Your Political Hero

[Fbarbarossa]

Just a quick and simple one, post whoever your political hero is. The difficult one is you may only name ONE person

[Pringles]

I can name plenty, and much more prominent ones than this, such as Presidents. But Arthur Vandenberg is a man I admire greatly. 

[Rezi]

To go with an answer that isn’t well-known, I’ll go for Herbert Lehman

[Pringles]

2 minutes ago, Patine said:

I'm surprised you didn't try to say, "fuck it. Frank Underwood. No real politician measures up."

I think you, unlike others, often fail to see the separation of my "meme" side, and my real side. 😛 

Frank Underwood is great entertainment. He would not be so entertaining in real life if a figure came close to him as President. 😛 

Edited September 22, 2021 by Pringles

[WVProgressive]

Probably Bernie Sanders, since he was the first politician to really inspire me to get into politics beyond just studying it, and his ideas were highly influential in forming my own political beliefs.

[Dobs]

So many to choose from, but if it's just gotta be one- it has to be Barry Goldwater.

[Dobs]

5 minutes ago, Patine said:

*plays, "Daisy," ad* 😛

Ah yes, muckracking sensationalism, that would be right up your alley wouldn't it! 😛

[Rezi]

1 minute ago, Patine said:

No, it was up LBJ's alley. 😛

Besides, Tommy Douglas, my own, above, suffered immense muckraking as well, including the usual ammunition of hyperbolically and grossly portraying him, a Social Democrat, much more to the Left than he was that was done to many such politicians of that ideological school in most Western nations during the height of the Cold War. 😉

I’m pretty sure that portraying social democrats as literal Stalinists is one of the 20th and 21st centuries’ greatest traditions 😛 

[jvikings1]

I got my start working in politics with Rand Paul, so I have to defer to him

[vcczar]

I’m not one for hero worship. I think Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren have come closest but are like 8/10 or 9/10 in their best moments. Others have 8/10 moments. Not a single politician in my lifetime has inspired me or caused me to jump on any bandwagon. These three are leagues above the others however. 
 

in the past, I think Robert La Follette, Thaddeus Steven’s, my cousin George W Norris would have been 9/10. Possibly Ralph Yarborough of TX. 
 

My heroes are few and none in politics. 

[Timur]

Alfred the Great

Tough question though.

[Timur]

Close behind include Salmon Chase, Joseph Foraker, William Wilberforce, and Anthony Ashley Cooper the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury.

[Sean F Kennedy]

Wendell Wilkie or Bobby Kennedy 

[Dobs]

29 minutes ago, Sean F Kennedy said:

Wendell Wilkie or Bobby Kennedy 

Wilkie is a positively esoteric choice.

[MrPotatoTed]

There are a list of people I could name as having done their best in a difficult situation, but they all come with a caveat.  “Bush, except for his stance against gay marriage.” “Obama, except his weakness abroad.”  “Buttigieg, but to be fair he hasn’t been damaged by having to lead a nation through a mess yet.”

 

But there’s one politician in particular who I have always admired.  I don’t know every detail about him, so there could be skeletons I know nothing about.  But Harry S Truman is my guy. “The Buck Stops Here.”  Integrating the military, to begin weeding out racism.  And yes, the Atomic bombs.

 

That would never fly today.  Social media coverage would be relentless.  He’d be forced to resign, at the very least.  The military might even just flat out refuse his order.

 

But that’s today, when we don’t have to resort to such matters to keep our people safe.

 

At the time, though?  We absolutely did.  And Truman made clear that he was NOT fucking around.  
 

No nation has dared attack us since.  So — liberal domestic policies, while not backing down from a fight abroad, and all while having the integrity to take full responsibility for everything that happens under his watch?

We need more Harry S Truman’s.

[Pringles]

1 hour ago, MrPotatoTed said:

There are a list of people I could name as having done their best in a difficult situation, but they all come with a caveat.  “Bush, except for his stance against gay marriage.” “Obama, except his weakness abroad.”  “Buttigieg, but to be fair he hasn’t been damaged by having to lead a nation through a mess yet.”

 

But there’s one politician in particular who I have always admired.  I don’t know every detail about him, so there could be skeletons I know nothing about.  But Harry S Truman is my guy. “The Buck Stops Here.”  Integrating the military, to begin weeding out racism.  And yes, the Atomic bombs.

 

That would never fly today.  Social media coverage would be relentless.  He’d be forced to resign, at the very least.  The military might even just flat out refuse his order.

 

But that’s today, when we don’t have to resort to such matters to keep our people safe.

 

At the time, though?  We absolutely did.  And Truman made clear that he was NOT fucking around.  
 

