Tide Pods or Duster Cans
45 . . . You Know, Mr. Patriot . . Doesn't Know the Words to 'God Bless America'
- Thread starter BillyL
- Start date
Iโve never seen any reliable source say that the Japanese were not only offering to surrender with reasonable terms but were prepared to do so as early as February, 1945. You care about human decency and a better world strum, World War 2 was one of the few, maybe the only full scale war with good guys and bad guys. Cry me a river, the consequences of Nazi Germany or the Empire of Japan winning that war would have been catastrophic.
Well, I offered you sources and you can dismiss them as unreliable and you can take the "acceptable" detour. The options were there.
I'm not defending the ideologies of Nazi Germany here, okay?
No one "wins" wars, either. That's another misnomer. They END, for a while, and the people who outlast the others get to impose their will. No one "wins" a war.
@strummingram I want to ask you a question. Not trolling you I really want to know. If somebody (anybody!) had a knife to your brothers neck and you had a gun ...would you pick it up and shoot the guy that possibly is going to hurt your brother? Or what would you do? Maybe you donโt know bc that sitauation will probably never happen but Iโm sure you can come up w some idea. Iโm just trying to understand your line of thinking. Is your brothers life worth more to you than some strangers whoโs trying to harm him?
I have my sources as well. I am a former history major keep that in mind.
And Iโd say defeating Japan and Germany is the very definition of winning.
Put it this way, id say modern day Japan and Western Europe arenโt exactly suffering from us imposing our โwillโ after WW2.
Compare that to the potential dystopian nightmare of imperial Japan or Nazi Germany as a postwar superpower.
I didn't mean that the American circumstances imposed following the war were harmful or bad to the defeated countries. I think the USA treated them quite well, as well as could be expected. Much better than the Soviets. As I understand it, the defeated countries were given FDR's "New Bill of Rights." Black troops might have fared better if they'd stayed over in Europe. I was saying that in war, in general, they decide to stop fighting and they agree to terms. Whoever surrenders is at the mercy, to some extent, of their adversaries. World War I's outcome led directly to World War II.
I'm also not convinced that the Soviet Union was any "better" than the Nazi's. Stalin's regime killed more people than the Nazi's, and the Soviets showed how long, and how far they would go in the following decades. It was inevitable that the Nazi's would lose once they decided to fight 2 wars at once. The Soviets beat Germany as much as the others combined. If they'd gotten all of Europe, I dunno how much different it would have been as opposed to Germany. American business interests were content to contribute to Germany's war effort before Pearl Harbor.
Japan's Empire wasn't driven by the same ideology as Hitler. The Axis Powers weren't ever going to share the wealth with each other, had they managed to be more successful. I doubt that the Nazi's believed that Japanese people were equal to their Master Race. If we're going to go full-bore speculation, then that's fine. No one will be "right" with their speculations.
That scenario is a more of an animal instinct reaction. That's also not "innocent blood" on my hands.I have had something like that happen, and I reacted just as you would imagine. I became someone totally different and went into a rage. Fortunately the guy ran away and I couldn't catch up to him. But, if I had had a gun, I might have shot at him. I would have regretted it now. And, without it ever actually happening, all I can do is speculate and say "Yes, my instinct would be to protect the person who is being threatened." It doesn't have to be my brother, it could be a stranger being raped or attacked. My instinct is to protect them from the harm being done. Stop that from happening the best way I can. That's a one-on-one situation. If it were a gang of guys, and they all ran away, I hope I wouldn't shoot to kill them as they were running away.
But, those situations are completely different from dropping bombs on innocent people, or any intentional murder of innocent people, because they live in the same designated area as the honchos trying to fight a war using military personnel somewhere else.
I don't buy that argument. At all.
Consider this one undeniable fact: after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and amid America's threat for more equally devastating strikes to come, Imperial Japan still refused to surrender.
