Senator John McCain's death is imminent.

[CostinR]

Why weren't people so positive about McCain when he was still alive?

It was only when he got into a beef with Trump and suddenly completely changed his Obamacare vote just because of Trump (he was always against Obamacare, remember?) that people suddenly liked him.

McCain was actually well liked by many when he was alive, although he had did have stretches of low approval ratings. The negative attention on him is due to his constant war mongering.

[Rennadrel]

The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.

Yeah, unfortunately. I mean, for us Canadians, most Canadians remember Pierre Trudeau for legislating universal healthcare, though people in Western Canada are more likely to hold a grudge because he did a lot of things to spite that part of the country because he didn't agree with them.

[ezgeze]

Rest in hell with your thumbs down

[Skroe]

It's fucking comical that back in 2008 the same people call him a warmongering terrorist. Fast forward it to today and he's just so brave!

Some subset of people always call elected leaders "war mongers" because they *gasp* approved / voted for military matters, be it war or budgets.

It's so delectably quaint. The irony of course is that many will never say the same thing about say, Obama's Drone War in his first term, which in the big sweeping context of the history of is as much as a legacy item as the ACA. You know, using drones to kill people at such an operation scale like that, though pioneered by the bush administration became a primary way things were done under Obama. It's parallels the introduction of the tank. Hundred years from now, when historians talk of Barack Obama, the'll talk about "the Drone War", right up there with being the first black President, deftly leading recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, and the ACA.

Or if you'd like another example, we can point to the fact that the War against ISIS, which Obama initiated, is easily the most illegal war the US has launched since the end of Vietnam. Unlike every other major military conflict, the war never received an Authorization for the Use of Military Force as required under the War Powers Act after 60 days. We're now 5 years into it, without an AUMF. The war's good intentions are irrelevant, the law is the law and Obama broke the law and because of that, don't look for future Presidents to seek AUMFs. Obama set a new precedent. The entire post-Vietnam military authorization structure has broken down and who knows what it will take to restore it.

I don't use these examples to damn Obama anymore than people should use the things they strongly disagreed with John McCain over to damn him. The passing of figures like this invariably bring out people who can't handle the fact that there are public figures who operated in good faith, for policies you or I may ahve disagreed with, but they were serving what they perceived to be the national interests, re-affirmed by voters through their re-elections.

John McCain did and stood for great and not-great things. Like Obama. Like many figures. Rather than score cheap shots pissing on the grave of someone who only ever served their country in good faith, you'd think by now we'd have the maturity to appreciate the dedication and patriotism, if not agree with the policy.

But I doubt that. Vox or something will post "John McCain is a war criminal" or something in the next few days I'm sure, because a naive liberal who hasn't done shit will have decided to draw up the easiest of clickbait. It's the exact same thing. Even a figure as harmless as Barbara Bush was subjected to that sort of nonsense.

When it comes down to it, events like this just expose who is an angry person at their core.

[downnola]

This guy wanted war with Iran. Even made a joke about it.

A person in a position of power, ffs. The same guy that while advocating bombing another country, denied the poor access to healthcare.

And you're saying we can't fault him as a person??

Wow. The twisting and backflipping people will do in this thread. No wonder your country is in such a mess internally. You parade the very guys around that fuck you over and destabilise and bomb other countries due their warhawkish foreign policies as if they're some kind of heroes or good people when in reality... they don't give two shits about your lives.

You people deserve all the misery you get if you continue to vote in and support people like McCain.

Good lord, cry a fucking river about it. Iran does more to destabilize the Middle East in a fucking week then the U.S. has done in the last decade. Iran would be better off if a few strategically aimed drones strikes made their way into some clerics homes.

[Skroe]

McCain was actually well liked by many when he was alive, although he had did have stretches of low approval ratings. The negative attention on him is due to his constant war mongering.

His "war mongering" as you put it is responsible over the last two years for the most significant military expansion and reorganization since the decade after Vietnam. This years 2019 bill, named for him, he negotiated despite dying of cancer and being thousands of miles away from DC, through his staff. The positive effects of it, which are seeing an expansion of the Naval fleet, army and air forces, the purchasing of entirely new classes of weapons, and major new procurement programs, will be felt for decades to come.

Considering Romania is dependent upon the US and NATO for it's defense, I'd think you'd be one of his cheer leaders. His "war mongering" is what is going to provide the US with the tools to defend you from Russia.

- - - Updated - - -

The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.

Case in point: the dearth of mentions of McCain-Feingold, specifically by individuals here who have mentioned their disgust with money in politics on more than one occasion.

McCain-Feingold may have been largely wiped out by Citizens-United and other court rulings, but it still stands as the most significant and at the time successful attempt since the post-Watergate years to reign in money in politics. And both McCain and Russ Feingold did it against the enormous opposition of both their parties.

