I offer this essay not as a direct answer to the question Dan asks at Eric's blog, but in answer to the sentiment that motivates it. Tell me this ain't Thinkin'.
27 comments:
Anonymous
said...
The naive pacifistic liberal mentality ignores the reality of real evil. I saw a good piece on an illustration that captured reality well. It was a metaphor of sheep, wolves and sheepdogs.
"Sheep, the ”kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep. I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep.”
Wolves, who ”feed on the sheep without mercy. Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.”
Sheepdogs, who “live to protect the flock and confront the wolf.”
“If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf.
But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero’s path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.”"
If people are "sheep" by this definition that is fine (I am one). But for the sheep to dis' the sheepdogs just for being sheepdogs is unconscionable.
I plan on not commenting here in general because you have not exhibited much discernable reason in your arguments, but have tended towards the shallow partisan bitterness that has so divided our country.
But, since you have invoked my name and since you are citing an article from a website that you insisted was insightful and intelligent, I thought I’d take a moment to illustrate what is wrong with this site (in general), with at least the dozen or so articles I have read.
And for what it’s worth, I was a journalism major for two years and served on a college newspaper for that time (won a couple of awards for my writing, believe it or not). I may not always write as well as I’d wish, I can certainly recognize less reasoned, less professional writing.
This article you cite begins with the title, True Liberals Must be Appeasers and its premise is further established in the third paragraph, where it says:
“All modern liberals must be appeasers --- because that's their ideology. They constantly proclaim to the world that peace-at-any-price is their single, greatest, overarching goal.”
The problem with this – and it fatally flaws the whole of the article – is that the writer begins with a premise that is easily established as blatantly false.
Anytime you say “ALL” anything, you are almost certainly wrong. Anytime you claim that a certain group of people “MUST” be something, you are almost certainly wrong.
My journalism professor would turn this right back to the writer and say, “Try again.”
You can get away with this if you’re writing a humor piece, but that is not what this is (unless it is extremely well-disguised!). The problem with this sort of blatant lying (and to be sure, “all” liberals are not appeasers; Liberals do not “constantly proclaim” that peace-at-any price is the greatest goal.
All one has to do to disprove such spurious writing is produce one exception to the claim and it has been disproved. This is vitally important because it is this sort of secondary school reasoning and writing (and, since it would not pass a college professor’s class – and I doubt a high school newspaper – I suppose it is possible that something like this MIGHT be high school quality, but it is verifiably by my own experience not anything that would be printed in MY college newspaper) is because the writer is establishing a strawman right off the top of his paper. An obvious one.
Further, it is mean-spirited, ugly without being humorous nor contributing to the common dialog. It is a worthless beginning and fatally flawed before it even begins. And that would be true whether or not the writer began by saying “All liberals are appeasers” or if the writer had said, “All conservatives wear diapers and love to rape the land.” It’s a worthless premise and one that a real editor would have sent back or rejected outright.
But, continuing on with the essay.
The writer then strikes a slightly more reasoned tone when he makes some (unsupported, but at least in the realm of reasonable) claims about conservatives, saying, “Conservatives want to live in peace like any sensible human being.” And of course they do. No one is saying otherwise (well, except for those middle school newspaper columnists and their equivelant).
The writer then AGAIN turns to attack ranting by making the unsupported claim, “Efforts to do it, like the racist and anti-democratic UN, always turn into some morally grotesque reality show.” This writer is writing to people who agree with him and whom he just appears to want to rally in their shared hatred of liberals. Reason be damned.
Followed by another unsupported, arrogant and elitist claim, “Without us [the US], there would be no stable peace in the world.”
He goes on making further unsupported claims and making the “case” (without ever really making a case, just a claim) for pre-emptive strikes that the writer acknowledges is not going to be correct always.
He furthers his premise by saying:
Back in the US, the Left has now set the bar for the use of force so high that no Republican president can ever meet it. In their eyes only Democrats can wage war.
At least he is not outright saying “ALL of those on the Left,” but it is implied by saying “The Left” and then he implies that this is a partisan thing. Again, with no evidence.
He then makes further unsupported charges (“least qualified, least experienced candidate ever” – says who? Based on what criteria? It’s just an unsupported charge, aimed at his readers who will agree without needing evidence) and engages in some fear-mongering (“If he becomes president, start digging your surival shelter.”) not unlike C. Rice’s “Mushroom clouds over New York” drama.
After more of the same, he gets down to offering his “evidence” in Exhibit A, B and C – Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
He suggests that Carter ran the Shah out of Iran and “allowed” the Ayatollah to take over. Now that’s a whole other conversation, but suffice to say, he does not make a case that Carter appeased anyone or that “the Left” was behind him (and let’s remember: The premise of the article is that All Liberals are Appeasers). The writer simply does not make that case with Exhibit A.
Similarly for Clinton, he cites “Clinton's eight years of sloppiness and indecision on national defense created disasters just waiting to happen,” but offers no ties to a support for the writer’s central premise.
With Obama, he just plays the fear card again, Obama WILL appease!! Oh my!!
The writer concludes with yet another unsupported claim:
The Left cannot escape responsibility for 9/11, for the mullah tyranny in Iran, and for undermining American security in a thousand other ways. These folks are dangerous, not because they are stupid or evil, but just because they just can't handle reality.
Blah, blah, blah. Many words, saying nothing. My college journalism professor would have just laughed and said, “If this is supposed to be funny, you’re going to have to work on it harder. If it’s supposed to be serious, you’re going to restart from scratch and take a serious approach. This is a college newspaper, not the Rush Limbaugh show…”
Now, IF THE PURPOSE of this article is to just rally the troops – get all the far Right who already don’t like the Left and who are fine with unreasoned attack rants, then it is a decent piece. I imagine many on the far Right (not reasonable people like my parents or the people I grew up with, but the extremists) would just eat this article up. If that’s all he was shooting for, it’s a fine article (hateful, disingenuous, unsupported, a bit crazy, but fine for that purpose, I suppose).
But, if it is intended to be an actual reasoned article that people could read and think about, it is a failure.
THAT is what I meant in the past by saying the writing at this site was “hack” writing. It’s fear-mongering, rally the troops, demonizing the Other writing that has no great moral nor logical standing.
Now feel free to carry on the mutual “Hate Liberals” meeting and twist words and rumor-monger away.
