Shapiro vs. Shapiro
In one corner, the indefatigable Ben Shapiro:
“I’m Ben Shapiro.”
The “chickenhawk” argument is dishonest. It is dishonest because the principle of republicanism is based on freedom of choice about behavior (as long as that behavior is legal) as well as freedom of speech about political issues.
In the other corner, the indefatigable Ben Shapiro:
“No, you ass, I’m Ben Shapiro.”
Well, the problem with [the ‘live and let live’ mentality] is that when you ask society to tolerate and accept what you’re doing, then really you are forcing your opinion on someone else, you are affecting me. It’s not just you doing something privately in your own home and not asking me about it, it’s you asking me about it and then saying that you have a right to do it and forcing your opinion on me.
While they’re beating each other up, let’s return to the ‘chickenhawk’ question in the latest Shapiro column:
We constantly vote on activities with which we may or may not be intimately involved. We vote on police policy, though few of us are policemen; we vote on welfare policy, though few of us either work in the welfare bureaucracy or have been on welfare; we vote on tax policy, even if some of us don’t pay taxes.
We write entire books on sexuality in America as a 21-year-old virgin. We pontificate about the soul of rural America based on a junket to the Oklahoma City metro area. What a great country!
Isn’t this supposed to be a war? A war to the bitter end against an axis of evil, intent on destroying Western civilization? A war in which the future of the free world hangs in balance? Threats of suitcase nukes, etc? Yet all of a sudden, Ben’s likening it to a debate on tax policy.
This is the old “We’re at war!/ Well, it’s not like an actual war-war, exactly” trick in action. We’ll explore this trick in greater detail anon, but suffice to say that as soon as any notion of ‘sacrifice’ comes into things, the stick-wavers and scaremongers go stampeding for the exits, pleading personal choice and individual freedom, and forgetting all about the gigantic global emergency they were yelling about just two seconds before.
They do it literally every time. One moment, the War on Terror is like the fight against Hitler. The next, they’re all like, “I don’t see what my enlisting would accomplish,” and treating it like a televised sporting event where a citizen’s sole duty is to root for the home team. Then before you know it, they’re back to yelling that America is under attack, and we’re all literally going to die if we don’t boldly face the enemy.
Zoom!
The “chickenhawk” argument proves only one point: The left is incapable of discussing foreign policy in a rational manner. They must resort to purely emotional, base personal attacks in order to forward their agenda.
We were just busy reading Juan Cole on the Iraqi parliamentary process, but yes, we are unable to avoid noting that Ben Shapiro is a pee-gargling monster twat.
Broadband raw Iraq war footage bonus: Calling Private Shapiro…
The emotional left can’t discuss policy rationally, only ad homimem from those dishonest, irrational sons of bitches!
The “chickenhawk” argument proves only one point: The left is incapable of discussing foreign policy in a rational manner. They must resort to purely emotional, base personal attacks in order to forward their agenda.
Yes, and “WE MUST INVADE OR SADDAM WILL NUKE YOU!!!” is a purely rational argument.
I see no contradiction between what the two Bens have to say. See, you’re free to make whatever choice you want, as long as it’s legal. If you choose not to fight in a war when you’re part of a minority advocating its perpetuation but that war is languishing for lack of enough troops, then that’s OK–it’s just your personal choice as a red-blooded libertarian American. But if I choose to indulge in the sweet luxury of a legal abortion or to have sex out of wedlock, then what I do affects others and leads to the breakdown of society because it causes other people to accept it and to do it, too. See, in the first case, it’s every man for himself and no harm done. In the second case, we live in a society in which each person’s conduct influences the others’.Gosh, now that I see it in print, it is pretty different. I guess the difference is that if Ben thinks it’s OK, then it’s OK for society. If Ben disapproves, it’s wrong and no one should be allowed to do it.
good thing we invaded, i guess.
rational rational rational. ben keeps using that word. i do not think it means what he thinks it means.
It is dishonest because the principle of republicanism is based on freedom of choice about behavior (as long as that behavior is legal)
so the definition of “honesty” is whether it comports with Ben Shapiro’s principles of republicanism?
and isn’t the choice/legal behavior statement a total red herring? Exhibit A is abortion, of course. Exhibit B is obviously porn. Two legal activities that I would bet Ben and other republicans don’t think is ok to “choose”.
and of course, it can’t really be true that Ben Shapiro is perfectly happy to stop “choosing” to do certain things once they become illegal.
What a colossally bad column from Ben. If you read his work chronologically, you can see the transitions: Ben burying his head in sand, Ben’s head filling up with sand, Ben’s head becoming entirely composed of a crab-droppings-and-sand paste, and finally, in this last column, his sand head being washed away by a mixture of evening tidewaters and the urine of a shivering 7 year old.
Ugh! Shades of Max on Max.
Very evocative, Hemlock.
You know, I think I love Lucy (ha ha ha. Sorry).
Right Wingers try (in vain) to derail the chickenhawk argument
Ben Shapiro from Clownhall tries to defuse the argument against those who are huge cheerleaders for war (as long as they don’t have to fight it themselves or put their children in harm’s way) Ben Shapiro from Clownhall tries to defuse the argument against those who are huge cheerleaders for war (as long as they don’t have to fight it themselves or put their children in harm’s way)
Man, I saw Ben Shapiro’s picture in the back of his book “The Porn Generation” and I immediately thought “nerd.” I bet the real reason he’s against social liberalism is that he just can’t get any.
Chickenhawks appear to believe there is an unyet discovered right that will be distilled from the Constitution, perhaps by Justice Roberts. This is the right to make inconsistent, incompatible and irrational choices and NOT BE CRITICIZED for doing so.
