hardly qualifies as "retroactive chickenhawk guilt blubbering". Pri you have a habit of lathcing on to someone you disagree with and trying to twist everything they say, or have ever said to depict them as disengenuous.

Likewise many of those anti-war protestors from back in the 60's are now captains of industry, and I bet you many of them are now "jingoistic faux patriots" themselves.

As for Jane Fonda, no matter how far to the left I leaned "back in the day" she is a traitorous cunt, who I would not piss on if she were on fire, who will never be forgiven by anyone who lost family or friends in the Viet Nam war.

I agree we never should have entered the conflict, but trying to prove a negative is a hard thing to do. We don't KNOW what the world would like like today if not f0r the Viet Nam war. Just like we don't know what would have happened if we had not invaded Iraq. Everyone seems to forget the oil crisis of just a couple of years ago. Can you imagine the panic if Saddam was still in power and managed to close the Straits of Hormuz. Oil would have eclipsed the $500 bbl mark and the world's economy could have easily crumbled. I can't prove it, but neither can you disprove it. Like I said, "it's hard to prove a negative"

Speaking of Dwight Eisenhower, if you check your history, you'll see that America's involvement in Vietnam goes back to his administration, long before the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Read up on Dien Bien Phu, where the French were soundly defeated by the NVA. Ho Chi Mien asked for the USA's assistance in defeating the French, to become an independent nation, and Eisenhower refused. Ike told Uncle Ho that the French were our allies, and we had to support them. We did just that. So, Ho Chi Mien asked his neighbors to the north for help. The Chinese were more than happy to assist him....with a few strings attached, of course.

eulogized Senator Morris for standing up against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. I know about the corruption of the Thieu government, how Brown and Root made billions during the Vietnam war etc. I get it. I don't miss the fact, the Vietnam War, was an ugly, tragic, mismanaged episode in American history with a loss of life on all sides. Someday I like to discuss a historical view on Vietnam, with facts and without emotional distortions. Those who fought in 'nam, lost loved ones, protested, and sacrificed themselves by following the orders of others deserve better than imitations of tired political lines that play on emotions.

Thank you for reminding me, that one of the reasons I changed my view on Vietnam and became a conservative was because the only sensible discussions I could ever receive on the war were from those served in country. Your quote:

"if we don't stop the commies now, they'll be in Hawaii next". Didn't happen, did it ?

Your mocking self answer to your question is symbolic of these emotional distortions of history. Yes, you are correct, the communists did not take over Hawaii. What you don't acknowledge are the sacrifices our men and women made in Korea and Vietnam and countless other bloody skirmishes on the ground, air and sea, you never hear about, I will probably never know, because these stories are of no interest and run counter to people's version of events. I am though, learning something new from Jersey and other vets.

Because we stood our ground in Korea and Vietnam, democracies and economies are flourishing in South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore et al. That is a fact. Yes, not everything has gone according to plan and been neatly delivered for the 6:00 o'clock news but I for one, (and this is where I do get emotional) am grateful for those who obeyed orders and answered the call for duty.

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his policies using the rules of engagment of law enforcement objectives rather than pursuing terrorists as a military strategy. Case in point, how silly was the FBI, in that they had to resort to entrapement to handcuff a mentally-ill, nineteen year old student on terrorist charges in Portland Oregon this past weekend.

TARP bailout! Don't get me started. Oh, believe me many conservatives objected to TARP 1 engineered by BUsh and Paulson. What I don't get, is why does Obama hire the same architects that led us into that Wall Street fiasco to reform our financial system i.e. Messrs. Geithner, Smith et al. It's been over two years since Lehman Brothers fell, why is Bernie Madoff the only one in jail? Instead of following the party line of your boss, you should be asking President Obama the same question. Until we clean up the moral bankruptcy not the financial debt on Wall Street, will this country be creditable and be able to recover economically.

The war on drugs. Well, this where I do miss President Reagan. Just say, no, baby.

President Bush was not perfect but he did keep us safe.

Anything else?

but yes I agree, I am still rather liberal on social issues, freedom of choice, gay marriage, 1st and 5th ammendment issues, ect., but as a pragmatist I realize that we can't "feed all the poor", because some of them will never get off their lazy asses if we do so. We also can't push everyone into home ownership, just because it's the American Dream, as the housing debacle has proved. We can't all "just get along", as there are people in this world who wish us serious harm, and all the polyanna rationales in the world won't change that fact.

Yes the list goes on and on. I think many of us liberals turned conservative would truly like to be liberals, but have been forced to accept the reality that liberalism pushed too far would be the complete undoing of all we hold dear.

Twice in this thread you conveyed war stories about relatives which is the very thing about which you railed against SJ.