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Ben Stein's Diary
At War and at Peace
Reeling from another viewing of The World at War.
(Page 2 of 2)
I think I told you that I recently bought The World at War, the superb documentary about World War II narrated by Laurence Olivier, the man with the best voice on this planet—now gone, of course. (He also was married to Vivien Leigh, probably as good an actor as there has ever been. What a marriage that must have been. Two mad people together, both exploding with talent and ambition.)
Tonight I watched an hour of the documentary about Genocide. It started out with the origins of racist thought and then the origins of the SS, Hitler’s killing machine for Jews and many others. Olivier made it clear that the basis of “thought” for the notion of killing whole populations of those deemed to be below Aryan status was a “neo-Darwinist” concept—i.e., that nature will eventually eliminate a competing, weaker species, so why not give nature a hand? That was Darwin’s precise idea and, as Himmler understood it, along with his boss, Hitler, the people who were parasites on the Herrenvolk were mostly the Jews. So, they had to be killed.
It’s fascinating to me that The World at War says that the Genocide was a neo-Darwinist idea. Now that the neo-Darwinists have a stranglehold on all intellectual activity in the Western world, that kind of statement would be strictly verboten.
The scenes of the murders, the starvation, the tortures of the Jews were just unbearably awful. Be-yond imagining. But, of course, they happened. Some of it—a lot of it—was happening in my lifetime.
The narration by survivors of what went on in the ghettoes and at the crematoria and—God help us—in the gas chambers themselves are simply beyond endurance.
If you want to see what happens when man says that man is God and that science will tell man how to deal with his fellow man, you cannot do better than to watch this documentary. The World at War—available from Amazon.
TUESDAY
I am back in Rancho Mirage. I have had a terrible cold and bronchitis now for a few days and I am limping through the day, day by day.
But, I am just reeling from what I have seen on The World at War. I know I am like a broken record about this, but how can we ever even start to thank the men who fought at Bastogne and Monte Cas-sino and Remagen and Zeitlen (where my father-in-law did the heroic acts that earned him the Silver Star)? How can we ever repay the men who died on the Bataan Death March or in Japanese prison camps or on Iwo Jima or the Battles of Vella Lavella or the flyers who flew over Berlin or over the hump in Burma? How can we repay the wives and widows and children?
How can we ever thank them enough?
With every breath we take, there should be prayers on our lips and in our hearts for the men and women who wear the uniform.
Meanwhile, what the heck is happening in Afghanistan? That’s turning out to be a true disaster. Yes, it’s time to get out, but how do we get out? Afghanistan is landlocked. Pakistan is on one side and Iran on the other. The only way out is through the north and I am not sure how much they like us. What a time to be even thinking of cutting the military budget. Are the people at the White House insane? No, I am sure not. They are just trying to do their best as they see it, but they are still way off the beam. This is a dangerous world. It is not time to cut the military budget.
Again, back to that woman who was telling me what a horrible person I am (she gets paid for doing that, by the way)…In the room with me was a “mediator” who was a human miracle. His parents were Holocaust survivors. His mother, as a Jewish child in Poland, had to hide in a closet for five years. His father hid in a forest. Now, he travels the world skiing and doing Ecuadorean river kayaking while not mediating. All thanks to America and to his hero parents and to the heroes who beat the Nazis. Human beings are amazing creatures—capable of the best and the worst. This country mostly has the ones who are capable of the best. Let us thank God. Every breath we take of American air is a miracle.
Speaking of which, here is a perfect Ben Stein hour. I lay down by my fireplace, under my electric blanket, with my heating pad on my stomach. I put Mozart’s Requiem and Laudate Dominum on my CD player. I listened. I smelled the cut grass outside. I heard faintly the sounds of jets flying into Palm Springs International Airport. I slept. I got up and put on the radio. KDGL-FM, “The Eagle” out here in the desert, was playing, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” and I thought of Yale in 1970—”bliss it was in that day to be alive but to be young was very heaven”—and I was happy.
About the Author
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes “Ben Stein’s Diary” for every issue of The American Spectator.
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Jack in Wi.| 4.27.12 @ 6:36AM
Boy the money is just rolling in for old Benny here as he wanders the country picking up fat speaking fees.Then he gets to stuff himself, at good resturants, and stay in the best hotels, all as a guest of the trade associations. What's not to like about that?
Crassus| 4.27.12 @ 10:22AM
Yeah, them neocons have it made.
theduke| 4.27.12 @ 4:23PM
There we have it folks, the essential element of American leftism: envy.
Cobalt| 4.27.12 @ 5:41PM
Yes, American leftism is class envy, and more.
DISCOVERTHENETWORKS.ORG
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 12:45PM
Funny you should say that. Ben Stein cited George Wallace, arch segregationist, as an example. If anyone was an exemplar of envy it was George Corly Wallace.
OTOH, every right winger who says American workers of any stripe are overpaid is demonstrating the right wing element of envy.
W| 4.29.12 @ 1:36PM
George Wallace was a Democrat. The Dems use the politics of envy and class warfare disguised as taxing the "rich."
Skeevix | 4.28.12 @ 4:05AM
The Bolshevics were just as bad as the Nazis.
