US Politics: 1950's edition

[Ormond]

Not a coward =/ brave. At least not under the definition I would use. Bravery requires fear, and if you legitimately believe your actions will land you a place in paradise as these folk did I don't think you'd be afraid.

Don't think I agree with that from either end. (Not sure bravery requires fear, and even more so don't think that a belief in paradise after death means you'd have no fear in this situation.)

But there were lots of people who insisted that the hijackers were cowards, not just "unbrave."

[Crazydog7]

Don't think I agree with that from either end. (Not sure bravery requires fear, and even more so don't think that a belief in paradise after death means you'd have no fear in this situation.)

But there were lots of people who insisted that the hijackers were cowards, not just "unbrave."

I remember it was amazing how much "blood for blood" talk was in the air. Strange to remember in hindsight how much of this talk about killing "their" leaders and forcibly converting them to Christianity (yes those were the circles I moved in 11 years ago) was said by old men who would not have to fight.

Because after a great national tragedy people understandably get caught up in a wave of national feeling that unfortunately is taken advantage of by the political establishment.

Nor is this a new thing the earliest example of someone critiquing this attitude is

http://www.amazon.com/War-Prayer-Mark-Twain/dp/0060911131/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331184832&sr=8-1

The War Prayer by Mark Twain.

[The Progressive]

I supported the war in Iraq, I was too stupid to listen to people like Relic and Shryke, instead I listened to my Preisident. At least until the whole "Mission Accomplished" thing on the air craft carrier and my eyes were opened to grand standing and smoke and mirrors while nothing had changed... except the lives of brave military men, innocent civilians, and a waste or resources, and my country's street cred in the world, that is.

But I honestly admit I should not have supported it from the beginning and made a mistake.

So, is claiming moral legitimacy a person without sin casting the first stone kind of thing or will I ever be able to claim it on any issue?

Sorry if this is threadjack.

Major props for admitting that you were wrong. I think that you were the only other former rightwing boarders besides EHK who have publicly acknowledged that they were dead wrong for cheerleading the Iraq fiasco.

It's amazing that the rightwing tools around here are still happily clapping to the tunes of the GOP frontrunners and Zionists who been beating their chests up about taking a more hardline stance against Iran. Fucking idiots!

[ThinkerX]

Minor sidenote here:

In the course of my job, I have been seeing a fair pile of political mail pass through my hands. As of late, there have been a growing number of envelopes with the words on them 'Republican Governor Walker of Wisconson needs your help to fight the Democratic recall'. Thing is, I work for the postal service...in Alaska.

So...

1) Why would the republicans in Wisconson be looking for help in Alaska? Could they be that desperate?

2) Presumably these contain demands for money. So...when FLOW gets such a demand, how much money does he contribute to the cause?

[Lord O' Bones]

Don't think I agree with that from either end. (Not sure bravery requires fear, and even more so don't think that a belief in paradise after death means you'd have no fear in this situation.)

But there were lots of people who insisted that the hijackers were cowards, not just "unbrave."

They were one or the other. Bravery may not as popular belief seems to hold require fear. But it does have to have a serious consideration of personal risk and overcome that to take an action; even if that action is inaction. But if you truly believe your existence will improve by the mass murder of people you've never faced, you are probably a fool and a fucking coward. If you had doubts in the end you were probably foolishly brave.

We'll never know.

[Guest Raidne]

"The man...who faces and who fears the right things and from the right motive, in the right way and from the right time, and who feels confidence under the corresponding conditions, is brave...he who exceeds in fearlessness has no name...but he would be a sort of madman or insensible person if he feared nothing...the man who exceeds in confidence...is rash. The man who exceeds in fear is a coward...The coward, the rash man, and the brave man, then, are concerned with the same objects but are differently disposed towards them; for the first two exceed and fall short, while the third holds the middle, which is the right, position; and rash men are precipitate, and wish for dangers beforehand but draw back when they are in them, while brave men are keen in the moment of action, but quiet beforehand."

-- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

[Ormond]

Minor sidenote here:

In the course of my job, I have been seeing a fair pile of political mail pass through my hands. As of late, there have been a growing number of envelopes with the words on them 'Republican Governor Walker of Wisconson needs your help to fight the Democratic recall'. Thing is, I work for the postal service...in Alaska.

So...

1) Why would the republicans in Wisconson be looking for help in Alaska? Could they be that desperate?

2) Presumably these contain demands for money. So...when FLOW gets such a demand, how much money does he contribute to the cause?

Political campaigns sell each other their mailing lists just like regular advertizers do.

