One can argue that American service men should refuse to serve in Iraq without wishing death on all of them.
And, of course, there is always the chance that abject failure, seen worldwide, might diminish the possibility of nations allowing their politicians to lead them into such conflict in the future.
To that extent, I can agree with DH, and I certainly think it’s a positive sign that some people can get beyond the emotional nationalist thinking of the ‘you’re either with us or against us’ variety. To my mind, DH isn’t suggesting that he has an inbuilt hatred of the US, or of the US military - he is stating that the pseudo-patriotic support for people who shouldn’t even be in another part of the world is misguided and that anything that might bring them away from there has to be a good thing, in the grand scheme of things. Of course, on a personal/individual level it certainly wouldn’t - but then those Iraqis have husbands, wives and children too.
Of course, I might be projecting a little and I wouldn’t disagree that more often than not his statements are (almost certainly intentionally) provocative and over-exaggerated. Nonetheless, the very fact that it presents (pushes in your face) a different perspective can’t in itself be a bad thing.
A good Tom? You know, when we have theist-only drinking fountains and atheists have to sit in the back of the bus, maybe you could say something like that without looking like a total fuckwit.
Der Trihs doesn’t have any balls. Posting shit in a messageboard is not the height of courage, which is sort of the point of the thread. My status as a veteran doesn’t have anything to do with it.
Like Trihs, I post what I post because I mean it. Thanks in part to the military, I’m not afraid of spouting my opinion. I don’t trumpet my atheism, and I don’t identify myself primarily as an atheist for two reasons. First, I have a life. I identify myself as a librarian. I like being a librarian. It’s pretty cool in a geeky sort of way. Atheism is more of a by-the-way thing for me. It’s not a major part of my life.
Second, and more to the point, I don’t revel in my atheism or call attention to it, because after ten years of not believing in god, I have come to the conclusion that most people who do are assholes. (A good Tom, I still can’t believe it.) You and Trihs are every bit as touchy, unpleasant, and impervious to reason as any Cardinal in Rome, and after spending the first 18 years of my life in tiny farmtowns shoulder to shoulder with pentacostals and creationists, I have yet to run into anyone as obnoxious. You two may be right about there being no god, but that doesn’t change the fact that you suck. So there.
Like I said, no skin off my nose, take it anyway you want.
Sure, there are no blasphemy laws on the books and no atheists have ever been convicted in the last hundred years under those laws. The comparison is apt.
You’ll forgive me if I think you’re talking out of your ass. I’ve seen enough evidence of how hated he is by the goosestepping militarists on this board, not to be skeptical of your unbiased judgement.
Clearly, for DT, it is.
And yet what you just said doesn’t refute it.
Kiss my ass.
I’ll take it then that you do think all religionists are as deluded as the man who thinks he’s Napoleon Bonaparte, but being shorter of balls than Der you backpedal a bit before coming out and saying so, and your primary reason for admiring him is that he has the guts to be as big an asshole as you wish you could be. As long as we’re clear on that, we can move on.
I have to apologize for this rant. Drunken diatribes are never as clever or witty as you think they are the next day.
No, I wasn’t suggesting that the war was an accident at all. What I was saying (and now it appears that I cherry picked while pickled on the abortion thing) was that there’s a difference between an intentional killing and an accidental one, and that both occur in warfare and anywhere else.
Most American soldiers do not try to kill innocent civilians whilst waging war.
Abortion doctors always try to kill fetuses. And I am not against abortion per se either, so let’s not go there.
Oh, I forgot to add my thanks for your kind words.
Any killing in the Iraq war by coalition forces is intentional - they wouldn’t be in a position to “accidentaly” kill anyone if not for the occupation. The intent was there from the invasion.
No, he’d be fucking wrong, as is anyone stupid enough to believe that taxes paid to support an army, and benefits/hazards derived from the actions of that army, do not constitute a positive affiliation. They do. The civilian that merely disavows the actions of his military, no matter how vociferously, and continues in every other respect to perform his duty as a contributing citizen in a belligerent nation, is an economic asset to the war machine, and remains every bit as viable and logical a target as the die-hard hawk warmonger. You think Der Trihs’ internet bullshit sees his tax dollars magically get spent on things other than bullets and jet fuel? You think his objections spewed out here like the odious discharge of an angry, spoiled 19-year old saved a life? Fuck you, dreamer.
What a pathetic conceit, and so utterly at odds with human history and so completely without justification, following this bloodiest century our species has ever known. Not his team? Yeah, I’m sure Allied bomber crews took extra care to avoid the roof of every German housefrau who had Yankee sympathies. Because, you know, deep down inside where it really doesn’t count for jackshit, National Socialism just wasn’t their team, and it made a big difference in the war.
This is his team, whether he likes it or not, so long as his labors support it and outsiders would consider him a target as a result. Only in the idiotic posturing which concludes that the late 20th century vogue of anti-nationalism translates into personal status without consequence does a contrary stance have any currency at all. And since none of those people have the wherewithal to protect the Der Trihses of the world from the harsher realities of their respective national affiliations, the argument is a 100% bullshit waste of time anyway. He’s wrong, and so are you.
Him because he’s crazy, you because the world doesn’t get better or give a fuck about what goes on in his head. TLDR version: you don’t think or internet screed your way off the team, dumbass.
He hasn’t the will or conviction to carry his treasonous thoughts into action. I should think the state loves no kind of dissent better than it does his.
No, I don’t think all theists are deluded.
