Who are the biggest idealists in this WAR ?

Answer all the people who are getting rich rich rich from it.

like me.

the neo-cons

Esquire1983 is right on

Paleo-cons are much funnier, though.

I think there's more idealism on the pro-war side, even if only because there's a call for action there; it's possible to be against this war without thinking that "the good will naturally show in people," only that "this will make not-so-good worse." That, however, is only a response to the two arguments you have up above: both sides contain any number of different arguments in their favor, all with various levels of idealism, pessimism, gloom, and naivete working in either direction.

But yes, I'm inclined to think that advocating a war takes a greater level of idealistic conviction than warning against one.

Agreed, if only because at the root of the word is "ideals" and although it sometimes grows cloudy and confused, I'd say Wolfowitz et al are much closer to having easily-definable ideals (at least in the geopolitical sense) than the loose aggregation that is the antiwar movement.

The best demagogues are those who are blind or indifferent to the contradictions in their own positions; I think that makes for a kind of sinister idealism, sure.

By that logic, I would like a list of the ideals you can have which do not make you into at least a good demagogue, please

"silence is golden"?

There are quite a few advocates of war who argue using geezaneutics, or geezalectics, responding to "but the US just wants to prove it can do anything it wants!" with "damn skippy" and "yeah, we should totally take their oil, better us than some dictator, we've got more cars, anyway!" and "of COURSE this paves the way for the UN's irrelevance, they're already irrelevant to begin with!" and "of COURSE NATO should just be our lapdog enforcement wing, they'd be nothing without us!" and so on. These attitudes are about as cynical as they come.

Yeah but Dave Q does it better.

I think that a great deal of this kind of arguing comes a response to the 'but Bush is a shithead and shouldn't be allowed to do anything ever' and 'War is terrible no matter what, a peaceful solution is the only accpetable one' kind of arguments. I am often tempted to use geeza techniques when confronted with the mercilessly unpragmatic and equally useless forensic behavior of some of the peace activists: "Why should I propose a solution, I'm not the mass murderer here" ARRRRGH.

And anyway I don't think you'd get anywhere trying to typify either side of the argument by selecting its dumbest proponents as representatives. Personally I know that my reasons for supporting this war and very much tied to a strong sense of optimism about what can be done to improve the situation in the Middle East and elsewhere - it could be argued that this does not count as 'ideals' per se but I have to admit that Eclipse's statement above rings true for me. I feel a little punctured every time the news comes back bad (other pro-war types, who are geeza through and through, just maniacally chant "kill 'em" which I find highly disconcerting and makes me want to yell at them)

I wasn't sure whether to term it 'optimism' or 'idealism' when I made the thread.

I promise to make even MORE typos next time

The absolutely most idealistic thing I've heard is Dubya's notion that the Arab world will be happy to be relieved of their dictators and, under Western supervision, set up with democratic rulers.

Totally. Who's hippies NOW, huh, hippies?

We are punks and we never trusted you.

I believe that children are the future, teach them well and let them lead the way---

...gurgulll...arrggghhh....gruuggg...we are the wrrrr...ggrr

[this is not a political post, I believe it has something to do with Whitney and Bobby]