also the posts that were before my first one are now different?  I don't understand why. I didn't hit any buttons changing the order they are displayed, but I my previous post is now on page five, not page four.

After viewing a couple of them, maybe Dave has a point.  But a quirk in the PHP bb made it impossible for me to see that because I entered from a URL, not from the home page.

Darren, they won't come across the border with box cutters. they will take us down piece by piece,,,, demographic by demographic;..... court decision by court decision..... newscast by newscast.

No it isn't.

When they came for the Chiristians, I said nothing because I'm not a Christian.  When they came for the Conservatives, I said nothing because I'm not a Conservative.  Now they are coming for the Libertarians and there is no one left to stand up for me.

That's what I mean by demographic by demographic.

Maybe for the sake of clarity, we should call Islamo-Fascists by the
name Islamo-Statists? Especially when dealing with a Libertarian audience.

Maybe the Nazis were the National Statist Party and the USSR was the Union of Soviet Statist Republics? by the same token, IslamoFascism could be called IslamoStatism with no explanation necessary.

Also, Mona Charen has a book on the shelves at Borders called "Useful Idiots' which is a good read.  Additionally Antonio Gramasky wrote a book on Communist propaganda that is obviously still being followed today.

I urge you to go to Border's and skim through these two books.

Again from the Ayn Rand Institute:

Death to "Diplomacy" with Iran
Thursday, October 27, 2005
By: Elan Journo

European "diplomacy" with Iran--now supported by Washington--is self-destructive.

The president of Iran--a country believed to be building nuclear weapons--recently demanded that "Israel must be wiped off the map." But European diplomats, who are courting Iran in an attempt to halt its suspected nuclear weapons program, said that such belligerence won't derail their overtures.

The diplomatic effort led by Britain, France and Germany is touted as a reasonable way to settle the dispute over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program without any losers. By enticing Iran to the negotiating table, we are told, the West can avoid a military confrontation, while Iran gains "economic incentives" that can help build its economy. But this deal--backed also by the Bush Administration--can only strengthen Iran and turn it into a greater menace.

The European deal--which is said to include the sale of civilian aircraft and membership for Iran in the World Trade Organization--rests on the notion that no one would put abstract goals or principles ahead of gaining a steady flow of economic loot. And so, if only we could negotiate a deal that gives Iran a sufficiently juicy carrot, it would forgo its ambitions.

But to believe that Iran really hungers for nuclear energy (as it claims) is sheer fantasy. Possessing abundant oil and gas reserves, Iran is the second-largest oil producer in OPEC. To believe that it values prosperity at all is equally fantastic; Iran is a theocracy that systematically violates its citizens' right to political and economic liberty.

What Iran desires is a nuclear weapon--the better to threaten and annihilate the impious in the West and in Iran's neighborhood. Iran declares its anti-Western ambitions stridently. At an official parade in 2004, Iran flaunted a missile draped with a banner declaring that: "We will crush America under our feet." (Its leaders, moreover, have for years repeated the demand that "Israel must be wiped off the map.")

A committed enemy of the West, Iran is the ideological wellspring of Islamic terrorism, and the "world's most active sponsor of terrorism" (according to the U.S. government). A totalitarian regime that viciously punishes "un-Islamic" behavior among its own citizens, Iran actively exports its contempt for freedom and human life throughout the infidel world. For years it has been fomenting and underwriting savage attacks on Western and American interests, using such proxies as Hezbollah. Like several of the 9/11 hijackers before them, many senior Al Qaida leaders, fugitives of the Afghanistan war, have found refuge in Iran. And lately Iran has funneled millions of dollars, arms and ammunition to insurgents in Iraq.

It's absurd to think that by offering Iran rewards to halt its aggression, we will deflect it from its goal.

The only consequence of engaging such a vociferously hostile regime in negotiations is the whitewashing of its crimes and the granting of undeserved legitimacy. The attempt to conciliate Iran with "incentives" further inflames the boldness of Iran's mullahs. What it teaches them is that the West lacks the intellectual self-confidence to name its enemies and deal with them accordingly. It vindicates the mullahs' view that their religious worldview can bring a scientific, technologically advanced West to its knees.

