Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2006 10:46 p.m. EST

Columnist: I Don't Support the Troops

A Los Angeles Times columnist has precipitated a firestorm of outrage by proclaiming that he doesn't support the troops serving in Iraq because they've become "a fighting tool of American imperialism."

On Tuesday, LA Times columnist Joel Stein began his screed with the words: "I DON'T SUPPORT our troops . . .

"Being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken . . . It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward."

Stein argues that the troops knew what they were getting into when they joined up, so they don't deserve any special sympathy.

"When you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you're not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you're willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse. Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it's Vietnam. . . . "

Stein says that it's the troops themselves - and not the civilian leadership back home - who bear the responsibility for the "immorality" of the war.

"The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying."

Stein says that he wouldn't go so far as to advocate spitting on returning Iraq war vets, but adds, "we shouldn't be celebrating people for doing something we don't think was a good idea."

So what does that make this guy... An honest moron? Wow. He wouldn't spit on troops coming back. Big man. Probably because he knows he would get his ass deservedly kicked.

"Being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken .

Besides being ONE guy's personal opinion, what do you have here?

Besides being ONE guy's personal opinion, what do you have here?

Do I really have to explain this?

Okay, it's even said by ONE OF YOUR OWN LIBWACKS that you can't honestly support the troops but not the war.

Duh.

Do I really have to explain this?

Okay, it's even said by ONE OF YOUR OWN LIBWACKS that you can't honestly support the troops but not the war.

Duh.

.....and THATS my point. One libwack doesn't speak for ALL libwacks. He isn't the libwack herald. Duh.

Saying 'You can't support the troops if you don't support the war (G.Bush essentially)' is just another garbage slogan used by the right to demonize and silence anyone speaking against Bush.

[snip]
......and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger......

Hermann Goering

The Voice of the Neuter is Heard Throughout the Land

by Gerard Vanderleun

http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/2006_01.php


LIKE SOME HAGGARD CRACK WHORE banging on the door of a dealer's den willing to do anything , the hapless Joel ( "I despise our troops." ) Stein has been passed randomly about the blogsphere in the last couple of days.

Once a blogpile of such mountainous proportions starts, there's little left to comment on in terms of the content of Stein's small dry excretion after the first five hours. By that time the whole quisling screed has been pretty much picked apart like a biology major dissects an owl's pellet and glues the contents to a board with captions.

Then it is time for the masters of the trade to go to work and perform, live and on the air, "The Final Evisceration." In this case, Hugh Hewitt comes forward with what is perhaps one of the best full flensings of his career. [Pointer and "flensing" courtesy of LILEKS (James) ]

If you have ever wanted to hear a classic radio interview cooly calculated to have the interviewee reveal himself in all his naked smallness before a national audience, you owe it to yourself to listen and read the audio and transcript of Hugh Hewitt interviewing Joel Stein. You owe it to yourself to listen to this segment -- and you'll need to listen in order to understand what comes next. You don't have to listen to all of it, although it is hard to turn the ear away. Just listen attentivily to the voice of Stein himself for a minute or so.

Go ahead. I'll wait here.

Back? Good.

What is of interest to me here is not what Stein writes or says. His own words damn him more decisively than a thousand bloggers blathering blithely What interestest me is how he speaks.

If you focus on it, you realize that you hear this voice every day if you bounce around a bit in our larger cities buying this or ordering that, and in general running into young people in the "service" sector -- be it coffee shop, video store, department store, boutique, bookstore, or office cube farm. It's a kind of voice that was seldom heard anywhere but now seems to be everywhere.

It is the voice of the neuter .

I mean that in the grammatical sense:
"a. Neither masculine nor feminine in gender.
"b. Neither active nor passive; intransitive,"

and in the biological sense:
"a. Biology Having undeveloped or imperfectly developed sexual organs: the neuter caste in social insects.
"b. Botany Having no pistils or stamens; asexual.
"c. Zoology Sexually undeveloped."

