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The Chickenhawk Arguments...
This is a full entry from worthless âLibertarianâ Radley Balkoâs weblog.Draft Ben Shapiro!
Iâll add my torch to this fire.
Joanne points to LewRockwell.com, where theyâre urging bloodthirsty 19 year-old neocon and (mis)syndicated columnist Ben Shapiro to join the military. If youâre going to agitate for policies that send your generational brethren off to conquer Muslimdom, why not have the courage to spill a little blood yourself, Ben?
Ah, but see the Lew Rockwell crowd misjudges the precocious virtuouso violinist and UCLA seniorâs motives. He doesnât aspire to actually be a soldier, mind you. He merely wants to be the guy â like William Kristol â who gets to send them off to battle. And who asks for a check from you and I to buy the bullets.
So câmon, Ben. Put up or shut up. Put down your pen. Pick up a gun. If the policies you advocate are worth the lives of your fellow millenials, surely theyâre worth your dying for, too. Arenât they?} Dear Radley Balko:
You are a worthless, despicable, smelly piece of worm-infested manure. You very well know the âChicken-Hawkâ argument is a fallacy. In your weblog you show a moderate command of logic, enough to see that arguing âanybody not willing to serve in the Military, should not advocate Warâ is nothing more than cheap intimidation. Not that you are alone in this of course, you are backed by the aptly misnamed Cato Institute, which pretends to work for âIndividual Liberty, Limited Government, Free Markets, and Peaceâ while in fact working for the Peace of the Catacombs. I could ask you, following Patrick Henry: Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? I could ask you, but it would do you no good, since you are a worthless, despicable, smelly piece of worm-infested manure.
Sincerely;
Sorge L. Diaz
P.S. Remember to walk carefully, you might drown in a pool of your own crapulence.
Normally, I dump opinion pieces, of which this is one, and I dump ad hominem attacks, of which this is also one. I'll leave it as an artifact of the now mercifully receding "Chickenhawk" argument. I've never read Radley Balko's blog. (Please remember to include links when referencing other people's blogs, by the way. It's good manners.) The meat of the thing isJoanne points to LewRockwell.com, where theyâre urging bloodthirsty 19 year-old neocon and (mis)syndicated columnist Ben Shapiro to join the military. If youâre going to agitate for policies that send your generational brethren off to conquer Muslimdom, why not have the courage to spill a little blood yourself, Ben? lewrockwell.com advertises itself as an "anti-state, anti-war, pro-market" news site. I know Jonah Goldberg's had a few arguments with them, but I've never read them much. Too doctrinaire for me â a state's necessary, otherwise we can go back to hunting and gathering; war's often necessary, otherwise we'd be speaking Russian, or German, or French, or Spanish, or Arabic, and we'd be Muslims or Arian Catholics, or Aryan super-doopermen or communists; and markets are necessary but us (Teddy) Roosevelt Republicans worry about Malefactors of Great Wealth. Nor do I know who Ben Shapiro is, though Google tells me he's got a Townhall.com column. Shapiro is 19 years old and in his senior year at UCLA. The Joanne referenced refers to him as "19 year old (and extremely-closeted homosexual) neocon" â which sounds libelous to me, unless she's got a few affidavits from his gentleman lovers. Just more of the ad hominem stuff. And the Lew Rockwell people are daring him to enlist.
Okay. Enlist. Or don't enlist. It's a volunteer Army (and Navy and Air Force, and Marines, and Coast Guard.) Not enlisting doesn't mean you can't have an opinion, just as not having a minimal set of manners doesn't mean you can't engage in policy argument. No doubt Radley and Joanne and Lew Rockwell are very happy to see the large number of vets who post and comment here in favor of our efforts to "conquer Muslimdom." No doubt they stop by here often and consider our opinions because they're informed, because we've been there, done that, and know what the troops are going through and what they're capable of.
Yep. No doubt about it.
The other reason I'm sure they stop by regularly is because Rantburg carries hard news, with the opinion added as commentary, what Mark Byron calls our "yellow journalism." There's two years of news excerpts here, concerned with the War on Terror, interspersed here and there admittedly with some politix and some general foolishness for comic relief. It's hard to start reading the entries from September 11th, 2001 forward, day after day, day in and day out, covering bombings, killings, maimings, perfidy, lies, grandiosity and xenophobia, without coming to the conclusion that "conquering Muslimdom" is a good thing â the only means I can see of keeping our children from wearing turbans or being dhimmis.
It seems to me that you don't have to be a veteran to understand those nuggets of fact (not opinion, mind you) that are strung out in a two-year long string. Ideologues can read Lew Rockwell and The Nation and any number of other opinion sources, but those of us who prefer facts find it hard to remain ideologues. There's no need to call those who do "worthless, despicable, smelly piece of worm-infested manure." Someday, probably after I'm dead, this will be over. Either the last mullah will have been hung with his own turban or our children and grandchildren will be memorizing the Koran. If it's the former, the ideologues who were against war and government (as in organized action) are going to look pretty stupid. If it's the latter, they're still going to look pretty stupid â and evil either way. |
Posted by: Sorge 2003-10-13 |
