Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Imagine…
President Bush took to the podium last week and explained what we are doing in Iraq, why we’re not leaving, and why it’s a good thing we’re there. The people who don’t like President Bush, and/or don’t like the fact that we’re there, responded to this by…well, we can all probably agree they responded by repeating things they already pointed out. And many among them would offer the opinion that President Bush’s address, itself, was essentially a rehash of things said before.
That would be an entirely legitimate opinion, although I would hope they would concede most people have been exposed more diligently to anti-war talking points than pro-war talking points.
But by taking the time to give the speech, President Bush somewhat addressed that. What has not been addressed, in my opinion, is the meaning or the lack thereof in the reasons we are given for leaving Iraq — and, as an ideal in the minds of some, going back in time and not going in in the first place. A lot of these arguments sound meritorious, but when they receive more critical analysis than they are apt to in our everyday discourse, they are anything but meritorious. That’s just an opinion.
To bolster my opinion, let us take a hypothetical. A Democratic president has ended poverty, with the same swift stroke that President Bush has brought down Saddam Hussein. Republicans in Congress resolve to respond to this in exactly the same way Democrats have responded to the liberation of Iraq. Assuming you think those Democrats are being reasonable, would those Republicans be reasonable by using those same arguments in my hypothetical?
Let us ponder a sampling of what they would present to us. Remember: Hunger is a thing of the past.
I think you see where I’m going with this. The arguments we have heard for why we should not have brought down Saddam Hussein — they sound reasonable in certain settings, but that is only because they have been made to appear that way by repeated exposure. I take away that benefit of repeated exposure by changing the argument to a different topic — I use exactly the same logic, and the lunacy of that logic is revealed.
Some liberals would call this a straw-man fallacy. This fails the test of straw-man, because the logic being applied is exactly the same as what we’ve been presented with for two years now. I’ve applied exactly the same logic to a different, albeit imaginary, scenario. The imaginary scenario does not introduce any factors that would make the logic any less suitable than the venue in which we are being asked to accept it uncritically.
With this transformation, the logic abruptly ceases to make any sense. Yet it is the same logic so it cannot have “ceased” to do much of anything. The question that remains to be asked is, before the logic is changed to a different argument — while it is still being applied to the Iraq question — how much sense can it possibly make to begin with?
Saddam was a problem. This is beyond dispute. He is gone, this is also beyond dispute. A problem has been solved.
If any anti-war pundit or activist or protester will not acknowledge that truism, then anything he says after the refusal to acknowlege it, doesn’t very much matter.
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