Governing through Reason
MacArthur’s Folly
1st Lt. James Carroll Hutchins
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the disappearance of my uncle, 1st Lt. James Carroll Hutchins, somewhere in the vicinity of Kumhwa, Korea.
Kumhwa is in the Iron Triangle, and was the scene of intense fighting in the days approaching Christmas 1951 as the Allied northern advance was slowed by Chinese and North Korean forces.
In June 1950, the North Koreans poured across the armistice line (the 38th Parallel) and drove the South Koreans all the way to the southern tip of the peninsula. General Douglas MacArthur, commanding the Allied forces under the aegis of the newly formed United Nations, drove them back and recaptured the peninsula south of the 38th Parallel. It was then he made a geopolitical blunder of epic proportions.
The Chinese had stated publicly and repeatedly that they would enter the war if United Nations forces pushed north of the 38th Parallel. MacArthur was ordered by the Commander in Chief, President Harry S Truman, not to conduct military operations north of this line without express authorization from Truman.
Map of the DMZ and 38th Parallel. Source: Wikipedia.
In violation of this order, in November 1950, MacArthur attempted to push the North Korean forces past the 38th Parallel and to the Yalu River, marking the border between North Korea and China.
MacArthur gambled that that the Chinese would not enter the war. Even if they did, MacArthur felt, the Chinese would be easily defeated. He also gambled that he could violate Truman’s direct orders with impunity. He was wrong on all three counts.
The Chinese entered the war. A stalemate resulted, one which led to the death of my uncle and which lasts to this day. On April 11, 1951, Truman fired MacArthur.
Sixty years on, the Korean Demilitarized Zone, near where my uncle was captured or killed, remains where General Matthew Ridgway massed Allied forces in April 1951. Christmastime for my family has always been a mixture of joy for the season and sadness at what was lost. I have spent the last 30 years trying to locate, and repatriate, my uncle’s remains. And the DMZ remains the most heavily fortified location in the world.
The deaths of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il will not likely change what MacArthur wrought.
Related articles
- No ‘Pyongyang Spring,” but chance for change (cnn.com)
- Dear Leader’s Unfinished Business (thedailybeast.com)
- The Learning Network Blog: Dec. 16, 1950 | President Truman Proclaims State of Emergency During Korean War (learning.blogs.nytimes.com)
- Kim Jong-il: A dozen days of mourning for the leader born under a double rainbow (telegraph.co.uk)
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Dougout Doug was a messy housepet for the grand parent version of America’s far right crazies. He had some brilliant moments and some catastrophic ones.
S.L.A. Marshall has a deep account of that brutal winter. “The River and the Gauntlet“
Korea is but an appendix of Siberia and the low budget Chinese torrent that poured over the border was too much for an army addicted to roads and vehicles.
Lt. Hutchins joins a long line of Americans who paid the price for right wing whack job speculations. It’s been going on for a while. Douggie figured he’d just roll back China too with a few nukes as added clout.
From such pipe dreams are disasters made. There’s a reason they kept Doug out of the European theater in World War Two. He was too self important to be allowed in a theater that wanted social skills.
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I feel sorry not only for my family, but more so for the millions of North Koreans who for 60 years have faced starvation and kleptocracy all because of General Douglas MacArthur.
As Chris Rich says, he was the “messy housepet for the grandparent version of America’s far right crazies”. My former in-laws were among them.
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#5 written by Max aka Birdpilot 1 year ago
Mac was the classic example of why the Founding Fathers designed the Constitution so there was civilian, political, control of the military. They recognized the fact that men who knew, basically, the only solution of throwing guns at a problem inherently did not have the breadth of experience, and the desire to use it, needed. One does not expect an attack dog, which does its job quite well, to be able to negotiate the peaceful end to a situation.
