NationStates Jolt Archive

shamelessly lifted from the poor man institute's "2006 wank of the year" (http://www.thepoorman.net/2007/01/16/2006-wank-of-the-year/)


Theodore Beale
World Net Daily (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2627559&mesg_id=2627775), May 15, 2006:

If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn’t possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don’t speak English and are not integrated into American society.


Shelby Steele
The Wall Street Journal (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008318), May 2, 2006:

Certainly since Vietnam, America has increasingly practiced a policy of minimalism and restraint in war. And now this unacknowledged policy, which always makes a space for the enemy, has us in another long and rather passionless war against a weak enemy.

Why this new minimalism in war?

It began, I believe, in a late-20th-century event that transformed the world more profoundly than the collapse of communism: the world-wide collapse of white supremacy as a source of moral authority, political legitimacy and even sovereignty.


Ralph Peters
The NY Post (http://www.californiarepublic.org/archives/Columns/Peters/20060728PetersBack.html), July 28, 2006:

Let’s raise another “impossible” issue: If the Arab world can’t sustain one rule-of-law democracy - after we gave Iraq a unique opportunity - might it be a useful strategic outcome to watch Arabs and Persians, Shia and Sunni, slaughtering each other again? Just don’t try to referee the death match.


Hugh Hewitt
Radio show (http://blogoland.blogspot.com/2006/03/hugh-hewitt-terror-warrior.html), March 29, 2006:

Time Baghdad correspondant Michael Ware: Let’s look at it this way. I mean, you’re sitting back in a comfortable radio studio, far from the realities of this war.

Hugh Hewitt: Actually, Michael, let me interrupt you.

MW: If anyone has a right…

HH: Michael, one second.

MW: If anyone has a right to complain, that’s what…

HH: I’m sitting in the Empire State Building. Michael, I’m sitting in the Empire State Building, which has been in the past, and could be again, a target. Because in downtown Manhattan, it’s not comfortable, although it’s a lot safer than where you are, people always are three miles away from where the jihadis last spoke in America. So that’s…civilians have a stake in this. Although you are on the front line, this was the front line four and a half years ago.


Glenn Reynolds
Reason magazine interview (http://reason.com/news/show/116276.html), March 17, 2006

3. What should the U.S. do in Iraq now?

Win.




so, anyone know of anything that can top those?

so, anyone know of anything that can top those?

This guy makes me sad:

http://www.news.com.au/sundayheraldsun/columnist/0,,25717,00.html

(Probably not up to the above standards, though)

EDIT - but here's a good pick http://www.news.com.au/sundayheraldsun/story/0,21985,20770388-25717,00.html


STILL cheering the clobbering that President George Bush got in last week's mid-term elections? Then check who is cheering with you.

This guy makes me sad:

http://www.news.com.au/sundayheraldsun/columnist/0,,25717,00.html

(Probably not up to the above standards, though)

EDIT - but here's a good pick http://www.news.com.au/sundayheraldsun/story/0,21985,20770388-25717,00.html

lol, old Andrew Bolt. How many times have Media Watch kicked his ass? I recall him equating greens with nazis.

lol, old Andrew Bolt. How many times have Media Watch kicked his ass? I recall him equating greens with nazis.

Yeah. And we should totally re-appropriate certain lands under native title and build nuclear waste dumps on them.

Shelby Steele
The Wall Street Journal (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008318), May 2, 2006:

Certainly since Vietnam, America has increasingly practiced a policy of minimalism and restraint in war. And now this unacknowledged policy, which always makes a space for the enemy, has us in another long and rather passionless war against a weak enemy.

Why this new minimalism in war?

It began, I believe, in a late-20th-century event that transformed the world more profoundly than the collapse of communism: the world-wide collapse of white supremacy as a source of moral authority, political legitimacy and even sovereignty.

now, for the true head-a-sploding factoid.

http://media.hoover.org/images/steele_shelby_biophoto.jpg
shelby steele

so, anyone know of anything that can top those?
Surely:

Bush: ‘We’ve Never Been Stay The Course’ (http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/22/bush-stay-the-course/)

White House, Joint Chiefs At Odds on Adding Troops (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/18/AR2006121801477.html)

Annual winner or is it anal winner?

