Here in Australia it has been 2004 for some time. My advice from the future is, buy IBM. Reading around this morning I see Glenn Reynolds going out on a high, high note for 2003, reminding us all why he dropped his tagline “The New York Times of bloggers” in favor of “If you’ve got a modem, I’m shouting in your ear!” Meanwhile Tacitus closes 2003 with a variant on one of the most popular themes of the year, viz, “I’ve noticed a disturbing tendency on the American left…” Yeah, me too. It barely exists. I hope you won’t stop reading Crooked Timber now that Tacitus has shown that “the American left” relies wholly on “murderous racism based on junk economic theory.” Another of our sins is noted by Steven Den Beste, who observes that we at CT think “white men don’t actually matter.” In case you haven’t twigged, CT policy is that white males are only good for use as the sexual playthings of rich and beautiful women. Email me for more details about this.
All of this rhetorical overkill reminds me of a line about the late rants of F.R. Leavis: “In his later books he libelled his literary opponents so scandalously that when he tried to condemn Stalin he had no harsh words left over.” Excitable bloggers take note.
Update: Checking back on this post reveals a comments thread swept up in a wave of huffiness, demands for apologies and assertions of lost credibility. Oh my. I guess I’ll have to work on spelling things out rather than letting the tone make the point. Tacitus says that the “American left” is either an unwitting apologist or a hopelessly naive water-carrier for what is really “murderous racism based on junk economic theory.” That’s why he accuses the “American left” of suffering from “battered wife syndrome” in their supposed denial, downplaying or defence of communist atrocities, and why he orders them to “cut the crap about communism.” If you think there’s nothing wrong with each step of his argument then you will not see the point of my original post, which was intended to show that this reflected reality about as well as the statement “Crooked Timber believes white men don’t actually matter.”
Tacitus’s post would have been a good deal less obtuse (though wrong for other reasons) if he had begun with a generalization he could support. The post refers in passing to identifiable entities (e.g., the Democratic party) that have a history of anti-communism but are still left-wing, and Tacitus probably thinks this immunises him against charges of illegitimate generalization. In fact, it just exposes the strawy nature of his imaginary target. What he really meant was something like “I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in some of the comments to this Calpundit thread,” which seems to have been the inspiration for his post. But I suppose saying a few bloggers got up your nose doesn’t give you the same buzz as indicting a notional “American left” tout court without a shred of evidence.
{ 42 comments }
Zizka 12.31.03 at 11:50 pm
I do not understand where Tacitus gets his good reputation. I visited his site and read his “Reasons why I Can’t be a Democrat”. They were (paraphrase): Democrats are not Southern enough, not Christian enough, not militaristic enough, and not fiscally conservative. (The last one is a joke by now).
Tacitus has a code which requires him to be controlled and formally civil, and he doesn’t rave and vent like a lot of the others, but his actual convictions are hard right. He communicates with moderates on some kind of macho Zen warrior principle, planning to defeat people on their home territory.
henka 12.31.03 at 11:54 pm
of course us Aus lefty are all gardening, or anti-gardening,
and home territory?? the noxious wormtongue will be rooted out like the introduced garden escapee it is!
Greg 01.01.04 at 12:03 am
Please add me to the email list of white males willing to be sexual playthings for rich, beautiful women.
And god bless you.
rosalind 01.01.04 at 12:06 am
Be fair. Steven den Beste follows with: “White women, on the other hand, do.” Clearly he’s just exposing Eszter’s and Maria’s secret tyranny over the rest of y’all.
That’s the first Glenn Reynolds post I’ve ever read. Yikes. He’s worse than I anticipated.
Happy New Year, everyone.
Matthew Stinson 01.01.04 at 12:27 am
Way to Dowdify Tacitus, Kieran :-)
Barry 01.01.04 at 1:12 am
“Please add me to the email list of white males willing to be sexual playthings for rich, beautiful women.
And god bless you.”
Posted by Greg · January 1, 2004 12:03 AM
Greg, it’s hard work. You will have to be willing to be used for your body, with your mind ignored.
James Joyner 01.01.04 at 2:09 am
As Matt Stinson notes earlier in the comments, the two Tacitus quotes are unrelated and, indeed, I don’t see how he could be read to be saying what Kieran ascribes to him. Tacitus argues that Communism was, in practice, “murderous racism based on junk economic theory,” a point with which I would agree wholeheartedly, and that those on the Left who apologize for it based solely on the abstract theories propounded by Marx and others are naive.