American Politics would be much healthier today if McCain-Feingold was never undermined. But sure, let's focus on Sarah-fucking-Palin. Because that's the only thing of significance McCain ever did.

[CostinR]

His "war mongering" as you put it is responsible over the last two years for the most significant military expansion and reorganization since the decade after Vietnam. This years 2019 bill, named for him, he negotiated despite dying of cancer and being thousands of miles away from DC, through his staff. The positive effects of it, which are seeing an expansion of the Naval fleet, army and air forces, the purchasing of entirely new classes of weapons, and major new procurement programs, will be felt for decades to come.

Considering Romania is dependent upon the US and NATO for it's defense, I'd think you'd be one of his cheer leaders. His "war mongering" is what is going to provide the US with the tools to defend you from Russia.

Then you misunderstand clearly what I'm talking about.

Unlike foolish feel good liberals for whom defense spending is evil I fully approve of McCain's efforts throughout the years when it comes to defense spending. He's done a great job and he deserves a great deal of credit.

What I DO condemn him for is the foolish, short-sighted and idiotic wars that he advocated and supported: Iraq, Libya, Syria. Hundreds of thousands of dead, millions of refugees. Middle East AND Europe destabilized. Sure I can commend him for standing for good values in Europe but he fucked up badly in the Middle East and with regards to Libya and Syria there was never popular support for interventions there but McCain advocated for them anyway, unlike Iraq where the America public did support that show of idiocy.

I'll give plenty of praise to McCain of defense spending and domestic policy but much of his foreign policy was an absolute disaster: He knew how to have a strong US military, he sure as hell didn't know where to use it properly.

[Deleted]

Yo who was Mccains campaign manager in 2008?

Wheres my man Mueller at?

[Skroe]

Then you misunderstand clearly what I'm talking about.

Unlike foolish feel good liberals for whom defense spending is evil I fully approve of McCain's efforts throughout the years when it comes to defense spending. He's done a great job and he deserves a great deal of credit.

What I DO condemn him for is the foolish, short-sighted and idiotic wars that he advocated and supported: Iraq, Libya, Syria. Hundreds of thousands of dead, millions of refugees. Middle East AND Europe destabilized. Sure I can commend him for standing for good values in Europe but he fucked up badly in the Middle East and with regards to Libya and Syria there was never popular support for interventions there but McCain advocated for them anyway, unlike Iraq where the America public did support that show of idiocy.

I'll give plenty of praise to McCain of defense spending and domestic policy but much of his foreign policy was an absolute disaster: He knew how to have a strong US military, he sure as hell didn't know where to use it properly.

He was very far from alone in that. He was certainly not an architect of the War in Iraq. He wasn't even particularly liked or an ally of the Bush Administration. Being a supporter of the conflict, and making sure it's done "right" through fully funding the military needs, does not constitute it being a brainchild. By his own admission, he was a non-interventionist after Vietnam, until Rwanda changed his views.

Libya, he largely advocated standing by our allies and leading from the front through NATO. The decision to go to war was made by the UK and France, with the US a reluctant partner. Libya has not had a net negative impact on US power.

And Syria isn't the US's direct doing. The most significant external refugee flows started when Russia became convinced the US would not intervene, and then decided to intervene on its own, and save Assad via a strategic bombing campaign against civilians. The war had been going on for years by that point, and prior to that decision by Russia, most displacement was internal.

I'm not sure what Syria policy McCain advocated for at all that you can pin on. For the most part, he's viewed it largely as "Assad must go", which was the opinion of the entire Western world, and "Putin must not be allowed to get away with it". But the US never committed substantial military forces to Syria. 150 combat aircraft and a few thousand troops operating on a $5 billion a year budget is small potatoes.

[infinitemeridian]

John McCain fought tooth and nail to make sure that people like my late father would die of preventable illnesses they couldn’t afford to treat and that people like my mother would drive their families into medical bankruptcy as a result of an aggressive stomach tumor and a protracted hospital stay.

Were he content to enjoy his ill-gotten fruits outside of the legislative sphere, I would have begrudged him little in his decline.

Were he merely a two-term stooge of the financial industry cut from a common bipartisan cloth, I could chuckle at his death but have some level of compassion for his situation.

But this is a man who - aside from voting against MLK day as a holiday, and fuck anyone who suggests an “evolution” on such an issue is possible while holding office all the time - worked tirelessly until his last day in the Senate to propagate violence across the globe, to pilfer the third world of what little resource wealth it doesn’t have, to suffocate American citizens under a blanket of police surveillance and data mining, and to deprive every American from the basic modern liberties of health care and education.