They will send a mass mailing out to any list where they think the return will be greater than the cost.

Because I have given a lot of money to Democrats in the past, I am on all sorts of mailing lists and phone tree lists. I get requests to send money to people running for the US Congress in states outside of Nebraska all the time. And I get regular emails from WIsconsin about donating money to their recall campaign. So if Walker asking Alaskans for money makes him "desperate", I guess the Democrats in Wisconsin are almost as "desperate."

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

It's much harder to fight a long protracted war, with all the hardships that go along with that, than it is to have a deathwish, suicide bomb, and get a place in paradise. The people who do the latter lack the courage to engage in the former kind of struggle.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

I agree. I also understand where Maher is coming from because of what happened to him.

But Maher is backing the wrong horse on this one. Limbaugh has the right to say whatever he wants but he's also a brand and people have a right to say they don't like this recipe anymore and the sponsors have the right to want to discontinue an item.

The fact that Maher and Limbaugh engaged in similar polemics doesn't lessen the guilt of either, and Maher's defense of Limbaugh is clearly self-serving. Likewise, Limbaugh pointing out alleged hypocrisy on the left doesn't lessen his guilt, though it may be a separate point worth discussing on its own.

But I don't understand the "if you have a smaller audience, saying something offensive isn't as bad" argument either. The conduct is the same, and while the latter will inevitably get more attention in the media, that doesn't mean the moral judgement on either should be different. If Limbaugh's comments make him anathema to politicians, the same should apply to guys like Maher. It won't, but I do think that Limbaugh's comments and a bit of renewed focus on some left-leaning folks who have gone over the top may induce the lot of them to watch what they say a bit more closely.

[Sci-2]

Likewise, Limbaugh pointing out alleged hypocrisy on the left doesn't lessen his guilt, though it may be a separate point worth discussing on its own.

As has been pointed out, Maher doesn't decide policy. He doesn't have the power to get the Speaker to apologize. Edit: It's not the size of the audience, it's the disproportionate power to set the tone of a party's platform.

As for hypocrisy, look at Palin basically calling Hilary a whiner about sexism in politics then milking alleged sexism to paper over her incompetence.

ETA: It would be interesting to examine those considering (or arrested for failed) suicide bombing. I suspect there's a good deal of mental illness, depression over lack of opportunity, etc going on.

[Guest Raidne]

Okay, I finally looked up what Limbaugh actually said. Wow. So, a question - if an insurance plan is cost sharing amongst a group of private individuals, and I get coverage for my birth control, aren't I also being paid by the people I cost-share in the plan with to have sex, making me also a prostitute? Basically, I'd have to pay for my own birth control out of pocket at full retail price to not be a prostitute, right? This is in addition to the fact that Fluke did not, at any time, raise the issue of her own usage of birth control. She never made her personal practices a public issue, ever. Limbaugh basically called all of us - women using birth control to put off pregnancy until they advance sufficiently in their careers, women using birth control after they had two kids and are waiting for their husband's scheduled vasectomy, etc. (1) sluts and (2) prostitutes if we do anything other than pay for it out of pocket.

And so sponsors are pulling support. And maybe not because they are worried the public will be offended - maybe because they are offended, just like when Bill Maher talked about the bravery of the 9/11 hijackers and cowardice of the United States. Isn't it within the rights of the shareholders of corporations and owners of companies to not pay to advertise on your show if you said something that pissed them off? I mean, do you really expect to be able to call women, not mention men's wives, daughters, mothers, etc., sluts and have everything be A-OK?

So, Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a c*nt in a stand-up routine where he also called all Democrats p*ssies and said conservatives are afraid of gay people like they're afraid of dessert - they might see a c*ck go by and think, "well, I hear it's what they're known for." She's a reality TV star for God's sake - did you see what South Park did to Snookie? Besides have you read her emails from her time as the Governor or heard some of the ways she acted to McCain's campaign staff? The difference here is that Sarah Palin IS a c*nt whereas neither I, your sister, or Sandra Fluke are sluts or prostitutes because we want the government to mandate coverage of birth control in prescription drug plans.

For the record, Michelle Malkin is very pretty, but Olbermann's point was that Malkin has no worth as a commentator and is only famous because she sells petty bigoted hate for mass consumption and that she'd be nothing without that product, i.e. just a mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it. I'm gonna plead substantial truth on this one also.

[Arthmail]

It's much harder to fight a long protracted war, with all the hardships that go along with that, than it is to have a deathwish, suicide bomb, and get a place in paradise. The people who do the latter lack the courage to engage in the former kind of struggle.

