Saturday, April 26, 2008

The Way I See It

I've been waiting for someone to write this column.

In the comments, a leftie tries to disparage Johnson by calling him "old". Classy.

14 comments:

Luke Murphy said...

Hmm not the way I see it....

THE UNITED STATES IS NOT A DEMOCRACY! DEMOCRACY SUCKS! If you hate every single thing I say, at least realize that point.

If President Bush is so serious about fighting Islamists, then why did he name the war in Iraq "Operation Iraqi Freedom?" Why are our soldiers treated as sacrificial animals, sent in to fight with their hands tied behind their backs for the so-called "freedom" of a bunch of barbaric savages?

Democracy is NOT freedom in any sense of the word, and the only freedom our soldiers should ever be forced to risk their lives for is their own freedom. Someone try to morally justify any other purpose, I don't think it can be done.

The security system in the United States? That is a complete joke. Instead of killing our enemies abroad, Bush chose to take away our freedoms with the Patriot Act, with federal airport security, etc.

Why does the real threat, Iran, still exist?

Bush is an easy target, and liberals attack him without proposing any kind of other solution. I do have a proposal. Get rid of the immoral rules of engagement that put our troops in danger, stop making them build sewers and schools and hand out food, and start letting them do what they do better than anyone in the history of the world, which is kill bad guys. Stop valuing the civilians of savage aggressive countries above the troops, who unlike the majority of these civilians are TRULY innocent. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran could probably all have been destroyed in less than a year with a tenth of the deaths we've already had if we actually had the guts to use our air power to its full extent.

I do not think Bush has proudly asserted himself against public opinion or his political opponents. Time and time again he has compromised, and all at the expense of 4000 American soldiers.

I'm done compromising on this one, Bush sucks. I have little in common with most conservatives, especially the religious ones like Bush. If we want a good future for the US, we need a political re-alignment, and I think it's gonna happen. All the current parties are worthless and stand for nothing.

Caleb said...

Barbaric savages? Did you write this drivel, or is copied and pasted from somewhere?

I am far from a moral relativist, but I have trouble reconciling my absolutism with statements like "try to morally justify any other purpose." OK, I just did, in my head. I guess it doesn't match YOUR morals. Your morals clearly disagree with my morals, and as a non-moral relativist, I guess I'd better add that since my morals are the only morals, your morals are wrong. And stupid.

We should have "destroyed" Iraq, Iran, and Afg.? Hell, why not skip a step and go right to the nuking? Mostly sinners there anyway, especially those dastardly children.

Luke, you get way too wrapped up in connecting the citizens of countries with their governments. There's no damn difference in the value of someone born on American soil versus someone born on Iraqi soil. I'm no different than the 26 year old vet student studying at the School of Veterinary Medicine at Baghdad University (SAVAGES!), I just live under a different flag. Can we stop pretending there's something inherently different about me? 'Cause it's just re-goddamn-diculous.

Caleb said...

But yes, Bush definitely sucks. I greatly respect the WAY he makes decisions, and the way he sticks with his decisions, I just wish all those decisions weren't so awful.

Luke Murphy said...

Ok but do you at least agree that democracy sucks?

Luke Murphy said...

Okay Caleb, about the morals thing....

If you think helping Iraqis is a good cause, and you think it should be done, then go ahead, do it. You are also free to get other people to join you by their voluntary consent. What is unjustifiable is sending someone else to go do it for you when that person does not benefit in anyway, and is in fact placed in grave danger. I did not mean that helping Iraqis is necessarily immoral, it certainly could be a good thing, but it has to be done voluntarily. The absolutely immoral part is putting someone else at risk to do it for you. Does that make sense?

Luke Murphy said...

Nothing was copy pasted, I don't know why you need to insult me personally.

Mom said...

Well, the classic quotation from I-don't-know-who (Winston Churchill?) is, democracy is the worst form of government -- except for all the others.

Luke Murphy said...

I did not say, and I do not think that there is any INHERENT difference between Iraqis and Americans. That is not what I mean when I say savage. I use the word savage based on what I have seen of people in Muslim and especially Arabic countries in the 2 classes that I've taken on Islam, and in other media sources. I do not think that ALL people there are savages, or even most, but the ideology that the United States is up against right now is one of death-worshipping savagery.

