# Rush Limbaugh--Atomic Bomb a "win-win" situation for Japan **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 5, 2005, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796 "2005-08-05T21:57:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/61 "2005-08-06T20:11:51Z")
GodDAMN but you’re a tool, Dio. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/62 "2005-08-06T20:18:48Z")
> [@Silentgoldfish](#): > > GodDAMN but you’re a tool, Dio. Can’t think of an actual rebuttal, huh? ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/63 "2005-08-06T20:24:59Z")
When people wonder how the terrorists can justify the 9/11 bombings and the bombings in London, I like to bring up Hiroshima to see how quickly THEY justify the mass killing of innocent civilians. Oh, sure, there’s all kinds of differences. But once you’ve calmly explained the good that’s come of a brutal slaughter of innocent people – setting fire to babies – how can you pretend to be mystified at how terrorists think, or have vastly different moral values? ---
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/64 "2005-08-06T20:25:38Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Can’t think of an actual rebuttal, huh? What the fuck is the point of trying to get someone with his head so far up his ass to see reason? I’ll just be glad once again that I’ll never meet you in real life, and that I don’t know anyone quite so stupid as you. Although it is fucking scary that you’ve managed to procreate. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/65 "2005-08-06T20:35:07Z")
> [@Silentgoldfish](#): > > What the fuck is the point of trying to get someone with his head so far up his ass to see reason? > > I’ll just be glad once again that I’ll never meet you in real life, and that I don’t know anyone quite so stupid as you. > > Although it is fucking scary that you’ve managed to procreate. In other words, you’ve got nothing and all you can do is spray indignant spittle. I win. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/66 "2005-08-06T20:35:57Z")
> [@Silentgoldfish](#): > > What the fuck is the point of trying to get someone with his head so far up his ass to see reason? He’s got a point, **Dio**. What’s the point in talking to him? > [@](#): > > I’ll just be glad once again that I’ll never meet you in real life, and that I don’t know anyone quite so stupid as you. What, they don’t have mirrors in Brisbane? ---
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/67 "2005-08-06T20:37:59Z")
> [@cricetus](#): > > What, they don’t have mirrors in Brisbane? Oooh, buurrrn! ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/68 "2005-08-06T21:13:03Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > It was an act of evil. That’s all there is to it. Just ask yourselves if you’d be willing to burn your own children to death to stop a war. It is no more moral to burn someone else’s children than your own. > > I wish Americans would just admit that dropping the bomb was evil and move on. We’re not perfect. We did a shitty thing. Why is it so hard just to admit that? War is shitty. War kills people, many of them innocent. We were _attacked_, by enemies of heinous, unspeakable and incredible evil. We fought to \*defend \*ourselves _and_ our children. The Japanese and Germans _intiated_ the war against us. We are no more in the wrong for killing them than any of us would be for shooting a man engaged in the very act of trying to kill our children in front of us. The dropping of the Bomb was no more 'evil" than bombing various war production plants in Germany or Japan and killing the “innocent civilians” thus engaged there. Any ‘evil’ we did was brought upon their own heads- thus it isn’t ‘evil" We had no choice. "Not bombing’ would have ended up killing more ‘innocent children’ than bombing. Every day the war went on, Japanese children starved and in Germany Jewish kids died. Saying “would you be willing to burn your own children” is specious and inflammitory- it wasn’t a choice. The Nazi’s were willing and were trying to burn Jewish children and send ‘terror weapons’ against British children. The Japanese enslaved young Chinese women into forced prostituion, and killed thousands of children by their early experiment in germ warfare (in China). We had to fight back, otherwise our own children would have died. I am sure that if the Germans and Japanese had not (in effect) used their children as human shield and sent them away to a non-strategic area, we wouldn’t have bombed it. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/69 "2005-08-06T21:23:12Z")
Of there was a choice. Would you burn your own children to death to end a war. yes or no? That’s the only question that matters. All your static about what the Nazis and Japanese did is just an irrelevant distraction. That doesn’t justify killing toddlers. There is no way to make killing children a morally justifiable choice. It’s not ok just because it was America. ---
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/70 "2005-08-06T21:44:46Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Of there was a choice. Would you burn your own children to death to end a war. yes or no? That’s the only question that matters. Gosh, you’re right! World War 2 was in fact all an excuse so America could kill babies. So tell us, of master of warfare, what would you have done, had you the power to make any decisions then? No, seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/71 "2005-08-06T21:51:03Z")
> [@Silentgoldfish](#): > > Gosh, you’re right! World War 2 was in fact all an excuse so America could kill babies. No, I’m saying the tactic of fire bombing and nuking civilian populations was an immoral way to win the war. That should not be a controversial statement. Certainly Americans don’t think that _American_ civilians are a legitimate target in wartime. > [@](#): > > So tell us, of master of warfare, what would you have done, had you the power to make any decisions then? No, seriously. Something that didn’t involve the deliberate slaughter of civilians. ---
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/72 "2005-08-06T21:56:57Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Something that didn’t involve the deliberate slaughter of civilians. No. You can’t say that it was all about killing civilians and shouldn’t have been done and then not give an alternative. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/73 "2005-08-06T22:00:29Z")
