I thought you were hacked there for a second, but then I realised that you were having a dig and McCain.
slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem))says
Really.
Difference of opinion does not warrant a death sentence.
I disagreed with him often and it was not extreme opposite. He had strongly held, rational, views (except choosing Palin) that were simply different than mine.
I dislike seeing all the vehemence still being thrown around about him to chide those who are trying to honor his passing.
The cliche response I produce is the old “He’s dead Jim, he can’t hear your arguments any more”.
Empathy tells me that there are people who cared about him, and it is cruel to hurt them when they’re in this vulnerable state at the moment. Discussion can wait till they recover. the aphorism “Too soon”, comes to mind.
Don’t give me the “If not now, when” argument. My answer will be “when he was around, not now”.
Thank you McCain for your final act with a profound [thumb down] on the ACA repeal.
Ichthyicsays
Didn’t Darth Vader actually save the galaxy in the end?
I’M SO CONFLICTED.
mikehubensays
“Too soon” is precisely wrong. You need to “strike while the iron is hot”.
Now is the time when people are paying attention to McCain’s legacy. If you want them to remember, now is the time: good and bad.
slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem))says
in addition @2:
remember “hero” wasn’t given lightly. He was shot down and spent 5 grueling years in the torture prison known in slang as “Hanoi Hilton”. Even his prison guard gives him a heartening eulogy. I think that paid his dues for the appellation,
As much as I disliked him being in the GOP [Greedy Old Perverts], I cling to him being an old school Republican who got rebranded “GOP” when they absorbed the Republican Party.
Similarly he more literally Conservative than the current regressive form of Conservatism.
Thank you for reading my eulogy to the hero I disagreed with during his life and … words fail
Matrimsays
Empathy tells me that there are people who cared about him, and it is cruel to hurt them when they’re in this vulnerable state at the moment.
Which is an excellent reason not to bombard the McCains with this or his colleagues in Congress. However, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that no one who reads Pharyngula knows John McCain. If he was on Twitter firing @s at Meghan McCain you’d have a point.
davidc1says
Nothing to do with John McCain ,but if Whoopi Goldberg married Peter Cushing ,she would be
known as Whoopi Cushing .
consciousness razorsays
Difference of opinion does not warrant a death sentence.
For fuck’s sake, nobody executed him. Dying happens to everybody, whether or not you think it’s “warranted.”
You could say he was pretty lucky that it wasn’t a bomb dropped on his head during childhood. Some of his victims were not so lucky. Talk about fucking death sentences … we didn’t even bother with a trial. Warrants and sentencing and all of that nonsense was totally forgotten, as people were straight-up killed for no reason whatsoever, much less for doing something wrong. Does that sound to you like a mere “difference of opinion,” asshole? Or is it that you just have no fucking clue what you’re talking about?
He had strongly held, rational, views (except choosing Palin)
That was the only irrational one … seriously? I will note the usual tension between a view which is “strongly held” and one that is decided rationally, based on reason and evidence. Just ask somebody like Ken Ham (or Hitler, etc.) how strongly he holds one of his views, as if that were a positive thing to cite alongside rationality, not a clue that something in his thought process may be going terribly wrong. As far as I’m concerned, McCain could have views that he wasn’t holding onto very strongly — I just don’t give a shit one way or the other. It matters to me whether they were any good.
Empathy tells me that there are people who cared about him, and it is cruel to hurt them when they’re in this vulnerable state at the moment. Discussion can wait till they recover.
Are you supposed to be one of them? I was under the impression that I was reading Pharyngula, not speaking with family members at his fucking funeral. Those people can decide when they’ve recovered enough to think/talk about him honestly, if that ever happens, but the rest of us do not need to wait around for anything like that.
Artorsays
This is also the man who brought Jar-Jar Palin out of her shithole and inflicted her on the Galaxy at large.
slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem))says
re @8:
For fuck’s sake, nobody executed him. Dying happens to everybody, whether or not you think it’s “warranted.”
FFS, do you not understand metaphors?
Do you really think I’m saying he was executed?
Must I always write “essentially” to indicate a metaphor follows it? Schadenfreude doesn’t really cover what I was referring to, so I resorted to the metaphor “death sentence”.
