Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

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Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by joypog » Sat Aug 20, 2022 11:45 am

As I've mentioned a few times, I still lean active government liberal, but my main news and opinion source has become the Dispatch, primarily Jonah Goldberg and David French.

Mind you, I'm a cheapskate so I don't pay for their premium content, but I'm always interested in Jonah's Remnant podcast episodes as well as David French's Sunday newsletters (David and a local liberal Lutheran pastor are the two reasons I haven't become anti-christian over the Trump years).

My main disagreement with them is on how much faith they have in free markets to fix things...though it's a matter of degree not in principle, because I also believe private market change is preferable to government intervention. I'm also a bit more queasy about foreign intervention than these guys with neo-con backgrounds. On the other hand, I find their cheerful opposition to both R's and D's quite attractive - they seem fair in training fire on both party machines.

Since the Dispatch has become are my primary opinion source, I thought I'd fish around to see what are the primary arguments against these folks. I feel it's important to ask "what am I missing" if a trend develops in my thinking.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by flyingpylon » Sat Aug 20, 2022 1:26 pm

Some would say they are GOPe, professional conservatives, Conservative, Inc., RINOs, grifters, neocons, and a variety of other things.

That is, not true conservatives.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by joypog » Sat Aug 20, 2022 1:44 pm

flyingpylon wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 1:26 pm
Some would say they are GOPe, professional conservatives, Conservative, Inc., RINOs, grifters, neocons, and a variety of other things.

That is, not true conservatives.
So what would define "true conservatives"?
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by dockinGA » Sat Aug 20, 2022 3:33 pm

joypog wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 1:44 pm
flyingpylon wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 1:26 pm
Some would say they are GOPe, professional conservatives, Conservative, Inc., RINOs, grifters, neocons, and a variety of other things.

That is, not true conservatives.
So what would define "true conservatives"?
Koolaid drinkers
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by joypog » Sat Aug 20, 2022 4:09 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 3:54 pm
dockinGA wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 3:33 pm
joypog wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 1:44 pm
flyingpylon wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 1:26 pm
Some would say they are GOPe, professional conservatives, Conservative, Inc., RINOs, grifters, neocons, and a variety of other things.

That is, not true conservatives.
So what would define "true conservatives"?
Koolaid drinkers
Helpful comment. Thank you. Remind me again why so many of the formerly active members with right leaning tendencies left?
In fairness to dockinGA, flyingpylon's initial response was a list of schoolyard taunts.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by dockinGA » Sat Aug 20, 2022 4:22 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 3:54 pm
dockinGA wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 3:33 pm
joypog wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 1:44 pm
flyingpylon wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 1:26 pm
Some would say they are GOPe, professional conservatives, Conservative, Inc., RINOs, grifters, neocons, and a variety of other things.

That is, not true conservatives.
So what would define "true conservatives"?
Koolaid drinkers
Helpful comment. Thank you. Remind me again why so many of the formerly active members with right leaning tendencies left?
Perhaps because the right leaning tendency folks realize it hits awfully close to home when someone, half in jest, throws out a koolaid drinker comment? So they leave for greener pastures in the safety of an online echo chamber?

If you would like an answer to the question posed, let's think about it this way. What defines a true conservative? 15-20 years ago you would've said Dick Cheney, 5-10 years ago you may have said Liz Cheney, but now true conservative=whatever Donald J Trump says it is this week. There is no such thing as a true conservative if the goalposts change because of the whims of one man. That screams cult to me. 10 years ago I would've been considered a very conservative person. Today, my own family tells me I'm a "socialist" because they've been conditioned to say that anyone who doesn't agree 100% with the Donald is a socialist. But, the sad fact is, I haven't changed, not one iota. They have. My political beliefs are still the same principled beliefs they've always been. I just didn't realize that most people have no beliefs, they just twist in the political winds going along with whatever their tribe is up to this week, unable to remember anything from longer ago than 6-12 months at best.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by joypog » Sat Aug 20, 2022 4:50 pm