Let me guess...a thread for the sole purpose of attacking conservatives? That's original.:rolleyes:

How interesting that you consider quoting them IN CONTEXT to be an attack.

If any of the positions expressed were in the least bit defensible, I would love to hear why you think so.

Let me guess...a thread for the sole purpose of attacking conservatives? That's original.:rolleyes:
You can never have enough of those. :p

Let me guess...a thread for the sole purpose of attacking conservatives? That's original.:rolleyes:

how can this be an attack, as i merely quoted their own damn words back at them? be proud of your final solution proposing, white supremacy praising comrades!

Let me guess...a thread for the sole purpose of attacking conservatives? That's original.:rolleyes:

Think of it as " Rightwingers say the darnest things ".

Think of it as " Rightwingers say the darnest things ".

Maybe it's me ... but I don't really understand the point of threads like this. Is it "let's laugh at the racist conservatives" or "see, conservatives are racist?"

And the period goes before the quote mark, silly.

Maybe it's me ... but I don't really understand the point of threads like this. Is it "let's laugh at the racist conservatives" or "see, conservatives are racist?"

as soon as these people are completely marginalized and laughed out of the room every time they open their mouths (rather than elected to high office or given mainstream media platforms or whatever), then we can stop constantly reminding everyone that they deserve to be.

And the period goes before the quote mark, silly.

not if the thing in the quotation isn't a full sentence

Wrong. Unless you're one of those weird British people.

luckily for us, language is a living thing and we can fix american idiocies just by doing so. i haven't used 'proper' americanism in quotes since grade school.

not if the thing in the quotation isn't a full sentence

Wrong. Unless you're one of those weird British people.

luckily for us, language is a living thing and we can fix american idiocies just by doing so. i haven't used 'proper' americanism in quotes since grade school.

Blasphemey.

Maybe it's me ... but I don't really understand the point of threads like this. Is it "let's laugh at the racist conservatives" or "see, conservatives are racist?"

And the period goes before the quote mark, silly.



Both...Even with the fact most are not racists.

Let me guess...a thread for the sole purpose of attacking conservatives? That's original.:rolleyes:
Think of it more as being, "A thread for the sole purpose of quoting right-wing commentators actual opinions and beliefs."
If you find that hard to stomach, you're not the only one. Like you, I find these right-wing opinions dispciable and obscene. Good thing neither of us support such right-wing politics, right?

Bush: ‘We’ve Never Been Stay The Course’ (http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/22/bush-stay-the-course/)

You win the thread. :)

Ralph Peters
The NY Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/08/AR2006050801323.html), July 28, 2006:

Let’s raise another “impossible” issue: If the Arab world can’t sustain one rule-of-law democracy - after we gave Iraq a unique opportunity - might it be a useful strategic outcome to watch Arabs and Persians, Shia and Sunni, slaughtering each other again? Just don’t try to referee the death match.


The link directs to the wrong site, so I can't see the quote in context, but it looks like this is a case of a reasonable position being expressed in such a way as to make it sound extreme.

He's basically saying that the US ought to stay out of the middle east once the Iraq war is over. From what I understood, this was a position common throughout the world, particularly among (but not limited to) those on the left of the political spectrum. I think it is a good policy.

His prediction that the absence of American forces in the mideast will result in a bloodbath is a little over the top, but the idea that a country ought to let its enemies (and many in the mideast should be counted among America's enemies) fight amongst themselves is hardly new. It seems like a pretty good policy, when it is applicable.

(Just to make things clear, I do not think any of the other positions are defensible. Ignorant to the point of being dangerous would be a better way of describing them.)

You win the thread. :)


What a great feat...Does he get a medal?

as soon as these people are completely marginalized and laughed out of the room every time they open their mouths (rather than elected to high office or given mainstream media platforms or whatever), then we can stop constantly reminding everyone that they deserve to be.

