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| Lindsay Graham... I'm really shocked. (Page 1/2) |
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82-T/A [At Work]
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JUN 07, 01:17 PM
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Just want to point this out... for anyone who's seen the new Tucker Carlson episode on Twitter. It's only 10 minutes, but here it is...
https://twitter.com/TuckerC...1666203439146172419?
Blah blah... I know, 67 million views in 12 hours, all that good stuff.
But what I want to focus on is what Lindsey Graham said. The conversation he had at the table with Zelensky just absolutely shocks me. It basically went something like this...
(some bull **** chatter)...
Zelensky: "Now we are free!"
Graham: “And the Russians are dying. It’s the best money we’ve ever spent.” … as he says with a sick grin on his face.
WHO THE **** SAYS THIS??? Look… I’ve been hating Russia since LONG before it was cool to… but I don’t hate the Russian people. I don’t want anyone to die? I just don’t like their politics or style of government.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong… because I can’t comprehend how someone who isn’t totally sick in the head would say something like this. Seriously. Aside from all the other things wrong with this… what exactly does this say to the Russian people who are not sure what they think about America, but dislike Putin… this is ammunition for Putin. But at the heart of it, what really, really upsets me, is that I think he may actually not really care… or somehow he thinks this is really cool. The reality of war is really, really horrible. Every single one of these people had a mom, or a family member, or potentially someone who cared about them. Is he so separated from reality that he can’t feel this?
Like, man… I know I’m being dramatic here, but what the ****. I’ve not only just lost respect for Lindsay Graham… but the guy is a ****ing horrible person.
“The Russians are dying. It’s the best money we’ve ever spent.”
When people are able to convince themselves that others are “lesser,” there is no limit to the atrocity that they’re willing to commit in the name of (insert justification here).
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ray b
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JUN 07, 02:31 PM
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SC is full of themselves and a bunch of wacko's
govinator wants to hunt liberals ?
same people are proud of starting the civil war ?
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MidEngineManiac
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JUN 07, 03:13 PM
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| quote | Originally posted by ray b:
SC is full of themselves and a bunch of wacko's
govinator wants to hunt liberals ?
same people are proud of starting the civil war ?
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Already got my permit.
 [This message has been edited by MidEngineManiac (edited 06-07-2023).]
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cliffw
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JUN 07, 11:52 PM
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Todd, I did not see it. I like Tucker but, I won't even click on your link to see him say that. Your word is good to me.
That is sick !
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rinselberg
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JUN 08, 01:34 AM
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“And the Russians are dying. It’s the best money we’ve ever spent.”
~ U.S. Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham.
I did not use Todd's link to hear Lindsey Graham's words or see his face and body language when he said that.
I am anything BUT a fan of Lindsey Graham. I can think of numerous ways and issues and episodes of Lindsey Graham where I think he was completely and conspicuously wrong.
But having said that, I think there is a context to this remark about "Russians dying" that makes it not such an ugly or even an "un-American" sentiment, as to call for unequivocal condemnation of Lindsey Graham over this remark. That context, of course, being Russia's military conflict with Ukraine. That's the context in which Lindsey Graham was speaking when he said that.
He said "the Russians are dying", not just "Russians are dying." That signals (at least to me) that Graham was thinking of the Russian soldiers and mercenaries who are bringing violence and destruction to Ukraine and its people, and thinking of Russia's political and military leaders who are responsible for these crimes against peace and crimes against Ukraine's national sovereignty. That signals to me that Graham is not directing this "dying" remark against the Russian people "writ large" or Russian people in general.
I think that word "the" in "the Russians are dying" should be singled out in this way, but even if he had just said "Russians are dying", I would give him a pass on it because of the context.
A more intelligent politician, speaking to that same point in the same context, would have chosen his or her words more carefully, to make the same point, but without referring explicitly to the deaths of any Russians or the deaths of anyone else that's going against Ukraine in this conflict.
But having considered it to this extent, I am not ready to condemn this particular remark from Lindsey Graham as the words of a psychopath, or a war criminal or a Russia-hater or anything of that kind.
"So Russia, if you're listening...", don't be too hard on Lindsey Graham for this remark.
See what I just did?
 [This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 06-08-2023).]
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82-T/A [At Work]
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JUN 08, 08:01 AM
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| quote | Originally posted by rinselberg:
He said "the Russians are dying", not just "Russians are dying." That signals (at least to me) that Graham was thinking of the Russian soldiers and mercenaries who are bringing violence and destruction to Ukraine and its people, and thinking of Russia's political and military leaders who are responsible for these crimes against peace and crimes against Ukraine's national sovereignty. That signals to me that Graham is not directing this "dying" remark against the Russian people "writ large" or Russian people in general.
