This blog explores both historical and current events guided by the thought of the leading thinkers, past and present, of this school or movement of theology. Refer to the Classic Posts, Great and Contemporary Thinkers, various links of all kinds, in addition to the Archives themselves. David is the founder and manager of this website, but many friends contribute to it on a regular basis.
That is an interesting article. I had no idea that McGovern had ever espoused small-government insticts. That makes me respect him more.
All that said, his politics was and are naive. He questioned the fundamental preconceptions of the war (like Carter), but those preconceptions were right. McGovern questions the preconceptions of the war against terrorism with a vague sort of "enemy" standing off in the distance, hazy and generic -- like perhaps the Germans or the Japanese of the past, that would just leave alone and live in peace. But in an age of suicide bombers + nuclear weapons, we don't have that option anymore. McGovern is living in a pre-Hiroshima world, and we can't afford to have that kind of leadership anymore.
Having voted for McGovern in 1972 precisely because of his "fundamental preconceptions" of the war and considering the disaster that Vietnam became for the United States under Johnson and Nixon (some 50,000 Americans dead and countless maimed) one wonders now how it might be said that he was wrong. As to our not needing today the kind of "naive" leadership McGovern might provide for a war with terrorists employing nuclear weapons, I think I'd be inclined to settle for almost anything in the way of an alternative to what I suspect you might consider the pragmatism of the present leadership.
Jesus said, "When a blindman leads a blindman they shall both wind up in a pit". He certainly had a way with words, didn't he?
2 comments:
That is an interesting article. I had no idea that McGovern had ever espoused small-government insticts. That makes me respect him more.
All that said, his politics was and are naive. He questioned the fundamental preconceptions of the war (like Carter), but those preconceptions were right. McGovern questions the preconceptions of the war against terrorism with a vague sort of "enemy" standing off in the distance, hazy and generic -- like perhaps the Germans or the Japanese of the past, that would just leave alone and live in peace. But in an age of suicide bombers + nuclear weapons, we don't have that option anymore. McGovern is living in a pre-Hiroshima world, and we can't afford to have that kind of leadership anymore.
Having voted for McGovern in 1972 precisely because of his "fundamental preconceptions" of the war and considering the disaster that Vietnam became for the United States under Johnson and Nixon (some 50,000 Americans dead and countless maimed) one wonders now how it might be said that he was wrong. As to our not needing today the kind of "naive" leadership McGovern might provide for a war with terrorists employing nuclear weapons, I think
I'd be inclined to settle for almost anything in the way of an alternative to what I suspect you might consider the pragmatism of the present leadership.
Jesus said, "When a blindman leads a blindman they shall both wind up in a pit". He certainly had a way with words, didn't he?
John Lowell
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