I always get a good laugh out of those subjective Copenhagen interpration zealots, mindlessly repeating their mantra: "The universe does not exist without conscious observers, wah, wah!". No wonder some take this as a substitute for religion, mysterious bullshit and all. Sorry guys but in the off chance that the Copenhagen interpretation is ever found to be the best one (dunno how you'd find that out... maybe in retrospect when an entirely new physics paradigm comes up), it will probably be in the form of one of the objective or agnostic variants.
Do you realize that you could say the exact same thing — mutatis mutandis — about any person in any public role, most obviously plain old movie actors?
First, let me say I appreciate your honest attempt at "tearing me a new one". Compared to other replies, yours is a gem (a diamond with 250 written on it). You asked me some non-rhetorical questions, and I will gladly answer those that my two previous replies haven't, as they were not specifically aimed at your criticisms.
Oh, so having a college degree automatically exempts you from being lowlife scum
Sigh. Obviously not. You quoted me as saying "Not to say there aren't lowlifes in corporate America,". Did you not read the full quote or are you ignoring it on purpose? In the latter case, at least don't quote the embarrassing contradictory bit.
I'd rather have my blue-collar job over sitting in a tiny fucking cubicle any day.
Maybe so, and you may well hold a moral "relatively high" ground by doing so as far as I am concerned, but in light of america's global pursuit of economical happiness, I consider pretty much all jobs inside the U.S.A and some parts of Canada as "corporate". My usage of "corporate America" here was both a rhetorical and a conceptual synecdoche that played on the ambiguity of adjective-noun compound nouns in English (out of context, "corporate America" could mean both "the corporations of America as a whole" or "the whole of America as a corporation"). Sorry for the misunderstanding here, as usage should have required quotation marks to show I didn't use the idiomatic expression "corporate America" in its commonly accepted technical sense.
So now you're calling America's greatest generation lowlife scum? I would think that the veterans of WWII deserve nothing but honor and respect for their actions, and you should too.
I do respect them, and tried to make sure that what I said could not be construed as showing disrespect towards veterans of the two World Wars. Yet you have done so with a comment that is taken completely out of context as I implied it applied only to an ENLISTED army, specifically this one that is stationed in Iraq. As I pointed out, conscripts (and other time-of-war enlistees) are a different matter altogether. If you think they're not, may I just point out that officially, the United States has not been at war with anyone since WWII? Not in Korea, not in Vietnam and certainly not in both Iraqi "operations". The Congress may have voted funds and whatnot, but that is not War according to any international definition. Thus, only WWI and WWII will stand as examples of real modern wars with conscripts and ethically justified enlistment. Also, see my second post.
If it wasn't for them, you'd all be speaking German and saluting the Swastika right now.
Overused red herring. Please think of the Nazis and their children!
How can someone that honestly doesn't know of back-room politics and abuse of fellow humans be low life scum?
It is called guilt by ignorance (in christian terms, "Vincible Ignorance". Ask a theologian near you) You can be condemned in court as a consequence of it, if it can be shown that while you could have known the law, you didn't make the effort to for whatever reason (normally, you're suppose to know all law, but let's say you try to argue that it was somehow absolutely impossible for you to know it and that this should somehow absolve you of any wrongdoing). See also the concepts of "pluralistic ignorance" and of the bystander effect.
What if he did know about it?
Then that makes him guilty by association if he could prevent wrongdoing or if he refused to denounce it.
Maybe he would fucking want to join just to show that there ARE people in the military that don't beat on prisoners?
Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that people in the military did beat up prisoners. If he joins the army without denouncing those actions, how are we to know that he doesn't intend to perpetuate them?
Someone that honestly loves his country so much he is willing to put his life on the line is stupid?
If he is doing so blindly then yes, whether or not the thing he does thereby is wrong or not. Of course, that is only my (and I reckon most of the educated world, except some parts of the United States and some other really religious educated regions) ethical standpoint, and you may stand elsewhere on this issue.
O RLY? Care to actually back asinine claims like that up with actual fucking data?
