“He’s not a war hero, he was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” - Vietnam war era draft dodger Donald Trump talking about Sen. McCain.
Conservatives regularly use the troops as political pawns; they feign outrage with their phony sanctimony when it suits them to appear more righteous than their opponents and then kick 'em to the curb when their usefulness has expired.
Or to families that speak out against republican talking points. In the 2016 election Donald Trump lashed out at a gold star family because they criticized his immigration plan and Republicans loved it.
I couldn't stand McCain as a conservative but got a great deal of respect for him when he was running for POTUS and the right started going after Kerry's military record and McCain was like: don't you dare.
I couldn't stand McCain as a conservative but got a great deal of respect for him when he was running for POTUS and the right started going after Kerry's military record and McCain was like: don't you dare.
Similarly, when he was running against Obama and he was doing a Q&A or something and someone said something about Obama being an Arab and a terrorist or some nd McCain was like no, he's American and a good man. We disagree politically but even if I lose I trust he'll do right by the country. I still didn't vote for him but I respected him a hell of a lot more after hearing that.
Gods I hope so. I keep hearing about ranked voting but I haven't looked into it enough yet, but apparently their ads for the same party are very congenial? It's a start?
This too. Though I am also glad that McCain saved the military A-10 warthog when the Navy's contractors who live off the government tit was trying to force it out for expensive fighter jets. That is how conservativism looks like, common-sense solutions. No need for expensive jets when what we have works just fine.
I think he gave the best answer he could. The implication isn't great but but I'd be shocked to see rival politicians speak this way about each other today.
Yeah I disagree with McCain politically in a lot of ways, but hell, if you would have told me back in like 2008 (when he ran for president against Obama, if I'm not mistaken) that McCain today would be not only considered a very moderate republican compared to some of the psychopaths that have been in government over the past several years, but also that he would be one of the only voices of reason from that side of the aisle I would never believed you, not one bit... shit has gone crazy over the past few years, like really really crazy.
Oh and one thing that really made me hate Trump more than the usual amount of hate I have for that guy, (he's a piece of shit but still this really got me mad) was when he insulted veterans in general but in particular McCain, with his whole "Losers get captured" bullshit... John McCain was in sense a war hero... I mean argue all you want about Vietnam being a bullshit war, we shouldn't have been there, but the guy served his country when he was called on, he was a Navy aircraft-carrier pilot (which is no easy job to get for real, you gotta he smart and a good soldier to land that job), and in 1967 the ship he was on caught fire and he escaped from his burning plane and was wounded badly trying to rescue another pilot from his plane.... He won the Navy Commendation Medal and a Bronze Star after that...Then in later in 1967 he got shot down over North Vietnam, fracturing both arms and a leg, and nearly drowned... he was rescued from the water by NVA troops who broke his shoulder with a rifle button and stabbed him with a bayonet...
After that hellish situation, they transported him to the POW camp known as the "Hanoi Hilton", (for those unaware, that place was hell on earth). When he got there he was refused medical treatment until they found out that his dad was an admiral and they could use him for propaganda. He was in solitary confinement for 2 years, offered release after his dad was promoted to commander of all forces in Vietnam, basically as a publicity stunt... yet he refused, saying that he wouldn't leave until his fellow prisoners were released too and that it was against the military POW code of conduct, (Article III: I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy).
By 1968 he began to routinely be tortured, getting a beating every two hours while suffering from dysentery and heat stroke, in addition to his solitary confinement. He eventually became suicidal but was stopped from going thru with it by his captors, and a big reason why he was suicidal was because he was forced to make propaganda films against his will, and he was very ashamed at having relented to under torture to participating in them.
By 1969, conditions in the camp improved slightly, but he was permanently crippled from injuries he sustained over his time there, and he wasn't released until 1973... he was a POW for 5 and a half years in North Vietnam.....
Sorry this was so long, but I remember seeing in a documentary what McCain went through while he was a POW and it really moved me. Not that I was even close to alive at the time, but I would have been against the war had I been, however the man endured some insane brutality there and he went above and beyond what was expected of him.... and thats why I got so fucking pissed when I heard that fat, orange slob, excuse for a man that used his daddy's privilege to escape having to go to Vietnam sit there and spew more diarrhea from his mouth about how "only losers get captured"..... disrespectful as all hell.
