anyone who believes passionately in ANYTHING should fight to keep his views dominant. Isn’t that what you’re doing?

Not if my views are inconsistent with reality.

THEY ARE DOMINANT! Your faulty reasoning – like much of the reasoning from the right – is largely the REASON our views are dominant. Why are you wasting your time trying to argue for the benefits of the Vietnam War? No one on the left is trying to “re-write history” in order to make the USA “look bad.” The government of our country is supposed to be by, for and of the people (a quote from a Republican president, by the way.) People are imperfect. People make mistakes. The Vietnam War was a mistake. That is not a “liberal” point of view. It is a historical fact: far more ill was done than good by the U.S. invasion of Vietnam BY ANY MEASURE.

No, they are not dominant, except in certain circles (mainstream media, academia, and east/west rich folks).

As for Vietnam, the point of my disagreement has nothing to do with the larger issue of whether Vietnam was good policy, and everything to do with how the US was painted as an unusually evil nation, with unusually evil soldiers, by the VVAW and some others in the anti-war movement. They did (and do) that two ways: (1) making a big deal about the normal horrors of war – as if America was responsible for creating that); and by making it seem (quite intentionally) as if atrocities on the part of the US were both widespread, common and tacitly supported by the highers up.

It’s a disgusting tactic, because it smears the US, and it does it with lies. The left is very consistent in its smearing of our country, even as they love to live in it. They were terrible about Iraq, trashing a military that took more care than any in history to avoid atrocitiey. But, of course, they “support the soldier.”

Right. Ask the soldiers what they think about it and they didn’t feel supported at all!

First of all, anyone who believes passionately in ANYTHING should fight to keep his views dominant. Isn’t that what you’re doing?

Secondly, we’re not FIGHTING to keep our views dominant. THEY ARE DOMINANT! Your faulty reasoning – like much of the reasoning from the right – is largely the REASON our views are dominant. Why are you wasting your time trying to argue for the benefits of the Vietnam War? No one on the left is trying to “re-write history” in order to make the USA “look bad.” The government of our country is supposed to be by, for and of the people (a quote from a Republican president, by the way.) People are imperfect. People make mistakes. The Vietnam War was a mistake. That is not a “liberal” point of view. It is a historical fact: far more ill was done than good by the U.S. invasion of Vietnam BY ANY MEASURE.

The United States is the best country governed by the best possible government structure ever devised in human history so far. That is not a “conservative” position or a “liberal” position. It is a historical fact as well.

Get over yourself.

More important, since our “leaders” kept us from winning the war, and then when we finally did, they pulled the rug out from under the South Vietnamese, generations of Vietnamese continue to live under the yoke of communist totalitarianism.