Ep Notes 0030: Victory at My Lai

I felt sick writing this.

My Lai was a war crime.  It’s a shameful example of what can happen when we lose sight of the ideals we are fighting for.  Many people suffered and died that day. By bringing their story to light, I hope we can stop it from happening again. I genuinely believe this is the kind of thing that will happen if Trump becomes President.

I don’t think this is some unfair over-exaggeration of Trump’s position. I included several long clips of him speaking.  I intentionally kept the editing very light and tried to preserve his meaning.  He openly supports torture.  He supports “taking out their families.”  Especially if the families “knew what was happening.”  He doesn’t say specifically what he will do – except he will make them suffer and he will completely destroy their homes.  He relishes the sadistic (and apocryphal) story of Pershing killing his enemy with bullets dipped in pigs blood.  More incidents like My Lai will happen under a Trump presidency.

If we are going to torture people and go after innocent families, why do we bother to fight?  What are we fighting for?

We should be fighting for the advances that Western Civilization has made in the past 1000 years.  The Magna Carta.  The Constitution.  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.    Our western society ALSO used to brutally kill and torture people who opposed it’s religious teachings.  Western governments employed torturers.  Western governments were ruled by religious fanatics.  We have moved beyond that.

Trump sees this as some sort of unfair disadvantage.  “They can  chop off their heads and they can drown people in heavy steel cages.  And we can’t waterboard?!  We need to change our laws so that we can fight on an ~almost~ equal basis.”  Even if our morals and ideals were a tactical disadvantage (and I dispute that claim), they are still worth preserving for other reasons.  Our morals and ideals are the only reason we are fighting in the first place.  We can’t surrender them. If we don’t fight this, we share in the responsibility for what will happen.

One of the ideas behind these episodes is that you can share them with Trump supporters. On the surface, they don’t appear anti-trump. But they keep pushing the argument further and further. Eventually, you have to ask yourself, “Am I going to follow this all the way? Or should I step away from this ideology before it’s too late?” Please share this story with people who could benefit from it.