I agree with Kieran’s larger point and didn’t bother to click through initially because I’ve certainly seen more than a few posts that do make wild generalizations about the Other Side, whether Left or Right.
asg 01.01.04 at 2:11 am
Well, the term “dowdification” is properly reserved for when ellipses are used to invert the quotee’s meaning. (Certainly the case that impelled the coining of “dowdification” as a word was such.) Here Kieran cuts and pastes to create a mosaic sentence that distorts Tacitus’ meaning but does not directly invert it. For those who did not click the link, the actual sentence is: “Communism is murderous racism based on junk economic theory.” (The context is in a paragraph whose main argument is that communism is not a noble ideal, but nowhere does Tacitus equate “the American left” with “communism”, as Kieran’s cut-and-paste strongly suggests he does.)
Barry 01.01.04 at 2:21 am
Posted by Zizka · December 31, 2003:
“I do not understand where Tacitus gets his good reputation. I visited his site and read his “Reasons why I Can’t be a Democratâ€. They were (paraphrase): Democrats are not Southern enough, not Christian enough, not militaristic enough, and not fiscally conservative. (The last one is a joke by now).
Tacitus has a code which requires him to be controlled and formally civil, and he doesn’t rave and vent like a lot of the others, but his actual convictions are hard right.” [some material snipped]
It’s because Tacitus is the best of the warbloggers. Frankly, it’s all downhill from him. So, by comparison, he looks good.
James Russell 01.01.04 at 5:01 am
Rosalind: you’ve never read Reynolds before? That’s quite impressive. He’s said worse than that, though; cf. this post in which he appears not especially troubled at the thought of a war between the West and the Islamic world ending in the genocide of the other team…
Mikhel 01.01.04 at 5:12 am
Happy New Year, you crazy, liberal, communist, EuroTrash, intellectual, snobbish, pompous… Uhh… Happy Effin, CrookedTimberites!
Matthew Stinson 01.01.04 at 5:57 am
asg, I accept your correction :-) However, it still feels like a Dowdification, even without the ellipses. I’m going to assume (here I put words in his mouth) that Kieran phrased it that way with his tongue planted in his cheek to make a point about generalizations being silly. At least I hope that was his intent . . .
Tacitus 01.01.04 at 3:44 pm
Tacitus has shown that “the American left†relies wholly on “murderous racism based on junk economic theory.â€
I think the only appropriate response to this is:
????
The latter phrase you cite is a specific (and obvious) reference to communism, not the left in general. The only possible way your statement could be even slightly truthful is if you yourself are proceeded from an unstated premise that the American left is fundamentally communist-based. But that’s not what I believe — indeed, I specifically credit the Democratic Party, as the principle vehicle of the American left, with its own strong anticommunist tradition (eg Truman, Jackson, Nunn).
If you’re not proceeding from that premise, though, then you’re egregiously distorting my words, in which case: shame.
Conrad Barwa 01.01.04 at 4:47 pm
One thing which tends to puzzle me is this need amongst certain sections of the Right to conflate eliminationary racism with totalitarian Communist regimes. Aside from some desire to try and make out that the Nazis and other European Fascist regimes were basically just twisted variants of Communism (you it is those Reds, at the root of all that is bad about modernity after all!!) and play down the links between various Totalitarian Right-Wing regimes and capitalism, conservative fears of radical democracy etc. I assume this is also somewhat due to grab the moral high ground by presenting a TINA type argument as regards the desirability of a neo-liberal or conservative, market democracy.
What strikes me as puzzling is that this, if anything would I think downplay the dangers of Communist autocracies (as presented in this political world-view). What would make Communism in its Stalinist or Maoist guises much worse than any genocidal racist regime, is the very fact that it isn’t racist in its selection of victims and that it was more than willing to liquidate large numbers of those not only hostile or indifferent to its social engineering agenda; but also those who were firmly committed/supportive of it. This would from the Conservative or ‘liberal’ anti-Communist point of view, make it much more dangerous; as at least under a racially genocidal regime, one could be assured of relative safety from persecution as long as you weren’t unfortunate enough to belong to a racially ‘inferior’ group or didn’t speak out against such a policy; whereas under the excesses of the former type of regime, there was literally nothing that one could do to assure a reliable chance of survival, as even fervent supporters could fall under the axe, as it were. If one thinks of Totalitarianism as an ideology that seeks to excise that part of the social body which is said to be the cause of all social antagonisms and evil, most Right-Wing variants will locate this source in a particular section of the body politic – usually a despised or feared ethnic minority (i.e. the Jews, Gypsies etc.), which then needs to be dealt with appropriately. In the Left-Wing version of this phenomenon, however, the problem is that the inchoate nature of the perceived social disorder has become too prevalent and so the sickness is seen to pervade the whole body politic in all its parts, with the attendant disastrous implications for corrective action. There is no doubt in my mind which one is worse; they operate however using rather different ideological mechanisms; the contradiction is, that the more pervasive and generalised violence of the latter relies on an exclusion of racialist categorisations to achieve its effect of totalitarian control; indeed an excessive adherence to such an approach, would actually be an impediment to fulfilling such a gaol.
