structure.

Seriously, his proclamation sentence structure is making my essay like, six times as hard.

My English professor would have awarded him a 42% stamp if she had graded his writing.

Dune wrote: You have to do a report on him? I pity you.

Not him, but his proclamation regarding nullification. I might actually semi-enjoy the work, if I didn't have to re-read everything he wrote at least three times to get the full effect.

brihard wrote: Gatyr wrote: My English professor would have awarded him a 42% stamp if she had graded his writing. I approve.

I'm not even kidding, either. She may not have used a stamp, but she gets off on grading papers so ridiculously hard. No one has recieved an A in her class yet on anything more than a quiz, and the average grade for a class of papers is usually around the 40s and 50s.

I tend not to like Jackson, as I also do not like Truman or Theodore Roosevelt. The more research I'd do, the more stuff I'd pull up that made me dislike them.

WGP guy2 wrote: Cedric wrote: He was such a bad person. Such a waste of life. If you truly believe that then you don't understand much about Jacksonian Democracy.

Or maybe you've only read a tip of the iceberg report on him.

WGP guy2 wrote: Dune wrote: Not sure what you're countering? That his massacre of the Philippines is better than the Spanish massacre? There was no spanish massacre...  Yellow Journalism anyone?

I got a post of your mixed up. However, what's the point of your source.

Roosevelt has been quoted after orders given to kill, and he spouts the bravery among his men. His imperialism is astounding.

So you ask for a source, given one, then deny it as not being valid because of a tactic used for a completely other situation?

I was listing a source, from a source.

Oh good christ. Then why not call yellow journalism on anything ever cited?

Dune wrote: Roosevelt has been quoted after orders given to kill, and he spouts the bravery among his men. His imperialism is astounding.

You aren't going to be a very happy camper in life if you only dwell on the faults or misdoings of everyone.

I hate Andrew Jackson now. Reading his work and trying to retain any information is like using a seive to shovel sand into a bucket.

Gatyr wrote: Dune wrote: Roosevelt has been quoted after orders given to kill, and he spouts the bravery among his men. His imperialism is astounding. You aren't going to be a very happy camper in life if you only dwell on the faults or misdoings of everyone.

When you slaughter a race of people to enhance your own, I don't think that constitutes a hero. By not looking at misdeeds we'll be apt to repeat them.

There is no equal. If I save a baby in a fire one day, and murder a woman the next, I'm still a murderer. There is no outweigh when it comes to slaughter. Now, there may be outweigh when it comes to economics, because no one dies.

On the subject of the A-bombs. I'm skeptical on the dropping to only scare the Soviets; however, there is no excuse.

Dune wrote: When you slaughter a race of people to enhance your own, I don't think that constitutes a hero. By not looking at misdeeds we'll be apt to repeat them.

You are making it seem as though this "slaughter" brought on by these three presidents accounts for the majority of their presidency, and is what they should be judged by.

I can appreciate disliking the COA taken by the presidents you mention in some instances, since for the most part, they were indeed wrong, but it seems that each president you hate has dealt with a national crisis rather well, and serves his nation just as well.

Jackson's dealings with the Indians is more than understandably wrong, and I'm not to well versed in what Roosevelt did, but the use of the atomic bombs saved many more lives than it ended/destroyed.

That has been the common theory. However, many argue that there was no actual plan to invade mainland Japan. In fact, the Japanese were without food and hardly any supplies. There have been reports that many peace feelers had been sent out, and when Japan refused the first offer because they wanted to keep more land than what was offered to them, they were bombed into it. The argument that Hap Arnold gave never flew with me and I think of Truman as a war criminal like Hirohito. The common History channel answer given as to why the bombs were dropped has always had counter arguments.

Dune wrote: The Red Army did join the fight. When they let the treaty pass time they invaded Manchuria and pushed back the Japanese. They also slaughtered the Japanese people living in China. I'll go with what college research has taught me and not the History Channel. I don't doubt you've done your research, but skipping over details which can be commonly found in resource material is avoiding details.

Let's reword WGP Guy's argument:

We also dropped the bomb to end the war before Soviet Russia was able to make any notable gains as far as land goes in Japan.

Gatyr wrote: Dune wrote: The Red Army did join the fight. When they let the treaty pass time they invaded Manchuria and pushed back the Japanese. They also slaughtered the Japanese people living in China. I'll go with what college research has taught me and not the History Channel. I don't doubt you've done your research, but skipping over details which can be commonly found in resource material is avoiding details. Let's reword WGP Guy's argument: We also dropped the bomb to end the war before Soviet Russia was able to make any notable gains as far as land goes in Japan.

I got that point, although Manchuria was more valuable in resources than mainland Japan. However, it doesn't sit with me as a valid reasoning.

Bunkered wrote: It's a war... Better to have 250,000 of THEIR people dead than a million of ours.

No. A civilian is the same regardless of nationality. They are innocent.

Bunkered wrote: There is no such thing as innocence... Only degrees of guilt.

So the Japanese civilians deserved the fire bombings in Tokyo?

Gatyr wrote: Dune wrote: Bunkered wrote: There is no such thing as innocence... Only degrees of guilt. So the Japanese civilians deserved the fire bombings in Tokyo? They were warned before hand that the area was going to be bombed. If they stayed out of their own conviction, or were forced to by the Japanese military/government, then it is off of our shoulders.

So what? I warn my neighbor that I will burn his house down tomorrow. If he doesn't leave...big deal, his fault.

Secondly, okay, so you say they deserved it. Bunkered, did the people in the Wolrd Trade Centers deserve it? I mean, there is no real innocent person.