dockinGA wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 4:22 pm
10 years ago I would've been considered a very conservative person. Today, my own family tells me I'm a "socialist" because they've been conditioned to say that anyone who doesn't agree 100% with the Donald is a socialist. But, the sad fact is, I haven't changed, not one iota. They have. My political beliefs are still the same principled beliefs they've always been. I just didn't realize that most people have no beliefs, they just twist in the political winds going along with whatever their tribe is up to this week, unable to remember anything from longer ago than 6-12 months at best.
Sorry to hear that, must be infuriating to go through. I switched sides (damn liberal arts college!) long ago, so the Trump takeover was dismaying, but it must have been quite brutal to experience while still on the inside.

Even though I became a liberal, I always respected conservatism as a reasonable outgrowth of certain biblical and free market principles. I understood why pro-lifers to voted for Trump in November of 2016. And I wasn't bothered by the raft of Executive Order reversals by the new administration (as Obama said "elections have consequences"). However, I expected the Moral Majority to stand up to Trump when he did shit such separating families and shoving kids in cages. But I was shocked by the complete moral capitulation of the religious right to the point of becoming cheerleaders for everything Trump did.

Through the Bush years, I had long defended conservatives to my liberal friends saying "well if your first principles are XYZ, that's how you reasonably end up in the GOP." Obviously, I couldn't float that line of reasoning now.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by I Shrugged » Sat Aug 20, 2022 5:53 pm

dockinGA wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 4:22 pm
MangoMan wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 3:54 pm
dockinGA wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 3:33 pm
joypog wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 1:44 pm
flyingpylon wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 1:26 pm
Some would say they are GOPe, professional conservatives, Conservative, Inc., RINOs, grifters, neocons, and a variety of other things.

That is, not true conservatives.
So what would define "true conservatives"?
Koolaid drinkers
Helpful comment. Thank you. Remind me again why so many of the formerly active members with right leaning tendencies left?
Perhaps because the right leaning tendency folks realize it hits awfully close to home when someone, half in jest, throws out a koolaid drinker comment? So they leave for greener pastures in the safety of an online echo chamber?

If you would like an answer to the question posed, let's think about it this way. What defines a true conservative? 15-20 years ago you would've said Dick Cheney, 5-10 years ago you may have said Liz Cheney, but now true conservative=whatever Donald J Trump says it is this week. There is no such thing as a true conservative if the goalposts change because of the whims of one man. That screams cult to me. 10 years ago I would've been considered a very conservative person. Today, my own family tells me I'm a "socialist" because they've been conditioned to say that anyone who doesn't agree 100% with the Donald is a socialist. But, the sad fact is, I haven't changed, not one iota. They have. My political beliefs are still the same principled beliefs they've always been. I just didn't realize that most people have no beliefs, they just twist in the political winds going along with whatever their tribe is up to this week, unable to remember anything from longer ago than 6-12 months at best.
Or,
Trump simply gave voice to a large group of conservative people who didn’t quite like the Bushes, Cheneys, and other neocons. If the term neocon is a perjorative, whose fault is that? It’s their own term. Many of them switched to the dems with little hesitation. The conservatives who’ve seemingly come out of nowhere have been there all along. What Trump added was disaffected dems and others.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by glennds » Sat Aug 20, 2022 6:56 pm

Serious question along the lines of moving definitions: Would the Reagan of the 80s be a RINO today?
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by joypog » Sat Aug 20, 2022 7:07 pm

I Shrugged wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 5:53 pm
Or,
Trump simply gave voice to a large group of conservative people who didn’t quite like the Bushes, Cheneys, and other neocons. If the term neocon is a perjorative, whose fault is that? It’s their own term. Many of them switched to the dems with little hesitation. The conservatives who’ve seemingly come out of nowhere have been there all along. What Trump added was disaffected dems and others.
The guys at the Dispatch would not survive a day at Vox. They still support school choice, pro-life, pro-gun, states rights, free markets, anti-affirmative action, etc.

