The Stupidity Du Jour

Christopher Hitchens points out a new version of the "chickenhawk" fallacy, a rhetorical ploy used by people like Al Franken and Michael Moore to silence those who support the war. This time it's more mean spirited, projecting some kind of inhumanity and moral leprosy onto someone "who favor[s] war but [is] not willing to sacrifice his own son."

This really shows more about the absurdity of the argument that all wars are immoral and wrong. It's the same kind of thinking that sustains PETA and those who believe human beings should make ourselves extinct for the good of the environment, as if the environment would notice. Any society that totally accepted this view of morality could not survive in this world. If it weren't subjugated by something like the Soviet Union or the ancient Romans, it would be corrupted by the likes of Hitler or Mussolini.

I once read a quote of a man who said he wouldn't want to live in a world where there were no grizzly bears. To take such people seriously is a big mistake and a waste of time, because their philosophy is theoretical at best, and because it leads to arguments with people like this.