LOL, Dihers!!!!!
Almost all of those are adjectives or descriptors! I admit that a few such as "worm" are nouns, and some are both; But were they used as similes to describe what your character was like? or were they used as direct nouns intending insults, inaccuracy, or unfairness?
The mature opposition to childish name-calling is not intended, by the vanguard of society, to strip the English language of all her useful adjectives, such as "weak,ignorant, shallow, insolent, immature, unreflective, unrepentent", etc. If such wonderful adjectives were to be removed from the parlance, or from the tongue of pen and pad...how then should any but the most vapid ideas be expressed?
No, my dear, dear, Dithers! Saying that someone is weak, transparent, unprincipled, or shallow: these are not grounds for throwing in the towel against the tradition of legitimate debate.
The critical point to any adjective is whether or not it is true and accurate. If you believe that any adjective I used against you is an unfair characterization, then I will consider any apologia you might wish to make.
I think most of the adjectives, such as "infantile", have prima facie applicability; other terms, such as "malignant", I had ample proof and support for...so I fail to see your sense of injury.
You will note that I did not twist your words to convey despicable and utter lies, as you did when you pretended that my estimating a higher civilian casualty toll was evidence of my having wished, rooted, and cheered for the death of more innocent victims: vicious, insulting, and intentionally inhuman lies.
That was truly despicable, Dithers, and evidence of an ability to act without conscience which I will forever associate with you. I saved the post as one of the most underhanded and cowardly acts of despite I have ever come across on SI.
I am sorry you take offense at being described as weak, hapless, or shallow; but are you not?? If you would conduct a conversation in good faith, I would have reason to revise my opinions; but I see no hopeful probability that you can move beyond your insistance that there is no debate possible which assesses the trageting of civilians as a moral misstep.
I hope you considered the points of your new "credible" and "respectable" friend. They comport with the general consensus that, both then and know, the major players and thinkers knew that Japan was trying to find a way to surrender, but conditionaly as was eventually done, so they would not lose the "divine throne".
Hell, the Japanese (look around) were not some racially inferior species. They knew they had no defence against starvation, disease, and the ability of the allies to strangle them at will from the air with hardly more risk than the bombing mission of the last 3 months. Hell, they hardly had a man left who could pilot a plane. As one American leader put it: "there are no targets left."
As the Admiral said, as Roosevelt said, as virtually all the great leaders said: it was over. An option to end the war by diplomatic rather than military means was in US hands: at least if we are to go by the major thinkers who have pursued this topic over the decades.
Much has been written about the "message to Russia" and the establishment of post war position. I find the evidence for this very compelling, but also very disturbing. Certainly, Communism had to be stopped from any excess of fanatical exuberance or miscalculation, but I still believe that the targeting of innocents is something the human race does not want to give moral protection to. The values of justice cannot be rationally structured around such fundamentally unjust acts. The human race have always believed this at her highest levels, and she does today. Some things are too fundamental to sweep under the carpet, or to rationalize in a cavalier or flippant manner.
Right thinking people struggle to assess these events without the bias of patriotism or prejudice. They look at their own children and they ask if they would want principles of fairness, justice, and mercy to exist for them in all of their "wars", both small and large? Even where they are angry or misinformed, they yet struggle with the inhuman idea of killing innocents.
If you had invincible mail, would you walk door to door through the homes of 1945, and shoot each man woman and child through the head? It would feel like murder, wouldn't it? It would seem entirely unjust. Would you want it done by conquerors here? This is why it is important for the international courts to continue to set a world direction to issues such as using nuclear devices, etc.
If we are responsible for justice, then we ought to be against whatever we would see as injustice if applied to our own families.
"This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."
T.S. Eliot |