Since you haven't been reading, there is no proof that 1,000,000 casualties would have come from Operation Downfall, that's been covered.

Gatyr wrote: Dune wrote: So what? I warn my neighbor that I will burn his house down tomorrow. If he doesn't leave...big deal, his fault. There is a difference between wartime bombing and senseless destruction of property because a pyromaniac wants to burn something.

Sensless destruction of property? You mean towns that have no military targets and are filled with civilians? You mean leveling a city simply to scare people and murder, pure intimidation. Nope, seems like the same thing to me.

Bunkered wrote: Yeah, no <crap> there's no proof there would have been that many casualties. It's called an estimate. I don't know what makes you think the Japanese would have surrendered easily. These are the same people that would ritually kill themselves before admitting defeat. Even if there weren't 1,000,000 casualties, how few do you honestly think there would have been? Even if the 1mil mark was WAY off, and only 500,000 American troops died, that's still double the lives lost by dropping the bombs. Not only that, but those estimates involve lost AMERICAN troops, not the loss of life in general. Do you honestly believe that less than 250,000 Americans, Japanese military, and Japanese civilians would have been killed in an invasion of Japan? That's just idiotic to be quite frank.

That's one estimate, another put it at possibly 20,000 casualties. It doesn't matter because even Eisenhower agreed with MacArthur that Japan didn't want to fight anymore and that the bombs were unnecessary.

Bunkered wrote: 20,000? That seems fairly ridiculous to me considering most single battles had that many casualties...

It's called an estimate, and everyone had one for that operation.

The Japanese code of honor for soldiers. Which Japan had very few actual Bushido soldiers left. Their main defense force was mostly children and old men, kind of like Hitler's. The civilians that killed themselves did so because they thought the Americans were going to be worse when they became prisoners. The estimate however, was an estimate made by Eisenhower and his assistants after looking it over. Although he had no real say because it was the pacific. You've watched way too much history channel here. Many of the top individuals in that campaign would state that the mass bombing was not necessary because they were close enough to defeat anyways.

Hindsight is 20/20, but not realizing a mistake simply because it was in the past is foolish.

Many historians believe that...but certainly no most. There is quite a heated debate between the two parties, both made up of respected historians. No we won't know; however, the fact that the bombs were dropped and civilians targeted makes it wrong, doesn't matter which side does it.

I'm sorry that I have to spell out opinion for you to understand it. However, targeting civilians is wrong, regardless. Unless I have to state it's my opinion that it was wrong to bring down the towers.

WGP guy2 wrote: Dune wrote: I'm sorry that I have to spell out opinion for you to understand it. However, targeting civilians is wrong, regardless. Unless I have to state it's my opinion that it was wrong to bring down the towers. You realize do realize the places the bombs were dropped weren't only to cause massive amounts of death.  They were dropped on places that, when destroyed, would have a crippling affect on the military.

How so? The point of detonation for Hiroshima was found between a school and a hospital. They were military targets. Maybe the destruction of the cities caused for supplies to halt, but that was not the goal of the bomb.

brihard wrote: Dune wrote: I'm sorry that I have to spell out opinion for you to understand it. However, targeting civilians is wrong, regardless. Unless I have to state it's my opinion that it was wrong to bring down the towers. What would have been the civilian toll of several more years of conventional war, including strategic bombings campaigns on Japan like the ones in Germany? Or added to that, the civilian toll from starvation? How about civilians conscripted into service and then killed in action? Would they be counted out of the civilian toll despite having been compelled to serve? There are a lot of numbers to consider here...

I'll agree for some parts here. You're right, we don't know what could have been. My point this time has not been to suggest alternative routes, as you can see I never have. The point has been to admit that it was morally wrong to bomb them in that way. Just like it was wrong when the Japanese went in to Nanking.**And Hiroshima did have an army depot, but it was of little use by the time the bomb had been dropped.**

Bunkered wrote: The Japanese code of honor does not allow for surrender. It was feared that even should the Emporer announce surrender, the average Japanese soldier would continue fighting. The Japanese practiced ritual suicide to avoid admitting defeat. What makes you think they were just going to stop fighting?

Bunkered wrote: The war ended (the Japs unconditionally surrendered I might add), and no invasion of Japan was necessary.

Hmm...

Bunkered wrote:  It was thought that conventional methods would be effective, but only through great loss of life, on both sides. It was thought that the war would drag on for too long, so unconventional tactics were used, to great effect.

Bingo.

WGP guy2 wrote: Bunkered wrote: I'm not really sure why you guys think that just because something isn't a 100% certainty it's always going to go the opposite way... In fact I seem to remember Dune, earlier in this thread, using something that isn't 100% certain to argue his point (new paper article?)

Still calling that yellow journalism, although your source is also, just a source that could have been just as made up, yet you believe yours. I guess when some facts point in the opposite direction the only thing to do is call them wrong. As long as both sides denies the other one's sources, no one has to admit to counterpoints.

Bunkered wrote: I'm not necessarily attacking a source, I'm more commenting on the fact that you and Clark Kent seem to think percentages matter, other than 100%. Just because it wasn't a 100% certainty that it would take 1mil people doesn't mean it wasn't far more likely than it taking 20,000.

I know you're not attacking a source, WPG did about a media source a couple pages back. We're not saying that one is better than the other, but to target mass civilian populations like that is morally wrong. Especially since we've taken a role in denouncing the Japanese for their treatment of POWs and Chinese.

Bunkered wrote: I'm not really sure why you guys think that just because something isn't a 100% certainty it's always going to go the opposite way...

Not at all.