Agreed, as long as you include the racists and white supremists of all political stripes (particularly the lefties of the "poor benighted darkies", "only whites/right-wingers/Republicans can be racists", and "any black conservative is an Uncle Tom", as at least the openly racist are being honest).

BTW, here's a very interesting data set:
Quick Table: GSS 1972-2004 Cumulative Datafile
Results: Political Views - Liberal/Conservative BY Race (Percents)


Black TOTAL
EXTREMELY LIBERAL 4.7 4.7
LIBERAL 16.3 16.3
SLIGHTLY LIBERAL 14.9 14.9
MODERATE 38.0 38.0
SLGHTLY CONSERVATIVE 12.4 12.4
CONSERVATIVE 10.0 10.0
EXTRMLY CONSERVATIVE 3.6 3.6
Total Percent 100.0 100.0
(Total N) (4,933) (4,933)
http://sda.berkeley.edu:8080/quicktables/quickoptions.do;jsessionid=45869F519BED3A1234740E2D991A6C26

Surprise, surprise, ethnically black Americans reflect basically the same breakdown in poltical views as the population at large. Imagine that... :D

Agreed, as long as you include the racists and white supremists of all political stripes (particularly the lefties of the "poor benighted darkies", "only whites/right-wingers/Republicans can be racists", and "any black conservative is an Uncle Tom", as at least the openly racist are being honest).

BTW, here's a very interesting data set:

http://sda.berkeley.edu:8080/quicktables/quickoptions.do;jsessionid=45869F519BED3A1234740E2D991A6C26

Surprise, surprise, ethnically black Americans reflect basically the same breakdown in poltical views as the population at large. Imagine that... :D



That link didn't work. But it seems a bit odd anyway.

The link directs to the wrong site, so I can't see the quote in context

fixed now

and, fuck, that article is full of gems

One other thing our president should tell Iraq's top leaders: "If you fail your country, the United States will be embarrassed. But we'll remain the greatest power on earth. Few, if any, of you will survive the catastrophe you brought upon your people."

classy, real classy

That link didn't work. But it seems a bit odd anyway.

Ah, thanks for the heads up.
Try this then: http://sda.berkeley.edu:8080/quicktables/quicksetoptions.do;jsessionid=48747F5A3D62CEF9C818628F101394D8?reportKey=gss04%3A0
You'll have to select "Political Views - Liberal/Conservative" from the "Select the politics/voting variable you want to analyze" menu and race fromn the "Select the breakdown that you want - by" menu.

And why would it seem odd?

Oh, and Free Soviets, did you actually read the Shelby Steele article? That quote certainly seems to have been taken out of context to me, as he certainly wasn't saying that white supremacy was a good thing, but rather that what followed in it's collapse was bad as well.

Here's a bit more context for you:
It began, I believe, in a late-20th-century event that transformed the world more profoundly than the collapse of communism: the world-wide collapse of white supremacy as a source of moral authority, political legitimacy and even sovereignty. This idea had organized the entire world, divided up its resources, imposed the nation-state system across the globe, and delivered the majority of the world's population into servitude and oppression. After World War II, revolutions across the globe, from India to Algeria and from Indonesia to the American civil rights revolution, defeated the authority inherent in white supremacy, if not the idea itself. And this defeat exacted a price: the West was left stigmatized by its sins. Today, the white West--like Germany after the Nazi defeat--lives in a kind of secular penitence in which the slightest echo of past sins brings down withering condemnation. There is now a cloud over white skin where there once was unquestioned authority.

I call this white guilt not because it is a guilt of conscience but because people stigmatized with moral crimes--here racism and imperialism--lack moral authority and so act guiltily whether they feel guilt or not.
Europeans are utterly confounded by the swelling Muslim populations in their midst. America has run from its own mounting immigration problem for decades, and even today, after finally taking up the issue, our government seems entirely flummoxed. White guilt is a vacuum of moral authority visited on the present by the shames of the past. In the abstract it seems a slight thing, almost irrelevant, an unconvincing proposition. Yet a society as enormously powerful as America lacks the authority to ask its most brilliant, wealthy and superbly educated minority students to compete freely for college admission with poor whites who lack all these things. Just can't do it.

