Cleverly worded post. However, it contains some "facts" not in evidence and a non sequitur or two, making it less an observation than something more like a partisan mini-sermon:
Wayne's lack of service was not "draft dodging". There would have been legal consequences. It "may" have been less than noble if he wasn't, as has been alleged, physically exempt (bad knees). But the contrarian view is, also, an allegation -- except in the eyes of liberals like you with their retributive sites set upon Republican offenders exclusively who've been dead for 20 or 30 years. Now, an example of "real" draft dodging, in a more contemporary offender, can be found in the currently breathing William Jefferson Clinton.
"radical individualism"? What IS "radical individualism" (as compared to just plain ol' individualism, I mean), bearing in mind "individualism", accurately defined, isn't a precept of the "right" in general (excluding, perhaps, objectivists)-- while individual liberty "is". Two very different concepts, wouldn't you agree? Nor is the, misused in this case, maxim -- "every man for himself". Neither is, come to think of it, Wayne's and Hawk's "Rio Bravo".
Differentiate, if you please, between the "far right" and the "right". Just curious.
"Sometimes a man can solve a problem alone, at other times it takes a village."
(Did you get Hillary's permission to use the term, "it takes a village"?) Nevermind. I can't think of anyone on the right or the left who would disagree with such an assertion, which, in any case, has nothing to do with messages to be found in either film. The themes of both run a little deeper than a bumper sticker-like slogan may assign . . . or a book title.
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ducdebrabant
13 years ago
William Jefferson Clinton and John Wayne did exactly the same thing, the only difference being that John
Wayne did so in the midst of a global conflict on the outcome of which the existence of this country depended.
There were no "legal consequences" to obtaining a student deferment either.
And William Jefferson Clinton, unlike John Wayne, was not a hawk in the aftermath, nor did he pose as the soul of the military man and the gun-toting pioneer in real life.
The only foreign conflict in which we engaged during his administration was a peacekeeping mission in Kossovo, which thwarted a genocide and resulted in not a single American casualty.
It's interesting that you use "cleverly worded" as an insult, when your entire post is purely an exercise in uncooperative semantics and alternative syntax. As such, it is not worthy of any more serious response than this one.
The Republican Plan: repeal all reform; collect payoffs; go yachting (but not in the Gulf).
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cwente2
13 years ago
Wow!!! I guess I been told! (I know -- it was them damn uncooperative semantics what done it!)
Ah, I know you're not reading this, so I suppose I'm wasting my time here but . . . I don't think you CAN answer any of my questions. So . . . a scolding will suffice in lieu?
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vinidici
13 years ago
Typical ultra-lib response, cwente. Let it go, and let the exchanges stand between you and him for others' discernment.
As for John Wayne, regardless of his own personal nobility or the lack thereof, he had legal prerogatives at his disposal, some medical problems and a family to support, probably none of which would have kept him from volunteering, but all of which worked together to be sufficiently satisfactory to the draft board for them to not press the issue re: putting Wayne in uniform. We still needed able-bodied men at home to do the work not taken by all the "Rosie the Riveters" who had joined the work force, so Wayne's own choice to not serve is not necessarily worthy of condemnation. As you implied, if he had broken any laws, he would have, consequntly, found himself wearing one uniform or the other: military or a prison inmate's set of duds!
Whatever you do, DO NOT read this sig--ACKKK!!! TOO LATE!!!
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ducdebrabant
13 years ago
Nobody said he broke any laws. That's a straw man. Clinton broke no laws either, but your bud floated over that detail when he used the fact that no illegalities occurred to prove that Wayne wasn't a draft dodger. But Wayne was a draft dodger. As was Dick Cheney, by the way. What this boils down to is two more conservatives saying it's all right when we do it. I am far more prepared to forgive Wayne his wartime decisions than I am to forgive his brazen hypocrisy later on. Same with Cheney. And the suggestion that Wayne was needed at home, like a dame on an assembly line, is funny. Being a movie star was essential war work? We managed to find actors to replace Gable, Stewart, Power, et al. for the duration.
The Republican Plan: repeal all reform; collect payoffs; go yachting (but not in the Gulf).
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cwente2
13 years ago
"Clinton broke no laws 'either' (my emph.) ..."
So, Wayne broke no laws? To be a draft dodger you "have" to have broken the law, as opposed to being exempted from service for lawful reasons. Yet you say -- "Wayne 'was' a draft dodger." Sounds like an oxymoron to me. And, ah, "same with Cheney". Hmmm, so what law did he break?