Well, I haven't heard of any prisoners being tortured or beaten during the invasion per se, nor in the immediate aftermath, and my educated guess would be that the advent of such actions would indeed be sudden, but following a gradual increase in emotional detachment from the guards (refer to the Stanford prison experiment that I quoted two sentences later, which is more data than you'll ever need on this matter, I'd think). But what I wrote was not a scientific article. If I were to cite every paper I've ever read (most of which you probably couldn't understand right away anyway) to satisfy your misplaced need for "data", I would not be finished writing that first post yet. Relishing that thought may well please you; if so you are misguided indeed (misguided about how "science" works and also about the internets).
Again, O RLY? Moar data plz. Or should I say ANY data, please. Again, have you not read what you had just quoted, where I referred you to a well known psychological experiment made in a prestigious school, published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and repeated in countless psychology textbooks which happens to sustain my very point? Or are you just trying to rip off my leg off of my still warm body? Also, see my last answer about your misunderstanding of the process of science, which applies here especially to social sciences.
Maybe because the point of my fucking post wasn't to counter his points. "Troops are low life scum" isn't a point, it's a n opinion, in case that's what you were referring to.
Maybe so, but then so was my remark not a statement about the opinionatedness of the poster you replied to, but about your implicit attempt at refutation through a more or less carefully/consciously constructed exclamation of disbelief. Indeed, as it is difficult to ascertain scientifically that a certain person or type of person is "lowlife scum", such bold statements are to be classified as opinion. It doesn't change the fact though, that some opinions are more educated than others and thus may carry more weight, either subjectively through a shared worldview and knowledge base, or objectively by being shown to be closer to an established truth that the participants in this debate eventually come to recognize as such later.
What the hell does that have to do with ANYTHING said here?
Yes indeed it doesn't directly relate, sorry. It is part of a previous version of my post that I forgot to erase entirely. Though the point it makes is now moot since it is not attached to the post as a whole anymore, the segment can be reconstructed as such: "[Your experience in your squadron may give you a different picture of the lowlifedness of the enlisted troops as a whole, since you generalize from your own, subjectively positive experience, but things may not be such when viewed from outside, and your own squadron may be a statistical anomaly.] Yes, you may have "heard [good] things" [about the rest of the army as whole], but there's a reason hearsay is not allowed as evidence in a trial: it's actually pretty unreliable. Also, keep and bear in mind that no one likes to think that he himself did "bad things" in a conflict. They always blame the other or perversely blame only themselves." For that last bit, see the concept of "pluralistic ignorance" that I quoted earlier.
Have I thrown a stone here?
I would say yes, and my whole post was, in a sense, a way to make this very point.
Basically, next time, if you don't have any data to back up supposed "facts", STFU.
Unfortunately for you, I had data, as I think I have shown here (too) extensively. But it was not to back any facts but to back opinion. I never claimed to have any facts concerning the lowlifedness of enlisted troops and neither did the original poster. The fact that I asserted my opinion as if it were fact is a rhetorical device of which you should be well aware of in "FOX-News America". It is one of the most simple, pervasive, transparent and perversely effective device in the whole of human speech (again, in my and some other people's view). It is also one of the easiest to catch, at least when you and your opponents are on different wavelengths: hence to need to train yourself to detect it even when people you agree with use it. I guarantee you it will save you from trouble in the long run.
>> ^NinjaFish: i believe bidouleroux has made the largest post here with the smallest amount of actual content in it. A large uninformed rant straight from the heart of your horrible misconceptions and ego. The worst part is there is no point to any of it. It is one long ignorant rant filled with hot air and angst. I hope you are just trolling with that post, otherwise i'd say you are seriously stupid.
Smallest amount of factual content maybe, but highest in ideas and concepts surely. That you do not understand said ideas and concepts is partly my fault I suppose, lack of writing skills and a bit of rush-headedness, but calling me stupid because of it only shows your lack of understanding and judgment, if not outright idiocy.
If you care to call what I posted trolling, then you have yourself a very wide category here my friend: use it well, as with great power comes great responsibility!
No seriously, trolling? Have you never heard of guys like Richard Dawkins and the four horsemen? Oh, I see. That's what you mean by trolling! Excuse me, here I thought you liked being shaken in your beliefs and challenged intellectually. My bad.
^NordlichReiter: I'll let someone else tear you a new one. This makes me wish we had a mandatory military like germany. It would really open your eyes to the respect your taught to give everyone even your enemies. Go to a recruiting station for any branch and tell them you want to shoot people and that's the reason you want to join. Please do so and tell me what they say. I think you'll be surprised.
