Ethics

The Power of Rationalization

By Ed Brayton

As the body count for American soldiers hits 4000 (not to mention tens of thousands of Iraqis, but for some reason most Americans don't seem to think they count on the balance sheet, and not to mention the tens of thousands of wounded Americans, many of whom have had their entire life shattered), some on the right are reaching for the most ridiculous rationalizations for it. The latest meme: "Only 4000? But many more have been killed in totally unrelated ways throughout history." How this might justify those deaths is left unspoken, of course; no one is going to actually try to make a coherent argument for that conclusion. Here's what one conservative rationalizes away those deaths:

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on March 27, 2008 (boomark / email).