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Post by Amadan on Aug 27, 2018 8:25:39 GMT -5
I have complicated thoughts about McCain.
Probably the best thing you can say about him is that he was one of the adults in the room, which nowadays is rare in Congress. By that I mean he understood both party politics and national interest and, I think, usually did what he thought was best. Usually. I think he genuinely did care about the country.
But. He was responsible for pushing wars even after seeing the horror and futility of Viet Nam, and feeding the military-industrial complex, and I can fully understand why leftists passionately opposed to that aren't necessarily inclined to roll over and join the "American hero" chorus just because he's dead. Yeah, you shouldn't throw shit at a man who just died, but it's okay, in my opinion, to say honestly "I didn't like him when he was alive, and I don't like him now that he's dead."
The Alt-Right, of course, hates him for being a "cuckservative" who voted against killing Obamacare. Whether that was abandoning principles or sticking to them depends very much on your political perspective.
I am kind of... not altogether on board with the "He was an American hero." He got captured, he endured torture, and he did not allow himself to be released early when offered the opportunity. That is admirable. He deserves respect for that. But I have to note, it is no more than we expect from all U.S. military officers, and most, when put in those circumstances, have come through. I am not downplaying what he endured, but surviving and not taking the coward's way out makes you... well, a survivor and not a coward. But not a hero, per se.
Lastly, the thing I have a hard time getting past is the George Bush hug. After the Bush campaign (almost certainly with Bush's knowledge) maligned his family with vicious racist campaign ads, and even implied that he was a traitor with the old "Hanoi songbird" rumors, McCain was willing to suck it up and hug George Bush. To me, that was a full belly-roll, a groveling at the altar of party politics, and anything but heroic. Any man who could let his family be attacked like that and then kiss up to the man responsible.... well, I cannot respect that.
McCain was a party politician with some admirable qualities but mostly self-serving and political instincts. He wasn't a great man, he only seems great compared to what we have to choose from today. So I have nothing terrible to say about him, but while I don't condone trashing him (especially with distortions) immediately after his funeral, I also don't think we need a bubble of non-criticism to protect his memory and I am okay with people pointing out the shitty things he did and why they aren't shedding tears.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2018 9:50:21 GMT -5
We'll have to agree to disagree on most of what you've said.
ETA:
Whatever we may "expect" from our prisoners of war, I do not think many could have withstood what McCain did without breaking. If you have not read the accounts I posted in his R.I.P. thread, do so. What he withstood was a prolonged and horrifying ordeal much of which he could have escaped, but he refused out of sheer principle. I submit that 99.999999997% of those minimizing this fact could never have done the same under those circumstances.
No, he didn't vote with the libs most of the time. I disagreed with him quite often. But see, I don't actually require agreeing with someone to admire them. What he WAS willing to do was buck his own party when HE felt it was the right thing to do, even when it resulted in a shit-storm descending on his head. That's a buttload harder than voting along with your party line. Yeah, he was pretty far from a social justice warrior. But he wasn't afraid to evolve on issues, even where it bucked the party line or the POTUS -- e.g., although he at one time opposed LBGTQ people serving in the military (on which point, needless to say, I disagreed vehemently), he ultimately changed his mind and indeed, co-sponsored a bill to block Trump's attempts to prevent trans men and women from serving in the military.
I utterly disagree that he was self-serving. I believe the opposite is true. Sure, there were times when his ambition took the reins -- e.g., when he selected Palin as his running mate (a choice he came to regret, and with which, obviously, I very much had a problem with) -- but if you can find me a human being for whom that was not true, I'll sign over my IRA to you.
His decisions to, e.g., vote no on the Republican attempt to repeal the ACA, to defend Obama in the face of his own supporter's vile slanders, cost him in the Republican party (it may have cost him the presidency), and it was a price he didn't hesitate to pay. That's why Breitbart is a teeming infestation of alt-right trolls pissing on him.
If your measure of greatness is "voted for liberal causes all the time," well, yes, McCain certainly falls short. But there has never been a man more valiantly courageous than John McCain (for that alone he wins my fervent admiration), and in the light of the principles he believed in (not necessarily always the same as my principles or whatever the current GOP's principles happen to be), he served his country to the hilt.
