While I have not killed any women or children up close and personal, I certainly have been responsible for their deaths. War is criminal by nature and civilians are unintentionally killed and sometimes intentionally targeted, it is part of war. War is a dirty affair.

Not bragging, stating a fact, and I am only one of tens of millions that have performed the same job.

We had sixteen million people in uniform during the Second World War alone. My father served as a combatant from New Guiene (spelling) to the battle of Manila. If he and others like him had not served you may not ever have had life.

I was not serving "their interests", I was serving my interests as I chose to be a soldier.

The McArthy years were short lived, if that is what you are referring to. I have always thought for myself and usually out of the box.

Does "Have you ever heard of Duty, Honor, Country? " ring a bell?

Out of the box? Sounds like "the man" was doing your thinking for you.

You don't get it. It was my choice, my thinking. I was not forced to be a soldier. Made the decision all on my own. Having made that decision and having taken the OATH, the above follows.

In addition; to choose to be a professional soldier is actually thinking out of the box, because the percentage that make this choice is a very, very small percentage of the population, way less than 1%. On top of that when I was on active duty even among soldiers it was only about 10-15% that chose to be professionals. The figure is higher now but has been on the decline from its highest point.

Some people actually do believe in serving their country.

Some people like the country they live in. Some people consider it an honor to fight for their country.

You listen to too much Rage Against the Machine.

And just because they want to serve their country, does not mean they are brainwashed automatons and incapapable of thinking for themselves. Everyone who joins the military does not have an M16 put in their hands, and the odds of you actually seeing combat while in the military now is slim to none.

Its not even that easy to join the military anymore.

"Serving their country"... you make it sound so honorable. But who exactly are they serving? I've never met a soldier, including my older brother, who has been able to cut through the bullshit and the propaganda to see that the only "serving" they're doing is serving the gutless politicans and the oil companies or whoever the fuck it is that has vested interests in whatever war is being fought.

The machine always needs fresh meat. And as long as they keep filling the heads of the largely ignorant idealistic young males with dreams of heroism and crap like "duty, honor, country" (or "God, Queen and Country") they'll never run out...

I take it back. Perhaps too much Noam Chomsky.

Oil wars and gutless politicians. The only oil war I can think of off hand is the Gulf War. I dont think anyone will dispute that. But how many people died in that "war". 36?

Regardless, you make it sound like this government behemoth is eating up our nations young to fuel some gigantic war machine, when it just isnt happening. Where is this oil war? Afghanistan? Cmon, this isnt a war, its an occupation.

The last great war we had would probably be considered Vietnam, and as far as I know, that wasnt a corporate oil war neither. Nor were any of the great wars for us previous.

Perhaps soldiers now dont see the point in serving, I think most people see the military now as giant vo-tech school when they enter it.

When my grandfathers were fighting in Europe and the South Pacific, they were doing so for a legitimate cause. Facism was threatening Europe and Japan had attacked US. They were legitimate threats to the security of the United States, and my grandfathers felt pride and felt duty bound to fight for the country that had taken in my great great grandparents. It was not pointless, nor were they part of some giant government expansionist war machine.

Same goes for WW1, same goes for the Civil War, and same goes for the Revolutionary War. They had a purpose and people felt pride in serving their country.
Make sense?

It is.

Look in the mirror, and every other American citizen that is of voting age, and you will see who is responsible for putting these "gutless politicians" in office.

Many people think that it is the monied people that put them in office an keep them there. This is BS. The excercise of the power of the people, or the lack there of, is resposible for our Politcians.

Politicians like to win elections and I gaurantee you that if the people excercise their power, they will tell the monied people to kiss their ass and abide by the will of the people.

Unfortunately the polls show that the average American seldom watches the news on TV, seldom reads a news paper, or a book of import. Now how many people do you think even know the name of their congressman, let alone ever send a letter, make a phone call, or send an E-mail?

Do you drive a car, ride in a cab, ride on a bus, use a train, fly on a plane. Gee...I wonder if you are willing to give up these means of transportation. Does oil mean something to you now?

I am happy as hell someone had a vested interest in engaging in war with the Japanese and the Germans. I understand that both lanquages are difficult to learn.


Tell you what...how about if we just fire the military tomorrow. Which country will be the first to take our asses over, including yours.

Or maybe on second thought, maybe supplying the "fresh meat" may not be such a bad idea after all, and just maybe your older brother is smarter then you seem to think you are. Maybe he has some understanding of the real world, and possibly even some understanding about "Duty, Honor, Country."