No nation has dared attack us since.  So — liberal domestic policies, while not backing down from a fight abroad, and all while having the integrity to take full responsibility for everything that happens under his watch?

We need more Harry S Truman’s.

Harry was indeed a pleasant surprise after FDR, and especially after FDR ditched Henry Wallace lol. This country would've gone to hell if Wallace became President! 😛 

I've always liked Harry too. 

[Sean F Kennedy]

14 hours ago, Dobs said:

Wilkie is a positively esoteric choice.

He lived In Akron Ohio for a long time and the house he lived in was 2-3 streets down from where I grew up, the more I learn about him the more I like him. 

[Hestia]

1 hour ago, Patine said:

This should be a high indictment, not a source of praise. Atomic, and nuclear, weapons were the worst things to date to ever fall into humanity's collective hands. They aren't even weapons or military implements - they are nothing short of genocide devices, tools of atrocity, and the worst sort of deliberate and fast acting environmental devastation. Their very existence is a monstrous enormity. People speak that Iran or North Korea should not be allowed to have them. NO NATION ON EARTH should be allowed to have them, and there is no possible excuse by anyone with any humanity or a soul why any nation needs or justifies them. A permanent ZERO WEAPON and ZERO TOLERANCE binding agreement on nuclear weapons by ALL NATIONS ON EARTH, period, full stop, should be forged, even using draconian penalties to force compliance, and anyone who thereafter is caught authorizing and/or beginning such a program becomes a criminal against humanity and presumptive genocide with global binding enforcement. Now, while THAT IS a pipe dream, you're praising of the U.S. President who brought them into the fore just for doing so drops you dwindling ethical and moral cache even more, though you seem to be very cavalier about the monstrous high crimes and atrocities you so casually support - as long it's, "your side," doing such filth, which is no less disgusting of an attitude.

"It's not <insert horrible crime or ideology> when we do it,"

Seeming meme frame statement

How do you justify it to a nation that you had a weapon that was capable of ending the war, but instead, you didn't use it and instead sacrificed at least 100,000s or millions of lives? A study said there would've been 1.7-4 million American casualties including 800,000 deaths, as well as up to five to ten million Japanese casualties. By no means was it a good situation and I don't support using nuclear weapons in the modern era, either. In a perfect world, yes we wouldn't need nuclear weapons, but I don't see that day ever happening unless defense systems somehow make them obsolete. You're ignoring the other high crime and atrocity that would've happened - hundreds of thousands and millions of American deaths, as well as millions more of Japanese, endorsed by not using them. There is nothing that would've brought the Japanese government to surrender through ordinary means. Saying otherwise is a pipe dream. Sometimes you have to look at it through the complicated situation that it is and not the narrow focus. 

[Pringles]

2 hours ago, Patine said:

This should be a high indictment, not a source of praise. Atomic, and nuclear, weapons were the worst things to date to ever fall into humanity's collective hands. They aren't even weapons or military implements - they are nothing short of genocide devices, tools of atrocity, and the worst sort of deliberate and fast acting environmental devastation. Their very existence is a monstrous enormity. People speak that Iran or North Korea should not be allowed to have them. NO NATION ON EARTH should be allowed to have them, and there is no possible excuse by anyone with any humanity or a soul why any nation needs or justifies them. A permanent ZERO WEAPON and ZERO TOLERANCE binding agreement on nuclear weapons by ALL NATIONS ON EARTH, period, full stop, should be forged, even using draconian penalties to force compliance, and anyone who thereafter is caught authorizing and/or beginning such a program becomes a criminal against humanity and presumptive genocide with global binding enforcement. Now, while THAT IS a pipe dream, you're praising of the U.S. President who brought them into the fore just for doing so drops you dwindling ethical and moral cache even more, though you seem to be very cavalier about the monstrous high crimes and atrocities you so casually support - as long it's, "your side," doing such filth, which is no less disgusting of an attitude.

"It's not <insert horrible crime or ideology> when we do it,"

Seeming meme frame statement

This is once again where your short sightedness, lack of ability to put yourself in the shoes of the time period, causes you to have such a wrong, and shameful opinion in your attacks on Ted. 

Theres nothing wrong with feeling bad about the fact a country used a nuclear capability. I'd never want that decision to rest on me. I'd greatly fear for my mental wellbeing, morality, and spirituality. 

But in World War 2. If I was faced with the same decision President Harry Truman faced. I would do it. 

Because it is the necessary thing. I will not rampage through a indoctrinated "Imperial" society after nearly a decade of war and bloodshed. Which would result in the killings of not only thousands of military soldiers. But thousands and millions more civilians.

