Objectively horrible crap done by consensus-good US Presidents

[Trotsky]

From the 2012 Texas Republican platform:

"Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority"

Alright, maybe the people who said I hate America have a point.

 

[ultramanhyata]

Comprehension problem here.

Walking up to a random 5 year old and punching him in the balls for no reason is unquestionably evil and immoral, and completely indefensible. On a really small scale.

Larger-scale horrible things are almost always more complicated and involve more moral gray area. It's more difficult to call them objectively evil. You really do have to factor in the expected casualties from a continued Pacific War. You don't get to not do that and still have an honest argument. And besides, once again, the fact that it's still controversial makes it a weaker entry itt.

Unlike you, I am an apologist for neither action.

But when it comes to picking the lesser of two evils I will pick the one that produced zero casualties versus the one that produced hundreds of thousands.

But I will put you down now as a guy who thinks that the intentional targeting of civilians by the military is an ethical strategy if a calculation can be produced showing that it may result in fewer overall casualties than conventional, soldier-against-soldier warfare.

It's official: Fawlty is Team Bolton.

 

[ultramanhyata]

Well, really, neither of them fit the criteria of the OP, as they cannot be said to be "objectively" horrible, since they were arrived upon by known subjective balancing of political interests.

I can agree with this.

 

[Fawlty]

Unlike you, I am an apologist for neither action.

But when it comes to picking the lesser of two evils I will pick the one that produced zero casualties versus the one that produced hundreds of thousands.

But I will put you down now as a guy who thinks that the intentional targeting of civilians by the military is an ethical strategy if a calculation can be produced showing that it may result in fewer overall casualties than conventional, soldier-against-soldier warfare.

It's official: Fawlty is Team Bolton.

What a gummy gum tree of oozing gums.

I'm not arguing on that frickin' plane, yo

 

[skaleton]

Yep, you're right in all of this, although there is some disagreement and ambiguity as to how classically marxian, noble and world-economy-oriented Lenin was, given that he was a right-communist and did state, back off, and eventually renew the approach that would later be termed Leninism: capture of the state apparatus and representation of the proletariat by the central bureaucracy, instead of ground-up fomenting of economic organization and productivity. You can go back and forth on whether the Leninist approach and the NEP era was just a temporary transitional state to fund the European revolution (this was certainly the position of Trotsky) or whether Lenin was just an opportunist rolling with the punches.



Yeesh, I wouldn't go that far. Do tell.

You know anything about Nestor Makhno? I’m a history major that had a focus on Russian revolution era classes and this was never a name that came up in any of my classes. My entire block of knowledge on him is Wikipedia based. Figure if anyone here can educate me on him it’d be you.

 

[PainIsLIfe]

Markxism is one of the sole reasons why South America can´t prosper.

Hmmm, rampant corruption; drug cartels; brain drain; lack of infrastructure outside of the cities; education; 50 years of protectionism; numerous coupes carried out by the west (US); and oddly energy prices??? Nah, lets go with marxism.

You may argue that many; if not most, of those are symptoms of marxist economies, but Nicaragua is 1 of the poorest countries in South America and contrary to what Reagan said, they were hardly marxist.

 

[Trotsky]

You know anything about Nestor Makhno? I’m a history major that had a focus on Russian revolution era classes and this was never a name that came up in any of my classes. My entire block of knowledge on him is Wikipedia based. Figure if anyone here can educate me on him it’d be you.

Sorry, friend, I am only passingly familiar. He was an anarchist who was allied distantly with the left-communists and, after they succumbed to the Bolsheviks, his relationship with the Soviets went rocky. He, like Kropotkin and the left communist dissidents, was distrusting and critical of the state bureaucracy and if I recall made Lenin's early political dealings with Germany more difficult by refusing to cede territory and become a de facto arm of the Bolsheviki. Lenin saw him as a meddling idealist and he saw Lenin as a tyrant. Both were probably right.

I'm woefully under-read on anarchist theory, but it seems to me that in a lot of ways his dedication to ground-up agrarian political organization was more consistent with late Marx than the heavy industry/metro-focused platform of Lenin.

I kinda figure him a cross between Che Guevara and Scipio Africanus.

 

[Fawlty]

I kinda figure him a cross between Che Guevara and Scipio Africanus.

If anybody was ever in doubt about your Marxist chops, this sentence is a definitive fucking refutation lol.

 

[Sketch]

No, I didn't pick up on this. And, yes, I do think there are plenty of moves that are "objectively" horrible by political considerations: it just requires that they serve no political/policy purpose except to enrich the lawmaker, facilitate crime, etc.