Eisenhower was an exception, but he also received much criticism (Patton, for one) for his efforts. Today, as one advances in the Officer Corps, and for the past number of years, their education includes more and more of geopolitical strategy and tactics to go along with that of the battlefield. A primary reason we now have generals as Petraeus. -
#6 written by Armchair Warlord 1 year ago
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#7 written by Mule Rider 1 year ago
Wow, just wow.…I’m used to some pretty disgusting spin about current events but now we’re re-writing history too??? My condolensces for your family’s loss but some of the crap uttered in this article and in the comments section so far is just scapegoating (once again, unsurprisingly, of conservatives, and the “right wing”) our outright left-wing propaganda.…
“Lt. Hutchins joins a long line of Americans who paid the price for right wing whack job speculations.“
“The only surrender documents MacArthur should have signed were to General Homma in 1942. We would have been better off without him.“
“History has not been kind to MacArthur, go figure and Truman is now rated the 7th greatest president by historians and has been as high as #5.“
I especially love the above scapegoating/blame game on MacArthur and near-deification of Truman and glossing over the simple fact that, while MacArthur may have made a strategic blunder or two, TRUMAN IS THE ONE WHO GOT US INVOLVED IN THE KOREAN MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Also, it was Truman who ordered the slaughter (annihilation actually) of tens of thousands of innocent Japanese civilians, but I guess you far-left nutcases don’t mind that blood on your hands as long as you can claim the moral high ground (ending WWII) and somehow dis conservatives in the process. I mean, seriously, I“m starting to think the vast majority of you are sick, twisted individuals who truly have some screws loose. You people need to really look at history before bemoaning the “long line of Americans who paid the price for right wing whack job speculations.” The FACTS are that the authoritarian left has been behind exponentially more bloodshed than anything from the right over the past 150 years. Abraham Lincoln, while a Republican at the time, was clearly left of center in many of his positions and would surely be a Democrat today, shit on the Constitution and insisted on a bloody internal conflict rather than peaceful solution that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans. Wilson, as left-wing as they come, brought us into WWI. FDR and Truman, two more of the left’s “finest,” made their name in WWII and Korea. Kennedy and Johnson got the ball rolling in Vietnam, which the left has somehow managed to put below Iraq despite exponentially more carnage to American interests.…it’s not until Iraq and Afghanistan that there is a strong association with the “right-wing.“
“I feel sorry not only for my family, but more so for the millions of North Koreans who for 60 years have faced starvation and kleptocracy all because of General Douglas MacArthur.“
All becuase of Douglas MacArthur? Really??? And I thought you were better than this speculative bullshit (actually, calling it speculative bs is being nice). The Asian peoples that inhabit that part of the world don’t own ANY of the failures of the past 60 years? Really??? You honestly and seriously believe that??? I’ve lost what little respect for you I had, if that’s the case.
Full disclosure: My grandfather fought in the Pacific theater in WWII…he’s been dead now for more than 20 years but my dad’s told me that he never forgave Truman for firing MacArthur and believed it marked a beginning of the end of our military strength. Seeing as how we’ve done nothing but embarrass ourself in conflicts the past 60 years, I’d have to say there’s some truth in that. -
#9 written by Mule Rider 1 year ago
“MR’s typical ranting/raving aside …“
Typical response from you.…I laid out several pieces of information for you to digest and respond to and all you can do is ejaculate more non-sensical blather that somehow I’m the one ranting/raving and/or deflecting.
“hyperbolic deflection to Hiroshima/Nagasaki“
Please tell me how a President of the United States, especially in this context where you and others have held him up as a shining example of leadership, gravitas, etc., who was responsible for the US involvement in Korea in the first place and had previously ordered the nuclear annihilation of tens of thousands of Japanese civilians whilst scapegoating a military commander in the field for a strategic blunder is a “hyperbolic deflection”?
This isn’t just a selective memory or re-writing of history with you people.…it’s a sick and twisted mental malady where you will go to any length to hold up the far-left and pulverize conservatives. This same scapegoating and evil blame game is the same thing that guided Lincoln and the North to waging a bloodthirsty civil war and the Nazi Régime under Hitler to the Final Solution.…yes, that’s just how far off the deep end you and others are.…
Michael, your dogs are barking again and they’re veryannoying.…
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#10 written by rgbact 1 year ago
I’m confused. I look at the Korean War as a great event . I’d be damn proud if my uncle helped contribute to millions of South Koreans today not living like North Koreans. Macarthur’s supposed strategy blunder diminishes none of that. Is it customary to blame the death of armed forces on a general’s questionable tactics?Nice history lesson MR. Yeah, liberals are massive hypocrites when it comes to supposed right wing war mongering. Don’t even try to make sense of it. Truman can vaporize a couple Japanese cites and Lincoln can devastate the South.…..but they don’t hold a candle to that bloodthirsty George Bush and how he waterboarded KSM.
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#11 written by mclever 1 year ago
Careful with that broad brush there, rgbact. It’s certainly true that many liberals (like many conservatives) have ideological blind spots, but most of the liberals that I know are rather against war even when waged by Democratic Presidents.
I haven’t spoken before on this thread, because I honestly don’t know enough about the Korean War or that era to make an informed contribution. I’m certain the situation was far more complex than “Truman good, MacArther bad” or vice versa. If what Monotreme reports in his article is accurate, then MacArther violated a direct order from the Commander in Chief, with far worse consequences than anticipated. If so, then YES we would count the deaths of those soldiers against the General who made the strategic blunder. That’s why he’s the General, because he gets the blame for the fallout of his decisions.
However, I don’t think Truman gets a free pass here. Mule’s style may be abrasive and difficult to take without wanting to punch him in the face just because he’s got a smart mouth, but he makes a good point about Truman’s own culpability in getting us involved in the Asian conflict to begin with. Truman’s not in my top 5 Presidents…
Now, I don’t know how things would have played out had MacArthur stayed below the 38th parallel, and neither do any of you. Maybe the Chinese would have found another pretext to get more active in the war. We also don’t know what would have happened had American forces not gotten involved to begin with. My (limited) understanding of the situation is that this was ostensibly a UN effort, but that America (as usual) was basically it. I honestly don’t know if we were right to be involved or not, though we clearly picked the right side to support.
That said, my hat goes off to all of the heroes who fought to keep southern Koreans free from dictatorship. We remember the fallen and honor those who made it home safely while celebrating our own freedom with unending gratitude towards those who were and are willing to make such sacrifices on our behalf. -
I admit I“m not used to seeing President Lincoln portrayed as a villain. But I guess it makes sense. If the South had been allowed to secede, it would have insured the continuation of slavery perhaps into the twentieth century. Certainly, that wasn’t worth fighting over, was it? No one would have minded, really. And on the plus side, maybe we wouldn’t have a black President today.