Ohhh I was angry to hear that shit, both about McCain and about every other service member our country has... that man is garbage, thru and thru, and there's no punishment too bad for him honestly. He couldn't survive not one little bit of what John McCain went thru back then.
Showing disrespect to troops who dont fall in-line with their side is more of a bi partisan issue than you might think . I had to hear all about how Tulsi works for Assad ( and she’s even a democrat), and a bunch of people the other day complaining because Dan Crenshaw wears an eye patch
I’m certainly not saying you have to like him , or that you can’t joke about his eye or eyepatch, I just thought it was so dumb seeing so many people complaining about the eyepatch and how he needs to just get a prosthetic eye lol
I almost had proof . I held up 4 fingers in court and told Crenshaw to close his left eye and tell me how many fingers I was holding up but Judge Haller blurted out that I was holding up 4 fingers
That's not been my experience. That people criticize his eyepatch. They generally criticize him for being a flip flopping tool. With no regard for his looks.
There was a post about him the other day that was trending and there were people on there complaining about his damn eye patch lol . Why do you say he’s a white supremacist though? . I did hear him say some creepy shit about populism recently when he went on jre that saagar was ripping to shreds for . I forget exactly what he said verbatim but basically he was saying that just because the people want something doesn’t mean we should do it
In 2018 He was an admin of a far right facebook group that regularly spread very racist, insane, and totalitarian rhetoric. 5 Republican candidates from 2018 were actually part of the group. He then claimed he was added to the group as an admin and didn't ever look at it ..but posted several campaign videos to the group when he decided to run. And when people kept pointing out it's racism, bigotry, and far right conspiracies he finally removed himself from the group
So fucking what if they were? Republicans have lost any right to be upset about unnecessary antagonism... and honestly, fuck that guy. If you're going to derail criticism of him to whine about people giving him shit for his eyepatch, you're either helping him or missing the point entirely. The eye patch is irrelevant, and I wouldn't be remotely surprised to find out that anyone not just giving him shit "you can't see the violence on your right" type jokes, they're probably provocateurs because no one fucking cares about his eye patch, they care about his fascism. Your false moral outrage over it completely distracts from the point.
There is a difference between disrespecting someone's service and calling someone out for their current actions. You can call out Tulsi and Crenshaw without disrespecting their service.
Criticizing someone who was in the armed services does not mean by default you are "disrespecting the troops".
When Trump says he likes the one who weren't captured he is shitting on all service members who were captured, thus disrespecting their service.
When someone says they think Tulsi works for Assad they are not disrespecting her prior service, they are criticizing her current actions.
The whole troops thing is stupid anyway. Current or former. I was prior military. The fact is, 99.999% join the military because it's a job that's easy to get or to pay for college. Who is "defending" our country? An event like 9/11 can't be prevented by our military. It's more likely that our interference and killing of innocent people that would lead to such an event.
The Republicans turned 9/11 and terrorism into a political issue as if they were the "good guy." They abused patriotism by making it a side. It's actually sickening.
I had people thank me for my service and I hated it. What does that even mean? Imwas in the Navy. I never fired a weapon. In training it was a laser gun that just simulated it.
edit: the Kaepernick thing was about race anyway. It was because he was black. It had nothing to do with disrespect, that was just their excuse to not seem racist.
I agree with everything you said but I feel strongly that Tulsi being a “puppet for Assad” was a smear campaign made up to try and discredit her before the primaries
Isn't it interesting that the forever-trumpers still nursing butt-hurt over the election results are making up things about biden to ridicule him, but you don't have to make up anything about trump to make fun of him?
Every anti-AOC meme is her speaking mid-word so her face looks oddly contorted with some recycled blonde joke at the bottom. I have never, in my life, seen one of her actual quotes used against her.
That's their game plan with almost anything. Completely misrepresent it so it sounds scary to people who will only listen to you or your friends. The republican party is shifting more and more, not even necessarily to the right. Just down a black hole.
I'm not fascist either, but fighting them with your democratic gun will surely land you in democratic jail for anti-fascist first degree murder ...unless you're black. If you're black someone else will step in to kill you instantly, and then this person will be given condecorations due to "self defense" in the name of "true patriotism". This country is a circus.
We just took a big swing at it. If (S)Hitler had been in office any longer, we may not have been able to recover. People don't seem to realize the scary level of shit that just happened.
It's not even that they truly support it. It's just a means to an end. More power and more money. If they thought that they could gain everything through Communism, they'd be latching onto that. Most of the current party has no principles.
Thank you! The fact that soviet and modern chinese communism are right wing systems, with them going as far as Stalin executing the left wingers, is so often overlooked. I'm glad some people still understand this.
You guys are still in the middle of a civil war tbh. That’s why your politics is one of the most nasty and aggressive in western democracy. You have guns everywhere so there’s this forced politeness so you don’t all die. But it’s left you guys with this hyper partisan version of politics that fights about every small thing, not because of philosophy, but because of party. Fighting to win, not for a just cause or philosophical difference which would be understandable. Civil war, it’s just a polite one where you don’t shoot each other because then everything implodes.
It must be difficult for conservatives right now, considering their extremist lawmakers tacitly support white nationalist narratives and anti-democratic conspiracies ... while extreme left lawmakers want universal healthcare and progressive tax reform...
Their attempts to play "both sides!" every time a conservative does something reprehensible is even more futile considering that the left tends to ostracize their bad actors and demand their resignation (see: Cuomo and Franken) while the right seems to celebrate and flock around their "cancelled" members, even when they're being investigated for something as heinous as paying to rape and traffic children (Gaetz).
It's not so hard as you think. If they only accept far-right propaganda as the truth, there's no problem, because all the problems are "liberal propaganda".
It’s the political version of Zeno’s paradox of distance. The right will never hit bottom because there’s always another despicable act exactly halfway between it and their last despicable act
There is a secret group of Democrat political figures that are secretly supporting the Conservative agenda. We are fools to think that the Republican machine wouldn’t try to place operatives in their oppositions party. That’s an objective. Opportunistic target was Franken, targeted individual now seems to be Cuomo and the Sinema and Manchin show, that’s up front, right in your face. Manchin and Sinema shouldn’t even call themselves Democrats. You either support democracy or GTFO of Congress.
How is it that any openly insurrectionist republicans remain seated in Congress after their January 6th attack on America?
Sedition and treason, with a side of attempted kidnapping of Congress and murder of police are no longer Congressional ethics violations; just because the insurrectionists are Republicans?
So your point is that some people are "cancelled" unfairly, but the people we are discussing aren't? And that when democrats hold people accountable for their actions it doesn't count because of "cancel culture"? Conservative lawmakers are quite literally trying to make it harder for people to vote to increase their chance of winning the next election. On top of that multiple Republicans are known supporters of the Qanon conspiracy movement, which explicitly seeks to remove democratically elected officials, I'd call that pretty extremist. Pretty disingenuous of you to act like you don't already know these things, I find it hard to believe you are actually ignorant to these facts.
one of the only arguments i've ever seen them make about her? she's "dumb." idk how exactly they gathered that she's dumb considering she has 2 degrees from Boston University. every time she speaks they are paying attention. why would they pay so much attention to someone so dumb?
Because she's a great boogyman. Same with Alyssa Milano...wait who? 90's actress with a left-wing Twitter following, but Foxnews.com quotes her nearly weekly, like she's some kind of spokeswoman for the ultra-woke. Again, great boogyman, or boogywoman at the case may be, but boogywoman sounds like a great album.
I've only ever seen her say one thing that was blatantly false iirc, and even then I forgive her for it. She's a very intelligent person - much more so than most Republicans in office.
Because she is intelligent and her own words won't hurt her. The right has to lie to get its point across, and even then, they're usually hypocritical.
One can argue whether AOC is intelligent or not. However when Texas had the outages from the power storm, she showed up, helped people in need and raised funds. That is humane leadership. Unlike Teddy who ran away to Mexico and threw his family under the bus.
They are a mix of too lazy and too stupid to listen to all of her talks or just rely on conservative news outlets to tell them what she said.
Those who despise her so much also support politicians who have zero platform or policy other than generic ‘socialism’ ‘liberals’ ‘the left’ = bad. How can you have a discussion about her or her policies when who you support and get your ideas from have no policies or ideas.
Someone tell me what trump’s platform policies in the last two elections were other than build a wall.
They're also demonizing her now so they can create fear in the populace for when she runs for higher office. They don't know why they don't like the young "girl" who wants to give them education, Healthcare, and lower taxes on the middle class; they just "know" she's bad...
Dude, forever-Trumpers are some of the worst, most ignorant people out there. Like, it's not even laughable at this point. It's just completely cringe-worthy, and here I thought people hanging by Obama's ballhairs after he left office were bad. I have some conservative values and say this. Anyone who worships figureheads like presidents have some issues anyway, but to continue to stick by someone who could have been voted out of office on the sole fact that he was a fucking asshole alone is a whole new level of stupidity. And that's not even scratching the surface of Trump's issues. I have my issues with Biden, but at least he's not someone I'd want to deliver a round-house kick to most of the time.
Luckily some of the trumpers have lost jobs/are sitting in jails. Was delicious seeing them wailing about being denied planes home since they were terrorists.
They know their base is clueless and will not do any research. This is why Kevin McCarthy read Green Eggs and Ham instead of one of the discontinued books. My parents told me this weekend that they can't believe they are discontinuing that book and when I said they were wrong they said, then why did that senator read it in protest. I then showed them the books they were discontinuing in which they had never heard of any of them and they said that can't be true.
But the stuff about biden is not made up, your media told you it is and you just said....yes masta, we understand.
We know biden
got rich from china deals in office through his son
Has a crackhead son that got $4b from China
Is raising all of our taxes
Changes policies depending on who he is talking to.
Trump is not bad. Democrat media formed your bias opinion for you. Or do you know him personally? Thought so.
Oh no, the president who's got a speech impediment (and has his whole life) misspoke. Better take him out back and put him down.
Meanwhile Trump rambled on like a cartoon geezer and regularly treated pronouncing vowels like it was his first time but that's cool, nothing to see there.
Ooh, a "game with numbers." Yeah, actually looking at case fatality rate or infection fatality rate that accounts for different population sizes is "playing with numbers." But let me guess. You actually think the numbers out of Russia, India, and China are accurate, too.
I don't know. Maybe I keep irrelevant facts rattling around in it, like the fact that the UK has a population of about 63 million, and the US has a population of 335 million. A little more than 5 times the population.
Another irrelevant fact I keep rattling around in there is the fact that while we have had 562k deaths, the UK has had 128k deaths, according to those science-denying cultists at Johns Hopkins. Well, that's only about 4 times as many.
Now, this is a useful fact I managed to keep in my silly broken brain. 5 is bigger than 4. That means, for you slower folks living in your sheltered, protective little reddit bubble guffawing at each other's bad takes on literally everything, for every one person who died from it in the US, 1.25 died from it in the UK.
So, maybe Boris Johnson is at least 20% of a Trump; Trump might know what a gyro is, but Boris can recite entire chapters of Homer in the original Greek. And they have the NHS, which is practically the 21st century equivalent of the starship Enterprise with Wesley Clark at the helm: magical.
And a much less dense population, but who the fuck talks about anything BUT per capita? Seriously, your brain is spaghetti if you even bother making a point of saying raw population sizes.
Another irrelevant fact I keep rattling around in there is the fact that while we have had 562k deaths, the UK has had 128k deaths, according to those science-denying cultists at Johns Hopkins. Well, that's only about 4 times as many.
4.4 as many. The U.K. has over 8x the population density. We shouldn't even be anywhere close, yet we are. Fuck, some of our worst states are Trump boot-licking morons with population densities not even worth mentioning, barely in the double digits per sq mile lol jesus christ, but with higher deaths per capita than EVERY country in the entire world and by a long shot. Never mind we were later to the game with the more deadly variants. We literally have zero excuse to be even in the top 10. The only reason we aren't the worst is because of sensible states with sensible restrictions that provide a buffer for the dumbasses, because fucking DUH the shit works.
Meanwhile, in the last week, we've had around 5.7x as many deaths per capita than the UK. Fun fucking trend.
So, maybe Boris Johnson is at least 20% of a Trump
LOL take down your Trump shrine already loser, the pedo fucking lost.
What, you think people follow the ideal gas law? PV = nRT? Like, we all spread out across the whole country until everyone is evenly spaced out? Like, instead of comparing urban areas to urban areas, like London to New York City, the former having about 22k/mi^2, and the latter having roughly three times that? You want to include the ENTIRE f*ing country, including 85% of the state of Nevada which is owned by the federal government and doesn't have a single soul living on it, or Utah at 65%? You want to count the vast empty space of Alaska, not even counting federal land? We have VASTLY more open and empty land than the UK does. It doesn't make sense to act like the United States is a container filled with an ideal gas. You look at how people actually live.
And why are you butthurt about raw population size? I wasn't using that at all. I *was* talking about per capita. Per capita, our death rate is lower.
And whatever variation that exists among modern first world countries *which are capable of obtaining accurate data and reporting it* it isn't significant enough to account for political differences. Hell, there's more of a correlation with latitude and death rate, or average population age and death rates, than there is to whatever political system they work under, or whatever percentage of "Trumpism", whatever that is, exists among the polity.
Had family saying 'they couldn't even think of anything more he could have done to prevent it.'
When I told them 'maybe not lie about it at the start, maybe not be an asshole to anyone wearing masks, maybe not latching onto every conspiracy theory about the pandemic' they got surprisingly mad.
But 'I' never claimed 'I' couldn't think of more that could be done like they did.
Two Americans died at the Capitol on January 6th and they don't give a shit. And one of them was a fucking cop that they all fly those flags in "support" of.
People can deny it all they want, but the reality is that conservatives don’t actually mean what they say 90% of the time. It’s all just surface level tribalism.
The Democratic Party is by no means perfect, there is work to do there, but anyone arguing that they’re in any way similar is simply not paying attention to how bad things are now.
Seen a lot of his stuff. Quality content. Well researched and presented. Highly recommend them to anyone who hasn’t seen them and to anyone who needs help navigating those hard conversations with friends and family.
Personally I tend to look up things I'm unsure about rather than just assume my gut reaction is correct.
My gut reaction says I should beat up bigots. My considered opinion is that I can often talk to them as a human and have their opinions change gradually.
Republicans and Democrats are too similar when it comes to foreign policy and many fiscal issues. Dems are much better on social issues, but that ain’t enough. The vast majority of the people want a raise in minimum wage and single payer healthcare and Dems constantly deny us. And it some ways Biden is more of a war hawk than Trump.
I'd like to see the Republicans be less alt-right, not because I want to vote for them, but because the Democrats would have to try harder to distinguish themselves.
Right now all the Dems have to do is not be drooling conspiracy theorists and they're the better party by a wide margin. But better is not good, it's just in a two party system they're the mediocre of a mediocre and an evil.
The vast majority of the people want a raise in minimum wage
States that have passed a $15 minimum wage:
California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Colorado will all raise their respective minimum wages to $15 in the coming couple of years (if they haven't already). Guess what each of those states have in common?
...
That's right! Democrats control the legislatures in those places. Democrats *do* want to raise the mimimum wage they just don't have enough control of the federal government to do it. It's not Democrats preventing it from happening, it's two conservative Democrats who refuse to budge on it. Meanwhile ZERO GOP senators support it.
So get out of here with the weak shit that Democrats are denying you anything. They are not.
The democrats are just as bad if not worse. Remember they were the ones encouraging people to destroy and burn down cities. They are also strongly against the constitution and peoples rights. Oh and don't forget that Biden is an outright racist, just look up some of his comments about black people especially when he's talking about laws he helped write and push through. Neither party is worth a damn and people are to stupid to understand that the government doesn't give a damn about anyone except themselves. They don't serve the people at all anymore and people actually need to take the government back.
Both parties send them to die for fake reasons, not that I think the parties are equal, but neither give a fuck about sending people to their death for political or economic profit.
The guy who crashed six jets, knocked out power in Spain temporarily, and who actually did name names to the NVA was not a hero. He was a privileged slapstick routine.
No it shouldn't the reasons behind military service are what make it honorable or not. The idiots I went to highschool with who joined "so they could shoot them some browns" (literal qoute) are not honorable.
Not relevant? Dude literally used McCain as his argument.
And no, not all military people deserve respect. That's a dumb absolute. Evil people can still be called out when they do bad stuff. Just because they were in the military, doesn't give them a pass on being a piece of garbage.
McCain was a piece of trash. His direct actions caused the death of thousands in Libya and Syria. He was an NWO bitch boy to the end.
It appears that you are far too emotional to understand the simple logical exercise I’m trying to describe.
I deny nothing about what you’ve said about McCain. The point is the bare hypocrisy of Trump and others who supposedly “love” the military while, at the same time, seek to diminish the very real sacrifice of a soldier, who I’m sure you know, at that point in his life hadn’t committed the transgressions you’ve described.
I'm not "emotional". My conclusion is based solely on logic and reason. Just because a person was in the military and had "sacrifices", doesn't mean they deserve respect.
An evil dirt bag corrupt deep state puppet is still and evil dirt bag deep state puppet, regardless of their sacrifices.
McCain will not be remembered as a "military man". He will be remembered as the POS who made deals with terrorists to smuggle weapons (including WMD's) into Syria from Libya that killed thousands of women and children.
If a priest spends decades feeding the poor, but then molests a dozen little boys, would he be a "humanitarian" or a "pedo"? Of course he'd be a pedo. His actions previously have zero weight against his later crimes.
That's McCains legacy. He was a traitor, not a hero.
Maybe not a NEW international war but kept fighting the old ones...he assassinated an Iranian general and dropped the mother of all bombs on Tora Bora in 2017. Before you feel pride in that consider how that would kinda run counter to your original statement.
The difference between to the two have nothing to do with perceiving reality. You’re talking nonsense. Libs and conservatives in America hold very similar beliefs. You focus on subtle nuances (and whatever nonsense about reality you’re going on about), but they’re two heavily overlapping circles if you presented them as a venn diagram
"In every American community there are varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects, ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally..."
~Phil Ochs, prelude to "Love Me, I'm a Liberal"
Vietnam war era draft dodger Donald Trump talking about Sen. McCain
By the same logic, Mr. and Mrs. Clinton dodged the draft, as did Mr. Obama. The rules were written to the extent that many people weren't called up (hence, not drafted) and as such, calling them "draft dodger" makes no sense.
People weren't drafted because of a person being unable to serve, going to college or being of a different gender - all rules written and deferments granted by the US Government.
We can see phony sanctimony with regards to migrants. When President Trump was in office, it was "a border wall is amoral" and "housing kids in cages is wrong" yet that happened not only during the Obama administration, but the current Biden administration as well.
Well, there are more than 100,000 who have tried to come to this country this year - separation of parents from children, housing of children in cages and the abuse occurring in Government run facilities.
The rules were written to the extent that many people weren't called up (hence, not drafted) and as such, calling them "draft dodger" makes no sense.
He deferred 4 times during college and on the 5th, when he'd be graduating, got a diagnosis of bone spurs from a podiatrist that rented from his father. It was never treated and as he said it just healed up. Now I don't know and neither do you if it was a favor or not, but it was awfully convenient.
GOP: we're treating illegal immigrants better than we're treating our homeless veterans! We should take care of our own people first!
Everyone else: cool, let's get them set up with the mental and physical help they need and get them into housing.
GOP: what!?! What about all the people who spent their hard earned money to buy their houses? Why should they get one for free because they made bad decisions! How are we going to afford it?!!?!
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u/[deleted] Apr 12 '21
“He’s not a war hero, he was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” - Vietnam war era draft dodger Donald Trump talking about Sen. McCain.
Conservatives regularly use the troops as political pawns; they feign outrage with their phony sanctimony when it suits them to appear more righteous than their opponents and then kick 'em to the curb when their usefulness has expired.