Legitimate criticism I understand. I have some myself. But, well, I can't even begin to understand how anyone can fail to see him as a great man (if flawed, like all of us).
So, like I said, we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm frankly immovable on this, and at the moment I'm not sure I have the heart to try to convince anyone who disagrees, so I admit there's absolutely no point in arguing with me. Despise me if you must.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 27, 2018 11:19:09 GMT -5
If your measure of greatness is "voted for liberal causes all the time," Oh come on. I think he was a decent but flawed man. I just don't see greatness. Sorry.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2018 11:38:40 GMT -5
That's your prerogative. I disagree.
ETA:
Or rather -- I agree he was flawed (as are we all). And as I said, I have many fundamental disagreements with him. But I believe he was a great man, and I think that's how he'll go down in the history books.
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Post by prozyan on Aug 27, 2018 11:44:24 GMT -5
I often wonder if we'd be living with a much different GOP today if McCain had gone with his gut and picked Lieberman as his running mate rather than listening to his advisers (thank you Steve Schmidt) and picked Palin.
I think the rise in prominence of Palin helped fuel the alt-right movement.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2018 11:49:35 GMT -5
I often wonder if we'd be living with a much different GOP today if McCain had gone with his gut and picked Lieberman as his running mate rather than listening to his advisers (thank you Steve Schmidt) and picked Palin. Yes, I think we likely would. Picking Palin was the single biggest problem I ever had with McCain. Frankly, it cost him my vote -- I liked Obama, but was concerned about his lack of experience, and I'd always respected McCain. But once McCain picked Palin, there was just no way I could go there. And though I think the GOP was already headed down the path to where it is now -- that's why he chose Palin in the first place -- I think his choosing her may have pushed it further down the path. He regrets that choice now and wishes he'd chosen Lieberman. For that reason, I'm no longer inclined to be furious with him over it, though I wish to hell he'd gone with his gut.
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Post by prozyan on Aug 27, 2018 12:06:25 GMT -5
I was purged from the voter roll in 2008, but I felt the exact same way.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2018 12:19:53 GMT -5
I was purged from the voter roll in 2008, but I felt the exact same way. The whole "purging from the voter roll for no good reason" thing needs to not be a thing. It's never happened to me, but I've heard of it happening to other people, some of whom had been living in the same place forever. In one case, she's pretty sure it's because she was out of town and missed a local election. Okay, I've voted in every damn election ever since I was 18, but I don't think failing to make it to one should knock you off a voter registration list. Maybe you were sick. Maybe someone died. Maybe you got sent out of town for work. I can see mailing the voter something to ask them to verify that they still live there, but just knocking them off and letting them discover it on election day...yeah, that's not right. Sorry, Optimus ! I'm not sure what it is about this thread that causes us to constantly derail it! This is about the 10th derail, I think.
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Post by Optimus on Aug 27, 2018 14:55:10 GMT -5
We'll have to agree to disagree on most of what you've said. There's also this (just presenting a counterpoint): theintercept.com/2017/07/27/john-mccain-fake-maverick-horrible-record/In addition to what the article covers, we also shouldn't forget how much of a tantrum he threw over Obama wanting to rescind Don't Ask, Don't Tell. His response was, "We should study this and listen to the commanders." Well, they studied it (including another Cox Commission report) and agreed it really wouldn't upset the operations of the military too much, and he balked. Then, several top military brass, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified before Congress that they were OK with it, and he still objected and pitched a fit. www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/12/john-mccains-dont-ask-dont-tell-last-stand/68243/I also think that, as noble as his defense of Obama to that bigoted woman at his town hall, most people forget that his campaign (along with Palin) had tried on multiple times to insinuate that Obama was connected to terrorism because he'd met William Ayers (with people connected to the McCain campaign calling him "Barack Hussein Obama" just to make it more clear), and later on in the campaign he got pretty bitter toward Obama, even referring to him as "that one" in a debate on national television. In many ways, he seemed like a decent man. I respect his service and am horrified at what he had to endure as a POW and he seems to have softened a bit in the last 5 years or so. But, in many other ways, he acted like a bitter, angry man who loved war ("Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran"), caved to party pressure and loosed Palin on the world, mostly allowed his campaign to insinuate that Obama was linked to terrorism (except for that one time with that dumb lady), and fought against the rights of LGBT Americans. I don't have too much against McCain, and has been said we are all flawed beings, but I do think that a lot of the memorializing that people are doing to him right now is laced heavily with short term memories and revisionist history. That's to be expected but I don't think it's unfair when people want to be a bit more honest about McCain's actual track record.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2018 15:11:09 GMT -5
I've admired him all my life, so nothing revisionist here.
