Comments on: My God … He’s Right

By: Dugger

Dugger — Mon, 08 Sep 2003 14:50:08 +0000

Wow, Will. First, the answer to your question is “of course.” They can be regarded as betrayers. But do you really mean to say that propagandists for the most murderous regime in the history of mankind didn’t have a clue about mass killings, starvation, purges, Katyn Forest? The Nazi-Soviet pact? I agree that IN THEIR OWN MINDS there was no long term ill intent. Likewise the prison guards at Auschwitz. Even the worst of people seldom wake up in the morning and say I think I’ll do evil today. They murder millions for a good cause. A good omelet requires a few broken eggs. I wonder if you have a “millions-murdered” threshold above which we can start questioning the evilness of the Ten?

By: Will

Will — Sat, 06 Sep 2003 02:11:53 +0000

If said propagandists didn’t regard the regime as anti-democratic but as a model for fuller realization of our own values, how can they be said to have betrayed their country? Their information was incomplete; there was no ill intent.

By: Dugger

Dugger — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 21:01:24 +0000

Certainly Kevin – be glad to help. My distinction is that traitor has a legal connotation whereas betrayal need not. The best example is someone who would write propaganda for the most murderous ideology and regime in history, a regime actively trying to subvert a free democratic republic. That person would, in my mind, be guilty of betraying his country – if not necessarily committing technical treason. Another example would be Mr. Alger Hiss. Not, according to the technicality of the law, a traitor, but do we doubt he betrayed his country?

By: Kevin Brennan

Kevin Brennan — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 20:06:03 +0000

Dugger, I am having trouble with the distinction between “traitors” and “people who betray their country”. Can you help me out here?

By: dugger

dugger — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 18:51:31 +0000

Kristjan, Didn’t say Hollywood Ten were traitors (your word), just leftists who betrayed their country to help Uncle Joe and have been lionized as heroic icons by the left for having done so. I consider writing Communist propaganda (you know about communists right, Kristjan, they murdered five time as many people as the Nazis) betrayal. You may not. It is technically legal, if morally reprehensible. You agree do you not?

By: Kristjan Wager

Kristjan Wager — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 17:18:41 +0000

Now if I am not mistaken, the Hollywood ten was members of a perfectly legal organization, which happened to be Communist. How did that make them traitors? Do you have any proof of any traitorous acts by them?

By: Dugger

Dugger — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 17:09:13 +0000

A rather, thoughtful intelligent post by RLB. The left has always been motivated by (#1) hate of some US person or symbol. There’s always been an American moderate or conservative devil that preoccupies their every waking momemt: Nixon, Reagan, Gingrich, Bush. After Bush is gone, another will follow. Do not doubt it. The left is consumed with hate. The jokes about Stalin and the good ol’ USSR fall a little short. Many, many leftists in this country betrayed their country to help Uncle Joe and even now many who did are lionized by mainstream leftists as hero icons. Can you say Alger Hiss. The Hollywood ten. Lillian Hellman.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 14:01:45 +0000

I think we’re due another crop of ‘boy meets tractor’ films.

By: Will

Will — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 04:24:17 +0000

Since it wasn’t the Soviet Union until 1922, I don’t suppose I could go any earlier, but I might prefer the early USSR to the current USA, given that I’d have a chance to affect the history of Really Existing Socialism. Of course, I’d probably be executed as a Trotskyite wrecker or assassinated while in Parisian exile.

By: W. Kiernan

W. Kiernan — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 00:24:10 +0000

Gee, I don’t suppose I speak for every last lefty but I certainly would prefer to live in Stalin’s glorious CCCP - particularly during those wonderful years 1935 through 1950 – than here in the U.S.A. today. O if I could only be hacking a vein of pitchblende with my pick-axe out of the wall of a Siberian mine right now, dear Comrades! Equally so, it cannot be denied (so don’t you even try it!) that every last right-winger (that category includes Sen. Lieberman & his supporters) would vastly prefer to live in Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich than here today. If that weren’t so, then why would so many Fox News watchers, such as the folks upstairs, don gleaming black SS uniforms every evening and goose-step around their apartments, howling out the Horst Wessel Lied? “Clomp clomp clomp” go their jackboots all night. I don’t need to bother further justifying so obvious an assertion.

By: MMR

MMR — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 17:38:55 +0000

Sniffy, Just curious as to how the DMCA is an example of how the Bush “regime” is restricting freedom of expression since it was enacted in 1998, Which, if I’m not mistaken was during the Clinton “regime”. Hyberbole indeed.

By: Sniffy McNickles

Sniffy McNickles — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 17:09:31 +0000

ekr – No, millions are not being hauled off. But we do have a regime in place that wants the right to strip citizenship from those acting against “US interests” and who doesn’t respect due process. As far as free expression, look no farther than restrictions on talking about technical issues relating to security (the DMCA). Sure, you’re right about hyperbole, but that’s rhetoric for you. I’d encourage you to expore around the issue of slippery slopes, though.

By: Brad DeLong

Brad DeLong — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 16:53:14 +0000

Now there are people in the world who have called me “Bread ‘Vyshinsky’ DeLong”…

By: JP

JP — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 15:24:21 +0000

4. Therefore, those who really prefer to live in a Communist country should be voting straight Republican. Or possibly for Ralph Nader…

By: EKR

EKR — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 15:18:44 +0000

A little exaggeration? Last time I checked, millions of Americans weren’t being hauled away to Arctic labor camps for no reason in particular. Let’s just take one of your points. What persecution of free expression do you think is happening?