Got into a very long debate on X about the morality of the use of the Atomic Bomb. It is seriously gotta be the biggest engagement post I’ve ever had there: as of this moment, 56,600 views, 358 reposts, 3,100 likes and 474 comments. In strict X parlance, I have been “ratioed”. This means you have more comments than reposts and usually means you’ve said something ridiculous. Not in this case. If you clicked on it, you’ll see that my post was a picture of my Dad as a young Marine, the notation that he was waiting on Okinawa to invade Kyushu in November of 1945 and finishes up with a small, editorial comment about those who say that A Bomb was bad.
Some of the comments are bad faith but most, in my view, simply betray ignorance. Some times well meaning ignorance, but ignorance nonetheless. And that actually has me a little worried. If you go through the comments you’ll see that several times I pointed out the four options available to Truman in July, 1945. They are, sometimes very briefly stated:
- Blanche at the cost of finishing off Japan either by nukes or invasion and agree to negotiate a peace which would force Japan to surrender their Empire, but leaves in place the Japanese Ruling Class which waged the war…and that Ruling Class now convinced that their suicidal fight to the death got us to blink. That they are our moral superiors and just need better material for Round II. In other words, this end almost certainly means another war – and maybe a nuclear war as Japan did have a nuclear weapons program. So Pearl Harbor Two might have been Los Angeles and San Francisco getting nuked.
- Starve Japan to death. The Japanese were incapable of feeding their population from domestic food production. Like Britain, it was import, or starve. Japan had no means of obtaining resources of any sort as our command of the sea was absolute. We could have just stood off and let starvation kill Japanese until they quit. This would have been up to tens of millions…and they might not have quit. Once their population dropped to sustainable levels, they might have still refused.
- Invade Japan. This is a very well known option and all post-War analysis indicates this would have been a horrific affair with maybe a million American casualties and untold millions of Japanese deaths.
- Drop the Atomic Bombs and so instruct the Japanese that we could kill them with no loss to ourselves; that any future dying would only be Japanese and to no avail.
As I also pointed out at various points, commanders in war, civil and military, are besieged by a host of information arriving all at once from every point of the compass. Some of it is false. Some irrelevant. Some flat contradictory with other information arriving at the same time. Out of this morass of data, the commander must tease out the correct information or lose. This is not an easy task. It is not a neat and tidy exercise as it can sometimes appear in a history book. This is why when looking back, caution must be taken. We weren’t there. We weren’t under those particular stresses. We benefit from hindsight no matter how much we try to set that aside. In my view, Truman made not just the best of a bad situation, but the correct moral decision. The intention was not to massacre Japanese, it was to end the war by the swiftest means…to end the effusion of blood, Japanese as well, as quickly as possible. And it was done; in the end, no matter what else, it worked. And if you want to call it wrong, you simply must come up with an obvious, superior option which was known to the decision makers at the time. There simply wasn’t any beyond these four. None of them were perfect, all of them posed risks: Truman chose the best one.
Do keep in mind that the comments condemning Truman as a monster issued from both Left and Right. People are getting united in a shared insistence that there was simply no justification at all for dropping the Bomb. What this tells you is that the general propaganda line has worked. And, of course, we know that propaganda does work. But this is doubly disturbing this propaganda issued to condemn the Bomb originated in the Soviet Union to denigrate our effort in WWII – to make out that we were bad, and so excuse Soviet actions. This line was picked up by Nazi-apologists as a means of getting around the Holocaust. But now it has morphed into a general belief that America is morally tainted. When added to slavery, it is being used to make out that America is the bad guy in the world. That we’re the nation that has to be destroyed. And the Right is participating in this – going along with it. And from what I can tell, they are doing it mindlessly…just so they can have something they agree with the Left on. A “see, I hate that, too” moment.
When we combine this with the “anti-colonialist” attitude of the Left and the increasing number of people on the Right who are condemning Israel’s war in Gaza, we can see our problem: basically, our entire civilization is in the dock and it is being found guilty. That it is ignorant people making the ruling is neither here nor there: ignorant jurors get a say. And the USA is being found guilty.