That's funny, guys. Make the same mistakes of which you accuse the author. If you think his points are wrong or false or even lies, you offered not one proof in support. We on the right don't need to be told the author is speaking in general terms. Doing so doesn't negate his points at all. And should you present the one person that is outside his "all" statement, you'd still not have succeeded in rebutting his general point.
Also, were you aware that these are opinion pieces? Do you actually expect every little word spoken to have reams of supportive evidence? I've read stuff from both you, Dan, and you, Geoffrey, and could say exactly the same things you've said about this author. In fact, you are put to the test often without succeeding in making your cases. One example is Geoffrey's claims that "Bush lied". When asked, he presented me with a list, none of which were lies at all by definition. And really, Dan, "war monger" and other such epithets are thrown about quite "liberally" by each of you as well as a plethora of liberal opinion writers. I think the general point of the author is sound and particularly the exteme lack of experience and reason behind the foreign policies of one Barry Obama.
Make the same mistakes of which you accuse the author. If you think his points are wrong or false or even lies, you offered not one proof in support.
1. I accused the author of ridiculously over the top hyperbole.
2. I offered the evidence (ie, he said "ALL liberals...")
3. That would be the "proof" which you request
And should you present the one person that is outside his "all" statement, you'd still not have succeeded in rebutting his general point.
1. ?
2. His specific point was that ALL liberals are appeasers. I am not an appeaser nor are any of my liberal friends.
3. Nor have I ever read any liberals who advocate appeasing our enemies.
4. Therefore his specific point is clearly wrong.
5. His general point - that liberals tend to be appeasers (I guess that is what you're suggesting his general point is - he didn't say that anywhere so I was going by what he said, not what I assumed he said) - how would I disprove that? Offer more than half of liberal opinion that says specifically that they are opposed to appeasing the enemy?
You're asking me to disprove a negative and it is not possible. If he wants to allege that liberals are appeasers, the onus is on him to support the argument. He did not offer one serious argument to show that Carter, Clinton or Obama want/wanted to appease the enemy.
The closest he came to this was his offering the case of the Shah (suggesting that he was appeasing the Ayatollah, I guess?), but his argument did not support his claim.
You can't just say, "Remember when Reagan was president? And how he supported the president of Guatemala? And remember how many Guatemalans were killed by their gov't? Yeah, that shows that Reagan was an appeaser, because, you know, he cooperated with a bad gov't to help them stay in power..."
THAT is not a good argument that Reagan was an appeaser. And it is no different than your author's "evidence."
6. And, even if he did "prove" that Carter and Clinton were appeasers (which he did not come even close to doing), that is not the same as proving that "liberals tend to be appeasers."
It's a lame article. Except, as noted, that one could make the case that it's a good rallying cry for people who already agree with him.
I see. So you are attacking the letter of what he said, rather than the spirit. I take this to be true based on your first three points of the last comment. Because he said "all", you've effectively discredited him. Yeah. That'll do it. Good work. Sheesh.
Next, you rebut him by saying that you know of no one who is an appeaser. But it's not a question of what your business card says, it's a matter of how you respond to foreign threats. In the case of Iraq, 12 years and 17 UN resolutions wasn't enough for you. I doubt that if it was 24 years and 34 resolutions that you would have felt it was time to act. This is the point. You are appeasers based on how you respond to threats. Jimma Carter was an appeaser because of how he responded. And btw, he thought the Ayatollah would be just fine because he was a religious guy. Good thinkin' Jimma!
In short, you refute him by saying he didn't do enough to support his contentions. But that doesn't mean he didn't. As usual, you raise the bar incredibly high for your opposition, but it's always low enough for you to merely step over it. A better way for you to make your case would be to present one good example of a lib/Dem who acted forcefully against a threat. I think you might be able to make the case for LBJ to some extent, but since then, I doubt it.
A better way for you to make your case would be to present one good example of a lib/Dem who acted forcefully against a threat.
The thing is, we tend to have different ideas of "forcefully," oppose a threat. I think what we did (the world, not the US leadership, who were by your standards, "appeasers") to bring Apartheid to an end is a great example of forcefully confronting an evil - a rogue nation. I think what we did to stop the terrorists in Nicaragua is a good example of forcefully opposing terrorists.
I suspect you would only be satisfied if I were to point to a time where "liberals" supported an invasion of a country where we "wiped out the bad guys."
There are more ways than one to confront rogue nations.
And still, this fella did not prove his point. Not even close.
As already noted, you can say, "Remember when Reagan was president? And how he supported the president of Guatemala? And remember how many Guatemalans were killed by their gov't? Yeah, that shows that Reagan was an appeaser, because, you know, he cooperated with a bad gov't to help them stay in power..."
And that is not the same as making a case that conservatives tend to be appeasers. It's ridiculous on its face, but I suspect that you are too closely tied to Republicans and so-called conservatives to see them do any wrong (except for failing to be conservative enough) and so this writer is good, regardless of how poorly he presents his case.
Here, just to clearly point out the deficiencies, is how this author "supports" his claim that Carter was an appeaser:
The Shah was hustled out of power because Carter felt guilty about the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh 25 years before, in 1953! But Jimmy was trying to make up for past sins, and simply took his eyes off clear and present dangers.
1. WHO exactly is Carter supposedly appeasing in this one example of one president?
2. What evidence does this fella have to support that Carter was "trying to make up for past sins" or because "Carter felt guilty"?
Is the author is asking us to suppose that he has some magic ability to know Carter's reasoning or does he have some quotes from Carter that supports this view?
And how is this about appeasing? WHO exactly was Carter appeasing in his one example?
Again, his argument just doesn't make logical sense. It only works at the demonization level, not at the adult, reasoning level.
"2. What evidence does this fella have to support that Carter was "trying to make up for past sins" or because "Carter felt guilty"?"
This is news to you that Carter feels compelled to apologize for American "sins"? That's quite a rock under which you live. Carter appeased by simply cutting off oil imports after the hostage taking. He then arranged to have a Canadian talk with the hostages. Finally he authorized an 8 billion dollar ransom. Which of these matches your definition of "forcefully"? This all came at a time when most Americans saw the hostage taking as justification for military action. Instead, his actions made us look like chumps to the Ayatollah and his minions and emboldened them in their position. The author gave enough support for his position. If you want more details, you can find them. That he didn't supply an encyclopedia's worth of support doesn't diminish his point whatsoever.
