No time to blog, but I was flipping through the paper at work this morning, and an editorial caught my eye; naturally it's on what a horrible man President Bush is. There was one paragraph that finally made me say ein Minuten bitte:

When he focuses on human embryos, he speaks of his obligation to foster and encourage respect for life, but when respect for human life gets in the way of his wish to strike back at those he considers enemies of the United States, he is willing to bring about the deaths of thousands of innocent human beings. These are not the actions of a person of principle.

That's unfair. We all have conflicting values that depend heavily on the situation. I don't support indiscriminate killing, but I do support taking a life under certain circumstances. That sure doesn't mean I lack principles, it just means that my principles can't be summed up and contrasted in one small paragraph. It's completely unfair to write an editorial saying the President has a "meandering moral compass" when everyone has nuances in their value system.

MORE:

My ein Minuten bitte has caused some wrinkled brows. No, it's not proper German; it's a line from Eddie Izzard's stand-up routine about Martin Luther. We use it a lot in our house here, as well as the Simpsons psuedo-German quote Das Phone ist eine nuisance phone! and the Family Guy's Du werdest eine Krankenschwester brauchen!

We love fake German.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:17 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 This is something I agree with completely. Anyone who doesn't have conflicting values within their own lives are either so good that God is about to assume them bodily into heaven, or they are absolute evil incarnate.

Posted by: NightHawk at March 30, 2004 09:19 AM (5GWma)

2 I take it you saw the editorial in the paper, Googled it, and found a copy at Common Dreams? Or do you start off every morning with Common Dreams? Never been there, and don't want to start now. The name sounds so Leftist - the idea of a collective sharing einen Traum (dream). Ein Traum, eine MentaLLLität, eine Gehirnzelle (brain cell)!

Posted by: Amritas at March 30, 2004 10:47 AM (kRnVN)

3 Yep, googled it. I tried to go directly to the LA Times, but their page was such a mess that I gave up and went elsewhere. No "common dreams" for me...the thought weirds me out while reading 1984 and Brave New World!

Posted by: Sarah at March 30, 2004 11:09 AM (VwSPl)

4 Einem Augenblick bitte! (Is that right?) It's not just unfair, it's total bullshit. Bush does everything possible to avoid the deaths of innocents. And other civilians. While still getting the job done.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 30, 2004 11:22 AM (+S1Ft)

5 I think it's "einen" mit dem Akkusativ. It's not just Bush - it's the US military as a whole which "does everything possible to avoid the deaths of innocents". If there were a massacre, everyone would know about it. But there is no Iraqi My Lai.

Posted by: Amritas at March 30, 2004 07:33 PM (dpay0)

6 LA Times (all the way in Germany? - wow!) ... registration ... grumble ... grumble ... on those occasions when I see LAT articles (usually reprinted in the Hawaii papers) I try to Google them so I can copy, paste, and link them. "Everyone has nuances in their value system"? And we're the ones being accused of simplisme?(Simplismus auf Deutsch?) I don't see conflicting values here so much as I see situation-sensitive, hierarchical values. It's not a matter of having contradictory values; it's a matter of valuing both X and Y - but ultimately valuing X more given the choice. (Picked X because if I picked Y, I could be accused of being "sexist"(TM). "That chauvinist pig prefers HIS own chromosome! Gasp!")

Posted by: Amritas at March 30, 2004 07:46 PM (dpay0)

7 Marc - Yep on the U.S. (and allied) military. Heck, they were trying to minimise enemy military casualties, even at risk to themselves. My high school german hass accumulated nearly two decades of rust... Ich bin, du bist, er/sie/es ist, wir sind, ihr seid, sie sind... Der/die/das/dem/den/des...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 31, 2004 12:46 AM (kOqZ6)

8 "Buenos noches, mein fuhrer!"

Posted by: david at April 01, 2004 02:31 AM (EjwYl)

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