[/sarcasm]
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Mule,
Please tell me how a President of the United States, especially in this context where you and others have held him up as a shining example of leadership, gravitas, etc.,
Methinks you doth protest too much. I don’t recall a single instance of anyone on this site holding Truman up as a shining example of leadership, gravitas, or “etc.”. But perhaps you can provide some quotes that would correct my memory.
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rgbact,
I look at the Korean War as a great event .
I don’t. It never should have happened. The country never should have been divided, and the imperialism that led to its initial division at the end of WWII was shameful.
But if you start with the assumption that the division was fine…(and I still don’t)
The aim after the north invaded the south should have been to return things to their previous arrangement, to return the northerners to their territory. It’s the same as what George HW Bush did with Kuwait.
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#16 written by Max aka Birdpilot 1 year ago
It’s the same as what George HW Bush did with Kuwait.
Yes Michael, but it seems that folks on MR and rgbact’s side of the divide view Bush I as a wuss. They also probably would also view Kennedy the same, had they been alive in the early 60’s, as a wuss as well for not bombing the hell out of Cuba and just sinking a couple of those Soviet transports with the missiles aboard. Notwithstanding the fact that, had he done so, New York City would not have been available as an al Qaida target 40 years later. And that chicken heart Nixon! Remember that he got elected in 1968 with that “secret plan to end the Vietnam War” in his pocket. Then he started reducing troops almost immediately. Guess HE forgot to consult the generals in the field on how to keep THAT war going for another decade! Oh wait! No, it was that damned librul Dem Congress that ended that war. Oh hell, Confusion reigns.
I guess the concept of “chain of command”, and “civilian control of the military” and “President is commander-in-chief”, really never has sunk in. And creation of devils, by convoluted logic, is a standard RW tactic. -
#17 written by Armchair Warlord 1 year ago
Douglas MacArthur was directly responsible for the two greatest American military debacles of the 20th century (in the Philippines and North Korea) and, had the Japanese not surrendered when they did, would have been responsible for one of the greatest military disasters of all time on the beaches of Kyushu.
In short: yes, his incompetence was the cause of a lot of Americans dying needlessly. He should have been fired around Christmas 1941. That he prospered as long as he did has a great deal to do with his PR machine and not a lot to do with his qualities as a commander. -
UN Security Council Resolution 84 authorized the use of force to return North Korean forces to a location north of the 38th Parallel, as stipulated in Security Council Resolutions 82 and 83.
Truman, it is true, authorized the use of American forces to enforce the Security Council resolution. MacArthur was ordered not to take his troops north of the 38th Parallel, because that would be in violation of Resolutions 82 and 83. That he did so, in direct contravention of an order from the Commander in Chief, means that he is responsible for my uncle’s death.
None of that is “speculative BS”.
As far as speculation, I’ve often wondered if the outcome of World War II would have been different if Congress, in its haste to draft a declaration of war against Japan, had not included the words “unconditional surrender”. I see that as the blunder (certainly understandable under the circumstances) that led to the deaths of Japanese citizens in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And I would point out that there’s not much qualitative difference between being burned to death in a nuclear explosion versus being burned to death in the deliberate firestorms that were set by US air forces in Tokyo and Dresden, among other places. That particular line was crossed long before Truman’s order to use nuclear weapons.
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#19 written by Armchair Warlord 1 year ago
Mono,
I suspect the Japanese would have been amenable to a negotiated peace at any point following the fall of Tojo’s government in 1944. With the benefit of a great deal of hindsight this would probably have positioned the Western bloc better for the Cold War.
As things stood, the Japanese surrender was not actually “unconditional” but merely “un-negotiated,” in that they agreed to unilateral Allied terms with the addition of an unwritten agreement that we would not go after the Imperial family or institution. -
I was in high school when I first realized just how bad the guy really was. He had a way with words, but his actions were a strange mix of cowardice and Machiavellianism.
I suspect people too often want historical events and historical figures to be clear-cut heroes or villains, with no allowance for shades of gray. Lincoln was clearly a complex man, as are nearly all people who rise to important positions in times of tension and at major world turning points.
It is interesting to me that so many people who use the rhetoric of “patriotism” as a club to bludgeon others and to stifle political dissent would seem to prefer America to not exist at all today, after having been split in half in the nineteenth century. How anyone can want that and also claim to be more patriotic than the next man is beyond me.
It’s odd too that many people who want America to engage in foreign wars, or who supported the unprovoked invasion of Iraq, seem to balk at the idea of a war 150 years ago to keep America united — that is, to keep the nation in existence.
As a pacifist myself, I’m hard pressed to justify any war, though I can imagine what the consequences of having not fought one would have been. Being totally honest, it would be hard to convince me that the continuation of slavery and the death of America would have been a more humane or desirable outcome than the war that actually happened.
