Well, at least you actually read what I sad about respecting the choice. People around here have a tendency not to read what is written and do alot of reading INTO what is written.
Including you, right here.
Why does it follow that if I do not like a certain type of person, that I thik that I am BETTER than they are? Is that how it operates for you? Are you better than everyone you dislike, or better than everyone who indulges in behavior you dislike?
I am very grateful for the sacrifices men (and a few women) much more courageous than I have made in order to preserve freedom and the American way of life. I am PARTICULARLY grateful to the men who fought WWII, since I believe that was the definition of a just and righteous war. (And I actually THANK men who fought in WWII when I meet them.)
But I would never be that person. I dont’ have the guts, I don’t have the discipline,and I don’t have the ability to harm others (which is something of a drawback in war). I dont’ think anything about military life is remotely appealing. It is unfathomable to me why anyone would want to serve if they DID NOT FEEL THREATENED. To jsut choose it as a career? Totally outside my ken.
But that doesn’t mean I think I’m better. Just really, really different.
Hey kids. Glad to know you’re anxiously awaiting my input on this
Canada has recently enacted very strict gun control. All firearms, down to BB guns, must be registered with the RCMP gun registry. This was free for the last few years (I think - or a nominal fee anyway) but now I think it costs somewhere in the range of $100. Handguns are more strictly regulated, and you must prove that you belong to a gun club in order to own one. Gun clubs themselves must prove that the exist and are legitimate. Semi-automatic and automatic weapons are, as far as I know, strictly illegal (except if you’re the military, of course). My family owns several rifles that, in accordance with the law, are not only registered, but stored a certain distance away from their ammunition, and all have key-locks on the triggers. The keys themselves are not stored in the vicinity of the guns. It is illegal to carry a firearm unless you’re actually hunting or target shooting (i.e., away from people).
Keeping an unarmed gun in the home makes that gun pretty useless when your house is being broken into. I have mine on the top shelf of my closet, fully loaded but with the chamber empty. I’m always ready.
Stoidela and Extank hit on a good aspect of the gun and hunting debate which is that some bigotry does get wrapped up in it.
Now I am NOT calling anuyone here a bigot, so don’t flame me. But there are a lot of arguments that go something like this: “while I may be trustworthy and law abiding, it is all of them that I don’t trust.” Them being whatever perceived group is violent e.g. gang members, inner city folks, New Yorkers, whatever. It is a slippery slope, and one that some of our leaders are walking on. For example:
Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe."
–U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein
“And, I know the sense of helplessness that people feel. I know the urge to arm yourself because that’s what I did. I was trained in firearms. I’d walk to the hospital when my husband was sick. I carried a concealed weapon. I made the determination that if somebody was going to try to take me out, I was going to take them with me.”
–U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein
I have to say that in the few months that I’ve been on this board, this is the closest I’ve been to feeling ashamed to share the same species designation with anyone here. Stoidela, I could ALMOST see your point on the abortion for men thread, although I didn’t agree with it, but the following gives credence to my fears that humanity will kill itself off in rather short order.
So, you want someone else to do your dirty work for you. You don’t care if the animal in question has been force-fed antibiotics (contributing to the “superbug” problem), you don’t care if the factory farm from whence it came is gushing tons of contaminated waste into the continent’s water supply, you don’t care that the grain used to feed this animal was sprayed with pesticides and other harmful chemicals, screwing up the land around the farm; you don’t care that the plastic, styrofoam, paper and whatever used to “neatly package” your meat are in and of themselves harmful pollutants, and contributing yet more to the destruction of our natural resources. In short, you don’t care how much the stuff you eat damages the rest of the planet, you just care that you don’t have to feel squeamish about it.
So if I went out and poached a cow from a factory farm, butchered it and delivered it to your door in the form of neatly packaged steaks and hamburgers, you’d be grateful to me. Would I be “icky” then? Are you by chance descended from European nobility - the people who had their servants empty their chamberpots for them? Holy snobbery, batman!
So they’re good enough to protect you, but not good enough to be permitted to converse with you? Perhaps their intellect is deficient, somehow, in your mind? You disdain these people, yet expect them to preserve your rights and freedoms? Again, holy snobbery, batman!
GET OFF YOUR HIGH MORAL HORSE THERE, dearie. Where did I say I LIKED killing animals? I don’t, when it comes right down to it. Having respect for life is NOT incompatible with hunting. I simply like to know where my meat is coming from, and that no OTHER HUMANS OR ANIMALS will suffer for the meat I take. In addition to your dead cow, that factory farm has killed fish, insects, small animals and birds by the millions, and has destroyed the habitat of several species of deer, bunnies, whatever. Don’t think your hands are clean in this just because someone else does the work.