I do not need to lie about McCain to sully him. I do not need to commit libel to invite heaping scorn from merely relitigating his atrocious record as a humanitarian and representative of the best interests of the people. Everyone who cries loudest about the insidious creep of “fake news” weeps most openly over the passing of what can most charitably be described as a terrifically compromised fossil with a singular focus on erasing brown lives abroad. News that paints a such a genuine and heartfelt proponent of war crimes, baseless invasions that slaughter hundreds of thousands, and “100-year wars” as a lion of political independence and steadfast courage is faker than the fakest Russian-funded Blacktivist web-page could ever dream of being. There is no “Fairness Doctrine” to the media portrayal of McCain. It is a post-wasabi diarrhea of platitudes and bipartisan gladhanding. Events such as these are used to bring us all together as Americans and remind us of how similar we really are as police increasingly tighten the vise around the necks of the poor and former Obama Treasury Secretaries lead ten-figure firms that send predatory loans to the same families made destitute by their policies and/or negligence. The runway of our booming economy was foamed with the turmoil and upheaval forced upon millions after millions of families - overwhelmingly black and Latino, mind you - and you must not be angry about this because everyone agrees that McCain was a hero.

Even Bernie Sanders, socialist that he might sometimes pretend to be, is convinced of redemptive qualities within John McCain’s character. If those qualities exist, then they must be juxtaposed against the absolute shame of his tenure as a legislator and public voice for the people to digest. To do otherwise is to erase the death perpetrated against countless families both at home and abroad as a result of his campaigning.

Condolences to his family. Like Reagan, I’m glad he’s dead. I want to know what all of your reactions will be when Trump dies, because nothing he has done (please miss me with that white collar financial crimes shit, his money has always been dirty) is anywhere close to as bad as Iraq. If you think blowjob hush money is a greater treason than a minor genocide, then I don’t know what to tell you.

Oh, yes I do. Go cry over John McCain’s death some more.

[Themius]

Sad to hear of his passing, he was a real fighter for America and what it stands for.

No he wasn't, I don't want America to stand for warmongering and racism, though... we certainly seems to be exemplifying those two traits.

[infinitemeridian]

Sad to hear of his passing, he was a real fighter for America and what it stands for.

Yeah constant war, a deepening surveillance/police state, and death by austerity - real winners.

[Fargus]

Good lord, cry a fucking river about it. Iran does more to destabilize the Middle East in a fucking week then the U.S. has done in the last decade. Iran would be better off if a few strategically aimed drones strikes made their way into some clerics homes.

We all saw the result of what "strategically aimed" strikes did in Iraq. If there's one thing to cry a river about, it's pointless acts of war where tens of thousands die and millions suffer. Buffoons like you are the reason why your incompetent and morally corrupt leaders get away with it.

[Deleted]

Yeah constant war, a deepening surveillance/police state, and death by austerity - real winners.

John McCain is the embodiment of the American ideal that civility and empty platitudes matter far more than actual human lives.

[Fargus]

No he wasn't, I don't want America to stand for warmongering and racism, though... we certainly seems to be exemplifying those two traits.

Unfortunately, it does. Torture, too. Or is it enhanced interrogation now?

[Deleted]

STRAIGHT TO HELL! COME AND GET IT WORMS!!

Terrorist supporting rat, enjoy hellfire!

[Skroe]

Congress should honor him by naming the new carrier put on order by the 2019 NDAA that bears his name, the Ford class CVN-82, after him. It won't start being built until 2027 and commissioned until 2034, but as a former Naval Aviator and a significant proponent of the US Armed Forces in the Senate, it seems like an obvious shoe-in, consistent with naming the CVN-70 after Congressman Carl Vinson (the "Father of the Two-Ocean Navy" who is responsible for the Second Vinson Act).

The 2019 NDAA isn't quite on the scale of the Second Vinson Act, but it's a big deal. It'll ensure US military supremacy deep into the 2040s and fixes most of the remaining mistakes of the last 15 years.

FWIW, CVN-81, which was authorized in the 2019 NDAA as part of the historic two-carrier purchase, will probably be named for Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, a historic carrier like the Kitty Hawk or Saratoga (like it's predecessor, CVN-80 Enterprise), or like it's second-predecessor (the CVN-79 John F. Kennedy) after a deceased President. It could be the second ship named for Franklin Delano Roosvelt, but that would probably require a Democratic House and Senate.

But CVN-82, the USS John S. McCain III, is fitting. It's an appropriate honor.

[Deleted]

Let's also keep on reminding ourselves who these deplorables are:

List of what?

[Felya]

List of what?

I know it’s saying “Ignore list” at the top of that image... but, I will go with ingredients required to summon lord jaraxis.

[Skroe]

For the most part this is a really excellent list and you should be commended. I'm not sure what Vegas82, Puppi and a couple others said though.

But yeah. You got most of the big ones.