For those unable/unwilling to click on the link, it’s a US Army NCO holding up a handwritten note ridiculing the “99%” for not understanding sacrifice. It concludes by saying “I AM THE .001%”
By my math, just short of 1% of the US population is currently serving in active, guard, or reserve status in the US military, and if you include all US military veterans, a whopping 8% of the US population has served in some capacity.
I’m not saying I’ve never played the military card to try and win an argument, but at what point does simply saying “I served the military and I believe X” stop having a meaningful impact, considering nearly 1 in 12 can make that claim?
I’m not sure where the connection to OWS is but a serviceman suggesting that citizens should shut up unless they have served in the military (which is how I read this) is a disgrace to the uniform he is so carefully displaying. I think he needs a new line of work.
I wouldn’t go that far - but I would say he’s engaging in a sort of snobbery - “I was in the military so I have higher status than anyone who was not in the military!” and false equivalency - “I’m assuming all you OWS people were not in the military because I would not do what you are doing!” and just plain misdirected antagonism.
Yea, we need some fancy latin term for the fallacy of arguing via non-sequiters regarding military service.
But in any case, even with a lot of gov’t programs to help them, the unemployment rates for newly returned veterans is somewhere between two and three times the average. Their in a bad demographic group (22-26), usually just have highschool education and while some pick up marketable skills while in the military, most don’t.
So at least for people that serve in the military for a few years without making a life-long career out of it, they’re probably getting screwed a lot harder then average by the poor economic conditions the OWS protests are angry about.
I’d largely agree, but point out there’s a difference between being a combat veteran and a veteran. George W. Bush and John Kerry were both veterans but Kerry would certainly have objected to the idea that their service was equal.
Anyway, it’s pure theatrics. It’s similar to the way Occupy Oakland put their uniformed protesters out front.
Since the Occupy/99% group’s main concerns aren’t about military service in the first place, I don’t see the relevance. They’re mostly talking about income inequality and financial regulation. Even if they all joined the military tomorrow, how would that address those problems?
Tom Brokaw was on The Daily Show last night talking about his new book, which is about national service. He wrote it before the “99%” protests began, and he refers to military families as… the One Percent. Oops.
It never stops having a meaningful impact. It will always make people think you’re an asshole.
I’m apparently missing the gene that causes people to reflexively genuflect at the mention of military service. If whatever you’re spewing about isn’t directly related to your service, then having served is irrelevant.
Apparently, he is saying the Occupiers are a bunch of pussies because they’ve never been in a shit-hole war zone. Except, of course, those Occupiers who have.
It’s a vacuous argument, similar to Appeal to Authority or Appeal to Emotion. It does nothing to address the actual arguments the Occupiers are making.
There are reasonable arguments to be had contra the Occupiers, but this isn’t one of them.
It seems to the Tea Party became a major force in the Republican Party, kicked a bunch of moderate Relublicans out of office and helped the Republic Party take back the House of Representatives.
Please explain what makes you think they’ll disappear soon.
As it gets colder I think that’s less and less likely.
Beyond that, if they continue to stay out there they will prove themselves even stupider than I thought.
The Tea Party became a force when they stopped making a spectacle of themselves and came up with a clear, concrete agenda and organized on a local and state level to force politicians to either support their agenda or get voted out.
They then succeeded in being a force within the Republican Party by tossing out those they labeled “RINOs” and put a number of people in Congress.
If the OWS people decide to stay out there waving around their signs, shivering and making themselves look like idiots rather than going home and engaging in more constructive activities it’s safe to say they’re even dumber than I thought.
They’ll also confirm the suspicions of those who claim they’re more concerned with image than substance and more concerned with looking cool than doing something practical and constructive.
I still don’t think that’s happened since some of their goals are contradictory, but it doesn’t matter much and we have enough threads about them anyway. What happened - more generally - is that they made enough noise that politicians had to take them seriously. It helpedwhen a news network started advertising and co-sponsoring their events, but what mattered was that they proved they were determined to stick around and weren’t going to be pacified the same way they had been in the past. If the Occupy groups to do the same, they’ll get the same kind of treatment.
Out of 300,000,000 people in this country, .001% leaves 3,000. Is he saying that only 3,000 people understand sacrifice? Or is the joke that he didn’t sacrifice enough in math class?