Has anyone seen the debate between Dave Smith and Dinesh D'Souza? D'Souza has been obsessively posting in favor of Israel, and making fake 'documentaries' making really weird claims about the Bible prophesying the fight between Hamas and Israel. Really bizarre.
But he humiliated himself utterly in this debate. I had to listen to it again just to make sure that I heard everything correctly.
He claimed that the Cold War was a war, even though 'bullets didn't fly', because missiles were built. He simultaneously claimed that invading Venezuela, killing a hundred people and kidnapping their president was not a war.
He said that Europe is too lax in its enforcement of 'hate speech laws'. He cited the Emirates as a good example of fighting Islamism and quoted one of their guys as saying: "In America and Europe, anti-semitism is an opinion, here it is a crime".
He claimed that America helping the Islamists in Afghanistan fighting the Soviets was an example of an intervention that was a great success.
He unironically cited the "narco-terrorist" line about Venezuela to justify the invasion. Later on, he admitted that it was just a pretext and claimed that it was about Maduro allegedly emptying prisons into the US.
At one point, he said that he only supports wars that are in accordance with "our values and our interests". Then he said that he supports Venezuela because they have oil that we want. His values include stealing other people's oil?
He's also a Machiavellian through and through. He advocated for ignoring the constitutional prescription that only Congress can declare war, saying that Congress doesn't do much. Exactly the leftist excuse for judicial lawmaking: "Congress didn't do what we wanted, so the judiciary had to act." And at the end, he mocked Dave Smith for believing that Congress should have the ability to declare war, not the president, because Congress is easier to influence by moneyed interests. As if Smith would then say: "You know, Dinesh, I never thought of it that way. I guess that since Congress is easier to manipulate, we should just ignore the Constitution".
All in all, a complete embarrassment. It really wasn't worth the $7,000.
I remember during the Second Gulf War he made the same argument that if it was blood for oil, that lower gas prices benefited Americans so it was a justifiable position. It's kind of a valid position if you're the bully, not so great if you're the nerd.
Do you know the last country the US "declared" war on? It was Romania in 1943/44, I forget the exact year. Think about all the military conflicts the US has been in since the early 40s, not one had a war declaration. Declaring war is just a quaint notion in history. There were no war declarations during the Revolutionary War or the Civil War
The declaration of Independence was a declaration of war. They literally said "We are independent of your rule". The UK fired the first shots on Americans, you don't need to declare war if you are defending yourself. The Civil War was also a defensive war by definition, the Confederacy attacked Union forts first.
Oh if you're defending yourself you don't declare war, ahhh I see like how we didn't declare war on Japan after Pearl Harbor? Oh wait we did.
WWII wasn't a defensive war, we invaded Japanese held territory and Axis Europe. If you are defending yourself from invasion, meaning foreign troops on US soil, then a declaration of war is not needed. The declaration was only needed once we sent troops from US soil to invade foreign soil.
Not that anyone really cares about the Constitution, it's laws are broken every day.
Which is bad, of course. Maybe it started when Truman argued that he didn't need a declaration of war for Korea because the UN authorized it, which made it a 'police action'.
That said, maybe I misstated this. I don't recall if this was specifically about declarations of war or Congressional authorization. I'm pretty sure Dinesh was arguing against any role for Congress.
Weird comment. Was the Revolutionary War before or after the US Constitution? And who were you supposed to declare war on during a civil war where you're not even acknowledging that you're fighting anything but an internal insurrection?
It's not a quaint notion. In fact, the reason that you don't need a declaration of war is the reason the US is addicted to wars.
I'm just pointing out that the US has a history of conflicts without formal declarations of war.
I think 1789 to 1944 is quite a long period. I wouldn't call it a quaint notion.
Since WW2 and the imperial state? Sure. You can judge for yourself if you think this has been good or bad.
Correct me if I'm wrong here but the US never declared war on any tribes during the Indian Wars