Oh, and good on you for speaking out, MsRobyn.
I’m certainly not going to criticize Olentzero for speaking out. My beef was with the manner in which he did so.
From Meeriam Webster’s Online.
Isn’t that the equivilent of “I know you are but what am I?”? What grade are you in? Isn’t it nap time where you live yet?
Because it demonstrates the contradictions of your position.
You have, by your own admission, made Lenin into a hero. This you do despite the admitted fact that Lenin is directly responsible for the death of millions of people.
Nonetheless, you object to the point of being a jerk when the US government honors its outstanding servicemen. Because the exemplary service they demonstrated involved (sometimes) killing a much smaller number of people.
In other words, you have no objection to killing even lots of people, provided it is done by Marxist ideologues and not by Americans. So when you said that you thought that killing people was a tragic consequence of war, and that we shouldn’t honor those who do the killing, you were lying. Because you do think we should honor those who did the killing in the October Revolution.
Thus you either do not realize that your position is contradictory, in which case you are stupid, or you do, but cling to it nonetheless, in which case you are hypocritical.
In neither case are you someone who brings either honor or consistency to a position.
And of course, the contrast between the courage and commitment of those being honored in Mr. Moto’s threads, and your own brand of contemptible hypocrisy, could hardly be more jarring.
Regards,
Shodan
I never said you did advocate it. You know that little squiggly thing at the end of sentences? You just used two of them in the post I quoted. It’s called a question mark. I asked the question (which is a request for information, in case you didn’t know) to see if your stance against awarding citations for serviceman was just for this war, or if you wanted it applied retroactively. And you still haven’t answered.
Ms. Robyn, soldiers can be brave and heroic regardless of the political reasons for the war. The military should, in theory, by apolitical. Therefore, politics should play no part in the awarding of medals.
Spoken like someone with an axe to grind and no patience for actually reading people’s arguments. You, sir, are a fucking idiot.
Mainly because it makes no sense. I disagree with issuing a citation for bravery when bravery includes “killing the enemy” in its definition, no matter where or when the war, or what its causes. But what am I supposed to ‘apply retroactively’?
With the above posting this thread officially passed from what might have become a rational discussion of the perennial dilemma of the good man serving a bad cause. Our friend, one of many, has managed to throw off any attempt to deal with the question on the floor in favor of hysterical and dishonest group characterizations – characterizations that can be turned on their head with equal honesty. For instance:
On the SDMB, it is pretty nearly unanimously conservative. As in -
[ul][li]You don’t believe in God? You’re an idiot.[/li][li]You voted for Gore? You’re a moron. [/li][li]You want to recognize civil unions? You are a threat to the foundations of society and advocate an sexually perverse abomination.[/li][li]You do not support the war in Iraq without reservation otr doubt? You hate America and despise freedom…[/ul][/li]
Clearly our friend Olentzero’s ideas are more that a little off the wall and extreme, but to take the worst and most extreme position of any liberal and pronounce them to be the universally held views of all liberals is self delusion and dishonest. It may help to assuage some inner sense of rage but it does precious little to advance the march of rational political discourse.
War is now and always has been an ugly and obscene business. The nobility of the young men who are required to sacrifice themselves (the dead are overwhelmingly young and often pitifully young) does not in any way make the effort any less ugly or any less obscene. That is a given, and I suppose every once in a while somebody need to repeat W. T. Sherman’s injunction that was is not glory, war is Hell in its straightest and undiluted form. That seems to be what our friend is trying to say.
Mr Motto is however operating from a more sophisticated stance. He does not flat out say that war is a good thing, that the greatest pleasure in life is to drive your enemies before you and hear the lamentations of their women, but rather that American service people are doing brave and courageous things in the Middle East. To this I ask, fine, so what, to what end?
My point is this, if the war in Iraq (and I distinguish the effort in Afghanistan that was so nobly commenced but now appears to have petered into a sideshow) is ill advised and has been poorly executed then no amount of gallantry on the part of kids on the ground will redeem the policy decisions that got us there. I suspect, given his history, that our friend had in mind distracting attention from the policy decisions that put my country in Iraq by focusing attention on the professional manner in which the bulk of our soldiers, sailors, aircrew and Marines have performed their duties in a difficult situation. That just distracts from the really important issues that this country has to deal with and must deal with in very short order. Flag waiving is no substitute for rational thought, or rational dispute.
You use too many "our friend"s in there; I had to re-read it two or three times to figure out who you were talking about in which paragraph.
