Elucidator to Starving Artist: “Scientifically prove God exists!”
Starving Artist to Elucidator: “Sorry, you should know better. It isn’t possible to scientifially prove God exists.”
Elucidator to Starving Artist: “Aha! I knew you’d evade the point! But hey, at least you did it deftly, so kudos to you for that.”
:smack: Nor is it possible for SA to correctly spell “scientifically” in an otherwise incredibly clever post.
Well, then, let me put it to you in less metaphysical terms.
At what point would you throw up your hands and say “Hold! Enough!”? 2,000 dead? 5,000? 10,000?
Surely you realise that the rhetoric of “Bear any burden, pay any price” is just so much hot air? That even those who bear themselves as uber-hawks will begin making dovish cooing noises if popular support turns to popular wrath? Its happened before, I know, I was there.
So answer just for yourself: how much is too much?
Okay, I gave myself the answer. Anything else?
Scylla, actually, has been pretty much a sage gentleman in this thread. But please, give me a break with the “the right has been the calm, rational voices in a sea of irrational labeling and hatred, and that sort of thing just doesn’t win over our discriminating tastes” line. I respect nice honest discourse, but the discussion is framed larger than the particular posters on this board in the few particular contexts in which they’ve been polite.
I give people like Scylla major kudos for putting up with THIS board, where the majority is leans left, rather than going to other boards where the balance is opposite. But to pretend that those other boards don’t exist, as often seems to be the implication, is just silly.
Cute. You wanna try and pretend that wasn’t an evasion?
Perhaps I am partially incorrect. I can’t speak for what went on in every thread.
But you are deluded if you think that major assholishness had nothing to do with some people throwing up their hands and saying “I give up. These people are past hope” and leaving threads or simply leaving the board. Heck—there are times when I’m tempted to do that, and I’m not a very active political poster. The tone around here is starting to suck.
I’m not the only one who has noticed it or commented on this problem. Of course, when more rational souls who try to address it in separate threads usually get their threads derailed with more “Bush is evil!” shit, which is completely beside the point. Look—the point is that people can disagree without being rabid assholes about it.
But if any of you think that the frustration and anger are only rising because they’re wrong and you’re right? That is ludicrous.
Thank you. That is my main point.
Oh, absolutely I agree with you. I’ve taken pains several times to say that I’m sure right-leaning boards have an equal share of right-leaning rabid assholes.
Of course there are. I’ve met people like this. I argue with them as well. I’m quite familiar with the scary, angry extremist conservative type.
But I’m talking about this board, and what’s going on this board. Assholes are in abundance. Since this is a left-leaning board, more assholes are going to be left-leaning. And when you have a lot of people together who are thinking the same way, you also get more of a “bully mentality,” where asshole or outrageous behavior is more apt to go unchallenged or unchecked.
Excuse me, Ms. Chung, but you were the one who said “just for myself”…but you didn’t really mean that, did you, Connie?
Still, the point remains. There is no specific answer to your question, so I’ll give you the answer I gave myself. I once asked a painter how long it should take to paint some particular thing (I forget specifically what). The answer I got was, “It should take as long as it takes to get it right!”
That would pretty well sum up my sentiments regarding the war.
Did we ask ourselves, while in the midst of WWI or WWII, at what point we would be willing to throw up our hands and give up, deciding the cost wasn’t worth it? No, we knew we had to win for the sake of our own country, no matter what the cost. The same holds true now.
Thanks Nightime. Your post expresses my curiosity with greater clarity. Certainly better than I did:
It is good to know I’m not the only one bugged by people weighing into discussion or refraining, according to the whether they can advance the cause of one political party.
Everybody we have plus one.
Do or die, no alternative.
Maybe I should elaborate further.
If you decide that you have to fight, their can be no half measures. Either you are committed to victory or you are going to lose.
There is no backout point. Before war become a rhetorical phrase used for “the war on poverty” or “the war on drugs,” these things were a little clearer.
The war on terror is so far being fought old school. Destroy the enemy and take over the country he is in.