Come on now tell me what you really think? Should we just fire the military tomorrow?

yup, misread.

I think you may need to re-read the post [Labret], concerning the brother.

Asolutely NOT. We need to clean up the gene pool somehow and putting monkeys in uniform and sending them off to fight pointless wars like Vietnam is a good step in the right direction.

Well you have just insulted every vetran in this country that has served in uniform including the more than three million that served in Vietnam, not to mention the hundreds of thousands that have died. I served three tours in Vietnam myself as a combatant and lost many good friends and saw many more good men die. It enrages me to hear you call them monkeys.

You better hope that none of the vetrans discover your identity and live near by.

You are a disgrace.

Wait, this kid isnt even an American?

Wow.

Spoken like a true lefty. When backed into a corner, the true colors will shine.

Something I'm extremely grateful for.

AHAHAHA

Where you from kid?

This is gonna get good.

Firstly, I'm not a kid so you can shove that patronising bullshit where the sun don't shine.

Secondly, I'm Australian.

So when does it get good?

I have served side by side with Australian soldiers when the chips were down and they were all good men. I have liked every Australian that I have ever personally met.

You are a disgrace to Australia and its good men. If I met you I would have to control myself, or I would end up disliking you with extreme prejudice.

You warmongers are a violent lot, aren't you? The army does tend to attract the Neandethal types.

I gave you the benefit of doubt by responding to your posts, I now feel the fool for doing so.

No more soup for you. Next.

This coming from a nation whos ancestors were all inmates of one giant penal colony and responsible for one of the most thorough genocides in recent history (tazmanians).

Yeah, lovely lot down under.

You're obviously quite ignorant of Australian history.

Errors with your post:

1. Very few Australians have any sort of convict ancestry. Most are descended from either European free settlers during the 19th century or from immigrants during various waves of immigration during the 20th century.

2. Australia wasn't a country until 1901 so there were no "Australians" before then. It was the English that massacred the aborigines.

3. It is spelt Tasmania.

Also, you seem to forget that North America was a dumping ground for English criminals as well so I'm not quite sure what it is you are implying.

If this is where it's supposed to get good I must say I'm disappointed. I expected something a little better than that uninformed nonsense.

A lefie is a leftie is a leftie...
Doesnt matter their nationality ,age colour or gender ...
Always the same old song . They are good , the rest of us are evil , they are smart , the rest of us are stupid ,they are well informed , the rest of us are ignorant.

Why argue with this guy ? We should just listen and learn.

All hail Pope Joe sixpack the first...

Either you speak from experience, or ignorance. Which is it?

I consider myself a pretty severe liberal. I consider this Joe Sixpack a fuckwit. Not only does he go waaay overboard, but he makes us lefties look bad.

trying to get back to the original topic, I do not believe kids today are any worse, better or different than they have ever been.

while some arian poster child spouting "s'up nigga" is shocking, it's no less shocking than greeting an elder with the phrase "hey daddy-o" was fifty years ago.

elements of times past may seem appealing but guess what? WE CAN'T GO BACK.

i agree that there's some awful kids out there as there are awful adults but i defy you to find a time in human history when this was not true.

the difference today comes from the progression of human technology and socialization. we can kill faster, communicate faster and the mysteries of our existance are diminishing every day.

what is one saying when they suggest that the past was a preferable time to live? it can't be done.

i don't have a fatalistic view of the future. i think the kids are just fine and that humans have always been potentially dangerous creatures. that little wigga kid that inspired this thread will probably grow up to regret a lot of things he did in the PAST.

was he ridiculous? of course. is this the end of civilization as we know it? i doubt it.

I do not accept your premise. A society is not static. A society is dynamic. The planet we live on is dynamic. So there is always change, either for the better or for the worse.

I have been on this earth for seven decades and each decade the children of that decade are different than the previous decade because as I have stated we live in a dynamic society on a dynamic planet.

I don't accept the second of your premises. Change may be an intrinsic property of society, the planet, and reality itself, but "worse" and "better" are just arbitrary distinctions we foist upon change according to our social and psychological conditioning, not an intrinsic property of change itself.

Of course the terms are arbitrary distinctions and are freely applied by each generation based upon the generational perspective so the "premise" is applicable in real life terms.

hehe I'll say...