An example:
Liberal, to pick an example of someone I enjoy debating, is not deluded. Wrong, IMO, but I think he’s arrived at his current stance quite lucidly. We just don’t agree on a lot of basic stuff, but I wouldn’t call him delusional about his theism.
I think you’re reading too much into me trying to explain/channel DT’s stance. While I do agree with him that soft-footing around theists in GD amounts to groupthink and a betrayal of one’s own convictions, I’m not quite as … Dawkins-ist? I don’t take the hardline memeticist view of religion Der does.
So to repeat - I don’t think all theists are deluded. Sure, if you hear voices or the like, I’d say so. But just to believe? I wouldn’t call it “delusion” - erroneous, yeah, but then I wouldn’t be an atheist if I didn’t think that, would I?
Still, like I said, skin, nose, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah…
I don’t equate coercive taxes with voluntary participation. Sure, you could argue that he should rather go to jail for non-compliance, but he’s already said he won’t do that. IMO he’s right, there’s no material benefit to the anti-war side(the govt will still take the taxes out of his property, no?), unlike a soldier going to stockade for refusing to fight (who’s not in a position to kill Iraqis anymore).
And no, a terrorist who blew up DT because he was on the “US side” would be in error. Just because the terrorist is mistaken doesn’t make DT magically change sides anymore than your hypothetical German Yankee sympathiser is suddenly a Nazi, just because she lived in Dresden.
Well, but it’s no use babbling to me about taking things how I want when your actual position is quite reasonable and can be explained with a few polite words, now is it?
And then, as long as we’re agreed that it is not a point of fact that all theists are deluded, you can agree that’s it’s assholish for someone to talk as if they were every time he opens his mouth, and that refusing to do so is neither “soft-footing around” them or surrendering to groupthink. And once you reach that conclusion, you can consider it less praiseworthy for him to bravely defy groupthink, and more culpable for him to be bloody rude.
And, as long as we’re discussing probosci, I’m quite unchallenged in the nasal epidermis department too. 
I don’t think I’ve ever said DT isn’t rude - he’s harsher and more abrasive than I am, for sure (outside the Pit). But I don’t think he’s rude *enough *to warrant the hostility he gets back, which is often based on the stances he takes rather than the words he’s actually used - he doesn’t swear, he never pits people, and on those occasions when he is out of line, he does get warned for it by the Mods. But he must be one of the most Pitted dopers. If his view was so bad, why don’t people debate him in GD? And what about those who pile on here, but never debate him in GD?
People don’t like what he says, or how he says it - I get that. I understand why, completely. I just don’t agree with these (regular) Pittings, especially ones centred on his supposed RL situation or imagined One-trick Pony-ism.
The voluntary/non-voluntary status of his participation does not matter to the dead or conquered. In fact, it does not matter to anyone except the individual, and apparently, to you. If we lived in a subjective reality where the victims of war would be magically resurrected upon his or your disagreeing with the manner of their deaths, you’d have a point. We don’t, so you don’t. His mouth speaks but his wallet complies, and that is enough to put him on the team. Because the men with guns say so, and that’s who makes the rules in war.
Error according to whom? The Suddenly Convened MrDibble Tribunal on Moral Warfare and Supreme Social Justice? Give me a fucking break. A civilian is targetted by a terrorist to intimidate the other civilians into taking political action. That’s not a mistake, it’s an intentional act that desires response. Now if you meant to call it wrong, a word which your dribbling apologist mouth probably couldn’t quite bring itself to actually form in connection with those oh so noble fighters for whatever, that’s another, larger matter quite outside the tiny realm of whether Der Trihs sucks.
That’s right, someone doesn’t magically change sides based upon the subjective thoughts of one person. Or even two people, or ten. They change sides when the people with guns on at least one side say they do. You’re almost there. Your hypothetical terrorist hasn’t made a…mistake. He’s correctly identified Der Trihs as a supplier of materiel support to the opposition force, and attacks him because of it.
The idea that one is on a team if one is held within that team at gunpoint is drivel. You don’t appear to have even the basics of an understanding of what the words you are using mean.
He’s not being held at gunpoint and I didn’t say he was. Oops, fail.
What, like held at gunpoint? Fuck off. Gimp wrestling isn’t until later.
Ah, another week, another Der Trihs thread.
When will people who hate him simply stop feeding the troll? I’ve started to simply ignore his idiotic and asinine over-the-top posts, even if he directly responds to or quotes me - makes my life so much more mellow and it’s clearly a waste of time to debate with him. He deliberately tweaks religious and military people and enjoys the reactions - otherwise he wouldn’t keep doing it.
And anyways, other people say what he’s trying to say much better and more lucidly and without dropping into over-the-top theatrics so it’s not like his point is lost.
That’s awfully weak. Hasn’t he said outright enough things to be criticized for without having to make assumptions?
That’s good enough for me.
Doesn’t make them right, just makes them bullies.
Yes.
Didn’t say they weren’t getting results by killing him, just that their attribution of certain motives or actions to him would be wrong.
I have no problem calling it wrong - and I don’t think anti-US forces are “oh so noble”. But in this particular fight, they are as in the right as anyone could be in war.
Yes, they do - they belong to the side they think they’re on, not the side you want them to be on to suit your own argument.
No, that just determines whether theyt live or die, not what side they were on. Not the same thing.
No, he hasn’t - he has made a mistake, if his intention was to attack enemy civilians. But I don’t expect any pro-nationalists to get that.