Perspective

This came to my email:

So during the 3-1/2 years of World War 2 that started with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and ended with the Surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945, the U.S. produced 22 aircraft carriers, 8 battleships, 48 cruisers, 349 destroyers, 420 destroyer escorts, 203 submarines, 34 million tons of merchant ships, 100,000 fighter aircraft, 98,000 bombers, 24,000 transport aircraft, 58,000 training aircraft, 93,000 tanks, 257,000 artillery pieces, 105,000 mortars, 3,000,000 machine guns, and 2,500,000 military trucks
We put 16.1 million men in uniform in the various armed services, invaded Africa, invaded Sicily and Italy, won the battle for the Atlantic, planned and executed D-Day, marched across the Pacific and Europe, developed the atomic bomb and ultimately conquered Japan and Germany.

It’s worth noting, that during the almost exact amount of time, the entire Obama administration couldn’t build a functioning web site.

The “AFFORDABLE” Care Act.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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15 Comments

  1. Ray says:

    The ACA was a straw man from inception. Obamanation’s goal from the start was a single payer system. Watch it unfold.

  2. Supertradmum says:

    Blame two things: the education system which has purposefully dumb-downed all math, science, logic, history and made two generations of people who have no thinking skills.

    Then, blame parents for not disciplining their children. Both skills and discipline were there in the culture when WWII began. All those boys were raised by tough dads and had to meet real responsibilities in life, in school.

    The kulturkampf has succeeded in making a nation of weak sheep-like, conformists creatures who are, literally, hell-bent on pleasure and personal success.

    Americans have also lost the sense of community and patriotism. No longer will the majority die for a cause, as we no longer has a common cause. The USA would be in a difficult position in there were more wars and the draft was re-instated. Of course, no one talks about how abortion has depleted the population.

  3. Supertradmum says:

    have.. not has…sorry

  4. Priam1184 says:

    Spot on Father, except for the fact that I’m pretty sure that the Obama Administration didn’t actually want to build a functioning website. They want this to fail so, as Ray said above, the can build their precious single payer system on top of the ruins of the ACA.

  5. Bedens says:

    I was listening to a guest host today on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program. A caller phoned in to say that when his health insurance policy was cancelled by his employer, he went to visit an insurance agent himself and bought another policy. He did NOT attempt to go through the Obamacare website. My husband and I had no idea that going to a private agent was even an option. We thought everyone had to go through that website. We’ve heard no mention of this option through the news media.

  6. Ellen says:

    My daughter is an insurance agent. She’s helped a lot of people purchase policies. Needless to say, she thinks Obamacare is horrid.

  7. Will D. says:

    This orange is a terrible apple! The skin’s all leathery, there’s bitter white membranes in it, and the taste is all wrong.

    The sneak attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the nation into a total war. The government was completely oriented toward the war effort, industries retooled, men volunteered and were drafted in droves. It’s no wonder that we became “The Arsenal of Freedom.”

    Obamacare was an unpopular bill, pushed through congress with a bare majority on purely partisan lines. We on the right have fought it tooth and nail. The president has been uninterested in the progress of his own signature legislation. He has delayed and rewritten it on the fly. It’s no wonder that it’s a failure.

    These are completely different situations. No, Obamacare does not reflect well on this country or the president, but the comparison is ludicrous.

  8. Jeannie_C says:

    As a matter of historical record WW2 began BEFORE the bombing of Pearl Harbor – America did not join in until Pearl Harbor was bombed. Many members of the allied forces believed that had America stepped up sooner WW2 would not have dragged on so long, fewer lives would have been lost. As a matter of fact, one Canadian veteran we know, now in his 90’s, commented that tragic as the attack on Pearl Harbor was, it brought with it a sense of relief that finally America’s hand would be forced and the tide would be turned, as was the case. And no, the U.S. did not win the war single handed. It was a combined effort on the part of many from other countries who sacrificed for the sake of freedom, five of our family members killed in the process.

  9. StJude says:

    In that amount of time.. I could have completed a bachelors degree in programming and built the thing myself.

  10. Uxixu says:

    Great things are possible with a productive industrial state.

    I’m mostly still with Herbert Hoover, though. His magnum opus, Freedom Betrayed illustrates the huge failures of the FDR administration, in first recognizing the Soviet Union (despite the policy of 4 previous administrations of each party), and utter ignorance in economics, then in complete incompetence on foreign policy (sound familiar?).

    Taking the side of the equally monstrous Stalin was abominable and gave us 4 decades of Cold War. Should have waited until they fought, been armed to the teeth, and annihilated the winner. FDR, much like Wilson, illegally maneuvered the US into war despite the clear wish of the majority of the population and needlessly provoked the Japanese to get into the European war. Once Hitler launched Barbarossa, even the excuse of protecting Britain was flimsy since even if Hitler won, he would have been forced to expend vast amount of resources keeping the Russians in subjugation (and THAT would have been a great opportunity to stomp on him and decapitate the Communists, instead of betraying Eastern Europe at Yalta).

  11. The Cobbler says:

    @StJude, I don’t have a Bachelor’s and I could have built the website (and supporting infrastructure) in no more than half that time… but then, I am already a programmer, and not a political lobbyist.

  12. Catholic_Convert2 says:

    It’s also worth noting that the Japanese attack on the US Territory Military Installation (not a state) Pearl Harbor was a stunning success and extremely well-targeted attack. Almost no civilians were killed, and those who were, were largely intermingled with military personnel. Had we known about the ‘sneak attack’, the results would have been far more disastrous, because we would have met them in the open ocean where crew losses would have been a lot more severe.

    How could such a comparatively simply act (far more men would later die in single naval battles than died during Pearl Harbor) result in such an overwhelming response? 40% of our GDP was dedicated to building tools with one purpose: to help us kill Japs and Krauts.

    And THIS was our “greatest generation”. The one that made killing more effective than ever.

    I’m not knocking it. I carry a handgun every place I go- I’ve got no problem with guns, WW2, or anything. But it just astounds me that if HALF the effort, sacrifice, and production that we dedicated to killing Japs and Germans could be aligned for some good purpose…

    WW1 set the world on a terrible course for the 20th century. WW2 happened because of it. The cold war. Vietnam. Al Queda. These are the consequences of failure.

    What if, around 1915, the world had cooperated in massive GOOD. Imagine the 120 years of consequences that would have resulted from THAT!

  13. Bob B. says:

    There is another question, could we put together such a Herculean effort again? I don’t think so.
    We became a service industry country decades ago – we manufacture little. Our steel mills are no longer active, our shipyards are few, our manpower is volunteer (at least with the Draft, we had a reasonable pool of trained soldiers) and our military and naval forces didn’t worry about political correctness.
    China owns our debt and periodically nudges us in the Pacific and our presidents say little about their foreign policy and internal political ways.
    If a Pearl Harbor type situation came upon us again, we probably couldn’t do much except to buy steel from overseas, try to encourage other nations to join in our military reaction, and complain in the UN (ha, ha, ha), in what would amount to, “Could you please wait awhile until we can retaliate?” to whoever the foe is.

  14. joecct77 says:

    The Second Vatican Council began on October 11, 1962 and ended on December 8, 1965. In that 3 year period……….

  15. Uxixu says:

    @Bob we maintain standing forces now as a big difference with enough reserves to handle just about everything especially in regional conflicts but with any realistic adversary.

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