However, if someone believes Trump is a wannabe authoritarian that does not respect the rule of law, then it's perfectly reasonable to align with the Dems on this one issue. Indeed, I would say ensuring that our chief executive respects elections is a principal small-c conservative position (admittedly that is more a Bulwark, Project Lincoln thing).

Still waiting for a definition of conservative that is more than "hates neocons (and leftists)".

If that's all mainstream conservatism is today, then they've become the mirror caricature of the wokesters.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by boglerdude » Sat Aug 20, 2022 7:10 pm

Whomever conservatives run is going to be called worse than Trump and worse than hitler. Social media put millions of children and ignorami into the fray and there's no going back. Automation and immigration are going to put more Americans out of work and we arent going to give them a cut of the gains. The future is Chinese style techno-suppression
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by dockinGA » Sat Aug 20, 2022 7:15 pm

I Shrugged wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 5:53 pm
dockinGA wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 4:22 pm
MangoMan wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 3:54 pm
dockinGA wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 3:33 pm
joypog wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 1:44 pm
flyingpylon wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 1:26 pm
Some would say they are GOPe, professional conservatives, Conservative, Inc., RINOs, grifters, neocons, and a variety of other things.

That is, not true conservatives.
So what would define "true conservatives"?
Koolaid drinkers
Helpful comment. Thank you. Remind me again why so many of the formerly active members with right leaning tendencies left?
Perhaps because the right leaning tendency folks realize it hits awfully close to home when someone, half in jest, throws out a koolaid drinker comment? So they leave for greener pastures in the safety of an online echo chamber?

If you would like an answer to the question posed, let's think about it this way. What defines a true conservative? 15-20 years ago you would've said Dick Cheney, 5-10 years ago you may have said Liz Cheney, but now true conservative=whatever Donald J Trump says it is this week. There is no such thing as a true conservative if the goalposts change because of the whims of one man. That screams cult to me. 10 years ago I would've been considered a very conservative person. Today, my own family tells me I'm a "socialist" because they've been conditioned to say that anyone who doesn't agree 100% with the Donald is a socialist. But, the sad fact is, I haven't changed, not one iota. They have. My political beliefs are still the same principled beliefs they've always been. I just didn't realize that most people have no beliefs, they just twist in the political winds going along with whatever their tribe is up to this week, unable to remember anything from longer ago than 6-12 months at best.
Or,
Trump simply gave voice to a large group of conservative people who didn’t quite like the Bushes, Cheneys, and other neocons. If the term neocon is a perjorative, whose fault is that? It’s their own term. Many of them switched to the dems with little hesitation. The conservatives who’ve seemingly come out of nowhere have been there all along. What Trump added was disaffected dems and others.
I hear your argument, and believe this is the case to a certain extent. But, one only needs to think back to roughly 10 years ago when there was plenty of full throated support of Mitt Romney on Fox News and amongst the voter base, and he is most certainly persona non grata now. I've yet to see any significant changes to his political beliefs over the last 10 years (somewhat surprising for a guy with a bit of a career as a flip-flopper), and yet he's now a RINO. Does this mean that Hannity, Limbaugh, etc. were RINO's in 2012? My point is that there's a whole lot more people whose idea of conservatism has changed to match Trumpism as compared to the numbers of voters Trump has brought into the party. Most of the people I discuss politics with are ones whose political viewpoints have changed to match Trumpism, rather than previously being Democrats or not being politically involved at all.

Also, can we truly say that the Democrats, previously apolitical people, etc. that Trump brought into the Republican party can now be the final deciders of what a true conservative is? Seems like it's easier to say that the Republican party left the true conservatives behind and morphed into a populist own-the-libs circus than that they continue to be the bastion of conservatism.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by joypog » Sat Aug 20, 2022 8:03 pm

boglerdude wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 7:10 pm
Whomever conservatives run is going to be called worse than Trump and worse than Hitler.
Even if the liberal MSM is a bunch of bungling idiots who can't differentiate between autocrats, it doesn't give conservatives permission to run Trumps and Hitlers, at least if they'd like to avoid Chinese style techno-suppression.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by Kbg » Sat Aug 20, 2022 10:29 pm

glennds wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 6:56 pm
Serious question along the lines of moving definitions: Would the Reagan of the 80s be a RINO today?
Absolutely…cuz you know he stared down the Communists (not America first) and made deals with Democrats (pretty much the definition of a RINO).

