Tuesday, December 7, 2004

Chuckie Watch 77: Bonus! Chuckie's letters

Chuckie presents fan letters at his Web site for his rants on his Soapbox page.  One of his more colorful recent selections featured his enthusiasm for what appeared to be the unprovoked shooting of a wounded prisoner in a mosque by an American Marine.  See Chuckie Watch 74 and my other non-Chuckie posts on the case of 11/29/04 and 11/30/04.

Since my one claim to fame is that I'm one of the country's leading experts on the political philosophy of Chuckie, I would say in my expert opinion that Chuckie seemed far more enthusiastic about this incident than about anything involving our soldiers actually doing their duty in an unquestionably legal manner.

Not all of Chuckie's readers took such a dim view of his praise of what may well turn out to be a serious criminal act.  For instance, this unnamed e-mailer (I'm not sure if Chuckie's vetting process for letters measures up to, say, that of a rural weekly newspaper; I'm guessing it doesn't).

young marine(12/1/2004 12:21:56 PM)
  .....Thank you Charlie....I agree that the marine was doing his duty, and should be given a commendation for possibly saving his fellow marines that day. It would be a travwsty for him to be punished for doing his job to protect us. I agree with Gen. Bedford Forrest.....the darned war is over when we kill the last one!! Going to war with an enemy that only wants you dead does not leave room for any other option. We can't surrender, pay any ransom, Heck, we can't even give them our country to keep them from killing us. I agree with them that if this is indeed a Holy war, lets oblige them and war on their terms. They may run out if virgins or at least have to settle for a few less than the 32 they say they are expecting to get for blowing themselves up, but hey....we all have to put up with a little disapointment in life. Again, thanks for being a real American and getting some of the "Dixie Chick" taste out of my mouth. (EDITED)

Anybody want to speculate about what he means about the "'Dixie Chick' taste" in  his mouth?  I don't want to go there.  They may run out of virgins?  I don't know anything more about this writer than what I just quoted, but he probably is overdue getting laid.  By the way, for those of you rusty on your Civil War history, "Bedford Forrest" would be Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate general notorious for the Fort Pillow Massacre of black Union troops, and also for founding the Ku Klux Klan.

In fact, it almost too appropriate that people who idolizes Klan founder Forrest would be having sexual fantasies around the shooting of a wounded, unarmed prisoner.  This tempts me to start writing my own fan letters to Chuckie in Southern-blowhard-whiteguy voice and sign them "Proud American Patriot" or something and see if Chuckie would print any of them on his site.  Printing fan letters like this without names and/or e-mail addresses is pretty hokey.

This is another one:

Young Marine(11/24/2004 7:14:52 PM)
  .....I was touched by your recent article on how the news media chooses to second guess our fighting men and women and how they recently treated the young marine who chose to kill an Iraqi insurgent. Thank you for standing tall beside this young man who only he and God knows what really happened. Unless you've been there or are there, one does not really know the true feeling of war and all it's events. We could only wish that America would quit quoting "We are behind our troops" and then turn around in the same breath and want to crucify them for performing their duties. War is far from glamous and in the end there are no real hero's just a bunch of kids that must live with what they have endured. The Arab who was involved in the 911 bombing has been shown more rights and favortism than our fighting men and women. God bless our soldiers and thank you for standing tall with our boys!

Only he and God knows what happened?  Well, except for the other witnesses and the cameraman who was there and taped the thing.  Actually, a large fragment of the human race knows what happened; the only question is whether it was an overt criminal act or a tragic mistake.  Or, if you're Chuckie and his like-minded fans, an heroic and courageous act.  This writer deliberately equates expressions of concern about what could well be a serious violation of the law and a completely unnecessary killing with "want[ing] to crucify [our troops in Iraq] from performing their duties."

Whatever warped version of warmongering passes for patriotism among the "Ah love Genrul Forrest" Fan Club, shooting unarmed wounded prisoners in mosquest is not part of the duty of American soldiers.  Since American soldiers in urban combat in Iraq often have to constantly make quick decisions about whether someone in the street is a threat or not, and since I'm going to presume that most of them try to avoid killing noncombatants unnecessarily, it's pretty sickening to see someone try to characterize this mosque shooting as no different than any soldier doing their duty.

