I don't believe Britain's Conservatives are anything like our GOP, especially on social issues.

When the BBC did their "Great Britons" programmes and vote, the (winning) case for Churchill was put by Mo Mowlam, a former Labour MP.

He was a member of the Liberal Party between 1904 and 1924; in that time, they brought in the old age pension, and he made the case for boards to set a minimum wage in certain trades. He had regressive views on empire, but he cared about people, and his country. Trump isn't fit to be mentioned in the same encyclopedia.

Either Germany or Russia would have emerged at the world leader.

A depression will follow.

for Putin, and he would just hand over the keys to the Whitehouse. We would all be speaking German and we would be ethically cleansed.

No one is morally pure. In his most important work, Churchill played a central role in helping to defeat the Nazis. Any progressive/liberal should be able to admire that, even though he was not on our side in everything.

Progressives/liberals can do nuance, after all.

For the times however and more particularly the extremity of a total war situation, he was exactly the right person for the job and a great leader. It's just one of the common issues when you look at historical figures and try and apply any kind of current moral judgement to them. If you go back more than about 50 years then even the greatest heroes of their time would probably be considered despicable bastards today.

Right man at the right time.

Do not feel my liberal credentials are at risk

From both liberals and conservatives, even if it may come a bit more naturally to most liberals. Truth is whatever it is.

As for Churchill and the rest of us, we all have many facets, and how they come into play varies with situation. Honesty requires recognizing both good and bad facets and deeds.

(b1940)

Greatly admired him. Totally stunned when I learned in hs of his attitude toward Ghandi

Didn't he think Allies should have helped Nazis destroy communism. That maybe communism more dangerous to West's future than Naziism as systems?

I have read his entire history of WWII, all seven volumes. His writing is absolutely remarkable. He was a fierce defender of plain English. His books are very readable, just as his speeches were easy on the ears. (His speech impediments notwithstanding.)

Plus, without him, England arguably loses WWII.

His animosity to M.P. Lady Astor is legend.

Lady Astor: Sir Winston, if I were Clementine, I would poison your brandy.

Sir Winston: Madame, if you were Clemmie, I would drink it.

Lady Astor: Sir Winston, you're drunk. You are very drunk.

Sir Winston: You are ugly, and I will be sober in the morning.

It seemed at first he didn't like Churchill but came around to fulsomely supporting him.

all four volumes, but I haven't read them yet! The holidays might be the perfect time to start.

And again, they are very readable. Churchill was an astounding wordsmith.

"Good" has two kinds of meanings.

One is moral. It's an ethical or moral judgment. If you're a pious Xian, then "no person is good." We're all bad, in some ways. That's sort of absolutist.

We often back off the absolutism a bit and say, "overall good." Far more good than bad. And it helps if the bad points aren't things like killing puppies on Youtube, slaughtering (the wrong) people, or doing whatever the current outrage of the day is. Again, it's a moral judgment. You pick your belief and value system and there you have your judgment. I've done some bad things, I've done some good things: If you think the bad things are sort of second rate and the good things really important, I'm good. If you reverse the polarity, then I'm bad. Judgments differ; I'm still the same person, and the good and bad things I've done are still done.


The other is purpose-oriented. A hammer is good. For hammering nails. Not for whisking egg whites. A whisk is good for the egg-white frothing, but not so good when trying to repair a jet engine. And so it goes.


I admire some people who are good in the moral, non-absolutist sense. Which just means "they do what I think is right better than I do what I think is right." My judgment of them says much more about me than it says about them. If I'm being especially narcissistic, then it means "they do what I think is right as I'd do it" or "they're at least trying to be like me."

I admire some people good in certain things, but not in the general moral sense. I admire Nathan Milstein's violin playing. I don't know anything else about him--maybe he would have tortured and killed puppies on Youtube if Youtube existed when he was around. Still, a damned fine fiddler. I admire Mother Teresa's stick-to-it-ness and her ability to work with people. Note that for many, Teresa is evil because she stuck to her faith and didn't just help the people her judges would want her to help in the ways her judges would have wanted (to which my response is, "So if you're better, what have you done to help the poor in India, or does your flight leave tomorrow?&quot .

What's damnable is when people shift definitions or refuse to listen to a speaker's definition. I can admire a bloody dictator's ability to rally his people in wartime. I can admire a civil-right leader even though there may be significant plagiarism in his past, for which he was given a "given who you are, you can't be held responsible" pass. I can think an actor who's slime in one context is a good actor, and think a person who's a sucky actor is still a decent person. I like my car's gas mileage; I hate it's heating system.

He was a pretty vicious racist, relentlessly insisting that Indians were incapable of ruling such a vast, populous country, even though they had been doing a pretty good job of it for around 3,000 by the time the British showed up.

His forays into military strategy would have been comically inept if they hadn't resulted in so many deaths. Gallipoli in WWI is a good example. His insistence, during WWII, on calling the Italian theater of war the 'soft underbelly of Fortress Europe' was idiotic in the extreme, considering that Italy boasted some of the most arduous terrain in the war, and led to a grinding, never-ending bloodbath for Allied troops.

