08-11-2023, 07:14 PM
(08-10-2023, 06:46 PM)Dill Wrote: LOL "Us" again. Your quote below, from post #60, was the occasion for my use of your term "common experience."
"As SSF puts it," followed ONLY by the two words singled out, just means that I am appropriating your TERM as I state one can determine WHETHER spitting was a common experience. I did not say "as SSF claims" it is, as I would have if that is what I meant. And even if I had, the appropriate response would have been a simple, "No that's not what I'm saying," rather than stridently accusing me of lying and linking me, by misconstructed analogy, to Holocaust denial.* That sort of hyper-emotional and unjustified personal attack, while you are revealing MY character, shuts down threads as well as debate.
In any case, based on the case I've referred to in previous posts--books and polls of vets and documentary evidence from the period--being spit on was not a common experience. Not even close. So why are you "avoiding my points," as you frequently put it?
The flipside now--Dill has not been "arguing that it never happened." And you just responded to a post which states that plainly.
So why isn't the misrepresentation bolded above a "flat out lie," as you put it?
My posts are not about "invalidating the experiences of some of the men returning home from Vietnam";
They are about invalidating the MYTH that this was a common and representative experience.
And I've given the reasons why so many Vietnam Vets agree with me on this point--it's really THEIR argument, after all--e.g. it deflects criticism FROM the people and policies who created the Vietnam mess and deflects it TO the people who criticized that war and will likely be criticizing future wars as well. But you are not interested in THAT evidence. It's "anecdotal" coming from vets whose experiences you don't mind invalidating to keep your private grievances against "the left" going.
You cannot refute that argument, so you once again make it personal, framing the issue as "personal invalidation," ignoring that I specifically acknowledged how a vet who actually was spit on might feel. You claim to put forward your father's testimony, then make any further contextualization of it a personal insult to him if it does not support your narrative. That closes any further possibility of open discussion and assessment of the factual record of this issue in veteran history, but leaves you in your preferred position of strident, personal moral condemnation of anyone who disagrees with you. Not the first time.
I'm not going to trade accusations of "ingenuousness" with you. And you are not going to respond to my evidence-based argument as an evidence-based argument. So "we" probably don't require any further revelation of my character.
*Holocaust denial does not start with people trying to verify historical facts, but with denying facts to create an alternative history based emotional appeal and predetermined political goals, not the historical record. Have you even bothered actually reading such denials? Have you forgotten your recent complaint about people who argue by linking opponents to the worst people? Why do you always except yourself from the rules you want others to follow?
Just wanted to quickly revisit your blatant lies here. You directly said the following.
(08-09-2023, 10:17 PM)Dill Wrote: Could very well be. The question of whether such things happened is often raised in college history courses on the '60s.
Quote:As far as the myth of the spitting protestors, it seems to have emerged in the '90s.
Hmm, what is the definition of the word myth?
myth
noun
- 1.
a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.
Nah, that doesn't sound like what you meant - 2.
a widely held but false belief or idea.
That sounds like exactly what you're saying.
Quote:https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/opinion/myth-spitting-vietnam-protester.html
“So where do these stories come from?”
The reporter was asking about accounts that soldiers returning from Vietnam had been spat on by antiwar activists. I had told her the stories were not true.
Is "not true" analogous to myth or a lie? By god, methinks it is!
Quote:The Los Angeles Times editorialized that it was a mythical image—an edifying myth, said editor Michael McGough, but still a myth.
There's that "myth" word again. You think they mean "a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events."
Again, methinks not.
Quote:There is no evidence that Vietnam veterans were spat on. Nor could they have been,
Except for first hand eyewitness accounts of those spit on, you mean? Yet another myth?
Quote:Legend of the spat-upon Vietnam veteran
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/legend-of-the-spat-upon-vietnam-veteran/
What does legend mean? I think anyone else reading this gets the point.
Quote:In his exhaustive book entitled “The Spitting Image,” Vietnam vet and Holy Cross professor Jerry Lembcke documents veterans who claim they were spat on by anti-war protesters, but he found no physical evidence (photographs, news reports, etc.) that these transgressions actually occurred. His findings are supported by surveys of his fellow Vietnam veterans as they came home.
Wait, he found no evidence they occurred, other than first hand accounts, and this is refuted by other first hand accounts? You have hit the absolute motherlode of proof here.
Quote:For instance, Lembcke notes that “a U.S. Senate study, based on data collected in August 1971 by Harris Associates, found that 75 percent of Vietnam-era veterans polled disagreed with the statement,
So what about the 25% who agreed? Are they all liars, or are they mythical?
Quote:Meanwhile, the Veterans’ World Project at Southern Illinois University found that many Vietnam vets supported the anti-war protest, with researchers finding almost no veterans “finish(ing) their service in Vietnam believing that what the United States has done there has served to forward our nation’s purposes.”
The fact that some veterans joined protests against the way has zero bearing on the validity of whether some veterans were spat upon by your ilk.
Quote:In the face of such data, why would the current president nonetheless repeat the apocryphal myth about spat-on Vietnam veterans? Because — facts be damned — it serves a purpose: to suppress protest and perpetuate the ideology of militarism.
Hmm, what does apocryphal mean?
a·poc·ry·phal
adjective
(of a story or statement) of doubtful authenticity, although widely circulated as being true.
What's another word for "doubtful authenticity?" Again, I'll let the audience answer that one individually.
Quote:This objective is achieved through the narrative’s preposterous assumptions. Metaphorically, if not explicitly, the mythology equates anti-war activism with dishonoring the troops; implies that such protest is kryptonite to the Pentagon’s Superman; and therefore insinuates that America loses wars not when policies are wrong, but when dissent is tolerated.
In summation, you are being dishonest in the extreme here. You not only lied about what you claimed you didn't lie about, but you lied about claiming my father and his friends are liars. In short you have absolutely zero credibility. You'll probably report this as a personal attack, but I don't believe that pointing out when someone is obviously being dishonest, using their own words to illustrate that, is a personal attack. Unless you want to claim you've been personally attacking Trump about the 2020 elections instead of justifiably calling out his falsehoods. And apologies to the mods, but someone claiming my father, who spent two years plus in that war, and his friends are lying about their experiences is just not something I'm going to tolerate. If you think this is too much, then I sincerely apologize, but I would ask you to honestly read this post and then tell me what I'm claiming is false.
