John Kerry Blasts Washington's "messianic enterprise"; says "moralism can be very defeating for the United States"
The man who today is attempting to convince the United States to go war based on the principle of moralistic intervention, was in November 1971 telling a hilarious William F. Buckley (sample line: "He is, as you will note, from Boston") that moralistic intervention is the root of America's foreign policy rot:
Well I don't think that the United States—and I think this is the biggest problem aboiut Vietnam—can necessarily apply moral, uh, moralisms to its commitments around the world, and I think this is one of the great fallacies of our foreign policy at the present moment. Interventionism, as well as globalism, both stem from the same kind of moralism. And in a certain sense I think that moralism can be very defeating for the United States and its undertakings. It gets us into a sort of messianic enterprise, whereby we have this impression that somehow we can go out and touch these other countries and change them, and I think this is what in a sense led us into Vietnam.
Watch the whole clip, which will make native Californians wonder what language is being spoken, below:
Link via the Twitter feed of Chris Fountain.
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So . . . anyway, my roommate is watching an old episode of 'Two And A Half Men' and I've come to realize why I don't like the vast majority of American 'primetime' sitcoms.
Its that fucking laugh-track that is cued to go off everytime one of these fethers opens their mouth.
I think without that most of these shows would be watchable (if only mediocre at best) but *with* it I just get repulsed.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I actually exchanged emails with Rob Long asking about laugh tracks. He said most shows don't actually use them. They get a comedian to warm up the crowd and let things rip from there.
Too lazy to look for it, but some person posted a video on YouTube of The Big Bang Theory with the laugh track removed.
The awkward pauses where the canned laughter would be makes the clip a lot funnier.
The show sucks, but they don't use a laugh track.
They most certainly do. Watch the minus laugh track clips. It would be a watchable, better than average sitcom (but still dumb) sitcom without it.
Then why can you get audience tickets?
They may edit in laughter after, but there's most certainly an audience.
Ah, I misunderstood.
That's what I meant. I'm sure the audiences does laugh, but not on cue and not for every punch line. There's definitely canned laughter they edit in if the reaction from the studio audience is inadequate.
Yeah, I don't get why it's so popular. My friends - shit, my wife - just love it.
I don't get why some people hate it with such passion, since it's not even the worst sitcom on the air right now. It's no Arrested Development, but it's still better than most stuff in the 90's was.
Every couple of decades, comedy finds minority that people feel slightly uncomfortable interacting with, then exploits that discomfort for comedic purposes. After a while, they're not so alien, and they have to find a new one. For Big Bang Theory, it's nerds. We're the new Jews. We control all the money and secretly orchestrate everything behind the scenes, we have our own culture that no one else really understands, we have an oversized influence on the culture at large, we control academia, and the country club crowd tries to politely ignore us when possible.
It is, however, nerd blackface, written to amuse the normals. They're not fooling us.
It was good before the main character started boning his neighbor.
But like moonlighting when they hooked up the show fell apart.
Because women want to be Kaley Cuoco, and men want to fuck her. Add that she can act reasonably well to the mix and you have a winner.
Dude, you totally ruined the wordplay on that line... it's "bed", not "fuck".
I like Bing Bang Theory. Then again a like Lazy Boys, Budweiser and Papa Johns pizza.
I like McDonald food and the only jeans I ever wear are 501 shrink to fit.
Also Shogun is a fucking GREAT book.
The first thing I do when visiting a big and diverse city is find where the Olive Garden is.
Another thing is that the dialogue in most network and cable shows sounds too forced and unnatural.
So you're saying this video of John F. Kerry, reporting for duty would be even WORSE with a laugh track.
I accept that premise...
Two and a Half Men doesn't actually use a laugh track. It's just awful.
I got that from wiki but I'm not sure it's true now that I think about it. It's probably a semantics game over the definition of laugh track.
The studio audience provides a laugh track. It is always enhanced, edited and filled to boot.
The Flintstones had a laugh track!
Gobbie and the Gruesomes. /pounds fist on desk repeatedly laughing.
They hated the bug music.
And Scooby!
Unless its filmed live, which I highly doubt, then laughing must be a laugh track.
Priceless!
