The said Constitution shall be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.

I agree with Wulf, but I'm not sure that it would mean that we wouldn't have had to tangle with the extremists anyway.

The only way that capitalism would work is if those countries were open to trade - which they are generally are not.

If we used our power and influence to encourage freedom of trade instead of propping up questionable regimes that were better than the Soviet alternatives we may have been able to avoid the current mess.

Ya know, we don't really have capitalism or classical liberalism in America any more anyway (at least not as you or I would understand it). How are we going to export something we squandered?

but I'm not sure that it would mean that we wouldn't have had to tangle with the extremists anyway.

The more I think about it, the more I am sure this is true to some extent. After all, we were dealing with Muslims who used the Koran to justify militantism back in the beginning, with the Barbary pirates. But for most of our history, they’ve had bigger problems – mostly imperialist Europeans. We’ve definitely managed to draw their fire back toward us in the last few decades, haven’t we?

Brad’s comment represents my depressed inner Wulf. Sigh.

FWIW, I found the Kling's comments highly despotic, to say the least.

Doink, I don't get it. Pretend for a moment that I don't know anything about metallurgy, engineering, or physics, and just tell me what "Kling's comments" are. I must have missed something.

Also, for anybody interested in a really old post on this topic, check here: Iran seeks nukes Nikes.

oh shit - I'm sorry! I read your post shortly after reading some similar back-and-forths regarding an article Arnold Kling wrote sometime last week, and I must've assumed (or imagined) that you two were discussing his ideas.

here is the TCS article. There was a rather exaggerated commentary about this article over at Catallarchy, which summed it up thusly:

1. Take away their weapons
2. Make them wear labels so we can distinguish them easily (to make sure they don’t get weapons again).
3. Move them all to ghettos
4. Round them all up and stick them in concentration camps.
5. …
6. Profit!

Like I said, the catallarchy summary is way exaggerated, but I still think Kling is largely off-base.

Apologies for completely missing your discussion :)

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