Funny Ann Coulter Article
Posted By John Moore on July 31, 2003
Sometimes Ann Coulter goes over the top (like naming her book “Treason.”)
This, on the other hand, is just plain funny and sadly, correct (and, of course, guaranteed to infuriate the left).
For example:
Al-Qaida has apparently sized up the new security measures put into place by Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and has discovered some areas of vulnerability. Among the weaknesses the terrorists hope to exploit is the fact that airlines are prohibited from looking for Arab terrorists.
Enjoy!
She makes some very good points. Germany was an expensive pain in the butt b/c of the division; better to have single control, like in Japan. The Clinton administration did run away whenever things got slightly difficult, and I think that opened us up for attack. Better to actively defend ourselves than to run and wait for them to come to us, because when they come they will be prepared and it will be on their terms, Example: 9/11.
Anne Coulter is crazed.
This women should be institutionalized. She represents everything I hate about America. Burn in hell bitch.
re Mike: Thanks for your insightful comment, you prove Anne’s thesis correct. You Liberals are treasonous America haters. If you hate anything about America so much, why don’t you move! If your so concerned about what you probably feel is a repressive and fascist right wing, why are you the one advocating such a hostile action as “institutionalizing” her for her political beliefs, you Liberals should follow the addage; “’tis better to close your mouth and be thought a hypocrite, than to open it and remove all doubt.” Keep up the good work Anne Coulter.
What good work is Anne Coulter doing????? Not a single piece except for beeing a useful bitch to the GOB’s (Good Old Boys) in DC. Anne is so out of touch with reality that it is a wonder that she knows how to get out of bed each morning. It may be that the right wing America look at her as their front-figure, but I think they actually do themselves a disfavour. Not that I complain. She is always amusing on TV when you can get past the level where you find her annoying and stupid. She is actually quite funny. She displays her ignorance for all to see.
Anne Coulter exposes the perfidy of the left in America, and does so in great detail, with lots of references, and lots of humour.
She also benefits the republic by raising the blood pressure of leftist asshats like Seer.
She may not be the best debater on TV (unfortunately), but she is far from ignorant. Just read her books and try to pick them apart.
I am halfway through Treason. It’s pretty good. I know from my own experience the truth of parts of it, and haven’t found any falsehoods. And it is a pretty damning book about how the left in the US have been responsible for so many of our problems.
It also does a good job of showing how hateful the left is whenever they lose, or have a chance of losing, or when they win! For folks that preach a lot about peace and love, the left is a damned nasty bunch.
Oh, and today I happened to be listening to Michael Medved’s radio show. It was his “hate Bush day” – where callers who hated Bush were invited to call in. Many of them wished he were dead. DEAD! Now that is pretty serious hate. And the rest were sputtering with incoherent hatred against Bush and conservatives. They did a good job of showing that Anne Coulter is right.
So do you.
I do not like anne Coulter. I do not agree with her and I think she writes some horrible things. But my policy has always gone with the this quote from Voltaire (apologize for spelling)
“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
Of course I wish that she would have a similar policy.
note: I have not read her new book but I did find slander error ridden so I wonder if this will be the same trash, of course she may have cleaned her facts a bit this time.
OK, let’s take a look at a quote from her opening page “The left’s obsession with the crimes of the West and their Rousseaunian respect for Third World savages all flow from this subversive goal” (siding with the enemy). How does one interpret this? Does it mean that it’s treasonous to look at our government to see if it is functioning in a lawful manner? Does it mean that we should not be providing aid to third world countries? I’m having a hard time making sense out of this quote other than it provides a usefule mechanism to stir up passion amongst her fan readers from the getgo. Any other interpretations out there? And if you agree with my possible interpretation, do you agree with Anne that we should ignore both what we and other countries are doing?
Maybe if you read more of the book you will understand!
Taking the first sentence, adding in the title, and attempting to make sense of the whole book is really pretty absurd.
John,
Don’t you think it is a little presumptous to assume I haven’t read it. Your comment doesn’t address the question I asked. If it would be preferable, I’d be more than happy to pick an extract from the end of the book. I’m am trying to engage in reasonable dialogue, something I presumed would be possible. So maybe you’d like to re-read Anne’s sentence and tell me what your interpretation of it is, what she’s trying to say and what her motivation is. Fair enough?
Well, Mike, the reason I assumed you hadn’t read the book is that your interpretation of the sentence was so far off from the meaning of it that it was the only conclusion I could come up with. Also, of course, taking one sentence out of context is not a real good way of analyzing a book.
Second, there is one thing you got right: she is a polemicist and as such does indeed write in an intentionally inflammatory manner. Nobody has denied that! I only wish she was as good at it in TV debates as she is in writing.
But if you would like a translation, I will give you one within the context of the book:
The first clause: The left, as she documents with copious cases, obsessively focuses on the crimes (and supposed crimes) of the west to the exclusion of the crimes of others. In other words, it tends to greatly miscast any debate by failing to provide any factual or moral balance – making us look bad and our enemies look good.
The second clause: The left has a romantic view of human nature that arises from a Rousseauian “noble savage” view (and a marxist economic class-oriented view) that results in them ignoring many crimes of the third world while focusing on the rich countries. During the cold war, there was an exception: crimes of third world US allies were heavily attacked, but not crimes of ANY US enemies.
The parenthetical clause: that the left has a goal of siding with the enemy. I happen to disagree with this clause. I think the left sides with the many enemies of democracy and freedom out of a defective world view, a usually incurable romanticism, and an arrested development at the adolescent revolt stage, resulting in a dislike and disrespect of any authority, unless, of course, headed by leftists.
The title of Coulter’s book, Treason, of course is intentionally inflammatory in order to sell the book (she is, after all, a capitalist). But it is also correct in that she provides a number of proofs of treason by high ranking members of the left in the US (during the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s), and backs it up with solid facts.
Furthermore, if one removes intent from the definition of treason (which would be an unfair rhetorical trick – see below – but heck, the left does it all the time, so I’ll do it for a moment), then the behavior of the left even more recently would be “treasonous,” as she aptly shows (and since we are talking more recent history, I have observed). But as I say, that is an unfair rhetorical trick – we are not really talking about treason in this case, but rather a perfectly legal form of anti-American, pro-enemy misbehavior.
Coulter is simply engaging in what the left does routinely and constantly and loudly: using overblown rhetoric against her opponents. She is doing this in the honorable footsteps of David Horowitz, a former major leftist himself (publisher of Ramparts in the ’60s) who changed sides but didn’t change rhetorical methods.
Her facts about McCarthy are also correct, and provide a useful counterbalance to the standard smear that the left reflexively uses: “McCarthyism.” How complete they are, I don’t know. I suspect she paints him in a more favorable light than would be appropriate, BUT, since she uses the tactics of the left, that’s okay. After all, the left has produced vast amounts of total BS using the word “McCarthy” – such as linking him to the Hollywood blacklist.
I think there is an important place for such writing. It is appropriate that the right provide at least some of the same sort of overblown rhetoric as we are constantly subject to from the left. After all, anyone on the right who isn’t totally blind is constantly being reminded that we are insensitive, intolerant, racist, don’t care about poor people, only in favor of what big corporations want, select only stupid and corrupt leaders (who inspire outright HATE from the left in the case of Reagan and Bush), religious bigots, you name it. And we don’t have to go buy one of only a few books on the topic to find this out – our kids are taught it in school, demonstrators with adoring press coverage tells us all the time, democrat “leaders” say or imply it, PC Police tell us (speaking of intolerance), etc.
