Justin Raimondo -- Jon Stewart: Wimp, Wuss, Moral Coward

[DarrinS]

Anything America does is inherently good because America is like my daddy. My daddy could never do anything bad. I love my daddy. If anybody says my daddy did something bad then I hate them.

Well, for many Americans these days, the govt is their sugar daddy.

With the WWII generation dying out, let the pussification and self-loathing of America commence.

[Extra Stout]

According to the Western Judeo-Christian tradition, all human beings are inherently flawed, all their actions are inherently corrupt, and their best intentions add up to ashes. Everyone fails to live up to the moral standard.

Except America. America is exempt from all that. It is perfect, flawless, without blemish. Sort of like how God united deity and humanity in Jesus, he united deity and government in America. The Cons ution lays out God's divinely inspired form of government. That's why Baptist churches keep an American flag behind the altar.

Buy your Patriot's Bible today!

[Spurminator]

I didn't care for his piece. , while we're at it, let's go back and revisit war crimes of WWI, the Spanish-American war, Civil War, etc. etc. etc. As long as we're looking forward, right? We need to nip this America=Evil thinking in the bud before it takes root in the national me-first conscience.

If anyone was actually saying America=Evil, I'd agree. The problem is that every time you guys hear any criticism or second-guessing of past military action or foreign relations, you decry it as some kind of traitorous slander... "Obama's on a world tour to tell everybody how bad we are." Etc.

I hope and pray we never have another Hiroshima or Nagasaki. I can't think of any cir stance under which I would support such action today, and I don't think there's anything wrong with re-examining the necessity of the action in 1945. History can't be rewritten but analysis can.

[Extra Stout]

Well, for many Americans these days, the govt is their sugar daddy.

With the WWII generation dying out, let the pussification and self-loathing of America commence.

Dwight D. Eisenhower criticized the use of nuclear bombs, therefore Dwight D. Eisenhower was a self-loathing pussy.

[DarrinS]

Wow, this Justin Raimondo must be one conflicted dude.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Raimondo

Raised Roman Catholic, but now atheist. Openly gay, but has supported Pat Buchanan? WTF?

Has supported Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, and Dennis ing Kucinich?

This guy is like a comic book character.



The only think I may agree with in his article is that Stewart should have stuck to his guns. I'm sure Mr. Raimondo would have never used that particular phrasing.

[Winehole23]

Yeah, it's really easy for your powerless little pissants to sit up on your moral soapboxes and fling your monkey feces at the people who actually run countries and make tough decisions.

Our form of government assures our privilege to do so. Are you having second thoughts about that? Did mean old Justin Raimomdo hurt your feelings?

[DarrinS]

Dwight D. Eisenhower criticized the use of nuclear bombs, therefore Dwight D. Eisenhower was a self-loathing pussy.

So, he said Truman was a war criminal?

[Spurminator]

Buy your Patriot's Bible today!

Oh my god, it's real.

[DarrinS]

If anyone was actually saying America=Evil, I'd agree. The problem is that every time you guys hear any criticism or second-guessing of past military action or foreign relations, you decry it as some kind of traitorous slander... "Obama's on a world tour to tell everybody how bad we are." Etc.

I hope and pray we never have another Hiroshima or Nagasaki. I can't think of any cir stance under which I would support such action today, and I don't think there's anything wrong with re-examining the necessity of the action in 1945. History can't be rewritten but analysis can.

Then we better keep a close ing eye on Pakistan.

[Homeland Security]

Our form of government assures our privilege to do so. Are you having second thoughts about that? Did mean old Justin Raimomdo hurt your feelings?

You are free to fling your feces, and we're free to point and laugh at you in your little cage.

"Oh no, we didn't act like the world is just a meadow of pixies and daffodils where everyone joins hands and sings Kumbaya."

Guess what, life sucks, people die, and if you want to be in power, you have to do some of the killing. If you don't, the other guy who wants to be in power kills you. America has given you meaningless little people a lot of leeway, whereas other countries with more justice and less patience would have just put a bullet in your skulls and gone on with the program.

[Extra Stout]

So, he said Truman was a war criminal?

Then we better keep a close ing eye on Pakistan.

You are a master of strawmen and diversion. Can you keep a coherent thought together?

[DarrinS]

You are a master of strawmen and diversion. Can you keep a coherent thought together?

This, from the poster who went here.

According to the Western Judeo-Christian tradition, all human beings are inherently flawed, all their actions are inherently corrupt, and their best intentions add up to ashes. Everyone fails to live up to the moral standard.

