Frivolity
Thomas Sowell has a piece up at Real Clear Politics that is spot on. He discusses serious political discussion - and the lack thereof coming from all too many these days.
Even when serious issues are addressed, they can be addressed either seriously or frivolously. If you are content to see life and death issues of war and peace addressed with catch phrases like "chicken hawk" or to see a coalition of nations around the world fighting terrorism referred to as "unilateral" U.S. action because France does not go along, then you are content with frivolity.
You may deserve whatever you get if you vote frivolously in this year's election. But surely the next generation, which has no vote, deserves better.
Weak-kneed members of both parties have been calling for a timetable to be announced for withdrawal from Iraq. No other war in thousands of years of history has ever had such a timetable announced to their enemies. Even if we intended to get out by a given date, there is not the slightest reason to tell the terrorists that. It is frivolous politics at its worst.
There has never been any reason to doubt that American troops will be removed from Iraq. They were removed after the first Gulf War. Before that, they were removed from Grenada and from other Western Hemisphere countries throughout the 20th century. Millions of American troops were removed from Europe after World War II.
Why should there be the slightest doubt that they will be removed from Iraq? The only question is whether you can run a war on a timetable like a railroad and whether you need to announce your plans to your enemies.
All this rhetoric about a withdrawal timetable is based on trying to make political hay out of the fact that the Iraq war is unpopular. But all wars have been unpopular with Americans, as they should be.
Sowell points out that war is never popular with Americans. Despite all the rhetoric from cretinous thugs like Hugo Chavez, that is a very true statement. The American public may back a war enthusiastically for a very short while, but that support drains away quickly. It always has. Which our enemies understand even if too many of our own people do not. Read the whole thing and decide if you are serious or frivolous.
By anonymous, Tuesday, 10 October , 2006 @ 9:59 am
MIT researchers show that Sowell is wrong about WW2.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/berinsky.html
By Pug, Tuesday, 10 October , 2006 @ 1:08 pm
Thomas Sowell, alleged “serious scholar”, who spent the ’90’s on Vince Foster and Mena Airport. Few people are more frivolous than Thomas Sowell.
Greenwald nails his pathetic hide to the wall.
By BubbaB, Tuesday, 10 October , 2006 @ 1:47 pm
Wow, great argument, Pug.
Huh?
One again, a classic ad hominem attack.
By Black Jack, Tuesday, 10 October , 2006 @ 7:26 pm
The MIT report showed the public supported staying the course in WW2. Americans were not if favor of accepting German promises. The actual question follows:
“In the 1945 poll, Gallup asked his respondents, ‘If Hitler offered to make peace now and would give up all land he has conquered, should we try to work out a peace or should we go on fighting until the German army is completely defeated?”
The MIT report stated, “73 percent of the public expressed support for the stated U.S. policy of unconditional surrender; the American people wanted to continue fighting until victory was complete.”