This doesn't fit in with the mood of the previous posts, but I had missed the fact that terrorists had blown up two Down Syndrome patients for the cause of Allah. Sick. Evil. Perverted. Demented. Killing the innocent for your own twisted cause.
I had heard of this tragedy. How does one go about talking these people out of such barbaric actions? But you know that the left thinks they have a shot. And while they try, more people will die. Somehow, such deaths don't bother the left as much as the deaths that occur during any attempts by nations like ours that seek to put a stop to these things. Then, it's as if the victims were never in any danger previous to our intercession. I just don't get that.
To ELAshley, I apply the rules of grammar to any piece of writing, before anything else. Along with being able to construct a coherent sentence, there needs to be some kind of consistency as sentences construct paragraphs, etc. This is stuff I learned in 7th grade, and had pounded in to my head in four years of college, three years of seminary, and two years of post-grad work. Before anything else, the mechanics of writing need to be clear.
That isn't being liberal, it's being educated, and having a working knowledge of the English language. If you can point to a liberal blogger/journalist/whatever who abuses the mother tongue as much as those folks at American Thinker, please let me know, I'll be happy to apply a bit of red pencil.
BTW, if a journal has the word Thinker in its title, and the presentation of these thoughts is sloppy, confusing, illogical, contradictory, and error-prone, this isn't so much "attacking the messenger" as it is pointing out a big old glaring inconsistency.
Like I said, this all started in my home, as my father is a retired English teacher.
"BTW, if a journal has the word Thinker in its title, and the presentation of these thoughts is sloppy, confusing, illogical, contradictory, and error-prone, this isn't so much "attacking the messenger" as it is pointing out a big old glaring inconsistency."
Why do I get the feeling you haven't read nearly enough at AT to pass such judgements. In addition, you aren't likely to be able to truly debate the points made in most, if not all, of the articles successfully. I take this position due to the fact that you spend all your time attacking the grammar or sentence construction, as if any of that truly confounds the sentiment and/or point of any piece within. Frankly, when I read some lib nonsense, sentence structure is the last thing that concerns me.
Marshall, in response to your query about how much I have read, I will apply this analogy. If someone makes the statement "All swans are white," and someone comes up with definitive proof that there exists a white swan, the statement, "All swans are white" is falsified. No amount of corollaries, no ad hoc additions, can save that statement from becoming false.
The person who wrote the article in question stated, "All liberals are appeasers". Since this is demonstrably untrue, and has been since 1938, when the appeasers were in fact arch-conservative Republicans, I find it difficult to understand (to be generous about it) why I should lend any credence whatsoever to any points he might make along the way. His premise is false, and easily enough proven to be so. There is no reason in the world why one should waste one's time putting crap in one's brain out of some misguided desire to be "fair".
I have read quite of few pieces in American Thinker (sic), and all of them suffer from various maladies, from the outright falsehoods encased in this piece, to poor reasoning, logical fallacies, and poor presentation. Part of my point on harping about bad writing isn't nit-picking. When I was in college, my freshman year, I had a professor who told me that presentation is 90% of the battle. No matter how sound one's beliefs or arguments, if one cannot present them in a clear fashion, understanding the most basic rules of constructing an argument and using clear, grammatically correct prose, one has failed. While I fail myself at this, I at least make the effort to try. The writers at American Thinker, from my experience of them, do not try.
When one attempts to construct an argument proving something that is easily shown to be false, no matter how brilliant the logic, or sound the argument, or Strunk & White the prose, it's caca, pure and simple. I don't make these rules, I just follow them.
AH! I just proved that I am fallible! In the first paragraph, I wrote about an "all" statement, "All swans are white", and then posited the existence of a white swan, when I should have the existence of a black swan would falsify the previous all-statement.
You see? Even I am far from perfect. At least I am man enough to admit it.
Please. You're embarrassing yourself. The author doesn't go back any further than Carter so it's pretty clear to those less educated than yourself that he is referring to the Dems/libs of today. And it seems that just like Dan Trabue, you think attacking a generality makes your case, or more specifically, totally destroys your opponents case. Sadly for you, this is not true. Find 10 Dem politicians that are looking to go to Iran and kick ass right now, and that still wouldn't negate the fact that, by and large, one will not find a Dem who won't fall into the "peace at any price" category. No matter what is done by the scumbags, the lib/Dems will move the goal posts to prevent doing what needs to be done.
As to grammar, you might wish to consider that the writers who contribute at American Thinker (and there are many) or any other conservatively similar site, is writing to the common man, not some hoity-toity English major. I would wager that we could find an equal number of grammatically deficient writers at liberal sites with equal ease. So freakin' what? Personally, I don't find the writing to be of such low quality that any reasonable person of any political persuasion couldn't understand easily what is being put forth in any given piece.
Finally, you have only waxed critically on the grammar and sentence structure but not the points made (with the exception of the generality wherein you had to go in the Wayback machine for an example). The author made his point with ease.
I'm not sure what the points are. That liberals are appeasers? In what way was Carter, who worked hard to get the MX Missile and the B-1B bomber funded, an appeaser? In what way was Carter, who began the mujahideen insurrection against the Soviet troops invading Afghanistan, an appeaser?
How was Clinton, who waged wars against Haiti and Serbia, and directed the United States to assassinate Osama bin Laden, an appeaser (I find it hard to figure out who Clinton might have appeased; at least Carter had the Evil Empire).
Since the term came in to vogue in the 1930's, I think it important to go all the way back to the beginning. Neville Chamberlain and other members of his government were members of the conservative party in Britain. In the United States, the leading critic of any attempt by the Roosevelt Administration to do anything about the rising threat of Naziism was Sen. Robert Taft, perhaps the most conservative non-southerner ever to hold office in that body. The most popular man in America, Charles Lindbergh, was not just an arch-appeaser, but a Nazi-sympathizer, as were leading industrialists.
In the post-war era, the myth of liberal "appeasement" of communism was created out of whole-cloth by Republicans attempting to show that our war-time alliance with the Soviet Union was a blunder (this was part of appeasement mythology, the whole "let them kill each other" nonsense). That the Soviet Union ran spies in the US shouldn't be too surprising; we did the same thing there. Alger Hiss, however, wasn't one (I have older relatives who spent lifetimes in military and civilian intelligence and they will tell you unequivocally that Whittaker Chambers' story was so full of holes as to be unbelievable by any but the most ignorant; Chambers was a hero to left-leaning liberals, as well as related by marriage to Truman's distant and haughty Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, so it is no wonder they tried to take him down).