Except America. America is exempt from all that. It is perfect, flawless, without blemish. Sort of like how God united deity and humanity in Jesus, he united deity and government in America. The Cons ution lays out God's divinely inspired form of government. That's why Baptist churches keep an American flag behind the altar.

Buy your Patriot's Bible today!

[Extra Stout]

This, from the poster who went here.

I'm guessing most of the people in this thread knew exactly where I was going with that.

[DarrinS]

I'm guessing most of the people in this thread knew exactly where I was going with that.

Hey, you brought up Ike and I asked you a simple question. The OP was about Jon Stewart backpedaling on calling Truman a war criminal. Pretty on topic if you ask me.

[Winehole23]

"Oh no, we didn't act like the world is just a meadow of pixies and daffodils where everyone joins hands and sings Kumbaya."

Not a very good impersonation IMO.

Guess what, life sucks, people die, and if you want to be in power, you have to do some of the killing. If you don't, the other guy who wants to be in power kills you.

Japan was ready to give up. Truman's mule-headed insistence on unconditional surrender made the bomb necessary politically, not strategically.

America has given you meaningless little people a lot of leeway, whereas other countries with more justice and less patience would have just put a bullet in your skulls and gone on with the program.

True. Does it give you a vicarious thrill?

[Winehole23]

Well, for many Americans these days, the govt is their sugar daddy.

You don't have much room to criticize. It's your security blanket.

[PixelPusher]

Prosopopeia, though not particularly apt.

Japan was ready to give up. Truman's mule-headed insistence on unconditional surrender made the bomb necessary politically, not strategically.

True. Does it give you a vicarious thrill?

You do realize you're arguing with an ironic troll, right?

[Winehole23]

You do realize you're arguing with an ironic troll, right?

I do.

Usually HS is funny, but the mean-spirited truculence of his posts in this thread made me think I might actually have struck a nerve.

[Extra Stout]

Hey, you brought up Ike and I asked you a simple question. The OP was about Jon Stewart backpedaling on calling Truman a war criminal. Pretty on topic if you ask me.

I don't know if Ike used the very loaded term "war criminal." That is a finger-pointing word that shuts down any further discussion. But he definitely said that the dropping of two nuclear bombs which resulted in thousands of civilian deaths was unnecessary.

Firebombing Dresden was also totally unnecessary and wouldn't have happened if Roosevelt had still been exercising control.

What should have been the obvious point is that we should be able to look at our past and critique decisions that were made, things that we don't want to repeat, that aren't consistent with our values, even among those whom we respect and admire for the greater part of their work. To do that doesn't mean we are saying "America = evil." To claim that is idiotic. No country gets it right, because countries are full of flawed people. Governments are run by flawed people. If we had a scale of government virtue, where 0 was Nazi Germany and 100 was the ideal of perfect altruism and wisdom, the U.S. might deserve a 4. But 4 would be close to the highest score anybody has ever gotten.

I basically cribbed Al Franken for the "America = daddy" theme. I read his book years ago for opposition research. I rolled my eyes when I read it. "We don't do that," I thought. In retrospect, he was totally freaking right. What the happened to the "government is the problem" type of conservatism? When did it become "government is the authority we can always trust and we must never question its benighted wisdom" conservatism? Bob Dole championed the 1950's, secessionists seemingly champion the 1850's, so what is this last type? Championing the 1350's?

Now I'm not exactly a big fan of Justin Raimondo, but he nailed one thing on the head. There is no altruism in sitting in judgment of what "the other side" when one's own side does and has done the same things. The first thing to do is to look at the things we ourselves are doing and if we really think they are bad, stop doing them. Our culture is haunted by some guy a lot time ago who said something to that effect.

It's nice once in a while to have somebody who speaks as a prophet in the wilderness to the ideals we are supposed to be aspiring to, rather than discussing the latest, greatest way we are going to compromise them in the name of expediency. That it has to come from a guy like Raimondo maybe should give us pause to what utter failures the rest of us have become.

[DarrinS]

I don't know if Ike used the very loaded term "war criminal." That is a finger-pointing word that shuts down any further discussion. But he definitely said that the dropping of two nuclear bombs which resulted in thousands of civilian deaths was unnecessary.

Firebombing Dresden was also totally unnecessary and wouldn't have happened if Roosevelt had still been exercising control.