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#21 written by Mainer 1 year ago
Armchair while one would think Tojo the lynch pin and that openings might have existed I had a Japanese professor back in the late 60’s that didn’t think things could have or would have turned out much differently. Tojo was not the only hard linner and the ones that were still apparently calling the shots were deeply associated with the Imperial Army and the Navy and pretty much to the end they were not all that interested in negotiating much of any thing. As you say though for us to have actually landed on Kyushu would have been an unmitigated disaster. Every thing we know in retrospect tells us this. That same professor seriously doubted that a full scale attack on the major Japanese home islands would have left a Japanese culture intact oreven in existance.
There have been a number of books written of MacArthur that have used source material that has come out over the years and few if any of them have been very flattering. I have always wondered about him getting into the ETO and bouncing off equally great egos such as Patton, DeGaul and Bernard Montgomery. That would have tested Ikes abilities. Either that or there would have been a shoot out at Ikes headquarters and had that happened I would have put money on Big George S.
I doubt Mono that there are many of us on here that go back to the Korean War days but I can still remember the night my oldest brother returned from there. He got into Portland, Maine late on a cold and snowy day and conned a cabby to drive him 120 miles over not great roads on the promise of a good tip and a great meal from my mother. As I remember it he got both along with several glasses of Old Grandad. Funny the things one remembers. -
DC,
it would be hard to convince me that the continuation of slavery and the death of America would have been a more humane or desirable outcome than the war that actually happened
I doubt that any other states would have left the union after allowing the South to go their own way. As for slavery, it probably wouldn’t have survived in the Confederacy past 1940. But we’d all be speculating on the alternate outcome.
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#23 written by Max aka Birdpilot 1 year ago
Mule needs to read more on MacArthur’s STATED opinions concerning Japanese force strength and the corresponding need for the numbers of Allied troops for Operation Olympic. He held that opinion through the atomic bombings and in the next days until Japan actually DID surrender.
No speculative BS there either.
Mac was definitely a man who allowed his ego to get in front of his actual abilities.
Funny, sounds like the Newt! -
#24 written by Mule Rider 1 year ago
“Methinks you doth protest too much. I don’t recall a single instance of anyone on this site holding Truman up as a shining example of leadership, gravitas, or “etc.”. But perhaps you can provide some quotes that would correct my memory.“
See comment #2 from shiloh.…that and the eagerness to belittle MacArthur and whitewash, gloss over, ignore, and/or re-write Truman’s massive failings.…more a sin of omission that commission.…
“In short: yes, his incompetence was the cause of a lot of Americans dying needlessly. He should have been fired around Christmas 1941. That he prospered as long as he did has a great deal to do with his PR machine and not a lot to do with his qualities as a commander.“
Nothing more than weasel-worded conjecture and more whitewashing of the President’s role as MacArthur’s superior.…I mean, we are talking about Harry “The Buck Stops Here” Truman.…
“None of that is “speculative BS”.“
Practice your reading comprehension; you’re obviously rusty as none of what you mentioned the second go-round was what I deemed “speculative BS.” I saved this little gem:
“I feel sorry not only for my family, but more so for the millions of North Koreans who for 60 years have faced starvation and kleptocracy all because of General Douglas MacArthur.“
You almost can’t find a better example of “speculative BS” than that right there…
“As a pacifist myself, I’m hard pressed to justify any war, though I can imagine what the consequences of having not fought one would have been. Being totally honest, it would be hard to convince me that the continuation of slavery and the death of America would have been a more humane or desirable outcome than the war that actually happened.“
If you weren’t so content to wallow in your own partisan, knuckle-dragging idiocy and did research on the actual history of slavery around the world during the 16th-19th centuries, you would see that the institution was brought to a far, far, far more peaceful end practically everywhere else but here.…we love to use that phrase “only in America” a lot.…well, it was only in America where the blood of a few hundred thousand men needed to be spilled for it to come to an end.
Your patronizing and sarcastic tone just illustrates how narrow-minded and myopic you are on the subject. -
#25 written by Mule Rider 1 year ago
@DC
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo146.html
Open your eyes, you maggot, and get educated about history before you bother us anymore with your ignorant, asinine bullshit.… -
#26 written by Mule Rider 1 year ago
“I doubt that any other states would have left the union after allowing the South to go their own way. As for slavery, it probably wouldn’t have survived in the Confederacy past 1940. But we’d all be speculating on the alternate outcome.“
Some economists don’t think it would’ve lasted nearly that long.…maybe into the 1870s or 1880s at the latest.…the economics of the institution were already on fragile ground at the outset of the war.…if nothing else but because slavery isn’t a pro-market system.…i.e. there’s no “reward” for doing a good job, other than not getting brutalized (or worse).…absent that reward, labor in the South was falling increasingly behind the North and other parts of the world in terms of efficiency. Pretty soon, they would’ve been forced to give it up or face financial ruin.…especially if the rest of the world had responded by putting tariffs or other controls on slave-made goods. Bottom line, slavery could have easily ended without hundreds of thousands of deaths and another century of racial oppression and growing animosity/tension because of an inept government unable to correct its previous sins of protecting the institution of slavery (and eventually protected discrimination).
