heard some moron leftist professor excusing terrorist ayers

[Christians4LessGvt]

The left logic:

Bill Ayers does some good deeds for education in 2008, but is unrepentent about his terrorism in the 1960's.

So if McCain was associated with a guy that served on some education boards, but
was a KKK member bombing black schools and churches in the 1960's and was unrepentent
about his past bombings of black churches...it's ok because he now does good deeds for education?

LOL

[Michael Tee]

<<So if McCain was associated with a guy that served on some education boards, but
was a KKK member bombing black schools and churches in the 1960's and was unrepentent
about his past bombings of black churches...it's ok because he now does good deeds for education?>>

I guess the hard thing for you right-wingers to swallow is that a KKK is a lot more reprehensible than a liberal anti-war activist will ever be, even when the liberal planted bombs.  The liberal's bombs were planted in a good cause, the KKK's bombs were planted in a bad cause.

Moral relativism is dead.  There are distinctions made between good and evil.  Ayers is and always was a good guy.  The KKK is and always was a bad guy.  Racism is bad and war is bad.  A guy who bombs for racism will always be a lot worse than a guy who bombs for peace.

Face it, even if you don't like it.  It's reality.  KKK bad, anti-war good.  It's not all that hard to comprehend, really, is it?

[BT]

I guess the hard thing for you right-wingers to swallow is that a KKK is a lot more reprehensible than a liberal anti-war activist will ever be, even when the liberal planted bombs.

Bullshit.

Dead victims are dead victims.

The difference between Hitler Stalin and Mao was how they spelled their names.

The difference between McCain and Ayer's is that McCain was good at what he did.

[Plane]

This should be graven into a great stone somewhere.


" A guy who bombs for racism will always be a lot worse than a guy who bombs for peace."

[Xavier_Onassis]

Dead victims are dead victims.

Ayers produced zero dead victims, however.

The church bombings were against people. Ayers bombed a statue and the Pentagon, which was basically another symbol, since it was not done in a way that threatened human life.
.

[BT]

Ayers produced zero dead victims, however.

Nonsense. His cell members who blew themselves up were mannequins?

[Michael Tee]

Bullshit.

Dead victims are dead victims.

=====================================================================

Bullshit yourself.   According to your crackpot theories Gen. Curtis LeMay would be as big a war criminal as Hermann Goering.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Ayers produced zero dead victims, however.

Nonsense. His cell members who blew themselves up were mannequins?

=======================================================
I suggest that a bomber who blows himself up is his own victim. Ayers did not order them to make bombs. It was an anarchist group. Their decision to make bombs was entirely their own.

Ayers was afflicted with a temporary madness in the 60's. Since then, he has certainly done no one any harm, annd in fact has been preparing university students for productive and useful careers.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Bullshit yourself.   According to your crackpot theories Gen. Curtis LeMay would be as big a war criminal as Hermann Goering
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++=====================


You will have to explain that. I think one could argue that both of these guys were instrumental in the killing of many innocent civilians.

Is bombing innocent civilians ever  a good thing?

The basic difference was that Goering was working for the aggressor.

Goering may have killed himself to avoid hanging, but prior to that, he was responsible for th deaths of thousands.

There is a major difference between the Nazi party and the Weathermen, a puny and disorganized handful of anarchists.

[BT]

Bullshit yourself.   According to your crackpot theories Gen. Curtis LeMay would be as big a war criminal as Hermann Goering.

If we lost the war he probably would have been tried as one.

[Michael Tee]

<<Is bombing innocent civilians ever  a good thing?>>

Define "innocent."  If they're the parents, children, relatives and friends of Nazis and soldiers serving the Nazi cause, then they can't be innocent.  In total war, the population supports the war effort by its very existence and when the war effort is aimed at the destruction of innocent civilian life, then the perps and their supporters have no innocence to lose.  If, amongst the "innocent" population, there are some anti-Nazi Resistance fighters, it's unavoidable that they too will be killed in the bombing - - that is highly regrettable and tragic, but no more so than the deaths in battle of all who were fighting against the Nazi cause.  They are just inevitable battle deaths, and they would be the last ones to call off the operation merely because they themselves might die in it.  The greater cause - - the destruction of Nazi Germany - - would be served by the operation going forward.