Nobody’s going to force you to like me. I won’t return the sentiment even if you do. A modicum of respect or consideration might be in order, however.
You certainly are lucky, however. Not many humans in the history of the planet have been able to get away with being as selfish, shortsighted, inconsiderate and narrowminded as you. Those that did ended up going down in history as the worst examples of the selfish aristocracy. They were frequently beheaded. It’s a pity we can’t do that anymore.
I am responsible. I know you have difficulties with that concept (see Abortion for Men thread) but I assure you, it’s absolutely vital to the continuation of our species.
I also know how to use verbs in every sentence. You might want to brush up on that, too.
Uh, Eris? Evidently you didn’t read this thread very carefully, and you certainly haven’t visited the dogs and cats thread, because if you had you would certainly never have written this.
Stoidela, you are correct in that I hadn’t visited the dogs & cats thread. I just read it, and am glad that you have the same concerns over factory farming that I do.
However, I’m curious as to where you get your meat from. If you don’t know, exactly, how can you be sure that the meat you eat is NOT contributing to the problems I mentioned?
I, on the other hand, think it’s a far better thing to prevent the “immediate threat” from happening. What? You don’t recall the Missiles of October?
Number One: If it were a Just and Righteous War, then the United States would have entered that war at its outset. The fact remains, the United States stayed out of the war until attacked. Now, if you’re saying that it was just and right to attack only Japan and leave Germany and Italy alone, then yes, you have a point, not a very good one but a point.
Number Two: “Military mind?” I’ve a military mind, my father has one, my brother has one, a good number of the posters on this board are on active duty with the military, retired from the military, or have served in the military.
Number Three: So do you ask those veterans who’ve served and lost limbs or sustained other injuries, “Hey, did you serve in World War Two or did you get that injury by being unjust and immoral?”
Number Four: Here’s “what the military does:”
Stands ever ready to prevent an attack by countries hostile to this nation and our way of life.
Patrols the open seas to ensure all countries may have free and open access to conduct commerce without the hindrance from countries who would deny this.
(& this one is from my Oath of Enlistment) “Support and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
What do you dislike about “what the military does?”
Pardon? Because we didn’t enter it immediately, it wasn’t just? America is the ultimate arbiter of just and righteous war? (And though I do not have the details ready to give you, the fact of the matter is that we knew and could have prevented Japan’s attack. We didn’t to give us an excuse and to fire up the citizenry to enlist and support the war.)
But it was a just and righteous war because Hitler was, in case you hadn’t heard, a seriously evil person, doing diabolically evil things to innocent people. It was right and just to stop him.
Goes to war. Trains people to kill. Trains people not to think, but to obey.
I’ve already said that I respect the choice, and I even appreciate it, since I understand that it is necessary. That still doesn’t mean I have to get chummy with the people who want to do it, does it?
Thanks Eris! I was about to reply to the thread and you pretty much took the words out of my mouth. If you’re ever in southeast NE, stop by for that venison (or free range chicken or non-antibiotic dosed beefsteak).
Too bad you still show no evidence of taking that point.
It shows that just and righteousness really had nothing to do with this nation’s entry into that war. Unless, of course, you consider it okay to compromise justice and righteousness. The fact remains that this country entered the war only after its territory was attacked. And, by all accounts of lawful action by nations at the time, that made it quite reasonable to wage war in return.
No, but it certainly appears that YOU think YOU are that arbiter.
Shouldn’t be too hard to dredge up a copy of that movie “Tora, Tora, Tora.” Who’s to say that by preventing the attack on Pearl Harbor that the attack on our forces in the Phiiippines would not have happened? Or that the Imperial Fleet would’ve just canceled the battle? Since you evidently get your facts only from popular movies, you might want to expand your sources.
My mistake; I didn’t realize we were going to be debating from a fantasy world. Let me guess: your next posting will be about either the Illuminati or the New World Order.
Oh, now you’re using 20/20 hindsight here. On what date did the government, and the populace, of the United States come to the knowledge of what Hitler and his cohorts were doing? And on what date did the United States decide to enter the war? And what was the reason given for entering that war?
Would that be a religious opinion or one based on the society in which you were raised.
I, personally, am quite grateful the United States entered the war and defeated Japan and her allies. Many of my cousins would have been killed most likely had they remained in the German military much longer back in the 1940s.
Now here’s an interesting concept; in the United States, Congress (group of civilians) declares war. The Congress has also passed what’s known as the War Powers Act, which authorizes the President (another civilian) to wage war to some degree. That means, in the world of Logic–not your fantasy land–that the military, who act on the orders of the civilian establishment, should be trained in the art of war. That is, unless you think our mission is to stand up and die just for the fun of it.