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Rinse... I'm disappointed in your comments here. No one denies that what Russia is doing is bad, that wasn't being questioned. But that does not mean that anyone should take pleasure in someone dying, regardless if they are a soldier. I say again, when you're able to view others as "lesser" it makes justifying death easier, and that becomes an issue. The point here isn't to suggest that Ukraine doesn't have a right to defend itself, or that perhaps we should (or should not) be helping them. The point is the fact that Lindsey Graham seemed to take great pleasure in the fact that people were dying. We all know he's talking about Russian soldiers... that doesn't change the fact that he seemed to really enjoy it.
Please allow yourself to be introspective here... and consider why (if I'm understanding correctly) you possibly think death is acceptable if there is "x" justification. Sometimes it's a necessity in war, but that does not beget humanity or mean that somehow you or anyone else should be enjoying it. Please really think about this.
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williegoat
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JUN 08, 10:56 AM
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In my opinion, Lindsey Graham is typical of what we mean when we use the word "politician" as a pejorative.
He is wholly unprincipled and untrustworthy. His favorite special interest is Lindsey Graham.
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rinselberg
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JUN 08, 11:44 AM
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If I were going to take this on as some kind of research project, the question I would focus on is whether Lindsay Graham actually enjoyed the thought that Russians were dying in this military conflict, or merely looked and sounded as if he was taking pleasure in that thought. Todd has seen that video. I have not.
I think his "Russians are dying" remark was his clumsy and actually lazy way of expressing a more nuanced thought that was actually in his head, about the efficacy of the international military support that the U.S. has organized, involving the U.S. and the NATO partners and maybe some other countries that have contributed to Ukraine's cause in this conflict.
Whenever I think of Lindsey Graham, I think of a moment that I remember (not all that clearly) where he was talking about the urgency of federal assistance for South Carolina in the wake of a big hurricane that brought widespread and very damaging flooding across large swathes of South Carolina, and it was pointed out that a year or some years before that, Lindsey Graham had cast his vote in Congress against the federal aid package of Hurricane Sandy relief for New York and New Jersey and the other states that were damaged by Hurricane Sandy. (I think that was an outlier hurricane that kind of skipped over the southeastern states like South Carolina that are the usual hurricane victims and went straight for New York, New Jersey and the New England states.)
Of course, maybe there was a more nuanced reason for his having voted against federal Hurricane Sandy relief for New York and New Jersey and then, subsequently, calling for federal hurricane relief for his own state of South Carolina. Something involving differentiations among various state economies and state and federal tax revenues and expenditures on a state by state basis... whobody knows? Not me. I never "drilled down" on it. It just struck me as "suspicious", and that memory has stayed with me.
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MidEngineManiac
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JUN 08, 12:16 PM
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I would think he meant it the same way I do when I say the same thing about The Muzz, wokesters, feminazis, dopers and other undesirables, ect, ect, ect
Which is to say....GOOD, if they are dead they cant irritate me anymore. I don't really give a rats ass HOW they go away, just so long as they get and stay there. Dead is certainly one of those options.[This message has been edited by MidEngineManiac (edited 06-08-2023).]
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82-T/A [At Work]
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JUN 08, 01:58 PM
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| quote | Originally posted by rinselberg:
If I were going to take this on as some kind of research project, the question I would focus on is whether Lindsay Graham actually enjoyed the thought that Russians were dying in this military conflict, or merely looked and sounded as if he was taking pleasure in that thought. Todd has seen that video. I have not.
I think his "Russians are dying" remark was his clumsy and actually lazy way of expressing a more nuanced thought that was actually in his head, about the efficacy of the international military support that the U.S. has organized, involving the U.S. and the NATO partners and maybe some other countries that have contributed to Ukraine's cause in this conflict.
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I hope so... I hope you're right and that's all this is.
| quote | Originally posted by MidEngineManiac:
I would think he meant it the same way I do when I say the same thing about The Muzz, wokesters, feminazis, dopers and other undesirables, ect, ect, ect
Which is to say....GOOD, if they are dead they cant irritate me anymore. I don't really give a rats ass HOW they go away, just so long as they get and stay there. Dead is certainly one of those options.
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I think that's wrong to be cavalier about that, but I understand how someone gets that way. Maybe it's me... I'm somewhat broken after the time I spent deployed. I hate pointing that out because I don't want to make it look like I did some great thing (I didn't) or have some great insight (I don't), but it definitely changed me. Seeing the Afghan civilians nonchalantly shoveling up entrails and body parts of women and children after a car bomb, and putting them into the back of a pick-up truck with the other (mostly in pieces) bodies of civilians... it ****s you up. It had absolutely no affect on me at the time (that I could tell), but I guess I internalized it. A full year later, when we pulled out of Afghanistan, I basically lost my mind, and I just haven't really been the same since. I think about it almost daily... but I keep it together. Life is really a gift... and we've become so callous and self-centered as a world and society...
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