The U.S. finally woke up and used the very willing and very capable Blacks of the day in WW II. And the very willing and capable Japanese citizens (they supplied the most decorated battalion of the entire war).

And in case you base your arguments on The History Channel, please let me assure that many of the canned shows they run on their channel are full of errors.

The fight against Hitler would have been enhanced if segregation was not in place in America; if our army could have been composed of the best and the brightest without regard to race. So, looking back at Joe Louis’ statement today, it is ignorant, not wise

You are supposing that problems that existed with regard to the unity of the country exist today that existed in the Fifties, and I say to you they don’t.

The problem that liberals have isn’t that they welcome and support terrorism it is that Bush’s approach is ineffective and muttenheaded and works contrary to goals most all Americans share. You are just flat wrong to believe that Bush is the bulwark against terrorism; his policies have the effect of enlarging support for terrorism in the Arab world.

I think that now even Bush is becoming aware of his many policy failures and will alter his them to those that have been suggested by Democrats.

The point of Louis’s comment wasn’t that people were looking to Hitler to solve problems; it was that Hitler is a much larger problem than segregation,

You seem to be implying that there were Americans who were looking to Hitler to solve our problems. But of course there weren’t.

The point of Louis’s comment wasn’t that people were looking to Hitler to solve problems; it was that Hitler is a much larger problem than segregation, and that addressing Hitler required Americans to pull together and overcome their smaller differences, in order to address the larger problem.

And Browne’s overall point? That there is such thing as evil.

…That in WWII, Americans largely were willing to recognize this fact and unite in their response to it.

…And that this is not the case today — in part because multiculturalists and moral relativists spend more energy opposing Bush than opposing an enemy that truly desires to kill our troops, enslave us civilizans, and convert our children to their own twisted brand of religio-fascism.

So while you say that Joe Louis’s comment “isn’t good enough anymore,” Browne and I seem to think it’s plenty good and just as applicable today as it was then.

It has nothing to do with whether “the perfect is the enemy of the good” and everything to do with whether American liberals can recognize that evil is the enemy at all.

And judging by the fact that terrorists in Iraq and Iran can openly call our elections a “victory” for their side, and American Democrats don’t even bother to distance themselves from such claims … apparently the answer is, “No — too many American liberals don’t recognize that the enemy is flat-out evil.”

Browne and I see that as a big problem. If that’s “an argument from the 50s” then so be it.

Joshua

Stephen Browne is using arguments from the Fifties, and complaints about pointy-headed intellectuals of that time and supposing it has something to do with what anyone is thinking today.

We are in the 21st Century now, and Joe Louis’s comment isn’t good enough anymore. It is no longer OK, if it ever was, to be satisfied with the Civil Rights situation of the 1940s.

Great inequities can be lessened such that freedom is enhanced for everyone. We have shown that this is so with respect to the rights, opportunities and cultural acceptance that has come to minorities, women and homosexuals.

The idea that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good is valid — I only wish that that was Stephen Browne’s argument.