Monday, February 03, 2003

Speaking of unbalanced lunatics ...

Am I imagining things, or does Rachel Lucas really compare the United States to Ted Bundy in this post?

But for Nelson Mandela to say, "if there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America," well, that's plainly absurd. That's like saying, "If there is a man that has committed murder, his name is Ted Bundy."

Yeah, we all love to hate Ted Bundy. He was a bad man and he killed people. But thousands of other men have killed many more people in much more painful ways for longer periods of time. You know, like Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin, Saddam Hussein...

And I'm on a ranting tear so I'll be wordy here. No, I'm not suggesting that Ted Bundy is to Adolf Hitler as the United States is to Nazi Germany. Actually maybe I am. Just think about it.

In any case, making the comparison doesn't equate to saying that Ted Bundy wasn't so bad after all, or that the United States is pure and blameless. It means that while Ted Bundy was an evil guy and did horrible things, it's asinine to suggest that he is the root of all evil and is THE guy you should name when talking about murder.

Yep. She does.

One scarcely knows where to begin with this. So I won't. Let Rachel's, ahem, logic (if you will) speak for itself.

And there was this:

And what "unspeakable atrocity" has the United States committed? Well, there's slavery. Definitely atrocious and definitely unspeakable. But it ended 150 years ago, and it ended because our government went to war to make it end.

Anything else? Am I missing something?


Um, well, one could always begin with our friendly Native Americans. For starters.

But Rachel, a word of advice: You might not be in the best position to decide whether or not someone like Nelson Mandela still has moral stature.

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