We should have let them detroy each other and then go in and pick up the pieces.
B| 4.28.12 @ 12:46PM
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels summed up the 10 planks of communism as the abolition of private property. Now, you can sum up the abolition of private property as the abolition of private borders and boundaries. Borders and boundaries that serve to protect individuals from others, borders and boundaries that protect individuals from trespasses of the state. That's collectivism - no privacy, no borders, no boundaries.
The Founders understood trespasses. The Declaration of Independence held that there are truths, or facts, that are self-evident; that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, i.e., rights that cannot be separated from God. The Founders said that governments are instituted to SECURE these rights and when government becomes destructive of those ends, or when government is destructive of those protections or boundaries, then it is the right of the people to abolish--not the borders and boundaries that protect the rights of the individual--but the government that is trespassing them.
So that's the thesis. That's the real issue in this country. Are we going to defend the boundaries and borders that protect what the Founders established? Or are we going to look for the "Zeitgeist" of the nation.
Dialectic process, or consensus process, is quietly achieving the goals of Marx and Engels by persuading our congressmen, our students, our city councils, our NGOs, our boardrooms, our policy makers to abandon their position for the sake of relationship, or getting along. Dialectic process is trespassing borders and boundaries. Or, through dialogue, talking people out of defending them.
Historically, a watchmen or guard would defend a walled city. Today, he is simply being talked out of it.
When the president of the European Union, Herman Van Rompuy calls for a borderless world, he is talking the dialectic. When Bill Clinton asks the Party of European Socialists how they might deal with a new world "where borders are coming down," he is talking the dialectic. When the North American Forum on Integration holds a "mock parliament" where students "dialogue" the "challenges posed by integration between the three NAFTA countries" they are talking the dialectic.
http://nacts.asu.edu/partners/.....ation-nafi
In the schools our kids are being trained for a collective mindset.
Are we really working for "the common good", a brave new world, where there is peace on earth and everybody does a group hug, or... are we being swindled? Would you like a great deal on a bridge in Brooklyn?
How much position do we give up, before the foundation moves and it all comes down?
What about our children?
I can't help but read Mr. Stein as utterly clueless to what is going in the nation. Perhaps a little implicit.
Jimbobogie| 4.30.12 @ 9:47AM
...so let me get this right-the Declaration says that "all men are created equal" and yet the Founding Fathers practised slavery-I dare say that Mr. Wallace would have owned slaves if he had the opportunity. Now we have a black president. Does that mean that the constitution is a document that can "evolve" (sorry, creationists), either through the legislative or judicial branch of government? We also have a country where women now are considered people too (more constitutional evolution). So, a gun control advocate (not me) might say that the Second Amendment could also evolve-right out of the constitution...just a thought...
John786| 4.27.12 @ 6:42AM
The stories of the holocaust mixed with neoconservative rant about military budgets. This is a common theme among neoconservatives: endlessly replaying the second world war -nazis- onto the modern world especially the Islamic world. Why is Afghanistan/ Iraq mess there it is in a nutshell. The holocaust in the second world war has roots in European enlightenment: perfection.
Jack in Wi.| 4.27.12 @ 7:59AM
John Agreed: If this old, neocon, chickenhawk, warmonger cared about genocide he would be against the constant calls for nuclear genocide on Iran and the whole Middle East by his first and only love Israel. I actually liked the World at War. It did not shy away from some of the horrors of war. But Ben here forgot a few other horrors of the War. There was the Morgenthou Plan to murder 30 million Geramns after the war using starvation and desease. Of course it only killed 3 million before it was stopped by some brave American Military people.
Then there was the expulsion of 18 million Germans and the gang rape of millions of German women. Then we have the moving west of 11 million Poles. Lest we forget Operation Keelhaul where millions of Stalin's subjects were forced back by the allies into the tender clutches of Stalin.
Of course the whole thing that started it all was the murder of millions of Russian Christians, before Hitler ever got a vote in Geermany, by Ben's ethnic soul brothers. If the Germans have to forever say they are sorry and pay reparations, how come our dear Jewish brothers and sisters, never have to say they are sorry for the worse crimes of Communism, and pay reparations for all that misery?
Crassus| 4.27.12 @ 10:24AM
Chickenhawk neocon!!! Chickenhawk neoncon!!!
Lee| 4.27.12 @ 4:30PM
>>how come our dear Jewish brothers and sisters, never have to say they are sorry for the worse crimes of Communism, and pay reparations for all that misery?
There’s plenty of Jewish genocide in the Bible (old testament) if you care to read it.
Vern Crisler | 4.27.12 @ 9:18PM
This is false.
Jimmy Z| 4.28.12 @ 4:13AM
I guess I missed that part. I think it was the Russians that had the collectives farms and the Army purges. Ask the German women who did the raping. And did why all the Germans run to the West at the end of the war? Better climate?
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 12:13PM
Do you have links to records of those incidents?
Herb| 4.27.12 @ 7:41AM
"I thought of Yale in 1970—"bliss it was in that day to be alive but to be young was very heaven"—and I was happy."
Guess that Ben was waxing rhapsodic even during his bright college days, O carefree days that fly.