I do not know of any fact to which any can point in post-war history (1945-1991) with one glaring exception, in which American officials "appeased" any rival. The glaring exception was the deal Kennedy struck with Kruschev during the Cuban Missile Crisis to dismantle our Jupiter missiles in Turkey. I have heard, in Kennedy's defense, that these missiles were already scheduled for demolition and relocation; that our other European-based medium range ballistic missiles were not touched, etc., etc. My own feeling about this was that Soviet withdrawal of missiles from Cuba had to be (or should have been) unconditional. On the other hand, it did avoid the nuclear annihilation of the southern US, so that's a good thing, and it didn't really effect the strategic balance of power all that much. Yet, in the moment, it was a mistake, and it didn't even save Kruschev's butt from being tossed aside the next year when the Politburo figured he wimped out with Kennedy.
Anyway, there you have it. I'll gladly listen to any factually-based examples of liberal appeasement. Since I have dealt with the only significant one of which I am aware, I will wait for the reply.
By the way, how relevant is any of this right now? Aren't we discussing the political equivalent of angels dancing on pin-heads, er I mean heads of pins?
Funding weapons and using them when necessary are two different things. And what's this crap about Carter beginning the mujahideen insurrection? That's like saying he brokered the peace between Egypt and Israel when all he did was provide the hotel room for Sadat and Begin. Are you listening to his version of events? Doubtless the Afghanis were already busy defending themselves before Carter came along.
Until I research and review Clinton's adventures in Haiti and Serbia, I remain suspicious of his motivations. But his folly in the Blackhawk Down episode and his mere tough talk about Hussein and bin Laden don't impress.
The history lesson is nice, but once again, the author speaks of contemporary people. It matters not a bit to this discussion when the word "appeaser" was first used. Liberals and conservatives are both a bit different now than those who wore the labels in the past. But hey, it's a great way to muddy the issue. Nicely done.
Most significantly is the manner in which libs of today deal with the threats that should be obvious to all. Some pretend there is no threat from the Islamic radicals, and no amount of headless people or destroyed downtown office buildings will sway them. The whining by the left after one man finally had the spine to actually ACT after 30 years of messin' about is all the evidence a reasonable person needs. These are facts, but you're too much of a lefty partisan to admit it. You'd prefer to play word games.
What contemporary people, liberal or otherwise, have sought to appease our international foes by giving in to demands that strengthen them and weaken us? Other than, say, George W. Bush invading Iraq, then staying there, which is a huge recruitment poster for international terrorism?
Again, even one counter-example proves the central thesis of the article wrong. Period. One black swan makes a lie of "All swans are white." One non-appeasing liberal makes a lie of "All liberals of necessity are appeasers."
I'm waiting for an example. Please. Otherwise, I'm going to start making fun here.
The entire thing is absurd. That you take it seriously is funny, actually. That you think it either relevant or important is even funnier. Since most Americans want us out of Iraq, want George Bush out of office, and want us to deal with real threats in a serious manner, talking about a President who left office twenty-seven years ago is about as relevant as talking about the Pony Express as an alternative to our current mail-delivery system. It's nonsensical to begin with, argued poorly, and factually inaccurate. I just don't understand why you don't get this.
It. Is. Factually. False. Period. Read those five words again, and again, and one more time. If you believe that I am wrong, that is certainly your right. That your belief rests on no factual basis other than a simple, ignorant bias cannot be helped, and therefore no amount of evidence will convince you otherwise.
If I believed for one moment that all liberals, contemporary or otherwise, of necessity, were appeasers and weak, I would certainly not count myself among them. Yet, since I am a liberal and not a pacifist nor an appeaser, that, by definition disproves the thesis argued in the article in question.
As for your reference to using nuclear weapons, all I can say is that any President who saw nuclear weapons as anything other than a deterrent force, rather than a practical weapon of war should be automatically disqualified from the office. They were and are always weapons of last possible resort, to be used only when first used against us (although NATO doctrine always had contingency plans for field nukes, like nuclear artillery shells and the like, should a Soviet invasion pass the 100 mile mark or last longer than fourteen days). To even discuss the possibility of using strategic nuclear weapons is immoral.
Objectively not true. I'm not an appeaser and I don't know any liberal appeasers. To disprove this statement, all I have to do is offer one and now, I have.
Marshall replied:
you offered not one proof in support.
Dan replied:
ummm, yes, I did. I offered myself as a liberal who is not an appeaser, thus disproving his point.
Marshall replied:
Well, when he suggested that liberals MUST be appeasers, he didn't mean ALL liberals. You're missing the point... (or words to that effect)
To which, Geoffrey said:
I'll gladly listen to any factually-based examples of liberal appeasement.
Appeasement: Jimma Carter's signing of the Algiers Agreement caving in to the demands of the same bastards in Iran that invaded American soil in the form of our Embassy and took hostage its personnel. Among the points of appeasing was the guarantee that no one would seek legal action against Iran for the hostage taking. Funds that were frozen were returned. A promise never to interfere in Iranian affairs was made. And I believe we have to wash their cars every weekend. This is one quick example of lib appeasement in the face of scumbag assault.
But once again, liberal appeasement is a way of life, a paradigm under which they operate. No pronouncement of "Iyam not!" will change that. Lib whining that we had Hussein contained, while he was busy killing his own, shooting at our planes, disregarding UN resolutions, embezzling oil for food monies, supporting terrorism, etc, etc, etc. Carter's equating Israel and Palestine is another example and one shared by most libs. Being willing to talk with ANY Islamic wackjob without demanding first that they cease their insanely savage treatment of civilians and others is yet more appeasment.
Save your responses for a bit. I'm going to provide a new post to continue this. It likely will include comments at other posts that followed this one. This post is about to drop off into the archives and I don't want to debate there, but prefer to be out in front.
27 comments:
The naive pacifistic liberal mentality ignores the reality of real evil. I saw a good piece on an illustration that captured reality well. It was a metaphor of sheep, wolves and sheepdogs.
http://4simpsons.wordpress.com/2006/12/08/sheep-sheepdogs-and-wolves/
"Sheep, the ”kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep. I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep.”
Wolves, who ”feed on the sheep without mercy. Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.”
Sheepdogs, who “live to protect the flock and confront the wolf.”
“If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf.
But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero’s path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.”"
If people are "sheep" by this definition that is fine (I am one). But for the sheep to dis' the sheepdogs just for being sheepdogs is unconscionable.
