Comments on: It would be impossible to defend that DK 9/11 cartoon, right? wrong.

By: Kay L

Kay L — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:32:45 +0000

mj said
“I love this country and never said that I wanted to see it destroyed. But I’m not going to sit around and watch my country torture people, deprive them of their rights and use “patriotism” to justify any action. What makes America what it is are the things that are being destroyed right now.

I’m able to look at things from both sides and make a rational decision. I’m able to both praise and criticize my country, unlike everyone here.”

You don’t think anyone else looks at things “from both sides?”

No American is proud of every single thing that their country has to do in order to secure its existence. In being an American it is important to understand that we can’t be perfect.

What those on the left propose IS perfection–That we treat terrorists as simply breaking American law. That’s what Clinton did–he treated terrorist acts as simple criminal actions.

That denies the seriousness of these acts, the import of them as acts of war. It denies the reality of human nature. Showing mercy to this enemy is a sign of weakness, not strength, and emboldens them all the more.

So, we water boarded people or scared them with dogs or pictures of naked women. Why is there no outcry when they cut peoples’ heads off?!!

Oh, because you “expect” that they will act that way! But, since you “expect” the US to be sinless, any sin committed in her name is greater than the greatest sin of the enemy.

If you think that what makes America what she is is not engaging in water boarding then you need to brush up on history.

Scaring a terrorist into giving up information that will help save the lives of Americans is necessary. It is a proven necessity.

America doesn’t have to be nice to every single person on the planet to live up to itself.

And maybe you don’t want to see this country destroyed but the only way to bring about Utopia is to wipe the slate clean and start over. The stain of sin is already upon us! We have already made mistakes. We have already engaged in immoral actions for a greater moral cause–ie, HIroshima. (And make no mistake, I do not include that as a mistake.)

I don’t look away from that. I don’t excuse it. What I do is understand the circumstances under which is was carried out and the possible future that we might be living right now if we had not carried it out.

It DID end the war and saved more than millions of lives. It is a burden to bear that we had to do that in order for that to happen. The world is a dirty place, you can’t expect not to get your hands dirty.

And you can’t now stand on principle and declare that you want America to be something other than what it truly is. Because your ability to post in English, no less, is as a result of decisions that you probably would not agree with.

Would you choose to live in an America that was “perfect” but not free?

If not going to war or scaring an enemy meant that you would have to live by the rules of your enemies, would you do it?

Is freedom not what America is about? Not peace.

I dismiss the idea of “peace” as a goal, as an ideal, as something that if we “give it a chance” it will somehow transform or transcend reality. It never has, it never will.

In the absence of freedom, peace doesn’t mean a damn thing!

Patriotism is about preserving freedom and it means bearing the burdens of securing that freedom, from the shedding of one’s own blood or wearing the stain of an innocent’s blood. And only in securing freedom is peace and prosperity even possible.

That cartoon made light not just of American deaths on 9/11, it implies that we “deserve” to be attacked that way, that we do not have the right to mourn for however long we choose, that we do not have the right to remember with sadness.

It has NOTHING to do with criticising policies of America–it has to do with insulting America and her citizens.

People say that we “squandered” the good will of the world that we had after 9/11. It’s hard to squander something that is worthless. Crocodile tears with no substance.

America still stands alone in her freedoms, her peace and her burdens.

You say that you won’t “sit around and watch my country torture people, deprive them of their rights and use “patriotism” to justify any action.”

So, what are you going to do about it? If you are not going to sit around while it happens, what are you going to do to change it? Because the minute that you involve yourself, the minute you leave the confines of your peaceful home, you will be confronted by the realites of life, confronted by hard choices that need to be made.

You will have to make the choice not about patriotism but your own freedom. If “patriotism” as you understand it, is not enough to justify actions that you don’t agree with, is your own freedom enough?

Sadly, I would bet it’s not.

By: Mike Thayer

Mike Thayer — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:34:39 +0000

The ‘defense’ is a perfect example of what’s wrong with lefty thinking.
First, note the writer refers to “Dubya”, a pejorative reference to The President meant to demean and maybe even demonize the man in the office.
Second, lumping all attacks on the US as excuses for Republican hubris shows how the left ignores Democrats such as FDR and HST and how they conducted war – this in itself is a tool lefties use to generate hate and distrust for conservatives and their motives.
Lastly, it shows the international nature of lefty thinking. We cannot attack anyone for attacking us, because they are us, and such action will naturally lead to attacks on people just for looking like the enemy (a little projection, there Lefty?) – never mind that in the history of our conflicts that has NEVER happened.

Lefties are dangerous – we must guard against their accendency.