Whether the problem is race relations, education, immigration or war, white guilt imposes so much minimalism and restraint that our worst problems tend to linger and deepen. Our leaders work within a double bind. If they do what is truly necessary to solve a problem--win a war, fix immigration--they lose legitimacy.

To maintain their legitimacy, they practice the minimalism that makes problems linger. What but minimalism is left when you are running from stigmatization as a "unilateralist cowboy"? And where is the will to truly regulate the southern border when those who ask for this are slimed as bigots? This is how white guilt defines what is possible in America. You go at a problem until you meet stigmatization, then you retreat into minimalism.

Possibly white guilt's worst effect is that it does not permit whites--and nonwhites--to appreciate something extraordinary: the fact that whites in America, and even elsewhere in the West, have achieved a truly remarkable moral transformation. One is forbidden to speak thus, but it is simply true. There are no serious advocates of white supremacy in America today, because whites see this idea as morally repugnant. If there is still the odd white bigot out there surviving past his time, there are millions of whites who only feel goodwill toward minorities.
(source - article quoted in OP)

And a bit more, from elsewhere, to further counter the suggestion that the author is pro-white supremacy:
In attempting to answer these questions, we must acknowledge one of the most profound achievements in recent human history: the death of white supremacy. Here was an event far more world-altering than the collapse of communism, and yet, out of a truly extraordinary historical blindness, it has gone utterly unnoticed. Possibly it was an event too conspicuous to see.

Many believe that it is racist for whites to say white supremacy is dead, and that it is Uncle Tomism for blacks to say it. But it is dead nevertheless. Once a legitimate authority with dominion over all the resources and peoples of the world, it is today universally seen as one of history's greatest evils. It is dead today because it has no authority anywhere in the world and no legitimacy out of which to impose itself. It was defeated by revolutions in the last half of the 20th century that spanned the globe from India to Algeria to the United States. It was defeated by the people who had suffered it. And even if it survives in some quarters as an idea, as a speculation, it now stigmatizes anyone associated with it to the point of ruin.

When Richards blasted forth with the "N-word" at a comedy club, his language met with universal condemnation. Today's acts of racism play out within an American society obsessed with purging itself of racism, a society that measures its very legitimacy by its intolerance for racism. When I was growing up in the last decade of segregation, even violent acts of racism were no threat to American legitimacy. When Richards said to his hecklers, "Fifty years ago we would have hung you up by your feet," he was longing for the days of my childhood, when blacks would fear to heckle a white comic — a time when violence enforced a much larger pattern of black subjugation. But Richards' hecklers only laughed at him. The difference between the two eras is the death of white supremacy.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-steele23dec23,0,1574047.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

White Black Other TOTAL

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EXTREMELY LIBERAL 2.2 4.7 2.9 2.6
LIBERAL 10.5 16.3 15.0 11.4
SLIGHTLY LIBERAL 13.0 14.9 14.1 13.2
MODERATE 38.8 38.0 39.5 38.7
SLGHTLY CONSERVATIVE 17.4 12.4 14.2 16.6
CONSERVATIVE 15.3 10.0 11.3 14.5
EXTRMLY CONSERVATIVE 2.9 3.6 3.0 3.0

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total Percent 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
(Total N) (31,529) (4,933) (1,298) (37,760)

shamelessly lifted from the poor man institute's "2006 wank of the year" (http://www.thepoorman.net/2007/01/16/2006-wank-of-the-year/)


Theodore Beale
World Net Daily (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2627559&mesg_id=2627775), May 15, 2006:

If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn’t possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don’t speak English and are not integrated into American society.


Shelby Steele
The Wall Street Journal (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008318), May 2, 2006:

Certainly since Vietnam, America has increasingly practiced a policy of minimalism and restraint in war. And now this unacknowledged policy, which always makes a space for the enemy, has us in another long and rather passionless war against a weak enemy.

Why this new minimalism in war?