And, of course, if we speak out about this, or say things that are not PC, we are accused of this and much more.
As to your questions:
Does it mean that it’s[sic] treasonous to look at our goernment to see if it is functioning in a lawful manner?
Obviously not. In fact, this is usually the first question a leftist asks (of course, I don’t know if you are a leftist) – because leftists assume that everyone on the right intends to jail any leftist who says anything unpatriotic, in spite of about 80 years of evidence to the contrary. After all, since we are on the right, we don’t want anyone to question our government – we are into suppression of speech – right? Actually, today, most speech suppression comes from the left, in terms of political correctness.
But was it treasonous to be a member of the CPUSA in the ’50s and ’60s and take orders from the KGB (as many high level leftists did). And much of what the left does is NON-TREASONOUS, LEGAL aiding of our enemies, as they are currently doing right now by playing rhetorical games with the WMD issue regarding Iraq.
Does it mean that we should not be providing aid to third world countries/
Do you like strawmen, or do actually mean that question? Of course, the answer is no.
And if you agree with my possible interpretation (Obviously, I don’t or I would be a blooming idiot!) do you agree with Anne that we should ignore both what we and other countries are doing?
Well, first of all, Anne never asserts anywhere that we should ignore both what we and other countries are doing. So that is another strawman question, and frankly, a silly one.
No, I think we need balance, one that we don’t get from the left, which consistently (as she shows and I know from decades of observation) focus only on our crimes and alleged crimes and ignore their own. The My Lai Massacre was talked about constantly in the ’60s, but the official policy of the NVA to have the VC massacre village chieftains and their families was widely ignored by the press then and ever since, even when thousands of these families per month were being slaughtered in intentionally vicious ways.
Or another Vietnam case… Vietnam is a communist country where people vote with their boats (millions have tried to leave and many died) – only because the left forced the United States to shamefully abandon them after we had won the war. In Vietnam, we did exactly the equivalent of what we did in Korea, except in Vietnam, we simply abandoned them AND EMBARGOED ALL ARMS SHIPMENTS TO THEM. This was total treachery and it was forced by a Democrat congress. It was one the single most shameful act that the US has performed in my lifetime.
I didn’t need to read Anne Coulter to discover this, because I remember. I remember the shame I felt as the congress passed those crucial votes. I remember the shame I felt as the NVA tank battalions rolled into Saigon and the Vietnamese tried to flee.
And I remember when, after the war, word leaked out about the “re-education camps (bamboo gulag)” (where, btw, the few remaining Viet Cong also were sent) where starving prisoners were forced to clear minefields, with huge casualties. I remember the fall of Cambodia and the butchery there. And I especially remember the left in the United States – those who had led the anti-war demonstrations, called those of us who served “baby killers”, chanted “Ho Ho Ho Chi Min, Ho Chi Min is Going to Win” – I remember those people being TOTALLY SILENT about the genocide in Cambodia and the atrocities in Vietnam. I remember those people having no sympathy for the millions of boat people. I remember Joan Baez, who was an anti-war activist who actually cared about people, being thrown out of the leftist movement when she mentioned the problems in Vietnam and Cambodia, because (as Jane Fonda said) “she shouldn’t criticize socialist countries.”
I also used to monitor Radio Moscow, starting in 1960. I remember when the major network news became just as far left as Radio Moscow, in the early ’80s – there was really little difference in the subjects they chose to report or the way they reported them. At that point, Radio Moscow became no longer of interest, since I could hear the same thing from NBC.
So, I agree with Anne Coulter about much of what she says. I agree that treason is an apropriate term for *some* of what *some* of the left did. I detest what the left has done, even as I know many leftists whom I personally like.
And I am glad that the right is finally, after many years, starting to use some of the methods that the left has long used against us, including rhetorically strong (but in our case, factually correct) writings, guerilla theater (such as the anti-affirmative action cookie sales or the freeper anti-anti-war demonstrations – one of which I participated in), and having our own media outlets to counter the leftist bias of the primary outlets.
OK John (by the way I live in Phoenix Metro myself). I’d like to start with your response to the first clause:
[The left, as she documents with copious cases, obsessively focuses on the crimes (and supposed crimes) of the west to the exclusion of the crimes of others. In other words, it tends to greatly miscast any debate by failing to provide any factual or moral balance - making us look bad and our enemies look good].
Good point. It seems to me that it is similar to family bickering. An outsider listening in, might very well think that every one in this family is flawed and hate each other. Yet, for most families, friction is pretty normal. Of course if the family gets attacked from the outside, differences get put aside pretty quick(blood is thicker than water or 9/11). So let me use this analogy. The left can be viewed as a family. Coulter, an outsider watches what’s going on, and wonders “what the fuck? I’m glad these people aren’t part of my family. In fact they’re so screwed up, they’re dangerous to my family (the right),they’re traitors”. Now here’s where it gets tricky, because both sides passionately feel that their extended “family” includes the rest of America, we end up like one big family unit bickering. Now my problem is that either 1) she is quilty of the same crime she accuses the left – so therefore she is a traitor, or 2) or, she has no place in her world view for me – which scares me.
Your comment:
[The parenthetical clause: that the left has a goal of siding with the enemy. I happen to disagree with this clause. I think the left sides with the many enemies of democracy and freedom out of a defective world view, a usually incurable romanticism, and an arrested development at the adolescent revolt stage, resulting in a dislike and disrespect of any authority, unless, of course, headed by leftists]
made me wince. There is a certain circuitness to it. If the left dislikes/disrespects authority, how could they side with anyone, themselves included? I’m having trouble making the leap from dislike of authority to siding with the enemy. The conclusion to your assumption would lead to rejection of all authority: friend or enemy.
Ok, I’m nitpicking here a little, but I have an aversion to sophistry – it raises the hair on the back of my neck.
I find your concluding comment:
[And I am glad that the right is finally, after many years, starting to use some of the methods that the left has long used against us, including rhetorically strong (but in our case, factually correct) writings, guerilla theater (such as the anti-affirmative action cookie sales or the freeper anti-anti-war demonstrations - one of which I participated in), and having our own media outlets to counter the leftist bias of the primary outlets.]
saddening.
I believe it is all too easy to become victim to the tactics your addrssing. I use the word victim, because it’s purpose is pure emotional manipulation and is meant to prevent us from thinking rationally. But the media has gotten very good at it(all sides) because it pays the $. And I believe that government and businesses ultimately don’t want us to think rationally. I don’t believe we have a government for and by the people. Dictators exist in all guises, left, right, libertarian, socialist, whatever. Their goal is to amass as much power/control/money as they can during their lifetime, and some of them don’t have good intentions. And just because they live and function within the US, doesn’t make them exempt. There are traitors within our borders. Some are on the left and some are on the right. Some are foreigners and some are natural born citizens. And it is always to their advantage to promote the concept of choice, to disguise their true intent, which is no choice. To reduce arguments to left versus right is to divert our attention from the real problems at hand. And that’s why this type of activity is promoted by them. If we’re fighting amongst ourselves, we never see what is really going on. The greatest Capitalist invention ever is the two party system because it’s the perfect disguise. It creates the illusion of choice and diverts us from real issues. Left and right agree on one thing, they would ultimately like to see democracy everywhere, that provides access to the largest market and will allow some people to control some staggering amount of assets. The question is what will they do with it.