Hmm....in 1970 I was preparing to graduate into a world that frankly had gone starkers since I began those idyllic days four years earlier. As a military cadet I had escaped the campus madness of the time, and soon had a lieutenant's bar on my shoulder & a ticket to Vietnam in my pocket, but hey, went with the territory. No problem there.
But if Ben has always been the conservative he claims to be, Yale in 1970 must have been a radical nightmare for him. I recall that was the year ROTC was banned at Yale, and still is, so far as I know. His college days have probably made his Alma Mater ring all hollow.
I don't begrudge Ben his sybaritic lifestyle, his fame & wealth were honestly gained. But I have enough trouble with weight as it is, and living like that would, well, make the sands of time run even thicker for me as they clearly have for Ben. Oh well.
albert constantine jr.| 4.28.12 @ 7:20PM
"waxing rhapsodic even during his bright college days, O carefree days that fly."
Does Tom Lehrer know that you're using his lyrics without attribution? (Though I imagine at age 84 or so, with the copyrights likely expired, he probably doesn't care much).
Herb| 4.28.12 @ 11:57PM
Heh, heh, I indeed cribbed that alma mater line from "An Evening (Wasted) With Tom Lehrer" but my favorite tune from that 1959 horror was "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park".
albert constantine jr.| 4.29.12 @ 8:55PM
Herb;
I picked up a CD from Rhino Records about 8-10 years ago that had 28 cuts from Songs and More Songs by Tom Lehrer. While there were no cuts from the "That Was theWeek That Was" program (I have an old vinyl copy), it had many favorites, including both the orchestral and piano only version of "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park".
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 11:45AM
When was it written? Copyright today are life plus 50 years. And those copyrights have been back dated to somewhere around 1965.
Mark Reed| 4.28.12 @ 9:01PM
You're quite right, Herb. I was a sophomore at Yale in the spring of 1970. Our campus was besieged by Black Panthers, classes were ended prematurely, and radicalism and dissolution reigned during those awful days. Like Ben, I reveled in the music, the booze and drugs, and the freedom to ignore my academic responsibilities. I long ago realized that I contributed to the moral degeneracy and academic irresponsibility for which I remain embarrassed even today.
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 11:47AM
"I don't begrudge Ben his sybaritic lifestyle, his fame & wealth were honestly gained."
Yes, he got his wealth the old fashioned way. He inherited it. Ok, he may have worked for some of it, but he was born on second base and thinks he hit a double. (paraphrased plagiarism acknowledged)
sarah in nc| 4.29.12 @ 5:35PM
What would you like? A hundred per cent inherintance tax? But there are still those advantages of wealth, better schools, summer camps, tutors.
Pity for the envious, for they shall never have their fill.
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 12:10PM
"But if Ben has always been the conservative he claims to be, Yale in 1970 must have been a radical nightmare for him. I recall that was the year ROTC was banned at Yale, and still is, so far as I know. His college days have probably made his Alma Mater ring all hollow."
Look at www.rotc.yale.edu
gearjammer| 4.27.12 @ 8:16AM
Come on. I went to radical nutty BU then. but seriously-I was young we all had some good time, even with Howard Zinn and Mungo and their goings on. Later I went to Nam as well. I even had some laughs in the Army. Sorry your youth was such hell. Be careful or you'll end up a bitter crazed hater like thw jackoff cheesehead.
Ted| 4.27.12 @ 8:50AM
Cardigan Mountain School
Yearly tuition for boarding students: $44,100
Yearly tuition for day students: $26,600
Now what did I do with my checkbook....
Jimbobogie| 4.30.12 @ 9:48AM
...and they don't even play indoor lacrosse...
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.27.12 @ 9:10AM
Does that woman who gets paid to tell you how deficient you are have the job of whispering in your ear, "Momento mori?"
My favorite line from Idiot Wind: "It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe."
diskojoe| 4.27.12 @ 9:11AM
Like Ben, I've also been watching The World At War on DVD after first seeing seeing it as a kid back in the 70s. It's still good to watch, especially seeing the interviews of those who witnessed many of the events & who are now gone.
Vern Crisler| 4.27.12 @ 10:36AM
I've been reading William Shirer's book on Hitler's rise, plus doing research on Darwinism and racism (e.g., Madison Grant, Aflred Rosenberg, et al, plus watching dvd documentaries of WWI).
Sometimes you have to get out from under it all and realize these things are in the past now.
Darwinists were racialists prior to WW2 (except maybe Boaz and his students), and most were eugenicists. They accepted the analogy of human breeding with plant-breeding hook, line, and sinker. It would take that German thug and crackpot Hitler to combine these racialist ideas (Nordic superiority) with statism and German expansionism -- and the deaths of 6 million Jews and millions of others -- for many to see how harmful these anti-creationist, polygenetic ideas could be.
It would be wrong, however, to accuse modern Darwinists of believing in social Darwinism. They regard that as "vulgar Darwinism," and quite a few even deny the validity of "race."
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 11:43AM
It is wrong to use the term, "Darwinists" to describe any factor of Evolution. Evolution is the science, Darwinsim is nothing more than a term applied to a period in the development of Evolution.