Of course, no one in his right mind (i.e. not mentally ill) would say that he likes to kill people to anyone, army recruiter or not. You'll have to revise your 12th grade pop psychology and look up "subtility", "concealment", "repressed desire" and "uncounscious desire". Man is a machine with a big and powerful nervous system (yes, that last bit means essentially "powerful brain") and it would be idiotic to think everyone is always open about their feelings to others and even to themselves, or that they even know about their true feelings, emotions or beliefs. This may go against your christian-centric "freedom of will and everything else" worldview, but science doesn't care about you or religious ideology.
On another note, I too would like for mandatory military service, like Switzerland (they provide for a much better political and economical model than Germany at present), but obliviously for different reasons than your warmongering american ones. There is value in defending one's life and the lives of your kin (which, in my book, should a priori include every human being in the world), but essentially your right to do so stops where the right of the others to defend themselves begins. This may be a cliché, but it is a useful one nevertheless. Of course, where to draw the line in real situations is difficult, but the principle should be remembered. When you are invading a whole country with the pretense of defending yourself, in this case Afghanistan and Iraq, you have to ask yourself some big and important questions, and the answers should be as strong as your claim is: that you somehow have the right to invade someone else for your own protection as a defensive action. Now, you may think, and probably many americans do, that you have the right to bully and push around anyone else you may want to just because of the fact that you exist: that's called "survival of the fittest" thinking (or "being a dick" for short), and as game theory shows, it won't take you far in the long run.
If you can't be a dick and your freedom to defend yourself is restricted, why would you want a military, let alone a mandatory military service? Two big reasons: one, you sometimes do need to actually defends yourself against "I-have-a-bigger-dick-than-you-so-do-my-dad-and-I'll-show-you-why" type of idiots, who either don't know, don't understand or couldn't give a fuck about game theory if their lives somehow depended on it (yes, military officers know about it, but your COMMANDER-IN-FUCKING-CHIEF, the supposed equal of George Washington, has got not even a hint of the most little clue) and they are best dealt with a quick and impressive show of actual or what seems like actual force, not bombastic military parades though these can serve to frighten some kinds of idiots. Two, being in an actual conflict, even and perhaps especially on a peacekeeping mission, can sometimes have a calming effect on trigger-happy or shoot-first-ask-later kind of young men and women. This effect is of course not guaranteed since every one is different (another useful cliché, in moderation).
As an aside, a corps of able and ready young people can be useful in humanitarian situations. Military training can also provide useful skills that some might not want or be able to get elsewhere (navigation, survival, basic weapon and self-defense, etc.). If not misused, a military can be a boon, like everything else in life.
Sorry for the long posts, but even with this (or maybe because of it? The internets are not used to reading long, thoughtful and rhetoric- and logic-filled discourses, especially not this abstract) many don't get what I'm trying to say, so imagine if I just said "EXCUSE THE FUCK OUT OF ME?". That could be deviously misconstrued as rock throwing if I was former military personnel, proud of my time of duty, responding to an anti-military statement!
P.S. I never said everyone in the military is lowlife scum or that everyone is joining to protect their country. From what I said would follow that in the worst case, half of everyone would be lowlife scum, and the other half would join to defend their country (in the case of the present american army stationed in Iraq at least). Of course I do not think it is so clear-cut, that was rhetoric. But far worse and damaging rhetorically is the typically american FOX-Newsy "misunderstanding" (conscious or not) of quoting me as saying they were all lowlife, or that they were all joining to defend their country. These are statistically very improbable situations, to say the least! There are also those who join because they need money they can't get otherwise, those who want to make their daddy proud, those who want to continue a familial tradition, those who are planning their political careers, etc. But they are not the focus of this discussion since I believe they form a minority, all the more so when you look at the true, hidden motives.