So that is why I get upset by books like Anne’s or Al’s (although his is a lot funnier and has some cartoons in it at least). It’s all pure diversion.
Yet, Capitalism is the only mechanism that holds the promise of raising the entire world’s standard of living, because in tis pure form it is about satisfying the needs of the market and I agree with that.
But there is very little regulation at the business level and we’re not teaching anyone anything about economics, business, capitalism, taxes, social welfare and how government policy relates to it.
Now that’s a book I’d like someone to write.
Because I’ll tell you, guys like Ken Lay, Ross Perot, and Warren Buffet are the ones that really scare me. You know why, because I’ve done pretty well in my lifetime financially and it scares me, some of the thoughts that creep into my mind how that power can be used. I’m the guy I worry about, because someone like me who has a really large amount of money might take the next step and actually do some of the things I know are thinkable.
Left, right. Forget about it, let’s find the criminals. And the uS is the place to start.
Anne Coulter IS a nutcase. Plain and simple. I’m not just saying that because I’m liberal, but because she represents what’s wrong with debate in America. She uses a personal attack-heavy, shout-’em-down method of debate, accuseing Kate Moss of “opposing the war on terror because if it might cut off her supply of [cocaine]” and uses much name calling. According to her, Adali Stevenson, one of the greatest politicians of the twentith century, a “boob”. Even Bill O’Reily thinks Coulter is too extreme, and he DOES admit that McCarthy was linked to the blacklist (Along with Jon Wayne and Ronald Regan)and many other wild accusations.
I have noticed that in her entire book she does not make any arguments FOR any conservitive programs/agendas. She does little but say the liberals hate America and are power crazed maniacs that want nothing but to hurt the poor (Dispite the obious fact that such Ayn Ryndian philosophies are praticed almost exclusively by conservitives) with no proof or facts to back such claims up. Ironic, seeing as the first sentence in her book is: “Political ‘debate’ in this country has become insufferable”
It is this kind of hypocriacy that I despise.
Elliot, she is hardly a nut case. She is, however, a very partisan writer. In that sense, she is consciously doing what the left has done to the right for many decades: name calling. She does her best to be insulting to the left, just like they do their best to insult her (and me, and many like me).
Her book is not about conservative programs, so why should she talk about them? Her book is about the many wrong things the left has done in the US – especially related to foreign policy. And that is what she goes into, in great detail, with considerable wit, and in an insulting way that emulates many on the left (have you ever read what Gore Vidal says about those of us on the right)?
Oh, and I would hardly quote Bill O’Reilly as a source. He is a windbag and not all that smart.
As far as McCarthy being linked to the blacklist, I suggest you present some proof other than a Bill O’Reilly “admission.”
And just for a start, keep in mind that the Hollywood blacklist and the HUAC investigations were years before McCarthy did his thing, and HUAC was the HOUSE committee – McCarthy never served in the house.
As far as the blacklist goes… hey, I think its perfectly fine for companies to refuse to hire Soviet agents when we they are the enemy. And as we can nowprove beyond doubt (due to KGB retireess and defectors, and the Venona decrypts), the Communist Party USA was wholly controlled and mostly financed by the KGB, and its members swore to obey orders from their party superiors. In other words, the entire CPUSA (among many other leftist movements) was part of the enemy’s espionage arm, and its members were traitors. Oh, and BTW, a relative of mine was a CPUSA member and Hollywood writer at the time. Unfortunately, she was one of the many traitors they didn’t catch and blacklist. The truth is tough, sometimes!
Now, back to the manner of debate. There are plenty of conservative books which give well mannered debate about all this stuff. Does that mean that someone cannot write a rude book? Especially when the left is routinely rude and disrespectful of the right?
I can understand you not liking the book. It says nasty things about people that you may like. And it says it in a very witty way – sort of like many popular leftist writers.
You may also want to rephrase your second sentence, since it I don’t have the NSA at hand to decrypt the second sentence of it.
But when it comes to foreign policy, the modern left (not to be confused with classic liberals) certainly behave as if they hate America. They do their best to sabotage our self defense. They want the US to hand its foreign policy over to international bodies like the UN, a haven for dictators and propagandists. They are already asking us to pull out of Iraq, and are putting the lives of our soldiers in danger with their totally politically motivated assertions about Iraq.
As Coulter shows, and as I well remember, the left had the effect of almost handing the world to the tyrants of the USSR in the ’70s and ’80s. They forced us to embargo all aid to South Vietnam after we had already won the war, resulting in the extension of the tyranny of the North into the South. They kept silent through the obvious consequences, the slave labor camps, the boat people, and the fall of Cambodia into the hands of one of the vicious regimes ever seen!
But we don’t have to look back that far. I remember the Iran-Contra “scandal” – and the Boland Amendments which tried to prevent Reagan from defending the US against Soviet expansion into central America. I remember them trying to prevent us from properly arming ourselves against the USSR, with their idiotic (but very useful to the Soviets) “nuclear freeze” movement (you may note that this blog is called “Useful Fools” because that is the term (also translated as “useful idiots”) that Lenin used for western leftists).
The left continually denied the danger of the USSR. It actually cheered on Hitler during the Malenkov-Ribbentrop pact where Hitler and Stalin signed a deal. They claimed that those accused of being Soviet spies (like the Rosenbergs) were innocent, until it became to embarrassing to do so as the KGB controller of the Rosenbergs wrote his memoirs, and the Venona decrypts also made their identity and guilt clear.
And I’m just getting rolling… but I have work to do so I’m not going to waste any more time here right now… Anne does a good job of listing this stuff in her book, even though everything I have mentioned I have read from other sources or observed myself.
She isn’t hypocritical. She is merely feeding the left what it normally uses on the right. If you had ever seen the world as a right-winger, you would realize that we are insulted and name-called almost every day!
So the hypocrisy is a leftist complaining about Anne returning the favor!
As a matter of fact, I was once very far to the right myself, A huge red persicuter and pardoner of McCarthy. However, I recall at no point being disrespected by the left as the right does today.
McCarthy WAS responseible for the blacklist. He was the one who subpoenaed Lucille Ball, Orsen Wells, and many others when he chaired the HUAC. And there are many problems with the blacklist, the primary one in my opinion being that art and politics should stay the hell away from eachother whenever possible.
But I would hardly call communism a leftist movment as it has so often been identified. A liberal ADVOCATES personal and economic freedom, and while we do favor economic regulation, we do not approve of total state ownership of all property. In addition, free speech (sacred to liberals) is stifeled by communism.
I cannot recolect any instances when a leftist has been rude to a member of the right and resorted to pathetic name calling, except for one Californian named Bob Mullhouland, whose methods I do not approve of. Anne Coulter has the right to write her book, but she has RESPONSIBILITIES not to. Unproductive debate is what has made so many people stop following politics.
Now, as far as foreign policy goes, We do not wish to HAND OVER the USA to the UN. We still wish to live as Americans, but wish to cooperate with the UN and the international community. No man nor country is a island.
As far as Vietnam goes, I have no idea why you implied that we had “already won” the war. Why did’t Eisenhower just crush the North Vietnam, seeing as he’d already sent a number of “Millitary Advisors” (ie chopper pilots) to Vietnam in 1953? Why didn’t Nixon invade North Vietnam? Because we didn’t need to escelate the conflict and cause a soviet raction.
And by the way, as far as Cambodia goes, so you realize that Pol Pot was “king” of Cambodia before Vietnam entered? As horrible as communism was (and is) it was not as bad as Pol Pot. At least not in SE Asia.