However, the term Social Darwinism does have a valid use, these days to describe the social theories of the Ayn Rand school of social thought. Which school, today, is embodied in republican social policies.
Paul McGrath| 4.27.12 @ 11:54AM
Every time I read a Ben Stein article--and when I see him here it's the first thing I go to--I am uplifted in some way. He is a very humble man, and he reminds me to be thankful. And there really and truly is so much to be thankful for in this wonderful country.
And then I have to read the truly vicious, vulgar comments by some of the posters here. It is, in a word, dismaying.
wally| 4.27.12 @ 3:45PM
Hear, hear...
bob| 4.27.12 @ 4:24PM
These poor saps still blindly follow Pat Buchanan version of world war2. While Pat has something interesting things to say about politics a historian he is not.
Jimbobogie| 4.30.12 @ 9:55AM
I too enjoy Ben's articles-and it's great to see that the western gas station owners seem to be doing to well...what if they were selling "Gingrich Gallon$"?
Dave Williams| 4.27.12 @ 12:50PM
Mr. Stein, I mostly enjoy your articles, but you go too far in attributing the holocaust to atheism. Hitler thought of himself as a good christian, and the SS had "Got mitt uns" on their belt buckles.
Paul McGrath| 4.27.12 @ 1:12PM
Wrong Dave, this is a myth. Hitler hated Christians and hated Christianity because he thought it "domesticated" mankind. His plan was for a day when the German people would be like wolves.
He tolerated Christianity in Germany because he knew he had to--for the time being. If you want to know what he really thought of Christians, look no further than how he treated Polish priests. Something like 40% of them were murdered outright; most of the rest went into hiding.
Vern Crisler| 4.27.12 @ 1:39PM
Hitler and the Nazi thinkers (such as Rosenberg) hated Christianity because of its teachings regarding monogenesis.
Bohemond| 4.27.12 @ 4:50PM
"Hitler thought of himself as a good christian, and the SS had "Got mitt uns" on their belt buckles."
Not true at all. It was the German Army whose belt buckles read 'Gott Mit Uns' as Prussian belt buckles had since the days of Frederick the Great. The SS' belt buckles read Mein Ehre Heisst Treue, "My Honor is Loyalty."
And Hitler was openly contemptuous of Christianity - "that Jewish slave religion," he called it - in fact he sacked a commanding general for holding a thanksgiving service in Cologne Cathedral. SS units were forbidden to have chaplains: it was officially atheist (other than Himmler's bizarre Teutono-occultist stuff).
The Hitler Youth was despatched to schools to tear crucifixes from the classroom walls, often stamping on them and mockingly asking, "why won't your dead Jew rise?"
TKRC| 4.27.12 @ 8:46PM
this is absolutely untrue. Hitler had contempt for Christians and did not consider himself one. the Nazi party actually created a pseudo-religion based on Nordic myths and the occult for true-believing party members.
Sandra| 4.28.12 @ 12:21PM
It is well documented that Hitler, and the NAZI elite despised Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular. Many Catholic clergy and religious were rounded up and put into concentration camps. Churches were routinely desecrated, and looted.
Schools, and colleges closed. Not just in conquered countries, but in Germany as well.
Google "Catholic Martyrs of the Holocaust" and read about people like Cardinal Clemens August von Galen, Bishop of Munster, Fr. Rupert Mayer S.J., or Fr. Bernhard Lichtenberg, who were among the 2030 priests, 127 seminarians, 173 lay brothers and 243 nuns murdered by the NAZIS.
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 11:39AM
Don't forget, the Catholic Church hid Jews from the Holocaust. Pope Pius XII has been vilified for not speaking out against Hitler, but all that time he was directing the saving of an estimated 800,000 Jews.
blackwatch| 4.27.12 @ 2:15PM
Ben,
Thanks for your musings. Very entertaining.
My first real experience with W.A.W. was in college. I took a night class at my local JC in 1980 something. It was a credit only class that did not count towards graduation. In each class we watched an episode of the "World at War" series and then discussed what we saw. I was the youngest student--19? I think--and I did not comment. How could I?
Most of the students were in their 40's and they just about all told me that they took the class so that they could relate better to their fathers and uncles war experiences. It was a cathartic experience in some ways for the older students who were children during WWII.
Frank Natoli| 4.27.12 @ 2:28PM
Ben: the reason TWAW was so extraordinary, even beyond all the talent assembled to make it, was because of its timing. I say there's three phases to reporting history.
Phase One, right after the event, is so full of the emotion of the event itself that it can't help but sound a little propagand-ish. "Victory at Sea" comes to mind.
Phase Two, 20 to 40 years after the event, everybody's cooled down, most of the participants are still alive, and then you get the really good history [this was the phase of TWAW].
Phase Three, 50 years and later, everybody's dead, and historians become archeologists. With respect to WW2, that's where we are now.
Go listen to the episode "Morning" on the Normandy landings. About 2/3 of the way through, you'll hear one Omaha Beach veteran, off camera, say "it was a day of thinking, thoughts of home, a day of prayer, and without a doubt the longest day of my life".
