Winston Churchill

[PHenry42]

To be fair, most Americans are rather envious of Churchill. Whilst their ailing president Roosevelt refused to join until US soil was attacked in 1941, Churchill's motivational speeches, uplifting spirit and brazen attitude was the epitome of the war effort against Hitler, especially when Britain stood alone against Germany, Italy and Japan.

Churchill had a more 'George Washington' spirit in the face of evil, if you like.

That's a quite unfair assessment of Roosevelt. He didn't hold off going to war because he didn't want to. He was utterly convinced that the Nazis had to be stopped, and did what he could towards that end. Yet he wasn't a dictator, he couldn't have brought the US into war by his own, he had isolationist domestic opposition to overcome. The issue of lend-lease (which began way before the US entry into the war) demonstrates it perfectly. Roosevelt just wanted to send as much hardware as possible, but he had to put a price tag on all of it since the opposition wouldn't agree to giving away free stuff.

Roosevelt did the right thing, and managed to get things done despite working under the constraints imposed by democracy and domestic opposition. He sent Britain as much help as he possibly could get away with, and he indirectly contributed to the US war entry by taking a tough diplomatic stance towards Japan, making it commit the fatal mistake of making a first strike against the US (under the false belief that war with the US was imminent anyway) and thus dragging it into war for him.

In terms of actual achievement towards the downfall of the Axis, Roosevelt >> Churchill. I think the American right-winger admiration for Churchill may have more to do with the fact that Roosevelt had this controversial thing called the New Deal, while Churchill was a bigoted, chest-beating and fist-waving antisocialist who took no prisoners. And a tough guy with a fat cigar and a submachine gun no doubt makes for better showmanship than a sickly guy in a suit in a wheelchair.

 

[grasping the after wind]

That's a quite unfair assessment of Roosevelt. He didn't hold off going to war because he didn't want to. He was utterly convinced that the Nazis had to be stopped, and did what he could towards that end. Yet he wasn't a dictator, he couldn't have brought the US into war by his own, he had isolationist domestic opposition to overcome. The issue of lend-lease (which began way before the US entry into the war) demonstrates it perfectly. Roosevelt just wanted to send as much hardware as possible, but he had to put a price tag on all of it since the opposition wouldn't agree to giving away free stuff.

Roosevelt did the right thing, and managed to get things done despite working under the constraints imposed by democracy and domestic opposition. He sent Britain as much help as he possibly could get away with, and he indirectly contributed to the US war entry by taking a tough diplomatic stance towards Japan, making it commit the fatal mistake of making a first strike against the US (under the false belief that war with the US was imminent anyway) and thus dragging it into war for him.

In terms of actual achievement towards the downfall of the Axis, Roosevelt >> Churchill. I think the American right-winger admiration for Churchill may have more to do with the fact that Roosevelt had this controversial thing called the New Deal, while Churchill was a bigoted, chest-beating and fist-waving antisocialist who took no prisoners. And a tough guy with a fat cigar and a submachine gun no doubt makes for better showmanship than a sickly guy in a suit in a wheelchair.

Actually, I think most right wingers dislike Roosevelt's lack of backbone in standing up to Stalin's plans for the USSR post war domination of Eastern Europe. Roosevelt was , like Churchhill, a smoker and a showman and never allowed himself to be seen as a sickly guy or to be seen as crippled in public. Roosevelt was a much more publicity conscious politician and PR manipulator than Churchill ever dreamed of being.

 

[Supreme]

That's a quite unfair assessment of Roosevelt. He didn't hold off going to war because he didn't want to. He was utterly convinced that the Nazis had to be stopped, and did what he could towards that end. Yet he wasn't a dictator, he couldn't have brought the US into war by his own, he had isolationist domestic opposition to overcome. The issue of lend-lease (which began way before the US entry into the war) demonstrates it perfectly. Roosevelt just wanted to send as much hardware as possible, but he had to put a price tag on all of it since the opposition wouldn't agree to giving away free stuff.