northernLights 01.01.04 at 5:56 pm
Left exposed? HaHa. Think again.
What is the “A Number One” cause of right winger crabby writing by crabby males? You guessed right, all you women with good man management skills! HaHa. Time to manage that testosterone level with some good time in the sack, proper direction of your man to complete his man type chores around the house, and help you with some of yours too. Remember, women with the best husbands have trained them to clean the bathroom.
Then, when they have performed to your satisfaction, you can send them out for some outdoor type fun, hunting and fishing, or whatever the urbanized counterpart activity may be. They can wear off some more of their excess testosterone energy there, and you can have some peace and quiet.
Yep, that testosterone can be an EXTREMELY USEFUL thing for getting things done, but it can also be EXTREMELY DESTRUCTIVE if not managed properly.
So, it is actually VERY EMBARRASSING for right winger males that their nasty blogging is so much more, because that means that the middle of the roader men and the left winger men must be very busy doing, well, other manly type things.
Zizka 01.01.04 at 6:34 pm
As far as I know, Communism in most places was, if anything, less racist and more cosmopolitan than what it replaced. Soviet anti-Semitism was not new to Russia; it was the same-old same-old. Earlier Communism with all the Jews in it was the unusual thing.
Anti-Communism in the US was something pretty specific. It got its bad name when Eisenhower started to be routinely called a Communist.The problem with McCarthy was that he lied all the time and repeatedly called people Communists when they weren’t. Furthermore, anti-Communists also believed that unions and the civil rights movement were Communist.
Since many of the new anti-Communists do have a problem with unions and maybe civil rights too, they don’t see any problem. We seem to be moving into a new phase of “do you now or have you ever…” smearing. For example, anyone who opposed the second Gulf War can expect eventually to be accused of supporting Saddam.
bryan 01.01.04 at 7:47 pm
White men don’t mutter?!
grrrazzle-frazzin dumb den bedste.
Josh Scholar 01.01.04 at 9:34 pm
Well all that raking SDB over the coals was fun, but all the quotes were taken out of context – in context Beste was talking about polls and in that context a group is ‘important’ if they can swing the election.
IMO you’ve shown more snarkyness than depth, and that’s a sort of rhetorical overkill too.
And it leaves me unimpressed.
Josh Scholar 01.01.04 at 9:42 pm
“In the Left-Wing version of this phenomenon, however, the problem is that the inchoate nature of the perceived social disorder has become too prevalent and so the sickness is seen to pervade the whole body politic in all its parts, with the attendant disastrous implications for corrective action.”
Conrad I think you misused the word ‘inchoate’
According to Websters, inchoate means “just begun/in early stages/not yet complete etc.”
I’m not sure what word you meant to go there.
Zizka 01.02.04 at 12:24 am
Don’t let Josh sucker you, guys. If we quit being snarky and start being deep, he’ll just start chanting “BORE-ing BORE-ing …”
Stand firm and stay the course — snarky like Churchill!
Josh Scholar 01.02.04 at 12:35 am
No Zizka, I’m actually one of those people who reads long posters like SDB.
People with no ideas bore the hell out of me. And those who try to subsitute attitude for arguement piss me off no matter what side they take.
sje 01.02.04 at 12:56 am
I scrolled down quickly. Maybe someone has lnked to this already: Max Sawicky responds to Tacitus.
“Communists don’t want your Metallica collection.”
Alene 01.02.04 at 5:14 am
Zizka, you shouldn’t make sweeping assertions like this one:
“Furthermore, anti-Communists also believed that unions and the civil rights movement were Communist.”
Speaking from personal experience, I can say that there were anti-communist unions and unionists, and ditto civil rights activists. There were also organizations and individuals who were openly or not-so-openly communist in both groups. Tautologically, anti-communists opposed the latter.
raj 01.02.04 at 6:05 am
Zizka at December 31, 2003 11:50 PM
>Tacitus has a code which requires him to be controlled and formally civil, and he doesn’t rave and vent like a lot of the others, but his actual convictions are hard right.
