Posted on 06/21/2002 12:38:07 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Would you agree or disagree with the proposition that "The United States would be better off if the '60s had never happened?"
Before you are put off with the provocative formulation of the question, understand that it is the resolution the Buckley School of Public Speaking has adopted as the debate topic for this week's seminar attendees. We have been split up into two teams, affirmative and negative, and assigned the task of supporting and defending the proposition, respectively.
Of course, Mr. Reid Buckley and his colleagues do not wish us to address whether we would literally prefer to erase this period from our history – because to do so would mean such terrible things, for example, as that no one born in that decade should have been born. But they do intend for us to consider whether the social, cultural and political events of that decade were, on the whole, a positive influence on America's character.
I'm going to reserve my comments directly bearing on the resolution for Friday's debate and offer my position on a related subject that this exercise – along with several recent events – brought to mind.
That is, this nation's cultural elite – which includes a good number of proud '60s radicals – behave as though many of the controversial issues of the '60s (and early '70s) have been conclusively resolved in their favor. History, they believe, has vindicated their positions on these issues to the point of establishing them as self-evident truths that are no longer subject to debate.
Among those "truths" are:
Just last week, we witnessed the media's insatiable gluttony in consuming every morsel of the 30th anniversary of their favorite scandal – the scandal that to them not only demonstrated President Nixon's consummate corruption, but the moral bankruptcy of the entire Republican Party. This, notwithstanding that it was ultimately Republicans who, by their willingness to subordinate their party interests to those of the nation, paved the pathway to Nixon's resignation.
When you ask any member of the elite for specifics in support of their immutable truth that Watergate was the gravest scandal in the history of the universe, you will most likely be met with an indignant dismissal, or, at best, some clichéd general allegations of wrongdoing, rather than evidence. Their favorite is that Nixon threatened the very foundation of the Constitution itself, though it's never quite clear how he did that.
Putting aside Clinton's many transgressions and felonies, isn't it at least abundantly arguable that other presidents have come closer to undermining our constitutional framework? FDR, for example, in his court-packing scheme attempted to alter the balance of power among the three branches of government. But you'll receive no quarter in elite circles about this because Watergate as the premier scandal is an article of their faith.
The elite approach the Vietnam issue with equal close-mindedness and moralistic fervor. Their unchallengeable view is that America's military entry into Vietnam was wrong and those who objected to it were furthering the noblest of causes.
I was reminded of their smugness on this score when I read an open letter that Ed Asner, Noam Chomsky, Gloria Steinem, Michael Lerner, and other like-minded actors, activists and academics wrote to the Guardian of London. Under the title "Not In Our Name," the enlightened assured the rest of the world that they did not stand by the repressive, imperialistic and militaristic policies of the Bush administration. They appealed to all Americans to resist Bush's "unjust, immoral and illegitimate" war and sought "to make common cause with the people of the world."
They said that in lodging their protest against the war on terror, they drew inspiration from "the many examples of resistance and conscience from ... "those who defied the Vietnam War by refusing orders, resisting the draft and standing in solidarity with resisters."
Don't bother wasting your time in pointing out to these saints that it their exalted resistance that played into the hands of the murderous communist regimes of North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, and that when the protesters finally got their wish that we withdraw, millions of innocents were slaughtered. We are not permitted to go there – because the truth cannot be allowed to interfere with their selective memories and skewed worldview.
And in case you're wondering, the Buckley School is phenomenal. Now that's an immutable truth.
Not so much morally wrong as more a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that North Vietnam was Communist.
I am not attacking those who served over there, my father served and died out there.
But it was a bad political call followed by more bad political calls.
While the North Vietnamise regieme was not, what you would call a model society, neither was the souths, which was riven with petty rivalrys.
The war followed a predicatble line with the military constantly asking for more men, more powers.
Americans went to Vietnam to protect the South from the North and to fight the Communists in Vietnam otherwise they may end up fighting them on Americas pacific coastline.
1) How many South Vietnamise apart from the ruling clique really wanted protection.
2) The dominoe falling did not take into account regional nationilsitic riverlys, China and North Vietnam may have been Communist but that was where it stopped, as even the Noth Vietnamise Cadre beleived the old Vietnam saying "the Chinese have grey bellies", "like snakes the sun only shines on there backs".