I will not order American soldiers to attack a nation knowing that every man who embarks on that invasion, will likely never return. And with all the Japanese deaths, I wont see even more American lives added to it.

It was a sad, terrible thing. But it was necessary. It happened. Truman does not deserve your attacks for it. And I commend Truman for having the ability to make that call. 

Because God knows it's the same call I'd make. And if I'm wrong, God forgive me, but nobody deserves the wrath of your own judgment.

[MrPotatoTed]

54 minutes ago, Hestia said:

How do you justify it to a nation that you had a weapon that was capable of ending the war, but instead, you didn't use it and instead sacrificed at least 100,000s or millions of lives? A study said there would've been 1.7-4 million American casualties including 800,000 deaths, as well as up to five to ten million Japanese casualties. By no means was it a good situation and I don't support using nuclear weapons in the modern era, either. In a perfect world, yes we wouldn't need nuclear weapons, but I don't see that day ever happening unless defense systems somehow make them obsolete. You're ignoring the other high crime and atrocity that would've happened - hundreds of thousands and millions of American deaths, as well as millions more of Japanese, endorsed by not using them. There is nothing that would've brought the Japanese government to surrender through ordinary means. Saying otherwise is a pipe dream. Sometimes you have to look at it through the complicated situation that it is and not the narrow focus. 

I believe that if you have the power to act and refuse to do so, you are as equally guilty of the outcome of your actions as you would be the outcome of your inactions.

But for Patine, there is a pattern in which he imagines refusing to act absolves you of anything that happens there after.

That's the primary difference between us, I believe.

Well, that and paragraph breaks.  ;c)

[Hestia]

6 minutes ago, Patine said:

What a load of shit!

But then again, desiring to act against among the worst crimes and criminals in our world if you praise and agree with them is not acting, is it? And opposing wrong action, action that makes one as bad as those being acted against, or desiring for the consequences of actions to be seriously analyzed and, quite possibly, met with real consequences after said drastic actions, and not have utter immunity from said consequences in review is not acting, is it?

You really have no clue about my viewpoints, which you constantly misrepresent and fail to grasp, and think that supporting crimes with no review or no restraint just because a, "crisis or wartime situation," (even if it's a red flag or lie) is a carte blanche for such abuses by Government, as long as it's a Government you're behind.

Forgive me while I go vomit!

What would you have done, given the situation being faced? 

[WVProgressive]

https://www.wagingpeace.org/were-the-atomic-bombings-necessary/

Quote

The US Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that, even without the use of the atomic bombs, without the Soviet Union entering the war and without an Allied invasion of Japan, the war would have ended before December 31, 1945 and, in all likelihood, before November 1, 1945.  Prior to the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US was destroying Japanese cities at will with conventional bombs.  The Japanese were offering virtually no resistance.  The US dropped atomic bombs on a nation that had been largely defeated and some of whose leaders were seeking terms of surrender.
 

The nuclear bombings of Hiroshima, and Nagasaki were more so us trying to prove to the Soviet Union that our metaphorical dick was bigger than theirs, rather than because it was the only alternative to an allied invasion of Japan. That being said, I think the gut-wrenching, soul saddening horrors that were displayed at Hiroshima, and Nagasaki may have served something of a good purpose, if accidently, by showing the world early, and infamously the evil, destructive power of nuclear weapons. That isn't to say that I think it was a moral action, or the decision I would have made, or even the right decision, I view it as an immoral action, that does have some value to humanity, in showing us what to never do again.

[Rezi]

19 minutes ago, Patine said:

I find the support by several posters here of bringing out and using the Atomic Bomb EVEN in light of the teetering and extremely close to defeat state that Japan was in in August 1945, and the fact that Japan wouldn't have remained in the war longer than the year's close in 1945, even without an invasion, but the defense that bringing out these instruments of genocide, engines of evil, and tools of extreme and rapid environmental devastation - NOT weapons of war or achievements good, decent people take pride in their nation stockpiling - as a necessary and, even, laudable choice of the Truman Administration, downright CHILLING!

You're right. We should've just let millions more die in needless bloodshed instead. How foolish of us.

[Edouard]

In France probably Nicolas de Condorcet, early fighter for democracy women and black people during the french revolution.

Way early on his time in terms of societal rights, he fought for what was right but he didn't prevail.

In the US probably people like Harvey Milk, those who faced their society and risked their life to make society progress are heroes in my opinion.

That's also why I respect MLK or Nelson Mandela.

Edited September 24, 2021 by Edouard

[Timur]

Well, considering that some Japanese officers were so unwilling to surrender even after the nukes were dropped that they staged a coup...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyūjō_incident