That’s another thing for you to chew on, DC, with all of your pro-government bullshit.…it was the GOVERNMENT that protected the institution of slavery and later protected forms of discrimination/oppression against minorities.…you can clamor all you want about how government was still needed to right those wrongs, but observational evidence and common sense don’t necessarily lead the rest of us to the same conclusion.… -
Mule,
I said:I don’t recall a single instance of anyone on this site holding Truman up as a shining example of leadership, gravitas, or “etc.”.
In rebuttal, you provided a couple of quotes. In none of those quotes were the words “President” or “Truman”, let alone a word of praise for him. Blaming MacArthur for the Korean débâcle is in no way equivalent to considering Truman a shining example of leadership, gravitas, or anything else.
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MacArthur had multiple failures. December 8 1941 is a pretty good example of not following orders and getting men killed — unless you can find a way to blame Sen. Harry Truman for his unconscionable 8 hour delay which caused the US to lose the Philippines in the first place. Google “Rainbow 5″ and see for yourself.
And of course, there’s Max’s point about the invasion of the Japanese home islands, which thankfully never took place.
Mule, you’ve honestly picked the wrong guy to defend.
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#29 written by Max aka Birdpilot 1 year ago
OFF TOPIC!!! But an addendum to Mule’s recent post. Be warned!
Mule made a couple of points concerning the negative effects of the Civil War. One additional result of the Civil War was the “colonization” of the South post bellum by Northern interests, abetted by the 1% Southern élites that essentially started the war to begin with. That “colonization” resulted in the creation and continuation of the economic blight that covered the South until after WWII.
But, please, don’t take my word for it. See “The Report on Economic Conditions of the South” (1938) by the National Economic Council, prepared for, and at the request of, President Franklin Roosevelt.
http://www.archive.org/details/reportoneconomic00nati
Now we return to your regular programming.
BTW, MacArthur, though his father was from Massachusetts, carried Scots-Irish heritage through both parents. Arthur MacArthur’s father was Scot, and his mother, Mary Hardy was a Virginian with Scots-Irish blood.
Relevant as insight to the personality traits displayed by Mac and in some correlation to the discussion of the “conservative” revolution. -
#30 written by Mule Rider 1 year ago
“In rebuttal, you provided a couple of quotes. In none of those quotes were the words “President” or “Truman”, let alone a word of praise for him. Blaming MacArthur for the Korean débâcle is in no way equivalent to considering Truman a shining example of leadership, gravitas, or anything else.“
So I reached a little in my interpretation of the comments.…sue me…far worse “reaching” and “stretching” (sometimes it’s blatant intellectual dishonesty) is done by the regulars here on a daily basis, so I don’t feel the need to apologize for not being quite spot on in my critique…
“Mule, you’ve honestly picked the wrong guy to defend.“
I’ve acknowledged the man had failings and am not trying to defend him on those, but one thing he WAS NOT responsible for was 60 years of malady in North Korea that continues to the present day which YOU accused him of yet haven’t really made a good case for other than he disobeyed an order from the President and made a big strategic blunder way back when.…sorry, but that’s not a cogent explanation of 60 years of failure and misery, not on this planet. You’ll have to do better than that.…my secondary point wasn’t even to defend MacArthur but conservatives in general who were again being scapegoated with comments such as this one from Chris Rich, “Lt. Hutchins joins a long line of Americans who paid the price for right wing whack job speculations.” when most of the military misadventures in the United States from 1861–1975 originated from bumblings on The Left.
So, in short, you’ve picked the wrong people to scapegoat. -
So there’s no misunderstanding post #2 is presidential rankings ie presidential historians currently rank Truman #7 taking the man and his administration as a whole. With the added advantage of (60) years historical perspective.
So shilohbuster’s childish name calling, as per usual, is misplaced.
In any event “we” can only hope shilohbuster stops his kindergarten ranting/raving …
Open your eyes, you maggot, and get educated about history before you bother us anymore with your ignorant, asinine bullshit.…
long enough to have a Merry Christmas!
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Mule, you pointed out that most of the rest of the world ended slavery without a war. That the American south was willing to fight a war to avoid giving up slavery implies they weren’t ready to give it up yet.
Yes, I know many people will insist that “states rights” and “economics” rather than “slavery” furnished the underlying causes for the War. That’s irrelevant to my point, because the particular “state right” that the South wanted to keep was the right to own slaves, and the “economic” interests demanded the cheap labor of slaves. Economics, states rights, and slavery were too intermingled, and each of the three legs of that stool depended on the other two.
Mule, you may be wishing to imply that the South would have peacefully given up their slaves at some later date had they been allowed to quietly secede. There is no evidence for that whatever, but you’re free to show us where Southern politicians of the 1860s or before ever offered to end slavery as an exchange for having their own nation. It seems to me instead that the whole point of forming their own nation was so that they could continue owning slaves, for the reasons I touched on above.
But, as usual, you are content to call names rather than engage in actual discussion. I invite you to converse like an adult, if you have that in you.
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shiloh, you make a good point. What better way is there to acknowledge the eve of the celebration of the birth of the King of Peace, then to send obscene and violent namecalling across the nation? I see the followers of the guy who said to “turn the other cheek” don’t seem to have taken that message to heart! (They haven’t thrown many moneychangers out of the temple lately, either.)