You hear this soft, inflected tone everywhere that young people below, roughly, 35 congregate. As flat as the bottles of spring water they carry and affectless as algae, it tends to always trend towards a slight rising question at the end of even simple declarative sentences. It has no timbre to it and no edge of assertion in it.

The voice whisps across your ears as if the speaker is in a state of perpetual uncertainty with every utterance. It is as if, male or female, there is no foundation or soul within the speaker on which the voice can rest and rise. As a result, it has a misty quality to it that denies it any unique character at all. It is the Valley Girl variation of the voices that Prufrock hears:
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
It's parting wistful wish for you is that you "Have a good one."

Above all, it is a sexless voice. Not, I hasten to add, a "gay" voice. Not that at all. It is neither that gentle nor that musical. Nor is it that old shabby lisping stereotype best consigned to the dustbin of popular culture. No, this is a new old voice of a generation of ostensible men and women who have been educated and acculturated out of, or say rather, to the far side of any gender at all. It is, as I have indicated above, the voice of the neutered. And in this I mean that of the transitive verb: To castrate or spay. The voice and the kids that carry it is the triumphant achievement of our halls of secondary and higher education. These children did not speak this way naturally, they were taught. And like good children seeking only to please their teachers and then their employers, they learned.

This is not to say that the new American Castrati of all genders live sexless lives. On the contrary, if reports are to be credited, they seem to have a good deal of sex, most often without the burden of love or the threat of chlldren, and in this they are condemned to the sex life of children.

No, it is only to say that this new voice that we hear throughout the land from so many of the young betokens a weaker and less certain brand of citizen than we have been used to in our history. Neither male nor female, neither gay nor straight, neither.... well, not anything substantive really. A generation finely tuned to irony and nothingness and tone deaf to duty and soul. If you can write in this tone, and Stein can, you can become a third level columnist for the Los Angeles Times. With a little luck, over time, you might even rise to the level of second string columnist for Vanity Fair. Should the country so lose its mind and elect another Clinton, you could even become a White House speech writer.

For now you can hear the poster child for this sexless cohort in Joel Stein's dulcet voice quavering and halting and rising to a falling lilting question as Hugh Hewitt exposes the nothingness at Stein's core in question after quiet question. When Hewitt is done, you ask yourself what Stein has actually said in answer to Hewitt's questions.

What Stein has said is what his whole cohort has said in response to questions of honor, duty, country. It is the standard issue answer and will be their standard issue epitaph:

"Whatever."



This is great stuff.

.....and THATS my point. One libwack doesn't speak for ALL libwacks. He isn't the libwack herald. Duh.

Saying 'You can't support the troops if you don't support the war (G.Bush essentially)' is just another garbage slogan used by the right to demonize and silence anyone speaking against Bush.

[snip]
......and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger......

Hermann Goering

He doesn't speak for the rest of you libwacks because he's being HONEST. :p

He doesn't speak for the rest of you libwacks because he's being HONEST. :p

So, precisely WHO here are you calling a "libwack"???
:confused:

It was a great article, angry and hateful, but well written.

(snip)The voice and the kids that carry it is the triumphant achievement of our halls of secondary and higher education. These children did not speak this way naturally, they were taught. And like good children seeking only to please their teachers and then their employers, they learned.

This same logic can be applied to the hordes of men and women who blindly follow Bush or men like him because they were taught to. Mostly (not all) men who believe it is their God given right to lead and women who believe it is their God given burden to obey.

(snip)This is not to say that the new American Castrati of all genders live sexless lives. On the contrary, if reports are to be credited, they seem to have a good deal of sex, most often without the burden of love or the threat of chlldren, and in this they are condemned to the sex life of children.

Sounds like this guy is either sexually frustrated or just jealous. Oh, children shouldn't have 'sex lives', Frikkin sicko!

Let's give the military stun guns. Shock their asses without killing them. I served in the Navy during peace time. (Iran Hostage Crisis)
I' didn't want to, but had no other choice. I don't reget it at all. However, when I see our babies, 17 -18 year olds coming home in caskets, I think how come the President, Senate and Congress Leaders don't have more of their childern serving. I'll be if a few of them come home in caskets, they would bring our brave service persons home sooner.