It wasn’t until I got to college before I heard the phrase “he thinks his sh!t doesn’t stink.” I suspect that correctly describes this Tacitus twit. He knows how to turn a phrase, but how is anyone supposed to believe that the phrase that he turns has anything to do with reality?
Ah, well, he seems to get lots of people to click on to his web site. His ad revenue must be astounding.
JP 01.02.04 at 3:10 pm
Well y’know, all you CT Euros better show Reynolds a little more respect if you don’t want terrorist insurgencies all up in your business. Bow down to your redneck American overlords!
Mark 01.02.04 at 4:12 pm
I believe that quote about FR Leavis comes from the third volume of Clive James autobiography ‘May Week was in June’, N’est-ce pas?
Timothy Burke 01.02.04 at 4:50 pm
I found that thread at Tacitus somewhat frustrating, though I would also agree that you conflated two different assessments in it (one of communism, the other of the American left).
For me, the deeper problem here is “Is it possible to characterize an ‘American left’ in a way that many of us might agree with the foundational accuracy or empirical validity of that characterization?”
Because I both agree with Kieran’s complaint in one sense and yet am frustrated by it in another. I don’t think Tacitus’ characterization was accurate or fair, in quite a few ways, not the least that it sets up a “Have you stopped beating your wife lately?” kind of peremptory challenge to anyone who might contest it. But at the same time, I’ve found myself similarly attacked or challenged whenever I’ve tried to speak about one tendency, strain or form of the American left that I’m critical of. I’m told that what I’m critical of doesn’t exist, or that it is a fringe tendency, or that it is not the real or authentic or legitimate left.
And the thing of it is, I think some of these complaints against my characterizations are on the mark in some respects. Whatever left it is that I have an argument with, it is a particular fraction or tendency, not the general whole. I’m not even sure there is a “general whole” in any meaningful way. Whatever I’m critical of, it probably isn’t the most important or mainstream or powerful tendency now or in the past. Whatever I’m critical of, it probably exists more within general political practice and conversation among people who are recognizably liberal or left and less in their formal writings or polemics. And so on.
But at the end of the day, I’m not prepared to be talked out of my critique, or be told that it is all in my imagination, or that whatever the things are that bug me, they’re immaterial or insignificant. Part of it depends on “What social and political worlds do you inhabit”, and in the academy, the importance of some of the views and ideas I view with skepticism is probably unduly magnified. Part of it depends on questions of personal political autobiography, of the way that we often articulate what we are or are becoming in terms of a contrast against something we were or don’t want to be, and deliberately exaggerate the terms of that contrast for the sake of achieving both intellectual clarity and political legitimacy. There are a lot of qualifiers I will accept in trying to lay out what bugs me–but I do find it frustrating to be told that it’s all in my head, or of no importance.
roger 01.02.04 at 6:00 pm
Racist, eh? I suppose he must be referring to Marx’s thoughts on the Jewish question. A founding document of that is, indeed, tainted with anti-semitism. Meanwhile, in the founding documents department, you have the American constitution, with its original guarantees of slavery, and its precision number for how much of a human being a slave counted for — a topic Gary Wills has just written a book about.
So how about it — is American constitutionalism racist or what? …
Or, hmmm — here’s an idea. Perhaps the Marx’s problem with Jews didn’t really go anywhere, either in his own thought or in his movement. Perhaps there was a large Jewish segment of the intelligentsia of Western Europe who became Marxists without even thinking about Marx’s essay, which was not exactly one of his most quoted works. Perhaps the racist attitudes that were common in the West were attacked, most intensely, by people on the left, in the spirit of the French Revolution’s declaration of rights. Perhaps, from the time of Jefferson to the Scottsborough boys to Goldwater’s famous vote against the Civil Rights act, the default position of American conservatives was to preserve an inherently unjust racial hierarchy.
Just a wild thought.
Zizka 01.02.04 at 10:40 pm
Alene — you are correct. I should have followed a different Venn diagram. When I spoke of American anti-Communists being something pretty specific, I didn’t mean all American anti-Communists (which after all included most Americans) but the fervent anti-Communist movement. And segregationists and anti-union people routinely accused unionists and integrationists of being Communists. I think that we’re seeing a revival of that.
