Okaaay. . .back to topic. I just want to take some time to really pick a part this statement by Rush, and point out the ways in which it misleads, misstates, and misrepresents. Unfortunately this kind of rhetoric is growing in popularity in our country to devastating effect. I've heard a lot of it used on this thread,and I've read young and impressionable posters aping this kind of talk becaue it sounds snappy, muscular and has some zing to it.
Zoocoustic said:
"My friends, it's time to face a hard, cold fact. Militant Islam wants to kill us just because we're alive and don't believe as they do. They've been killing us for decades.
How many of "us" have died for decades because of terrorism on U.S. soil? This is hyperbole.
Zoocoustic said:
So it's time to stop pretending these terrorist incidents are mere episodic events
Those who oppose administration policy do not believe that terrorist incidents are episodic events. This is blatant misrepresentation.
Zoocoustic said:
and face the reality that our way of life is in grave danger.
Terrorism is a threat, no question. But this is fearmongering. While we dare not sit idle, our way of life is not remotely close to being in grave danger. This is classic fearmongering.
Zoocoustic said:
This threat is not just going to go away because we choose to ignore it. Some say we should try diplomacy.
Who is actually suggesting that we negotiate with Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda? Who is actually suggesting that we "ignore" the threat? Blatant misrepresentation.
Zoocoustic said:
Yeah, well, tell me, how do we negotiate with people whose starting point is our death? Ask them to wait for ten years before they kill us? When good negotiates with evil, evil will always win and peace follows victory, not words issued by diplomats.
Actually peace comes when one side or both agrees to stop shooting and start talking. Granted that might require military "victory" but only in the movies does the war end when the bad guy gets knocked off the high building by the good guy and impaled on a piece of metal. This is macho posturing.
Zoocoustic said:
But some Americans, sadly, not interested in victory, and yet they want us to believe that their behavior is patriotic.
This is just unbelievable and yet I hear this kind of nonsense all the time. What liberal actually wants to "lose"? What liberal actually is not interested in "victory"? All liberals have done is suggest there is a better way to win this war. And notice the co-opting of patriotism. "You are only patriotic if you support what I say you should support. Otherwise you hate America." Ridiculous.
Zoocoustic said:
Well, it's not. When the critics are more interested in punishing this country over a few incidents at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay than they are in defeating those who want to kill us; when they seek to destroy a foreign surveillance program which is designed to identify those who want to kill us and how they intend to do it; when they want to grant those who want to kill us U.S. constitutional rights, I don't call that patriotic. Patriotism is rallying behind the country, regardless of party affiliation to defeat Islamofascism.
What he really means is patriotism is unquestioning support and lockstep support of our government's prosecution of the war of terrorism, however inept that prosecution might be. It doesn't get more unAmerican than that. Rush's defintion of patriotism would work well under a totalitarian regime.
Zoocoustic said:
Patriotism is supporting our troops in the battlefield, not undermining the mission and morale.
Rush fails to acknowledge that supporting our troops might mean objecting to how they are used.
Zoocoustic said:
Let there be no doubt about this: America will prevail. We're the same country that survived a bloody civil war, defeated the Nazis and the Soviets. Each generation has a responsibility to the next, our generation will not disappoint."
Well, I certainly hope he's right. But Rush is part of what needs to be overcome in this country.