Kind of different, for two main reasons:
- At the time, we (the US public) hadn’t been through stuff like Daniel Pearl yet… we still expected that enemies would conform to generally-accepted treatment of casualties, etc. It’s a different world-view now and we don’t actually believe that an asymmetric enemy like the Taliban will do anything but torture and kill a captured soldier or do anything honorable in the treatment of our soldiers’ bodies. That might be a bad assumption, but it’s the general feeling.
We still like to feel like we’re better than they are, of course, which is why the soldiers will be punished… but not TOO severely, because, you know, war stress and all that.
- For Somalia, the average US citizen thought that our troops were there to help the starving masses and protect them from the horrible warlords. The level of vitriol and barbarity shown by dragging the bodies through the streets was shocking enough, but the real blow was that these were Somali civilians – most people here honestly thought that they wanted us there. Part of the outrage was from the affront to our sense of charity: we send out boys there to give them food, ask nothing in return, and THIS is what they do? A naive world-view and an equally naive view of the mission perhaps, but that was then.
Romney’s proposed tax plan would cut his own (already very low) tax burden nearly in half.
Are you sure this is your most electable candidate, Republicans?
RepoMan
1644
Obama’s gonna looooooooooove that one.
And yes, he pretty much is their most electable candidate.
Ron Paul’s the only principled candidate.
Ron Paul’s campaign is proudly showing off an endorsement from the Reverend Voddie Baucham, a Baptist pastor in Texas with a penchant for deploying fire and brimstone language against gays in his sermons, whom he notes are “worthy of the death penalty” according to Biblical law.
Paul’s campaign has aggressively courted the evangelical community in 2012, employing a radical anti-gay activist, Mike Heath, as its point person for outreach to churches in Iowa. A “statement of faith” on the campaign website lists biblical justifications for Paul’s positions on everything from anti-abortion laws to the gold standard. The message his staff seems to be taking to the evangelical community is that Paul’s small-government conservatism will mean less federal and judicial involvement in issues like abortion and gay marriage, an appealing stance for a religious community that feels under siege from courts and Congress.
Of course, sometimes the Paul campaign’s zeal for attracting new supporters can get them into trouble. Last month, they celebrated the endorsement of a Nebraska pastor who explicitly calls for the execution of gays only to take the announcement down from their website after TPM reported on his views.
ShivaX
1646
I still kinda giggle when modern “libertarians” refer to themselves as such.
What they really mean is “anarchical theocrats” most of the time. But you know, only at the state and local level as God intended.
Miramon
1647
I can’t see how Romney can escape the nomination now, even if he tries. On the plus side, there are no bible prophecies about a Mormon being President, are there? So if he wins, that’s 4 more years with no seals being broken…
ShivaX
1648
Well I’m pretty sure Mormonism is a false religion, so maybe hes the anti-christ or something. Though that was supposed to be Obama and I haven’t heard of any seven headed beasts yet.
I dunno, have you seen Gingrich lately?
Oh wait, that’s just 7 chins, not seven full heads.
ShivaX
1650
Wait… how many GOP candidates were there?
/rimshot
JeffL
1651
It is coming out too early for the impact, but, while Americans can handle a rich dude being president (they all are) the news of his money flow through a number of Cayman Island tax shelters doesn’t come across very positively.
only nixon could go to china and only the gop could get a rich massachusetts politican elected president.
Well, except for that one guy in 1960.
Jakub
1654
And Jason of course supports Obama as the least evil.
Hey Jason, remember when you were convincing me that Americans were still rich compared to their lifestyles in the 60s because they had microwaves?
You’re confusing me with someone else, I think the libertarian “but poor people have color televisions now” thing is ridiculous.
A couple fun-facts from this morning:
Santorum may have won Iowa after all, but we’ll never know because…
vote tallies from eight precincts have disappeared and cannot be counted. The certification process showed inaccuracies in 131 other precincts, the Register said, including one precinct where the corrected tally shifted 50 votes from Santorum to Romney. The changes were reported in the final days and hours before Wednesday’s 5 p.m. deadline for certifying the vote.
And an interesting detail to the flood of Romney-money facts: he has given millions to the Mormon church; over $4 million in just the past five years.
As part of just one Bain transaction in 2008, involving its investment in Burger King Holdings, filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission reveal that an unnamed Bain partner donated 65,326 shares of Burger King stock to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, holdings then worth nearly $1.9 million. And there were numerous others, giving the church a stake in other Bain properties, such as Domino’s Pizza, the electronics manufacturer DDi, the phosphates company Innophos Holdings, and Marquee Holdings, the parent to AMC Theaters.
So every time you eat a Whopper or order a 'za from Dominos, you’re handing cash to the Church of Latter Day Saints. Bon appetit.
Lorini
1657
Latimes.com is reporting that Rick Perry is quitting the race.
Jesus, Jakub, if you’re going to drag your crazy beefs with people into other threads, can you at least get the names fucking straight.
Lorini
1659
He can’t respond because he’s been banned (I assume the three day type).
If you knew any Mormons that shouldn’t come as a big surprise, if he’s faithful. Their 10% tithe seems to be a minimum for donations.