It does fascinate me to see someone defending the guy who pushed an invasion beyond direct orders to the contrary, while castigating the guy who kept America together. I can understand the desire of MacArthur to keep Korea united (though that wasn’t really his goal). But I can’t understand “patriots” who don’t want to keep America together.
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#35 written by Mule Rider 1 year ago
“So why has the Southern United States been in a semi-permanent state of economic malaise since, oh, 1865?“
Even if we’re to take your weasel-worded personal interpretation of the economic history of the South (which is highly subjective) at face value, there are simply too many factors to go through in one or two posts, but I can summarize by saying much of the blame lies in the simple fact that the 1861–1865 time period was rife with so much bloodshed and destruction of natural resources and infrastructure and was followed by such a misguided “reconstruction” effort (by the government) that continued to foster racial discontent long after slavery was over that the South was never really fully able to get back on its feet.
“Mule, you pointed out that most of the rest of the world ended slavery without a war. That the American south was willing to fight a war to avoid giving up slavery implies they weren’t ready to give it up yet.
Mule, you may be wishing to imply that the South would have peacefully given up their slaves at some later date had they been allowed to quietly secede. There is no evidence for that whatever, but you’re free to show us where Southern politicians of the 1860s or before ever offered to end slavery as an exchange for having their own nation. It seems to me instead that the whole point of forming their own nation was so that they could continue owning slaves, for the reasons I touched on above.“
You’ve distorted my position and your gross ignorance and misunderstanding of history is on full display with your oversimplification of the slavery and the civil war as being between two sides, one of which was 100% “evil” and “racist” who wanted to force people of color do the vast majority of their manual labor and was willing to wage war break off as an independent group of states to do it while the other was 100% full of altruistic heroes who were anti-slavery and pro-freedom for people of color and were just wanting to “keep America together.” Very few people even owned slaves in the South and many of the people who didn’t were either ambivalent towards the institution or thought it was wrong but had very little power to enact change. And only a few Northerners were hardcore abolitionists; slavery may have helped set the dividing line, but the conflict quickly morphed into something else entirely, and it was bloodthirsty tyrants such as Lincoln and (General) Sherman willing to kill, maim, and brutalize anyone in their path just for the sake of “keeping America together.“
“while castigating the guy who kept America together.…But I can’t understand “patriots” who don’t want to keep America together.“
And tell us, please, what’s so special about “keeping America together”? What made that such a noble goal of Lincoln and his subordinates? Why, especially, when it was apparent that they were willing to do it “at all costs,” i.e the death and maiming of hundreds of thousands of men and women on both sides and the complete destruction of infrastructure and natural resources in many parts of the country, especially the South. You’re trying to frame this as purely a black-and-white, right-or-wrong thing and it isn’t.…you want to act like it was just America together, no slaves on the one side, the Good Side, and an America torn apart and slavery still existing on the other as the Bad Side.…and that anything and everything was justified in defending the Good Side and destroying the Bad Side, and you’re just flat-out wrong and insanely ignorant for this portrayal. -
#36 written by Mule Rider 1 year ago
“What better way is there to acknowledge the eve of the celebration of the birth of the King of Peace, then to send obscene and violent namecalling across the nation?“
Oh, and spare me this sanctimonious crap in playing the “hypocrite Christian” card again.…first of all, it’s real rich coming from an avowed secular humanist and very likely atheist/agnostic to bring Jesus into the conversation to suit you just so you can “teach me a lesson” about my venomous tongue.…yeah, maybe I get a little abrasive and use some harsh language that I shouldn’t, but there’s a lesson on righteous indignation (more on that later…) and I’m more than justified in calling out your evil, wicked nonsense.…
“I see the followers of the guy who said to “turn the other cheek” don’t seem to have taken that message to heart!“
And I see the non-followers of Jesus still don’t understand that specific point by Jesus or how it fits in the context of His entire message while here on Earth but still love to use it to throw in Christians’ faces as a selfish tool to somehow paint them all as hypocrites when there are some situations in which they won’t “stand down” and be run roughshod over.…I’ve heard my fair share of sermons where “turning the other cheek” was the centerpiece of the message, and I never got the impression that it ever meant letting a garbage human being like yourself spew slanderous crap and whatever else you like without retribution.
”(They haven’t thrown many moneychangers out of the temple lately, either.)“
Thanks for making my point above about righteous indignation.…if Jesus was totally, 100% about “turning the other cheek” (as you tried to throw in my face) and being run roughshod over as you’re trying to insinuate I should be, then don’t you think He would’ve avoided the conflict with the moneychangers in the temple and let them be.….I mean, that would be a shining example of “turning the other cheek,” no?