Clearly they have a right to monger war and to choose not to enlist. But we clueless lefties didn’t realize that they also have the right to sue if we call them flaming hypocrites for doing so.
When Spielberg chooses to create a sympathetic character who upholsters her car seats in kitten fur and cherishes two pet cats named Sam and Frodo, no critic can legally jeer at the disconnect. No one is allowed to notice the discrepancy between claims people make about church attendance and the actual figures for church attendance in the U.S. It is apparently against the law for anyone to grasp that Roman Catholics undergo abortions at the same rate as non-Catholics.
Well, I hate to rib Jim again-and it’s all in good fun, really!-but…
Oh, hey, look! It’s Jim’s dream date! The Ben Shapiro twins!
Y’know, in some ways, I almost wouldn’t mind the return of the draft, just so little twerps like VBen could become part of Shrubby’s nearly-endless supply of cannon fodder. Except…
I know damned well if Chimpy had all the soldiers he could ever want, he’d only be encouraged to get us involved in many more pointless wars, just ‘cos he could. Secondly, in reality, well-connected young Rethuglicans would manage to get exempted from a draft, just like Arbustoboi, even if, ostensibly, the draft was supposed to spread the chances around to all groups. There would be some loophole that only College Rethugs would be able to take advantage of.
Man, I saw Ben Shapiro’s picture in the back of his book “The Porn Generation” and I immediately thought “nerd.” I bet the real reason he’s against social liberalism is that he just can’t get any.
I like nerds. I think they’re adorable. And of course. But when I saw the front of Ben’s book, I immediately thought “asshole”, and assumed the reason he was against social liberalism is that he just can’t get any.
Meanwhile, Ben, the chickenhawk argument is neither irrational nor dishonest. It *is* disingenuous, a bit, like people who insist terrorism must be defeated *at all costs*, but consider actually fighting said terrorism themselves to be too high a cost.
Of course, there are ways to cut down on terrorism that don’t involve fighting a dishonest war of choice in a country that had nothing to do with the Islamic terrorism we have to defeat at all costs before we went there to defeat it at all costs, and these ways can, in fact, include what could possibly be referred to as “a war of ideas”, but they don’t, by definition, involve fighting a dishonest war of choice in a country that had nothing to do with the Islamic terrorism we have to defeat at all costs before we went there to defeat it at all costs.
I know that’s hard to follow, Benny, so read it over a few times, maybe diagram it, and don’t write anything else fucking stupid until you get it. Or, just ever.
On the other hand…do you really think Ben Shapiro would make a good soldier? I mean, c’mon, this twerp would probably suck at KP or latrine duty. You want him in combat? Have a heart! Think of the OTHER soldiers! (By the same token, when I hear people suggest Bush’s daughters be drafted, I always think, “Yeah, that’s just what the army needs-a pair pampered drunken party girls.”)
I’m not advocating Ben join up, anymore than I think he ought to get knocked up before he spouts off about abortion.
I think my point is “Think about it a little harder, buddy, realize that if YOU don’t want to do something (get shot by angry Iraqis, carry Jeff Gannon’s child to term), maybe OTHER people don’t, either, and stop telling them they should do stuff you wouldn’t.”
In other words, my ideal solution is for him to get enlightened, not enlisted.
I’m sorry. Was the pregnancy analogy too revolting? It distracted from my point, didn’t it.
Darn it.
Ah, D. Sidhe, I guess that’s where my luxurious legal-abortion indulgence comes in. No More Guckerts!! OK, that was wrong, and poor little hypothetical Gannon-Embryo didn’t deserve it. But one would think that your point would be so obvious (and I mean that as a compliment, as in, it should be a self-evident truth) that every chickenhawk should be unable to pretend not to see it and admit it. YES, we are saying that if you promote a war, someone is going to have to fight it, and as a true-blue patriot, you’d better have a damn sight better reason than (1) I have more important things to do, (2) why should I? (3) I have a right not to, (4) shut up, I don’t see you signing up, either, (5) I support the troops and am happy to do my part by calling them all heroes, you treasonous liberal, (6) let the poor people do it, (7) I would but my mom, Lucianne, won’t let me.Anne, thank you for the nice thought.
Hemlock Echo, I forgot to mention that that was masterful. The head filling up with crab droppings and sand paste is an image that will stay with me. 🙂
can we get a tag team debate?
ben and michelle vs. ben and michelle?
It might be hard to get Ben into the unitard, and yes, it might be entirely redundant to do so, but I think he might just tag out against himself.
If the match is boring , we could add either Jello(TM) or Marie Jello’, if she’s not too busy as ref.
Because the army fills with ‘bens’ during each draft, someone had a better idea.
and created Halliburton.
taliBEN Shapiro doesn’t want to fight religious extremism abroad? Wow, what a revelation, seeing as how he wants to aid and abet it hear at home.
What is shocking, however, is that he is now pro-choice.
Looks like James Dobson and the American Taliban my start gunning for him…
Ben Shapiro is a pee-gargling monster twat
Nein! Ben! Geliebter! Mein schatz! NEIN!
[whimpering] No Ben, not THAT. Not kink, anything but kink! Watersports? Oh, how could YOU? I thought you were happy with our Vanilla Gay Love. Nooooooo………
[shakes fist] Damn you Gavin M., damn you all to HELL! You’ve ruined Ben and mine’s perfect love. Now I only have Judson Cox left. Damn YOU.
You know, I never really noticed before but Virgin Ben’s initials are BS….
OOOH, watch it, Timmah, so are MINE.
True, it would be bad for our beleaguered army, but look on the bright side: looking to scam some cheap liquor on the streets of Baghdad, there’s an excellent chance that a Muslim fanatic would target them for assassination merely because of their association with “demon rum.”
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