Purple Hearts for the 44+ million Spanish dog-jerkers? By comparison to The Decider, surely we deserve them, right? A few anyway. Anyone?
Submit your kind offers to:
PurpleHearts4Spain@yankourcanine.es
Going once…
I could do the reasonable thing and point out to Scylla and Shodan that their argument about Bill Thomas’ right to give his medal away is a cynical hijack away from the real topic of this thread which is George Bush’s right to accept it. But I decided instead to fight straw with straw.
Scylla and Shodan have both said they think John Kerry was unfit to be President. They expressed similar doubts about Al Gore. I suppose in America we have to accept that some people will abuse our freedom of speech to say that they think Vietnam veterans shouldn’t be President, but I for one am going to stand up and defend the men and women who served in combat from small-minded bigotry and hatred. Veterans, whether volunteers or draftees, did their duty for this country and, unlike some people, I’m proud of them. I am willing to publicly say God Bless America and God Bless Our Troops and I will keep saying this no matter how much people like Scylla and Shodan may disagree with me.
I still don’t see anyone claiming that the vet doesn’t have the right to offer Bush his medal. He absolutely has that right. I also have the right to think he’s a wanker for doing so, just as you might think John Kerry was a wanker for throwing his medals. (I would somewhat agree with you there, but I digress.)
Why is he a wanker? Because claiming that Bush deserves a medal for being the innocent victim of unduly harsh criticism is so ridiculous I can’t even get my mind around it. Do people not remember the tongue bath he got from the press from 9/11/01 until Hurricane Katrina? Were people who feel that Bush has faced unprecedented harsh criticism asleep from 1993-2001?
I will fight to the death for this veteran’s right to be a whiny-ass titty baby, which is good because he seems determined to exercise that right.
I don’t pit Bush for accepting the medal, but he should have done so with a personal letter of thanks or maybe a brief visit at the White House. By making a big deal out of it, Bush is saying, “Why, yes, I do deserve this medal for my suffering.” (After all, no one has suffered more than George and Laura during this war.) He is joining the man in his WATB-dom, and he wants everyone to see what a great man this veteran thinks he is.
Oh, and to respond to another digression: Sheryl Crow in a trough of her own shit vs. a freshly scrubbed and Chanel No. 5-dabbed Ann Coulter–still Sheryl, no contest. And I don’t even like her music.
I wonder if you’d be so kind as to give us the list of Dopers you classify as “Gollums”?
That’s not strictly true in this case. Bush isn’t just getting “a gift”, he is accepting a medal awarded for injuries sustained in combat, given by someone who has made the express claim that he is giving it because he sees criticism of Bush as effectively meeting the criteria for its original award.
Bush, by not only accepting the gift for the reasons it was given, but by making a little acceptance ceremony out of it, is pretty much explicitly saying “I agree with the reasons I am being given this gift.” Therefore, he IS representing that he earned it.
That in itself is on a whole other moral (or amoral, if you will) level than what Kerry did with his medals, or what the man giving Bush the medal is doing.
And that’s not even going into the whole “undeserved gifts” thing, which most definitely do exist, and accepting a gift that you know you aren’t worthy of is an extremely self-centered thing to do.
For some reason “The Case of Orson Welles’s Oscar” keeps coming to mind.
Some years ago Welles’ somehow lost the Best Writing Oscar he received for Citizen Kane to a thief and he requested a replacement. One was sent. This was in the 1970s or 1980s, which is important. Later the original Oscar was recovered and returned to Welles, who returned the replacement Oscar.
A couple of years ago Beatrice Welles, Orson’s youngest daughter and primary heir, consigned the original Kane Oscar to an auction house, understandably preferring the high six figures or possibly even $1 million+ sale price it could bring to the actual statuette. “Nah-ah-ah” said the Academy, “you can’t do that- Oscars cannot be sold or used in any way for monetary gain.” “But” says the she-Welles, “my father won this Oscar in 1941, long before that rule came into being.”
Pravda pravda, said the Academy, but when he lost the Oscar and received the replacement he signed a form stating that he would never sell it OR any other Oscar won, past or future, and when his real Oscar was returned it fell under that agreement. She sued but it was dismissed because the Academy’s case was airtight, so she’s instead donated the Oscar (which she can legally do) to some college or museum somewhere (I forget where but it can be googled).
Anyway, while there’s no attempt at monetary gain in the transference of the Purple Heart, the relevance is that Oscars are non-transferrable because posession of one can conceivably be seen as pretense to the award itself. The Oscar is an award for entertainment. How much more stringent should the rules be for not conferring an award received for valorous conduct in a life threatening situation and how much more insulting is it to the true winners of the medal than somebody merely writing a check for an estate item Oscar? Or maybe that for some reason this thread just makes me think of Bea “I WANT MY DADDY’S OSCARS!” Welles.