You don’t fully understand the point of that story.…that being that A) Jesus was justified in standing up to evil, and B) He would’ve stood up to any evil going on in the temple.…if that’s where they were pimping out prostitutes, Jesus would’ve been indignant at their sin and taken action to stop it.….if that’s where they had been meeting to conspire to tell lies to the Roman government, Jesus would’ve been indignatn at their sin and taken action to stop it.…and so forth.…
I see the evil, wicked garbage you spew every day.…and while we might not be in Jewish temple circa 30 AD, and while I’m certainly in no position to compare myself to Jesus other than follow His example, I do feel justified in doing what I can to call you out for your insidious and odious crap. -
#37 written by Mule Rider 1 year ago
““What better way is there to acknowledge the eve of the celebration of the birth of the King of Peace, then to send obscene and violent namecalling across the nation?“
Oh, and one more thing.…you may not realize it because you live in a state of self-delusion that is far detached from reality, but it is YOU who comes on here and makes the same venomous, slanderous, and condescending remarks and hate-filled snarks and generalizations about the same people (generally conservatives) day after day after day.…so for me to drop in occasionally and give you shit and talk a little shit in doing it.…well, spare me the sanctimonious, moral high ground crap that you’re somehow better than me and above it all.…you love wallowing in the mud and slinging it; I’m just here to call you out for it, you inbred mongrel. -
Mule, you never cease to amaze me. You have an uncanny ability to misrepresent what other people say, and then to insult them based on those false representations. You also have an impressive ability to bring up information irrelevant to someone else’s point, pretend the other person didn’t know that irrelevant information, and then call them “ignorant” for not having mentioned irrelevancies.
I ask again if you would like to converse as an adult, or if you prefer to continue with the silly games.
By the way, I am not a “secular humanist,” and certainly not an “avowed” one, since I never made any such claim. Your ignorance is showing, as is an eagerness to leap to false conclusions — or to simply misreperesent other people. Thanks for furnishing such an obvious and clear example.
But I seriously and sincerely hope you had a Merry Christmas. May the peace and love of the season penetrate into your grinchy little heart.
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And tell us, please, what’s so special about “keeping America together”?
Spoken like a true patriot.
I am frequently left in amazement at the ability of people on the right to express the most anti-patriotic thoughts, bordering on treason, while wrapping themselves in the flag. They love the Constitution soooo much that they want to change it at the drop of a hat. One mustn’t criticize the President during wartime, for that gives aid to America’s enemies — unless the President is a black Democrat. America is The Greatest Country In The World, so let’s break it into little pieces. Democracy is the bestest form of government the world has ever seen — so let’s all hate hate hate the government and sell it to corporate interests.
It would be funny if they were talking about someone else’s country, and if that country were not the world’s only superpower. As it is, it’s dangerous perfidy, bordering on sociopathic schizophrenia.
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Mule Rider said:
Even if we’re to take your weasel-worded personal interpretation of the economic history of the South (which is highly subjective) at face value, there are simply too many factors to go through in one or two posts, but I can summarize by saying much of the blame lies in the simple fact that the 1861–1865 time period was rife with so much bloodshed and destruction of natural resources and infrastructure and was followed by such a misguided “reconstruction” effort (by the government) that continued to foster racial discontent long after slavery was over that the South was never really fully able to get back on its feet.
Which is exactly what happened to North Korea between 1951 and 1953. Thanks for proving my point.
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Had the South simply went along with federal restrictions on slavery — since Mule tells us they would have given up slavery pretty soon anyway — they wouldn’t have needed to revolt. The war would have been avoided. And the South would have participated in the national growth without the destruction and death of the war.
Pretty strange that someone would blame Lincoln for the war. “Honest, officer, it’s Fred’s fault he got shot. I just wanted his money, and he wouldn’t coöperate.”
Not entirely a fair analogy, since the South wasn’t trying to steal anything. How about, “All I wanted to do was to keep a couple of million people enslaved for the next few decades (minimum), in violation of federal law and international custom and of any semblance of humanity. There was no reason to react badly to that, was there? It’s your fault we had a war over it.”
We’re seeing the same sorts of things today. “If I make absurd and nearly insane intransigent demands, and the nation winds up defaulting on on its debt because of that, it’s your fault for not caving in, not mine for being out of my friggn’ mind.”
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#43 written by Max aka Birdpilot 1 year ago
In re: Mule Rider
I can summarize by saying much of the blame lies in the simple fact that the 1861–1865 time period was rife with so much bloodshed and destruction of natural resources and infrastructure and was followed by such a misguided “reconstruction” effort (by the government) that continued to foster racial discontent long after slavery was over that the South was never really fully able to get back on its feet.The facts disprove the assertion that the War itself was the cause of the economic devastation of the South that continued until WWII. I referenced the 1938 “Report” by the National Economic Council above in Comment #29. That report essentially condemns the “colonization” of the South by absentee “landlords” of industry and natural resources, banks, and railroad tariff structures. All with the collusion of the Southern élites.
Sorry, Mule. The facts are against you on this one. Look it up.
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#44 written by Mule Rider 1 year ago
“You have an uncanny ability to misrepresent what other people say, and then to insult them based on those false representations.“
Funny that you lead with this and then go and do precisely that (misrepresent what I’ve said) after already doing it a hundred times, at a minimum, the past couple of years.
“You also have an impressive ability to bring up information irrelevant to someone else’s point, pretend the other person didn’t know that irrelevant information, and then call them “ignorant” for not having mentioned irrelevancies.“
Wrong. I have an impressive ability to point out every little hypocrisy, inconsistency, and lie you can dream up and spew on this blog and call you out for it.