Andrew 01.03.04 at 6:11 am
Perhaps Conrad should have used ‘nebulous’ instead of ‘inchoate’. I was always of the opinion that they were synonyms, but my hasty dictionary research confirms josh scholar’s definition
Peter Murphy 01.03.04 at 6:32 am
Josh Scholar,
Crooked Timber is not taking SDB out of context. His exact words were: “Update: Crooked Timber thinks that white men don’t actually matter. (White women, on the other hand, do.)” His exact words. Such an unfair simplification deserves mockery, at least.
Don Quijote 01.04.04 at 2:51 pm
Tacitus has a code which requires him to be controlled and formally civil, and he doesn’t rave and vent like a lot of the others, but his actual convictions are hard right.†[some material snipped]
The reason Tacitus is so civil is that anyone who has the nerve of diagreeing with him and arguing about it gets banned. Think of Tacitus as the Hannity & Colmes of the web, if you disagree, disagree mildly & let me have the last word or be banned.
I have been banned!
Tacitus 01.04.04 at 5:13 pm
Yeah, no one on my boards disagrees with me. No one! I will not tolerate it!
Right. I think a quick read of my comments will put the lie to that.
You were banned for being tiresome and disruptive, DQ. Which isn’t a crime in itself so long as you contribute something to the debate — but you didn’t. So off you went.
By the way, where Kieran in all this? Shoddy of the boy, to say the least.
Realish 01.04.04 at 8:03 pm
Hey, I’d just like to draw attention back up to Timothy Burke’s thoughtful and interesting post (an exception to the whack-a-mole that this thread has become).
Tacitus’ phrase was clearly meant in reference to communism, and not the left as a whole, and Kieran should acknowledge as much and apologize.
Tacitus very rarely characterizes large groups with simplistic epithets (the exception, perhaps, being the Muslim faithful). However, his guest posters Bird Dog and Macallan do (I suspect it was one of their posts that got Kieran’s goat), in the worst sort of Instapundit way, and he does nothing to rein them in, and I think that’s a tragedy.
And it’s also worth pointing out that Tac does not suppress comments, or commenters, that do not agree with him. His comment sections are one of the few places on the web where you can witness and participate in an open and vigorous debate between right and left (majority right, but not overwhelmingly so), with remarkably little invective or incivility. Most of the commenters drive me nuts, but at least people are talking over there, and that’s worth a lot.
von 01.04.04 at 9:05 pm
Tacitus’ phrase was clearly meant in reference to communism, and not the left as a whole, and Kieran should acknowledge as much and apologize.
Absolutely agree. There were criticisms to be made of Tacitus’s piece, but Mr. Healy’s criticism depends upon a misrepresentation of what Tacitus wrote.
I suspect that Mr. Healy’s misreading of Tacitus was unintentional. We all make mistakes, after all. But Mr. Healy’s failure to correct this misrepresentation is damning.
Mr. Healy, simple fairness requires that you correct this error. Please do so. Your credibility depends on it.
Realish 01.05.04 at 12:25 am
Mr. Healy, simple fairness requires that you correct this error. Please do so. Your credibility depends on it.
Oh lord, let’s not get all righteous and huffy about it. I doubt “Mr. Healy’s” “credibility” depends overmuch on this particular post (or on his blogging exploits in general), which was after all rather casual and impish in tone. And Tacitus was implying that there’s a substantial trend on the left of apology for communism, when, as Sir Healy points out, there really isn’t.
They’re only blogs, y’all.
Don Quijote 01.05.04 at 12:50 am
You were banned for being tiresome and disruptive, DQ. Which isn’t a crime in itself so long as you contribute something to the debate — but you didn’t. So off you went.
You mean to say that I did not acknowledge your superior wisdom as to the virtues of never ending wars and observed that the right has far more in common with the fascist than you are willing to acknowledge.
Joshua Scholar 01.05.04 at 1:52 am
Andrew, ‘nebulous’ works. O.K. I think I understand what Conrad meant. Thanks.
Tacitus 01.05.04 at 1:58 am
Lots of people drone on about that, Don. You were just offensive and tiresome. But, whatever rationalization preserves the self-esteem….
And Tacitus was implying that there’s a substantial trend on the left of apology for communism when, as Sir Healy points out, there really isn’t.
There isn’t? Heck, read the comments appended to the referenced thread for a regrettable surplus of contrary examples.
von 01.05.04 at 2:40 am
Oh lord, let’s not get all righteous and huffy about it.
But that’s what I do best . . . .
Tacitus 01.06.04 at 6:03 am
I guess I’ll have to work on spelling things out rather than letting the tone make the point.