That is not true, strum. Emperor Hirohito remained emperor in title only. He was stripped of all political power once The Constitution of Japan was enacted in 1947 and eliminated the power of the monarchy. Hirohito was reduced to a purely ceremonial role without the possession of sovereignty.
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Well sh!t, it's looking more and more like a 5 star thread now . . eh @gunslingerdick ?
You damn betcha . .
Whatโs the measurement youโre using? I admit, people making fun of @dadika13 definitely raises it some. And the โAlways Sunnyโ reference might have boosted it to a 3 star for a while. But the abundance of @strummingram poasts dragged it back down to its current, pitiful 1 star rating.
Maybe, some of you history buffs can help out our dumbass peeResident with who exactly burned down the White House . .
No one star thread makes it to the 3rd page . . . nice try, dick.
No one star thread makes it to the 3rd page . . . nice try, dick.
Thatโs just one school of thought. Austrian no less, and that itself makes me skeptical.
Well, be skeptical! lol
It's not like anything can change what actually happened anyway.
Man o' man, I haven't had any 'wings' for about 3 weeks now . . . I'm due.
Iโm in High Point. You make the trip down itโs on me. Bed and breakfast. Non ghey (I donโt care what @gunslingerdick says).
Nothing in the article refutes what I wrote.
If you are confusing Japan's idea of a conditional surrender to what they actually got then you are missing the crux of this whole debate.
Then you didn't read it.
If your whole argument is "Why didn't they surrender after Hiroshima?" I don't know. But, I've shown an abundance of information that proves that they were ready to surrender BEFORE ANY BOMB WAS DROPPED. And, they would have surrendered before more US military died in some of the last battles, too. From what I've gathered, it was a bad choice not just for the lives lost, but it made the post-war circumstances, and the Cold War (including the other wars to come) even more likely and handicapped the US in those conflicts. Imagine if Korea and Vietnam could have been avoided? Even MORE people are alive!
This proves that there were options. They did not have to kill all of those innocent people.
"The conclusion drawn unmistakably from the evidence presented, is that Byrnes is the man who convinced Truman to keep the unconditional surrender policy and not accept Japan's surrender so that the bombs could actually be dropped thereby demonstrating to the Russians that America had a new forceful leader in place, a "new sheriff in Dodge" who, unlike Roosevelt, was going to be tough with the Russians on foreign policy and that the Russians needed to "back off" during what would become known as the "Cold War." A secondary reason was that Congress would now be told about why they had made the secret appropriation to a Manhattan Project and the huge expenditure would be justified by showing that not only did the bombs work but that they would bring the war to an end, make the Russians back off and enable America to become the most powerful military force in the world.
If the surrender by the Japanese had been accepted between May and the end of July of 1945 and the Emperor had been left in place, as in fact he was after the bombing, this would have kept Russia out of the war. Russia agreed at Yalta to come into the Japanese war three months after Germany surrendered. In fact, Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945 and Russia announced on August 8, (exactly three months thereafter) that it was abandoning its neutrality policy with Japan and entering the war. Russia's entry into the war for six days allowed them to gain tremendous power and influence in China, Korea, and other key areas of Asia. The Japanese were deathly afraid of Communism and if the Potsdam Proclamation had indicated that America would accept the conditional surrender allowing the Emperor to remain in place and informed the Japanese that Russia would enter the war if they did not surrender, then this would surely have assured a quick Japanese surrender."
According to your "abundance of information" they were ready to make a conditional surrender which would have allowed them to maintain the status quo which, for obvious reasons, was unacceptable.
Furthermore, this was an empire that initiated an unprovoked attack against a nation that was not militarily engaged in the war. A nation that fought us in the Pacific theater for over three and a half years. A nation that was part of an Axis alliance that sought to rule the world. And you think we should have conceded to their request of a conditional surrender simply to save lives? Screw that.
When you pick a fight and end up getting your ass kicked, you don't get to make the rules.
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You don't know your history very well.
You win... I know you need that in order to stop.
Strum, youโre surprising the hell out of me here. Why on earth are you delegitimizating our cause and our duty to fight the Japanese in that war?