That man is probably no longer with us. There is very little living memory of Omaha Beach and everything else in those 26 episodes. We can thank BBC Thames for doing it when they did.
cuban pete| 4.27.12 @ 7:44PM
Always great to read your posts. I agree with your three phase analysis. Having said that I was youngster when Victory at Sea was aired. Many of our friends and family served in WWII. For the most part you couldn't pry information out of them. The war was over and they wanted to get back to life.
About once a month or so I play Chapter 26-Design for Peace.
The good guys won.
To paraphrase FDR on D Day, "they sought not to conquer but to end conquest..."
Frank Natoli| 4.28.12 @ 12:23AM
Thanks, Pete. Growing up in the 50s and 60s, everybody's father had worn the uniform, and the only questions were: which branch of service, which theater of operations.
I have a theory about a terrible and I believe fatal change in the culture between the time we were growing up and now. We grew up in what I'll call a Copernican culture. We knew that each of us was one tiny speck of the really big picture, and it was well worth our while to get a sense of what that big picture really was, and that meant learning and understanding history.
Today, we live in a Ptolemaic culture. Each person is the center of his own universe, with the rest of the universe orbiting around him. There is no need for him to learn about history, since he knows all that he needs to know and will make his own history, as if nothing of any significance or of any use to him ever happened before.
It doesn't take that long to wipe out living memory. I like to note that Belgians, Netherlanders, Danes and Norwegians were devout neutrals in 1940. Five years later, all of them were founding members of NATO. Now those who learned the lesson that reality is not what we wish it to be, but instead what it really is, are gone, like that Omaha Beach veteran, and their grandchildren hate their former liberators, and embrace a violent foreign culture that is a worst case scenario for Europe and the world.
Class and new lessons will be brought to order very soon.
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 11:29AM
It seemed like every body's father ware the uniform, though that's a bit of an exaggeration. My Father did, as did several of my uncles. One uncle wore it in the Korean war, and between wars several other uncles and one aunt wore the uniform. I did during Vietnam as did two brothers, and one uncle.
The change you describe you also set after we grew up. The period from 1980 onward has been dominated by Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush and George W Bush, with Bill Clinton as an interlude of democratic social issues and mixed economic theory.
The republican influence in that time period, with heavy libertarian influence, is the source of the change to the Ptolemaic culture. The abandonment of any national responsibility for the poor and the hungry presaged the abandonment of any responsibility for the injured veterans returning from war.
Most prominently you have the abandonment of government responsibility for education, even though education was recognized as a government responsibility since before this country existed.
W| 4.29.12 @ 1:51PM
"The abandonment of any national responsibility for the poor and the hungry presaged the abandonment of any responsibility for the injured veterans returning from war."
You have to be kidding. We have Section 8 housing, child care tax credits, student tax credits, CHIPS insurancece for kids whose parents have income of up to 50,000 (I know several), welfare, easing of Social Security disability regulations to allow for children on SSI, food stamps, etc. The Bush tax cuts basically eliminated the federal income tax for families earning less than $50,000.
Can you give specific laws and facts that show abandonment of the poor and hungry? If there are all these poor and hungry, what has been done since 2008 under Obama? You make broad generalizations not supported by facts.
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 3:25PM
We have all those things, and they are being slowly taken away. Welfare has sunk to a level that puts even those who are clearly deserving are pushed deep into poverty, and not given any consideration for a collapsing economy.
Child care tax credits are on their way out. Oh, and don't forget, a lot of those programs are run by states under block grants. Many states divert those grants to other uses.
SSI is a major pain to get, I know a mentally handicapped person who is trying. Food stamps are getting harder to get and the right wants to do away with them.
What has been done under Obama since 2008? Since Obama took office in 2009, I'll respond to that time. Not damn near enough. He has compromised way too much with the right.
Per the 2011 Statistical Abstract of the US:
Income tax is effectively wiped out for married couples with two dependents earning less than $50K/yr.
For the under $50K/yr group in general, it isn't until they go below $13K/yr that's true.
Jim| 4.29.12 @ 2:14PM
Where in Vietnam and what unit?
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 3:11PM
What was that in response to?
Jim| 4.29.12 @ 5:21PM
Come on, now you know exactly. You said you wore the uniform during Vietnam implying you served in Vietnam.
Frank Natoli| 4.29.12 @ 4:48PM
A wounded or disabled veteran is owed by all of us. That is not the same as a "national responsibility to the poor and hungry". I can't speak for WIA but I suspect they would be disgusted with your conflating caring for them with the welfare state you apparently believe is unconscionably underfunded.
Four trillion dollar annual budget, $600 billion for defense, I believe including V-A, thus $3.4 trillion annually in transfer from those who earn to those who don't, and that's still unconscionably underfunded for you.
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 11:22AM
Just like WWI was the war to end war.
You could not pry information out of them mostly because they don't *WANT* to remember. War really is hell, for those who fight it.
You find the same with Vietnam combat vets.
mbfog| 4.27.12 @ 3:33PM
RE HERB
Wrote: ((I don't begrudge Ben his sybaritic lifestyle, his fame & wealth were honestly gained. But I have enough trouble with weight as it is, and living like that would, well, make the sands of time run even thicker for me as they clearly have for Ben. Oh well.))