Your assertion that folks in the military are trained not to think is beyond stupid. As I alluded above, you really shouldn’t get your “facts” only from movies. If your assertion were true, then there would be no such charge under the Uniform Code of Military Justice as “Disobeying a Lawful Order.” You see, in the United States military, at least, it is incumbent on the individual to determine the legality and validity of an order. Ask some folks who know what they’re talking about to explain why there was court-martial after the My-Lai incident.
The question I have is, “Do you really respect that choice?” Evidently not–and the evidence is your own statements above.
What do you mean by “want to do it?” Do what? Defend the country? Sure, why not be polite and decent to them. As to folks who want to kill humans just for killing…well, the military does try to weed them out. They’re dangerous. As I mentioned above, it’s a far better thing to prevent the immediate threat from occurring.
There’s really not that much difference between the military and the law enforcement agencies. Do you feel the same way about cops? What about the Coast Guard? After all, the Coast Guard is both a branch of the military and a law enforcement agency.
And you have yet to answer the question–do you ask veterans of World War Two if they fought in Europe or in the Pacific? I mean, if they were not fighting against Hitler, then they weren’t fighting a just and righteous fight, were they? At least not according to you.
In the play Marat/Sade, the Marquis De Sade, makes the point that it is dangerous to dissociate the result of killing from the means. He argued that since the guillotine was allowing the aristocracy to be killed quickly and and relatively cleanly, that the people were becoming isolated from the cruelty involved in the act, and it was devolving into a form of entertainment. He said that if a person was to be executed, that person should be executed in the cruelest way imaginable, so the population would understand exactly it was they were doing. I think Eris’s argument in favor of hunting is similar. If you really would be a vegetarian if you had to be involved in the actual killing of animals, then maybe you should be a vegetarian anyway.
In The Mikado, the positions of judge and executioner were rolled into one, because, as they said, there is no moral difference between the judge that passes a sentence and the executioner who carries it out. It is purely hypocritical to respect one, yet revile the other.
Never seen it, have no interest. I get my facts from:
Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, Utne Reader, Mother Jones, American History Mag, The Nation, LA Times, NY Times, Brill’s Content, Business Week, Smart Money, Atlantic Monthly, Harpers, Discover, Scientific American, Nature, Smithsonian, The New Yorker, PBS, The Discovery, History, and Learning channels, Animal Planet, 60 Minutes, CNN, Wired, Wired News, CNET news, and anywhere from 2 to 6 non-fiction books monthly, ranging from financial advice to technical manuals, spirtuality and gossip. I also read alot of light entertainment periodicals. Plus a whole bunch of other sources that are not regular. These are my regular sources.
I have alot of time on my hands, and one of my favorite ways to spend it is to take in information. Lots and lots of information. The huge variety of input sources explains why I can rarely state off the top of my head where I read or learned something. It also explains why I have way too much information in my head, much of it conflicting. But it is a source of great pleasure to me to keep taking it in and sorting it out.
I claim no expertise on WWII, and my comment about it being a just and righteous war was my opinion, (casually remarked upon) and remains so. Why do you have a problem with that?
Jesus, people! I am not HOSTILE to people in the military! They just aren’t my best friends, ok? I don’t hang out with golf freaks, either - we have nothing in common! Chill!
You’ve also made a ridiculous assumption/declaration as to why the United States entered one particular war. Now, since that war happens to be you “definition of a just and righteous war,” I can see why you want to paint the history with your rose-coloured glasses.
However, the facts are still known and the facts of history prove you know not of what you speak.
And yet, when queried on this, you now backpedal.
The problem I have is that you did not present it as an opinion. You stated, flatly, that our government allowed the murder of many people in Hawaii just to create some kind of patriotic frenzy.
This will probably get me censored, but I must ask: “Do you really believe this bullshit you’ve spouted?”
Actually, I did not say these things. You jumped to the general conclusions from what I actually DID say.
[QUOTE}You’ve also made a ridiculous assumption/declaration as to why the United States entered one particular war. Now, since that war happens to be you “definition of a just and righteous war,” I can see why you
want to paint the history with your rose-coloured glasses. However, the facts are still known and the facts of history prove you know not of what you speak.[/QUOTE]
Well, I guess my only defense will be to find and quote my sources.
Well, I spout alot of bullshit, shit, not-so-bullshit, horseshit, and more. Which do you refer to particularly? Generally speaking, though, I don’t say things I don’t believe in. Although often, as we’ve seen here, people go on to interpret, add, and redefine what I’ve said to mean or include things I never said. SO the accurate answer to your question would be: “Yes, I believe what I say. I dont’ necessarily believe what others CLAIM I’ve said.”