Elliot…
Somehow I doubt you are old enough to have been around when McCarthy was. However, since you are old enough to type, you should be old enough to search historical facts. McCarthy was a SENATOR. HUAC was in the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. Get it? So you are clueless there.
The you say communism isn’t leftist. Of course it is. Even the communists say so.
I won’t even bother to debate the rest. It is so far from factual, and so poorly written that I’ll let it speak for itself.
But I will say one thing. YOU ARE AN IDIOT ABOUT POL POT. POL POT WAS A COMMUNIST. Get it?
Frankly, you post is the most idiotic I have yet encountered on this blog. Go learn some history. Then some spelling. Then maybe you will be competent to write somewhere.
If you are a liberal, you are hardly doing your cause any good. In fact, you seem to be a product of the liberal monopoly on schooling, which probably explains your utter ignorance.
Well John, at least you proved Elliot’s point about him recalling at no point being disrespected by the left as the right does today.
John Moore writes:
[ The Communist Party USA was wholly controlled and mostly financed by the KGB, and its members swore to obey orders from their party superiors. In other words, the entire CPUSA (among many other leftist movements) was part of the enemy's espionage arm, and its members were traitors. Oh, and BTW, a relative of mine was a CPUSA member and Hollywood writer at the time. Unfortunately, she was one of the many traitors they didn't catch and blacklist. ]
Your opinions are frightening. Ever heard of the First Amendment? Not that I’m a proponent of the Communist Party, but they sure as hell have a right to exist under U.S. Constitutional Law. As long as a CP member does not commit a crime, how is that person a traitor? Political viewpoints are protected speech. You appear to disagree. I think I’ll go with the Founding Fathers on this one.
Actually, your assertion that all Communist Party members were spies is a pretty funny one. You see, the thing about being a spy is, one needs to be covert. Being a member of the CP is not exactly a covert action. Maybe the CP was a propaganda arm for the Soviet Union, but again, that too is protected speech and not criminal, even if you don’t agree with it.
Moore writes:
[ But when it comes to foreign policy, the modern left (not to be confused with classic liberals) certainly behave as if they hate America. They do their best to sabotage our self defense. They want the US to hand its foreign policy over to international bodies like the UN, a haven for dictators and propagandists. ]
That’s a crock of excrement. This is typical of a conservative arguement. Instead of stating the conservative opinion and backing up your stance with the reasons why you support the conservative view, you purposely mischaracterize the liberal view point to show how “wrong” it is. Try it this way instead:
The reasons liberals support multi-lateral UN support, instead of unilateral invasion, is that in the future, when another country invades someone for whatever reason, they’ll just point at the U.S. and basically say “Hey, if the U.S. can just invade without approval from the world, why shouldn’t we?” We can’t exactly be a moral/ethical leader if we are hypocrites. Also, pissing off the rest of the world doesn’t exactly help our national security interests in the long run.
Secondly, liberals believe that we shouldn’t be sending our children to die in a foreign land unless absolutely necessary. How was Iraq a threat to us? Where is any evidence of the weapons programs we were told about? Hussein was a terrible, inhumane bastard, but he actually did NOT put up with Islamic extremism in his country. He was not linked with 9/11 as much as the conservatives would like to fool the country into believing. And as big a bastard as he was, his regime was actually a moderating force in the Islamic world. Should he have been booted? Yes… but not by us alone. Now we’re stuck holding the bill while more of our kids die everyday.
And if you want to talk about sabotaging U.S. self defense, remember that it was Republican administrations (Reagan and Bush Sr) who had the CIA train Al-Quaeda operatives to fight against the Soviets. Our government’s actions led to the the Taliban taking over Afganistan. Our government, under Reagan and Bush, gave the Iraqis arms to fight against Iran — arms later used against U.S. soldiers in the first Gulf War. These are just a very few of the amazing foreign policy blunders made under Republican administrations.
Moore writes:
[ They forced us to embargo all aid to South Vietnam after we had already won the war ]
I’m sorry… We won the war? What revisionist history books have you been reading? Yes, we caused more casualties to the NVA and VC than they did us, but we weren’t “winning” by any stretch of the imagination.
And yes, Ann Coulter is an idiot. I actually heard her say “Liberals support immorality” as if immorality is a bullet point listed in the Democratic party platform. She made the statememt on a political talk show to lower the level of debate down to “conservative = good; liberal = bad” name calling instead of making any useful contributive debate on the actual issue(s) being discussed. I’m not even sure why conservatives like her so much since she does nothing to advance the Republican party’s platform. She is everything that is wrong with political debate in this country.
[Marty:...Ever heard of the First Amendment?] Yes, I support it. And it is irrelevant to this argument because nobody is talking about suppressing speech by government.
If you think the blacklist was unconstitutional, you are wrong. The “blacklist” was a non-governmental, informal rejection of employment by private, non-governmental entities. Nobody has a right to use someone else’s movie production company for ‘free speech’ except the owners thereof. And nobody has an obligation to hire people whose intent is to use their assets for anti-American propaganda! By the way, there is still a blacklist in Hollywood. It is of conservative actors, writers, etc. Unless they make BIG MONEY before they are “outed,” they don’t get anywhere there. And there are also blacklists in Universities. Conservaties are routinely advised not to major in a number of subjects because they would never be able to get tenure, due to their political views. Oh, and many of these are government run institutions where in fact they ARE violating first amendment rights in their actions.
The CPUSA, as it existed until the fall of the USSR, however, was a wholly controlled subsidiary of a hostile foreign intelligence factor. It’s members were thus agents of that power. They swore to obey the party members. Thus they swore to obey the orders of the KGB.
Now, I suppose you could say that since many members were Useful Fools and didn’t know that they were controlled by a foreign power, they were not traitors. I’ll buy that. They were just damaging dupes who gave aid and comfort to the main enemy of the US, on orders (unbeknowst to most of them) of the KGB.
[Marty: Maybe the CP was a propaganda arm for the Soviet Union, but again, that too is protected speech and not criminal...] and [Marty: As long as a CP member does not commit a crime, how is that person a traitor?]:
From the US Constitution, article II Section3
: “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”
In other word, Treason *is* a crime. It doesn’t require one to “commit a crime.” . Acting under the orders of a foreign enemy intelligence agency against your own country is treason. Many members didn’t know they were controlled by the KGB… and those members probably couldn’t be convicted of treason because they lacked mens rea – of course, in terms of common sense, they lacked mens in general.
[Marty: You see, the thing about being a spy is, [sic] one needs to be covert.
I made no assertion that they were all spies. They were all agents. In intelligence speak, that means they were people who were influenced, by money, ideology, blackmail or other motives, to operate on behalf of a hostile intelligence agency. Not the same thing as spies… which most were not. Oh, and a spy can be an agent or can be an officer actually belonging to a foreign intelligence service.
[Marty: The reason liberals support multi-lateral UN support, instead of unilateral invasion, is that in the future, when another country invades someone for whatever reason, they'll just point at the U.S. and basically say "Hey, if the U.S. can just invade without approval from the world, why shouldn't we?" ] etc…
In other words, giving me one of the rationalizations for taking actions that harm our security. As Coulter documents well, and as I have observed for a long time, and as my statement says, it’s the behavior that counts. I don’t care what reason the liberals have or give for their actions, their behavior is consistent with “hate America.” Now many liberals may not hate Amerca, they just hate everything we do when a conservative is in power, they consider us morally inferior to the rest of the world, and they blame us for whatever anyone else does against out interests.