God damned fine writing sir. I mean it, very nice.
Lucy O| 4.27.12 @ 3:39PM
Ben,
I love your writing. It always puts a smile on my face or gives me something to think about. We live in a grand country and I , like you, am a sinner. The Bible says that "we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of the LORD". Do you know that all those sins can be totally washed clean by the Jewish Messiah, the LORD JESUS CHRIST? Read Isaia 53.
Lucy O| 4.27.12 @ 3:40PM
Ben,
I meant to say Isaiah 53. Read that and know that your Messiah has come!!!
solidground| 4.27.12 @ 3:44PM
Ben sez, "Are the people at the White House insane? No, I am sure not. They are just trying to do their best as they see it ...."
Based on White House behaviors, "as they see it" can only be construed as viewing the world through a prism of astounding fantasy colored by malevolent ego and a warped understanding of history, human nature and certainly the free enterprise system.
Michael| 4.27.12 @ 7:32PM
Q--Are the people at the White House insane? A--No,that would be a reasonable explanation.
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 11:12AM
You are accurately describing he behavior of the Bush administration.
Oh, and there is no plural form of the word "behavior".
bob| 4.27.12 @ 4:15PM
Holy drivel.
bob| 4.27.12 @ 4:19PM
Dear chicken chickens,
You gotta wonder what you folks would do if you ran into service men who backed the war. Calling people chicken hawks can only go on for so long...Good god are you just about as dull as Stien is.
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 11:11AM
Former (Vice) President Cheney is a Chicken Hawk.
Back in 2004 70% of the military personnel in Iraq said the US should be out in one year.
Yeah, some former military personnel supported the war, but it was the chicken hawks who got us into it.
Oh, and I am an old veteran. I suspect you are not, since if you were you would have said so. Which suggests you complain because you are a chicken hawk.
Lee| 4.27.12 @ 4:25PM
> If you want to see what happens when man says that man is God and that science will tell man how to deal with his fellow man…
Actually you’ve got that reversed in the sense that “Gods” words and actions are actually from man. Where else could they come from? Science is science and not so arrogant as to think the right answers are coming from "God" (or I should say some arrogant man).
And then read the Bible Ben. You'll find plenty more genocide there if you haven't enough.
Lee| 4.27.12 @ 4:26PM
>And then read the Bible Ben. You'll find plenty more genocide there if you haven't enough.
All from the hand of God/man since they didn't have science back than.
The Bob| 4.27.12 @ 4:53PM
Reading just a few of the posts makes me realize what a bunch of mean spirited people that we (me included) have become.
Frank Drackman| 4.27.12 @ 4:54PM
HEY!
what happened to my earlier posts,
its not like I'm John Derbyshire, pointing out the real Inconvenient Truths about a certain Race that can't play well with others...
Frank
John| 4.27.12 @ 5:30PM
Ben Stein,
To be blunt: You stink.
I saw that egregious antiscience propaganda film
"Expelled" that you made/starred in. You are
a low form of life, you evolution-denying holocaust exploiting propagandist. Thanks a lot for helping further dumb down America. You disgust me.
Ralph Thomas | 4.27.12 @ 6:14PM
I love to read what you write not just for your point of view but also because of how you present your thoughts.
Actually I believe you are a fine person and I would love to meet and greet you.
Mark Reed| 4.27.12 @ 8:15PM
Ben,
Your posts are always delightful. However, do you really need the term 'wifey?' I"m sure your muse of 44 years is a gem, but I'm not sure how either of you can do anything but gag on that term of endearment.
Petronius| 4.27.12 @ 9:10PM
History is about to be repeated.
The next holocaust is soon to begin. This time the Conservatives will be sent to the gas chambers.
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 11:06AM
Show me the list of conservatives stalked, shot and murdered. Cong Giffords was just the latest of the democrats and liberals.
It's right wingers such as Ann Coulter who are calling for killing democrats. I don't see any democrats of any significance who call for killing republicans.
Nick| 4.29.12 @ 1:31PM
You're a liar.
Provide a source for your calumny.
As far as democrats go, DU.com had a comment thread entitled Suggest a Humorous Way to Kill Ann Coulter Contest:
http://www.democraticundergrou.....364x343168
Also, have you ever heard of Mike Malloy? Alec Baldwin? Craig Kilborn? Ed Shultz? Julianne Malveaux? Nina Totenberg?
All have called for the killing of Republicans/conservatives, in the past.
W| 4.29.12 @ 1:42PM
Nick
These lefties said Justice Thomas should get a heart attack, Cheney should die, Bush should be killed, Chency should get Aids as retributive justice, etc.
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 3:32PM
"These lefties said..."
Who and what did they say? Lots of people say lots of things, but when did any democrats of any significance say any of that?
I talked to a former Marine who hated Reagan with a passion. He had been discharged shortly before the Marine unit got blown up in Beirut. It was his unit, his buddies. I didn't blame him a bit. However, he was not a democrat of any significance, just a Marine who dispised those who got his buddies killed, then tried to bury it.
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 3:30PM
Note I said "democrats of any significance". Ann Coulter is clearly of significance. There are always some extremists on either side, but the right considers Coulter a spokesperson.