If you were simple minded, sure this might hold. Or you could look at it a little closer and realize that any number of countries and individuals have genuine grievances with the US, but basically can't do anything about it short of going radical. But even that is an oversimplification of the problem.

Jon Stewart made a good point. Anyone that does not want to pay for something in a democracy, suck it the fuck up. Otherwise, reimburse him for his share paid into the Iraq War.

[TerraPrime]

It's much harder to fight a long protracted war, with all the hardships that go along with that, than it is to have a deathwish, suicide bomb, and get a place in paradise. The people who do the latter lack the courage to engage in the former kind of struggle.

This is so utterly and irredeemably self-serving that it's... well, something.

National GDP for U.S in 2001 was 10.23 trillion.

National GDP for Afghanistan in 2001 was 2.467 billion.

And you want the Afghanistani anti-U.S. elements to engage in a more-or-less conventional warfare with the U.S.?

Yeah, we should have the skinny 100 pound kid take on Mike Tyson in an adjudicated fair fight if the skinny kid wants to tell Tyson off for running over his bike with his SUV. :rolleyes:

This is not a lack of courage - this is a lack of stupidity.

[Guest Raidne]

I think the idea is that courage is undertaking necessary action in the face of reasonable fear to accomplish a worthwile goal.

What is the goal that the 9/11 hijackers sought to accomplish? What is the goal of Al Qaeda? To end U.S. influence in the region? Fine. How can that be accomplished, specifically? The overthrow of the Saudi royal family? The Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons? The end of an Israeli state? What? Some strategy has to be outlined, planned, and pursued.

Here, I actually think the plan was to draw the United States into a ground war in Afghanistan, a land where no foreign army has ever successfully invaded, and to fight us there for as long as necessary, hopefully eventually drawing Pakistan and their nuclear arsenal into the mix. It worked for the most part, minus the latter bit and our detour into Iraq, which was kind of an extra unexpected present. So I'm not sure what FLOW's point is. They attacked us and then engaged in a long drawn out war that they were clearly expecting to fight - were they supposed to use their large supply of amphibious assault vehicles to launch an invasion of the United States? Japan didn't try that either.

[DanteGabriel]

It's much harder to fight a long protracted war, with all the hardships that go along with that, than it is to have a deathwish, suicide bomb, and get a place in paradise. The people who do the latter lack the courage to engage in the former kind of struggle.

But wait, I thought it was cool to be an insurgent when it was a bunch of terrorists that your boy Reagan supported?

[Sci-2]

But wait, I thought it was cool to be an insurgent when it was a bunch of terrorists that your boy Reagan supported?

...touche.

[Jon Sprunk]

I think (hope) that no one here is defending the 9/11 hijackers. But what Typical Woman and others are saying is valuable. Before solving a problem, you have to understand the problem. Bush Jr and his posse never cared to understand the Middle East. They thought it would be easier to launch the full might of US military at the problem. Except that their "tidy" solution turned out to be protracted, costly, and messy.

There is nothing noble about spending a trillion dollars to decimate a medieval-level society. Bush Jr et al had a full spectrum of tools to use. They just chose to pick up the Howitzer on the end and started blasting at targets.

I don't care how sick fake conservatives are of hearing this argument. It's Exhibit A for why the GOP cannot be trusted to run this country. (Exhibit B is the silly and contemptible crop of candidates put forth to challenge Obama.)

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

Just for fun...

Gun Control: AKA We win, you fuckers

12 States on the path to eliminate carry permit requirements

Wyoming just passed, South Dakota is just waiting on the Governor's signature, New Hampshire has passed in the House.

Federal"]Federal judge rules "may issue" permits unconstitutional in Maryland

U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg focused on one portion of Maryland law that requires residents to show they have a “good and substantial reason” to carry a gun, such as a “precaution against apprehended danger.” Legg found that the requirement, kicking in alongside background checks, was too broad and said it violates the Second Amendment.

“The Court finds that the right to bear arms is not limited to the home,” Legg wrote in a 23-page ruling signed Friday.

The Brady Campaign is broke, and only has one supporter

They only raised $7500 in 2010, compared to $1.7 million ten years prior.

California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois: Just give it up already. We win, you lose.

/gloat

[Kalbear]

I can't wait until the 2nd amendment is nullified.

[DanteGabriel]

California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois: Just give it up already. We win, you lose.

We've already been losing for years, subsidizing the lifestyles of all those states who think the federal government is out to take their shit despite the fact that they've been getting more tax money from the feds than they pay in.