A government acts on behalf of its people. When the US military attacks somebody, it does so on our behalf, and when the Iranian government finances terrorists all over the world, it does so on behalf of the Iranian people. If the United States descended into tyranny and then invaded Canada, and Canada responded by blowing up American cities, no American who did not actively dissent(other than children) could claim full moral innocence. In the end, we are all responsible for the actions of our government. Luckily in the US, it's typically not a problem, and I don't condemn people for not getting involved and being apathetic about politics. If things got really hairy and the US started really becoming a totalitarian state, then I would condemn these people. That is what I base the lack of innocence for most civilians in these belligerent nations on, not on anything "inherent."

Yes it is probably a small percentage of the populations in these countries that are actually terrorists. But what percentage gives the terrorists money and shelter, love and support? What percentage doesn't agree with the terrorists' means, but does agree with their ends? What percentage stands by and does nothing? In the end, I think very few innocents are left in the countries that support terrorism, only children and active dissenters. That being said, I don't advocate just killing civilians all over the place for no reason. What I do advocate is, in situations where the safety of American soldiers means they have to blow up a building with terrorists in it that also has children in it, they should do it.

If you agree with that, you might then say that a situation like that doesn't happen much. You might say that the soldiers should just wait til they have a clear shot. I would respond to that by saying that over the course of a war, you're probably not going to get multiple opportunities at taking out an enemy. You probably won't have the privilege of selection. Also, every day that an enemy remains alive is another day in which he has the opportunity to harm Americans. So unless you're pretty darn sure that you'll have another opportunity when there won't be innocents around, you have to take the shot when you've got it. In the choice between us or them, I say us. I realize that the above justification, that most civilians aren't truly innocent, isn't quite good enough. So, here's the real principle that I'm basing this on:

All deaths that result from the initiation of force, and then the retaliatory use of force, are the full, 100% moral responsibility of the initiator. An example here is Japan in World War II. The United States responded to Japan's attack in the way that it had to for its own survival. The US shared zero responsibility for the deaths that occurred in that war. This includes the Japanese civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many innocents died on those days, but the point is that their deaths were the fault of the Japanese government, not of the US.

Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan all initiated force first of all against their own people. A state that violates the rights' of its citizens so blatantly has no right to exist, and whether or not we want to remove it is a matter of what is in our own self-interest. All of these countries, in one way or another, initiated force against the US and other countries as well, whether directly or indirectly.

A war can only be fought one way, and that is with the goal of achieving complete and total victory as quickly as possible, and also with as little damage to the retaliatory side as possible. If I had to choose between Bush's half-war and no war at all, I would certainly choose no war because this thing has been a disaster in a lot of different ways.

Luke Murphy said...

Mom, no one ever told Winston Churchill about a constitutionally limited republic?

Luke Murphy said...

I will also point out that I do think that in ending a war as quickly as possible by showing less regard for the civilians of the enemy nation, you will end up killing MANY less of these civilians. This was certainly the case with Japan and the A-bomb, where a land invasion would have been almost genocide against the Japanese people and their no-surrender creed. I think that this would've been the case in Iraq as well, if from the start we had stopped at nothing until we achieved complete and decisive victory. This would have ended the war quickly; instead it has dragged on for 5 years now, and civilians are dying (whether by our hands or by someone else's) every day.

Luke Murphy said...

It's not even just civilians that we are too careful about. The US goes to crazy extremes to avoid damaging sacred areas and buildings, anything Islamic or ancient, etc. Again, at whose expense? American troops.

Caleb said...

It is really a shame that we drafted all those soldiers into the military and then sent them to do our bidding.

...

Wait, what?

Oh, nevermind.

More later, I'm tired.

Luke Murphy said...

The fact that soldiers sign up for the military voluntarily does not give you, or President Bush, the right to abuse them. That is the suicide bomber's way, not the American way.

Soldiers take an oath to uphold the Constitution, not to act like the Peace Corps.

Luke Murphy said...

You DO have a right to expect protection from a soldier, you pay for that right through taxes.

Just for the record, I'm against coercive taxation, but that is for another discussion.