Hysteria
By Mitch Berg
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Scott Adams wrote a timely column on mass hysteria.
Joe Doakes
I’d thought about pullquoting this myself.
But save us all some time. Read it. Then give it to some of the Democrats – or all of them – in your life.
August 21st, 2017 at 2:01 pm
It’s always in terms of “what about,” which is the core of moral nihilism. Efforts at virtue are unimportant and meaningless. This is why Nazis and people opposing Nazis can be seen as the same.
Moral nihilism is on display here everyday. And it’s not the same as the kind of realist compromises you have to make with poiticians. I had no illusions about Hillary Clinton being a paragon of virtue, but she was never going to defend herself by saying “X did exactly the same thing, therefore everybody is bad.”
August 21st, 2017 at 2:46 pm
No, Hillary’s line is always, “It’s not my fault!”
August 21st, 2017 at 3:20 pm
X did exactly the same thing, therefore everybody is bad
Even when you try to be cute, you fail. Epically. It is not like sHrillary did not try to defend her use of private server by pointing out that previous SoS did it as well. No, did not happen. You are a real tool. Not a sharp one. Keep up with the howlers!
August 21st, 2017 at 3:31 pm
I don’t think you’ve really thought this through.
August 21st, 2017 at 4:05 pm
I had no illusions about Hillary Clinton being a paragon of virtue, but she was never going to defend herself by saying “X did exactly the same thing, therefore everybody is bad.”
Which part of YOU saying that sHrillary would not say it, and that it is a fact she did you do not understand? Wait a minute. You wrote this drivel and now you are saying you do not comprehend what it is you, yourself wrote? More proof you are just troll and give no forethought to anything you write, including copy and paste. More reason to tl;dr anything you write.
August 21st, 2017 at 7:47 pm
Emery moves the goalposts even on himself. It’s a gift.
August 22nd, 2017 at 9:09 am
No, Hillary’s line is always, “It’s not my fault!”
I thought it was generally along the lines of “I can’t remember”, but whatever.
And technically, Emery is correct. It was not Hilliary, but rather her minions, who were covering for her, and of course her minions’ minions will ignore the fact that they were wrong.
August 22nd, 2017 at 3:35 pm
NW, I see Trumps approach to Afghanistan is remarkably similar to that of Clinton and Obama’s position.
Trump’s “new strategy” should be called: “Operation Kick-the-Can” and I suspect it will continue until such time as the US withdraws from South Asia.
It also increasingly resembles Vietnam where the executive branch slogged on and on and would still be there if Congress had not cut off all funding. The lesson for Afghanistan and Iraq is that Congress ends wars, not presidents.
August 22nd, 2017 at 6:16 pm
Trump’s approach in Afghanistan is similar to Obama’s….Um, Emery, I haven’t heard Trump say that we’d be out by a certain date, and he just increased, not decreased, troops there. Plus, it was Clinton–Mr. B.J. himself–who CREATED a lot of the situation in Afghanistan by refusing Osama Bin Laden’s head on a platter no less than FOUR times.
And Vietnam? Well, the Laotians and Cambodians might note that they did indeed have something to gain from slowing down the Communist advance into Saigon, don’t ya think? In the same way, we’ve got a basic question of what we might have to lose if Afghanistan once again becomes terrorism central.
Sorry, but you’re interacting with people who remember a bit of how this unfolded. You’re going to have to up your game.
August 22nd, 2017 at 7:10 pm
For now, this is probably the best strategy because (1) it aims to sustain stability in an unstable region and (2) there is a valid counter-terrorism dimension to sustaining a troop presence. The negative is that it continues to feed the parasitic corruption in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Trying to do anything constructive in the general vicinity of Pakistan is always doomed to failure and involves paying a high overhead in corruption. The story about securing cooperation from Pakistan is a very broken record.
At the peak in 2010, the US had 100,000 there and they still could not win. Currently the Taliban are gaining ground, the 8,400 US troops there are not enough to prevent “a vacuum that terrorists would instantly fill”. What is the point of leaving enough troops there to perpetuate loss of blood and treasure but not enough to win? The Soviets had close to a million at their peak, and had far more permissive ROE than the US. Look how that ended. Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires for a reason.
Typical compromise answer that combines the worst of both worlds.
August 23rd, 2017 at 11:21 am
You know, Emery, if you’d like a touch of credibility, you just might…admit that your previous comments were nonsense.
August 23rd, 2017 at 7:53 pm
Increase the troops level 4,000 or so and we’re at about 12% of levels 6-7 years ago. I’m not holding my breath that anything substantial changes.