Why would they not be lowlifes when they represent the 18-35 American demographic, minus all the ones that actually have respectful or high paying jobs? Not to say there aren't lowlifes in corporate America, but the lowlife scum tend to stay "unemployed". Anyway, a majority is fifty percent plus one, not ninety-nine percent. And these are enlisted troops, not conscripts, so you're gonna get only people who want to shoot muslims or people who want to serve their country so much that they want to put themselves in arms way, but not shoot muslims (these latter would go in the first category). And I reckon anyone that WANT to shoot someone else, for whatever reason, is by definition a lowlife scum. Everyone that is so blind to politics, backroom machinations and human rights abuse that he still wants to enlist in a military without wanting to actually shoot anyone, is also a lowlife or at the very least stupid. Put these two kinds of people together and you get shitty operations like Afghanistan and Iraq. As we've seen over the past 7 years, the problems only start when you tell your enlisted troops NOT to shoot anyone anymore. They tend to get frustrated and remake the Dumb and Dumber movies. As for those that start out "normal", please refer to the Stanford prison experiment.
Also, you're not countering his point with your question, except by implicitly generalizing your own experience in your own squad in the marines (as I gather from your previous posts here on the sift). Yes, you may have "heard things", but there's a reason hearsay is not allowed as evidence in a trial: it's actually pretty unreliable. Also, keep and bear in mind that no one likes to think that he himself did "bad things" in a conflict. They always blame the other or perversely blame only themselves. And like your precious Jesus said: “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.” I'm sure nowadays plenty of bible-churning rednecks would gladly obey and start throwing stones, but then again I'm sure that for all your other faults at least you're not that kind of person.
"...exquisite pain..." Is it because the pain of hell is beautiful or somewhat pleasurable? In both cases, it only shows how Phelps is a masochistic brain-dead idiot who could orgasm looking at Christ-killing Jews dying in a gas chamber. Hell, he could do it by just thinking about it, and I'm sure he does every time he "sees" one of his pastor boys (Viagra is for losers).
>> ^iloseatlife: And why do you think driving has become a background task?
I too think it would be a bad idea to implement this in the U.S., but for two unrelated reasons. One, I think most Americans are inconsiderate bigots/clods, so something that works on ethical principles is doomed to fail (yes DOOMED into fucking HELL. The more religious you are, the more of an inconsiderate and immoral bigot/clod you potentially are). Second, having more traffic jams costs the U.S. economy more, and while I cringe at the thought of the pollution it produces, I like the idea of teaching Americans some economic lessons the hard way. Seems they didn't get it in 1929.
Quantum knowledge
Stairway to Heaven on Harp - full version
Not as good as it could be because of her hesitation as she looks on the sheet music. That's like typing with your eyes on the keyboard.
You have obviously never been to a classical concert.
Pools Closed Craziness
Jenna Jameson on O'Reilly talks about Feminism and Porn
Do you realize that you could say the exact same thing — mutatis mutandis — about any person in any public role, most obviously plain old movie actors?
Soliders blow up some random guy's sheep
First, let me say I appreciate your honest attempt at "tearing me a new one". Compared to other replies, yours is a gem (a diamond with 250 written on it). You asked me some non-rhetorical questions, and I will gladly answer those that my two previous replies haven't, as they were not specifically aimed at your criticisms.
Oh, so having a college degree automatically exempts you from being lowlife scum
Sigh. Obviously not. You quoted me as saying "Not to say there aren't lowlifes in corporate America,". Did you not read the full quote or are you ignoring it on purpose? In the latter case, at least don't quote the embarrassing contradictory bit.
I'd rather have my blue-collar job over sitting in a tiny fucking cubicle any day.
Maybe so, and you may well hold a moral "relatively high" ground by doing so as far as I am concerned, but in light of america's global pursuit of economical happiness, I consider pretty much all jobs inside the U.S.A and some parts of Canada as "corporate". My usage of "corporate America" here was both a rhetorical and a conceptual synecdoche that played on the ambiguity of adjective-noun compound nouns in English (out of context, "corporate America" could mean both "the corporations of America as a whole" or "the whole of America as a corporation"). Sorry for the misunderstanding here, as usage should have required quotation marks to show I didn't use the idiomatic expression "corporate America" in its commonly accepted technical sense.
So now you're calling America's greatest generation lowlife scum? I would think that the veterans of WWII deserve nothing but honor and respect for their actions, and you should too.