Roosevelt did the right thing, and managed to get things done despite working under the constraints imposed by democracy and domestic opposition. He sent Britain as much help as he possibly could get away with, and he indirectly contributed to the US war entry by taking a tough diplomatic stance towards Japan, making it commit the fatal mistake of making a first strike against the US (under the false belief that war with the US was imminent anyway) and thus dragging it into war for him.

In terms of actual achievement towards the downfall of the Axis, Roosevelt >> Churchill. I think the American right-winger admiration for Churchill may have more to do with the fact that Roosevelt had this controversial thing called the New Deal, while Churchill was a bigoted, chest-beating and fist-waving antisocialist who took no prisoners. And a tough guy with a fat cigar and a submachine gun no doubt makes for better showmanship than a sickly guy in a suit in a wheelchair.

Now who's guilty of Nationalistic feel good history?

 

[PHenry42]

Oh, maybe it is, but it's the truth. Some people do actually stand out even when put under maximum cynical scrutiny. But if you think I'm a Roosevelt fanboy, I do maintain that he did his share of bad too. Like the absolutely asinine travesty that was the Morgenthau plan, which would hardly have been put to practice if not for his endorsal. And which Churchill opposed, apropos of nothing.

 

[Chesterton]

Churchill had some pretty harsh criticisms of Islam. Is that part of your beef with him?

 

[PHenry42]

Oh yeah, let's assume that I'm intentionally dishonest and looking for excuses to put down what I could only conclude to be a great man if I were assessing hin honestly. Let's assume I have a "beef" rather than being someone with rational views.

What's your beef with reality? Why do you want to imagine this mediocre leader as someone great?

 

[simonpeter]

PHenry is coming up with layers upon layers of facts, sound reasoning, to show Churchill for what he really was: a mediocre person at best. All others could do is ask the same q: why do you hate Churchill? Is it because you're a Muslim?

Funny to watch Churchill fans squirm and get personal once their views are challenged.

 

[Chesterton]

Oh yeah, let's assume that I'm intentionally dishonest and looking for excuses to put down what I could only conclude to be a great man if I were assessing hin honestly. Let's assume I have a "beef" rather than being someone with rational views.

What's your beef with reality? Why do you want to imagine this mediocre leader as someone great?

Well sorry guy, but your complaints are kind of odd. Like, why didn't he "do something" before he was in power when he was doing pretty much all a man could do. Plus you call him names like a bigoted chest-beater. It sounds like it's kind of personal with you.

 

[PHenry42]

Only because you adhere to the dubious notion that having been right in hindsight actually makes him into a great leader. Still figured out what tangible benefit his hindsight did anyone? Meanwhile, nobody has been able to show really any significant political or strategic feats he did while in charge.

It's personal to call a spade a spade? A cursory glance at the man beyond the mythologized war hero would lead any neutral observer to conclude the same. He was a ranting, flaming dogmatist utterly contemptful and spiteful of anything that didn't fit his views. Not only Islam, but also Liberalism and Socialism, and any opposition to Imperialism. Look up what he had to say about Gandhi, just for kicks.

 

[PHenry42]

Oh, maybe it is, but it's the truth. Some people do actually stand out even when put under maximum cynical scrutiny. But if you think I'm a Roosevelt fanboy, I do maintain that he did his share of bad too. Like the absolutely asinine travesty that was the Morgenthau plan, which would hardly have been put to practice if not for his endorsal. And which Churchill opposed, apropos of nothing.

And I might add, if you still think I'm nationalistically biased in favour of Roosevelt, that Stalin >> both Roosevelt and Churchill, when it came to the defeat of the Nazi Empire.

 

[Supreme]

And I might add, if you still think I'm nationalistically biased in favour of Roosevelt, that Stalin >> both Roosevelt and Churchill, when it came to the defeat of the Nazi Empire.

Wow. So you think the greatest mass murderer in history is better than Churchill?

Now I know you're not being serious.

 

[PHenry42]

Wow. So you think the greatest mass murderer in history is better than Churchill?

Now I know you're not being serious.

