bleeding heart

Interesting. He points out that he was effectively banned from FOX news...alongside moderate conservative voices like David Frum.

This will need to be worked out, and obviously it won't be easy. The UN recognizes Canada, the United States, the UK, France....recognizing "terrorist" nations is the norm, not an aberration.

I make no claim that he's worse than Mubarak. As you say, that's premature, to say the least. In fact, he deserves some credit for a couple of things already: helping with the ceasefire in Gaza, and being willing to absolutely denounce the Syrian government...while in the company of Syria's chief ally. My criticism of Morsi is based on the fact that Egyptian revolutionaries themselves are angered at the anti-democratic move. If he turns out to be a tyrant, that certainly overshadows whatever diplomatic benefits he's responsible for.

Are you serious?

Yeah, what's with the "leave me alone" complex, from a person not specifically addressed or alluded to?

Oh no...don't tell me that you share with jbg the "Bestest Friends Forever!" theory of geopolitics...and consider any disagreement with it to be a kind of moral failure?

What's this "enjoy" theme you're pulling out of your hat of tricks? I was offering a speculative opinion about the future. It has precisely zero to do with what I want.

Especially since those who continually make the complaint are themselves preoccupied with the issue, to the diminishment of others. Why are the critics of the Palestinians ignoring the far worse atrocities in the Congo? (Jeez, you're right, Dre! That's grade 3 easy, at worst.)

Considering how long it's been at the current level, and the difference in general life expectancy at its inception, you've got a strong argument there.

This has been addressed a zillion times in a zillion debates since late 2002-early 2003: it's not about taking oil, it's about strategic control and influence in oil-rich geography.

Yeah...no emotive rhetoric...just objective reportage. At any rate, even so far as it's true, your expansion on the theme here points to the broader matter about "choices" in the realm of health care and medical practice, in which personal and legal and medical decisions on every level are going to have consequences. In other words, the theme is so widely applicable that it's diluted of meaning. For example, not having a "single-payer, universal health care" system means some are going to die who wouldn't under a different system; and having one means just the same thing for other people; some dead who would otherwise probably live under a more explicitly market-oriented system. It could easily be argued that every choice on matters of import are essentially issues of lesser-evilism. It's just that there's little agreement on what is lesser and what is greater. That's where we're at with abortion, too, and presumably always will be. Not so many. Yes, there are obvious problems, no question. That doesn't change the fact that we're not anytime soon to be overcome by a flood of anti-abortion health professionals on a large scale. Ain't gonna happen.

Bring back the pay toilet! (I kid....that was the single worst idea in history.)

Yes, and there's never anything sacred about alliances, sometimes misnamed "friendships," none whatsoever. Sooner or later, either the US will drop Israel like it's boiling with maggots, or Israel will drop the US as if it's a battery leaking acid. It could be a long time off, but it is a matter of time, I assume.

A pragmatist who has no belief, none whatsoever, in the principles of democracy. Period. (So why have democracy at all? Since it's pointless at best, dangerous at worst?) No one else will countenance it, except perhaps in extreme hypotheticals that simply do not apply to most of the cases we could discuss.

That's my understanding, too. But we can't, obviously, be beholden to some principle of "supporting democracy." That doesn't even make sense. As for Aristide's alleged thuggishness...it could well be true (though not for certain), but is not relevant to his overthrow; those we supported in his place were worse in every sphere...except for obedience to Northern/Western interests, which is required to earn the label "moderate," an otherwise meaningless word. All we have to do to udnerstand how such subversion of the democratic will is treacherous and bad is to imagine the unthinkable: imagine a group of more powerful nations doing it to us. There is exactly zero difference in the two scenarios.

I honestly couldn't say. I wasn't even faintly disagreeing with you about the Brotherhood. I was opining that Western democrats tend to be rather..undemocratic, and that this is quite institutionalized. The difference is in the domestic sphere, in which political behaviours are profoundly restrained, at least in most ways. Internationally, it's a different matter.

Normally, you like to mock such emotive remarks about dead children. lol! i guess it's only the unborn ones that really tug at the ol' heartstrings. It would appear more health care professionals will then won't...so not a major problem!

Aristide, Haiti, 2004. Canada, the US, and France.

Sorry, Boges. I actually thought I had deleted my post, as I wasn't even sure what it's point was. Now that you've responded, I might as well leave it up.

Again: are you shocked when Canada supports the overthrow of an elected leader in favour of a non-elected one...or when it supports terrorist regimes over the regime"s victims? If you are shocked, then why are you asking about the Egyptians a question that applies to yourself? And if you're not shocked, then the whole discussion is kinda pointless, isn't it?

The current demonstrations are precisely because of the Brotherhood's anti-democratic behaviour. On that note, have you ever voted for the Liberals or the Conservatives, federally? Because if you have, do you not think you should have known that both parties are explicitly guilty of subverting democratic will elsewhere? While they don't announce it, it's certainly no secret, and is uncontroversially the case; which begs your own question: you have been living with these parties in power all your life...so do you really expect us to believe you didn't know they were anti-democratic when it suits them?

Well, sure...I have voted many times, and not once did I intentionally vote for Canada to support the overthrow of democratically-elected governments (Haiti) or for de facto support for mass-murdering state terrorism (Indonesia). But by your calculations, all of us not only should have known we were being lied to about our (bipartisan) government's intentions.(which is probably true enough)...but also that no Canadian voter actually believes in democracy, since we have in effect voted to demolish it eslewhere. That is, i think you're holding the Egyptians to a far higher standard than you're holding Canadians. I can't say I know quite why.

Why should I "celebrate" that people go to church?

Because they took the Brotherhood at its word...abotu democratic reform. Obviously. Hell, if I were an Egyptian, I woulda voted for one of the lefties...the very ones most outraged by the leader's power-grab; the very ones most concerned about religious conservatives' relationship to democracy in the region. But the voters chose otherwise.

???? The protests agaisnt Morsi are premised on the fact that he's betrayed the revolution for democracy. That democratic revolutions sometimes fail does not impugn the motives of those who fight for it. Obviously.