I do respect them, and tried to make sure that what I said could not be construed as showing disrespect towards veterans of the two World Wars. Yet you have done so with a comment that is taken completely out of context as I implied it applied only to an ENLISTED army, specifically this one that is stationed in Iraq. As I pointed out, conscripts (and other time-of-war enlistees) are a different matter altogether. If you think they're not, may I just point out that officially, the United States has not been at war with anyone since WWII? Not in Korea, not in Vietnam and certainly not in both Iraqi "operations". The Congress may have voted funds and whatnot, but that is not War according to any international definition. Thus, only WWI and WWII will stand as examples of real modern wars with conscripts and ethically justified enlistment. Also, see my second post.
If it wasn't for them, you'd all be speaking German and saluting the Swastika right now.
Overused red herring. Please think of the Nazis and their children!
How can someone that honestly doesn't know of back-room politics and abuse of fellow humans be low life scum?
It is called guilt by ignorance (in christian terms, "Vincible Ignorance". Ask a theologian near you) You can be condemned in court as a consequence of it, if it can be shown that while you could have known the law, you didn't make the effort to for whatever reason (normally, you're suppose to know all law, but let's say you try to argue that it was somehow absolutely impossible for you to know it and that this should somehow absolve you of any wrongdoing). See also the concepts of "pluralistic ignorance" and of the bystander effect.
What if he did know about it?
Then that makes him guilty by association if he could prevent wrongdoing or if he refused to denounce it.
Maybe he would fucking want to join just to show that there ARE people in the military that don't beat on prisoners?
Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that people in the military did beat up prisoners. If he joins the army without denouncing those actions, how are we to know that he doesn't intend to perpetuate them?
Someone that honestly loves his country so much he is willing to put his life on the line is stupid?
If he is doing so blindly then yes, whether or not the thing he does thereby is wrong or not. Of course, that is only my (and I reckon most of the educated world, except some parts of the United States and some other really religious educated regions) ethical standpoint, and you may stand elsewhere on this issue.
O RLY? Care to actually back asinine claims like that up with actual fucking data?
Well, I haven't heard of any prisoners being tortured or beaten during the invasion per se, nor in the immediate aftermath, and my educated guess would be that the advent of such actions would indeed be sudden, but following a gradual increase in emotional detachment from the guards (refer to the Stanford prison experiment that I quoted two sentences later, which is more data than you'll ever need on this matter, I'd think). But what I wrote was not a scientific article. If I were to cite every paper I've ever read (most of which you probably couldn't understand right away anyway) to satisfy your misplaced need for "data", I would not be finished writing that first post yet. Relishing that thought may well please you; if so you are misguided indeed (misguided about how "science" works and also about the internets).
Again, O RLY? Moar data plz. Or should I say ANY data, please.
Again, have you not read what you had just quoted, where I referred you to a well known psychological experiment made in a prestigious school, published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and repeated in countless psychology textbooks which happens to sustain my very point? Or are you just trying to rip off my leg off of my still warm body? Also, see my last answer about your misunderstanding of the process of science, which applies here especially to social sciences.
Maybe because the point of my fucking post wasn't to counter his points. "Troops are low life scum" isn't a point, it's a n opinion, in case that's what you were referring to.
Maybe so, but then so was my remark not a statement about the opinionatedness of the poster you replied to, but about your implicit attempt at refutation through a more or less carefully/consciously constructed exclamation of disbelief. Indeed, as it is difficult to ascertain scientifically that a certain person or type of person is "lowlife scum", such bold statements are to be classified as opinion. It doesn't change the fact though, that some opinions are more educated than others and thus may carry more weight, either subjectively through a shared worldview and knowledge base, or objectively by being shown to be closer to an established truth that the participants in this debate eventually come to recognize as such later.
What the hell does that have to do with ANYTHING said here?
Yes indeed it doesn't directly relate, sorry. It is part of a previous version of my post that I forgot to erase entirely. Though the point it makes is now moot since it is not attached to the post as a whole anymore, the segment can be reconstructed as such: "[Your experience in your squadron may give you a different picture of the lowlifedness of the enlisted troops as a whole, since you generalize from your own, subjectively positive experience, but things may not be such when viewed from outside, and your own squadron may be a statistical anomaly.] Yes, you may have "heard [good] things" [about the rest of the army as whole], but there's a reason hearsay is not allowed as evidence in a trial: it's actually pretty unreliable. Also, keep and bear in mind that no one likes to think that he himself did "bad things" in a conflict. They always blame the other or perversely blame only themselves." For that last bit, see the concept of "pluralistic ignorance" that I quoted earlier.
