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Ignoramus Donating Member (610 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-04-05 04:59 PM
Original message
Dumb protest warriors bumper sticker
Reading the thread about the question of whether the atom bomb was needed in Japan to result in Japan's surrender, brought up this issue for me again. Because I think the argument that the bomb was necessary is a sham, in a similar way to this:

There is a bumper sticker and a sign the "protest warriors" (some "conservative" elitist snobs) have brought to protests. In small print it says something like:

"Except for ending fascism, ending slavery and ..."

Then in big letters:

"War has never solved anything"

The problem with this is that it is based on bogus assumptions. If you make the sign not sarcastic it reads:

War has solved something a few times, like ending fascism etc.

So, what is being argued? You should go to war because it worked sometimes? It's like: you should jump out of an airplane, because there have been cases where people haven't died from the fall.

Aside from that, the 2 sides of the argument are certainty vs. speculation.

It is "certain" that dropping an atom bomb on Hiroshima killed a bunch of people.

It is speculation that Japan would not have surrendered unless the bombs had been dropped.

Similarly, it's certain that a bunch of Germans were killed in WW2. It's speculation that Hitler could not have been defeated without bombing Germany.

Or more generally, it is certain that bombing people results in death, terror and mutilation. It is speculation that bombing people is needed to minimize a tragedy.
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brainshrub Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-04-05 05:05 PM
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1. War didn't end fascism, Democracy did.
There were fascist dictatorships in Argentina and Chile post-WWII. What ended them was demands for Democracy from the people.

If we had tortured Germans the way we torture Iraqis, there would still be a low-grade war in Western Europe.
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lvx35 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-04-05 05:11 PM
Response to Original message
2. I'm pro-war in the case of WWII
Edited on Thu Aug-04-05 05:11 PM by lvx35
But its a tricky thing, like using a gun. A gun solves a very limited, very rare and extreme set of problems. there is a vast amount of situation one encounters in life that are NOT solved by using a gun.
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Cats Against Frist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-04-05 05:20 PM
Response to Original message
3. Whoa...whoaa...there. Back up a minute, compadre.
You made your first mistake, when you assumed that Republicans even attempt to make arguments that do not use sensationalism, emotion, equivocation or any number of logical fallacies. And the Protest (armchair) Warriors are some of the worst.
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Sparkman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-04-05 05:22 PM
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4. 50 yrs of Cold War, NO NUKKINGS ! Nuk Testg Demo & mutul assured destruc
tion prevented their use. Imagine how effective a NUKE DEMO for Nagasaki or Hiroshima would have been, with no mutual destruction even possible to help bolster Japan's consideration of continuing with the war!!
violence is a self-defense intensive entity. Judge by the results.
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