Volunteering for military service

[Kindle]

Originally Posted by oscar

Have you ever been there? Sorry to ask but do you have a grave to visit? We have nothing of my grandfather except his papers. I have a close friend who is a war biographer. He is doing auto-biography's of veterans as soon there won't be many left to tell their tales. He visits Belgium a great deal and helps vets get over there to pay their respects.

2 years ago with my husband.

The grounds were very impressive, the personel there very helpful and I was glad to finally be there in person.

[oscar]

Originally Posted by Kindle

2 years ago with my husband.

The grounds were very impressive, the personel there very helpful and I was glad to finally be there in person.

Great news that you got there.

[spot]

Originally Posted by Accountable

The words you used were "evil" and "morally bankrupt." Don't start mincing now; own your words. Never once occurred to you? You are either a liar (which I personally believe) or so stupid and devoid of the most basic skills of empathy that you can't possibly understand an explanation why your words are offensive.

I'm done with you. You're dismissed.

What's so laughable is that I've spent years on this site arguing forcibly there's no such thing as evil, that the word has no application in life outside novels, that's it's inapplicable to any person ever born.

You're simply avoiding the issues in the thread, mate. How can you have entrusted yourself to the command of people like General Mattis or Donald Rumsfeld? People died because of the selfish me-first mentality of volunteers to the armed services. Rather than expressing remorse or shame you'd rather employ this flummery. You trivialize death, Accountable. I'd thought better of you.

As for the moral bankruptcy, yes, they're good words for what I'm describing.

[Accountable]

Originally Posted by spot

What's so laughable is that I've spent years on this site arguing forcibly there's no such thing as evil, that the word has no application in life outside novels, that's it's inapplicable to any person ever born.

And yet it's the word you used. Some would say laughable; some would say hypocritical. If you want to find morally bankrupt, look in the mirror.

[Kathy Ellen]

Originally Posted by Accountable

And yet it's the word you used. Some would say laughable; some would say hypocritical. If you want to find morally bankrupt, look in the mirror.

Agreed Accountable...thank you

[Kathy Ellen]

Spot, I will not be responding to you again. Your self righeousness on issues and hatred of my country saddens and sickens me.

[spot]

Originally Posted by Accountable

And yet it's the word you used. Some would say laughable; some would say hypocritical. If you want to find morally bankrupt, look in the mirror.

This is a serious discussion, Acc. The consequence of volunteering is the death of large numbers of people. I know you don't like to face reality but that's a fact. Defending the homeland is legitimate but the words have been made meaningless by the associated propaganda. Fighting in the Middle East is certainly not defending the homeland and there's no reasonable meaning of words which makes it so. Talking of military service in this context as honourable is just parroting unfounded unsupportable belief, it's "Go Team" rather than sense.

Do we regard the people who saw off the Russians during the 1980s in Afghanistan as brave patriots or religious fanatics. Because they're exactly the same people who are fighting back against mile-high bombers and A10 tankbusters at the moment in the same place and they're doing exactly the same today as they were doing in the 1980s. Was Reagan right? Were they brave heroes? Or were the Russians the brave forces trying to bring civilization and justice to a backward tyrannical part of the world?

Why is there a double standard in coming to an answer?

The bias which describes them as brave patriots in the one context and Islamic fundamentalists trying to destroy the West in another is surely transparently obvious. People can't look at that impartially and at the same time support the Western deployment. That's why nobody's willing to discuss my question. All this talk of "I know the answer but I'll not say" is balderdash. Jester's a Christian literal-extremist with the most bigoted self-justifying interpretation of world events I've seen in my life and he accurately represents US opinion as far as I'm concerned.

[spot]

Originally Posted by Kathy Ellen

Spot, I will not be responding to you again. Your self righeousness on issues and hatred of my country saddens and sickens me.

Or, perhaps, you have no reasonable answer to my points.

[Kathy Ellen]

Originally Posted by spot

Or, perhaps, you have no reasonable answer to my points.

No, perhaps everything I say to you falls on deaf ears because you don't care about anyone's opinions or thoughts.

[spot]

Originally Posted by Kathy Ellen

No, perhaps everything I say to you falls on deaf ears because you don't care about anyone's opinions or thoughts.

Why should I, Kathy Ellen? Every time I express an opinion I'm asked to back it up with facts. I see no facts whatever coming from your side of the argument, just an inherent assumption that Americans are better than other folks and consequently what's good for the goose isn't at all good for the gander. The legitimate way to ask these questions is "what if someone else did that, would we see the same justification?", especially if it were the same thing being done to you rather than by you. There's a complete lack of ability on your side of the pond to set aside "We're better than them" and that's where the blinkers come from. You don't ask the right questions. Your opinions are consequently biased.

Start from a different standpoint. Americans aren't better than everyone else. Other people have as much right to determine their own destinies as Americans have. Stay out of their affairs, let them get where they want to get to rather than where you want to put them. Manifest Destiny kills people. God is not partial toward Americans. How many ways does it need saying?

What sways me is logic, Kathy Ellen. Try logic and if you can cope with the idea, found it on facts we can all agree with. That will explain your opinions and thoughts, it will make them impressive rather than propagandist, it will change opinions rather than entrench them.