And it was Coulter who said her objection to the OKC bombing was that they didn't park it in front of the New York Times. She said they needed to teach liberals they could be killed.
Your first line does not include and democrats of any significance. As to Malveaux and Totenberg, what did they say? I have never heard of either of them say any such thing.
Nick| 4.29.12 @ 6:41PM
"I have never heard of either of them say any such thing."
This is because you live in a liberal echo-chamber and are ignorant about the subject on which you inanely comment, Bob.
Also, I thought that the New York Slimes was a non-partisan, objective news source, according to you libs? I could try to argue that Miss Coulter's comments were satire, but, I'm sure that wouldn't be good enough for the likes of you.
Your criteria of "democrats of any significance" is meaningless, since there are NO democrats of any significance.
"If there is retributive justice, he'll get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it" - The Totenberg
"The man is on the Court. You know, I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease. Well, that’s how I feel. He is an absolutely reprehensible person." - Julianne Malveaux
Source: http://archive.mrc.org/notable.....award6.asp
Craig Kilborn put a picture of President Bush on the screen with the caption below it which read, "Snipers Wanted."
Alec Baldwin said Henry Hyde and his family should be stoned, on the Dave Letterman show.
Ed "Putz" Shultz said that Vice-President Cheney should have his heart ripped out.
And, Mental-Case Malloy has called for the death of too many Republicans/conservatives to be listed here.
Your side is nothing but extremists, Bob.
swansong| 4.28.12 @ 12:12AM
"Extremely apropos" of what, Ben? Apropos does not mean appropriate. Look it up.
JimZawacki| 4.28.12 @ 3:33AM
My favorite series of all time. I have tried to teach
my kids and anybody else about the subject.
Even though I barely made it out of high school,
I believe WWII was the most important times that
we (56 years old) have been through.
Thanks,
Jimmy Z.
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 11:04AM
I'm nearly social security age and I was born after WWII. How did a 56 yr old live through WWII?
mike harris| 4.28.12 @ 8:54AM
Re The World at War; It was an excellent series, but beware the episodes dealing with the Soviet -Nazi war, especially the one on Stalingrad. They sound like they were made directly by the Politbureau. Still, maybe that fits in nicely with the ideological framework of current historians...
Sallyann Fama| 4.28.12 @ 9:16AM
What a wonderful article by Ben Stein. How can anyone think this soulful man is horrible? He's a wonderful human being, even if he has committed almost every sin. Bravo, Ben!
Arch| 4.28.12 @ 10:31AM
Ben:
Another excellent post. I, too, enjoyed the World at War series. One of the most powerful images is the morphing a burning man's face into a frightened boy. War makes us face our own mortality.
In 1864, my great grandfather was hit in the head by a minie ball and left for dead in the Battle of Tupelo. Fortunately, he survived until 1913.
My father landed on Omaha Beach was wounded in the hedgerow fighting, wounded again on day one of the Battle of the Bulge and killed leading his platoon into Cologne.
Forty years ago today, my F4E was hit by an SA2 over North Vietnam. Both engines were on fire and the throttles stuck in full afterburner. When we lost the flight controls, we were at 50 feet, doing 610 knots - 160 knots over survivable ejection speed.
I'm living proof that there is a God.
Herb| 4.28.12 @ 10:57AM
G-d bless you and your forebears for selfless service! For what it's worth, forty years ago today I was a Huey pilot in MR III in RVN flying long daylight missions as the NVA's Easter Offensive invaded the South in three separate prongs. At night we would watch (and feel) the F-4's doing burner takeoffs in threes headed toward Loc Ninh & An Loc which were full of Soviet made tanks & APCs. The next day we saw smashed enemy vehicles and knew you guys made our job a lot easier.
Tell us more, how did you survive ejection that low & that fast? Glad you're here to tell it!
Arch| 4.28.12 @ 1:37PM
Herb:
Thanks for the comment and same to you.
That Easter Offensive was the biggest battle of the war, and most Americans know nothing about it. The NVA had 200,000 troops; we only had 40,000 still in country. (Tet was only 84,000 VC, when we had 500,000.) As you know, tanks are not the place to be with laser guided bombs overhead.
We loved you guys. I was in the 366 TFW Gunfighters at DaNang. We had some of our guys saved by UH1 drivers. In December 1971, OJ and Oil Can Harry went down in Laos. A crew overhead Hue doing a functional check flight heard the chatter on guard asked if they could help. The SAR lead told them to turn to 270°. Soon they ran of map. No survival equipment, no food, no weapons, they found themselves near Tchapone with a can of orange soda and a pipe wrench. When Harry, face painted and .38 revolver in hand, climbed aboard, they asked him to sit in the door as gunner! They got OJ, but ran out of fuel and auto rotated into Camp Eagle.
We kidnapped them, took them to DaNang, kept them partying for three days, took them for an F4E ride and got them written up for Silver Stars.
Here's my mission.
http://www.oldwardogs.us/arch_arthur/
Claypoole| 4.28.12 @ 4:56PM
I have no idea what any of that means, but it sounds like courage, and I thank you for it. I know I couldn't have done it.