This is worrying not just for the fate of our nation, but for the fate of anything resembling civilization. Islamists savages went on a rape/murder spree and that’s in the Memory Hole while college kids riot on campus in favor of the savages. We’re being told we have to save Democracy in Ukraine even though elections have been suspended there. The Free World we defend with NATO arrests people for misgendering. China buys whatever influence it wants – and our open border and drug addiction may very well be a Chinese op. But we’re not allowed to fight against it because we’re the bad guys…the people who held slaves and who cruelly and needlessly nuked Japanese children. You see?
We really have to win this November. Not for Trump. Heck, he’s not even the guy we remotely need right now. He’s just massively the superior of the alternative. But we, the Americans – those of us who are left – have to take control of our country. Or we simply won’t have one – it’ll be falsified out of existence. We must find the ways and means of getting the liars out of all power and influence and simply re-instructing an ignorant population on what America actually was, and can be again.
Blogs For Victory 
New Biden Emails Reveal Details About the Ukraine Whistleblower That Got Trump Impeached
Color me shocked.
I was really surprised to learn of his involvement in the Biden relationships in Ukraine. But I think what really stands out for me is his absolute confidence that he could get involved to the extent that he got involved and count on all of the federal agencies and their administrators backing him up and providing cover for him. Both he and Vindman were smugly confident that there would be no repercussions for their violation of the law or their efforts to use federal agencies to bring down Trump. The sad thing is that they were right.
This is a good argument against “proportional response”, a concept of which I have never understood. When an attack happens, the only goal should be to eliminate the threat completely and as quickly as possible. A “proportional response” only extends the chaos and agony. Israel should have nuked Gaza, and then clean up the trash later. Death to Gaza !!!
The systemic “dumbing down” of our younger generations over the last 2 decades is proving to be extremely destructive, but that was by design and we are witnessing the results. Never forget, most leftist revolutions were driven by students, particularly the Maoist revolution back in the 60’s. We either step up now, or we step aside. There is no middle ground
From wikipedia: ’jes sayin….
I guess I never realized how many people considered the National Enquirer as the news of record. Who knew?
An article that should surprise no one. In a normal country, with normal people, Soros would be stripped of citizenship and deported.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13353941/George-soros-paying-left-wing-activists-college-protest-camp.html
Were you surprised to learn this?
Not at all, Soros has funded all Democrat agitation, and is currently funding the invasion of the country. This is who people like fielding, forty, and Casper applaud. Anything to disrupt and create chaos in this country … they are for.
Here’s a good example of how far down the abyss of identity that Democrats have brought this country too. This morning I saw a car with a “Native American” bumper sticker right next to a sticker that said “Custer died for your sins”, and of course she was a college aged driver. This is the level of selfish ignorance we will have to wade through to restore the country.
18 U.S. Code § 2101 – Riots
U.S. Code
(a)Whoever travels in interstate or foreign commerce or uses any facility of interstate or foreign commerce, including, but not limited to, the mail, telegraph, telephone, radio, or television, with intent—
(1)to incite a riot; or
(2)to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot; or
(3)to commit any act of violence in furtherance of a riot; or
(4)to aid or abet any person in inciting or participating in or carrying on a riot or committing any act of violence in furtherance of a riot;
and who either during the course of any such travel or use or thereafter performs or attempts to perform any other overt act for any purpose specified in subparagraph (A), (B), (C), or (D) of this paragraph—
Shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
To me one of the biggest indicators of the government participation in or at least enabling of all these violent riots is the total failure to track down who has been paying the expenses for the professional rioters. We had reports of groups of them on airplanes, on buses, on trains We know that when they arrived at their destinations—- after crossing state lines—they were provided with hotel rooms, with rental cars, and someone was picking up the tab for all their meals. We know that someone arranged and paid for delivery of materials to the riot sites, like pallets of bricks that they could throw. But for some reason there doesn’t seem to have been any investigation into who paid for these rental cars, these hotels, these plane tickets or these materials. To me that’s an obvious route of investigation and it’s been totally ignored by our so-called law enforcement agencies.
Our Congress will never strip Soros of his citizenship because if he’s not a citizen he can’t make political contributions.
That’s because we don’t have journalists anymore. Everyone is a pundit now … their opinions matter more than investigative evidence. Without the Media holding the powerful to account, the country is lost, and we are seeing that play out.
True, we don’t have journalists. But theoretically we have law enforcement officials. And it’s their job to identify crime arrest the people responsible and prosecute them. It’s extremely obvious that these people are being given a free ride because they represent opposition to the Right.
