Bizarre conversation in a bar last Friday night...

[KansDem]

Last Friday evening, I wanted to take a walk so I could smoke my pipe and think. I wound up going into a bar that I hadn't been to for 10-12 years. It seemed a pleasant ambiance: there was a C&W band with a singer that sounded strikingly like Johnny Cash. And the place was filled with customers (it just so happened that the bar was closing for several weeks for remodeling and this was the last night before closing). So I bought a beer and found a place near the back door just contented to stand and sip awhile and smoke my pipe.

I was standing alongside the path to the restrooms so I said "hello" to several people as they past me--many people complimented me on my pipe tobacco--and this one fellow stopped to talk what I thought would be briefly. He said he was 28 years old and told me a little about his life, just the usual bartalk. Then the subject of Iraq came up. Now, generally I avoid talking politics in C&W bars, and I just sipped my beer and nodded while this fellow underwent his diatribe. However, when this fellow said that "we needed to go in there to pay them back for attacking us on 9/11," like Popeye, I thought to myself, "That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more!," so I said "You know, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11!" He looked at me rather sheepishly and said "Well, we still need to show strength." I said, "Then we should have gone after the Saudis...75% of the attackers were from Saudi Arabia!" He said "Uh, yeah...I morn the loss of life as much as anybody, but we had to show strength after 9/11, whether or not we invaded the right country." I thought "WHAAAA...!!! This fellow can't be for real!" I spoke with him for a few more minutes, mentioning the close ties between the Bin Laden and Bush families, the fact OBL hasn't been caught, the fact tha Salem Bin Laden financed George Jr's early oil ventures in Texas, etc., etc., and he was steadfast in his doctrine of "we had to show strength following 9/11 even if it meant attacking the wrong country."

I finally thought it best to head back for home, so I bade him farewell, and departed. I don't think I'll be back....

Anyone else heard this "doctrine" before?

[bryant69]

1. I totally agree, you shouldn't patronize a place that contains people who disagree with you

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Winterblues]

13. It figures you would say something like that

You sure know how to distort things...

[bryant69]

19. How is that a distortion

He or she went to a country western bar, met someone who has admittedly stupid ideas about the war, and determines not to go back there again. If it were the manager or an employee I might see his or her point.

Bryant

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. No, thank heavens

but to me it sounds like the young man thinks one Middle Easterner is just like another.

[Joe Chi Minh]

22. I think it's more brutish than that. It's the way most politicians view the public

they purport to serve. The Harry Lime perspective. If your look-out tower is high enough, you see the masses are really just ants. "Fungible" (expendable for or replaceable by something similar, a movable consumable, such as an ink cartridge) was, I believe Rumsfeld's favoured description.

Then that young clown in the bar would come to know a whole new world of pain. He evidently doesn't realise that's how his right-wing leaders see him, and before he knows it he'll be off to Iraq as a clay duck to be shot or blown up by people he won't even see. Maybe missing some limbs, or, what with the advances in modern surgery, and them wanting to keep the fatality figures down, he might come back with just part of his brain taken out; finally having insult added to his injuries by administrative medical neglect.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. I've heard it often

All you can do is plant the seeds of sanity and trust they'll take root.

In most people, that's exactly what happens. No one enjoys being a jerk and a moron. A little reflection, and they correct their course.

Not everybody. But most.

--p!

[mainegreen]

4. Oh yes.

It makes the person sound like a real buffoon.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. You were in a C&W bar! It's the same old nationalistic crap.

[Echo In Light]

6. Yes. That "the end justifies the means" BS is common for 'neutral' Americans who are actually ...

Shifted rightward via routine exposure to mainline propaganda.

[LibDemAlways]

7. He sounds brain dead - the effects of listening to too much

Limpballs and the like.

I've never heard the "It doesn't matter who we invaded" meme, but I suspect he came up with it because he had no clue Iraq wasn't involved until you told him and he didn't want to back down and look weak. So he ended up sounding like a moron instead.

My husband works with people who think we should kill all the "ragheads." Sounds like the guy you encountered is the same kind of neanderthal knuckledragger.

[CJCRANE]

24. I think you're right.

I've never met anyone who will immediately back down when proved wrong (about the war). It always takes time for it to sink in.

Usually after a few weeks or months they will forget what they said before and say something like "I never liked Bush anyway" (when you know damn well that they used to be a Bush-apologist).

[Selatius]

8. It's an idiotic doctrine. If Bob punches you in the face, you punch Martha because she's easier.

What an idiotic doctrine, an utter waste of human life.

[Echo In Light]

10. Ha! you'd think these macho goons would detect the cowardice in their postulation!

[EstimatedProphet]

9. Yeah, I've heard that one

That's the way bullies think.

[sakabatou]

11. That guy must've had an IV connected to the punch...

[Marr]

12. Sounds like a last attempt at rationalization to me.

All the previous post-invasion rationalizations were shown to be bullshit, so I'm not surprised to hear that the truly pigheaded would retreat to this sort of position.

I've had conversations with people who still believe Hussein had WMD and that they were found, but I hadn't heard this particular line before.

[TahitiNut]

14. Tell him "Well, Canada would've been more convenient!"

Dullards like that deserve MORE cognitive dissonance ... hopefully it'll short-circuit their autonomic functions.

It's the same for Capital Punishment supporters - imbeciles unconcerned with innocents put to death because it's STILL a "deterrent."
:puke:

[lonestarnot]

16. Mexico even more so.

:puke:

[nilram]

15. thing is, we did "show strength"

after 9/11. What did he think Afghanistan was about?

[lpbk2713]

17. Probably something espoused on RW Hatemonger Radio.

The fact that it is total fiction doesn't matter to the RW Radio Hatemongers.

Just as long as it serves to infuriate the sheepies.

[RepublicanElephant]

18. john mccain's campaign slogan.

:crazy:

[mitchum]

20. I bet he was wearing a REALLY big belt buckle, wasn't he?

His repetition of "we had to show strength following 9/11 even if it meant attacking the wrong country" seems to be from a man with...something to prove

[radfringe]

21. umm... were they serving kool-aid instead of beer?

haven't specifically heard that logic - but if he watches FAUX spews or listens to oxy-rush - then that would explain the bizarre reasoning

[MindPilot]

23. I have heard that shit -- "doctrine" -- as you call it before.

My response is always something along the lines of "when you are already the biggest baddest motherfucker in the jungle, you don't have to advertise it."