Maggie's Farm

The atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not gratuitous and they were not mass murder as the linked article (at Free Association) says.

At that point in the war, there were still hundreds of thousands of casualties left to happen. They were going to either be US soldiers or Japanese soldiers and civilians or both. Just simple math would tell you that dropping the atomic bombs saved more humanity - especially US humanity.

Let's review a little. The US warned that they had a bomb much more destructive than anything yet seen and gave the Japanese the chance to surrender. They chose not to because they felt that surrender had no honor. In other words, their agenda was more important than human life. They may have also been skeptical of the US's claim. So we dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed it. Now that the destructive power of the bomb could not be denied, did the Japanese surrender to end the bloodshed? NO! They (in the form of the military hardliners that were essentially running things) still chose death before dishonor. It was only after the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki did they finally surrender. The fact that it took dropping two atomic bombs to end the war should tell you something (but apparently not author of the post on Free Association. I expect too much of someone who lionizes "Chelsea Manning" and calls himself a Palestinian.).

The article "The 100th Anniversary of the Great State Crime" also links to an article that claims that the mess in the Middle East was caused by French and British Colonialists. I guess the French and the Brits are responsible for the desire of Islamofascists to commit genocide and create a world wide Caliphate. I suppose this is a new phenomenon and we can ignore the times in history - starting in the 700 when Charles Martel defeated the Islamofascits, then the beginning of the second millennium when the Crusaders attempted to free the Christian holy sites in the Middle East from Islamofascists, eventually to the early 1800's when they ran roughshod on the high seas demanding tribute from all nations, to the present time when people of the same ideology aspire to genocide; murder women, children, and anybody who disagrees with them; who kidnap young schoolgirls and force them to convert to Islam or sell them; and who practice slavery of non Muslims.

My esteem for Reason magazine has fallen.

I understand. I like to hear different views, too. There is an editorial line that must be drawn that balances openness and preferred content (I don't claim that Reason must agree with me or that they do), but I hope they don't agree with either the Free Association post or the Explore Freedom posts. My opinion was that for me, that line was crossed. But that's just me. :-)