And dockinga nailed it

Right wing wokesters…defund the FBI…you’re now no different than BLM trying to defund the police.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by glennds » Sat Aug 20, 2022 11:16 pm

Kbg wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 10:29 pm
glennds wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 6:56 pm
Serious question along the lines of moving definitions: Would the Reagan of the 80s be a RINO today?
Absolutely…cuz you know he stared down the Communists (not America first) and made deals with Democrats (pretty much the definition of a RINO).

And dockinga nailed it

Right wing wokesters…defund the FBI…you’re now no different than BLM trying to defund the police.
It won't be long before dogs and cats are living together.... mass hysteria.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by joypog » Sun Aug 21, 2022 9:12 am

Take for example David French's newsletter post from today, well worth a read.

He points out that Christians on both sides of the aisle ought to maintain a higher standard of conduct, but doesn't concede any political policy positions (except to having become more open to contrary views on the legacy of racism).

Pretty small c-conservative stuff, but I don't see any Liberal capituation, unless of course I'm missing something.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by vnatale » Sun Aug 21, 2022 8:39 pm

joypog wrote:
Sun Aug 21, 2022 9:12 am

Take for example David French's newsletter post from today, well worth a read.

He points out that Christians on both sides of the aisle ought to maintain a higher standard of conduct, but doesn't concede any political policy positions (except to having become more open to contrary views on the legacy of racism).

Pretty small c-conservative stuff, but I don't see any Liberal capituation, unless of course I'm missing something.


DEFINITELY "well worth a read" ....
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by I Shrugged » Mon Aug 22, 2022 2:45 pm

joypog wrote:
Sun Aug 21, 2022 9:12 am
Take for example David French's newsletter post from today, well worth a read.

He points out that Christians on both sides of the aisle ought to maintain a higher standard of conduct, but doesn't concede any political policy positions (except to having become more open to contrary views on the legacy of racism).

Pretty small c-conservative stuff, but I don't see any Liberal capituation, unless of course I'm missing something.
The neocons' animating philosophy has been to remake the world a country at a time, into nations friendly to the US, by whatever means necessary. That's what makes one a neocon. They've never seen a fight they didn't want to send our military into. I believe that on the spectrum of how and how much to support Israel, they are FAR to the right end. I realize that there is kind of a third rail there anyway, but they are extremely militant about what needs to be done. I'm sure a lot of them also have other, fairly typical "turn of the millennium" republican values.

Yes, there has been a large swing away from this, apparently brought on by Trump. I agree that most of the same people who supported Trump also supported Bush, Dole, Romney, and by association Bill Kristol, David French, and all those neocon bums. I have little doubt that if the next republican candidate is another neocon, the base will support him. But I'm not 100 percent sure that it will be unequivocal. I think a seed of common sense has been sown about America's foreign policy and military blunders. At least I hope so. Even if it fades into the background, the argument will still be in people's minds. And, I don't think the next candidate will be a neocon anyway.

As you can tell, I have no use for them, and I don't care if I agree with all of their other positions.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by Kbg » Mon Aug 22, 2022 3:00 pm

I Shrugged wrote:
Mon Aug 22, 2022 2:45 pm
The neocons' animating philosophy has been to remake the world a country at a time, into nations friendly to the US, by whatever means necessary.

As you can tell, I have no use for them, and I don't care if I agree with all of their other positions.
Ok, I Shrugged gets his wish and neoconservatism is out. What guides US foreign policy? Lay it out for us.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by joypog » Mon Aug 22, 2022 3:07 pm

The foreign policy argument is the only substantive argument that I've heard leveled against the Dispatch crew.

I've always been a moderate on the issue, I feel Iraq was a massive own-goal, but I totally understand going into Afghanistan. I suspect we've done a bunch of clandestine shady shit and we should cut all that out.