It began, I believe, in a late-20th-century event that transformed the world more profoundly than the collapse of communism: the world-wide collapse of white supremacy as a source of moral authority, political legitimacy and even sovereignty.


http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/images/ShootingSelfInFoot.png

This guy makes me sad:

http://www.news.com.au/sundayheraldsun/columnist/0,,25717,00.html

(Probably not up to the above standards, though)

EDIT - but here's a good pick http://www.news.com.au/sundayheraldsun/story/0,21985,20770388-25717,00.html

Andrew Bolt makes me grind my teeth in frustration. :headbang:

Andrew Bolt makes me grind my teeth in frustration. :headbang:

As I said, he just makes me sad. :(

The abundance of people who agree with him doesn't help things either....

Glenn Reynolds
Reason magazine interview, March 17, 2006

3. What should the U.S. do in Iraq now?

Win.



This is a problem, how?

The thing about White Supremacy clearly isn't praise. It's just stating the historical fact that White Supremacy used to be a point of moral, legal and political justification, (which is true, read Rudyard Kipling, or look at the actions of any European Empire), and that, at some point during the 20th Century, that collapsed. And that that collapse is one of many causes for the world's current situation. That's not demogoguery, that's just history.

EDIT: Beaten to it...

As I said, he just makes me sad. :(

The abundance of people who agree with him doesn't help things either....

That's the most frustrating thing about him. That & his smug, mock-innocent face.

That's the most frustrating thing about him. That & his smug, mock-innocent face.

You should hear him speak. I had to go to a function last year where he was a guest speaker - he has the most irritatingly toff accent on the planet. The air was so thick with smug that it was hard to breathe. (see what I did there?)

You should hear him speak. I had to go to a function last year where he was a guest speaker - he has the most irritatingly toff accent on the planet. The air was so thick with smug that it was hard to breathe. (see what I did there?)

I've never seen him speak live, but I've seen him on the TV plenty of times.


Edit: What was the function & why were you attending?

Edit: What was the function & why were you attending?

It was for one of my university classes, and it was hosted by the UN. It was a model UN thingy as well as a discussion forum on issues related to multiculturalism. It was some sick bastard's idea to put him as a guest speaker, because i'm sure you can imagine his opinions on the topic. :P

It was for one of my university classes, and it was hosted by the UN. It was a model UN thingy as well as a discussion forum on issues related to multiculturalism. It was some sick bastard's idea to put him as a guest speaker, because i'm sure you can imagine his opinions on the topic. :P

I bet whoever suggested him was pissing themselves laughing. :D

Let me guess...a thread for the sole purpose of attacking conservatives? That's original.:rolleyes:

Conservatives aren't the problem. Assholes are the problem.

For instance, I, a liberal, take great joy in making fun of Michael Moore.

This is a problem, how?It's a problem because there's nothing for America to 'win'. Unless you're talking about the US stealing from the Iraqi peoples, in which case 'winning' is neither desirable, nor the right word.

It's a problem because there's nothing for America to 'win'.

Says who?

Last time I checked, America's official objective was to reduce the levels of violence and to establish a democracy in Iraq.

Since the war is not over, I don't quite see how one can say America has 'lost'.

I bet whoever suggested him was pissing themselves laughing. :D

I know. We all realised that we'd been played. :p

Says who?Sane and/or honest people.

Since the war is not over, I don't quite see how one can say America has 'lost'.The war is over. The occupatio isn't.

Again, unless the American objective is to steal shit, there's no winning or losing involved.

If you disagree, kindly explain what it is you think America can win or lose.

shamelessly lifted from the poor man institute's "2006 wank of the year" (http://www.thepoorman.net/2007/01/16/2006-wank-of-the-year/)


Theodore Beale
World Net Daily (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2627559&mesg_id=2627775), May 15, 2006:

If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn’t possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don’t speak English and are not integrated into American society.


Shelby Steele
The Wall Street Journal (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008318), May 2, 2006:

Certainly since Vietnam, America has increasingly practiced a policy of minimalism and restraint in war. And now this unacknowledged policy, which always makes a space for the enemy, has us in another long and rather passionless war against a weak enemy.

