Georgia Senate Defeats Fonda Resolution

I'm glad that people are not forgetting her past.

@Phaedrus: Yeah. It's good not to forget things that happened 34 years ago, in another time, under different circumstances, when you were, at most, a few months old. After all, just because we've forgiven the Communist country of Vietnam -- whose soldiers killed 50,000 of our soldiers -- and given them Favored Nation Trading Status doesn't mean we should forgive an American citizen for speaking out against her country. Why, that would be un-American!

evano, nothing in the years since has shown that she is at all sorry for commiserating with her own country's enemies. She was and is a traitor. At least that's how most of us think of her down here, below the Mason Dixon line.

Fun little Google search: Personalized Results 1 - 10 of about 685,000 for "fonda" sorry. (0.39 seconds)

If an exalcoholic, draft-dodger and failed businessman gets to be President, the least we can do for an extremely apologetic actress who sympathized with a non-aggressor enemy during an unjust war is get off her case about it.

The North Vietnamese, was a non-aggressor enemy??!!! Wow!! That is the first I ever heard that. Tell that to the 58 some thousand dead American GI"s! It is this kind of thing that makes conservatives cringe when liberals speak.

And how is trying to protect a country from communism, unjust?

'Aggressor' implies someone who attacks. The North Vietnamese didn't come for us, and while they weren't exactly wandering around picking daisies, the declaration that they are an "enemy" that shouldn't be sympathized with or considered has little basis. 58-some-thousand GIs died because they went over there to prevent and contain, not because the North Vietnamese were enemies hell-bent on destroying us.

"Protecting a country" from a form of government is, in my opinion, a terrible reason to kill. If you'd had said "protecting it from being violently overthrown," I might've agreed, but instead, you parrot the rationale used by military theorists at the time.

If communists are our enemies, why do we deal with Vietnam now? Or China? Do they only become our enemies if we decide to go to war with them? Sigh.

Doug, the South was being violently overthrown, read your history. After we left the country, do you happen to remember all the boat loads of people fleeing the country for their lives? No we only go to war with communism, Doug, when they try to take over another country. If China or Vietnam did that today, I guarantee you we would go to war again. But the fact of the matter is that communism has pretty much been contained, so no need today.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

John Stuart Mill

Doug, the South was being violently overthrown, read your history.

Sorry, my comment meant that I knew this, but was more disappointed by your choice of "communism" as the true injustice.

Yes, when communism tries to force itself on other defenseless nations, it is an injustice and the US as one of the world's lone superpowers has the obligation to defend them.

I was looking to find a citation of whether the quote came from On Liberty, but none of the quotation sites I came across bothered giving that info. I did, however, come across this quote from J.S. Mill:

"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."

Remember: I didn't say it.

evano, the definition of conservative and liberal were very different in those days. In those days a conservative was someone who advocated complete allegiance to the British crown. Study political history and you will find out that what was a conservative or liberal then is not now. Even in the 20th century itself, the Democratic and Republican parties switched places. The democratic party used to be the party of the South. Remember, Lincoln and the North was mostly Republican. So the quote you provided is totally out of any context at all.

@Phaedrus: I understand my history very well and I understand the differences in the political parties over the years. However, the philosophies behind Conservativism and Liberalism have not really changed, no matter which party may support them at a particular time.

That said, I included the quote because it was funny to see an idea like that stated so bluntly by a well-known philosopher, not because I believe it to be true... not today, anyway. :)

Now, as to the source of the quote you provided from Mill, was that from On Liberty? I haven't read it in a long time and it may be due for a re-reading. If not from there, where is it from?

I believe that it's important to remember the atrocities of the past. From what I've heard (which could be wrong), Ms. Fonda didn't just speak out against the war, she went to Vietnam and did things that she didn't have to do to show her displeasure with the United States government. Just because you disagree with the war, doesn't mean you go and betray the soldier fighting in it. There were a lot of people who disagreed with that war, and they let that be known, but they didn't go to the lengths that Ms. Fonda did.

Saying all that, I don't believe that it is right to try and continually "punish" someone for something that happened so long ago and that they have apologized for. If the bill's sponsor realized that it wasn't a good idea and wanted to withdraw the bill, I think he should have been allowed to do so. I think it's a real shame that they wanted to make a public stance in criticising Ms. Fonda just for the sake of criticising her, that's a shame.

@evano:

Remember: I didn't say it.

Just because you didn't say it, doesn't make it inflammatory. I could post a lot of inflammatory things here that other people have said. Remember the code of honor.

@Dan: I've been here a while -- since before there was a Code even, and I have fully absorbed the Code of Honor into the core of my being. :) The Code is one reason why so many of us are here rather than at Digg or some other habitat of flaming trolls (or trolling flames). That said, Phaedrus and I have a bit of a sparring relationship going back a ways and the Code doesn't really prohibit some ribbing and teasing, nor does it seek to keep controversial or critical opinions out of the forums. But, you being relatively new and all, I do appreciate your pointing it out and I'm glad to see that respect for the Code is important for new members, too; that gives me a good feeling about the future of this place!

As to your thoughts on Ms. Fonda and her anti-war activities, I started writing a comment which got really looong, so I turned it into an article here . Please let me know what you think.