However my foreign-muscle skepticism has (unsurprisingly) atrophied over the past half year. Mr. Putin is the best advertising for a strong US military policy in the past three decades, closely followed the recent machinations of Mr. Xi.

I'm definitely with kgb here...what is the better option?
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by I Shrugged » Mon Aug 22, 2022 3:29 pm

If you paid attention to the first Trump impeachment, you know that he got impeached because he was too dovish in his Ukraine policy. Alexander Vindman and the woman ambassador laid their motives all out during the impeachment. Now Vindman is making the rounds calling for us to step up our support.

Everybody has a war to sell you.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by Kbg » Mon Aug 22, 2022 6:39 pm

We are waiting I Shrugged...being against something without something you are for is generally not all that helpful in life.

At least in my life time I think, with the exception of the 2nd Gulf War and staying in Afghanistan WAY too long, US politicians of both parties have made good calls on the use of force.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by Mark Leavy » Mon Aug 22, 2022 9:46 pm

Kbg wrote:
Mon Aug 22, 2022 6:39 pm
We are waiting I Shrugged...being against something without something you are for is generally not all that helpful in life.

At least in my life time I think, with the exception of the 2nd Gulf War and staying in Afghanistan WAY too long, US politicians of both parties have made good calls on the use of force.
So, you are younger than Vietnam? Interesting.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by vnatale » Mon Aug 22, 2022 10:02 pm

Mark Leavy wrote:
Mon Aug 22, 2022 9:46 pm

Kbg wrote:
Mon Aug 22, 2022 6:39 pm

We are waiting I Shrugged...being against something without something you are for is generally not all that helpful in life.

At least in my life time I think, with the exception of the 2nd Gulf War and staying in Afghanistan WAY too long, US politicians of both parties have made good calls on the use of force.


So, you are younger than Vietnam? Interesting.


I am putting KGG in the mid-forties to low fifties age bracket. Most likely the lower end of that range.

Since Viet Nam ended in 1975 (with active fighting ending January 1973?) that is coming up near 50 years now ... if my guess is correct then Kbg was not born prior to the end of that War.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by Kbg » Mon Aug 22, 2022 10:34 pm

Mark Leavy wrote:
Mon Aug 22, 2022 9:46 pm
Kbg wrote:
Mon Aug 22, 2022 6:39 pm
We are waiting I Shrugged...being against something without something you are for is generally not all that helpful in life.

At least in my life time I think, with the exception of the 2nd Gulf War and staying in Afghanistan WAY too long, US politicians of both parties have made good calls on the use of force.
So, you are younger than Vietnam? Interesting.
Nope, as a little kid I remember Vietnam and astronauts on TV constantly.

The two are nothing alike, but in one way I think Vietnam and Afghanistan are similar. Good idea initially, and stayed there way too long.

My basic take on Vietnam is that it was a product of the times and those times were the Cold War which was the context (right or wrong) for literally everything when it came to international relations.

I'll admit to two deep biases relevant to this stuff...I am rabidly anti-communist/Russian leftovers and Islamic extremist. Evil does exist and to turn a phrase of Lenin's there were (and are) a lot of useful idiots.

I also think there is quite a bit of hubris that has gathered over the years we've been a super power. I completely agree with the anti-neocons that there should be a cold hard appraisal of American interests in whatever we are contemplating getting ourselves into and where it isn't there we shouldn't get involved.

Where I disagree is they seem to have a presumption that engaging in "moral based" foreign policy/conflicts is bad or wrong. This would be a far more jacked up world if that was how the US behaved.

The Civil War, WW 2 and the Cold War I think are pretty tough to argue against as not having been worth it...and they all had a high degree of morality as a reason for getting engaged. Of course those are the poster children for "the good war" and we all know we've gotten into wars that didn't have much of that going for them. Mexican, Indian, most of the imperialist wars of the early 1900s, Gulf War 2.

Still waiting for an answer to my question, anybody?
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