Sure, The Obama Administration Pretends To Be Anti-Slavery

But given the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 how we can possibly trust them!

I have just been informed that the United States government is a big, hairy, lying, hypocritical bag of lying hypocrites for raising any objection to Assad gassing his own people

Why?

Because Veetnam!

Because Iraq! Specifically, the assistance Iraq was given by the Reagan Administration in using chemical weapons a quarter century ago.

And of course because Occupy Wall Street!

Just ask David Sirota:

...

You can ignore all of that and still call bullshit on the assumption that the West is somehow offended by the use of chemical weapons. How? By remembering that the West has a long and distinguished record of arming dictators with chemical weapons and of deploying chemical weapons against its opponents.

Yes, the same American government that asks us to believe it is morally opposed to chemical weapons used them in Vietnam, gave them to Saddam Hussein and helped him use them. More recently, the United States crossed its own alleged "red line" by using chemical weapons in Iraq, giving them to Egypt to use against protestors, and deploying them against its own domestic dissidents. The U.S. military also still has chemical weapons stockpiles. Meanwhile, the British government reportedly sold chemical weapons components to none other than Bashar al Assad in the midst of his civil war.

So please, let's stop pretending this is about some specific hostility to chemical warfare...

I believe two things are true.

Well, three things.

First, Dear Mr. Sirota:
 

Second, as things stand now, the idea of the United States unilaterally firing missiles into Syria -- even extremely well-targeted missiles aimed at things like helicopters and radar installations -- is stupid, probably futile and might end up making a horrible situation even worse.  

Third, Purity Caucus Heroes like Mr. Sirota have been getting drunk on the "Worse That Boosh!" jug for so long that is now impossible for them to imagine a Barack Obama who saw what happened in Syria and just wanted to do something about it, even if there really may not be anything to be done that won't be futile or actually make things worse.   

No, their Barack Obama is always a villain --

@teedeeum if u wanna make an argument that bombing women and children will make things better, go ahead.
— David Sirota (@davidsirota) September 6, 2013

-- whose motives are always nefarious. 

And if sufficiently nefarious motives are not readily available, like the Teabaggers and the Hate Radio goons from which they take their cues, Purity Caucus Heroes like Mr. Sirota will just make some up.  Out of indignation.  And spin.  And adjectives:

Bullshit Assumption #4: The proposed Syria attack has absolutely nothing to do with the U.S. defense budget.

The Pentagon and the military contracting industry are freaking out that for the first time in a generation, there's the possibility of cuts to defense spending. And it's not some theoretical possibility - it's real. Public opinion surveys show majority support for such cuts, and the sequestration fight has inadvertently made those cuts imminent.

What better way to halt the budget-cutting train than to start a war that blows up the tracks?

Now, sure - a war in Syria is not a pure "Wag the Dog"-style conspiracy by greedy defense contractors. It is never that simple. But it is also hardly a coincidence...

To repeat, as things stand now, I believe the idea of the United States unilaterally firing missiles into Syria seems stupid, probably futile and might end up making a horrible situation even worse.  That is true.

It is also true that nothing about the phalanx of hysterical straw men which Mr. Sirota has marshaled to his cause improves the chances of persuading anyone who is not already a member of the Purity Caucus that firing missiles at Syria is a dumb idea. 

However should anyone who is not already a charter member of Purity Caucus accidentally stumble across Mr. Sirota's truly remarkable assertion that the tear gassing of Occupy protesters by cops resides in the same moral or chemical universe as the indiscriminate nerve gassing of civilians to death by the Assad regime...or Mr. Sirota's remarkable assertion that the entire incident may well have been ginned up by Pentagon ribbon-clerks looking to goose their budget...there is some, small danger that those people might assume that opposition to firing missiles at Syria is the province of puerile idiots.

And I would rather they not make that assumption.

Then again, I may be wrong.

After all, the Obama Administration pretends to be in favor of women's suffrage, but given Elihu Root's chauvinist remarks in 1894 about women's suffrage -- 

…Mr. President, I have said that I thought suffrage would be a loss for women.  I think so because suffrage implies not merely the casting of the ballot, the gentle and peaceful fall of the snow-flake, but suffrage, if it means anything, means entering upon the field of political life, and politics is modified war.  In politics there is a struggle, strife, contention, bitterness, heart-burning, excitement, agitation, everything which is adverse to the true character of woman.  Woman rules to-day by the sweet and noble influences of her character.  Put woman into the arena of conflict and she abandons these great weapons which control the world, and she takes into her hands, feeble and nerveless for strife, weapons with which she is unfamiliar and which she is unable to wield.  Woman in strife becomes hard, harsh, unlovable, repulsive; as far removed from the gentle creature to whom we all owe allegiance and to whom we confess submission, as the heaven is removed from the earth.

-- and the prominent position Mr. Root held the cabinet's of both William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, how we can possibly trust them!