Furthermore, the left is totally consistent with the notion that they want the US to hand its foreign policy (and let me add at this point: much of its domestic policy) to international bodies. Let’s see… Kyoto Treaty, Law of the Sea, International Criminal Court, requiring UN to approve (TWICE) this year’s actions in Iraq (the initial resolution gave us authority for the attack), using foreign court decisions as precedent in US cases, etc.
But lets get to the specifics…
World opinion and setting a bad example: The liberals never complained when the Soviet Union set bad examples (say, by imprisoning anyone who spoke up or by invading and suppressing other countries). Furthermore, one reason conservatives favor the invasion of Iraq is that we set a good example: We deposed a nasty dictator because he posed a threat against us and committed many acts of war against us (such as shooting at our forces in the no-fly zones, trying to kill Bush I).
Liberals are good at revisionist history, so they say “Saddam was not a threat” even though many of their politicians are on record as supporting Clinton’s unilateral (and insufficient and hence ineffective) attack against Iraq (which coincided exactly with the House impeachment debate). You can find (and Coulter quotes) statements from almost every public anti-war critic supporting Clinton at that time. I have gathered up a bunch of them and put them at the bottom of this comment for your edification. So Saddam a threat or not? Liberals seem to believe that a few days of bombing (coincidently exactly the length of the impeachment trial) magically transformed Iraq from a threat to not a threat… or was it the election of George Bush that suddenly made Iraq a non-threat? Which was it? I’m curious. See the end of this comment for a long list of statements by prominent liberals.
As to why Iraq was a threat, you’ve heard the President and Colin Powell outline that in detail. That the UN agreed with that and then (only because of French and Russian perfidy) decided that he wasn’t a threat a few months later is an indictment of the UN, not the US.
Also, I would point out that the invasion was not unilateral. The first ground action was taken by a Polish special forces team. There were forces from a number of nations there, although the bulk were American, British and Australian.
Then there’s another case of unilateralist (or at least non-UN approved) war that the US undertook and that liberals supported universally: the war against Serbia under Clinton. Did Clinton set a bad example? And have you noted the “blowback” from that? Al Quaeda is now operating in the Muslim areas that Clinton freed!
Conservatives look at these cases and see a single specific pattern: the actions of Clinton were by a Democrat, and were not significant in terms of helping US security, while the actions of Bush were by a Republican, and were specifically targetted at protecting our security. In other words, liberals act to obstruct US security – not because they want us to be insecure, but out of political motives and because they have their own misguided ideas about how to get security (by “setting examples” and “multilateral action” and various other approaches that do not always work).
[Marty: Where is any evidence of the weapons programs we were told about?]
Did you read David Kay’s report, or just what the liberal newspapers had to say about it? The evidence of weapons programs is massive (see below). It is clear that Saddam either did not build weapons themselves (because he had an ability to quickly make them if he neededd them), or disposed of them before the UN inspections – there are solid reports of convoys to Syria and of special security groups whose job it was to bury stuff in the desert.
[New York Times: No Illicit Arms Found in Iraq, U.S. Inspector Tells Congress ]
[David Kay's testimony]
David Kay tidbits from interviews, etc:
From NPR:
and
[David Kay:
We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations.”
...
With regard to Iraq's nuclear program, the testimony we have obtained from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials should clear up any doubts about whether Saddam still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons. They have told ISG that Saddam Hussein remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons…At least one senior Iraqi official believed that by 2000 Saddam had run out of patience with waiting for sanctions to end and wanted to restart the nuclear program. Several scientists - at the direction of senior Iraqi government officials - preserved documents and equipment from their pre-1991 nuclear weapon-related research and did not reveal this to the UN/IAEA. One Iraqi scientist recently stated in an interview with ISG that it was a "common understanding" among the scientists that material was being preserved for reconstitution of nuclear weapons-related work…The ISG nuclear team has found indications that there was interest, beginning in 2002, in reconstituting a centrifuge enrichment program.”
Lest we forget, Saddam’s weapons program spanned over 20 years and was designed from its origin to be concealable. Through terror and compartmentalization, the huge program could be broken into smaller, more easily hidden pieces. ]
[David Kay interview report:
]
[Marty:Hussein was a terrible, inhumane bastard, but he actually did NOT put up with Islamic extremism in his country.]
Actually, Saddam did put up with and maintained liason with Islamic extremists, including Ansar al Islam, an Al Quaeda group which had its headquarters in Kurdistan and the survivors of which are still operating in Iraq.
There is substantial evidence (some of it unearthed by journalists digging through papers) of long term cooperation between Al Quaeda and the Hussein regime. Furthermore, he strongly supported Islamic extremists in Palestine, and payed thousands of dollars reward for every suicide bomber in Israel… but hey, I guess since he was only killing Israeli’s and American Jews in Israel, that’s no threat to America so we shouldn’t care about it!
It is a liberal trope that since Saddam was a secularist, he would not cooperate with Islamists. But this has been soundly disproven.
Sure, he didn’t put up with any extremists which might endanger his regime, but that is not the same as saying that he didn’t have mutual interests with Al Quaeda and viewed them as allies against the US.
[Marty:He was not linked with 9/11 as much as the conservatives would like to fool the country into believing.]
Citation from significant conservative please?
We haven’t tried to convince the country that he was linked to 9/11, because the evidence is very weak. We have mentioned what connections might exist (see below). He might have been, but probably wasn’t. If the conservatives were so quick to “fool the country” about this, why did the Bush administration go to so much trouble to counter the Czech government’s repeated assertion that the leader of the 9-11 plot met with Iraqi intelligence agents?
Bush: “we’ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th.”
But of course, the important issue is the relationship of the Iraqi regime with terrorists, especially Al Quaeda. A National Review article (from a declared right wing source, but it’s the facts that count) points out:
The article also gives a detailed and balanced account of controversial and suspect evidence of meetings between Attah and Iraqi agents.
[Marty:And if you want to talk about sabotaging U.S. self defense, remember that it was Republican administrations (Reagan and Bush Sr) who had the CIA train Al-Quaeda operatives to fight against the Soviets. ]
Actually, they were not Al Quaeda operatives. They were guerilla fighters against Russian occupation. Certainly *some* of them became Al Quaeda. I suppose we would have been better off not fighting the USSR? This battle was one of the major factors that ended one of the most dangerous and ruthless tyrannies in history – a tyranny that had thousands of nuclear weapons *already* pointed at the US. This is hardly “sabotaging US self defense!”
Contrary to liberal fantasies, sometimes international affairs are complex and messy. And there are side effects, sometimes unanticipated. I don’t remember any liberals warning us that those rebels would turn against us later!
[Marty:Our government, under Reagan and Bush, gave the Iraqis arms to fight against Iran -- arms later used against U.S. soldiers in the first Gulf War]
Almost all Iraqi weapons were Russian and French. And again, who were the Iraqis fighting? Who was the threat against the US at the time? It was the Islamofascist regime in Iran, installed with the help of Jimmy Carter. The regime which was, and still is, the largest supporter of terrorism in the world. The regime which we may have to go after next, if the multilateral world can’t get its act together to stop their nuclear program. I expect to hear the left howling with rage if any suggestion is made of denuclearizing Iran by force.
The US was trying to maintain regional stability by giving aid to both sides in a way that forced the war to stalemate. It worked. How many of those weapons were used against our troops? Hint: not very many, if any.