That dude has got some crazy hair and is talking all kinds of smack! Lol
http://www.anonsgreatesthits.com
Kerry was trying to out-Yale WFB, and almost succeeded! In the end, though Buckley stayed ahead.
Are you sure about that?
Kerry is the Secretary of Defense and losing a congressional/public debate about going to war...
Hard to out-Yale that.
Are he and Hagel department-swapping?
Secretary of DEFENSE? Glad you caught that one, we'll have it changed to secretary of war before the weeks end. Keep up the budget-bloating work.
Well, of course Kerry would oppose "moralism" in Vietnam. Communism was -- at worst -- a regrettable but idealistic attempt to improve the poor and their condition. More importantly, it was a movement to eliminate rule by unenlightened ruling classes and un-intellectual bourgeois. How could anyone even talk someone out of an idealistic attempt to oust such people and help the poor, much less get militarily involved? Ngo Dinh Diem probably didn't even know anyone from Yale!
To be sure, there were several moral ambiguities and complexities in the pursuit of Marxist-Leninism that can be commented on -- never in a critical tone, but with an air of regret usually reserved for Greek tragic epics. Only then can we find healthy dialogue between the aspirants of a better society, and the servants of oppression who let them down at every turn.
That is to say, there is no similarity at all between these complex scenarios and the Ba'athist thugs who we confront today. No contradiction at all, provided that you use the words "complex" and "nuance" in a sufficiently solemn tone.
"Communism was -- at worst at best -- a regrettable but idealistic attempt to improve the poor and their condition..."
You're being facetious, but it illustrates exactly what I find so droll about these discussions. Introducing enough complexity, mitigating circumstances, and vitiating evidence provides cover for whatever is being promoted. Nothing redounds to principle and consistency is pass?. Nothing is ever analogous to anything, thus we never have to learn from mistakes and nothing is ever taken off the table. I heard somewhere the expression "swordfighting a fart," and that's exactly what Kerry makes me think of.
"Mistakes were made, but not by me."
"Swordfighting a fart" -- that's a great phrase, and I completely agree with your assessment. As a tertiary element of my distaste for these sorts of discussions, I despise the way that one side will pretend to have a moral high ground when what they have is a difference in style. The above satire, as contrasted with some hillbilly saying "Jesus thinks we should kill Ba'athists and save Communists", is not terribly distinguished by substance (though the latter is mercifully more brief). Nevertheless, with a few modifications I could submit my satire as an enlightened opinion among today's tastemakers, while the latter is jejune and unenlightened.
Howard Zinn used to say that "history is a weapon", for use against your ideological enemies. I can't help but think that language and argumentation are in the same category to people of his ilk.
I'm not sure there's much ideology left on the Left. All the partisan smoke and mirrors is basically "rooting for laundry" at this point, to use Seinfeld terminology.
I read that entire paragraph in the voice of Mayor Quimby.
http://i.qkme.me/3qfxdf.jpg
I always read everything in the voice of Mayor Quimby. And Apu. And Kent Brockman. And Hans. And Willy. And Principal Skinner. And Ralph and Chief Wiggum. And Krusty. And Otto. And Uter. And Side Show Bob.
Its god damn depressing how many decades back career politicians turn up.
A very good animation on the logic of liberalism.
Naah, it's murkin!
Looked like British racism to me, with a bunch of Poles in the comments for some reason.
The fuck is that.
That was some creepy ending.
Hey, American! Back to post horribly racist stuff again?
Crude, but still a very good take-down of liberalism. Liberalism is all about exempting people from responsibility from their own actions.
I need to see this sort of thing every now and again. It helps me cement the difference between meaningful criticism of African-American culture and actual racism. If I don't see the real thing, I lose perspective and start to get too many false positives. Thanks for being a racist dickhole, American!
American's always there for you, man.
When you've broken up with your girlfriend, he'll always be there to tell you how you were too good for her, anyways (1/64th of a percent too good for her, in fact).
When it's time to move a couch to your new place, he's right there beside you -- muttering under his breath about how you recruited him to do "nigger's work", but still.
Just because you've managed to delude yourself into thinking your policies will help the Blacks, doesn't mean you can say the n-word.