Let's give the military stun guns. Shock their asses without killing them.

Great idea! Let's give our troops stun guns while the bad guys use real guns with real bullets and schrapnel splaying bombs. Wow. Why didn't I think of that?

Lord help us all if the Lefties ever get back into power.

So, precisely WHO here are you calling a "libwack"???
:confused:

If the shoe fits...

If the shoe fits..., wear it!

As I should expect, a chicken-s h i t response. No backbone.

As I should expect, a chicken-s h i t response. No backbone.

You're just angry and hurt because you were unsuccessful in baiting me.

Poor Johnny. Boo-hoo.

You're just angry and hurt because you were unsuccessful in baiting me.

Poor Johnny. Boo-hoo.


Answer the question. You accused people of being 'Libwacks', he asked who specifically you were referring to. Don't accuse someone then lack the 'boys' to state who you're accusing.

Answer the question. You accused people of being 'Libwacks', he asked who specifically you were referring to. Don't accuse someone then lack the 'boys' to state who you're accusing.

Haha, Deville, what you and Johnny are doing, fuming and shrilling, gives me the MOST amusement. Keep it up. :D

You're just angry and hurt because you were unsuccessful in baiting me.

Poor Johnny. Boo-hoo.

Angry and hurt?? LOL, hardly. I asked you a direct question, and now you've proven not ONCE, but TWICE you don't have the balls to answer it.

*owned*



Joel Stein is entitled to his own opinion, but he does NOT speak for us who are left of your extreme right beliefs. Should we presume Pat Robertson speaks for YOU??

From all indications I believe Pat Robertson does speak for David. Maybe David just parrots Pat because he can't think of anything outside the RWW mantra.

Typical, typical Fiberals. You once again have no point to make, no agenda to pursue, no facts to back you up, so you ONCE AGAIN try to make a thread about ME. While I'm flattered by all the attention, such as it is, I'm disappointed with the lack of a real challenging debate on this forum. Maybe Bryan and I could find something to disagree on so we can have a real debate.

You guys need to get a life. It's supposed to be about the debate, not about me. How sad that I get under your collective skin so deeply that you drop everything and try to gang up on me. Even more sad that the group of you together can't handle little ol' me all by myself.

But then again, I shouldn't be surprised by all this. After all, that's all your FibDem leaders do all day, futilely attack Bush rather than advancing any real ideas.

Keep shrieking and shrilling, fellas, it's giving me lots of laughs! :D

Haha, Deville, what you and Johnny are doing, fuming and shrilling, gives me the MOST amusement. Keep it up. :D

I'm glad you're amused, but are you going to answer his question?

I'm glad you're amused, but are you going to answer his question?

I DID answer his question.

"If the shoe fits..."

Are you going to get off me and back to topic, or are you too fascinated with attacking me to launch any of your typical feeble attempts at real debate?

I DID answer his question.

"If the shoe fits..."

Are you going to get off me and back to topic, or are you too fascinated with attacking me to launch any of your typical feeble attempts at real debate?

The 'shoe' remark isn't a real response, I was curious to who you viewed as a 'libwack' as I'm sure Johnny was too. I did respond to your article both times ,you're the one that went off-topic with the personal attacks ("You libwacks") then weaseled out of it.

Sorry Johnny, we may never really know...............

The 'shoe' remark isn't a real response, I was curious to who you viewed as a 'libwack' as I'm sure Johnny was too. I did respond to your article both times ,you're the one that went off-topic with the personal attacks ("You libwacks") then weaseled out of it.

Sorry Johnny, we may never really know...............

That's OK, I'm not sweatin' it at all. It's perfectly clear fossten needs these...

14086Hi, my name is Johnny.

So who's this???? LOL.
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No, no. Don't say it. No flaming.

Just like the in a debate you have to admit defeat or stalemate, not resort to name calling or idiotic childish antics. [edit]