By: Hard Right

Hard Right — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:48:00 +0000

I knew from your posts what kind of person you were. People like you like to accuse us of using patriotism to push an agenda. Why? Because YOU would and DO and automatically assume the same of us.
Tell me MJ, who have we tortured? No one that’s who. And don’t give me that water boarding BS, either.
Deprive people of their rights? Again, who? The scum at Gitmo are NOT entitled to the rights of U.S. citizens. The SC can claim all they want that they deserve Geneva Convention protections or the right to challenge their detention, but it’s clear that a liberal ideology was behind those rulings and not legal precedent, correct legal interpretation, or even common sense.
No MJ, you are not a patriot. Just another person who pats themself on the back for “being reasonable” and “rational” while trashing America with false claims. Peddle your liberal guilt elsewhere because we are too informed to fall for it.

By: mj

mj — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:34:39 +0000

I’m not the guy who responded to Roger, I just happen to agree with the things he said.

I love this country and never said that I wanted to see it destroyed. But I’m not going to sit around and watch my country torture people, deprive them of their rights and use “patriotism” to justify any action. What makes American what it is are the things that are being destroyed right now.

I’m able to look at things from both sides and make a rational decision. I’m able to both praise and criticize my country, unlike everyone here.

By: Roger W. Gardner

Roger W. Gardner — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:32:03 +0000

To Hard Right and Kay L — A heartfelt thank you. I knew you were out there, people like you, who are as outraged and disgusted as I am, but aside from Jay’s great retort, I haven’t heard from any of you. I already feel better now.
After watching that History Channel 9/11 documentary for the second time this week, I was so filled with anger I wasn’t sure I could come back onto this thread without resorting to four-letter obscenties.
Nice meeting you both. Really nice.
rg

By: Kay L

Kay L — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:12:28 +0000

Invented enemies? Really?

How ridiculous!

And yes, ass wart, there ARE people still mourning and they will be for the rest of their lives. The fact that those people’s lives meant nothing to you that you would excuse the vast rudeness of the person who drew that cartoon is indicative of a real sickness, a disconnection from being an American

Ayaan Hirsi Ali once said to an arrogant “journalist” “You grow up in freedom and you can spit on freedom because you do not know what it is not to have freedom.”

That is the essence of it.

Like an abusive spouse, the liberal left “loves” American, and wants to see it destroyed because it doesn’t live up to their ideals. The disconnect is not just with one’s citizenship but with reality.

Nothing is perfect. And destroying this country in an effort to perfect it is on the order of what the Nazi’s tried to do.

If you love your country, you love it the way that it is and strive to make it better without destroying it.

By: Hard Right

Hard Right — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:46:11 +0000

The truth? You haven’t a clue what the truth is!
You have the gall accuse us of having a sickness because we aren’t afraid to declare something evil and someone a coward when we see such behavior. You want proof of mental illness? How about the worship of Castro, Che Guevara as though they are heroes of the people? Or the “truthers” of the dem party? How about when your bretheren declare that the greatest force for good in this world, America, is actually the blame for all that is wrong in the world? They are the people who say we are the biggest terrorists in the world. We aren’t the ones who declare capitalism as evil and want this country turned into a former shadow of itself.
No, you want to pretend that we are the problem because we will not excuse your hatred of this country. Your hatred is amply demonstrated by saying the murder of American citizens at Pearl Harbor, Alamo, etc. was used to further a presonal/political agenda. That we “lashed out” at Afghanistan, that we are xenophobic hate mongers. The ones full of hate are those like you. The reality is your type try to stifle free speech, deprive us of our rights, who see no slur, no dirty trick, no attack as too dispicable to defeat Conservatives. We have watched the left repeatedly break the law in it’s attempt to grab power. Google ACORN as jus ONE example. Who is it that calls Bush a tyrant while saying the Iraqis were better off under Saddam? That’s right, leftits like you.
The truth is you are hateful cowards. We point out that regimes like Iran want us destroyed and you scream we are warmongers while doing everything you can to leave us at the mercy of those who want us dead. You seek to appease and surrender at every turn as the WOT has proven. In your eyes we deserve what happend on 9/11. Rather than go after those responsible you say we need to understand the murderers or accept what happened and just move on and do nothing about it. Newsflash, we have accepted what happened and want to take steps to prevent it from happening again. You would rather live in denial and pretend the effort to stop further attcks is a “bumper sticker”, “American imperialism”, or “American tyranny”. The above are the reasons why we call you unpatriotic and even traitors. It’s because you are. You piss on the grave of your friend defending such a vile cartoon.

By: Roger W. Gardner

Roger W. Gardner — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:23:19 +0000

Thank you Jay. I wondered about that myself.

By: Roger W. Gardner

Roger W. Gardner — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 01:14:26 +0000

I am watching the History Channel documentary on 9/11 as I’m writing this. For the second time. I’m watching it again out of a sense of duty. Because I write about it.
I can only say that I apologize for allowing myself to be drawn into a debate about this subject. The subject of this thread is the destruction of thousands of lives and a cartoon that made fun of it.
Where the hell is the debate? How can there be a debate?
I am just disgusted.

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 01:01:32 +0000

Or perhaps you are the original writer of the response to Roger?