Thursday, December 27, 2012

Tribal Hatred

In a different bastion of liberal thought than the one I referred to yesterday I found a post titled “Dancing on Their Graves,” which was in reference to former president George H. W. Bush being hospitalized in intensive care, and looking forward to being able to perform the action specified in the title. There was a long parade of commentary to the effect that he was scum and a man who should not be accorded honor in death because he had earned none in his lifetime.

Liberal expression of this sort is becoming entirely too common and is entirely repugnant to me. George H. W. Bush was a Navy pilot in World War Two and flew 58 combat missions. When I mentioned that in the comment thread the response was entirely negative, and one commenter claimed that he had “bailed out of the plane he was piloting before his crew, leaving his crew to die,” adding that there was “VERY little honor in the Bush family, going back many generations.”

The true story of his bailout was that while attacking a Japanese island “his aircraft was hit by flak and his engine caught on fire. Despite his plane being on fire, Bush completed his attack and released bombs over his target, scoring several damaging hits. With his engine afire, Bush flew several miles from the island, where he and one other crew member on the TBM Avenger bailed out of the aircraft.”

Does that sound like a man who “without honor, bailed out of the plane before his crew” to you? I think not. To be so poisoned by tribal hatred as to speak of a man in such vile terms as these people do is a symptom of a nation descending into a political system that is no more reasoned or logical than the Hatfields and McCoys.

I wish the elder Mr. Bush peace, comfort and a speedy recovery.

2 comments:

  1. You speak of "liberal thought." I disagree with the characterization of some folks who consider themselves liberal to be true liberals. Many are "fifth columnists" and would be a danger if most were not just silly forgetable asses. Your place is what I would consider a "bastion of liberal thought." Real liberal thought in the classical sense I suppose.

    Some of those that I read, and you apparently, are not what I would consider liberal any more than I would consider a blog extolling the virtues of the "Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord" a representative of conservative thought.

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  2. bruce4:58 PM

    That's like extolling the virtues of the Westboro Baptist Church as a upstanding bastion of Christlike virtues.... which of course is utterly false.

    I think the elder Bush has performed his many years of public and private service with a lot more dignity and honor than most of the haters lined up against him. I liked him.

    I think that the Bush family "lack of honor" started with Pres Bush 43 - and I will not extol any of his virtues or shortcomings here. To say that he was nothing like his father is an understatement, but despite that, the venal and illogical thought processes going on here is nothing short of disgusting to any reasonable person.

    Liberalism - or conservatism - is not the problem. It is the inability or unwillingness to look beyond your views and ideas and see others. I don;t think Jesus would see the Westboro congregation as followers of his philosophy. But that's just my opinion.

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