As an anti-Communist, he repeatedly confused equality of opportunity with equality of outcome.

And he was an unashamed self-promoter.

He's quotable. But there are political leaders from history I admire more...

I would add Gandhi's and King's tactics worked because they weighed on the conscience of a sympathetic elite. They would have never worked in NAZI Germany.

There are very few people in history that any individual - liberal or conservative - could agree with on everything, especially if you include their personal life.

Churchill use his talents to lead the British people to have the courage to respond as they did to the attacks on them. It could be that any competent leader would have - in his or her own way - would have worked to be the cheerleader needed to forge the unity of purpose that he did. I would go from his speeches and generally considered to be accurate accounts, rather than a movie. A movie will often include fiction designed to dramatize truth, without having happened.

Here, it is a way to explain the complexity of the political situation before Britain entered the war. Remember that Britain had lost a large proportion of a the men who came of age soon before WWI. In that situation, there were many who wanted to try to prevent another World War. Churchill replaced Chamberlain, as Prime Minister - both belonged to the Conservative party. Almost as soon as he became Prime Minister, he to decide whether he would try to negotiate peace for Britain. As you saw in the movie, he used his amazing rhetorical ability to unite people against that idea. (Here is something Boris Johnson, the current British foreign minister, who is almost their Donald trump wrote in the right wing Telegraph, that does a good job setting the stage for that - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/11157482/The-day-Churchill-saved-Britain-from-the-Nazis.html ) From 2017, we have more information than the people in the room did then on Hitler's goals.

At that point, Hitler was yet exposed as the monster he was - it is interesting to wonder what the discussion on reliably antiwar DU if through a shift of time and place, that decision had to made now against an enemy that our government agreed was a threat. One might look at the debate about a moderate military strike against Assad after he used chemical weapons. Before an option to remove thousands of tons of chemical weapons arose, a case was made that there had to a response even by people who have called war a failure of diplomacy. In that case, the threat actually led to the CW diplomacy. (It is easy to use Hitler as proof that sometimes diplomacy will not work.) My guess -- Churchill - even if he were a Democratic President - would not have been popular at the moment he argued for the need to fight.

Note that even after all the heroic stuff he did, he lost the next election in 1945 to the Labour candidate.

I suspect DU would have stood against the America Firsters, as they are doing now, especially after learning of Hitler's genocide.

I greatly admire FDR but I don't admire him for interning the Japanese and not doing more to help Europeans Jews escape Hitler's genocide.

He had written Mein Kaump, but that alone would not have been seen as a prelude for killing 6 millon Jews and millions of others. I threw in the Syria example, because he had just killed some of his own people in Sunni areas with chemical weapons - not at Hitler level, so that reaction might be the best analogue we have. (One difference is Churchill correctly points to the damage that could be done to Britain itself, where Obama and his team could not and did not argue the same level of threat to the US.)

And plain stupid, ridiculous things.

But this post right here, might just take the cake.

Not just any cake but THE cake.

I'll be the first to say that I admire Churchill greatly. He was one of the first to recognise the nazi menace - when others mocked him.

I admire him.

Also, thank you for the input about the Darkest Hour. It looks good.

To hell what others think. Btw, you could do worse than Churchill. He was the right man at the right time.

average folks...I don't think he was good during peacetime

For two years the United Kingdom stood alone against Nazi Germany.


Or I heard it put this way Churchill was the leader you wanted in war time Attlee was the leader you wanted in peacetime.

Here is a good, fair article on Churchill.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29701767

He was under no illusions about Stalin's intentions, unlike FDR and later Truman, who thought they could work with him. Churchill was the ideal leader for wartime Britain, but people forget that he was voted out of office right after the war ended. He was a product of his time and it's hard to imagine what his role could be in the current world. In that respect, he's no different than many other leaders; it's difficult to imagine the current GOP rallying around and electing Reagan, who looks like a statesman compared to Trump.

but much to smarter than the American Right, for whom many wanted to sit out the war, or worse, side with Hitler to fight Communist Russia.

Winston knew the deal he had to make with Stalin to stop Hitler, as Stalin could be dealt with peacefully. Hitler would only understand the gun.

As far as I know they're isn't a test to pass on who you admire. Admiration and blind following are different things. I've been known to admire a despot or two.

How he is viewed in Britain vs. how Roosevelt is remembered here.

Even 75 years after the end of the war Churchill is still revered in England. By and large, he is celebrated.

Now contrast that with how Roosevelt, who in my view was superior, is viewed here, largely forgotten. Point is we should revere Roosevelt the way the English do with Churchill, but we don’t. Hell, I think the Brits have more reverence for Roosevelt than most Americans do. I find it quite irritating.

And for what it's worth, this Canuck believes Roosevelt was probably one of the best US Presidents.