Why this new minimalism in war?

It began, I believe, in a late-20th-century event that transformed the world more profoundly than the collapse of communism: the world-wide collapse of white supremacy as a source of moral authority, political legitimacy and even sovereignty.


Ralph Peters
The NY Post (http://www.californiarepublic.org/archives/Columns/Peters/20060728PetersBack.html), July 28, 2006:

Let’s raise another “impossible” issue: If the Arab world can’t sustain one rule-of-law democracy - after we gave Iraq a unique opportunity - might it be a useful strategic outcome to watch Arabs and Persians, Shia and Sunni, slaughtering each other again? Just don’t try to referee the death match.


Hugh Hewitt
Radio show (http://blogoland.blogspot.com/2006/03/hugh-hewitt-terror-warrior.html), March 29, 2006:

Time Baghdad correspondant Michael Ware: Let’s look at it this way. I mean, you’re sitting back in a comfortable radio studio, far from the realities of this war.

Hugh Hewitt: Actually, Michael, let me interrupt you.

MW: If anyone has a right…

HH: Michael, one second.

MW: If anyone has a right to complain, that’s what…

HH: I’m sitting in the Empire State Building. Michael, I’m sitting in the Empire State Building, which has been in the past, and could be again, a target. Because in downtown Manhattan, it’s not comfortable, although it’s a lot safer than where you are, people always are three miles away from where the jihadis last spoke in America. So that’s…civilians have a stake in this. Although you are on the front line, this was the front line four and a half years ago.


Glenn Reynolds
Reason magazine interview (http://reason.com/news/show/116276.html), March 17, 2006

3. What should the U.S. do in Iraq now?

Win.




so, anyone know of anything that can top those?

wow, they're pretty fucking shitty.


George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters in the United States. He was appointed by God.
-- Lt. Gen. William Boykin, US defense undersecretary


that one's pretty good. more here http://edkrebs.com/herb/ (its about religion in politics, but most of it seems pretty right wing to me)

Sane and/or honest people.

So everybody disagreeing with you is dishonest or insane? Cute.

The war is over. The occupatio isn't.

Are you arguing that the war in Iraq was over when America ousted Hussein?

...in this case, America has already won.

PARTY TIME!



If you disagree, kindly explain what it is you think America can win or lose.


I believe I answered this already. Winning = achieving objective of war.

This is a problem, how?

It's a problem because that's what passes for deep thinking on the internet right in the US. It's a stupidly simplistic answer to an important question and doesn't take into account that the reason we're in the shithole we're in right now is because the people in charge didn't actually think their actions through in the first place. This isn't a game of touch football on the front lawn we're talking about here--it's an invasion and occupation of a foreign land that has its own very complex and delicate set of social, economic and political traditions and yet Reynolds reduces it to "win."

So everybody disagreeing with you is dishonest or insane?In this case, yes. It has nothing to do with me, just like arguing 2+2=5 isn't dishonest or insane because I have a different opinion.Are you arguing that the war in Iraq was over when America ousted Hussein?No. The US administration & the rest of us invaders argued that. I personally wouldn't touch that kind of lunacy with a ten foot pole....in this case, America has already won.

PARTY TIME!Welcome to 2007.I believe I answered this already. Winning = achieving objective of war.You have now anyway. The fact you seem to be missing is that the occupation is an occupation, not a war. Presently the only war in Iraq is the civil war we invaders started.

"One has a stronger hand when there's more people playing your same cards."—Washington, D.C., Oct. 11, 2006

- Jaw Bush

In this case, yes.

No. The US administration & the rest of us invaders argued that.

So the war is over? Or isn't it?

I personally wouldn't touch that kind of lunacy with a ten foot pole.Welcome to 2007.You have now anyway. The fact you seem to be missing is that the occupation is an occupation, not a war.

Eh... if there's no war, what are these people doing all shooting each other and stuff?

Presently the only war in Iraq is the civil war we invaders started.