Excuse me.
chrislawsonsays
A short list of McCain’s shortcomings…
Chose Palin as a VP running mate to appease the protoTrumpist rump of the Republican Party.
Refused to rein Palin in when she repeatedly whipped up racist rhetoric against Obama.
Endorsed Trump, only rescinding his endorsement after the “pussy-grabbing” tape was revealed.
Took campaign funds and personal gifts from corrupt developer Charles Keating as payment for helping nobble the regulators looking into Keating’s fraudulent empire (eventual cost to the US govt when the empire collapsed: $3 billion).
Enthusiastically supported the Iraq War even after it was shown to have been justified by lies.
Viewed the Iraq War as the opportunity to undo the failure of the Vietnam War…which would have been a success if only the American people had supported more involvement.
Voted to defund Planned Parenthood if it offered abortion services.
Voted against the Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act .
Voted against a bill to pay women the same rate as equally qualified men.
Repeatedly voted against financial relief for students with extortionate student loans.
Repeatedly voted for tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.
Made horrible jokes about Chelsea Clinton when she was 18.
I am only listing the worst things he did (there are plenty of people listing the best things he did). But that’s not because I’m trying to paint him as a moustache-twirling villain. I’m just pointing out that for someone with the track record above, it’s completely fair to acknowledge his many failings. Nobody’s suggesting this be incorporated into the eulogy at his funeral.
Saadsays
slithey tove, #10
FFS, do you not understand metaphors?
Do you really think I’m saying he was executed?
Must I always write “essentially” to indicate a metaphor follows it?
Schadenfreude doesn’t really cover what I was referring to, so I resorted to the metaphor “death sentence”.
It doesn’t work as a metaphor at all.
He died at an old age of a terminal illness. Death sentence implies a decision was made by people to kill him.
jack16says
consciousness razor
. . . and besides, we all might die while waiting.
jack16
monadsays
@5: Shot down while doing what? From what I understand, McCain endured his time in prison admirably, and the people who fault him for that are awful. But the Vietnam War did not have heroes, only different sorts of victims. Some came out realizing war is misery to avoid, and some came out with renewed commitment to America murdering civilians from the air.
And sadly, it is still a country where those alternatives are thought to be a respectable “difference of opinion”.
A granduncle of mine was killed outside Leningrad fighting the Soviets in WWII. I’m sad he died, but what was he fighting for?
zabierusays
Monad @14
Plenty of heroes in Vietnam, really. Just mostly under John McCain’s guns. Some of those poor bastards spent thirty-five years serving their country. (And I don’t mean “five years in uniform and thirty in a cushy, albeit stressful, legislative job,” I mean “five years fighting the Japanese invaders, ten years fighting the French invaders, twenty years fighting the American invaders.”)
I’d respect McCain a LOT more if he’d been willing to vote against torture, instead of just talking about how bad it was while remaining a safe vote for anyone from the Contras to John Yoo. But it’s obvious from his record that while maybe he didn’t like the idea of torturing prisoners… any time he actually had to balance option A (don’t torture prisoners, fewer brown people get bombed) against option B (torture prisoners, bomb more brown people), he held his nose and voted B.
KGsays
zabieru@17,
After the Americans, they also had a bit of bother with Kampuchean (Khmer Rouge) invaders, and then with Chinese ones, defeating both. One of the main lessons of the 20th century for all ambitious “statespersons”: Don’t invade Vietnam.
mountainbobsays
Death would be a tragedy if only some died. Since it is an inevitable and every-day occurrence, it is simply part of life.
Rob Grigjanissays
robertbaden @16: I don’t know what your granduncle thought he was fighting for, or if he even had a choice in the matter. My uncle died fighting the Soviets in the retreat from Leningrad. Near as I’ve been able to learn, he hated Russians more than he hated Germans. A cousin (same side of the family) served in the Soviet Spetsnaz in the 1980s. I met him. He loved all things Russian. Funny old world.
I just have a minor complaint: I feel bad for people to use an image of the actor Peter Cushing to complain about a US politician. I liked Peter Cushing, he was a friend of mine, and John McCain was no Peter Cushing.
As for McCain himself, I’ve never been able to form a simple, clear opinion of him. I’m glad he renounced calling people “gooks”, although some have said he did that for political expediency. He also stood up to Trump until the end. But … the most disappointing thing to me is his choice of Palin as his running mate. I actually wonder if Pence might make a better backup for the presidency than Palin.
