Lex Anteinternet: Getting into other people's fights.

Monday, April 15, 2024

Getting into other people's fights.

In our current era, there appear to be two ironclad rules of Republican politics. These are 1) you criticize Biden for everything, and 2) you endorse Donald Trump even though he should be in prison.

On the weekend shows, specifically Meet The Press, one GOP personage back in D.C. blamed President Biden for Iran's actions in the shadow war between Israel and Iran. The logic was that as Iran has been hitting US sites in Syria via Iranian proxies, we should have massively retaliated.

We have been retaliating. The only thing we could do that we haven't would be to strike Iran inside of Iran. That would have been over the top. Now, that's exactly what this person wants us to do. Irrespective of what Israel does, he wants us to hit Iran in Iran.

Isn't this the same party that chickened out in Afghanistan and surrendered to the Taliban (which interestingly doesn't like Iran) on the basis that we need to end "forever wars"?

So, we surrendered to one group of Islamic fundamentalist so they could establish a theocracy, and now we're going to take on another one?

Eh?

And why do we need to do this when it seems like Israel is pretty capable of defending itself. Most in D.C. right now are complaining that Israel is going too far in Gaza. That can be debated, but they certainly seem to be able to more than defend themselves, granted with U.S. material aid.

Meanwhile, a democratic county that is fighting one of the largest armies in the world can't get our help, because Donald Trump is a fanboy of the autocratic opposition.

There's no consistency in this at all. If it makes sense for us to get into a shooting war of some sort over the skies of Iran because they're a lethal annoyance that has staged a massive rocket attack on a democratic state, well then it makes just as much sense to do that in Ukraine. Probably more sense, due to the civilian death toll that's resulted in.

If it doesn't make sense for Ukraine, it doesn't make sense for Israel either.

And let's be honest. Ukraine isn't getting our aid right now because of Donald Trump. That's the only reason. Israel is getting help as it's always gotten our help, in part, but also because a certain part of the rising Evangelical populist wing of the GOP has certain millennial and religious ideas about that.

I'm not saying don't aid Israel. And frankly, I'm aghast at the people who are effectively supporting Hamas, which is a brutal terrorist organization. Nobody is looking at a long term solution, and there is one, but its Wilsonian and won't make every feel good. What I am saying is that the GOP position right now is completely hypocritical.

Oh, and does the GOP dislike or like Taiwan right now? I've lost track. Maybe somebody better ask Don during a break in his trial.

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Lex Anteinternet?

This blog has been around since 2009. In the very first post, we asked the question: "What the heck is this blog about?"

Our answer to the question was: "The intent of this blog is to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?"

We also noted: "Part of the reason for this, quite frankly, has something to do with minor research for a very slow moving book."

All of this is still true, but the focus of the blog has changed somewhat. It now focuses on the era from 1890 to 1920 in general, rather than on the law and lawyers specifically, although that may be far from obvious. It's also become the location where we comment on anything we feel moved to comment on.

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