This was not a nation looking for peace. This was not something we could avoid. Take the damn pacifist glasses off. We did nothing to provoke Pearl Harbor and what were we to do once the war began? Once we took control in the later stages? Conditional surrender for the sake of appeasing a bloodthirsty, militaristic, ideology that plagued the Japanese government?
They werenโt as deliberately genocidal as the Germans, but make no mistake, they were just as brutal and in some ways, worse. Especially to white prisoners of war and those eastern Asians they deemed inferior.
Modern European judgement on a theater of war they hardly had any involvement is different than the quantifiable writings and theories of a genius.
I see. Well, you said you couldn't trust a source because they are "Austrian." I'm glad you can remove the ancestry prejudice for someone.
I don't look at the 2nd World War (or any war, if I can help it) as "our" and "us", and "them" and "they", first of all. I live here in the USA, and I pay taxes and do what I have to so as to not be hassled by any LEO's, or whatever. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. But, I don't get all jingo'ed-out about America's military endeavors.
I absolutely do NOT condone Japan's decision to attack Pearl Harbor. That was definitely asking for serious retaliation, which it got, in spades. But, to claim that America was just sitting around giving Japan hugs-and-kisses and then outta nowhere, they go Rambo on us... that's not true. FDR had Chinese preferences.
I'm not using "pacifist" glasses. I'm trying to use "totally objective, and I don't have a dog in this fight, except to see it from all sides" glasses. Howard Zinn wrote a good book called "The People's History of the United States", and he was using the same approach. Your history is from ONE perspective. I already cited a book by a former Marine General about how wars are rackets. I believe him. I believe that his perspective is worth consideration and that it plays a huge roll in these international slaughterfests.
As far as Japan being "unprovoked", I'll offer these (I didn't check to see what nationality the authors were):
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1930
https://www.learnliberty.org/blog/did-the-us-provoke-japans-attack-on-pearl-harbor/
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/war/fdr_provoked_the_japanese_attack.htm
I would use Mises.org again, but I know you're suspect of that source because they might be Austrian. We all know Austrians are biased.
Good night!
ETA: I'm also not claiming that the Japanese Empire were made-up of cool cats either. I'm just saying that it wasn't just an OOTB event!
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Where was the provocation? Are you, pacifist strum, implying an oil embargo justified the deaths of thousands of U.S. sailors by the Japanese?
Um, no... no, I'm not saying that the attack of Pearl Harbor was acceptable. As I said above, it was asking for a war, that it got. I'm simply saying that Japan didn't just do it as a goof.
I would defend my home if it were attacked, or as I've already explained earlier about seeing someone else being harmed. But, would I go fight in a war? Hell no!
DJ is right, this place is a hoot. One guy is an outright nazi and another a super pacifist. I have been laughing so hard reading this thread I can now go back to what I consider the sanity of DI.
I canโt leave without these thoughts.
Donald J Trump will be your President for 6 more years or so. How many here have seen their 401K explode since Election Day?
I would be willing to bet almost everyoneโs has, just like over on DI. Yet the wailing and knashing of teeth continues.
Adios muchachos....
Last thought, What will you say when NoKo comes to heel? Is it because of Rodman, or Obama?
I canโt leave without these thoughts.
Donald J Trump will be your President for 6 more years or so. How many here have seen their 401K explode since Election Day?
I would be willing to bet almost everyoneโs has, just like over on DI. Yet the wailing and knashing of teeth continues.
Adios muchachos....
Last thought, What will you say when NoKo comes to heel? Is it because of Rodman, or Obama?
Arm back, follow through, start cranking, WHAM!
Think about it a bit. Certainly not you sir, I assure you.
FIFY
Neither am I. As I said above, along with Germany and Italy they had dreams of conquering the planet.
Right...
Germany had plans to rule the world... I don't think japan had plans to rule the world. They sure as hell weren't going to split it 3-ways either.