"What this boils down to is two more conservatives saying it's all right when we do it."
Nope. It's two more conservatives saying neither Wayne nor Cheney did it.
"I am far more prepared to forgive Wayne his wartime decisions ..."
I'm sure the Wayne family will be forever grateful to you, ducdebrabant, for your magnanimity and condescension.
"... than I am to forgive his brazen hypocrisy later on."
I see. You'd prefer that a man who's raped and killed your wife, been to prison, gets out and hits the lecture circuit to speak of the rightness of the act than to condemn it, thus avoiding the epithet - "hypocrite". In case you haven't noticed . . . we're "all" hypocrites.
"Being a movie star was essential war work?"
Yup. I, for one, agree with FDR, the Army, the Navy, and the Army Air Corps in that opinion.
You're right, vinidici, I think I'll move on to more profitable postings. We've learned from experience, haven't we? Whew!
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vinidici
13 years ago
We managed to find actors to replace Gable, Stewart, Power, et al. for the duration.
Yep! And Wayne was one of the "replacees."
Anyway, ducdebrabant, I think I'll mosey along myself, don't much care for your tone, though I leave you with a certain modicum of respect for your opinions while not sharing them all. In short, it's been real, it's been fun, but it ain't been REAL FUN!
Have a nice day.
Whatever you do, DO NOT read this sig--ACKKK!!! TOO LATE!!!
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dannieboy20906
9 years ago
Your post is several years before this one, but just to keep the record straight:
John Wayne was a 34 year old married father of three when he requested a draft deferment on that basis. He was excused based on being the only basis of support for his wife and children. In addition, he was working in a career field that the federal government identified as vital to the national interest. Had he been drafted the war department would have sent him to work where he worked anyway. That's what they did with other actors, including Clark Gable after he had finished his dangerous stint of publicity operations, five bombing raids as the only officer gunner in the US Army Air Forces. Jimmy Stewart had to fight the system all the way to Hap Arnold to fly bombers and go into actual combat.
William Jefferson Clinton petitioned to become a Rhodes Scholar after he graduated and ran out his college draft deferment. He was a 22 year old jobless single man. During his residency at King's College, Cambridge University he took time off to go march in an anit-America peace rally in Moscow.
Our air campaign in Kosovo is believed by some, and very possibly did, result directly in the deaths of more Kosovar Serbians (Serbian Kosovars?) than were killed by the 'right wing terrorists' that we were trying to defend them from. We killed (certainly by accident) more than 250 of the population we were trying to defend because President Clinton ordered our aircraft to remain above ten thousand feet altitude. That order was issued because his stated number one goal of the campaign was to avoid US casualties. It was, to the best of my knowledge, the only time up to then or since that our first goal was to eliminate our warriors casualties even if it compromised the mission and got civilians killed.
I will let others consider how much alike they were. I will also let persons on the left choose the type of people they want as heroes, while I will stick with the kind of heroes I learned to respect.
The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.
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chiodoesque
9 years ago
The very fact that Hawks had such a knee-jerk macho response to High Noon is laughable. As if being a big bad fearless lawman is a basis to judge a film as good as High Noon.
Another clue to his outsize ego: he actually cut Harey Carey Jr's part in this film because he dared to address him as "Howard" on the set.(see trivia)
I love both films and I don't get the persona mixed up with the real man. Wayne was usually spot on in his character acting. But he was often a dimwitted dullard, who had no use for horses, Native Americans or anyone who protested the Vietnam War.
And Cwente, your responses sound like something from an SNL takeoff on an anal film school professor.
But as Hopalong Cassidy once quipped: "He shore did talk purty."
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dannieboy20906
9 years ago
I don't know about the specific claims in the trivia section for this film that you cite. I did not know Harey Carey Jr. or Howard Hawks. But I do know that many of the entries in the IMDB trivia section for many films are nonsense. They do no fact checking and allow members of good standing to enter anything. I will agree that there are many stories of Howard Hawks's ego.
I like (I won't go so far as to say love) both films, too. But I find Rio Bravo more satisfying from a moral view.
It is easily demonstrated that John Wayne was neither dimwitted nor a dullard. He was well educated and well read. He was a bit narrow minded on some issues, but he had cogent points to argue about some of the indigenous tribal people, the leftist idiots who always believe that anyone who complained about America in the 1960s and 1970s was right, and Vietnam war protesters. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of our political leaders to convince us of the correctness of their foreign policy. It is our responsibility to understand the arguments by educating ourselves. Both our leaders and we the people often fail in those responsibilities.
You go, Cwente.
The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.
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