Huge numbers of people are liable under that…and the cool thing is that charges can be brought in federal court in some pretty Red areas of the country. I’m hoping that if Trump gets in, he’ll use it. A lot. I want these fanatics sitting in jail.
It in addition to this federal law there’s another that is being violated by government officials across the country as well as civilians
8 U.S. Code § 1324 – Bringing in and harboring certain aliens
Any person who—
(i)knowing that a person is an alien, brings to or attempts to bring to the United States in any manner whatsoever such person at a place other than a designated port of entry or place other than as designated by the Commissioner, regardless of whether such alien has received prior official authorization to come to, enter, or reside in the United States and regardless of any future official action which may be taken with respect to such alien;
(ii)knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, transports, or moves or attempts to transport or move such alien within the United States by means of transportation or otherwise, in furtherance of such violation of law;
(iii)knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation;
(iv)encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law; or
(v)
(I)engages in any conspiracy to commit any of the preceding acts, or
(II)aids or abets the commission of any of the preceding acts,
shall be punished as provided in subparagraph (B).
Any person who, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has not received prior official authorization to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, brings to or attempts to bring to the United States in any manner whatsoever, such alien, regardless of any official action which may later be taken with respect to such alien shall, for each alien in respect to whom a violation of this paragraph occurs—
(A)be fined in accordance with title 18 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; or
(B)in the case of—
(i)an offense committed with the intent or with reason to believe that the alien unlawfully brought into the United States will commit an offense against the United States or any State punishable by imprisonment for more than 1 year,
(ii)an offense done for the purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or
(iii)an offense in which the alien is not upon arrival immediately brought and presented to an appropriate immigration officer at a designated port of entry,
—be fined under title 18 and shall be imprisoned, in the case of a first or second violation of subparagraph (B)(iii), not more than 10 years, in the case of a first or second violation of subparagraph (B)(i) or (B)(ii), not less than 3 nor more than 10 years, and for any other violation, not less than 5 nor more than 15 years.
I think Kristi Noem can now be permanently removed from the list of potential vice presidential nominees. In a recent book she admitted to shooting and killing a young bird dog because:
In other words she acted like an untrained puppy. But Noem, unwilling to do the proper training or to pay someone else to do it, simply took the dog down to a gravel pit and shot it to death. Her lack of self-awareness is stunning. She doesn’t seem to be aware of the irresponsibility of taking an untrained dog to a pheasant hunt where it could create a disturbance because it simply did not have the proper training. So she blamed the dog. And the callous brutality of her so-called solution to the problem has probably ended her political career.
” … having the time of her life” – and yet she decided to end that life???? No bueno
People like this should never own animals. First she didn’t take the time to train the dog properly. When she realized that she was not doing a good job of training the dog she had the responsibility to find the dog a good home or to hire a good trainer. Second, she imposed an untrained dog on people who were at the pheasant hunt knowing that the dog was not ready to go out on a hunt. Third, she blamed the dog for her own shortcomings and brutally killed the dog. Now she seems to think we should admire her because she did something “difficult”—–that she identified a problem and she stepped up and took care of it, even though it was unpleasant. Her ego and her lack of self-awareness are truly astounding.
As for the goat, yes, intact male goats are obnoxious and they do smell which is why responsible animal owners castrate them when they’re young. I don’t think Noem has any idea of how vividly she has portrayed her character to the world. Maybe we should have the perspective of thinking that it maybe it was worth the sacrifice of two innocent lives if it kept this woman from ever being in a position where she represented the United States.
Our current dog is a former pig hunting dog. He broke his leg jumping out of a truck and his original owner was going to take him out and shoot him. Luckily, a friend of ours rescued him and had hid leg repaired. She ended up giving him to us and he has turned out to b one of the best dogs I’ve ever owned. He still goes after pigs, but is about perfect in every other way. I agree with you about Noem and not because she is a conservative. A person who treats a dog like that shouldn’t hold public office.
Yeah, she’s kinda toast – I can’t imagine what possessed her to do that…and then write it down!
That’s what I mean about her total lack of self-awareness. She sees herself as a strong woman who can identify a problem and take steps to solve it even if that involves doing things that are difficult or distasteful. To her, her actions show that she has the qualities of leadership. In her mind, she saw a problem and she solved it, and in her mind this is a characteristic that she thinks people should know about her.