Pay for play often, or at least not seldom, produces this kind of objective wrongdoing, as detrimental policy is passed only for patronage from those it helps.



Well that's the problem with you butthurt libtards. It's all about your "feels" when the world is really about FACTS and LOGIC.

Damn. Trotsky breaking script, and even insulting one of his superiors on 'his side'

This is good stuff. Keep it coming.

 

[Trotsky]

IMarkxism is one of the sole reasons why South America can´t prosper.

I mean, you've already proven you don't know what you're talking about, but this is a nice cherry on top. The relationship between the Bolivarians and Marx is about as hollowly nominal as it gets. Stalinism never really took hold in South America, let alone Marxism. They more or less adopted their own form of Leninism from their own dealings.

http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2013-03-18/hugo-chávez-neither-socialist-nor-anti-imperialist

 

[PainIsLIfe]

But I will put you down now as a guy who thinks that the intentional targeting of civilians by the military is an ethical strategy if a calculation can be produced showing that it may result in fewer overall casualties than conventional, soldier-against-soldier warfare.

It's official: Fawlty is Team Bolton.

One might argue that the civil war would have lasted another 5 yrs without 'total war' implemented by the north. Doesn't make it right, but somewhere along the lines you're counting deaths on 1 side of the ledger or the other.

 

[Sketch]

I mean, you've already proven you don't know what you're talking about, but this is a nice cherry on top. The relationship between the Bolivarians and Marx is about as hollowly nominal as it gets. Stalinism never really took hold in South America, let alone Marxism. They more or less adopted their own form of Leninism from their own dealings.

http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2013-03-18/hugo-chávez-neither-socialist-nor-anti-imperialist

Y4ah, Hugo wasn't a socialist at all. I agree with you for sure.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

George W Bush doubled the national debt, before it was cool.

And he used it to fund multiple bullshit wars.

Bush was a good President, domestically. But internationally, if he isn't the worst, he's got to be directly behind whoever is the worst.

 

[Trotsky]

If anybody was ever in doubt about your Marxist chops, this sentence is a definitive fucking refutation lol.

Man, if you visited actual Marxist sites with actual Marxist theorists like RevLeft you'd see what a relative layman I am. I know maybe 10% of what those dudes do, and I'm about 5% as intelligent.

 

[Trotsky]

Y4ah, Hugo wasn't a socialist at all. I agree with you for sure.

I actually don't agree with that part, aha. "Socialist" is such a complex and malleable term and the early Chavez years could well be described as socialistic. But 2002 onward it became more and more of a state capitalist crony state. It could have (should have) been expected the system would be at least similar to Cuba in terms of competence....but such was not the case. And once the oil prices fell, the whole house of cards fell with it.

But, certainly, Hugo wasn't a Marxist. There really wasn't any Marxism in his platform or his policy.

 

[ultramanhyata]

One might argue that the civil war would have lasted another 5 yrs without 'total war' implemented by the north. Doesn't make it right, but somewhere along the lines you're counting deaths on 1 side of the ledger or the other.

I view combatant deaths differently than civilian ones. I would not support the intentional slaughter of, say, 20,000 civilians in order to theoretically prevent the deaths of 30,000 soldiers.

I try to imagine myself in place of some average foreigner who had nothing to do with his country's military aggression against another nation, perhaps even vehemently opposed it, and now that antagonized nation is dropping a bomb on HIS house and family. It's not hard to relate.

I just happen to be "fortunate" enough to live in a country so powerful it can fuck with other nations without any fear of military reprisal on its home soil.

 

[DespicablePeep]

Stalinism never really took hold in South America, let alone Marxism.

lol

 

[InternetHero]

Put not your trust in princes.

Any President, or any man, no matter how good the intentions will let you down.

 

[PainIsLIfe]

I view combatant deaths differently than civilian ones. I would not support the intentional slaughter of, say, 20,000 civilians in order to theoretically prevent the deaths of 30,000 soldiers.

I try to imagine myself in place of some average foreigner who had nothing to do with his country's military aggression against another nation, perhaps even vehemently opposed it, and now that antagonized nation is dropping a bomb on HIS house and family. It's not hard to relate.

I just happen to be "fortunate" enough to live in a country so powerful it can fuck with other nations without any fear of military reprisal on its home soil.

True, but most countries have mandatory service and drafts - that same scenario may apply to the soldiers.

 

[ShinkanPo]

William Howard Taft allegedly got stuck in his Bathtub at The Whitehouse and you bet he drop some horrible crap there too!

And he hurt a Water buffalo !