...so you're "offended" by a naughty word that is clearly being used in a satirical sense here. I feel sorry for anyone that stupid and PC; at least now we know who was on board for banning Huckleberry Finn from public libraries.
in a satirical sense here
Oh shut up. You don't care about Black people, you don't have an ounce of sympathy for Black people.
You'll make someone a fine ex-wife one day, Lydia.
Now that's funny. TIT denounces a known racist and you attack him? Who doesn't care about black people?
What?! Some of Lydia's best friends on Facebook are black!
Sarcasm, of course. Hell, I don't know. Lydia may be black. This is the Internet, after all. All I can tell about her from here is that she doesn't respect them.
She respects non-progressive non-blacks even less than blacks, and mistakes that difference a beneficial trait.
That's just slanderous, Robbers. I have it from several white Democrats of repute that they are committed to making their plantation the nicest you ever did see.
Any runaway who tells you different is just an ungrateful, goodfornothing lout.
Anyone know the racial stats on The Immaculate Trouser's neighborhood? I'd bet since he loves minorities so much he lives around a lot of them. But if he doesn't, it's totally a coincidence, because he's *not racist.*
Uh, I'm Puerto Rican and until six months ago lived in a majority-Hispanic neighborhood in Tucson.
Amazingly, yet another of the internet Thought Police fails to discern barbed humor directed at a racist.
I'm Puerto Rican
So a white Hispanic!!!
Those are the most racist kind of white people.
I see Muriken is logged on with his usual 4 or 5 monikers again.
Way to spin that into a positive.
I'm looking forward to John F. Kerry reporting for duty...as my pallbearer.
I think we're gonna need that Big Bang Theory laugh track right about now...
As my pallbearer, that is. Laugh, minions!
So he can let you down one last time....
Another irrelevant moralism -
The UK has laws against sex-selective abortion, but only in the sense that the USA has laws against undeclared wars.
"Doctors who agreed to arrange illegal abortions based on the sex of an unborn baby have been told they will not face criminal charges, despite prosecutors admitting that there is enough evidence to take them to court, it emerged on Wednesday night.
"...The [Crown Prosecution Service] acknowledged, following a 19-month inquiry, that there was sufficient evidence to warrant a prosecution with a "realistic prospect of conviction". But it told police that a "public interest test" had not been met.
"...So-called sex-selection abortion is banned in the UK and has repeatedly been condemned as "morally wrong" by ministers....But a recent Government analysis of birth records provided the first clear indications that it is be taking place within some communities in the UK."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new.....s-CPS.html
But a recent Government analysis of birth records provided the first clear indications that it is be taking place within some communities in the UK.
Anybody want to guess which communities?
Is a public interest test exactly what it sounds like? If so, can we get some of those here?
Dear H&R:
When I hit the Escape key on my keyboard, it means I want the browser to STOP LOADING THE PAGE. I don't want to to try to continue pushing some antisocial networking shit from Google User Content at me.
Dear Tod get Ghostery or NoScript or something.
I'm using Opera.
Here.Now please spare us your curmudgeon schtick.
Just wtf is going on with the face of our present day Secretary of John "Odo" Kerry?
http://images1.wikia.nocookie......efense.jpg
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....e_982w.jpg
He looks like a Muppet.
Sam.
I was thinking of the guy on the right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14njUwJUg1I
All I get from that video is an urge to give them both atomic wedgies.
look at some lazy pups
There are some epically lazy pups in that clip.
I normally hate these but...
In Washington and Oregon a steam is called a creek...and it is pronounced like crick.
In Scotland Bros are called Cunts.
It's completely different now though, becauese John Kerry doesn't have to get his hands dirty this time.
They talk like fags.
Buckley is currently clawing his way out of his grave just to kick your ass for that. Then he'll dig up and kick Gore Vidal's corpse's ass just for good measure.
And risk messing up his manicure?-No way.
And their shit's all retarded.
Before I got back on the site tonight, it occurred to me that just because Jerome Corsi is an unscrupulous, fast-buck conspiracist swindler, it doesn't mean Sec. Kerry is "fit for command."
Well, in that case, the US was fighting against communism.
In this case, the US is helping Al-Qaeda take over a country to kill Christians.
He was against America's moralism until it was his morals that were being projected.