that since it’s these United States of America that take the unilateral role of judging whether or not a foreign country deserves its own sovereignty, surely our constitution explains how and why I, as an American taxpayer, should have X number of my tax dollars earned from my day’s labor diverted from my family to provide this “service” to people in a foreign land, and why I, as a Christian, should have to pay to kill people in violation of my religious beliefs.

Parroting the neocon attempt of using Locke and Rousseau to intellectualize their justification for wasting our blood and money may satisfy the “my gosh aren’t they smart” factor in neocon circles, but it doesn’t fly in factland. We’re witnessing right now in Iraq that two 17th and 18th century European philosophers’ theories about social contracts are not necessarily going to answer for the wildly opposing views of peoples who lived far more effectively in their separated tribes before our European meddlers caged them into their common artificial boundaries. Not that these high highfalutin’ ideas ever entered the neocon equation a priori; this is just more of the post-disaster scrambling for explanations that works oh so well for those civilian champions of the military who quiver in their boots at the mere mention of the word “Islam”.

Hitler only dreamed at the level of lemmingmania we’ve achieved here in 21st century America despite all the information at our fingertips.

Is the US ruled by “the consent of the governed”? What does “the consent of the governed” mean when 1/4 of the electorate votes in “off-years” and only 54-60% vote in presidential years, and then only show up because of dire warnings of what will happen if the other pre-selected candidate wins.

The American citizenry is no more ‘sovereign’, no more “consent” to the corporations that control our lives through the kabuki performance of elections & congress than the people of Iraq were when the bombs fell on them at the behest of the oil companies and Israel.

“My uncles and cousins were murdered by Saddam’s regime. I wanted desperately to get rid of him. But today, if Saddam’s feet appeared in front of me, I would fall to my knees and kiss them!”

The idea that war proponents ever lost sleep because an Iraqi Shiite didn’t have the right to vote is beyond laughable. This argument only appeared because every argument before it was proven to be a lie. People like Tim only care about spreading democracy inasmuch as it supplies a cover for his lack of cogent arguments in favor of killing people who’ve done him no harm. The War Party only cares about spreading democracy inasmuch as it convinces the public to go along with policies that ultimately destroy their economic freedom, liberty, and honor.

I say you can’t go and invade countries who do not threaten you directly and imminently, period. And “imminently” does not mean most unlikely, but perhaps in an unknown future.

But let’s forget the (very) twisted idea that a country being not “sovereign” automatically makes it a candidate to occupy for any foreign power with enough military prowess to run it over.

Let’s forget this same logic makes a some very important countries the US depends on for it’s geopolitical politics not sovereign and eligible to whatever foreign occupation, I imagine claims to want to restore democracy. That is if the same standards then still apply.

Let’s forget installed puppet regimes in occupied countries eg Iraq, Afghanistan are most definitely not sovereign and eligible to being invaded by foreign powers by this same logic.

Let’s see this from another perspective. It can be argued by some hypothetical country with a military that would pale the US’s in comparison that the government of the US hasn’t been properly chosen. And as we all very well know (but perhaps wish we didn’t) there are some very valid arguments to back up that position.

Let’s forget this time about the issue of vote fraud. It can be argued that in the US (like many other “democracies”) political power is largely a matter of buying it, indirectly, but still.
Say now there is in this hypothetical all-powerful country a new school of thought which says this US government isn’t really chosen by it’s people, it has been hijacked by a hostile elite and therefore it is in reality a thinly veiled tyranny of that elite. And as can clearly be seen by it’s behavior in the past and the present, thinly veiled tyrannies are aggressive by nature and a threat to world-peace and hence a threat to our national security and our global interests.

Therefore we see it as our right and even our duty to restore real democracy in the US so that it’s people may be represented by their government again. (Is this stupid or what? That’s neoconservatism seen from the receiving end.)

But far from recognizing this stupidity in this hypothetical country there are counter-Tim R,s arguing on their antiwar-forums (let’s hope they do have that then) that the US is not really sovereign, because there is not really a government that actually represents it’s people in any meaningful way. Then this position can be backed up by listing all that’s wrong in and with the US. And you can believe me that foreigners like this counter-Tim R. will leave no stone unturned and bring him to the conclusion that the US government is actually nothing more than a criminal enterprise and that his country is right in removing this regime and replace it with something better.

Do you agree with your counterpart? Hypothetically yes or really yes?