Goody, so there is a war.

If there is a war, it can be won.

So the war is over? Or isn't it?



Eh... if there's no war, what are these people doing all shooting each other and stuff?



Goody, so there is a war.

If there is a war, it can be won.

Just not by us.

Just not by us.

Please explain and base your statement on something.

Since the war is not over yet, it clearly can still be won.

Just not by us.

You mean the USA? no?

I was both speaking in an ironic, literal fashion, and in a more practical fashion.

First off, in a civil war, a third party cannot "win," anymore than the French "won" in the American Revolution.

Second, yes, it seems quite clear that we cannot really win. We might still have a chance, if we can come up with some brilliant new strategy, but I'm not ready to start hoping for that yet.

now, for the true head-a-sploding factoid.

http://media.hoover.org/images/steele_shelby_biophoto.jpg
shelby steele
I hate America.

I was both speaking in an ironic, literal fashion, and in a more practical fashion.

First off, in a civil war, a third party cannot "win," anymore than the French "won" in the American Revolution.

Eh. If you're backing the side that does win, you can clearly win a civil war - look at China and USSR winning Vietnam.


Second, yes, it seems quite clear that we cannot really win.

What are you basing this on?

I hate America.

:confused: Why does he bring that emoption out in you? Do you buy into the racist suggesation (unspoken, but nontheless present) that he's an "Uncle Tom" supported the out-of-context quote in the OP? Or do you have some other reason?

Eh. If you're backing the side that does win, you can clearly win a civil war - look at China and USSR winning Vietnam.

yeah, that went over so well for them, didn't it.
Unfortunately, in this case, neither party is on our side.

What are you basing this on?

Reality.

Reality.

Right.

Proof, fact?

Anything?

:confused: Why does he bring that emoption out in you? Do you buy into the racist suggesation (unspoken, but nontheless present) that he's an "Uncle Tom" supported the out-of-context quote in the OP? Or do you have some other reason?
Yes.

Right.

Proof, fact?

Anything?

Opinion.

Convince me that I'm wrong. Convince me we can actually accomplish this, even after the massive hole we dug ourselves.
Starting over two years ago, I would have said yeah, we could still pull through this, but now the shit's so deep we can't even see.

Maybe someone will come up with some brilliant miracle strategy. Or maybe Muhammad will come back and tell Iraqis to stop killing each other over different interpretations of his religion. Who knows. But I wouldn't bet much on it.

Opinion.

Convince me that I'm wrong. Convince me we can actually accomplish this, even after the massive hole we dug ourselves.
Starting over two years ago, I would have said yeah, we could still pull through this, but now the shit's so deep we can't even see.

Maybe someone will come up with some brilliant miracle strategy. Or maybe Muhammad will come back and tell Iraqis to stop killing each other over different interpretations of his religion. Who knows. But I wouldn't bet much on it.

My logic is very simple (Note I'm not saying the war WILL be war, merely that it is possible):

Militaries of the past have often gotten into WORSE crap and gotten out of it victorious.

If military history teaches us anything it's that it's utterly and completely unpredictable.

Yes.

Yes you buy into the racist argument based on taking his quote out of context or yes you have another reason?

Maybe someone will come up with some brilliant miracle strategy. Or maybe Muhammad will come back and tell Iraqis to stop killing each other over different interpretations of his religion. Who knows. But I wouldn't bet much on it.

I wouldn't rule it out completely, though. ;)

*is joking, but runs anyway*

Yes you buy into the racist argument based on taking his quote out of context or yes you have another reason?
I read the article, and it’s depressing that a black man could possibly come to the conclusions he did, not that they’re anywhere near as bad as that blog he got the info from implied.

I read the article, and it’s depressing that a black man could possibly come to the conclusions he did, not that they’re anywhere near as bad as that blog he got the info from implied.

His conclusion was that ending racism was good, but that the lingereing guilt has paralized the US. How does that make you sad?

His conclusion was that ending racism was good, but that the lingereing guilt has paralized the US. How does that make you sad?

The reality of that conclusion...?