I didn't say that he was a good man overall, or anything like that. Just that when it comes to who actually contributed most to the downfall of the Reich, nobody comes even close to Stalin. I'm not admiring the man or anything, just admitting fact. He might have been a mediocre war leader, but let's face it, his leadership had built the whole Soviet system. A system which managed to keep together despite enormous humanitarian strain (much moreso than that which had brought down the Tsar in WW1), and which managed to produce a ludicrous amount of armaments and consequently smash the Wehrmacht. When the Western Allies finally landed in Europe in force at D-day, the Soviet Union had all but won the war already.

 

[Chesterton]

And I might add, if you still think I'm nationalistically biased in favour of Roosevelt, that Stalin >> both Roosevelt and Churchill, when it came to the defeat of the Nazi Empire.

Yeah, now you must be trolling. The Soviets finally started winning in spite of Stalin, not because of him. You could write volumes about Stalin's indecision, ineptness and cowardice.

 

[PHenry42]

See post #72.

 

[Chesterton]

See post #72.

Before the war Stalin arrested or killed all his best military officers because they were too good at their jobs. He ignored all evidence and intelligence that the German invasion was coming. When it came he spent hours in fear and indecision, then fled to his country home and did nothing. (He later even admitted that when government officials showed up to ask him to give some direction, he initially thought they coming to demand his resignation.) He tried to cut deals with Hitler even after the invasion. And if his Soviet system was so well-built, why did Stalin spend the whole war begging for American supplies?

 

[PHenry42]

No poop, everyone knows Stalin's leadership during the actual war was inept at first, and that the officer purge was detrimental to the efficiency of the Red Army. Will you stop trying to score points from things that everyone agrees on and nobody ever contests? Yet, Stalin could afford all that and still win, because of the industrial power he had built up allowed the Soviet Union to win despite the epic fails in the beginning. As for Stalin "begging for American supplies", how would that disprove the power of the Soviet economy? More is more, regardless of how much you already have. Lend-lease was a drop in the bucket compared to the actual output of the Soviet war economy.

 

[Chesterton]

No poop, everyone knows Stalin's leadership during the actual war was inept at first, and that the officer purge was detrimental to the efficiency of the Red Army. Will you stop trying to score points from things that everyone agrees on and nobody ever contests? Yet, Stalin could afford all that and still win, because of the industrial power he had built up allowed the Soviet Union to win despite the epic fails in the beginning. As for Stalin "begging for American supplies", how would that disprove the power of the Soviet economy? More is more, regardless of how much you already have. Lend-lease was a drop in the bucket compared to the actual output of the Soviet war economy.

So Stalin's greatness lies in the fact that he ordered more tanks and planes to be built after he was at war? What would another leader have done, ordered fewer armaments be built?

Are you a socialist? (Sorry, but when someone has such a topsy-turvy view of reality, there must be some rhyme or reason for it.)

 

[grasping the after wind]

And I might add, if you still think I'm nationalistically biased in favour of Roosevelt, that Stalin >> both Roosevelt and Churchill, when it came to the defeat of the Nazi Empire.

Was that before or after he helped the Nazis invade Poland?
And of course Stalin had none of the negative personality traits that Churchill had.

 

[mindlight]

How about not getting personal? I could just as well say the same about you, that you must be obtuse for saying the same things over and over again despite having been shown how those points are irrelevant. Oh, there's plenty of reasons to despise Churchill as a person, but mainly it has to do with my aversion for Nationalistic feel-good history. A society can never be too critical of its past, or its cherished national narrative.

It is a healthy thing to be critical of ones nation when the truth is on ones side. A true patriot is not blind to his nations faults. But this is exactly why I cherish Churchill. He was proclaiming the truth to an indifferent, blind bunch of snobby grandees in his party for 6 years before they realised he was actually right all along and let his voice be properly heard. Anyone who has ever experienced marginalisation for their beliefs and been excluded because they did not fit with the unthinking mainstream can surely sympathise with that.

How does credibility make him a good leader? Good leadership isn't only about making people follow you (for which credibility certainly helps), but about actually making good decisions too. Having everyone follow your lead doesn't count for poop if you lead them into a ditch.