Have I thrown a stone here?
I would say yes, and my whole post was, in a sense, a way to make this very point.
Basically, next time, if you don't have any data to back up supposed "facts", STFU.
Unfortunately for you, I had data, as I think I have shown here (too) extensively. But it was not to back any facts but to back opinion. I never claimed to have any facts concerning the lowlifedness of enlisted troops and neither did the original poster. The fact that I asserted my opinion as if it were fact is a rhetorical device of which you should be well aware of in "FOX-News America". It is one of the most simple, pervasive, transparent and perversely effective device in the whole of human speech (again, in my and some other people's view). It is also one of the easiest to catch, at least when you and your opponents are on different wavelengths: hence to need to train yourself to detect it even when people you agree with use it. I guarantee you it will save you from trouble in the long run.
Zebra tries to drown attacking lion!
Coincidental. Zebra couldn't have thought to drown the lioness
Why, 'cause he doesn't have "free will"? Please get over this anthropocentric nonsensical mindset.
Soliders blow up some random guy's sheep
i believe bidouleroux has made the largest post here with the smallest amount of actual content in it. A large uninformed rant straight from the heart of your horrible misconceptions and ego. The worst part is there is no point to any of it. It is one long ignorant rant filled with hot air and angst. I hope you are just trolling with that post, otherwise i'd say you are seriously stupid.
Smallest amount of factual content maybe, but highest in ideas and concepts surely. That you do not understand said ideas and concepts is partly my fault I suppose, lack of writing skills and a bit of rush-headedness, but calling me stupid because of it only shows your lack of understanding and judgment, if not outright idiocy.
If you care to call what I posted trolling, then you have yourself a very wide category here my friend: use it well, as with great power comes great responsibility!
No seriously, trolling? Have you never heard of guys like Richard Dawkins and the four horsemen? Oh, I see. That's what you mean by trolling! Excuse me, here I thought you liked being shaken in your beliefs and challenged intellectually. My bad.
Soliders blow up some random guy's sheep
I'll let someone else tear you a new one. This makes me wish we had a mandatory military like germany. It would really open your eyes to the respect your taught to give everyone even your enemies. Go to a recruiting station for any branch and tell them you want to shoot people and that's the reason you want to join. Please do so and tell me what they say. I think you'll be surprised.
Of course, no one in his right mind (i.e. not mentally ill) would say that he likes to kill people to anyone, army recruiter or not. You'll have to revise your 12th grade pop psychology and look up "subtility", "concealment", "repressed desire" and "uncounscious desire". Man is a machine with a big and powerful nervous system (yes, that last bit means essentially "powerful brain") and it would be idiotic to think everyone is always open about their feelings to others and even to themselves, or that they even know about their true feelings, emotions or beliefs. This may go against your christian-centric "freedom of will and everything else" worldview, but science doesn't care about you or religious ideology.
On another note, I too would like for mandatory military service, like Switzerland (they provide for a much better political and economical model than Germany at present), but obliviously for different reasons than your warmongering american ones. There is value in defending one's life and the lives of your kin (which, in my book, should a priori include every human being in the world), but essentially your right to do so stops where the right of the others to defend themselves begins. This may be a cliché, but it is a useful one nevertheless. Of course, where to draw the line in real situations is difficult, but the principle should be remembered. When you are invading a whole country with the pretense of defending yourself, in this case Afghanistan and Iraq, you have to ask yourself some big and important questions, and the answers should be as strong as your claim is: that you somehow have the right to invade someone else for your own protection as a defensive action. Now, you may think, and probably many americans do, that you have the right to bully and push around anyone else you may want to just because of the fact that you exist: that's called "survival of the fittest" thinking (or "being a dick" for short), and as game theory shows, it won't take you far in the long run.
If you can't be a dick and your freedom to defend yourself is restricted, why would you want a military, let alone a mandatory military service? Two big reasons: one, you sometimes do need to actually defends yourself against "I-have-a-bigger-dick-than-you-so-do-my-dad-and-I'll-show-you-why" type of idiots, who either don't know, don't understand or couldn't give a fuck about game theory if their lives somehow depended on it (yes, military officers know about it, but your COMMANDER-IN-FUCKING-CHIEF, the supposed equal of George Washington, has got not even a hint of the most little clue) and they are best dealt with a quick and impressive show of actual or what seems like actual force, not bombastic military parades though these can serve to frighten some kinds of idiots. Two, being in an actual conflict, even and perhaps especially on a peacekeeping mission, can sometimes have a calming effect on trigger-happy or shoot-first-ask-later kind of young men and women. This effect is of course not guaranteed since every one is different (another useful cliché, in moderation).