Yeah, lying misleads. Funny, that. Funny too that you still can’t acknowledge that you used the quotes in an entirely dishonest way, instead droning on about….well, what, exactly? That qualifications don’t qualify unless you agree that they do? That evidence isn’t evidence unless you allow it to be so? Hey, maybe you are the gold standard of truth validity, Kieran — but if you’re going to build that case, you might want to stop, say, lying to make your points. It dims the aura of righteousness.
Sniffing that truth is in your tone is an affectatious dodge. Try putting it in your words — and in your use of others’ words. Until then, you remain Kieran Healy, liar.
Don Quijote 01.10.04 at 1:24 am
http://38.144.96.23/tacitus/archives/001155.html
What’s the f*cking difference between this and dropping a two thousand pound bomb in the middle of Bahgdad the way we did a few days ago, the dead are dead and their bodies have definitly been desecrated.
War is a bitch and you guys on the Right wanted it, now go and fight it.
Posted by: Don_Quijote at November 24, 2003 12:22 AM
What’s the f*cking difference between this and dropping a two thousand pound bomb in the middle of Bahgdad the way we did a few days ago….
You’re the voice of ignorance, Don Quijote. The 2,000-pound bomb strikes in Baghdad were against empty buildings, and the populace was warned well beforehand. Ludicrous tactics, but hardly immoral.
And, might I add, we are not in the habit of mutilating Iraqi corpses.
Next.
Posted by: Tacitus at November 24, 2003 12:29 AM
Tac,
I don’t see how it’s any worse that this:
We visit another family, several streets over. Twenty-two people live in this simple compound. During the attack that Saturday some gathered in the small open-air cubicle that is used for washing clothes. Raja Mizhir, 40, the mother of seven children, tried to shelter them when two small bombs blasted through the wall. It was about 11am. The holes in the wall show how one came in high, above their heads, and the other low, at shin level. Raja’s legs were hit and later, in hospital, both were amputated. She died on March 30 from, her death certificate states, “aggressive shelling”.
Mapped: The lethal legacy of cluster bombs
Documented Collateral Damage: Minimum 7898 maximum 9727
So who are the savages exactly? How many US civilians have the Iraqis ever killed?
Posted by: Don_Quijote at November 24, 2003 01:16 AM
Then by your standard, whether you realize it or not, all war is wrong. The Civil War was wrong. The Revolution was wrong. World War II was wrong. All because of “collateral damage.”
Most people recognize “collateral damage” as a morally acceptable price of war. You may not, but I hope you understand the implication of that belief.
Posted by: Tacitus at November 24, 2003 01:44 AM
Tac,
No one knows if any civilians were killed by those bombs in Downtown Bahgdad. I would be shocked if there was no collateral damage.
As for just war theory, I know nothing about it but I know right and wrong and IMNSHO this war is WRONG.
Posted by: Don_Quijote at November 24, 2003 01:41 AM
Then by your standard, whether you realize it or not, all war is wrong. The Civil War was wrong. The Revolution was wrong. World War II was wrong. All because of “collateral damage.”
Most people recognize “collateral damage” as a morally acceptable price of war. You may not, but I hope you understand the implication of that belief.
Posted by: Tacitus at November 24, 2003 01:44 AM
Tac,
War is wrong, but occasionally a necessary evil, in this particular case it was not necessary. Iraq did not threathen the US nor did it have the ability to strike at the US (No Navy, No Air Force).
In the Twentieth Century the US participated in numerous wars, but only one of those, WWII was just as far as I am concerned.
Now, you people on the right wanted war, you ‘ve got it so quit bitching.
Posted by: Don_Quijote at November 24, 2003 01:54 AM
You’re not a lost cause, rilkefan. Quijote, on the other hand, would be better off in a preschool for moral idiots. “Quit bitching.” Good God.
wellbasically can’t understand why corpse mutilation is abominable. I feel pity.
Two things for you, Small Axe:
1) Can you really argue that the Tiger Force is anything but an outlyer — an exception to the rule — insofar as the modern American Army is concerned? Having actually been in the Army, I can assure you that such behavior is not generally condoned.
2) Yes, a society that tolerates public corpse mutilation is far sicker and more debased than one that forces it out of view.
Posted by: Tacitus at November 24, 2003 02:08 AM
In conclusion who gives a f*ck about collateral damage, but heaven forbid that any of my friends get hurt, after all they are far more important than the other 400+ dead Americans or the thousands of wounded & crippled Amwericans. Not to even discuss the Iraqi Body count that we are creating.
And I am a moral Idiot?
Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue. De La Rochefoucauld
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