So you think someone who calls a spade a spade and has been calling it that as long as there was a spade to call a spade is less fit to tell us about spades than someone who thinks its a lampstand.

Also Churchills decisions about the conduct of the war were mainly good ones. In fact you agree with most of them as being the blindlingly obvious thing to do so you agree they were probably the best decisions.

Well, in a democratic system, there's this thing called elections, and this thing called public opinion. Had he been such an awesome leader, he could have used both to get into power and stop Chamberlain, or forced him to change course.

You do not understand the Britain of the thirties or the Tory party in particular which to be honest epitomised its faults. The British were living in a cloud of deceptions , in a dream from which they did not want waking. The British ruling classes were afraid of war after the flower of their class had been wiped out in WW1. We were a wounded nation who craved peace because we understood too well the cost of war. It blinded us to what needed to be done. We had enough problems trying to hold together an empire that was unaffordable at a time of recession, and that was starting to assert its desires for independence. We knew that a war would break the whole house of cards and we loved the prestige and grandeur of empire too much. Churchill was regarded as an irritation and as a warmongerer cause he wanted us to open up eyes to the devil that was staring at us from across the channel. We prefered the romantic illusions of cinema and kings who abdicated for love to such tiresome realities.

Not ignored. It's you who've ignored my demonstration of why Munich is an absolute red herring. I'll try to put it in clear terms this time. Ready? Ok, let's go. Everyone agrees Munich was a debacle, that Chamberlain did the wrong thing, and that Churchill would have done better. Agreement so far. Now, here comes the actual gist of it: It doesn't matter that Churchill turned out in retrospect to have been right. Or if it does, tell me, what tangible benefit did Churchill's "I told you so!" grant anyone? What tangible benefit does hindsight give anyone in the present? What he WOULD have done if he had been in power during Munich is irrelevant, for he wasn't.

No of course it is not irrelevant. Its like a man whom you know will hit you or shoot you if you try and take his stuff cause he has spelt that out clearly and looks the sort that would do it. Now compare him to a man who you managed to con into giving you the same stuff by a few tantrums and cleverly managed displays of force that eroded his selfconfidence at the crucial moment. Hitler facing Chamberlain was facing a man he had already beaten once and knew could be deceived. Churchill was a different story , his eyes were open. In the conflict of nations the blind cannot lead as effectively as one who sees.

And what difference did his "cultivation" make? Roosevelt didn't need to be cultivated, he was entirely convinced on his own that Hitler needed to be stopped and did all he could to that effect already, Churchill notwithstanding. What actually held back US entry into the war was isolationist public opinion, which neither Roosevelt nor Churchill managed to overcome; it took Pearl Harbour to do that.

Churchill managed that relationship with considerable skill and his American mother, his rhetorical abililties and his standing firm in thé face of the blitz won him a lot of sympathy which would nto have been so forthcoming to the colder more aloof aristocrats like Halifax who was probably the alternative to Churchill and who as we have seen was tempted to make peace with Hitler.

Okay, half a year. Still doesn't change the fact that he had nothing to do with the end of appeasement, others did it despite him.

So hes one of the few lone voices and perhaps the most articulate of them in fact. He is speaking out an opinion for years before the rest of the public finally realise he is right and he has nothing to do with them finally waking up to the reality of what he is saying!!!! Makes me wonder why you bother to speak if you think words are so ineffective.

 

[mindlight]

To be fair, most Americans are rather envious of Churchill. Whilst their ailing president Roosevelt refused to join until US soil was attacked in 1941, Churchill's motivational speeches, uplifting spirit and brazen attitude was the epitome of the war effort against Hitler, especially when Britain stood alone against Germany, Italy and Japan.

Churchill had a more 'George Washington' spirit in the face of evil, if you like.

I notice Time magasine christened Roosevelt the man of the century in 2000 and Churchill did not fare as well in this American magasines rankings. The jealous desire to preserve ones national myths being hardly unique to the UK.