Folks, here's the type of mentality we're dealing with

[mtnsnake]

Did anyone happen to see that imbecile on CNN this morning, one of the anti-protesters from the Pro-War side? When CNN interviewed him, he compared what we're doing in Iraq now to what we did in WWII in the 1940's. He said in no uncertain terms that NOT supporting the troops in THIS war is just as bad as if we hadn't supported the troops in WWII, so we MUST stay the course.

Listen to this, though. To bolster his analogy of why we need to support the troops just as much now as we did back then, he went on to say that "if we hadn't supported the troops in WWII, we'd all be speaking German or Japanese now". Talk about using THAT point, which is NOT relevant NOW, to invoke fear into the minds of the ignorant!

Can you imagine anyone so fucking STUPID that they don't see a difference between what's going on now in Iraq and what we HAD to do during WWII in the time of Hitler? These people are not just fucking stupid, but they're scared of their own pathetic shadows. LOL, no way do these geniuses want to wake up next week speaking Arabic!!

[hippiechick]

1. Yes, I can imagine LOTS of people that stupid ...

... this country is full of people who are incredibly ignorant of history, and think that everything is as was written by the Propaganda Ministry, or what they see on Saturday Afternoon John Wayne Movie Marathons.

They have no idea of the nuances of historical events because they see everything in black and white - we're the 'good guys' ... everyone else is a nuke loving communist.

It's scary to see how thoroughly undeveloped the critical thinking skills and historical knowledge base is among our fellow citizens.

[mwb970]

6. This is why America is spiraling downward.

I read in the paper this morning that 45% of Americans believe that humans were created in their present form within the last 10,000 years.

How very sad. With that kind of butt-ignorant citizenry, America can no longer be great.

[BiggJawn]

2. Was it Trent Lott who said....

..."We can support the Troops without supporting the President..."?

Somebody needs to take that mouth-breather aside and try to explain to him what a Personality Cult is, and how he got entangled in one. They will also need to explain that the Germans weren't the ones who attacked Parl Harbour...

Then there was the woman who said (speaking of yesterday's "Support thr Shrub" rally) "Cindy Sheehan doesn't speak for the Majority in this country, WE do!"

Oh, really? 400 of YOU v. 100,000-plus of US???
:rofl:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. wake up speaking Arabic? We wish. We STILL don't have enough

translators for DOD, CIA, Justice, FBI or NSA. The FBI's backlog of unheard tapes of previously authorized surveillance is counted in man years. That is just pre-9/11 tapes.

But attitudes of which you speak are common throughout US history. Recall that in the previous century, Kansas and other forward looking states barred the teaching and speaking of the German lanugage.

Yet other forward looking states like Alabama, Kansas, North Carolina and others considered sterilization of people deemed mentally ill.

But a hallmark of some American thinking is this perverse pride in being an uneducated idiot. Some states, Kansas, Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania, are seriously considering Intel Design instead of biological classes, which would normally teach the science of evolution.


Hmmm. I seem to be mentioning Kansas quite a bit. Must be a coincidence.

[WildClarySage]

5. Forced sterilization of the mentally ill is not simply the imagined

longings of Kansas and a few other states, it was in fact the reality for thousands of men and women as late as the 1970's, another in a long line of 'freedoms' this country has conveniently forgotten in our quest to pat ourselves on the back for inventing liberty.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

10. which is why they hate us for our freedoms, no doubt.

obviously, we are doing something right, huh?

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Such a position is the result of two conditions:

1. It has been already put out as a Talking Point by any possible source (Rush, Sean, Ann Coulter, etc.) and all that needs to be done is to memorize and repeat.

2. The CNN caller has not had the benefit of being exposed to the liberal art discipline of rhetoric and debate. In other words, he has not been in an environment where he is challenged to see the weakness of his argument and either bolster his position or concede its untenability. The schools have no time to truly instill and demonstrate critical thinking consistently, if at all. And this leaves graduates with the mind of a blank tape that will repeat without understanding what it repeats. The citizens remain slaves to their "leaders" without an informed mind.

[Missy M]

7. The "we'd all be talking German or Japanese now" routine is.....

getting a little old. Don't they know how ridiculous that sounds. Comparing what we did in WWII to what we are doing in Iraq, not to mention we invaded Iraq, is just plain stupid. We did not fight WWII alone. The rest of the allies (try Russia) would take exception with that.

[jmm]

8. I think I went to high school with his daughter

While arguing why I didn't believe in a flag burning amendment during a class debate one girl started to scream at my how people died so my country could give birth to me. I told her my mother gave birth to me and if she needed a lesson on where babies come from I'd tell her during lunch and then continued what I had been saying.

Some people like her don't want to listen to reason. That's why states are actually considering teaching intelligent design but I've always been more concerned with educating the uninformed.

I've actually met quite a few people like this and I have always lived in very liberal areas so I know it has to be worse elsewhere.

[ET Awful]

14. LMAO . . . Great snappy comeback :) n/t

[DS1]

9. I happen to like German

It's fun to bark at people

[ChairmanAgnostic]

12. german language is great for certain things

Logic, philosophy, math.

