MSNBC attacks Pat Tillman

[Grayrider]

Gents,

I don't know if this has been posted or not, but it made me furious. The communist scum at MSNBC published this cartoon attacking Pat Tillman:

http://www.msnbc.com/comics/editorial_content.asp?sFile=tr040503

It makes me sick. I cannot imagine our country has come to the point that the leftist media attacks American soldiers publicly for nothing more than giving their life in service to their country. I fired them an email so filled with rage I barely kept my composure. I will NEVER watch MSNBC or NBC. Okay, well I don't anyway but I had to say something.

GR

 

[CZ 75 BD]

Ted Rall ...

is an ass, and he has been for many years.

 

[Ham Hock]

That is really obscene.

 

[Penforhire]

Wow. What a nasty personal attack, posthumously. Some people know no bounds of decency.

 

[tlohern]

Send negative feedback ,I did.Let them know what poor taste they had in this case.

 

[pax]

Um.

That may be unpleasant and all the other stuff you guys have said, but it ain't really a personal attack per se.

It is an attack on the value and legitimacy of the war itself.

pax

 

[Thumper]

So I can call other members "idiot" now? Outstanding.

 

[Sean Smith]

but it ain't really a personal attack per se.

You've got to be joking. It calls him a "sap" and "idiot" outright, and depicts him as just looking for a pretext to kill arabs.

 

[Sean Smith]

Here it is for handy reference:

 

[ojibweindian]

That may be unpleasant and all the other stuff you guys have said, but it ain't really a personal attack per se.

It was, most certainly, a personal attack. If not, then the mods need to refrain from censuring those who call another an idiot, etc.

And it's more than "unpleasant"; it's insulting, disrespectful, and condenscending. No one with an ounce of good taste can defend this "cartoon".

 

[Thumper]

If not, then the mods need to refrain from censuring those who call another an idiot, etc.

Mods are people, too. Unfortunately, some are influenced by their own negative views of the war.

I like my new freedom to call other forum members bloodthirsty, gullible idiots, though. The saps...

Who's first?

 

[HBK]

 

[pax]

Okay, guys, you're right. It was a personal attack by that standard.

What I was trying to get at, though, was that the cartoon was directed more toward the morality of the war itself than it was toward Tillman himself. The cartoonist used Tillman to make a point about the war and about the soldiers voluntarily fighting in the war.

Let's try a thought experiment here.

If a man bravely volunteers to do something dangerous, is he a hero?

If a man bravely volunteers to do something dangerous that is also foolish, immoral, or both -- is he still a hero?

These folks are starting from the premise that the war is both immoral and foolish. Tillman was brave to volunteer, and in that sense he is a hero.

But if the war itself is immoral, would Tillman still be a hero?

Think about it.

pax

Where all men think alike, no man thinks very much. -- Walter Lippmann

 

[Thumper]

Yeah, Pax...Afghanistan wasn't a legitimate target...



YOU think about it...

"by that standard" my rear...

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

On another note, if you disagree with MSNBC on publishing this, is it such a good idea to reward them by clicking on their links, viewing their ads, and forwarding the message to others?

 

[Sean Smith]

Okay, guys, you're right. It was a personal attack by that standard.

What standard? The standard of the obvious?

The cartoonist used Tillman to make a point about the war and about the soldiers voluntarily fighting in the war.

So it was a personal attack on hundreds of thousands instead of just one? Even better!

But if the war itself is immoral, would Tillman still be a hero?

Last I checked, nobody rational was denying that Afghanistan under Taliban rule was the principal overseas haven for Al-Qaeda, or that we shouldn't have gone after Al-Qaeda where they lived after 9/11. For those not paying attention, Tillman was killed in Afghanistan, by the way... something overlooked in the cartoonist's transparently counter-factual rush for a pretext to bitch about Iraq.

 

[pax]

Thumper, dear, put your fists down.

Note the word "If" in my post above, and where it occurs.

pax

Those who will not reason are bigots, those who cannnot are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves. -- Lord George Gordon Byron

 

[Thumper]

"If?"

One could deflect any any argument with an "if."

"If you cannot convince them, confuse them."
Harry S Truman (1884 - 1972)

 

[Sean Smith]

Can we agree that:

-The cartoon is outright dishonest (e.g. its claims that Al-Qaeda did not use Afghanistan under the Taliban as its principal haven before 9/11)?

-The cartoon is a libelous attack on the character of a dead man (e.g. calling him an idiot and suggesting that he wanted a pretext to indiscriminately kill arabs)?



In that light, its value as a gedankenexperiment is less than perfectly clear to me.

 

[pax]

Thumper,

Please answer my question: IF the war were immoral, foolish, or both, would people who volunteered for it still be heroes?

Sean,

Yes to the first.

The second is the point I'd like to explore, if we can get the knee-jerk emoting out of the way.

pax

A great many people mistake opinions for thoughts. -- Herbert V. Prochnow

 

[Thumper]

I've got to drive to Dallas.

Hey Pax, why the gratuitous mention of Iraq?

"Ridicule is the first and last argument of fools."
Charles Simmons

 

[Sean Smith]

Sean,

Yes to the first.

The second is the point I'd like to explore,

That's a peculiar response.

So you agree that the cartoon is outright dishonest, but but would "like to explore" if "The cartoon is a libelous attack on the character of a dead man (e.g. calling him an idiot and suggesting that he wanted a pretext to indiscriminately kill arabs)?"

if we can get the knee-jerk emoting out of the way

Really, Pax, is there any need to insult me? "Knee-jerk emoting"?

 

[Geech]

Pax, if the first of Sean's statements is true, then the question of the Iraq war legitimacy is irrelevant to the issue of Tillman's character because he died in Afghanistan.

 

[R.H. Lee]

More Snotty Nonsense By Communists

MSNBC is irrelevent. So is CBSNBCABCCNN

They need to keep this up. It serves to weaken their credibility.

 

[pax]

Sean,

I meant, I would like to explore the question of whether a man who volunteers for and dies in an immoral war can legitimately be called a hero.

This applies to your second point because the best defense against libel is truth.

Given that I've already stipulated your first point, you've already won the argument. I just want to explore the issues a little deeper than folks generally go.

As for insulting you, I truly didn't mean to. I was trying to say that the issue itself has a high emotional content, and that it would take a conscious effort to switch gears to cerebral rather than visceral. Please forgive my wording.

Thumper,

Why not answer the question? I'm not going to bite or anything.

pax

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you: but if you really make them think, they'll hate you. -- Don Marquis