# Would better dressed/behaved '60s War Protestors have shortened the War? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 7, 2013, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-better-dressed-behaved-60s-war-protestors-have-shortened-the-war/655052 "2013-04-07T03:26:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 8
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-better-dressed-behaved-60s-war-protestors-have-shortened-the-war/655052/8 "2013-04-07T10:53:31Z")
> [@Why should "In God We Trust" be on our currency?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-in-god-we-trust-be-on-our-currency/654633/180): > > (A) I merely pointed out that his famous “Silent Majority” speech wasn’t made until 1969 and it was only then that the phrase became popularly known. > > That’s in stark contrast to your initial post on the supposed events of 1969. > > (B) Of course by your own admission, had you claimed in 1968 that Nixon appealed to “the Silent Majority” they wouldn’t have known what you were talking about because he didn’t make his “Silent Majority” speech until over a year later. The closest you come to is a reference to a “silent center” which never caught on. > > (C) You didn’t make a typo. You revealed that you thought that the ARVN was the army of the North Vietnamese government. > > (D) As already pointed to, you foolishly claimed that Nixon made his “Silent Majority” speech in 1968 when in fact, he didn’t make it until November of 1969, a year after he was in office. > (E) I’ll be happy to discuss it with you there were we won’t be constrained. (A) If you have a record of me writing that Nixon made his famous “Silent Majority” speech prior to 1969 or that I have claimed that the phrase became popularly known prior to 1969, let the readers here see it. If you do not have my words, could you please cease to make this part of trying to defend your claim that the peace movement’s bad behaviour and dress was responsible for Nixon beating Humphrey and extending the war by several years. (B) Are you saying that the “SILENT MAJORITY” did not exist until Nixon put those two exact words together on the night he addressed the nation to introduce them to his “Vietnamization” plan? If so, who was he talking to at the Miami GOP Convention in August the previous year? So is it your position that when Nixon addressed the GOP convention in Miami in August 1968 giving his acceptance speech, and appealing to the ‘silent center’ that no one knew who in the hell he was appealling to or talking about. Here’s what I wrote: > [@](#): > > August - Riots break out in Miami… Nixon calls the urgent need for LAW and ORDER. NIXON/AGNEW win GOP nomination. Nixon appeals to the SILENT MAJORITY. -Ntfldbw As I pointed out, Nixon had already mentioned 'the ‘silent’ Americans in the spring of 1968 in a radio address: > [@](#): > > “The silent center, the millions of people in the middle spectrum who do not demonstrate, who do not picket or protest loudly…” Had you heard that radio address and you were not a loud protestor, anti-war demonstrator, picketer; are you telling me that you would not have known that Nixon was speaking to you? And here is the specific group or identifiable Americans that Nixon was appealing to and talking about in his August 1968 acceptance speech: > [@](#): > > Those Americans with… "the quiet voice in the tumult and the shouting. > > It is the voice of the **great majority of Americans** , the forgotten Americans – **the non-shouters** ; the non-demonstrators. > > They are not racists or sick; they are not guilty of the crime that plagues the land. They are black and they are white – they’re native born and foreign born – hey’re young and they’re old. They work in America’s factories. They run America’s businesses. They serve in government. They provide most of the soldiers who died to keep us free. They give drive to the spirit of America. They give lift to the American Dream. They give steel to the backbone of America. They are good people, they are decent people; they work, and they save, and they pay their taxes, and they care. Like Theodore Roosevelt, they know that this country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless it is a good place for all of us to live in. > > This I say to you tonight is the real voice of America," > … “this great group of Americans, the forgotten Americans,” > Richard M. Nixon… August 1968 in Miami. Again. Are you saying, that none of those identifiable Americans knew that Nixon was appealing to and talking about them? (C) Move on. If you can, try to defend your position on some merits and facts and reason rather than picking out a typo where I was addressing another issue.. (D) See my response to (B). I can assure you that in 1968, my mother who voted for Nixon and was horrified that her 18 year old son would protest against the war being fought to stop the encroachment of Communism and Russian Aggression in the ‘real’ world, knew who Nixon was speaking to both in the Radio AAddress in the spring and in the acceptance speech in August. She did not need to be labled ‘Silent Majority’ to know that she was part of what Nixon was speaking to. (E) Here we are. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-better-dressed-behaved-60s-war-protestors-have-shortened-the-war/655052)._