“By the way, I am not a “secular humanist,” and certainly not an “avowed” one, since I never made any such claim. Your ignorance is showing, as is an eagerness to leap to false conclusions — or to simply misreperesent other people. Thanks for furnishing such an obvious and clear example.“
You certainly speak like one and have an ideology like one.…I’ve never gotten the impression that you align in any way with Christianity or anything else that worships God (or gods) for that matter.…perhaps you’d like to give us a broad look into your spiritual side (nothing too specific, if that makes you uncomfortable) rather than speak in such a way the context clues point almost exclusively to someone who is a non-theist.
“But I seriously and sincerely hope you had a Merry Christmas. May the peace and love of the season penetrate into your grinchy little heart.“
Actually I did, thanks for the wishes. Hope yours was just peachy also. -
#45 written by Mule Rider 1 year ago
“Spoken like a true patriot.“
You can stop with the weasel-worded deflections at any time and answer the question of what was so special about America circa 1860 and necessary at keeping it together at all costs.…or apply it to America in 2011.….seriously, I’m curious. It’s easy to blithely yell treason at someone like myself asking the kind of questions I am but it takes some serious intellectual curiosity and open-mindedness to look at the issue a bit deeper as I’m suggesting and you seem unwilling to do and insist on sticking with the black-and-white-no-shades-of-gray analysis.
I find myself asking what your definition of “patriotic” is.…evidently it was moving forward with a war that would kill and maim hundreds of thousands of people in this country and ravaging its infrastructure and natural resources in many locations to ostensibly end an institution that was wrong (but was initially protected by government) and would have failed anyway. I find your hypocrisy/inconsistencies especially amusing thinking of all the moralizing you did about how we pushed forward into Iraq blindly without knowing what we were getting into, even if it was to ostensibly end a dictator’s brutal reign, liberate the people of that country, and isolate WMD.…yet with the perfect hindsight of history and seeing the (avoidable) consequences of the civil war, you’re still willing to blindly push forward and see those hundreds of thousands of lives ruined just because it was the “patriotic” thing to do, right? Do you not see how ridiculous you are?
“They love the Constitution soooo much that they want to change it at the drop of a hat. One mustn’t criticize the President during wartime, for that gives aid to America’s enemies — unless the President is a black Democrat. America is The Greatest Country In The World, so let’s break it into little pieces. Democracy is the bestest form of government the world has ever seen — so let’s all hate hate hate the government and sell it to corporate interests.“
Weasel-worded conjecture and paranoia.…nothing more, nothing less.… -
#46 written by Mule Rider 1 year ago
“since Mule tells us they would have given up slavery pretty soon anyway “
You’re twisting my words.…let me repeat once again.…slavery was built upon failed economics and the idea became even more of a failure when the institution ended peacefully most everywhere else and labor became much more market-friendly.…
“Pretty strange that someone would blame Lincoln for the war.“
He was the Commander-in-Chief of the Northern US.…it’s well-documented that, while the South fired the first shots, they had no intent on being the aggressor in that conflict. The North waged war against the South.…had they not engaged in those battles, there would not have been a civil war.
“All I wanted to do was to keep a couple of million people enslaved for the next few decades (minimum), in violation of federal law and international custom and of any semblance of humanity. There was no reason to react badly to that, was there? It’s your fault we had a war over it.”
As I told you before, it was the government that FIRST protected the institution of slavery and then protected legal forms of discrimination (via Jim Crow and the like) and still fosters forms of institutional racism today.…you sound like a fool with your analogy touting slavery as being “in violation of federal law” when it was the federal laws that got it so wrong to begin with and even after actual chattel slavery was ended.
“We’re seeing the same sorts of things today. “If I make absurd and nearly insane intransigent demands, and the nation winds up defaulting on on its debt because of that, it’s your fault for not caving in, not mine for being out of my friggn’ mind.”
What were you saying to me earlier about “irrelevant information”? -
#47 written by Mule Rider 1 year ago
“Which is exactly what happened to North Korea between 1951 and 1953. Thanks for proving my point.“
I hardly proved your point…I said it would take a much more nuanced and elaborate answer to explain what all happened in the South during and after the war to affect the economics of the region. There is almost no parallel between North and South Korea from 1953 onward and the Northern and Southern United States from 1865 onward other than lots of people had just died and lots of shit was blown up.… -
#48 written by Mule Rider 1 year ago
“Sorry, Mule. The facts are against you on this one. Look it up.“
As I told Mono, I didn’t really take a stance.…gave a quick summary of a couple of things that almost certainly had some influence on the aftermath of the war, but I readily admit the full answer is much more detailed and elaborate. -
Mule,
Thank you for responding more calmly and with fewer insults. I appreciate that.
I’d be glad to have a conversation with you on any topic of your choice. We’ve rather drifted from anything about MacArthur here. Pick a subject you like, and let’s start afresh on the most recent Open Mic thread. Keep it civil, and we can exchange some thoughts, and maybe even learn a thing or two from each other.
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Monotreme, thank you for sharing that story. I’ll raise a glass this weekend in memory of your uncle.