Out of curiosity, what do you suggest? Hmm…never mind. Scratch that. My query I mean.
Sampiro, we’re on the same side in this debate, but I don’t think your analogy to Welles’s Oscar is applicable here.
It’s not accurate to say that “Oscars are non-transferable because posession of one can conceivably be seen as pretense to the award itself.” An Oscar is non-transferable simply because the owner has entered a binding agreement not to transfer it. The court is upholding a contractual restraint on alienation, without regard to the Academy’s purpose in entering the contract.
Sweet vibrating Christ.
So what you’re saying is that you think Citizen Kane is overrated and that Ronald Reagan was many times better as an actor than Orson Welles was just because he put the machinery into motion that got Dubya in office? Well FINE!!! But just know that you’re impossibly wrong, probably in favor of Guantanamo Torture Chambers, Jesus hates you, and you are so totally permanently uninvited to my Annual Phyllis Diller Filmfest & Banana Pudding Social that it’s not even negotiable!!! Go straight t
Oh wait, I see what you’re saying. Never mind.
The symbolism of Bush’s accepting this “award”, as the post of yours I replied to made quite clear you already know. Coward.
I’ve skimmed this thread, so my apologies if I’m repeating someone else.
I don’t see the problem here: Bush isn’t being awarded the medal. Plenty of people collect medals; you can buy them at auctions. From the article, the medal is being given with details of its provenance - history etc - so there will be no question of anyone thinking that Bush earned it.
Fair enough - in your view, calling someone an un-American asshole and troll and so forth is not an expression of disapproval of someone exercising his rights. Bit of an overly-fine distinction, but if it works for you…
To the extent that the veteran has the authority to issue a citation, perhaps, but that doesn’t extend very far. It’s no different than some one writing a letter of support to the President - nice as far as it goes, but hardly official. It would be sort of like claiming that Bush thinks he is Postmaster General for accepting a letter from a supporter.
Sure, and since he is not the official arbiter of who is admitted to the Order of the Purple Heart, and Bush is not pretending that he is, your distinction is meaningless.
No, essentially it is the same thing. Bush agrees with you - the veteran is perfectly within his rights to offer, and Bush is perfectly within his rights to accept.
And it is pretty silly to try to insinuate that Bush is claiming to have been wounded in combat because he accepted the medal in person.
Like I said earlier, y’all are just pitching a fit because someone doesn’t hate Bush.
Gee, Christmas morning must have sucked at your house.
“Oh no, Aunt Ethel, I can’t accept this football - I’m not worthy.”
Thanks, Giraffe.
Regards,
Shodan
Yes. Calling someone an un-American asshole and troll and so forth is very much not an expression of disapproval of someone excercising his rights. It’s a disapproval of the guy’s choice to exercise his rights in that way. Shall we try this again?
Sampiro: No person has said the veteran cannot do what he wants.
Me: The guy’s a moron.
Shodan: ZOMG! Contradiction!
What, exactly, did I say that contradicts Sampiro’s point? Hell, i’m even going to open it up to you beyond the quote you originally used to fail to prove your point. Quote me saying anywhere the veteran cannot do what he wants with his medal. Any post at all.
Yes, because a letter and a medal are the exact same thing. A letter is communication. A medal is an award. The veteran is saying “Here, Mr. President, is a medal for you (the award) and here is the reason you deserve it (the citation)”. All I am asking you is whether Bush’s acceptance of the medal and citation is an acceptance the he deserves the medal, as per the criteria laid out by the veteran in the citation.
Edit; got totally mixed up there. Yay.
It’s not. Not even a little bit.
I can say, for example, that Fred Phelps is a troll and an asshole and an un-American punk for trying to picket the funerals of dead soldiers and you’d probably agree. That’s not the same thing as saying he doesn’t have the right to do those things, but I also have the right to say what I think of him.
I see. You consider any distinction between insult and disagreement as sophistry.
We can’t communicate then.
You should tell that to DTC. Check post #157. He claims your argument is “sophistry.”
It’s sophistry because the vet and you and Bush are all attempting to define valid politicical criticism as “verbal attacks.” It’s bullshit from the start, but all the more so since even “verbal attacks” do not constitute any kind of injuries to the president, much less injuries incurred in combat against an enemy.
No.
Wrong. The distinction between calling someone a moron for doing something but recognizing their right to do it is entirely different from trying to draw a sophist distinction between political criticism and “verbal attacks.”