I remember when me and my siblings acted up in church and our parents didn't catch us, the people sitting behind us would smack us upside the head.

And then we'd get a beaten from our parents when we got home just to reinforce it.

An estimated 40,000 Iraqies died

I must disagree again.

Your premise may be the modus operandi for most people, most of the time, but that does not make it normative or "real life" any more than the content of god belief is validated by the sheer number of people who hold it.

Arbitrary disctinctions are only arbitrary as long as one is unaware, or unwilling to admit, that they are arbitrary. Once that is done they can begin to be brought into the light of objectivity.

An example: People are fond of placing (quite unconsciously..) the word "my" in front of things they came into posession of purely by chance, usually because it makes them feel superior or gives them reason to make negative comparisons. Me good, you bad! My religion, my family, my country, my culture, my people, good! Your country, your religion, your culture, bad!

The obvious objection is true, someone might freely choose a religion, choose to move to another culture, or choose to disavow their own, but these people are by far the minority. People sufficiently endowed of character to make such choices objectively are also usually the last one we will find "my'ing" things for egotisms sake, so to them this doesn't apply.

GB,
Perhaps I am misinterpreting this.
Are you actually saying there is such a thing as an absolute objective reallity ???

ifa white boy said that to me in my face I would punch him out..if a black person said that in my face I would punch him out too...that word is straight disrespectful no matter how you say it...

heh, it depends just how picky you are about the proof you will accept for the existence of a coherent, external reality.

Problem 1: Solipsism, the belief that nothing exists apart from or outside of ones own mind, is irrefutable. Since we can't refute it, we have to assume solipsism isn't true. Now we have an external reality, or so we assume.

Problem 2: Inductive reasoning (upon which every Law of science is based), causality, the law of non-contradiction, and logic itself are all ultimately based upon circular reasoning (see David Hume for a more in depth exploration of this subject). That is, they must be taken as transendentally true rather than subject to verificationism. For example, we say we can verify the truth or falsity of a proposition with formal logic, but how do we verify the truth of formal logic itself? You can't verify logic with logic, so we have to assume its truth. Things which we hold as transendentally true rather than subject to verificationism are called axioms. So now we have imposed coherence upon our external reality with reason and logic, or so we assume.

If you are willing to accept those axioms as true, then objective reality does exist. "The sun emits electromagnetic radiation" would be something objectively true in that case.

The existence of transcendental *ethical* truths, which is what I was addressing in a round about way above, is much more problematic.

This is why people either love philosophy or hate it. It takes foundational things most people take for granted, exposes them as nothing more than a stack of assumptions, and then makes one argue endlessly to justify those assumptions. It can be very frustrating, especially for people who like to invest their ego's into being on the right side of an argument. :)

I agree with this 100%. The thought of being disrespectful to my elders when I was a kid never entered my mind.

But hold on, is it all adults who complain about how the youth of the day carry on? Do we all say stuff like "when I was that age... blah blah blah" ?

This is , of course , Godel's theorem.

Re the existence of an objective reality :

I think it's not merely a matter of how stingent a proof one demands but also of how you choose to define objective reality .


Re assuming the truth of logic :

Perhaps it may be more rational to say that for pragmatic reasons we may consciously choose to make the assumption of the "truth" of a given logic system but acknowledge that there is no theoretical reason for doing so .

Perhaps too , we must acknowledge that we are boring the shit out of most ppl on this board..

I'm actually getting quite the kick out of this thread. I bet half of the parents bitching here have little hellions running around at home. It's common, people always bitch about the neighbor boy because their kids are angels, no doubt...

About 95% of the time I don't want kids. Then there's the other 5% of the time I do want kids just to watch them grow and make me proud. My kids would never get away with half the crap my friends used to get away with a couple years back, there's no doubt about that...

I do not care to engage in pure philosphical rhetoric. I have found philosophical discussions to be a composition of a play on words, and ultimately circular.

If you reduce any discussion of anything it to its component parts you will invariably end up in one of the philosophical quagmires I illustrated above. The only way to avoid it is having conversations with people who can't deconstruct arguments very well :winkwink:

Agree on both counts :) Discussing that stuff on a webmaster board makes me feel like a pedant.

It is not invariably the end result. It is only if one chooses to reduce the component parts of a discussion to philosophical argument.

To make the above statement accurate:

The only way to avoid it is having conversations with people that do not deconstruct "real life" argument into philosophical argument.

As you are aware; there is a difference.

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