Letters to the Editor
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@shooter242
Better yet how about someone providing a comprehensive list of all the people who were wrong about the war so we can persecute, possibly prosecute, and generally denigrate them until the end of time.
No, all it means is that all those who were wrong about the war ought to have to make a really strong case about why their input should be taken on what to do next with respect to the war; they have to clearly state their premises on which they base their reasoning and to validate those premises.
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Martin Gifford, have you even read ANY of the responses directly to you?
Writing dross like this makes me wonder:
You all keep proving Slaughter’s point. You are progressives, so start progressing rather than saying you can’t fix important things! Saying that no one will listen to us is pathetic.
Remind me which side of the debate published the plan "A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq"? You can find it at http://www.responsibleplan.com/
What’s the point of being progressives, if you keep saying that ending war and terrorism isn’t possible?!
Its called "facing reality".
We just need to expand the basic idea of governance and policing from the local level to the international level. It’s the same principle. Ending mass killing isn’t a controversial goal, so we can get agreement from every nation at least in principle.
No, its not a controversial goal in the slightest and truly admirable one that has, in large measure, been accomplished.
But if you seriously expect the rest of the planet to accede to some kind of 'world government' dictating to them, you are (again) a bigger godsbedamned moron than George Walker Bush. We can discuss it all we want, but getting the rest of the world to go along with the idea is going to take generations (at least).
In the meantime, there's the not very small fact the causes of violence and terrorism are legion, and thus beyond the capacity of any central authority to legislate or work against. The most we can hope to do, now and today, is minimize the damage it causes.
Its reality. Deal with it, will you?
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@Original_Premium_Subscriber
GG Pissing Contest? Hmmm ... You Lose.
(...)
Look Glen, you might have a law background and have written a few books, but you must've been partying the nights before your 8 AM classes in (symbolic) Logic (typically taught within the Philosophy department as part of a pre-law curriculum).
Since you started the pissing contest with the the ole "I spent a good amount of time in my book documenting (blah, blah, blah)" statement, perhaps I should clarify my background.
I've been an opinion poll researcher for 25 years. I have taken graduate degree programs in quantitative analysis and actually program my own statistical routines...
(...)
You display ignorance about opinion research with another "sweeping" statement "It's not possible to compare polling data on every war in American history for obvious reasons". Did you know that scientific opinion polls have been around since the mid 1930s?
http://www.pbs.org/fmc/segments/progseg7.htm
We've had WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam War, and the Persian Gulf war, along with some other military conflicts (Grenada, invasion of Panama, etc.) prior to the Iraq war and after the mid-1930s. I'd bet there's some relevant national opinion poll statistic for each of these wars if someone cared to do the research.
You've "been an opinion poll researcher for 25 years" and "have taken graduate degree programs in quantitative analysis" and "actually program [your] own statistical routines" but you still can't read?
You should read the link to the PBS page you claim supports your assertion that "scientific opinion polls have been around since the mid 1930s". Don't just read the titles and headings. Don't you feel embarassed now, like the guy who reads Tom Friedman?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOF6ZeUvgXs
In 1936, however, the Digest came unstuck. Its 2.3 million "voters" constituted a huge sample; however they were generally more affluent Americans who tended to have Republican sympathies. The Literary Digest did nothing to correct that bias. The week before election day, it reported that Alf Landon was far more popular than Franklin D. Roosevelt. At the same time, George Gallup conducted a far smaller, but more scientifically-based survey, in which he polled a demographically representative sample. Gallup correctly predicted Roosevelt's landslide victory. The Literary Digest soon went out of business, while the polling industry started to take off.
Gallup launched a subsidiary in the United Kingdom, where it correctly predicted Labour's victory in the 1945 general election, in contrast with virtually all other commentators, who expected the Conservative Party, led by Winston Churchill, to win easily.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_poll
The Worst War Ever was quite popular and successful. America became the leader of the free world, remember?
MJ: How do you expect people to react to the film in the context of the current war?
KB: It doesn't come with an agenda; it's not looking to pick a fight with Bill O'Reilly. It's just looking to say, "We wish to honor the experience of these people." I can show a clip reel to 1,100 dress-gray cadets at West Point and get two standing ovations and be at [San Francisco's] Castro Theater a few weeks later, show the same clip reel, and get the same response. So what it tells us is that the small-p politics that preoccupies us is dwarfed by a larger artistic sensibility that can tolerate and even embrace contradictions. Right now we're in the middle of war, and it barely influences people's lives. And this was a war Americans were all together on. It can remind us of the myriad ways in which it's possible for us to be together, to cohere as a people. There were no red states and blue states. Everybody was together. Everybody knew somebody who was in the war. Everybody suffered in some way. Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the historian, said there's too much "pluribus" and not enough "unum." And I think he's right. I've spent all my life trying to talk about unum, the way in which we can be together rather than apart.
http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2007/09/ken-burns.html
The incredible shrinking U.S.
Despite the death of Zarqawi, Bush's huge gamble in Iraq has failed. As a result, the U.S. is weaker everywhere in the world -- and that's not all bad.
By Helena Cobban
Jun. 09, 2006
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/06/09/defeat/print.html