This is an old favorite of the John Birch crowd about why it's not Patriotically Correct to call the United States a democracy:

Not A Democracy!!(11/24/2004 5:20:02 PM)
  .....Regarding the "Honoring our democracy" statement, a correction is in order. Democracy is simply mob rule. The United States is a constitutional republic. I won't take a lot of space defining the difference - look it up! God bless our troops who defend our republic.

In ChuckieWorld, stuff like this actually makes some kind of sense.

Here's someone who wants his brother who's supposedly a Marine in "the Middle East" to shoot any dang A-rab that moves:

Marine self-defense(11/23/2004 2:12:27 AM)
  .....My 19 year old brother is a Marine in the Middle East. I pray he doesn't hesitate to shoot anyone "playing dead" - the media seems to have forgotten that our brave young soldiers are dealing with people who rig themselves, women and children with deathtraps. This is not the gentle kind of war they'd prefer...real people are dying. It's s shame the media is only concerned about the terrorists we kill and not our own men and women we're losing.

What planet do people like this live on?  Oh, yeah, ChuckieWorld.  Now, I've followed the Iraq War news fairly closely all along.  I don't remember hearing about any female combatants on the other side, though there may well have been some.  I've heard about the occasional female suicide bomber in Israel.  But I don't recall hearing of any in Iraq.  And I also don't recall hearing about "children with deathtraps."  Also, I doubt very seriously that any soldier returning from combat in that hellhole over there needs to hear his family praising the idea of indiscriminately shooting children and unarmed prisoners.  Also, it's too bad that "the media" in ChuckieWorld are not concerned about the American men and women being killed, because here on Planet Earth those are almost the only deaths in Iraq we hear about.

Okay, I'm starting to get a nauseous feeling, and I don't think it is from the chocolate bar I just ate.  So I'll close with one more of Chuckie's fans honoring our soldiers with their Christian Republican Values (Nathan Bedford Forrest version):

semper fi(11/22/2004 1:07:36 PM)
  .....Right on Charlie! You nor anyone else needs to know the facts in this incident. It doesn't matter if the Iraqi was innocent or injured or defenseless or bound up or if he was being beaten like a dog. What matters is that our guys are always right and those people are always wrong. The Iraqis are guilty, they deserve to die, even if their guilt is just by association. semper fi!

I'm sure Chuckie is happy to see how much he's spreading the love of Jesus among his fans.  If you need to induce heaves, you can go to the link above and see more.

(All the letter quoted above were accessed 12/05/04.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"This is an old favorite of the John Birch crowd about why it's not Patriotically Correct to call the United States a democracy:

Not A Democracy!!(11/24/2004 5:20:02 PM)
 .....Regarding the "Honoring our democracy" statement, a correction is in order. Democracy is simply mob rule. The United States is a constitutional republic. I won't take a lot of space defining the difference - look it up! God bless our troops who defend our republic."

That's funny; in the other "Chuckie Watch" post, I go about making the constitutional Republic arguement (if you can call what I said an argument), to use against Chuck's logic.  Interesting.  Don't worry, though, I'm not a Bircher.

Anonymous said...

No, don't worry.  Your point in the Chuckie Watch comments was right on the mark.  Democracy doesn't mean that the majority rules all the time on every issue.  And the Constitution is explicitly designed to put limits on the "tyranny of the majority."  Which is the point that you were making there.

The Bircher particular twist on the republic/democracy business is a form of conservative comma-dancing.  In the *Federalist Papers*, you see Hamilton and Madison and Jay making a political-theory point about how this is not a pure democracy.  In the language of the time, references to classical Greece were very common.  The Founders took the example of Athenian democracy to show how popular rule without proper limits could lead to tyranny and disaster.  The Founders tended to see Sparta as more of a model, which for them emphasized responsible citizenship and a sense of commitment to the public good.

But the terms "democracy" and "republic" were used interchangeably in political conversations at the time.  The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia used the terms that way (without checking the list, I believe all three *Federalist Papers* authors were present).  Thomas Jefferson's party, which took shape in the late 1790s, was called the Democratic-Republican Party.  The debate over the form of government and the Constitution focused on democracy vs. monarchy, federal power vs. states rights, government power vs. individual liberty.  It was not about "republic" vs. "democracy."

The Birchers hate democracy/republicans for exactly the reason you noted in your Chuckie comment: they want to see authoritarian rule (by rightwing white people) not restrained by limits on governmental power. - Bruce