Prager Lies Again

I might be speaking strongly here. It might be that Prager isn't actively lying -- he might just be so used to not thinking clearly that he doesn't realize he's thinking dishonestly. It's really hard to tell from this perfidious bit of scribble.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/dp20050712.shtml

It's not a new thesis he has: Prager is claiming that we on the Left cannot actually "support the troops" unless we support the war.

If we think the Iraqi war is a bad war, a bad idea, that it ought never to have been entered into, that we ought not to be fighting it, that the wholesale slaughter of Iraqi citizens who never had a thing to do with 9/11 is, in fact, counter-productive to finding a solution to terrorism -- if we believe any of that stuff, well, says Prager, that means we must, by fiat, also think the troops who have been sent to fight the Iraqi war are bad guys.

How does he support this leap of logic?

He says it must be so. That's how.

Well, he also inserts a stupid paragraph about how it would be impossible to oppose the Nazis and still support the storm troopers -- yes, that's exactly the same thing, Prager. Because our soldiers are, in fact, exactly like Nazi Storm Troopers. That's exactly what we on the left are claiming -- in your wet dreams.

Honest people on the Left need to understand that the two positions are not reconcilable. A German citizen during World War II could not have argued: "The Nazi regime's army is engaged in an evil war of aggression and is slaughtering millions of innocent people, and I therefore completely oppose this war, but I sure do support the Nazi troops."

One example is the claim made by Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and almost all other Democrats and liberals that the war in Iraq is "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." How does one support troops that are fighting a wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Hmm. Let me see. How do we do that, Dennis? Like this, maybe? "Bush got us into the wrong war. We shouldn't be there. It is not, however, the fault of the troops who are fighting the war -- they did not send themselves to fight this stupid, destructive, useless, counterproductive war. How about we impeach Bush and do something about ending this very bad war?"

Prager goes on to say:

A third example is the Left's opposition to military recruitment on most of the elite and many other college campuses. So deep is leftist disdain for troops that most on the Left regard the mere presence of military personnel on a university campus as a form of contamination. Yet, the Left claims to "support the troops."

I love this "most" nonsense. Do you have a source for that, Dennis? Or are you talking out of your hat?

Dennis lives on Planet Dennis, as we all know from reading his columns. On Planet Dennis, Leftist screech and wail at the sight of a guy in uniform. In actual fact, of course, here on actual campuses, we see military recruiters every day, and, guess what, no big deal. (That's down here in Fucked Over Land. No doubt in Dennis's part of the country, where Folks Are Rich, things are a bit different. Here, students still join up from time to time, not so much because they want to serve, though sometimes, yes, for that reason too, but because they need the money: that's how desperate we are, Dennis. Can you feature that, son?)

Many on the Left express far more contempt than support for the troops.

Yes, right.

No, we don't, you liar.

We actually care enough about the troops -- because we know them, Dennis, unlike you, I'm betting. I'm betting Dennis hasn't got anyone closer than a member of his call-in radio show serving in the Iraq, how much you want to bet? -- we care enough about the troops to not want them dying in a useless war, Dennis, and killing in a useless war, and getting maimed, actually and psychologically, in a useless war, Dennis, see, we actually support the troops, Dennis, instead of just spouting some mendacious cheerleading crap about supporting the troops, gah, Dennis, you're making me ill here.

A Democratic senator compares our interrogators to the Nazis and Communist torturers; the head of Amnesty International in America defends likening Guantanamo Bay to the Gulag; and liberals routinely speak of troops as coming from the lowest socio-economic rungs of society (maybe that's one reason they oppose recruiters on campuses, lest the best educated actually join the military). But, hey, the Left supports the troops.

Yes, Dennis. Yes. We should never criticize our country. When our guys torture people, we should pretend it never happened. That's why we've got that first amendment -- so we can not talk about what our country is doing wrong. That way everything will be perfect in this country. The way it used to be. In 1950. When guys like you ruled the land.

And "liberals speaking routinely of troops" blah blah blah"? Gee. Wonder why?

Must be because so many rich kids from Yale and Stanford are actually joining up. Sorry, Dennis. I missed the Rich Kid Recruitment Drive. Post me a link, bud. I'll be glad to change my notions.

Dennis may or may not know he's lying and obfuscating all through this column. The Right may or may not know what they're doing when they claim that we on the left "aren't patriotic" if we criticise this war, if we say Bush is the worst president ever. But it's all part of the same thing -- dissent is not okay.

Can you conceive of any statement more unAmerican than that?

Update: For more Prager fun!

Jesse over on Pandagon smacks him down:

http://www.pandagon.net/archives/2005/07/why_we_all_hate.html#more