For the record, I disagree with pretty much everything you just said, but I don't have the heart to argue about it, at least right now.
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Post by Optimus on Aug 27, 2018 18:36:19 GMT -5
Pretty much everything I said was factual, so if you want to disagree with it, okay sure.
I also wasn't really trying to disparage McCain in my post. Just trying to be balanced and point out that there was good and bad, but was highlighting that we shouldn't forget the bad just because he's dead.
If you, personally, are not engaging in any feel-good revisionism when it comes to his life and actions, then okay. That doesn't at all take away from the fact that it seems that many in the press are doing that very thing.
He did good things. He did bad things. Pointing out one doesn't diminish the other. Ignoring either, however, does take away from a fair representation of his actual life and legacy.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2018 19:11:37 GMT -5
It's not so much your facts themselves as the way you characterize them and him (e.g., "a bitter, angry old man" -- which is not how he struck me at all, nor do I think he "loved war"), and that you are very much cherry-picking. E.g.: true, at one time he did not support gay troops. And yes, I disagreed with that stance. But he changed his take on gay and trans Americans in the military in a bigly way. In fact, he co-sponsored a bill to block Trump's ban on transgender people serving in the military and championed an openly gay man as secretary of the army. www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/08/26/john-mccain-the-senator-who-went-from-lgbt-opponent-to-ally-dies-age-81/(and yes, I went out of my way to find a publication clearly aimed to a LBGTQ audience to cite for that point.) It's fair to criticize his initial position, but to omit his complete evolution on it strikes me as entirely unfair. (And I've seen a lot of people on the left doing it this last day or so. I keep wondering if they're unaware of his change of stance, or just want to keep hating on him because of his initial stance (which, yeah, was a bad one--but clearly he came to see that.). And then of course some folks on the right are hating him for changing his stance. But he probably would have shrugged, so I guess I should, too.) But whatever. I actually don't want to argue about this because (a) like I said, I just don't have the heart, (b) I am increasingly convinced that people are by and large just going to think what they think anyway, so if I'm not going to have fun with the discussion (and I won't with this one), there's no point, and (c) McCain really does not need me to defend his honor.
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Post by Optimus on Aug 27, 2018 19:42:01 GMT -5
It's not so much your facts themselves as the way you characterize them and him (e.g., "a bitter, angry old man" -- which is not how he struck me at all, Well, to me, this sounds like the behavior of a bitter, angry man: I'm sure some people will disagree, but that type of behavior doesn't strike me as someone who is a nice person. Rather, it seems more characteristic of someone who was a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde, putting on a nice public face for the cameras while being an asshole in private. McCain has a long-standing history of wanting to attack multiple countries in the middle east and blow shit up, so that's not really debatable. You can accuse me of cherry-picking all you want, but the same applies to the rather "sunshine and rainbows" eulogizing that many people are doing right now. Some people seem to be willingly ignoring, if not totally ignorant of, well-known facts about his past. I suppose we all see what we want to see. I'm just going for a more balanced view. He had his good moments. He had his bad moments. He was undeniably a war hero. But he sure as hell wasn't a saint.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2018 20:04:01 GMT -5
No one said he was a "saint," including me -- I said he was a great, if flawed man, a patriot, a hero and a larger-than-life character of the type this increasingly petty world isn't making anymore, and moreover one who was capable of changing his mind, crossing the aisle, and speaking truth to power. I've also noted that I disagreed with him often and got mad at him sometimes.