Chef Schnauzer| 4.28.12 @ 5:18PM
I'd just like to offer a second, Claypoole. My nephew is in advanced training in the Army. I've told him he is already a better man than I, it embarrasses him, its true none the less.
Herb| 4.29.12 @ 12:10AM
Clear into Tchepone & out again, fantastic! That was the center of Lam Son 719, when they closed Camp Eagle in Dec 1971 the 101st Huey drivers less than six months incountry came south to us in MR III (Task Force Garry Owen) and what a great bunch, they helped us survive when the sierra started in March 1972. For what it's worth I retired from the Army Reserve in 2011, my last annual training was with the 101st at Fort Campbell. Air Assault!
Arch| 4.29.12 @ 11:30AM
The test hops were so we could turn the UH1s over to the ARVN.
Tom Jackson| 4.29.12 @ 6:58AM
Thanks for great story and I am grateful to have access..
retired USN VET IN Australia.
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 10:59AM
"Again, back to that woman who was telling me what a horrible person I am (she gets paid for doing that, by the way)…In the room with me was a "mediator" who was a human miracle. His parents were Holocaust survivors. His mother, as a Jewish child in Poland, had to hide in a closet for five years. His father hid in a forest. Now, he travels the world skiing and doing Ecuadorean river kayaking while not mediating. All thanks to America and to his hero parents and to the heroes who beat the Nazis. Human beings are amazing creatures—capable of the best and the worst. This country mostly has the ones who are capable of the best. Let us thank God. Every breath we take of American air is a miracle."
Please explain what that mediator has to do with the woman who was telling you what a horrible person you are.
Dave| 4.29.12 @ 12:30PM
IWATCHED A 2 HOUR PROGRAM LAST EVENING ABOUT WW2 AND THE EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE DEFEAT OF GERMANY.THESE WERE ACTUAL OLD MOVIE CLIPS IN BLACK AND WHITE.THE HORRIBLE PICTURES OF THE PILES OF DEAD BODIES WILL STAY WITH ME FOREVER.IT IS A PITY THAT THESE PEOPLE WERE TREATED THIS WAY.I CAN ONLY HOPE THAT THESE DEVILS THAT DID THESE THINGS WILL ROT IN HELL!!!!
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 1:51PM
" What a time to be even thinking of cutting the military budget. Are the people at the White House insane? No, I am sure not. They are just trying to do their best as they see it, but they are still way off the beam. This is a dangerous world. It is not time to cut the military budget."
It's always been a dangerous world. Yet that didn't stop 5 of the last 7 republican administrations from cutting the military budget.
Of all the democratic presidents elected post WWII, the number who did not increase the military budget has been exactly zero.
The Obama administration is not cutting the military budget, they are reducing the rate of growth. Though budget cuts may yet be required because republicans will not agree to a budget that includes revenue increases, and that means the budget caps require cuts all across the board.
In which vein, may I point out that all of you who advocate across the board spending cuts are advocating military spending cuts.
However, you should know, and your readers need to know, military spending and the military budget are not the same thing. Much if most of the spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been in the military budget. So when we get out, a reduction in spending on military action will not mean a cut in the military budget.
Also, much of spending on the military is in other budgets. Our nuclear arsenal is clearly military, but the money largely come under the department of energy. VA spending is social welfare spending, but being wounded in combat certainly is military in essence. So is PTSD.
Bob From District 9| 4.29.12 @ 3:09PM
I know very little about the woman who tells you how horrible you are, so I will just tell you, you are evil.
Your equation with evolution with the Holocaust is truly evil. Neo-Darwinist is an old term that only applies to a specific period and a change in the scientific understanding. There is no real basis for calling evolution "Darwinism".
Claiming that the theory of evolution has anything to do with causing the holocaust is just a smear from a creationist.
The "Neo-Darwinism" you speak of is really Social Darwinism, which is now a significant part of the basis of Laissez Faire Capitalism the right preaches so strongly.
No where does the science of evolution say man is God, nor does it deny the existance of God in any way. For the benefit of your readers, who are probably overwhemingly Christians, the great majority of Christians in this world belong to faiths that accept evolution.
A Catholic Bishop in Illinois was recently criticized for citing Hitler is a litany of those who opposed religious freedom in his homily with the accusation that linking Hitler with others trivializes the Holocaust. That though he only named them as opposing religious freedom with no other points raised.
Yet you have outright equated evolution with the Holocaust, calling it a major contributing cause. Your personal beliefs may run rampant, but here I accuse you of trivializing the Holocaust in your mania to bring down scientific truth in favor of a religious straightjacket.
Nick| 4.30.12 @ 12:02AM
Darwinian evolution is not even a theory, it is a hypothesis. A pathetic hypothesis that was proven false a long, long time ago.
And, Darwin's survival of the fittest most certainly was the influence for the nazi's racist theories, which led to the Holocaust. This is historic fact.
David Smith| 4.30.12 @ 8:02AM
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleans us of all unrighteousness-- 1John 1:9
H | 4.30.12 @ 10:15AM
I am so appreciative of each post you write (and which I remember to read).
And still disappointed I never ran into you in Sandpoint last summer.
That is all.