Russian language is superb for literature, swearing, and some poetry. (I swear, they DO have the best swear words)

Japanese language/grammar structure helps explain much of their philosophy. (nouns first, then active terms last)

Indian languages (US indian) are notorious for some of their quirks and insights into their whole land-human connection thingie.

American English is more run of the mill, flexible and growing. IN fact, its ability to absorb new ideas and concepts easily has caused it to be the default language for science, math in today's world. Now, it does not have a beauty of French poetry, nor the logical constraints and structure of German, but its very flexibility makes it popular and useful.

That same flexibility also permits creeps like Bush convince people that he should have been president, so there are some downsides, too.

[sui generis]

11. what's wrong with speaking German?

:evilgrin:

World War II was a fight against a nation who had brought the war to our doorstep, AND it was a fight to preserve freedom in Europe.

There is no comparison in any way that stands up to light - Iraq was first and foremost a fight to get unmetered crude oil as restitution for "saving" Iraq from the evil bad Saddam, and all our other reasons for being there are just made up twice warmed over bullshit.

[newportdadde]

13. With outsouring we all will be speaking India or Chinese dialect anyways.

[H2O Man]

15. On speaking German ....

"To be fair,one cannot entirely blame the current Oval One for our incoherence. Though his predecessors have generally had rather higher IQs than his, they,too, assiduously served the 1 percent that owns the country while allowing everyone else to drift. Particularly culpable was Bill Clinton. Although the most able chief executive since FDR, Clinton, in his frantic pursuit of election victories, set in place the trigger for a police state that his successor is now happily squeezing.

"Police state? What's that all about? In April 1996, one year after the Oklahoma City bombing, President Clinton signed into law the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, a so-called conference bill in which many grubby hands played a part, including the bill's cosponsor, Senate Majority leader Dole. Although Clinton, in order to win elections, did many unwise and opportunistic things, he seldom, like Charles II, ever said an unwise one. But faced with opposition to antiterrorist legislation that not only gives the attorney general the power to use the armed services against the civilian population, neatly nullifying the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, it also, selectively, suspends habeas corpus, the heart of Anglo-American liberty. Clinton attacked his critics as 'unpatriotic.' Then, wrapped in the flag, he spoke from the throne: 'There is nothing patriotic about pretending that you love your country but despise your government.' This is breathtaking since it includes, at one time or another, most of us. Put another way, was a German in 1939 who said he detested the Nazi dictatorship unpatriotic?"
-- Gore Vidal; "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace; 2002; pages 11-12

[raccoon]

19. Thanks for bringing that to our attention.

Especially the sentences starting with, "Clinton attacked his critics as 'unpatriotic.' "

No matter who you vote for, the government always gets elected.

The main reason I want a Democrat in the WH is because COngress wouldn't automatically rubber-stamp every piece of legislation a Democratic President wanted.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. He's right, if you buy the 9-11 connection with Iraq. We don't buy it.

[Rainbowreflect]

17. When I sent a friend an email about protests before we invaded

Iraq he replied with some BS about Neville Chamberland.
I replied back that as soon as Iraq invaded Poland I would support the war.
The good news is this friend now detests bush & is always sending me anti-war, anti-bush emails.
To my credit I have never thrown his pre-war stand in his face.

[mtnsnake]

23. You handled it perfectly

You gave him an alternate opinion to think about, yet you didn't rub it in after he figured it out.

[Village Idiot]

18. True... and the same retards routinely inflate the USA's role...

versus the Germans and Japanese...

Most USAsians do not realize that the Germans were beaten mostly by the Russians, rather than the Western Allies... and the Japanese, to a pretty large extent, were already completyely beaten by the Chinese/Australians before the USA dropped two completely superfluous A-Bombs on them...

[Village Idiot]

20. Even now, if you look at WW2 a certain way...

You can see the Vistory as a failure... To a large extent, WWII was all about preventing a unified Germany from economic domination of Europe, and preventing Japan from empire building in the Pacific...

Worked like a charm???

[CrispyQ]

21. And in Georgia, they are closing schools for 2 days to save fuel.

Georgia schools close for 2 days to save gas:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-09-24-georgia-schools_x.htm

snip...

Most of Georgia's public schools will be closed Monday and Tuesday, taking two "early snow days," in an effort to conserve fuel in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Gov. Sonny Perdue asked for the closings on Friday, estimating that closing all of the state's schools would save about 250,000 gallons of diesel fuel by idling buses, plus an undetermined amount of gasoline by allowing teachers, staff members and some parents to stay home. Electricity also would be conserved by keeping the schools closed, he said.

===
KKKarl know's you can't have an educated public if you want to manipulate them.

"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing." K. Rove

[raccoon]

22. Lots of people are just that ignorant about history.

Even college-educated people, whom you'd THINK would know better, are ignorant about it. Once a college-educated man I knew expressed surprise when I pointed out that WWII didn't start with Pearl Harbor!

Most of these people know nothing about WWII history beyond what they've seen in the movies. If that much.