Gp Gp @21: I don’t think anybody is confusing the actor for the role, especially as the meme explicitly mentions Tarkin. I’d like to think that Cushing would be tickled pink to know that Tarkin is now his most famous role, and wouldn’t mind at all that that role was a villainous one.
At a tangent, do you think Palpatine eulogised Tarkin? Despite the guy clearly having his eye on Palpatine’s throne.
I thought you were hacked there for a second, but then I realised that you were having a dig and McCain.
Really.
Difference of opinion does not warrant a death sentence.
I disagreed with him often and it was not extreme opposite. He had strongly held, rational, views (except choosing Palin) that were simply different than mine.
I dislike seeing all the vehemence still being thrown around about him to chide those who are trying to honor his passing.
The cliche response I produce is the old “He’s dead Jim, he can’t hear your arguments any more”.
Empathy tells me that there are people who cared about him, and it is cruel to hurt them when they’re in this vulnerable state at the moment. Discussion can wait till they recover. the aphorism “Too soon”, comes to mind.
Don’t give me the “If not now, when” argument. My answer will be “when he was around, not now”.
Thank you McCain for your final act with a profound [thumb down] on the ACA repeal.
Didn’t Darth Vader actually save the galaxy in the end?
I’M SO CONFLICTED.
“Too soon” is precisely wrong. You need to “strike while the iron is hot”.
Now is the time when people are paying attention to McCain’s legacy. If you want them to remember, now is the time: good and bad.
in addition @2:
remember “hero” wasn’t given lightly. He was shot down and spent 5 grueling years in the torture prison known in slang as “Hanoi Hilton”. Even his prison guard gives him a heartening eulogy. I think that paid his dues for the appellation,
As much as I disliked him being in the GOP [Greedy Old Perverts], I cling to him being an old school Republican who got rebranded “GOP” when they absorbed the Republican Party.
Similarly he more literally Conservative than the current regressive form of Conservatism.
Thank you for reading my eulogy to the hero I disagreed with during his life and … words fail
Which is an excellent reason not to bombard the McCains with this or his colleagues in Congress. However, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that no one who reads Pharyngula knows John McCain. If he was on Twitter firing @s at Meghan McCain you’d have a point.
Nothing to do with John McCain ,but if Whoopi Goldberg married Peter Cushing ,she would be
known as Whoopi Cushing .
For fuck’s sake, nobody executed him. Dying happens to everybody, whether or not you think it’s “warranted.”
You could say he was pretty lucky that it wasn’t a bomb dropped on his head during childhood. Some of his victims were not so lucky. Talk about fucking death sentences … we didn’t even bother with a trial. Warrants and sentencing and all of that nonsense was totally forgotten, as people were straight-up killed for no reason whatsoever, much less for doing something wrong. Does that sound to you like a mere “difference of opinion,” asshole? Or is it that you just have no fucking clue what you’re talking about?
That was the only irrational one … seriously? I will note the usual tension between a view which is “strongly held” and one that is decided rationally, based on reason and evidence. Just ask somebody like Ken Ham (or Hitler, etc.) how strongly he holds one of his views, as if that were a positive thing to cite alongside rationality, not a clue that something in his thought process may be going terribly wrong. As far as I’m concerned, McCain could have views that he wasn’t holding onto very strongly — I just don’t give a shit one way or the other. It matters to me whether they were any good.
Are you supposed to be one of them? I was under the impression that I was reading Pharyngula, not speaking with family members at his fucking funeral. Those people can decide when they’ve recovered enough to think/talk about him honestly, if that ever happens, but the rest of us do not need to wait around for anything like that.
This is also the man who brought Jar-Jar Palin out of her shithole and inflicted her on the Galaxy at large.
re @8:
FFS, do you not understand metaphors?
Do you really think I’m saying he was executed?
Must I always write “essentially” to indicate a metaphor follows it?
Schadenfreude doesn’t really cover what I was referring to, so I resorted to the metaphor “death sentence”.
Excuse me.
A short list of McCain’s shortcomings…
Chose Palin as a VP running mate to appease the protoTrumpist rump of the Republican Party.
Refused to rein Palin in when she repeatedly whipped up racist rhetoric against Obama.