I saw this analogy at a blog called, "Eject, Eject, Eject". The host was a former lib who converted after 9/11, I believe. It's an apt analogy.
Art,
Just read the American Thinker piece. Stunning! I'm adding to my Library of Pearls, as this is certainly a document of historical relevance.
Dan, in light of this article, is stripped free of whatever "respectable" veneer he had to reveal the weasel he really is deep down.
I plan on not commenting here in general because you have not exhibited much discernable reason in your arguments, but have tended towards the shallow partisan bitterness that has so divided our country.
But, since you have invoked my name and since you are citing an article from a website that you insisted was insightful and intelligent, I thought I’d take a moment to illustrate what is wrong with this site (in general), with at least the dozen or so articles I have read.
And for what it’s worth, I was a journalism major for two years and served on a college newspaper for that time (won a couple of awards for my writing, believe it or not). I may not always write as well as I’d wish, I can certainly recognize less reasoned, less professional writing.
This article you cite begins with the title, True Liberals Must be Appeasers and its premise is further established in the third paragraph, where it says:
“All modern liberals must be appeasers --- because that's their ideology. They constantly proclaim to the world that peace-at-any-price is their single, greatest, overarching goal.”
The problem with this – and it fatally flaws the whole of the article – is that the writer begins with a premise that is easily established as blatantly false.
Anytime you say “ALL” anything, you are almost certainly wrong. Anytime you claim that a certain group of people “MUST” be something, you are almost certainly wrong.
My journalism professor would turn this right back to the writer and say, “Try again.”
You can get away with this if you’re writing a humor piece, but that is not what this is (unless it is extremely well-disguised!). The problem with this sort of blatant lying (and to be sure, “all” liberals are not appeasers; Liberals do not “constantly proclaim” that peace-at-any price is the greatest goal.
All one has to do to disprove such spurious writing is produce one exception to the claim and it has been disproved. This is vitally important because it is this sort of secondary school reasoning and writing (and, since it would not pass a college professor’s class – and I doubt a high school newspaper – I suppose it is possible that something like this MIGHT be high school quality, but it is verifiably by my own experience not anything that would be printed in MY college newspaper) is because the writer is establishing a strawman right off the top of his paper. An obvious one.
Further, it is mean-spirited, ugly without being humorous nor contributing to the common dialog. It is a worthless beginning and fatally flawed before it even begins. And that would be true whether or not the writer began by saying “All liberals are appeasers” or if the writer had said, “All conservatives wear diapers and love to rape the land.” It’s a worthless premise and one that a real editor would have sent back or rejected outright.
But, continuing on with the essay.
The writer then strikes a slightly more reasoned tone when he makes some (unsupported, but at least in the realm of reasonable) claims about conservatives, saying, “Conservatives want to live in peace like any sensible human being.” And of course they do. No one is saying otherwise (well, except for those middle school newspaper columnists and their equivelant).
The writer then AGAIN turns to attack ranting by making the unsupported claim, “Efforts to do it, like the racist and anti-democratic UN, always turn into some morally grotesque reality show.” This writer is writing to people who agree with him and whom he just appears to want to rally in their shared hatred of liberals. Reason be damned.
Followed by another unsupported, arrogant and elitist claim, “Without us [the US], there would be no stable peace in the world.”
He goes on making further unsupported claims and making the “case” (without ever really making a case, just a claim) for pre-emptive strikes that the writer acknowledges is not going to be correct always.
He furthers his premise by saying:
Back in the US, the Left has now set the bar for the use of force so high that no Republican president can ever meet it. In their eyes only Democrats can wage war.
At least he is not outright saying “ALL of those on the Left,” but it is implied by saying “The Left” and then he implies that this is a partisan thing. Again, with no evidence.
He then makes further unsupported charges (“least qualified, least experienced candidate ever” – says who? Based on what criteria? It’s just an unsupported charge, aimed at his readers who will agree without needing evidence) and engages in some fear-mongering (“If he becomes president, start digging your surival shelter.”) not unlike C. Rice’s “Mushroom clouds over New York” drama.
After more of the same, he gets down to offering his “evidence” in Exhibit A, B and C – Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
He suggests that Carter ran the Shah out of Iran and “allowed” the Ayatollah to take over. Now that’s a whole other conversation, but suffice to say, he does not make a case that Carter appeased anyone or that “the Left” was behind him (and let’s remember: The premise of the article is that All Liberals are Appeasers). The writer simply does not make that case with Exhibit A.
Similarly for Clinton, he cites “Clinton's eight years of sloppiness and indecision on national defense created disasters just waiting to happen,” but offers no ties to a support for the writer’s central premise.
With Obama, he just plays the fear card again, Obama WILL appease!! Oh my!!
The writer concludes with yet another unsupported claim:
The Left cannot escape responsibility for 9/11, for the mullah tyranny in Iran, and for undermining American security in a thousand other ways. These folks are dangerous, not because they are stupid or evil, but just because they just can't handle reality.
Blah, blah, blah. Many words, saying nothing. My college journalism professor would have just laughed and said, “If this is supposed to be funny, you’re going to have to work on it harder. If it’s supposed to be serious, you’re going to restart from scratch and take a serious approach. This is a college newspaper, not the Rush Limbaugh show…”
Now, IF THE PURPOSE of this article is to just rally the troops – get all the far Right who already don’t like the Left and who are fine with unreasoned attack rants, then it is a decent piece. I imagine many on the far Right (not reasonable people like my parents or the people I grew up with, but the extremists) would just eat this article up. If that’s all he was shooting for, it’s a fine article (hateful, disingenuous, unsupported, a bit crazy, but fine for that purpose, I suppose).
But, if it is intended to be an actual reasoned article that people could read and think about, it is a failure.
THAT is what I meant in the past by saying the writing at this site was “hack” writing. It’s fear-mongering, rally the troops, demonizing the Other writing that has no great moral nor logical standing.
Now feel free to carry on the mutual “Hate Liberals” meeting and twist words and rumor-monger away.
Peace.
I apologize for the length and errors I've already seen in my own response, but I didn't want to spend all day on this tripe.
Not only isn't it thinking, it's not even English.
That's funny, guys. Make the same mistakes of which you accuse the author. If you think his points are wrong or false or even lies, you offered not one proof in support. We on the right don't need to be told the author is speaking in general terms. Doing so doesn't negate his points at all. And should you present the one person that is outside his "all" statement, you'd still not have succeeded in rebutting his general point.
