{"id":5030,"date":"2003-11-13T13:53:35","date_gmt":"2003-11-13T20:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=5030"},"modified":"2003-11-13T13:53:35","modified_gmt":"2003-11-13T20:53:35","slug":"bloviating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/11\/13\/bloviating.html","title":{"rendered":"Bloviating"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Tomorrow (Dan Perkins) comments with sensitivity<\/a> on the brouhaha over his Chickenhawk Bloggers cartoon of yesterday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gosh, have you ever seen so many panties in a wad?<\/p>\n

Way to show your not just trolling for controversy, Tom.<\/p>\n

Look, the cartoon\u2019s fair game, of course …<\/p>\n

Nice of you to say so. <\/p>\n

… and none of this is unexpected\u2014you make fun of a bunch of bloviators, you\u2019re going to get some bloviating.<\/p>\n

Bloviate<\/a>: To discourse at length in a pompous or boastful manner.<\/i> Yeah, plenty of that around here.<\/p>\n

The only thing I really object to is the canard that it was attacking veterans.<\/p>\n

Well, except for those veterans <\/a>who assumed, until they were “corrected” by you, that they were <\/i>included in the post.<\/p>\n

What it was attacking was pomposity; the self-important rhetoric of those who tell us in flowery language that the mounting death toll is a necessary and even a good thing. No rightie blogger was ever so callous, you say? Well, do you remember <\/i>the “flypaper strategy”? The idea that the deaths of our troops are a good <\/i>thing because as long as the terrorists are busy attacking them<\/i>, they can\u2019t come after us?<\/p>\n

Which would certainly be a fine thing to lampoon if (a) that’s what you’d said, and (b) that’s what any warblogger I’ve<\/i> read had ever said.<\/p>\n

First off, the whole point of least the first two panels (if not the whole strip) is that bloggers who oppose “Islamo-Fascism,” or are pro-war on Iraq or Afghanistan, or pro-Dubya in foreign policy, are lily-livered scoundrels and immature crybaby hypocrites (who live at home and eat too many snacks) because they’re not putting their lives on the line, but only spouting empty rhetoric from a safe distance. <\/p>\n

Even if we assume that “milbloggers” are excluded from that (even though many of them seem to hold the same opinions as the “chickenhawks”), it’s still a stupid and insulting argument. If one lacks the moral authority to speak on an issue of one is not actively, currently, risking everything over it — then, obviously, criticizing oppression in China or Cuba or North Korea or (a few years ago) Iraq or Afghanistan, without being willing to go over in armed conflict aganist those regimes, lacks any moral justification, either. Ditto for criticizing the health care system if you’re not impoverishing yourself to buy medications for the poor, etc. <\/p>\n

If Tom Tomorrow opposed the war on Iraq, did he put his life on the line to protect those civilians he was concerned about? Was he a human shield? Did he chain himself onto railroad tracks leading from arms depots? Did he take up arms against the invaders? Or was it just, “I’m fighting for peace against the Neocon Chickenhawks — with my cartoon!”<\/i><\/p>\n

To the second point, though, I’ve never read anyone say that American military losses — the deaths of soldiers — is a “good” thing. An unfortunate thing, a sadly necessary thing, an ultimately worthwhile sacrifice — yes, that I can find, the same as I might be able to find people saying the same about war casualties in any conflict, or lament the deaths of fire fighters in a fire, while still appreciating their bravery and the needfulness of what they were doing. <\/p>\n

If you don’t believe the war in Iraq or Afghanistan was necessary, or the lesser of other evils, then, fine, those are issues<\/i> over which folks can disagree. To claim that those arguing in favor of those wars were flip, cowardly, or pudgy live-at-home computer nerds with no concept of what was at stake, is simply an ad hominem<\/i> attack.<\/p>\n

To the extent, by the way, that I’ve seen discussions of the “flypaper strategy,” it’s never been, “Hey, we’d rather have US soldiers dying over there than people dying back home.” Rather, it’s that the troops are better able to take the fight directly to the terrorist organizations if they’re gathering in opposition to the occupation. The idea is not that it’s okay, or “good,” for US soldiers to die; rather, it’s that it’s good for US soldiers to be able to kill terrorists and “Islamo-fascists” directly, rather than waiting for them to kill themselves off via suicide bombings on further civilian targets around the world.<\/p>\n

And I’m <\/i>the one who doesn’t “support the troops”?<\/p>\n

I don’t know. Tom. I presume you do. You don’t seem to have much respect for, or support of, those who are expressing their opinions about the war, though. Except, of course, the ones you agree with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Tomorrow (Dan Perkins) comments with sensitivity on the brouhaha over his Chickenhawk Bloggers cartoon of yesterday. Gosh, have you ever seen so many panties in a wad? Way to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":40892,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/27\/no-tom-perkins-the-rich-arent-being-sent-to-concentration-camps.html","url_meta":{"origin":5030,"position":0},"title":"No, Tom Perkins, the Rich Aren't Being Sent to Concentration\u00a0Camps","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 27-Jan-14 6:40am","format":false,"excerpt":"But it's sure an interesting way to stifle criticism of wealth and income inequality.\u00a0'Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its \"one percent,\" namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49911,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/21\/the-modern-world-of-tomorrow.html","url_meta":{"origin":5030,"position":1},"title":"The Modern World of … Tomorrow!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 21-Mar-15 10:33pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Congrats for the award, Tom Tomorrow. Originally shared by +Don Denesiuk: TMW rocks.http:\/\/thismodernworld.com\/\" February 27, 2015Tom Tomorrow:Star Trek vs. the InternetThis cartoon won a silver medal from the Society of Illustrators yesterday, which is both a huge honor and now somewhat bittersweet. Rest in peace, Mr. Nimoy. \" \u00a0 View\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/TMW2014-09-10extendedLARGE1-copy.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4482,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/08\/24\/put_another_can.html","url_meta":{"origin":5030,"position":2},"title":"Put another candle on my birthday cake …","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 24-Aug-03 7:06am","format":false,"excerpt":"***Dave Does the Blog is two years old today. That's fourteen years old in Internet Years (not to mention Blog Years). 4,528 posts, and 7,111 comments. (The comment count should...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132553,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/01\/13\/when-those-gosh-darn-police-are-unreasonable.html","url_meta":{"origin":5030,"position":3},"title":"When those gosh-darn police are "unreasonable"","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 13-Jan-17 5:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Evansville, Indiana, police, just don't quite get that blindly throwing a flash-bang grenade into a room they haven't checked out -- a room that just happens to have a toddler sleeping in it -- is \"unreasonable.\"On the other hand, they appear to have a heightened enough sensitivity to mere\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/flashbang2_f5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":133604,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/03\/cant-tell-your-geekery-players-without-a-program.html","url_meta":{"origin":5030,"position":4},"title":"Can't Tell Your Geekery Players Without A Program","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 3-Jun-17 2:15pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Heh. Originally shared by +Writers Write: Instagram post by Tom Gauld \u2022 Oct 31, 2016 at 5:03pm UTC 549 Likes, 3 Comments - Tom Gauld (@tomgauld) on Instagram: \u201cA Frankenstein cartoon for Halloween.\u201d View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6641,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/08\/10\/les_saves_me_so.html","url_meta":{"origin":5030,"position":5},"title":"Les saves me some work (again)","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 10-Aug-04 1:46pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I was going to write a post about the Scott Kurtz PvP cartoon brouhaha ... but Les did so more thoroughly (though with the same PoV) as I would have,...","rel":"","context":"In "Comics & Comic Books"","block_context":{"text":"Comics & Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}