If you and I are at war that means either you go, or I go. In this case we are going to destroy militant islamic fundamentalism… or we are going to be destroyed by it.
So the answer is everything that we have.
But Scylla gave us the “Evil Attack Blimp” thread, so he pretty much gets a lifetime pass in my book. 
Except that militant Islamic fundamentalism WAS under control in Iraq. At least until we went barging in with tanks and guns blazing. Hussein kept Al Qaeda mostly out of the country (there was the one operative who was hiding out in the American no-fly zone, of course). There was no home-grown America-hating organized armed insurgency before we invaded. The explosives and other weapons were under UN/IAEA control and inspection before we invaded.
After we invaded…well…I don’t think I need new glasses to see how things are going over there.
Not to mention that Iraq’s connection to TWAT was as tenuous as spider silk.
And these were the only threads I failed to post in. Every other thread, or at least every anti-Kerry thread, I posted in and attacked Kerry, right? Every thread that could be used to defend the administration, I posted in - right?
RIGHT?
I’m reminded of a very old joke. A drunk is standing on the corner, under a streetlight, searching the ground for something he’s lost. A stranger comes along and tries to help. The stranger finally asks, “where exactly did you lose it?”
The drunk replies “Oh, I lost it in the middle of the block.”
Stranger: “Why are you looking here, then?”
Drunk: “Because the light’s better here.”
The Administration decided to search for Islamic fundamentalism where the light was better, IMHO.
“Knee-deep in the big Muddy,” and Scylla says to push on.
Samclem:
I’d be very interested in your reaction to this answer of mine.
So you think “pushing on” in Iraq is a bad idea (if this is a bad interpetation of your “joke” than I fail to see what your point is.)
Logically than, since you are against “pushing on” in Iraq, you beleive we should just abandon Iraq, take our troops home, and let the chips fall where they may.
Is this an unfair or incorrect interpretation of your position?
Me too to my response to that question.
No, it isn’t. Stirring words, to be sure. And I don’t doubt your sincerity.
If this were WWII, when we were attacked by a foreign power, that would have been one thing. But it isn’t, and we weren’t. Certainly not by Iraq.
When you are a hammer, all problems look like nails. We have the most powerful state-on-state military force in human history, so we try to solve the problem of terror with armys and air forces. We are like a man tormented by a swarm of hornets, flailing wildly with a hammer. It is madness.
Our attack on Iraq has not relieved our problem. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Nothing. For all the relevence, we might as well have attacked Belgium. Now we are in the perfectly ridiculous position of having to deal with Iraq and terror simultaneously. We have infuriated our adversary, while strengthening his recruitment. We have given him one hundred new allies, while putting Saddam out of business. Saddam wasn’t the problem, he isn’t the solution.
What have we gained? What have we shown the world, save that we are enraged, reckless, and cannot be reasoned with.
We are in a war that must be fought by stealth, treachery, and betrayal. Armies, are useless, worse than useless. We need eyes and ears, and friends, in the slums of Hamburg and the streets of Ankara. Tell me how this war has gained us those friends and allies. Tell me who our new friends are, to replace the ones we insulted. Have you been keeping up? In the last few days, several more of our “coalition” have bailed.
This war is folly, and the men who led us into this war are dangerous fools. So long as you cannot admit that, you can make no progress.
I am older than you, friend Scylla. I was a young man when the last helicopter lifted out of Saigon. And for years before that day, men had been sternly and firmly saying exactly that: we are committed, there is no retreat, all we have, plus one. It wasn’t true then, its not true now.
One innocent life was too much, an obscene price for this folly. A thousand more will not make it wise, ten thousand more will not make it victory.
Incorrect interpretation. We’re there, we can’t abandon. We caused the horror that the population is going through. We have to do our best to make it as right as we can.
MY cheap shot at you was simply about your attitude— “my country, right or wrong.” That’s the way I perceived your post.
You said
See jayjay’s post. He said it better than I could have. The Islamic terrorist that you were seeking weren’t in Iraq. (But they are now).
Better you should have led your troops into Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
But that wouldn’t have been “politic.”