I am not going to urge you to vote.
I am simply going to express my opinion that anyone who does not vote at this election is a traitor to the Republic. And never knowingly will I shake hands with him or sit down to a meal with him. For, in the hour of gravest peril, he failed to do the only specific duty which is laid upon him as a citizen of this Republic. No one has a “duty” to be President, no one even has a “duty” to be a soldier until summoned by our Commander in Chief, but the humblest or laziest member of our society has a duty to vote.
Henry Luce, October 1940
no one even has a “duty” to be a soldier until summoned by our Commander in Chief
This really hurts his overall argument. He’s supporting conscription, a form of slavery where we force people to fight rather than pay them fairly. They’re protecting capital below cost.
Nobody has a duty to be a soldier for the President of the United States. He’s praying at the altar of our state religion.
Is it cool if I voted but still consider myself a traitor to the Republic? Really not a fan of what the Republic has done these last centuries.
It’s pretty sneaky that they’re allowed to drop the © off “Republic”.
I know folks who dont vote because they think its playing into the hand of the rich, and they would rather have a monarchy because its better than democracy. Wow.
Those assholes surrendered their vote. Be sure to tell them that.
Yeah theyre idiots. Brainwashed by manosphere and Rand.
In the field of national policy, the fundamental trouble with America has been, and is, that whereas their nation became in the 20th Century the most powerful and the most vital nation in the world, nevertheless Americans were unable to accommodate themselves spiritually and practically to that fact. Hence they have failed to play their part as a world power – a failure which has had disastrous consequences for themselves and for all mankind. And the cure is this: to accept wholeheartedly our duty and our opportunity as the most powerful and vital nation in the world and in consequence to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit.
…
Without our help he [ Roosevelt ] cannot be our greatest President. With our help he can and will be. Under him and with his leadership we can make isolationism as dead an issue as slavery [ 😬 ] , and we can make a truly American internationalism something as natural to us in our time as the airplane or the radio.
…
The vision of America as the principal guarantor of the freedom of the seas, the vision of Americas [sic] as the dynamic leader of world trade, has within it the possibilities of such enormous human progress as to stagger the imagination.
Yeah, that’s him. Are you arguing that American isolationism, while Hitler was occupying Paris and bombing London, was the right stance?
I’m arguing that American imperialism, especially as it shaped up post WW2 is one of the worst things to happen to humanity.
maybe america shouldn’t play world police
“So we should’ve just let hitler commit unhindered genocide???”
Under him and with his leadership we can make isolationism as dead an issue as slavery [ 😬 ]
At that time, in that place and context, “isolationism” meant “we don’t want to get involved in the war in Europe.” That was literally what Luce was talking about. It wasn’t about proxy wars in Viet Nam, it was about whether we should let Hitler do his thing in Europe and Japan do their thing in the Pacific and we’d be fine and safe in America, so why bother getting involved?
To put it in modern terms, should we be helping Ukraine defend themselves against Russia?
It wasn’t about proxy wars in Viet Nam
I can’t say he was thinking specifically of that when he wrote his famous editorial but what he did afterwards does not support this idea.
Vietnam became a major cause for Luce and he encouraged his publications to follow his lead. An ardent interventionist, he supported greater involvement in the conflict. Speaking before a group of Time Inc. staff after a 1960 trip around the world he stated:
“. . . the policy I advocate is intervention — intervention. I advocate interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Long years ago, there was a very young man in the State Department whom I met …. up in Baghdad. He was a very minor fellow… and he was saying, ‘You know, the great phoniness and stultification of …. diplomatic thing is non-interference in internal affairs.’ It isn’t true; everybody does interfere. We interfere if we give money or if we don’t give money. We ought to interfere more and better.”
Do you have a source for this quote? The only previous mention of it I can find is this unsourced Reddit post. Makes me skeptical about its authenticity.
It’s from a letter from the editor from LIFE Magazine from October 1940. That’s me on the old website, posting it originally. Unfortunately, that’s from an older phone so I haven’t got the original page scan, but the full text of the article is quoted in the comments over there.
Thanks, looks like it’s accessible through Google Books (end of page 29).
Good find, thank you! This was from a time when I was looking through a lot of old LIFE magazines and got a lot of really cool looks into old time history through that lens.
That’s me on the old website
holy shit that’s hilarious. Good on ya!
Voting works better when there “confirmation” system isn’t owned by the political assbreathers, tbf.
They do not want a republic. So to them they are not traitors but glorious leaders into a world where instead of serve they will rule.
Calling them traitors is exactly what they are.
But it will not affect them at all. They rejoice in your disdain. And moving forward I have no ideas on how to make a united nation inside one so deeply and insidiously divided.
Wealth inequality is what they want. And violence and destroy any others wealth is how they will do it.
I’m sure you won’t sit down with people who didn’t vote your way either.
Yeah but Kamala was a cop or something.
I love how Libs always downplay that she supported a genocide, and told people to sit down and shut up when voters brought it up. Or that she stood behind a clearly senile old man, who was clearly unqualified to lead. Or that she said Trump was too soft on Iran. Or that she offered no solutions to what the voters needed. Or that she said a highly unpopular President was doing a good job. Or a hundred other obviously bad things that she said and did.
They always bring up things like her laugh, or that she was a cop, as if those were the deciding factors in any way.
DeMoCrAt bAD sO bUrN dOwN
If your “Republic” going genocidal isn’t reason enough to burn everything down, what is?
Thanks tankie
The state already considers me a domestic terrorist for being a socialist, I owe “the Republic” jack shit. I want an end to the US Empire, not a perpetuation of it and the genocide it brings to the people of Cuba, Palestine, and the indigenous nations of the north American continent.
And your plan to bring that about is not voting?