Was it an amazing foreign policy blunder to do this, or a calculated risk in realpolitik. I argue the latter. Our aid to Iraq harmed Iran a lot more than it harmed us.
[Marty: I'm sorry... We won the war? ...]
Okay, Marty, on this one I’m going to challenge your knowledge of history. Please list the crucial events in the Vietnam war, starting with the Tet Offensive in 1968 and ending with the capture of Saigon in 1975, and explain the factors that led from the first to the latter. This should be amusing. I’ll give you two hints: (1) After Tet, the VC was no longer a significant force in Vietnam, and (2) 1972 Christmas bombing.
Go for it! I lived it. I studied it. And I remember it.
[Marty: And yes, Ann Coulter is an idiot...]
No, Marty, she’s not an idiot any more than Noam Chomsky is an idiot. She is an ideologue, and as I have said before, she uses provocative language and overgeneralizations.
As far as she being everything that is wrong with the political debate in this country… no, she is the right’s counter to the multitude on the left who debate her way. She is the emotional side of the debate. She is the one who dares to say things that are provocative… to take the most provocative interpretation of real events and real behavior.
It would be nice if we could have civil debates in this country, but the left has made sure they are rare. The vituperation suffered by conservatives for the last 30 years has been amazing. If it were used against blacks, it would be hate speech. So we enjoy it when Ann returns the favor. It is pleasurable for us to hear someone who is smart and witty and gives the left what they give us. Does she advance the Republican Party – probably only in terms of rallying the troops and giving us huge amounts of documented material we can use, mixed in with outrageous, witty accusations.,
You want to hear liberal hate speech, listen to Al Franken. He’s a comedian and he isn’t even funny any more, because he hates Bush so much. But I guess its okay to call people idiots and fools and accuse folks of putting money ahead of their country’s interests (a really vile accusation that has been used against Bush continuously… usually in the form “it’s about the ooiiiiilllll”). Look at the treatment conservative speakers get at Universities – they are shouted down and called all sorts of terrible names.
Liberal Statements on Iraq
From The Weekly Standard:
From Area Studies Center:
One of the nice things about blogging is that people collect stuff that’s on the record into nice summaries. I found this at Right Wing News although it also exists a bunch of other places. It gives a pretty good idea about liberal hypocrisy regarding the Battle of Iraq, 2003.
Even if you hate America, why should you leave? You will only be victimized by American Foreign Policy. Did you guy here that Ann (slutbag/telebimbo) Coulter recently had an abortion? Yep. She got knocked up by some black dude and couldn’t bare it. Shit, bitch. Keep those long (soon to be veiny) nazi legs closed.
The thing about Anne Coulter is that she remains convinced that to even suggest that the government or country could be wrong in any way is unpatriotic. The reverse is true; the truly patriotic will try and suggest improvements to the country and explain where it’s wrong despite the fact this leads to irrational slander of treachery from people like Anne Coulter. I am firmly patriotic but know that there are times when America is wrong. I think the best thing to do is to point these out in the hope they will be improved rather then irrationally defend something and blame others for trying to change the country for the better
Also she seems unable to grasp the separation of church and state. The country was founded on the principle that people have the right to choose their own religion and gov’t should stay out of it.
One more thing is that she’s a hypocrite, trying to run as a Libertarian despite not believing the principles they stand for.
Also, I am a liberal, but accept that some conservatives are decent people and I would consider voting for them. McCain and Powell are two, with one fairly decent being O’Reilly because he had the guts to question the war publicly.
The final word should be that Joseph McCarthy got away with outrages because people were scared to stand up to him and be labeled unpatriotic. I’m not saying there’s a direct parallel, people can make up their own minds.
Anne Coulter goes over the top. Her book, “Treason” went too far. “Slander” on the other hand was pretty much accurate.
On the other hand, Coulter, even with Treason, is not even coming close to the slanders continually thrown at conservatives. I’ve been a conservative for a long time, and I’ve also been involved in things where the liberal press has continuously lied (Vietnam War, for one) or covered up for the left.
So when liberals complain about Coulter, I drag out the world’s smallest violin.
I think Coulter is probably not really as far out as her books. She has a successful schtick, and that’s all it is in my opinion – a way to get attention and make money.
Is Coulter running for office? I didn’t know that. She certainly isn’t a libertarian.
Other comments…
There are right and wrong times and ways to criticize certain things about the country. The unreasonable and dishonest attacks, combined with an anti-war press bias during Vietnam are the only reason we lost that war. See here for reasoning. As far as I am concerned, Kerry forfeited whatever honor he gained on the battlefield by being a leader in that movement.
In the same way, I think the Democrat party is being highly irresponsible in the way they are attacking Bush in this war. Irresponsible in a way that threatens our very lives, and aids our enemy. The nonsense about not finding WMDs is an example – very misleading but fooling lots of folks. If Kerry wins the election and does what he promises, we will once again show the world that we do not have the endurance of will necessary to defeat our enemies.
In the case of Vietnam, the only result of the left’s betrayal was the fall of a number of countries to communism in Asia, Africa and Central America. In the case of the War on Terror, the result will be nuclear weapons or contagious biological weapons released in our cities. And the scary thing is that no presidential candidate in the Democratic Party (with the exception of Liberman) seems to have grasped the extreme gravity of the situation. Certainly Kerry hasn’t a clue. And he criticizes Bush for “Intelligence Failures” after having voted to defuned the CIA (which had already been badly damaged by Democrat Frank Church’s inquisition and Clintons executive orders). And Kerry pretends to be the friends of veterans and servicemen even though he voted against every modern weapon system now in use in Iraq.
O’Reilly, McCain and Powell, by the way, are not conservatives. O’Reilly is a big pompous blow-hard. McCain is a genuine war hero but not real smart (he is my Senator, btw, and we in Arizona know a bit about him), and Powell is an honorable moderate.
It doesn’t take guts to question the war. I have no idea why people think it does? It didn’t take guts to do it during the Vietnam War, either. I went to a couple of demonstrations for the hell of it. Hell, with the exception of Fox News, all the major TV news outlets are controlled by liberals and they just love to criticize the war.
Courage? Guts? What takes courage and guts is to fight in the war, to turn your life over to the military. Not to protest it!
What takes guts is the willingness to do what is needed in the face of WMD armed terrorists. And the Democratic party has a lousy record in that area.
Oh, BTW, McCarthy was the best thing that ever happened to the left. He did very little damage (you may not know this, but he never went after anyone but government employees, and he didn’t succeed at that). But every since then, whenever someone questions a leftist opinion, McCarthy is dragged out to silence us. It is, quite frankly, boring. It is almost as lame as the folks who drag out Hitler to silence conservatives (hint: Hitler was a socialist).
So you are complaining because one conservataive (Coulter) is labeling some folks unpatriotic. And yet the left routinely tells conservatives that we are stupid, uncaring, greedy, selfish and we like to kill people. When they say that Bush went into Iraq to aid his rich friends, they are accusing him of mass murder for profit – which is an even worse charge than being unpatriotic. But I don’t hear anyone on the left condemning that. When Noam Chomsky puts out his virulent drivel, leftists love it, even as people outside of the US read it and come to believe all sorts of wrong things about us.And
Okay, I guess McCain and Powell are not conservatives. O’Reilly I’m not so sure about. Pompous he may well be, but he is still a conservative, and I salute him for having come out and queried the Iraq war (which incidentally supporting is one of the very few conservative positions that I hold)The point I am trying to make is that not all people of one side are *good* and the other side are *bad*. Michael Moore is frankly, an idiot. He lies, misleads, is inconsistent, and does not deserve the accolades he has received. I would never vote for General Clark even if he had won the Democratic nomination.