This whole bullshit line of argument - - "a dead victim is a dead victim" - - completely ignores the moral balance of the conflict, the wider goals of both the attackers and the "victims" and is really an attempt to rehabilitate Nazis and their philosophy as no better or no worse than anyone else.  It's typical of and consistent with the general moral anarchy currently prevailing in the U.S.A. and hopefully to be reversed by Obama, that considers torture of prisoners and wars of unprovoked aggression as normal and unexceptional.  If equated to Nazi crimes, the approach is either (a) bald-facedly deny any such connection (the sirs approach)  or (b) elevate the Nazis to our level by reducing those who fought them to their level (the BT approach.)  Neither approach is valid and neither works.

[Michael Tee]

<<If we lost the war he [LeMay] probably would have been tried [for war crimes]. >>

LeMay  himself has apparently said the same thing.  On a purely factual level, I'm sure he was right.  But also on a purely factual level he would have been tried by a regime which had lost all moral authority to convict anyone of anything.  Their courts were completely devoid of moral credibility, their verdicts would have been morally worthless.

I think LeMay also meant that what he had done was a war crime.  I'm not sure whether he meant that as a mea culpa or as a dismissive comment on the moral authority of international law as expressed in the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials.  His British counterpart, Sir Arthur ("Bomber") Harris, made no such comment and in fact remained convinced to the end of his life that all the German casualties of his air raids "were not worth the bones of one Grenadier."

I think that intention should matter in international law - - the intentions and goals of the attacker and also those of his victims, as expressed in the actions of their national leaders.  But I don't think it's an absolute case of the ends justifying the means.  Some things, torture for example, can never be justified regardless of the cause they're employed in.  There is something in torture that is so degrading to the humanity of both the torturer and his victim that most people instinctively recoil from it and understand instinctively why it is wrong.  ("Most people" apparently not including Republicans.)

So getting back to Ayers, he was a Resistance fighter against war and fascism.  He's an American hero, and, to paraphrase Fidel Castro, "History will absolve him."  Against the war in Viet Nam he was ultimately successful, against fascism at home, unfortunately, that's a dragon that someone else will have to slay.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Define "innocent."  If they're the parents, children, relatives and friends of Nazis and soldiers serving the Nazi cause, then they can't be innocent.

===========================================
So German children under the age of twelve, mothers and grandmothers and in laws of a stormtrooper, even one drafted against his will, are all accomplices?

I don't think I am going to buy that.

The basic concept up to WWII is that War is Hell and All's fair in love and war. War is a mental disease not of individual humans, but human society in general, and is contagious to other societies.

In what I would call a justifiable attempt to prevent a reoccurrence of such a disease in Germany, easily the most militaristic society of the mechanized age, they had War Crimes Tribunals at the end of WWII, and it seems to have been successful Germans now make nice with everyone, as do the Italians and the Japanese.

Lamentably, the Soviets and the Americans still have a lingering dose of said disease, and the Chinese at least showed symptoms when they overran Tibet.

I am not going to say that warmongering fools like LeMay should have been tried for war crimes, but I think I'd have done something--bust him down to Captain or something--to send a message that excess in the pursuit of victory is no virture. The bombing of Dresden was really unnecessary, as was the Nagasaki A bomb.

[Michael Tee]

XO, if you realized the full extent of the evil of the Nazis, you would have no problem with what happened to them, their wives and kids and families.  Believe me, the world has lost nothing.   The human race has lost nothing.

Anti-fascist "medicine" is strong but it is effective.  As you can see, never since the end of WWII have any of the main Axis Powers shown even the faintest interest in war, fascism, racism or militarism.  They are cured.  They really learned their lesson.  It is the U.S.A., OTOH, that is most in danger of catching the disease.

[richpo64]

>>I guess the hard thing for you right-wingers to swallow is that a KKK is a lot more reprehensible than a liberal anti-war activist will ever be, even when the liberal planted bombs.  The liberal's bombs were planted in a good cause, the KKK's bombs were planted in a bad cause.<<

Unbelievable.

Of course KKK members consider their cause just. Which puts Mike in there catagory it seems.

Unbelievable.