Also, were you aware that these are opinion pieces? Do you actually expect every little word spoken to have reams of supportive evidence? I've read stuff from both you, Dan, and you, Geoffrey, and could say exactly the same things you've said about this author. In fact, you are put to the test often without succeeding in making your cases. One example is Geoffrey's claims that "Bush lied". When asked, he presented me with a list, none of which were lies at all by definition. And really, Dan, "war monger" and other such epithets are thrown about quite "liberally" by each of you as well as a plethora of liberal opinion writers. I think the general point of the author is sound and particularly the exteme lack of experience and reason behind the foreign policies of one Barry Obama.
Make the same mistakes of which you accuse the author. If you think his points are wrong or false or even lies, you offered not one proof in support.
1. I accused the author of ridiculously over the top hyperbole.
2. I offered the evidence (ie, he said "ALL liberals...")
3. That would be the "proof" which you request
And should you present the one person that is outside his "all" statement, you'd still not have succeeded in rebutting his general point.
1. ?
2. His specific point was that ALL liberals are appeasers. I am not an appeaser nor are any of my liberal friends.
3. Nor have I ever read any liberals who advocate appeasing our enemies.
4. Therefore his specific point is clearly wrong.
5. His general point - that liberals tend to be appeasers (I guess that is what you're suggesting his general point is - he didn't say that anywhere so I was going by what he said, not what I assumed he said) - how would I disprove that? Offer more than half of liberal opinion that says specifically that they are opposed to appeasing the enemy?
You're asking me to disprove a negative and it is not possible. If he wants to allege that liberals are appeasers, the onus is on him to support the argument. He did not offer one serious argument to show that Carter, Clinton or Obama want/wanted to appease the enemy.
The closest he came to this was his offering the case of the Shah (suggesting that he was appeasing the Ayatollah, I guess?), but his argument did not support his claim.
You can't just say, "Remember when Reagan was president? And how he supported the president of Guatemala? And remember how many Guatemalans were killed by their gov't? Yeah, that shows that Reagan was an appeaser, because, you know, he cooperated with a bad gov't to help them stay in power..."
THAT is not a good argument that Reagan was an appeaser. And it is no different than your author's "evidence."
6. And, even if he did "prove" that Carter and Clinton were appeasers (which he did not come even close to doing), that is not the same as proving that "liberals tend to be appeasers."
It's a lame article. Except, as noted, that one could make the case that it's a good rallying cry for people who already agree with him.
I see. So you are attacking the letter of what he said, rather than the spirit. I take this to be true based on your first three points of the last comment. Because he said "all", you've effectively discredited him. Yeah. That'll do it. Good work. Sheesh.
Next, you rebut him by saying that you know of no one who is an appeaser. But it's not a question of what your business card says, it's a matter of how you respond to foreign threats. In the case of Iraq, 12 years and 17 UN resolutions wasn't enough for you. I doubt that if it was 24 years and 34 resolutions that you would have felt it was time to act. This is the point. You are appeasers based on how you respond to threats. Jimma Carter was an appeaser because of how he responded. And btw, he thought the Ayatollah would be just fine because he was a religious guy. Good thinkin' Jimma!
In short, you refute him by saying he didn't do enough to support his contentions. But that doesn't mean he didn't. As usual, you raise the bar incredibly high for your opposition, but it's always low enough for you to merely step over it. A better way for you to make your case would be to present one good example of a lib/Dem who acted forcefully against a threat. I think you might be able to make the case for LBJ to some extent, but since then, I doubt it.
A better way for you to make your case would be to present one good example of a lib/Dem who acted forcefully against a threat.
The thing is, we tend to have different ideas of "forcefully," oppose a threat. I think what we did (the world, not the US leadership, who were by your standards, "appeasers") to bring Apartheid to an end is a great example of forcefully confronting an evil - a rogue nation. I think what we did to stop the terrorists in Nicaragua is a good example of forcefully opposing terrorists.
I suspect you would only be satisfied if I were to point to a time where "liberals" supported an invasion of a country where we "wiped out the bad guys."
There are more ways than one to confront rogue nations.
And still, this fella did not prove his point. Not even close.
As already noted, you can say, "Remember when Reagan was president? And how he supported the president of Guatemala? And remember how many Guatemalans were killed by their gov't? Yeah, that shows that Reagan was an appeaser, because, you know, he cooperated with a bad gov't to help them stay in power..."
And that is not the same as making a case that conservatives tend to be appeasers. It's ridiculous on its face, but I suspect that you are too closely tied to Republicans and so-called conservatives to see them do any wrong (except for failing to be conservative enough) and so this writer is good, regardless of how poorly he presents his case.
Here, just to clearly point out the deficiencies, is how this author "supports" his claim that Carter was an appeaser:
The Shah was hustled out of power because Carter felt guilty about the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh 25 years before, in 1953! But Jimmy was trying to make up for past sins, and simply took his eyes off clear and present dangers.
1. WHO exactly is Carter supposedly appeasing in this one example of one president?
2. What evidence does this fella have to support that Carter was "trying to make up for past sins" or because "Carter felt guilty"?
Is the author is asking us to suppose that he has some magic ability to know Carter's reasoning or does he have some quotes from Carter that supports this view?
And how is this about appeasing? WHO exactly was Carter appeasing in his one example?
Again, his argument just doesn't make logical sense. It only works at the demonization level, not at the adult, reasoning level.
"2. What evidence does this fella have to support that Carter was "trying to make up for past sins" or because "Carter felt guilty"?"
This is news to you that Carter feels compelled to apologize for American "sins"? That's quite a rock under which you live. Carter appeased by simply cutting off oil imports after the hostage taking. He then arranged to have a Canadian talk with the hostages. Finally he authorized an 8 billion dollar ransom. Which of these matches your definition of "forcefully"? This all came at a time when most Americans saw the hostage taking as justification for military action. Instead, his actions made us look like chumps to the Ayatollah and his minions and emboldened them in their position. The author gave enough support for his position. If you want more details, you can find them. That he didn't supply an encyclopedia's worth of support doesn't diminish his point whatsoever.
This doesn't fit in with the mood of the previous posts, but I had missed the fact that terrorists had blown up two Down Syndrome patients for the cause of Allah.
Sick. Evil. Perverted. Demented.
Killing the innocent for your own twisted cause.
