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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic
Here's a good bit of analysis on the Syria debacle, and where it leaves us.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358480/american-ineffectualism-mark-steyn

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This is what happens when you elect someone because he looks cool standing next to Jay-Z. Putin is cool mainly in the sense that Yakutsk in February is. In American pop-culture terms, he is a faintly ridiculous figure, with his penchant for homoerotic shirtlessness, his nipples entering the room like an advance security team; the celebrities he attracts are like some rerun channel way up the end of the dial: Goldie Hawn was in the crowd when Putin, for no apparent reason, sang “I found my thrill on Blueberry Hill,” which Goldie seemed to enjoy. In reality, Putin finds his thrill by grabbing Obama’s blueberries and squeezing hard. Cold beats cool.

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In this morning’s New York Times, Russian president Vladimir Putin argued that America is not exceptional, and that American leadership does not make the world safer. I could not disagree more strongly.

While Russia and the U.S. did work together to defeat the Nazis in World War II as Putin points out, our histories since then tell two very different stories. While strong U.S. leadership rebuilt a free and prosperous Western Europe after the war, the Soviet Union did the opposite, spreading a Communist ideology that imprisoned people behind walls and on islands. The U.S. won the Cold War because of our willingness to lead the free world, and today we remain the world’s sole super power. The question facing our nation now is whether we will continue to lead in the future. I believe we must.

History teaches us that a strong and engaged America is a source of good in the world. No nation has liberated more people or done more to raise living standards around the world through trade and charity than the United States. We remain a beacon of hope for people around the world.

History also teaches us that the best way to preserve the peace is to have the military power to win any war. We must ensure that our military power remains unquestioned and unequaled. That is why I support investing in our military — because failure to do so will ultimately prove even more costly and more dangerous.

In his op-ed, President Putin said that action in Syria without the authorization of the United Nations Security Council would “constitute an act of aggression.” I believe that while we should always work to build international coalitions and consensus, we cannot place all of our faith in or compromise our sovereignty to the international community. The United Nations is a fine forum for debate, but time and again it has proven unreliable when it comes to actual action. The U.S. should never abdicate our national security to anybody — especially an international body that includes many who don’t share our democratic ideals.

America’s national security should focus on providing for our security without violating our liberties. Our foreign policy should sustain and deepen our relationships with our allies, including those who are threatened because of their willingness to stand with America.

If we follow these principles, the world will be safer, freer, and more prosperous, and the 21st century will be another American century.

• A Conservative interpretation of the US Constitution
  
• Personal Responsibility
  
• Help for the truly needy
  
• Limited Government
  
• Consumption Tax (non-profit charities and food exempt)
  

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ORIGINAL: crazyml

Would we be where we are had Obama not raised the stakes?

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ORIGINAL: dcnovice
FR
Me again.
As a gay man, I was intrigued by Steyn's deployment of the word "homoerotic." A few thoughts:
-- If Obama's topless photos are homoerotic, are Putin's as well?
-- I gather homoeroticism is a bad thing in the mind of National Review readers. Perhaps Steyn's invocation of it is an effort at an elegant way to call the President a "girly man"?
-- The essay itself struck me as homoerotic. Steyn seems to have a bit of a boy-crush on the domly Russian leader.

• A Conservative interpretation of the US Constitution
  
• Personal Responsibility
  
• Help for the truly needy
  
• Limited Government
  
• Consumption Tax (non-profit charities and food exempt)
  

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
Actually, Steyn was talking abouyt Putin's topless photo's as being homoerotic. "Homoerotic" was used properly, but it likely was not supposed to convey a positive meaning.

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Actually, Steyn was talking abouyt Putin's topless photo's as being homoerotic. "Homoerotic" was used properly, but it likely was not supposed to convey a positive meaning.

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ORIGINAL: DaddySatyr

I agree with DS' assessment of Marco Rubio. I'll go further; I think what he describes is exactly the kind of misconception of "American Exceptionalism" that is the reason why it is used as vitriol.

I agree, in essence, with the letter that DS posted from the Heritage Foundation(?) in that we are exceptional by way of being unique in the principles upon which we were founded and our (sometimes meager) efforts to uphold that tradition.

I have said this before and I will repeat it: I am sick to death of cleaning up everyone's messes around the world and recovering only a depletion of our most precious blood, economic instability, and hatred from most of the world for our efforts.

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

So if the Syrians give up their chemical weapons without us even dropping one bomb or launching one missile how would the President be ineffectual