Number 93! Number 93!
More from George T., of the Anti-American Rottweiler:
In comparison, our current casualties [in Iraq] are comparable to peacetime, and in total, including accidents in the US (which will be running a little less than a thousand a year), are still lower than 1980’s peacetime fatality rates.
If you want to compare it to drunk driving, our fatality rates are less than drunk driving fatalities in Michigan or Missouri.
Oh, that one again.
By ‘casualties…comparable to peacetime,’ he presumably means deaths, and not the standard meaning, which comprises injuries — including loss of limb, paralysis, etc. Plus, the US military in the ’80s had about 3/4 million more personnel than currently. But it takes three or four sentences to properly disentangle each knot of solecism in a statement like this one, so let’s just leave the rest as it is, except for the drunk driving thing.
So ok, here’s another one. More Americans die each year due to accidents in the home (roughly 4,000) than were killed by terrorists on 9/11. Therefore, instead of sending troops overseas because of a single event, our military forces could save thousands of American lives annually by helping to secure America’s furniture and carpeting and checking for roller skates on the stairs.
Here’s another. People can whine all they like about 9/11, but old age has a 100% fatality rate — those people would all have died anyway.
There’s something deeply wrong with all these arguments, isn’t there? Help us out, George: What is it?
If you want to compare it to drunk driving, our fatality rates are less than drunk driving fatalities in Michigan or Missouri.
Or what about people who die from cancer? Have you thought about that? If the left spent all the time bitching about cancer as their bitching about the war, they might get something done.
Help us out, George: What is it?
He’s a fricking moron?
Yes. Our fatality rates are also less than the number of women under 25 who have chlamidia in Bexar County, TX. Or the number of hydrogen atoms in the universe. Or the number of skin cells I shed today. Or any number of things that aren’t fatality counts. Which proves…..?
Which proves…..?
That all liberals are traitors!
Springfield, MO has more people than we have soldiers in Iraq. I seriumly doubt they have 2 DWI fatalities a day. Springdale, AR, and Fayetteville, AR, where I live, put together (it’s damn hard to tell where one ends and another begins) have maybe 20-30 obits a day, total(actually, that includes a metro area of maybe 300,000), and a lot of people come here to retire. I’m assuming there aren’t a lot of old geezers that need a golf cart to get around, sent to Iraq. I notice most of the obits are ppl 80-90 yrs old…
The thing with George T. is that while you’re figuring out his last irrational claim, he’s already gotten three more ready to throw at you.
For instance, if one were George, one might reply, “Your disdain for the elderly is typical of Kim Jong-il supporters with an avowed pacifist/Nazi agenda. Hate brown people much?”
To which the only normal response is something like, “Wha…?”
The difference is, but for the idiot actions of Dubya et al., these 1744 American soldiers would still be alive, these tens of thousands of people would still, in overwhelming likelihood, be alive and intact; in other words, the losses are all traceable to a single preventable cause, and we can name people and agencies responsible.
Excellent point, Edmund.
It *is* something along the lines of “Well, why bother to hold drunk drivers accountable for people they kill, since they would have died someday anyway, and besides, lots of people die all the time, so what’s the big deal?”
What was that Culture of Life thing again?
Ted at Crooked Timber linked here a day or two ago, apropos the first George T. post.
Which is funny, because when things have gotten especially hairy around here, I’ve been all like, “Whoah man, this isn’t one of those anything-goes outlaw sites like Crooked Timber. We have some standards here.”
But discussions of ethics are bread and butter to them, just as making fun of right-wing rantipoles is to us — and there’s a certain crossover, I think, in that George T.’s arguments seem deeply, proteanly unethical, unethical in bouillon form, dense-packed, even if I’m not very well equipped to put names to the diversions and fallacies.
If anyone has a better grounding…
PS – comment edited a bit, although I try never to do that once a subsequent one is posted.
A couple of years ago, the Onion had an article about how the fatality rate in America is still 100%.
Gavin, I think the correct term for the logical error that George T is committing is “batsh*t crazy.” I’ve forgotten the Latin version.
this will work: George’s logical error is called “mus muris nare feculentia insania”
Gavin, I think the correct term for the logical error that George T is committing is “batsh*t crazy.” I’ve forgotten the Latin version.
No no, you see, there are scientific names for different kinds of assclown, fucktard batshit-craziness. Philosophers have been cataloguing them since about 600 BC.
Those guys over at Crooked Timber know what they are! We need this important information!
Mus muris nare! How scurrilous! Vespertilio.
So like the old urban legend about native Alaskans having many words for “snow” we can have many words to describe the various subtle shades of lunacy on the right? cool.
I posted a note in their comments asking them to drop by.
If nobody does, I guess we’ll have to… You know — the kitten thing.
NO! Not the kitten thing! In this case that would be like killing a mosquito with a cannon…
NO! Not the kitten thing! In this case that would be like killing a mosquito with a cannon…
It’s what we do best…
Gavin, I think the correct term for the logical error that George T is committing is “batsh*t crazy.” I’ve forgotten the Latin version.
I think you can find it here.
Brad,
I’m reminded of that famous quote of Ben Bradlee from “All the President’s Men” where he tells the boys about a story he once wrote, stating that J. Edgar Hoover would be replaced. The next day the president appointed him director for life. Everyone said to Ben, thanks a lot, you got us Hoover for life.
Did I make the same mistake and started the kitty wars?
mrew mew mjau meow meermeer kpllt.
HEY SEXY! WANNA BANG?! I KNOW YOU WANNA SEE ME NAKED! OH BABY! My CUM IS READY FOR YOU BABY!
this is bold
this is itaclized or whatever
i hate the crater of kitty canon i wish that me died and i will band kitty games forever