But then,liberals support abortion, don't they?
Ms. Green,
I had heard of this tragedy. How does one go about talking these people out of such barbaric actions? But you know that the left thinks they have a shot. And while they try, more people will die. Somehow, such deaths don't bother the left as much as the deaths that occur during any attempts by nations like ours that seek to put a stop to these things. Then, it's as if the victims were never in any danger previous to our intercession. I just don't get that.
"Not only isn't it thinking, it's not even English."
No. It's not Geoffrey Kruse-Safford Liberalese. Yeah, it's English, just not Geoff's brand of smoke.
That seems to be the usual response to anything "counter-liberal"; denegrate the speaker. It's a lot easier than confronting what was spoken.
Marshall,
You hit the nail-head with your self-applied label versus actions (the business card reference) statement.
To ELAshley, I apply the rules of grammar to any piece of writing, before anything else. Along with being able to construct a coherent sentence, there needs to be some kind of consistency as sentences construct paragraphs, etc. This is stuff I learned in 7th grade, and had pounded in to my head in four years of college, three years of seminary, and two years of post-grad work. Before anything else, the mechanics of writing need to be clear.
That isn't being liberal, it's being educated, and having a working knowledge of the English language. If you can point to a liberal blogger/journalist/whatever who abuses the mother tongue as much as those folks at American Thinker, please let me know, I'll be happy to apply a bit of red pencil.
BTW, if a journal has the word Thinker in its title, and the presentation of these thoughts is sloppy, confusing, illogical, contradictory, and error-prone, this isn't so much "attacking the messenger" as it is pointing out a big old glaring inconsistency.
Like I said, this all started in my home, as my father is a retired English teacher.
"BTW, if a journal has the word Thinker in its title, and the presentation of these thoughts is sloppy, confusing, illogical, contradictory, and error-prone, this isn't so much "attacking the messenger" as it is pointing out a big old glaring inconsistency."
Why do I get the feeling you haven't read nearly enough at AT to pass such judgements. In addition, you aren't likely to be able to truly debate the points made in most, if not all, of the articles successfully. I take this position due to the fact that you spend all your time attacking the grammar or sentence construction, as if any of that truly confounds the sentiment and/or point of any piece within. Frankly, when I read some lib nonsense, sentence structure is the last thing that concerns me.
Marshall, in response to your query about how much I have read, I will apply this analogy. If someone makes the statement "All swans are white," and someone comes up with definitive proof that there exists a white swan, the statement, "All swans are white" is falsified. No amount of corollaries, no ad hoc additions, can save that statement from becoming false.
The person who wrote the article in question stated, "All liberals are appeasers". Since this is demonstrably untrue, and has been since 1938, when the appeasers were in fact arch-conservative Republicans, I find it difficult to understand (to be generous about it) why I should lend any credence whatsoever to any points he might make along the way. His premise is false, and easily enough proven to be so. There is no reason in the world why one should waste one's time putting crap in one's brain out of some misguided desire to be "fair".
I have read quite of few pieces in American Thinker (sic), and all of them suffer from various maladies, from the outright falsehoods encased in this piece, to poor reasoning, logical fallacies, and poor presentation. Part of my point on harping about bad writing isn't nit-picking. When I was in college, my freshman year, I had a professor who told me that presentation is 90% of the battle. No matter how sound one's beliefs or arguments, if one cannot present them in a clear fashion, understanding the most basic rules of constructing an argument and using clear, grammatically correct prose, one has failed. While I fail myself at this, I at least make the effort to try. The writers at American Thinker, from my experience of them, do not try.
When one attempts to construct an argument proving something that is easily shown to be false, no matter how brilliant the logic, or sound the argument, or Strunk & White the prose, it's caca, pure and simple. I don't make these rules, I just follow them.
AH! I just proved that I am fallible! In the first paragraph, I wrote about an "all" statement, "All swans are white", and then posited the existence of a white swan, when I should have the existence of a black swan would falsify the previous all-statement.
You see? Even I am far from perfect. At least I am man enough to admit it.
Geoffrey,
Please. You're embarrassing yourself. The author doesn't go back any further than Carter so it's pretty clear to those less educated than yourself that he is referring to the Dems/libs of today. And it seems that just like Dan Trabue, you think attacking a generality makes your case, or more specifically, totally destroys your opponents case. Sadly for you, this is not true. Find 10 Dem politicians that are looking to go to Iran and kick ass right now, and that still wouldn't negate the fact that, by and large, one will not find a Dem who won't fall into the "peace at any price" category. No matter what is done by the scumbags, the lib/Dems will move the goal posts to prevent doing what needs to be done.
As to grammar, you might wish to consider that the writers who contribute at American Thinker (and there are many) or any other conservatively similar site, is writing to the common man, not some hoity-toity English major. I would wager that we could find an equal number of grammatically deficient writers at liberal sites with equal ease. So freakin' what? Personally, I don't find the writing to be of such low quality that any reasonable person of any political persuasion couldn't understand easily what is being put forth in any given piece.
Finally, you have only waxed critically on the grammar and sentence structure but not the points made (with the exception of the generality wherein you had to go in the Wayback machine for an example). The author made his point with ease.
I'm not sure what the points are. That liberals are appeasers? In what way was Carter, who worked hard to get the MX Missile and the B-1B bomber funded, an appeaser? In what way was Carter, who began the mujahideen insurrection against the Soviet troops invading Afghanistan, an appeaser?
How was Clinton, who waged wars against Haiti and Serbia, and directed the United States to assassinate Osama bin Laden, an appeaser (I find it hard to figure out who Clinton might have appeased; at least Carter had the Evil Empire).
Since the term came in to vogue in the 1930's, I think it important to go all the way back to the beginning. Neville Chamberlain and other members of his government were members of the conservative party in Britain. In the United States, the leading critic of any attempt by the Roosevelt Administration to do anything about the rising threat of Naziism was Sen. Robert Taft, perhaps the most conservative non-southerner ever to hold office in that body. The most popular man in America, Charles Lindbergh, was not just an arch-appeaser, but a Nazi-sympathizer, as were leading industrialists.