I just wish that Mr. Moto would quit spamming the forums with his endless, repetitive, and quite pointless “Hero” threads.
“Ghoul” might be taking it too far, but there’s just too many of these them. And it feels like I would hurt people’s feelings by writing anything negative about either the people discussed or the threads themselves, so nobody does. Like you don’t swear in a church, even if you’re an atheist.
I think every thread should have an original theme. Sure, you could post an near-identical thread a year or so later, when things might have changed and new posters have joined, but it’s not the same thing.
Mr. M also seems to be of the opinion that dying while serving in the armed forces of a particular nation is all it takes to be a hero. To my mind, that makes the whole concept an order of magnitude less interesting and useful.
Also, I’m a bit concerned that, since Mr. Moto is so keen on heroism, he denies himself the honor by not putting himself in harms way for what he so deeply believes in? In my mind I have a picture of him in a comfortable couch, in front of a large television set permanently switched to a news channel, munching popcorn from a large bowl while wiping away crocodile tears with a handkerchief with the other hand. And enjoying every second of it.
Careful there, aegypt. Mr. Moto is an active serviceman and doesn’t take to such comments like those in your last paragraph kindly.
Va bra att se svenskar här, förrestens!
I’m not an active serviceman. I am a Navy veteran, and a current employee with a defense contractor, working on the Tomahawk cruise missile project.
For five years I directly participated in our nation’s defense. And I continue to make an important contribution in this area.
I’ll let you off the hook, aegypt, because you didn’t know this. But you should be very careful not to make any assumptions about the people you’re conversing with.
I can assure you, I am no chickenhawk.
Since I am enjoying following this thread, I have to ask…
What does the above quote mean?
BTW, everybody should just relax about these threads. I’ll post the last one tomorrow or the next day.
If they seem repetitive, it’s because you haven’t been reading the stories closely, IMHO.
If there seem to be to many of them, all I can say to that is, it’s a good thing. I believe the fact that our forces are capable of this kind of courage, under terrible conditions, speaks to their quality as men and women, and the quality of their training and leadership.
Just a shout out to aegypt in (what I assume) is his/her native tongue. “Good to see Swedes here, by the way!”
When this passed without comment on the first page, I thought maybe most of the participants of the thread were using the “ignore” feature on Shodan, or some such thing. But it’s been quoted on this page and treated as though it weren’t nearly as egregiously stupid as it appears to be, and there are no additional comments on it. Allow me.
What the hell, Shodan? Unanimous support for these tenets of yours?
- Plenty (most?) of our most respected members express some form of religious belief. Anti-religious bigots are regularly trounced here.
- Can’t really argue that one, since it’s so hopelessly garbled it’s not clear what was intended.
- Misleadingly phrased – “civil union” and “marriage” are not different terms for the same thing. This is more accurately rendered as “You want to withold legal benefits from some citizens that are extended to others, based on an innate quality of the individuals involved? You’re a bigot.” Even still, there are a significant number of people here who feel that “civil unions” are an acceptable compromise. Hardly unanimous.
- You believe that the SDMB “hive-mind” favours Olentzero’s position on this? Uh, can you read? I missed the part where we covered him in perfumed oils and masturbated him to orgasm for his stalwart adherance to the Party Line.
Again, what the hell?
Yeah I’m whining :rolleyes: . Also right. As I said I was going to ignore you in MPSIMS but I will answer here in the proper forum.I did not try to argue if your point of view was valid. You have had many people come down on both sides of this issue here. I think everyone was agreed that you were doing it in the wrong forum. All I was asking was for you to Pit in the Pit and debate in GD. I had a problem with the arrogance you showed by pushing your agenda where it wasn’t wanted and didn’t belong. Looks like I am in the vast majority. If you haven’t, post a thread in GD about this topic then go ahead and people can post as to what is heroism in the proper forum without name calling. Or keep it right here if you want to keep frothing at the mouth.
Your opinion about the government is pretty clear. So why don’t you protest ? I mean a real one. Quit that chushy government job in protest. Stop sucking on the Teat of Oppression and storm out. Don’t think things will be different under Kerry either. He already said he won’t pull out of Iraq until we are complete. Stand up for what you believe in. There are planes going over to Iraq everyday and the FAA in facilitating it. You are part of the war machine. Show how much you believe in the cause.
If I don’t get back to this thread for a while its because I’m busy defending your sorry commie ass. :wally
…and you fuckers didn’t invite me?!