It really is fascinating to speculate what life would have been like if we had sat out the world wars, and put “American First.” Probably no Israel. If we let Europe, Korea, Japan to fend for themselves with nasty hegemonies the world — and our place in it — would have been worse in a variety of ways; but enough worse to justify the numbers of our servicemen killed in action the last 100 years? Of course the dirty secret is that by 1941 there were political advantages to FDR gearing up for war: full employment, economic recovery, and a populace focused on a foreign enemy instead of his mistakes. (I hasten to add, my tentative view is that FDR was at bottom well intentioned, and in fact played the hand dealt him suberbly.)

It really is fascinating to speculate what life would have been like if we had sat out the world wars, and put “American First.” Probably no Israel. If we let Europe, Korea, Japan to fend for themselves with nasty hegemonies the world — and our place in it — would have been worse in a variety of ways; but enough worse to justify the numbers of our servicemen killed in action the last 100 years? Of course the dirty secret is that by 1941 there were political advantages to FDR gearing up for war: full employment, economic recovery, and a populace focused on a foreign enemy instead of his mistakes. (I hasten to add, my tentative view is that FDR was at bottom well intentioned, and in fact played the hand dealt him suberbly.)

For now, it seems to me that the prescription for R's in not “eschew militarism,” but “don't wage wars that most voters consider needless and mismanaged.”

I'd have to be convinced that the Democrats are actually an alternative on those issues. I don't regard waterboarding as worse than what goes on daily in Supermax prisons (like ADX Florence in Colorado or in Fort Leavenworth), so if the idea is “we won't keep them in Guantanamo, we'll move them to Supermax or to “temporary” overseas prisons), who cares?

The Obama Administration position on rendition and indefinite detention is the same as the Bush Administration's, just with a promise to use it more reliably.

I guess we'll see if the omnibus spending bill actually has any defense spending cuts. Clinton did cut defense considerably– and a Republican Congress went along with it. (Did anyone seriously think that Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey couldn't have started a budget crisis (and won) by insisting on more military spending? And yet they didn't, despite it being a putatively winning issue.)

I would be nice for there to be a more libertarian alternative. But as far as I can tell, libertarians ran away from the Republicans precisely when the Democrats offered little more than vague promises at best.

They also ran away from a Republican contender who had voted against the worst Republican excesses, including torture, the farm bill both times, both energy bills, the prescription drug benefit, etc., all because of “temperament.” I struggle to understand why voting for someone who you'd rather have dinner with rather than because of policy (just like how most people vote anyway, sadly) is particularly “rational.”

Freedom Fries were not, as far as I remember, either named or endorsed by the GOP – they were one guy's stupid idea.

(I'm also with Dan H. – while the GOP are hardly libertarians, I continue to think they're still significantly the lesser evil to liberty, as the two parties stand at this moment.

Believing that the Democrats are somehow against the things in the quote listed*, rather than against them when it's a Republican doing them seems to be unsupported by the history of the 90s.

* Except for defense budgets; the only Democratic presidency of the past almost-30 years, except for the one that just started, did in fact slash defense considerably. But it also had the excellent excuse of the cold war ending.)

Or as a Clinton staffer said to a left-wing activist who complained about the flight of military jets when Clinton was inaugurated: “Those are our jets now.”

Note that Obama just signed an order sending 17,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan.