Don't be too harsh on "Blame America First"

There seems to be a large segment of a particular political party that enjoys employing a series of what they consider cleaver phrases to the point where those phrases become nothing more than cliché` and overly tired arguments. “Stay the Course,” “Mission Accomplished,” and most recently, “Blame America first crowd” have all surpassed the status of cleaver phrase and crossed over to the realm of tired, hollow arguments against those who disagree with the current deployment of our troops in Iraq.

“Blame America first” is an interesting non-argument because it provides greater understanding and perhaps a bit of sympathy to those who are against any plan to withdraw from Iraq either strategically or otherwise. It is also an interesting catchphrase because despite it’s vagueness, its initial message is not difficult to understand.

It can best be described as a reactionary phrase. It is a reaction to the frustration of the realization that the United States is very likely responsible for the mess in Iraq. It is made in denial of that fact, but its not necessarily made in attempt to mislead those who are unaware of the facts in Iraq. It is a common form of denial, similar to the denial of the death of a loved one. This form of denial is one of the stages of dealing with a loss, and we as a nation are certainly dealing with loss. We have lost many loved troops abroad. The world has lost many loved citizens who were unjustly and unfortunately caught in the crossfire, both literal and figurative, of this war. We as a nation are dealing with our loss of credibility and our loss of faith in a leader whom we feel we should be able to place more trust in.

Unfortunately, denial in this case has increased the degree of polarization between those who are pro-war and those who are anti-war. This initial stage of dealing with loss is detrimental to society yet necessary for those who are coming to terms with the fact that the United States is waging an illegal war against Iraq, and that the United States is committing the same sorts of atrocities in Iraq that it has sworn to protect against.

This stage of denial, however, also beckons the potential for hope. If enough those who are in denial about the truths of the Iraq war proceed through the stages of loss quickly enough, their shift in perspective on the war will hopefully contribute to the positive resolution in Iraq and the decrease in polarization among the citizens of the United States. This does not require a shift of political parties to accomplish. Rather, it requires the recognition of injustice and the desire to rectify those injustices. Instead of an area of policy that causes divisions between members of political parties, the war in Iraq can easily turn to greater unification of political parties on the grounds that atrocities against humanity should be rectified. Already we are beginning to see Republican and Democratic Senators unifying on this position as house and senate members push to end the war on Iraq .

Hopefully, the era of political unification on this important issue is near. Until then, it is important that those against the war in Iraq not be too critical of those who are partaking in the “blame America first” argument. Instead of being relentless in argument, calmly state your position, refuse to get frustrated at any non-argument they provide against you, and be prepared to assist with the grieving process they are likely undergoing.

FOX News Blames Democrats For Iran Captives

Commenting on FOX news usually holds little to no interest for me, but since it's spring break, I'm feeling lazy. I also feel I must update this thing at least once a month.

Apparently, Rosie O’Donnell has made some rather interesting comments (yet again) on the view. She spoke first about Iranian portrayal in the United States media, something I agree with (Oh God, I'm agreeing with Rosie). There are those who believe that the entire Iranian population, not only it's government officials, are "unable to do anything ethical." It's an unfortunate (but thankfully not universal) mindset in the US. (Her comments were in regards to the current Iranian hostage situation, which I am unfortunately not keeping up on due to laziness on my part).

She then starts talking about how she thinks 9/11 was a setup by the US Government (Her position that "fire doesn't melt steel" is ridiculous; fire doesn't melt steel, but the conditions in the building allowed for extreme temperatures) before mentioning FOX News. When I say mentioning, I mean less than a sentence devoted to FOX. Heck, FOX News wasn't even the subject of the sentence.

Of course, FOX felt obligated to respond with a 6 and 3/4 minute response on the popular "Hannity and Colmes." Most interesting was their guest, Bill Cunningham, especially regarding some of the comments he made, then being hailed as a "great American" by Hannity. Literally one of the first things out of his mouth: "She has no right to speak."

Ironically, this so called "great American" is arguing against one of the very cornerstones of democracy, which is the open forum of ideas. He has every right to disagree with Rosie, but to go as far as saying she has no right to speak... forgive me for saying so, but that sounds just a little fascist to me. Wow, Hannity, you sure do know great Americans when you see them.

He then continued to argue against her by calling her a "fat slob" and a "gay rights activist" (what a horrible thing to be!). Colmes, in one of his FEW displays of argumentative intelligence, tells Cunningham he isn't advancing any argument through name calling, but Cunningham seems to disagree. "I'm right, though," he says. "She describes her self that way." And be that as it may, it hasn't persuaded me to believe that Rosie "has no right to speak."

Colmes continues the discussion with a Democratic analysis in which they disagree with exactly what Rosie said (pretty humorous in my mind).

Hannity decides to get in on the action by speaking with Cunningham. It never ceases to amaze me how skilled he is at incriminating complete nations of people. "[She] rushes to the side of our enemies [Iran]..." The conversation quickly turns into what can best be described as a (forgive me in advance) circle-jerk in which they fail to ask or answer any questions with each other and merely respond to hateful speech with more hate speech until Cunningham groups her statements with supposedly similar statements by Clinton, Kerry, and Durban (whom he misquotes), then uses that piece of brilliant logic to link their alleged positions of "anti-Americanism" and "f**k the troops" with those of the mainstream liberal. He then accuses those "liberals" who don't agree with those positions of refusing to recognize the anti-American mainstream message "liberals" are trying to get across.

The main point of this is that I thought this sort of though was confined to FOX news, but recently, I've come up with people who nonsensically make the same sorts of arguments. When responding to their "rhetoric" with any response that takes more than a few seconds of though, I am received with more nonsensical statements that both dodge any questions my arguments provoke and more lazy arguments. So seriously, if somebody wants to condemn Rosie's right to free speech, please do so. If you have any sort of cognitive argument as to why that woman should not be allowed to speak (other than that she's a loon, in which I would be compelled yet unable to agree with) please comment.