Scholars and Rogues, How to win the Iraq war debate against your dumb friends.
Recently I was arguing with one of my dumber friends about the Iraq war. He loves Bush and thinks bigger bombs is the answer in Iraq. I wasn’t gaining any ground in the argument until I used a simple analogy. I said, “Your solution is like shattering an expensive vase and then saying, ‘We need to keep smashing it until it’s fixed.’”
I stumped him. He was silent. So here’s a brief list of other analogies you can use on your dumb friends. And the truth is, I’ve seen similar ones work on some of the smartest political pundits.
Actually, I'm not sure if I know anyone who supports the war any more, although I know people with varying views about how one extricates from it. If they do support it, they're awful quiet about it. Statistically, you'd expect there would be a number in the student body, but then I don't spend that much time talking politics with students. Maybe I should?
I always ask the following question which seems to equally stump people
“Name any war, in any country’s history, in any time period, where the person who attacked first, was not seeking money, power, land, or religion…” After 10 minutes lapses without any coherent answer, I then follow it up with “Now what makes you think that the Iraq War is any different”?
We are still fighting the same wars over and over again for thousands of years, the only thing that changes is the means to demonstrate power, the motives behind the war remain the same, even 1000 years later. Rulers use the same methods to rev up support for the wars as well, in order to get the support of the people, the ruler has to convince the population that there is some phantom threat (which really does not exist), and then he can invade a country and get what he really wanted… the land or the money.
Doesn’t this sound exactly like what Mr. Idiot President himself has done?
Why do we persist in calling it a war? It is an occupation.
Wow. Succinct. That’s very nice.
The problem was we hadn’t had one in awhile, and we collectively forgot. Forgot what it really leads to.
However it is notable and should not be surprising that recent revelations indicate specific techniques were discussed and approved at the highest levels. They knew exactly what they wanted and what they were getting. Chaos and no-law zones were what they sought out.
Hmmm…Let’s see. You run a blog where you pose as a intellectual/journalist/relevant legal scholar/liberal. In fact you are none of these, so to keep your readership you occasionally provide the obligatory jab at any conservative viewpoint to get a good snicker (or whatever the proper term for the effete ivy league laugh is). Typically you use “humor” that derides the intelligence of anyone who disagrees with you.
Then you wonder if you have any friends that have different viewpoints than you. Exactly who is the “dumb” one in this scenario?