How about that Winston Churchill? Now he was a man the likes of which we rarely see today.
How about that Winston Churchill? Now he was a man the likes of which we rarely see today.
Blood, toil, tears and sweat.
I would say to the House... that I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: it is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: it is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
Well, so long as we forget Gallipoli I suppose.....
pres589 (djronnebaum) said:Once again with these wonderful people...
I would say: Good luck finding almost anyone born in the 1870's that would not have offensive views by todays standards.
My suggestion: stop judging historical figures based on current day morals.
Churchill was a very useful and effective person for his time. After the war, his perspective was less useful.
Private Eightball:
Believe it or not, but under fire, Animal Mother can be a wonderful human being. All he needs is somebody throwing grenades at him 'til the end of his life.
I'm nicknamed "Duke" because my mother was watching Mr. Churchill's funeral on live TV while in labor with me.
"Never was so much owed by so many to so few"
Churchill's homage to the Royal Air Force
British Empire berk yah...comin' to save the mother berking world yah
For any that need a refresher on the Supermarine Spitfire:
"Some people don't like you? Good, it means you've stood up for something in your life."
"I like a man who smiles when he fights"
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In reply to aircooled :
You all want to lionize different awful people, that's fine, but don't be surprised if someone brings up ways that they were demonstratively awful. Very strange that we're constantly being thrown this idea that because someone was 'on our side' that they were great and we should always bestow gratitude at their feet. I'd rather think for myself.
Have fun with your cults of personality.
He is not (or should not be) lionized as "a whole" he is lionized for what he did in the moment, which was significant and impactful. Even in his time he was considered a bit(!) of an "a-hole", but he was a useful "a-hole" for that time.
No one (I would hope) is idolizing him for his personality, which was known to be rather prickly. And no one is going to honor him for Gallipoli.
You can pick pretty much any (even more recent) historically significant personality and find something abhorrent about them if you look hard enough. That does not diminish the good (or unfortunately necessary thing) they did, and THAT is what is honored / celebrated, not the mistakes, unfortunate choices, or unpleasant personal traits.
If you would like to post a historical figure you admire or should be respected, I am sure someone can find a reason to dismiss them as flawed.
In reply to aircooled :
Thank you for saying that better than I could.
We should never forget that we all are human, and no man is perfect.
I posted a thread about jobs, I posted it while watching a WW2 series and I have a Churchill poster in my room.
Funny that this is posted at the same time that I am watching stuff about him.
1988RedT2 said:In reply to aircooled :
Thank you for saying that better than I could.
We should never forget that we all are human, and no man is perfect.
Truth. A hard man put into a harder position. I can't imagine being the last bastion of freedom waiting for the onslaught of what at the time was thought to be the unstoppable Nazi forces. Watching their allies fall quickly and now seperated from everyone and everything by the german submarine fleets
hybridmomentspass said:I posted a thread about jobs, I posted it while watching a WW2 series and I have a Churchill poster in my room.
Funny that this is posted at the same time that I am watching stuff about him.
I should probably point out that I am realizing there is a possibility the OP was a somewhat subtle attempt at political trolling.
(Churchill's speech was in June of 1940 and the Battle of Britain started in July)
Interesting to note that Churchill never said: “We shall fight them on the beaches”, as is sometimes quoted, he actually said: “we shall fight on the beaches”.
In reply to aircooled :
Others have been doing it much more blatantly IMO. Churchill was a strong leader, and he was a man which meant he was flawed.
Oh, I agree. I just think it's useful to give a bit of a "tut tut" (not a massive counter strike) to try and discourage such thing though... which will only result in silliness.
(tut tutting is a British thing)
British silliness? Never heard of it! Pretty sure it doesn't exist!
Weird that you would use that quote.
(and to go down a better path)
I JUST watched a video about Abraham Wald. He was a German Mathematician of the WWII variety who had to get out of Germany (if you know what I mean). He was part of team asked to analyses US bomber losses and damage in WWII to try and determine how to armor them better for survival (using statistics).
So... they looked at damage to bombers to see what they could determine. The bombers they inspected had a pretty clear pattern of where the damage was, so, you might think, that is where you armor them, right? (given you want to armor them as little as possible because of weight)
No, the damage on the bombers that returned to base is the exact areas you DON'T want to armor them. They survived. The areas that did not get hit on surviving bombers are the areas to armor (pilot, engines, fuel etc).
It's know as Survivor Bias.... it's a thing....
The More You Know.
In reply to aircooled :
A picture is worth a 1,000 words...
I generalize the concept by telling my stat students to "pay as much attention to where the data points aren't as you pay to where the data points are"...why is there a void in my data set...what's that telling me?
Churchill arguably saved Western Civilization. I'll cut him some slack but I think a very good case could be built that he was one cold-hearted bastard.
"It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sommbitch or another." -Mal from Firefly
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