In the post-war era, the myth of liberal "appeasement" of communism was created out of whole-cloth by Republicans attempting to show that our war-time alliance with the Soviet Union was a blunder (this was part of appeasement mythology, the whole "let them kill each other" nonsense). That the Soviet Union ran spies in the US shouldn't be too surprising; we did the same thing there. Alger Hiss, however, wasn't one (I have older relatives who spent lifetimes in military and civilian intelligence and they will tell you unequivocally that Whittaker Chambers' story was so full of holes as to be unbelievable by any but the most ignorant; Chambers was a hero to left-leaning liberals, as well as related by marriage to Truman's distant and haughty Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, so it is no wonder they tried to take him down).
I do not know of any fact to which any can point in post-war history (1945-1991) with one glaring exception, in which American officials "appeased" any rival. The glaring exception was the deal Kennedy struck with Kruschev during the Cuban Missile Crisis to dismantle our Jupiter missiles in Turkey. I have heard, in Kennedy's defense, that these missiles were already scheduled for demolition and relocation; that our other European-based medium range ballistic missiles were not touched, etc., etc. My own feeling about this was that Soviet withdrawal of missiles from Cuba had to be (or should have been) unconditional. On the other hand, it did avoid the nuclear annihilation of the southern US, so that's a good thing, and it didn't really effect the strategic balance of power all that much. Yet, in the moment, it was a mistake, and it didn't even save Kruschev's butt from being tossed aside the next year when the Politburo figured he wimped out with Kennedy.
Anyway, there you have it. I'll gladly listen to any factually-based examples of liberal appeasement. Since I have dealt with the only significant one of which I am aware, I will wait for the reply.
By the way, how relevant is any of this right now? Aren't we discussing the political equivalent of angels dancing on pin-heads, er I mean heads of pins?
Geoffrey,
Funding weapons and using them when necessary are two different things. And what's this crap about Carter beginning the mujahideen insurrection? That's like saying he brokered the peace between Egypt and Israel when all he did was provide the hotel room for Sadat and Begin. Are you listening to his version of events? Doubtless the Afghanis were already busy defending themselves before Carter came along.
Until I research and review Clinton's adventures in Haiti and Serbia, I remain suspicious of his motivations. But his folly in the Blackhawk Down episode and his mere tough talk about Hussein and bin Laden don't impress.
The history lesson is nice, but once again, the author speaks of contemporary people. It matters not a bit to this discussion when the word "appeaser" was first used. Liberals and conservatives are both a bit different now than those who wore the labels in the past. But hey, it's a great way to muddy the issue. Nicely done.
Most significantly is the manner in which libs of today deal with the threats that should be obvious to all. Some pretend there is no threat from the Islamic radicals, and no amount of headless people or destroyed downtown office buildings will sway them. The whining by the left after one man finally had the spine to actually ACT after 30 years of messin' about is all the evidence a reasonable person needs. These are facts, but you're too much of a lefty partisan to admit it. You'd prefer to play word games.
What contemporary people, liberal or otherwise, have sought to appease our international foes by giving in to demands that strengthen them and weaken us? Other than, say, George W. Bush invading Iraq, then staying there, which is a huge recruitment poster for international terrorism?
Again, even one counter-example proves the central thesis of the article wrong. Period. One black swan makes a lie of "All swans are white." One non-appeasing liberal makes a lie of "All liberals of necessity are appeasers."
I'm waiting for an example. Please. Otherwise, I'm going to start making fun here.
The entire thing is absurd. That you take it seriously is funny, actually. That you think it either relevant or important is even funnier. Since most Americans want us out of Iraq, want George Bush out of office, and want us to deal with real threats in a serious manner, talking about a President who left office twenty-seven years ago is about as relevant as talking about the Pony Express as an alternative to our current mail-delivery system. It's nonsensical to begin with, argued poorly, and factually inaccurate. I just don't understand why you don't get this.
It. Is. Factually. False. Period. Read those five words again, and again, and one more time. If you believe that I am wrong, that is certainly your right. That your belief rests on no factual basis other than a simple, ignorant bias cannot be helped, and therefore no amount of evidence will convince you otherwise.
If I believed for one moment that all liberals, contemporary or otherwise, of necessity, were appeasers and weak, I would certainly not count myself among them. Yet, since I am a liberal and not a pacifist nor an appeaser, that, by definition disproves the thesis argued in the article in question.
As for your reference to using nuclear weapons, all I can say is that any President who saw nuclear weapons as anything other than a deterrent force, rather than a practical weapon of war should be automatically disqualified from the office. They were and are always weapons of last possible resort, to be used only when first used against us (although NATO doctrine always had contingency plans for field nukes, like nuclear artillery shells and the like, should a Soviet invasion pass the 100 mile mark or last longer than fourteen days). To even discuss the possibility of using strategic nuclear weapons is immoral.
Marshall and his "Thinker" said:
True Liberals Must be Appeasers
Dan replied:
Objectively not true. I'm not an appeaser and I don't know any liberal appeasers. To disprove this statement, all I have to do is offer one and now, I have.
Marshall replied:
you offered not one proof in support.
Dan replied:
ummm, yes, I did. I offered myself as a liberal who is not an appeaser, thus disproving his point.
Marshall replied:
Well, when he suggested that liberals MUST be appeasers, he didn't mean ALL liberals. You're missing the point... (or words to that effect)
To which, Geoffrey said:
I'll gladly listen to any factually-based examples of liberal appeasement.
Marshall said:
......
Geoffrey reiterated:
I'm waiting for an example. Please.
Marshall said:
......
Just to clarify the main point here.
Okay, my job here is done.
Appeasement: Jimma Carter's signing of the Algiers Agreement caving in to the demands of the same bastards in Iran that invaded American soil in the form of our Embassy and took hostage its personnel. Among the points of appeasing was the guarantee that no one would seek legal action against Iran for the hostage taking. Funds that were frozen were returned. A promise never to interfere in Iranian affairs was made. And I believe we have to wash their cars every weekend. This is one quick example of lib appeasement in the face of scumbag assault.
But once again, liberal appeasement is a way of life, a paradigm under which they operate. No pronouncement of "Iyam not!" will change that. Lib whining that we had Hussein contained, while he was busy killing his own, shooting at our planes, disregarding UN resolutions, embezzling oil for food monies, supporting terrorism, etc, etc, etc. Carter's equating Israel and Palestine is another example and one shared by most libs. Being willing to talk with ANY Islamic wackjob without demanding first that they cease their insanely savage treatment of civilians and others is yet more appeasment.
Save your responses for a bit. I'm going to provide a new post to continue this. It likely will include comments at other posts that followed this one. This post is about to drop off into the archives and I don't want to debate there, but prefer to be out in front.
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