Honestly thinking (& rethinking) about God, the universe, and everything in between

Tag: lies

Trump, Hiroshima, and the Casualties of Politics

On Aug 6, 1945, a U.S. B-29 plane, under the authorization of President Harry S. Truman, dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, followed by a second one, Aug 9, on the city of Nagasaki. This action was credited with causing the surrender of Japanese forces, effectively ending World War II.

Some estimates place the death toll from the bombings upwards of 100,000 people, mostly civilians (including children). Add in the number of injuries and the numbers rise to over 200,000 casualties.victim_of_hiroshima_atomic_bombing_3

Since then, the bombings have been the subject of great moral debate as to whether such an action was necessary and worth the cost in casualties. Proponents then and now have argued that it avoided a prolonged battle with an enemy committed to fighting “to the bitter end” – which, in turn, would have cost a projected “half a million American lives and many more that number in wounded” as well as an equal number or more of Japanese lives.

In his public address, President Truman stated, ““Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.”

In addition, many supporters have argued that the brute force of the bomb served as a demonstration to the Soviet Union, consequently keeping them in check for years to comes and saving potentially millions more lives.

Today, a different kind of war is taking place on actual U.S. soil – what has often been called the “culture wars.” Now, while I do not pretend that what is going on here even compares to the tragic loss of lives in physical war, it must be admitted there are still costs.

For politics, like war, is dirty…and people get hurt.

Consequently, amidst all the politicking arose another great moral debate.Faced with the prospects of either selecting a vitriolic person of questionable character to lead the country or continuing to battle against a political enemy whom they saw as destructive to our future, conservatives and many independents were forced to make a difficult choice.trump-vs-clinton

In the end, the majority decided the former was worth the cost.

Thus, on November 8, 2016 a bomb was dropped on half our population…

…a bomb known as President-elect Trump. Continue reading

Not Gonna Lie

or….Thanks, God, For the Really Sucky Years

(Welcome to my blog part 1 of 2)

I’m not gonna lie to you….half of what I’m going to tell you throughout this blog site is a lie. What???  Steve, you’re starting out this blog called “Honestly Thinking” by telling me you can’t really be trusted (not to mention the contradictory sentence and bad grammar)??  Yes…and no…and not exactly.  I promise to always be honest with you, but that means telling you up front that a big percentage of what I say to you I don’t fully believe myself.  In other words, I constantly tell lies to myself.  I’m a hypocrite.  What I say I believe and what I actually end up doing are often two different things.  That’s because what I truly believe in my head doesn’t always transfer to what I truly believe in my heart and vice versa; thus, I continually end up living a contradictory life.  Continue reading

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