What should have been the obvious point is that we should be able to look at our past and critique decisions that were made, things that we don't want to repeat, that aren't consistent with our values, even among those whom we respect and admire for the greater part of their work. To do that doesn't mean we are saying "America = evil." To claim that is idiotic. No country gets it right, because countries are full of flawed people. Governments are run by flawed people. If we had a scale of government virtue, where 0 was Nazi Germany and 100 was the ideal of perfect altruism and wisdom, the U.S. might deserve a 4. But 4 would be close to the highest score anybody has ever gotten.

I basically cribbed Al Franken for the "America = daddy" theme. I read his book years ago for opposition research. I rolled my eyes when I read it. "We don't do that," I thought. In retrospect, he was totally freaking right. What the happened to the "government is the problem" type of conservatism? When did it become "government is the authority we can always trust and we must never question its benighted wisdom" conservatism? Bob Dole championed the 1950's, secessionists seemingly champion the 1850's, so what is this last type? Championing the 1350's?

Now I'm not exactly a big fan of Justin Raimondo, but he nailed one thing on the head. There is no altruism in sitting in judgment of what "the other side" when one's own side does and has done the same things. The first thing to do is to look at the things we ourselves are doing and if we really think they are bad, stop doing them. Our culture is haunted by some guy a lot time ago who said something to that effect.

It's nice once in a while to have somebody who speaks as a prophet in the wilderness to the ideals we are supposed to be aspiring to, rather than discussing the latest, greatest way we are going to compromise them in the name of expediency. That it has to come from a guy like Raimondo maybe should give us pause to what utter failures the rest of us have become.

Well, I agree with all of that, I just think that calling Truman a war criminal is a little over the top. It's very convenient with 60+ years of hindsight. I don't think the bomb was dropped for the same reasons that Saddam gassed the Kurds.

[DarkReign]

Crap, I don't know how to respond to this. It criticizes EVERYBODY. The author, and poster, need to pick a side and stay on it!

Somebody lock this thread, it's useless.

What, is there some rule against everybody being wrong?

I think this is the first time I have seen you miss the point. Woot!

j/k

[angrydude]

digging up Truman again?

Talk about beating a dead horse.

[Ignignokt]

I don't know if Ike used the very loaded term "war criminal." That is a finger-pointing word that shuts down any further discussion. But he definitely said that the dropping of two nuclear bombs which resulted in thousands of civilian deaths was unnecessary.

Firebombing Dresden was also totally unnecessary and wouldn't have happened if Roosevelt had still been exercising control.

What should have been the obvious point is that we should be able to look at our past and critique decisions that were made, things that we don't want to repeat, that aren't consistent with our values, even among those whom we respect and admire for the greater part of their work. To do that doesn't mean we are saying "America = evil." To claim that is idiotic. No country gets it right, because countries are full of flawed people. Governments are run by flawed people. If we had a scale of government virtue, where 0 was Nazi Germany and 100 was the ideal of perfect altruism and wisdom, the U.S. might deserve a 4. But 4 would be close to the highest score anybody has ever gotten.

I basically cribbed Al Franken for the "America = daddy" theme. I read his book years ago for opposition research. I rolled my eyes when I read it. "We don't do that," I thought. In retrospect, he was totally freaking right. What the happened to the "government is the problem" type of conservatism? When did it become "government is the authority we can always trust and we must never question its benighted wisdom" conservatism? Bob Dole championed the 1950's, secessionists seemingly champion the 1850's, so what is this last type? Championing the 1350's?

Now I'm not exactly a big fan of Justin Raimondo, but he nailed one thing on the head. There is no altruism in sitting in judgment of what "the other side" when one's own side does and has done the same things. The first thing to do is to look at the things we ourselves are doing and if we really think they are bad, stop doing them. Our culture is haunted by some guy a lot time ago who said something to that effect.

It's nice once in a while to have somebody who speaks as a prophet in the wilderness to the ideals we are supposed to be aspiring to, rather than discussing the latest, greatest way we are going to compromise them in the name of expediency. That it has to come from a guy like Raimondo maybe should give us pause to what utter failures the rest of us have become.

so why did you entertain the idea of dragging wall street executives on the streets and getting them severely killed by mobs?

[Winehole23]

digging up Truman again?

Talk about beating a dead horse.

We just retrofitted his national security state for 9/11, and the new administration seems eager to expand our military empire abroad.

I think it's timely.

[Ignignokt]

so why did you entertain the idea of dragging wall street executives on the streets and getting them severely killed by mobs?