You’ve been heading there with the tone of your posts since 9/11. You’ve been dancing pretty close to the “kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out” attitude. In other words, you’ve been more intolerant and less patient and sensible than Dubya himself! You’ve sounded more like Rush Limbaugh than yourself.
Yes, I know you have friends in the Pentagon. Yes, you live close to it and the trauma of the attacks struck mighty close to you. But you have a history supporting human rights, one of which is to be stupid and silly and have everybody else roll their eyes at you. Do you march in Gay Pride parades? Are you in regular clothes, marching with a grassroots organization that works for social justice, or are you in drag blowing kisses? Trust me, the rest of us have a good chuckle at the latter’s expense, but we still like them and won’t stand in their way if that’s how they wish to make their points.
No, these protestors don’t want to “give bin Laden a medal for killing so many capitalists.” Many have strong personal and religious beliefs against war. Yeah, they’re naive. Yeah, they’re annoying. Yeah, the masks make them look really stupid and pretentious. But they aren’t there to give bin Laden “a flower and a hug.” Give them a break, laugh behind their backs, and go back to your life. They are part of what makes America so great.
Yeah, you are. Contribute to the post, or get outta here.
The peace protesters are wrong. Their cause is immoral. Not “peace”, which is what they think they are advocating, but the craven cowardice that would see nothing effective done to prevent further acts.
There are very few things in this world that are worse than war, but appeasing killers is about ten of 'em. As the protesters acquiesce to mass murder and give comfort to our enemies, they don’t have a principled leg to stand on, and they should be seen in that light: morally bankrupt ethical cripples.
Ah, its like deja vu all over again. When is Bob Hope gonna show up and tell “take a bath” jokes? Those always cracked me up. Should be seeing those “Love it or Leave it” bumper stickers any day now. Anybody who criticizes our wise and firm leaders obviously isn’t supporting our boys in Kabul. “Track of the American Chicken”. “You know, they spit on veterans at the airport!”
Where do you find that in what they are doing? You seem to be having loads of fun projecting your beliefs about them onto them.
What the fuck is wrong with working for peace? Where does it say, other than in some of the bilge being posted here, that the only way to stop terrorism is with total war? Sorry if I’m a craven coward to you, asswipe, but my religious training DEMANDS that I exhaust all other avenues before going to war.
You mean kind of like what you’re doing? Mr. Pot, you are accusing other people of being cooking appliances.
gobear said:
What was it Neville Chamberlain said he had achieved by appeasing Hitler at Munich in 1938–“Peace in our time,” wasn’t it? Those who refuse to learn from the past are willfully stupid. They have a right to be willfully stupid…but that doesn’t change the willful stupidity of it.
I was thinking of starting this very same thread. Gobear, I agree with you completely. I am politically very liberal (Green Party member, raised by actual hippies - my dad was a conscientious objector from the Vietnam War after he graduated from Berkeley), and generally pacifistic, but there are some things that cannot be tolerated. These “peace” protesters make me ill, because it’s not really peace they’re after - they simply can’t bear to agree with anything anyone in government might say. If it comes from the political mainstream, it must be wrong. I used to participate in college politics when I was at the very left-wing UC Santa Cruz, but gave up when I realized that it wasn’t peace or freedom that most people were after, it was notoriety. They aren’t interested in anything that can be attained in this reality, only in socialist dreamworlds. These are the people who want to free Tibet, but couldn’t find Tibet on a map if their life depended on it.
SF Chronicle columnist Adair Lara wrote an excellent column on this topic recently. Link
What if it’s merely intended to criticize the critics?
What makes their right to express their opinions more worthy than anyone else’s right to express their opinions?
Is this violating some cosmic law of recursive opinionation?
I guess I missed the part where gobear suggested we pull a Kent State on 'em. Perhaps I need to go look for the demands for bloodshed lurking betwixt the lines.
I recall a while back that, during a car chase where some policemen were chasing a suspect, an innocent bystander was injured. It raised a hubbub for a while.
But my question is… who was responsible for the injury to the innocent bystander?
And how, precisely, is calling the peace protesters on their craven submission to murderers stifling criticism? If harsh words are enough to shut you up, you must really be the timid little rabbits you appear. Hell, Gandhi and Bertrand Russell spent time in jail for refusing to support the British war effort during WWI.
Pssssst! Kyla! Don’t tell anybody but I agree with you, for the most part. I’m just tired of the knees jerking against protestors because I’m more of your parents’ generation and my knee starts jerking when I hear the gratuitous insults thrown at anybody who protests the status quo. Even right-wingers, but I’d never give them the satisfaction of telling them THAT!
I don’t wish to stop you protesting because repression of political speech, no matter how desperately misguided, violates everything I believe in. I wish to persuade you that pacifism in this situation is wrong.
You are free to protest, but you’re not free to avoid having your fragile little feelings hurt.