They new that once Vietnam was united they would have to deal with Vietnam.
I know everyone likes the old stab in the back theory, but the fact of the matter was you were fighting the same war over and over again, over the same piece of ground.
Short of carrying out that old popular joke and eliminating all the vietnamese, there was nothing else America good do.
Cheers Tony
That would get my vote.
Why? Because, what FDR wanted to accomplish clashes with the Constitution and individual freedoms. We're still paying for that.
The HateAmericaFirst crowd of American Leftists is not dissimilar from the Terrorists who took out the World Trade Center. If anybody's looking for the real reason Bill Clinton refused to take action against the terrorists when he was presented with so many justifications for doing so, simply realize that he and his Leftist supporters "sought to make common cause with the" mass-murderers. In a very real way, Osama bil Clinton and the Lib'rals are every bit as responsible for 9/11 as bin Laden himself!!
Quite Sincerely...MUD
"Americans went to Vietnam to protect the South from the North and to fight the Communists in Vietnam otherwise they may end up fighting them on Americas pacific coastline."
While America didn't "win" either the Korean or Viet Nam Wars, both were necessary for our ultimate triumph in the Cold War. If America had not stood our ground when the Communists sought to extend its dominion in the Far East, the Leftists would have continued their expansion elsewhere until we would have eventually been compelled to defend FReedom-loving peoples somewhere.
FReegards...MUD
In other words, they never shut up.
Calls made by JFK and Johnson. But somehow the GOP gets the blame in the media. Go figure that one out.
Exactly. The Vietnam War was a success despite all the idiotic mistakes made in its execution. It stopped the spread of communism, which was the goal.
In context of the whole war, this is not true, Tony. Our military's objective in every war is to fight and win. It was the politicians who decided that the military could not, would not, be able to fight the war this way to avoid a repeat of Korea when China entered the fray. Therefore, there was never a drive to "take" Hanoi, nor bomb and mine Haiphong out of existance as a port, even when thousands of tons of Soviet military weaponry poured through constantly resupplying our enemies with weapons used to kill us. In the air, our targets were selected from Washington, and we were forbidden to go after any targets of opportunity or use our best weapon; warrior initiative and flexibilty.
IMHO, the men who fought in Vietnam were heros of a great, powerful nation FORCED to fight in a manner that led to far too many of their deaths and with no true end-game in sight.
God forbid we ever fight this way again. It was a road map to disaster. Better to avoid war altogether then to EVER fight this way again.
The '60's have been here many times before and they will come aroung again. For an interesting view of history, read The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe. They also have an interesting look at 9/11 on their site.
And what would you have done with North Vietnam, but end up fighting the same type of war as in South Vietnam.
Wars like this are won or lost in the hearts and minds of the population.
It doesn’t matter how many conventional victories you have, unless you have the population behind you they are but nothing.
There was only American arms propping up the South Vietnamese government, even a united Vietnam would still of depended on a garrison of American troops.
To the Vietnamese peasant you were just another foreign foe, they fought the Chinese for many hundreds of years, the French, the Japanese the French again.
They cared nothing for Communism, to them it was sold as nationalism.
You don’t just fight wars, you fight wars to win, and as Wellington once said, if I am to win this war let it be at my choosing, my ground and at my time.
I don’t have time to debate today, but if you wish I will be happy to take this up again at a later date.
Well after Sunday, I promised the wife no freeping Sunday.
Cheers Tony
Tony, I don't disagree with you here. However, you could say the same thing about the German peasant, or the Japanese peasant, but when their nations were utterly vanquished, their resistance was over.
The real point I'm making was not to fight a war we don't intent to win, and not to commit troops to death and mayhem if further action will not bring victory.
Yep, it was our line in the sand, we had to make it somewhere. No way we could afford to just sit back and see an anti-American World Power brazenly support the aggressive--and bloodly--implementation of the Socialist Agenda over the objections of FReedom-loving sheeples accross the globe.
Too many good folks got slaughtered; but their lives were not fer naught!!
FReegards...MUD
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