[QUOTE=Bricker]
Nope, I’m not sure I can agree. They got the votes in 2004. At that time, a bit more than half the country wanted them over the other crew. That suggests that they are representative of something…
[/QUOTE]
Why, yes, as I recall, they were representative of the Republican Party, if memory serves. Correct me where I’m wrong here, but aren’t they considered the party that represents the rightward view? The conservative slant? Running dog jackals of the ruling class?
I’ll go way out on a limb here, and suggest that each and every would self-describe as “conservative” or “right wing”.
Do I make too bold?
[QUOTE=Bricker]
We are NOT on a par with the Nazis.
[/QUOTE]
Don’t you think it’s harder to draw the distinction than it used to be?
When you see rationalizations made for torture, for wars of “self-defense” based on fabricated information, for proclamations that the leader of the executive has unlimited powers based on declaring such a war and need not obey any law he finds inconvenient, for lumping and demonizing half the people of your own country based on their voicing a view you disagree with - hell, when you engage in such rationalizations *yourself *, as we’ve all seen you do here for every damn one of those things - don’t you ever think of where the term “good Germans” came from?
If all you can still point to as a difference is our lack of support for genocide, better take a good long look at the still-frequent exhortations we hear to simply bomb the hell out of Iraq. Look at the vastly differing levels of concern we see for our own dead people vs. the “collateral damage” occurring over there. Take a good long look at the demonization of Arabs and Muslims among us. Then tell us what higher principle, what higher morality, we still represent.
We aren’t the good guys just because we’re us, ya know. We have to back it up.
[QUOTE=Bricker]
This sort of hyperbole only demonstrates your lack of understanding of history. We are NOT on a par with the Nazis.
I read statements like this, and I have to remind myself that they are not representative of the Left as a whole…
…are they?
[/QUOTE]
Well, not in that respect. So we’ve got one major hurdle to jump to be on par with the Nazis. Whoopee. I was a LOT happier with America when it was more like, the polar opposite of the Nazis. We were never perfect, pure and pristene, but there was a time from WWI onward when we could at least say we weren’t a bunch of militant, torturing scumbags. Bush has fucked that up royally. But you’re right, we haven’t wiped out any internal subgroups, and we probably won’t on Bush’s watch. But you know, before that goddamned asshole Bush came to power, I would have SWORN we weren’t going to turn into a bunch of torturers and phony-pretext warmongers, either, within eight years. So I guess I’m more prepared for more surprises from the Bush Admin. than you are.
Another thing that I’m mad at Bush about is the contempt he has made me feel for my own countrymen. It was one thing when I thought a lot of them were not well informed and could use some brushing up on the finer points of morally. Now I have to believe that many of them are contemptible scumfucks who aren’t worth spitting on. And that pisses me off.
[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
Now Bush has put us on par with the Nazis and the Japanese in WWII. We invade countries without provocation, under the flimsiest of pretences, using lies. We torture. We are scum.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, we do all those things, but nothing like on the scale the Nazis and the Japanese did. Nothing any of our troops have done compares with the Rape of Nanjing or the near-total destruction of Leningrad and Stalingrad. And there are no extermination camps, and the CIA is not all that much of a Gestapo. (The real Gestapo would not have farmed out their prisoners to other regimes for the really serious torture, they would have done it themselves.) Keep it in perspective.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Shall we start with Clinton, or should we go back a bit further than that? I guess the other presidents are mostly dead, so it’s a moot point. In any event, you got it wrong. We established that the winners could try the losers for war crimes. You’ll note that it was Milosovich on trial most recently, not Clinton. And the same will hold true for Bush-- Saddam will be the guy on trial, not W.
[/QUOTE]
Not clear whether you’re arguing for that principle or against it.
It seems clear here that he’s asserting that there is no higher principle than “winner’s justice”, that all that morality and civilization stuff is just a bunch of words. I hope that isn’t it, of course.
Its a libertarian perspective, where quantum physics meets political science.
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
…I hope that isn’t it, of course.
[/QUOTE]
Such cynism in one so young. Tragic, no?
[QUOTE=Bricker]
This sort of hyperbole only demonstrates your lack of understanding of history. We are NOT on a par with the Nazis.
I read statements like this, and I have to remind myself that they are not representative of the Left as a whole…
…are they?
[/QUOTE]
If you read The Nation or listen to Air America you’ll find they occasionally Godwinize, and never recklessly – but their ire is always directed against the Bush Admin and the Pubs and their noise machine, not against America as such.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Not clear whether you’re arguing for that principle or against it.
[/QUOTE]
I wouldn’t advocate war crimes trials for either president. I’m trying to understand what elucidator’s point is. Is he advocating trying Bush for war crimes? If not, then why did he bring it up. If yes, then would he advocate such a trial for Clinton and if not then why not.
For some pretty decent and well-grounded Godwinization, check out “Stabbed in the Back: The Past and Future of a Right-Wing Myth,” by Kevin Baker, in the June 2006 issue of Harper’s Magazine.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
I wouldn’t advocate war crimes trials for either president. I’m trying to understand what elucidator’s point is. Is he advocating trying Bush for war crimes? If not, then why did he bring it up. If yes, then would he advocate such a trial for Clinton and if not then why not.
[/QUOTE]
I dunno if he would, but I do. Bush launched an unjust war of naked aggression based on lies. Clinton never did.
[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
… Now I have to believe that many of them are contemptible scumfucks who aren’t worth spitting on. And that pisses me off.
[/QUOTE]
If this were so, they wouldn’t be changing their minds as the truth outs. And they are.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
I wouldn’t advocate war crimes trials for either president. I’m trying to understand what elucidator’s point is. Is he advocating trying Bush for war crimes? If not, then why did he bring it up. If yes, then would he advocate such a trial for Clinton and if not then why not.
[/QUOTE]
You mean I can’t remark upon the irony without demanding Bush be dragged out and hanged?
Can I think that over just a moment?
[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
Another thing that I’m mad at Bush about is the contempt he has made me feel for my own countrymen. It was one thing when I thought a lot of them were not well informed and could use some brushing up on the finer points of morally. Now I have to believe that many of them are contemptible scumfucks who aren’t worth spitting on. And that pisses me off.
[/QUOTE]
Don’t worry. After the Dems take it back, we can start herding known registered Pubs into the camps! 
Oh, not that kind of camp! I’m talking about intensive reeducation through deep LSD therapy! For their own spiritual good, dontchaknow! 
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
I dunno if he would, but I do. Bush launched an unjust war of naked aggression based on lies. Clinton never did.
[/QUOTE]
So, it’s OK to wage aggressive war as long as you don’t lie?
What war crimes do you accuse Clinton of committing? Or was that just the lamest tu quoque to date?
[QUOTE=John Mace]
So, it’s OK to wage aggressive war as long as you don’t lie?
[/QUOTE]
Aw, c’mon, John Everybody here knows your smarter than that.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
So, it’s OK to wage aggressive war as long as you don’t lie?
[/QUOTE]
:dubious: Are you referring to Somalia or Kosovo? Neither counts as an “aggressive war” when you consider what the Clinton Admin was trying to achieve/prevent. As for Iraq . . .
[QUOTE=John Mace]
So, it’s OK to wage aggressive war as long as you don’t lie?
[/QUOTE]
Oh, and can you explain about the “unjust” part, BG? What was “unjust” about the Iraq war?