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Did you use "founding principles" and "LIBERAL" in the same sentence? ? ?

Well, the Founding Fathers whose intentions Americans seem to be trying to divine when other arguments fail did think that slavery was fine and dandy, and did not seem to notice that pristine land they were colonizing was inhabited for ten or so millenia by the people who would prefer white men to take their missunderstandings about taxes back across the ocean where they came from. So, you might be up to something here...

But, what Bitt probably had in mind was that Founding Fathers are unlikelly to would have been enamored with ever-growing snooping powers of federal government, hostage-keeping a'la Guantanamo or going to war for the benefit of old buddies in oil companies.

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Meaning of 'neo-cons'

I wasn't aware of ethnic background of prominent neo-conservatives (OK, so Wolfowitz does sound Jewish). The term was simply used to distinguish them from 'paleo-conservatives', those who did not switch sides, so to speak. I never detected any hint of intention to imply parallel with neo-Nazis.

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Anti-Semitism

It is possible that Europe has larger number of acts like defacing of Jewish cemeteries, probably because there are proportionally more Muslims (like Palestinian refugees) in Europe than in USA. There's another effect in play, I think: many Israeli politicians and commentators follow the formula 'anti-Sharon = anti-Israel = anti-Semite', which is, of course, utter nonsense, but helps to paint Europe as anti-Semitic.

BTW, speaking of tolerating (verbal) anti-Semitism, where is the line one draws regarding hate-speech? We saw an opinion in a previous thread denouncing French policy of punishing (anti-Muslim, in this case) hate speech as trampling the basic human right of free speech. Does this apply to anti-Semitic remarks? Should it?

(BTW, term 'anty-Semitic' is, strictly speaking, wrong: both Jews and Arabs are Semites.)

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Actually, very few Jews from that time grew up in what is now Israel I imagine. Everytime I read or learn more about how the UK and US started that whole mess by promissng this and that, I cringe.

I could agree with you here. It looks as if the whole affair was designed to fail (my impression is by British more than Americans). Was displacing Palestinians really the best way to cure feeling of guilt for Holocaust? Speaking of that, what about Romanies (Gypsies)? They were being externimated by Nazis even more zealously than Jews; not only was no state constructed for them, they are still second-class citizens all over the Europe (including, I am ashamed to admit, in Croatia)...

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I even have a few friends that are liberals. I even invited one to my house once. Well, we actually just worked together at the same job.

Well, I am quite sure you are considered a friend by most of us bleeding heart liberals here. And I have very good conservative friends. But somehow they seem to be able to actually hear arguments a bit better than you guys here (and succeeded in making me change the way I look at a thing or two in our local politics)
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