Far from converting Iran into a non-threat, the "incentives" would sustain its economy, prop up its dictatorial government and perpetuate its terrorist war against the West. Whether Iran accepts the European deal or merely prolongs "negotiations" indefinitely, so long as the "diplomatic" approach continues Iran gains time enough to engage in covert nuclear-weapons research. Iran's flouting of a previous agreement to stop enriching uranium (which prompted the current talks) and its documented attempts to acquire nuclear-bomb technology erase any doubts about how it will behave under any future deal.

This approach of diplomacy-with-anyone-at-any-cost necessarily results in nourishing one's enemy and sharpening its fangs. That is what happened under a 1994 deal with communist North Korea. In return for boatloads of aid and oil from the United States, Japan and other nations, North Korea promised not to develop nuclear weapons. Despite U.N. inspections, North Korea flouted the agreement repeatedly. When caught cheating, it promised anew to end its nuclear program in return for more "incentives." In February 2005 North Korea declared (plausibly) that it had succeeded in building nuclear weapons.

Another, older attempt to buy peace by giving "incentives" to an enemy was a cataclysmic failure. In 1938 the Europeans pretended that Hitler's intentions were not really hostile, and insisted that "peace in our time" could be attained by allowing him to walk into Czechoslovakia. Instead, he was emboldened to launch World War II.

Ignoring the lessons of history, the Europeans are advocating a deal with Iran that likewise purchases the reckless pretence of peace today, at the cost of unleashing catastrophic dangers tomorrow.

To protect American (and European) lives, we must learn the life-or-death importance of passing objective moral judgment. We must recognize the character of Iran and act accordingly. By any rational standard, Iran should be condemned and its nuclear ambition thwarted, now. The brazenly amoral European gambit can only aid its quest--and necessitate a future confrontation with a bolder, stronger Iran.

Elan Journo is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the ideas of Ayn Rand--best-selling author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and originator of the philosophy of Objectivism.

This Op-Ed was published in the Chicago Sun-Times (October 30, 2005).

I just registered for these forums, but I thought I would take a poke at this thread, in spite of it's age...

I'm registered Libertarian, but I do have mixed feelings about some Libertarian ideas, including some of the more "hard-core" non-interventionist ideas.

Iran should not be permitted to continue its nuclear endeavors for the following reasons:

1)  Proliferation - more countries getting nukes - is bad no matter WHAT country it is.  The ones that currently have them have so far demonstrated that they aren't crazy enough to use them.  We can all be thankful for that (for now!).  Adding more countries with the potential of destroying their enemies in one strike is just bad for everyone.

2)  Iran has openly stated its policy that certain other nations don't deserve to exist.  Sure India and Pakistan don't get along.  But as far as I know, they don't have an openly stated policy that they want to destroy one another.  Not so with Iran.  Since they openly declare their desire to commit mass murder, they should not be allowed the tools to accomplish it.

So the question becomes -- how does someone stop them?  And who should that someone be?

The US has the best military assets to do the job of surgically destroying their weapons sites.  BUT there is another nation that has the ability, AND a much stronger motive to do it.

ISRAEL

Even if the US does nothing to stop Iran, I have no doubt that Israel will take action if/when it can be confirmed that Iran is close to getting nukes.  They are target #1.  And they, unlike many of us in America, have the balls to do it.

What to do with Iran? Leave them alone (militarily). If we try to police every country that we think is bad for us, then we're simply asking for them to nuke us. Our forces are already strained in Iraq, so invading Iran would lead to a catastrophic failure.

I have to agree that Iran is indeed a threat to world peace.  Their refusal to cooperate with the IAEA and their repeated and public threats to Israel and open use of terrorism as a means to obtain their objectives (i.e. Hezbollah) makes them extremely dangerous to the world.  They have repeatedly abused their own citizens as well as those around the Middle East, illustrated this by censoring their own citizens, executing gays, stoning women, etc.  Some may argue a cultural difference, but again, we have to look at the overall context.  If, say, Canada had openly threated to "wipe" a nation "off the map", making an obvious reference to their nuclear program, we'd be right to be very worried.  Additionally, the development of special centrifuges to more quickly enrich uranium that is weapons grade is reason to worry.