> [@Silentgoldfish](#): > > No. You can’t say that it was all about killing civilians and shouldn’t have been done and then not give an alternative. Why can’t I? The alternative is to fight a conventional war without targeting civilians. Are you saying that it’s impossible to win a war without doing that? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/74 "2005-08-06T22:01:21Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Of there was a choice. Would you burn your own children to death to end a war. yes or no? That’s the only question that matters. > > . Really, the most specious and inlfammitory question I have seen so far here. This makes me lose what respect I had for you. No, I wouldn’t- but I don’t have to make that choice. I wouldn’t shoot myself in the head with an M1 Garand to stop a Nazi Stormtroopers from bayoneting me in the gut. I’d shoot _him_. If the Nazi’s didn’t want their children to die, they shouldn’t have started the war now, should they have? We had no choice- civilians were working in and housed near military-industrail targets. Saying “well I would have done something else”- is also damn stupid and fallacious. Suuuure you would have- what? :dubious: You clearly have no alternative, other than name calling. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/75 "2005-08-06T22:06:32Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Why can’t I? > > The alternative is to fight a conventional war without targeting civilians. Are you saying that it’s impossible to win a war without doing that? Yes. We had to target industrial areas. If you don’t target the enemies means of making war, you greatly increase your chance of losing it, or at the very least- increase the length of the war- damning even more people to death. We _had_ to win WWII. If we hadn’t won it, it’d be _our_ families in those death camps. The outcome of the war wasn’t a foregone conclusion you know. We had a primary duty to our own families. Thus, _anything less_ than full out war is immoral. Fighting a 'limited war" and thus risking loss is what would have been the immoral choice. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/76 "2005-08-06T22:08:04Z")
You realize that nothing you said rebuts my point. I win again. You admit that you wouldn’t kill your own children. That means you’re conceding my point. It’s wrong to kill children. You know it. You don’t have a comeback for it, and all you can do is spray saliva. And it was not just anout collateral damage from bombing military tagets. The civilians WERE the target. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/77 "2005-08-06T22:11:50Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes. We had to target industrial areas. If you don’t target the enemies means of making war, you greatly increase your chance of losing it, or at the very least- increase the length of the war- damning even more people to death. > > We _had_ to win WWII. If we hadn’t won it, it’d be _our_ families in those death camps. The outcome of the war wasn’t a foregone conclusion you know. We had a primary duty to our own families. Thus, _anything less_ than full out war is immoral. Fighting a 'limited war" and thus risking loss is what would have been the immoral choice. This is just a lot of noise and bullshit. Killing civilians was the point and the ONLY point of the fire bombing raids in Germany and Japan and was the only point of dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. Citing any incidental damage to military targets is just weak-ass rationalizing and I’m not fucking buying it. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/78 "2005-08-06T22:13:05Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > You realize that nothing you said rebuts my point. I win again. You admit that you wouldn’t kill your own children. That means you’re conceding my point… Would you shoot yourself in the head with your M1 Garand to stop a Nazi stormtrooper from bayonetting you in the gut? No, of course not, so thus that means you have conceded my point and thus “I win”. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: Your scenario is specious and is not based upon reality. Killing my own children wouldn’t have stopped that war, thus my unwillingness to do so concedes nothing. Are you drunk? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/79 "2005-08-06T22:14:33Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > This is just a lot of noise and bullshit. Killing civilians was the point and the ONLY point of the fire bombing raids in Germany and Japan and was the only point of dropping the atomic bombs on Japan… Prove it. Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legit Military-industrial targets. So was Dresden. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796/80 "2005-08-06T22:21:16Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Would you shoot yourself in the head with your M1 Garand to stop a Nazi stormtrooper from bayonetting you in the gut? No, of course not, so thus that means you have conceded my point and thus “I win”. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: This question is not analogous. It was not a choice between killing ourselves or the enemy, it was a choice between fighting the enemy like men or attacking women and children instead. A better question would be whether I would be willing to kill that stormtrooper’s children rather than let him kill me. The answer is no. I would rather be killed than kill children. > [@](#): > > Your scenario is specious and is not based upon reality. Killing my own children wouldn’t have stopped that war, thus my unwillingness to do so concedes nothing. This is just a pointless evasion of the question. Imagine that your children happened to be visiting Nagasaki right before the attack and you knew you would have no ability to get them out. Would you still make the decision to drop the bomb? Personally, I can’t find a way to convince myself that killing other people’s children is any less reprehensible than killing my own. If there’s a God, he agrees with me. > [@](#): > > Are you drunk? Am I slurring my words? No. I don’t drink. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-limbaugh-atomic-bomb-a-win-win-situation-for-japan/315796.md?page=5)