Endorsed Trump, only rescinding his endorsement after the “pussy-grabbing” tape was revealed.
Took campaign funds and personal gifts from corrupt developer Charles Keating as payment for helping nobble the regulators looking into Keating’s fraudulent empire (eventual cost to the US govt when the empire collapsed: $3 billion).
Enthusiastically supported the Iraq War even after it was shown to have been justified by lies.
Viewed the Iraq War as the opportunity to undo the failure of the Vietnam War…which would have been a success if only the American people had supported more involvement.
Voted to defund Planned Parenthood if it offered abortion services.
Voted against the Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act .
Voted against a bill to pay women the same rate as equally qualified men.
Repeatedly voted against financial relief for students with extortionate student loans.
Repeatedly voted for tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.
Made horrible jokes about Chelsea Clinton when she was 18.
I am only listing the worst things he did (there are plenty of people listing the best things he did). But that’s not because I’m trying to paint him as a moustache-twirling villain. I’m just pointing out that for someone with the track record above, it’s completely fair to acknowledge his many failings. Nobody’s suggesting this be incorporated into the eulogy at his funeral.
slithey tove, #10
It doesn’t work as a metaphor at all.
He died at an old age of a terminal illness. Death sentence implies a decision was made by people to kill him.
consciousness razor
. . . and besides, we all might die while waiting.
jack16
@5: Shot down while doing what? From what I understand, McCain endured his time in prison admirably, and the people who fault him for that are awful. But the Vietnam War did not have heroes, only different sorts of victims. Some came out realizing war is misery to avoid, and some came out with renewed commitment to America murdering civilians from the air.
And sadly, it is still a country where those alternatives are thought to be a respectable “difference of opinion”.
Considering he’s had a hand in taking countless innocent lives, I’m not too concerned about the feelings of his loved ones.
A granduncle of mine was killed outside Leningrad fighting the Soviets in WWII. I’m sad he died, but what was he fighting for?
Monad @14
Plenty of heroes in Vietnam, really. Just mostly under John McCain’s guns. Some of those poor bastards spent thirty-five years serving their country. (And I don’t mean “five years in uniform and thirty in a cushy, albeit stressful, legislative job,” I mean “five years fighting the Japanese invaders, ten years fighting the French invaders, twenty years fighting the American invaders.”)
I’d respect McCain a LOT more if he’d been willing to vote against torture, instead of just talking about how bad it was while remaining a safe vote for anyone from the Contras to John Yoo. But it’s obvious from his record that while maybe he didn’t like the idea of torturing prisoners… any time he actually had to balance option A (don’t torture prisoners, fewer brown people get bombed) against option B (torture prisoners, bomb more brown people), he held his nose and voted B.
zabieru@17,
After the Americans, they also had a bit of bother with Kampuchean (Khmer Rouge) invaders, and then with Chinese ones, defeating both. One of the main lessons of the 20th century for all ambitious “statespersons”: Don’t invade Vietnam.
Death would be a tragedy if only some died. Since it is an inevitable and every-day occurrence, it is simply part of life.
robertbaden @16: I don’t know what your granduncle thought he was fighting for, or if he even had a choice in the matter. My uncle died fighting the Soviets in the retreat from Leningrad. Near as I’ve been able to learn, he hated Russians more than he hated Germans. A cousin (same side of the family) served in the Soviet Spetsnaz in the 1980s. I met him. He loved all things Russian. Funny old world.
I just have a minor complaint: I feel bad for people to use an image of the actor Peter Cushing to complain about a US politician. I liked Peter Cushing, he was a friend of mine, and John McCain was no Peter Cushing.
As for McCain himself, I’ve never been able to form a simple, clear opinion of him. I’m glad he renounced calling people “gooks”, although some have said he did that for political expediency. He also stood up to Trump until the end. But … the most disappointing thing to me is his choice of Palin as his running mate. I actually wonder if Pence might make a better backup for the presidency than Palin.
Gp Gp @21: I don’t think anybody is confusing the actor for the role, especially as the meme explicitly mentions Tarkin. I’d like to think that Cushing would be tickled pink to know that Tarkin is now his most famous role, and wouldn’t mind at all that that role was a villainous one.
At a tangent, do you think Palpatine eulogised Tarkin? Despite the guy clearly having his eye on Palpatine’s throne.