I could actually spend some time justifying many of McCain's positions on the battle front -- as a matter of fact, I agree with him that sometimes we should fight, sometimes we should send troops, though I don't agree with all of his positions (though, then again, that's true for literally everyone. Indeed, part of the reason I was weighing voting for him over Obama, besides experience, was the fact that I thought he was being realistic about the situation in Iraq, Gitmo, etc., and that Obama was not. (Of course, he blew it when he picked Palin, as I've said.)
There you go, I am not a full-on lefty. Surprise! I'm all in for supporting transgender troops, but then I'm a war monger who wants a strong military. What ARE we gonna do with me?
But, like I said, I'm tired and disheartened. Moreover, since your last post set up a complete strawman of my take on McCain, and you ignored completely the one point I did bother to bring up to counter you in that post (on the gay/transgender troop issue) I'm not feeling any special obligation to defend myself any more than I feel an obligation to defend McCain. The history books are gonna say what they're gonna say -- I suspect it will be closer to my viewpoint, but I guess time will tell.
ETA:
Okay, I'll add this: I agree that the Chelsea Clinton joke was awful, and he deserved every bit of lambasting he got for that. The cunt comment -- I've seen that one in a bunch of very left leaning publications, but not one that I'd trust. And it's always worded the same (the way you worded it, in fact), as though the story is just being bandied about word for word. I'm curious if you've seen it in a publication that wasn't, e.g., The Daily Kos. I did a quick google search, and the first couple of pages don't turn up any sources I regard as trustworthy, but if you can have one and he said it, I'll agree that's horrible, too.
But it won't make me decide that after all his entire record of public service and heroism goes for nothing.
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Post by Optimus on Aug 27, 2018 20:36:53 GMT -5
Moreover, since your last post set up a complete strawman of my take on McCain, No, it absolutely did not. You gave two examples of me "cherry-picking" and "mischaracterizing" McCain, and I directly addressed both of those points. I also never said that you claimed he was a "saint." The last two paragraphs in my last post (and pretty much 95% of everything I've posted about McCain) were GENERAL points about the GENERAL response that I've seen regarding his life since his passing on Saturday. That should have been quite clear from my use of "many people" and "some people." To try to spin generalized statements as if they were somehow directed specifically at you and your specific argument is, frankly, absurd. I'd already mentioned in my original post that he'd obviously softened up on his stances over at least the past 5 years. And, I'm glad he supported transgender troops and other issues very recently. However, that in no way erases that he behaved in the anti-LGBT ways in the past that I pointed out. He might've changed his mind within the past few years (and, if so, I'm glad), but his past actions in regards to LGBT issues are still pretty negative at times. He was a key architect of DADT in the early 90s. He continued to oppose gay marriage, likely to the day he died (as far as I'm aware). His positions on LGBT issues were complicated, to say the least, and he seemed to flip-flop around. This article suggests that, while his positions on things like gay marriage and gays in the military may have been against them, his voting record on them were consistent with his views on federalism. His record on these issues is really odd, to me, as sometimes he seemed like he was evolving, only to a few years later swing back in the other direction. His record on gay rights is incredibly inconsistent, to say the least. www.washingtonblade.com/2018/08/27/john-mccain-leaves-complicated-legacy-on-lgbt-rights/(and, yes, I also found an LGBT source to support my claim) I don't think that overall makes him a horrible person. I don't think he was a horrible person. I'm not attacking you. You're not John McCain or one of his family members, so I've no idea why you seem to be taking this so personally. As I've repeated, I'm just saying (IN GENERAL) that too much breathless sanctification obscures and misrepresents the totality of his legacy and that (IN GENERAL) a more honest, balanced portrayal of his life would help. I think the history books will rightly regard him as a war hero and will also be mostly honest and balanced about the rest of his life. Whether his publicly remembered legacy will actually match the history books is another matter entirely. ETA: Also, if you want to talk about strawmanning someone's position, what the hell is this? Who here has tried to make you decide that his entire record of public service and heroism means nothing? I sure as hell haven't. This is, frankly, bollocks.
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