I haven’t read either of her books, although the passages that I have seen certainly scared me.
It does not take courage to announce that you believe that we should bomb people. (Although I have come under some fire in England, where I now live, for agreeing with it.)What does take courage is to try and improve the country at the risk people calling you traitors (in the same way some liberals use the term Nazi)
There is a big difference between calling someone a Nazi/traitor and reminding us of our heritage and what happened to those unfortunate enough to be called Commies. As I understand it, if you were thought of as a Red, that was the end of your career. It doesn’t matter if it was all McCarthy, the point is that many innocent people were being given names because they dared to question the idea that the United States of America is always right. It isn’t. The fact is, that while the USA has the best system, it is not infallible. To try and improve it is the truly patriotic thing.
I think that to hold a viewpoint and admit it despite being labeled unpatriotic is brave. Not many people agree with some of the things I believe, but I argue for them nonetheless. One of them would be the fact that Hitler had the right ideas. Not about the racism, about eugenics. It makes sense not to allow the mentally disabled to breed. But it takes courage to come out and say ‘I agree with the Nazis on such-and-such an issue, and they had the right ideas’ I don’t pin others as Nazis, although if I did Anne Coulter would be at the top of my list.
It does take courage to serve in the military. And it is a little surprising that so few hawks went to war (George Bush, Limbaugh and a few others) Senator Kerry had the courage to serve in a war he did not believe in. That takes true courage and patriotism, not deciding to improve weapons systems at the cost of more and more red ink. Don’t start saying I hate the military, please!
Most talk show hosts and writers and media figures mislead people. And they do talk drivel. The only exception I can think of is Al Franken.
Joseph,
We have some agreement. Michael Moore is scum. And just because someone is on one side or the other doesn’t make them good or bad. I have friends who think like you do, and I don’t hate them or think they are bad. Mentally disabled, yes, but not bad.
I would not recommend you read “Treason” but you might want to pick up “Slander” to get an idea of how conservatives have been attacked. It is clear you have been overexposed to a very one-sided view of history.
Now, certainly some Communists were blacklisted for awhile. I don’t approve of that – I think they should have been prosecuted as foreign agents. The information which has now been made public from KGB archives and US intelligence agencies (especially the Venona decrypts) is that members of CPUSA were sworn to obey the orders of that organization, and that organization was directly controlled by the KGB. So those people were not simply exercising their right to dissent – they were active agents of a hostile foreign nation. The leader of the anti-war movement at my University, by the way, was a CPUSA member.
Notice the difference between active CPUSA members and someone who just believes in communism.
As far as red baiting… my grandmother-in-law was a Hollywood Screen Writer, a famous mystery writer, and a card carrying member of the Communist Party USA. Her last husband was another writer, also Communist. They suffered nothing. He, however, later published a lot of false information that helped misinform peoples about the Vietnam War, as a regular columnist in the LA Free Press. He was active during the blacklisting period and on into the Vietnam War.
What has happened, and you have fallen for it, is that efforts by witting agents of a foreign power have been turned into heroes by the folks on the left, who control the liberal arts world, Hollywood and most news media.
Gigantic myths have been created. And people like yourself have been led to believe that there was no valid reason to worry about these people, and that anti-Communism was some sort of disease that permeated the US for a long time. McCarthy, who was really a minor and short-lived character in this, has his name tied to many things that happened more than 5 years before he did anything.
You may not be aware of it, but since that time conservatives have been blacklisted in Hollywood. There are many conservatives working there who are afraid to voice their opinion, because they know that is enough to cost them their jobs. Only when the get to be big enough earners that they make huge amounts of money for the movers and shakers of Hollywood can they express their opinions.
Very few people were falsely accused, by the way. McCarthy did some of that, and the only result was that he was driven out of office.
As far as bravery goes, I don’t think anything is brave unless one is in real risk. Flying an F102 is brave. Making your opinion known is not brave unless it places you in jeopardy. It takes absolutely no bravery to criticise the war in Iraq, for example. None. Zero. Zip. Nada.
Today, brave is voicing a conservative opinion on a college campus. Today, brave is taking a course from a leftist (and they dominate colleges in the liberal arts) and not writing politically correct thoughts, knowing you will get a worse grade as a result. Today, being brave is joining the military and fighting for the rights of people like yourself to question the government.
As far as Kerry goes, I do not consider him patriotic. If he didn’t believe in the war, the honorable thing to do would have been to protest it (like my friends did). Instead, if we are to believe his apologists, he chose to go in, kill people who he didn’t believe should be killed, and then at the very first opportunity, leave the war zone and come back and slander all of those he fought with, and then finally run as a war hero.
Courage? Yes, to go into combat. To criticize the war at that time? Not hardly. I don’t know your age, but I was already out of the Navy when Kerry was doing his thing, I knew protest leaders, I even went to protests. There was no danger. Heck, I had a secret/crypto security clearance when I went to one of the protests, and nothing happened to it. I can’t think of any protestors that exhibited bravery. None.
The easiest thing in the world to do was protest the war. Everyone was doing it. And they were nasty, very nasty, towards the country that gave them the freedom to do so. And they were nasty to those who fought in Vietnam (ask anyone who DEROS’ed at Oakland). Ask the families of dead soldiers who received nasty phone calls from “protesters” shortly after they found out their loved ones had died. That’s brave?
As far as hawks going to war… why should it be surprising that so few went to war? After all, only 2,500,000 people went in-country in Vietnam, and another 500,000 or so were offshore. Over a period of about 8 years, that’s not a very high percentage of eligible people. Furthermore, spending time in the service delayed one’s education. So the people who didn’t get in tended to get ahead in their professions.
Finally, I should point out that a lot of the “hawks” are neo-cons – which means that during the Vietnam War they were protesters and anti-war, not hawks. They changed their political views after seeing the consequences of betraying Vietnam, and hearing other protest leaders denying those consequences and attacking their own (like Joan Baez)who had the courage to speak against the anti-war orthodoxy and point out the atrocities that resulted from the fall of Vietnam. Jane Fonda, Kerry’s supporter, condemned Baez for “attacking a socialist country” and read her out of the movement!
Let’s address a couple of other points.
You mention Kerry’s votes against weapons systems. He didn’t vote not to improve them, he voted not to implement them. And that was beyond foolish. We needed those weapons systems (many of whom were proposed by Jimmy Carter, by the way), and they have given us the power to defend ourselves while doing minimal damage to civilians.
Without those systems, we would have lost a huge number of lives in Gulf War I, and probably had to kill 100,000 or more civilians. After 9-11 we would have had to invade Afghanistan in force, costing a huge amount of money and lives. Same with the latest Iraq war.
Now you may think it is red ink poorly spent. You are provably wrong. At the time, we were facing military challenges by the USSR and China. Since that time we have had to intervene in the middle east.
Furthermore, our weapons buildup has been cited by Gorbachev and others as a critical part of defeating the USSR and freeing hundreds of millions from tyranny.
It is also interesting that the only talk show host you like is Al Franken. I find Al Franken to be an evil and vile man. He doesn’t criticize, he vilifies. He has a mean, mean spirit. You can listen to Rush Limbaugh for a long time and not hear that sort of trash. You can hear Rush talking to people like yourself, and being respectful as he disagrees. Rush isn’t full of hate, but he is very concerned about the direction our country is going.