As an aside, a corps of able and ready young people can be useful in humanitarian situations. Military training can also provide useful skills that some might not want or be able to get elsewhere (navigation, survival, basic weapon and self-defense, etc.). If not misused, a military can be a boon, like everything else in life.
Sorry for the long posts, but even with this (or maybe because of it? The internets are not used to reading long, thoughtful and rhetoric- and logic-filled discourses, especially not this abstract) many don't get what I'm trying to say, so imagine if I just said "EXCUSE THE FUCK OUT OF ME?". That could be deviously misconstrued as rock throwing if I was former military personnel, proud of my time of duty, responding to an anti-military statement!
P.S. I never said everyone in the military is lowlife scum or that everyone is joining to protect their country. From what I said would follow that in the worst case, half of everyone would be lowlife scum, and the other half would join to defend their country (in the case of the present american army stationed in Iraq at least). Of course I do not think it is so clear-cut, that was rhetoric. But far worse and damaging rhetorically is the typically american FOX-Newsy "misunderstanding" (conscious or not) of quoting me as saying they were all lowlife, or that they were all joining to defend their country. These are statistically very improbable situations, to say the least! There are also those who join because they need money they can't get otherwise, those who want to make their daddy proud, those who want to continue a familial tradition, those who are planning their political careers, etc. But they are not the focus of this discussion since I believe they form a minority, all the more so when you look at the true, hidden motives.
Soliders blow up some random guy's sheep
>> ^NordlichReiter:
The majority of your enlisted occupation troops are lowlife scum
EXCUSE THE FUCK OUT OF ME?
Why would they not be lowlifes when they represent the 18-35 American demographic, minus all the ones that actually have respectful or high paying jobs? Not to say there aren't lowlifes in corporate America, but the lowlife scum tend to stay "unemployed". Anyway, a majority is fifty percent plus one, not ninety-nine percent. And these are enlisted troops, not conscripts, so you're gonna get only people who want to shoot muslims or people who want to serve their country so much that they want to put themselves in arms way, but not shoot muslims (these latter would go in the first category). And I reckon anyone that WANT to shoot someone else, for whatever reason, is by definition a lowlife scum. Everyone that is so blind to politics, backroom machinations and human rights abuse that he still wants to enlist in a military without wanting to actually shoot anyone, is also a lowlife or at the very least stupid. Put these two kinds of people together and you get shitty operations like Afghanistan and Iraq. As we've seen over the past 7 years, the problems only start when you tell your enlisted troops NOT to shoot anyone anymore. They tend to get frustrated and remake the Dumb and Dumber movies. As for those that start out "normal", please refer to the Stanford prison experiment.
Also, you're not countering his point with your question, except by implicitly generalizing your own experience in your own squad in the marines (as I gather from your previous posts here on the sift). Yes, you may have "heard things", but there's a reason hearsay is not allowed as evidence in a trial: it's actually pretty unreliable. Also, keep and bear in mind that no one likes to think that he himself did "bad things" in a conflict. They always blame the other or perversely blame only themselves. And like your precious Jesus said: “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.” I'm sure nowadays plenty of bible-churning rednecks would gladly obey and start throwing stones, but then again I'm sure that for all your other faults at least you're not that kind of person.
Fred Phelps: George Carlin is now in Hell
German town removes all traffic signs to reduce accidents
And why do you think driving has become a background task?
I too think it would be a bad idea to implement this in the U.S., but for two unrelated reasons. One, I think most Americans are inconsiderate bigots/clods, so something that works on ethical principles is doomed to fail (yes DOOMED into fucking HELL. The more religious you are, the more of an inconsiderate and immoral bigot/clod you potentially are). Second, having more traffic jams costs the U.S. economy more, and while I cringe at the thought of the pollution it produces, I like the idea of teaching Americans some economic lessons the hard way. Seems they didn't get it in 1929.