And you say that most talk show hosts and writers and media figures mislead people. If that’s so, how do you know what you know? Where do you get your information? From a no longer funny comedian named Al Franken? Give me a break. Did you learn it in school? Again, give me a break.
Oh, and as to not hating the military. No, maybe you don’t. You just want them to fight with out-of-date technology (i.e. presumably you approve of Kerry’s votes against all of our modern weapons systems), forcing them to have much greater losses as they are forced to create much greater damage. They might have had to go nuclear to stop Saddam. Would that have been a good outcome? I’m sure the military members really feels loved by people like you. It reminds me of the idiots who say “I support our troops but oppose the war.” Excuse me? That doesn’t work any better now than it did in 1968.
And remember that Kerry also wanted to destroy our intelligence agencies – you know, the ones he now criticizes for not getting everything right?
You can’t have your cake and eat it too, but Kerry will try. He is a man of no real ideas, no convictions, but a tremendous ambition.
George Bush didn’t live his life wanting to be president. He didn’t consider it for many years.
Kerry always wanted to be a politician. His actions in High School indicated that. You might also be interested to know that when he came back from Vietnam, he didn’t voice anti-war sentiments. It wasn’t until he failed in a political effort, and was recruited by the anti-war crowd that he started giving his opinion. Actually, it would be more accurate to say he didn’t give his opinion, since his entire infamous speech before the Senate was ghost-written by Bobby Kennedy’s former speech writer (but was given as if it were spontaneous).
Okay, thanks for that John. First of all, you say Rush is respectful!?! You disagree with people respectfully. I disagree with people respectfull. Rush does not. I’ll assume that you didn’t know that during the Clinton presidency, Rush stood up and said, on TV, “Everyone knows the Clintons have a cat. Socks is the White House cat. But did you know there is a White House dog?” With that, Limbaugh held up a picture of Chelsea Clinton, then a well-liked, 12-year-old girl whose political career at the time consisted of her grade-school civics class. There is no way that Al Franken would make fun of the looks of a 12-year-old girl. Al may well be vicious, but he makes fun of the right people. What Rush did, as far as I’m concerned, meant that everything directed his way from Franken is acceptable)
Most of my information comes from newspapers and neutral broadcasts (The BBC is state-run and is entirely agenda-free, although some people do disagree)
And it wasn’t just being ‘good’ or *bad* people. It was the fact that there are some right-wingers who lie. And there are some honest, decent, liberals (you can argue who. I would have a list which is different to most people) Anne Coulter seems to think any Democrat is wrong on everything by definition. I have never heard her express agreement or say that some liberal is getting a rough time from the press (eg John Kerry and the real slander, now revealed as lies) Most people would admit everyone is right on something. I agree with the Iraq war, and don’t like the idea of affirmative action. I accept that many conservatives believe what they are saying, and are trying to do the best for the country. I just see them as a little misguided. Anne really lays into liberals in general, as if we’re all the same. And we are not. I take every effort to distance myself from Michael Moore, who lets down the liberal cause.
I don’t actually care that much what happened in the McCarthy era. Maybe innocent people lost their jobs because they were thought of as unpatriotic and anti-American. Maybe they didn’t. But as you’re arguing about this point, I assume you agree that innocent people being branded unpatriotic is a bad thing. Therefore you will agree with me that we take every effort to ensure it does not happen. And the best way to do that is to ensure that labels given by people like Anne Coulter do not stick.
Ok, so we assume that the weapons build-up during the 1980s was vital in the USSR’s collapse. That was the 80s. This is 2004. You’re comparing apples and oranges. The Iraqi regime did not have new, top-of-the-line weapons. It could easily have been defeated with much less investment in the military. $100 billion a year could improve health care. It could educate the nation’s children. It could go towards the budget deficit (Bush, by the way, is almost entirely responsible for it) And the military would not have had to go nuclear to stop Saddam. It might have taken a little longer, but would still have been much more cost-effective.
I wasn’t born during Vietnam actually. But I do think that almost anyone can risk his life for a war he believes in. Well, not anyone, but it takes a lot more courage to fight for something you don’t believe because you love your country and will support it even if it’s wrong. And when Kerry came back from the war, he knew enough about it to criticise.
Maybe conservatives are blacklisted in Hollywood, I don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me as I can’t think of many actors who have expressed conservative viewpoints. I had assumed that most actors weren’t intelligent enough to come up with their own opinions, but blacklisting conservatives is wrong. Also, it is brave to express conservative opinions when you know that you can be marked down for it. But be fair. Accept that if that shows bravery, then it also takes bravery to stand up to Coulter and be labeled unpatriotic.
I support the war. But I entirely understand those who are opposed to it for moral reasons but still think that if it’s going to happen, it is best for as few American troops to die as possible, and that they do well. Please tell me that if you were anti-war, you would still want the USA to win?
I don’t hate the military. But I do think that when millions of people are living below the poverty line, there is a better way to spend money than on new and better ways to kill people
Maybe the reason Bush didn’t plan to be President is because he had a drink problem and lacked any direction to his life? I do think he’s a smart guy, but there’s a very good reason for him not wanting to be a politician when he was younger.
As a final word, I think you have a good point about the hawks not going to war. Most people are right on at least something. Please pass this on to Anne Coulter if you ever meet her.
One incident, for which Rush genuinely apologized. I saw both the incident and the apology. One incident out of 16 years of national broadcasting. And nothing compared to what Jay Leno did and does, btw.
Do you ever listen to Rush. He certainly makes fun of people, and he does it in clever ways. But he is respectful in a way that Al Franken could never understand.
What Al Franken does, regularly, is say things about conservatives that are extremely insulting and false. I continue to consider him a disgusting slimeball.
Consider this behavior:
Wise-cracking funnyman Al Franken yesterday body-slammed a demonstrator to the ground after the man tried to shout down Gov. Howard Dean.
The tussle left Franken’s trademark thick-rim glasses broken, but he said he was not injured.
Franken – who seemed in a state of shock and out of breath after the incident – was helped back to his feet by several people who watched the tussle. Police arrived soon after.
“I got down low and took his legs out,” said Franken afterwards.
Or this disgraceful stunt that he pulled:WASHINGTON — Comedian and liberal activist Al Franken (search) has written an apology letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft after asking him for his personal story about remaining abstinent before marriage.
Franken, a satirist and former writer for “Saturday Night Live,” admitted in a letter last month that he deliberately tried to mislead Ashcroft when he sought personal information from him.
Then there’s his respect, attacking his opponent’s appearance in the name of his book:“Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot And Other Observations.”
If most of your information comes from “newspapers and neutral broadcasts(BBC)” then you are not getting neutral information. In the United States, most newspapers are liberal. And it is well known that the BBC, which used to be the most respected broadcasting organization in the world, is now so biased that British sailors during the Gulf War asked that it be removed from the internal ship Cable TV system because it was so biased. This is the same BBC whose chairman just resigned after the Hutton Report came out and discredited the BBC’s reporting and editorial functions.
Sorry, those sources are not too good. If you want to know about Rush, listen to him! I certainly don’t agree with everything he says, but I do know how he says it.
Now that I have informed you about what really happened in the period, you are suddenly not interested in the “McCarthy era.” Era? McCarthy was a short term phenomenon!
An