I’m pretty far to the left myself, not only by US standards but even by the standards of social democracies like Canada and the Scandinavian countries. My bright and beloved older brother, however, was so far to the left of me that if he moved any further left he’d fall of the edge of the world. No criticism of @iiandyiiii intended, but in my general impressions he reminds me of my brother – which in many ways should be taken as a great compliment, but also a statement about philosophical differences.
Officially, the mod-to-be applies. But usually they apply because the existing mods have decided to ask them to apply.
Yes, I would describe it as “invited to apply”. I was honored for the ask, and had to think about if I should.
That was the case for me.
I was in the process of applying and working with TubaDiva on that when she passed away.
I don’t know how it would have worked out if I’d finished the process anyway. I was nervous about the time commitment. And I also had anxiety about not being good at it. And then I was so sad about her being gone my heart wasn’t in it anymore and I stopped pursuing it.
But I hadn’t even considered applying before I was asked to do so.
And how’s that going? While crashing the world economy, which is where we’re headed, by raising fuel prices to win the midterms was a plan… it wasn’t a very good one.
Now go sit in the room with the other accelerationists and think about what you’ve done.
Yeah, I know that’s why the board is as it is, just bemoaning it, is all.
No disrespect to @iiandyiiii but he’s quite far to the right of a pure leftist like me.
That wouldn’t be a reasonable interpretation of what you actually said, which was this (emphasis mine):
Dopers sometimes discuss the unique SDMB culture, which generally distinguishes it from the noise of most social media. Saying that the SDMB reflects “deference to the US military” seems to imply some common and unique shared identity among many members, which is like saying that the board reflects speaking English as a unique shared identity. No, both of those attributes are inherited from a much larger cultural milieu. The historically militaristic nature of the US is an important point, even if it’s an obvious one to you and many others.
An external enemy has always been one of the strongest possible ways to cause internal unity and/or justify strong internal oppression.
A suprising number of people don’t seem to learn this lesson despite it being taught by history over and over and over again.
So I guess on the one hand, your level of ignorance is common - you’ve got that going for you. On the other hand not being as ignorant as you seem to be about this principle might be a better option.
Oh, for fuck’s sake - I just told you how I meant it, what the fuck is the point of the rest of your post?
Taking a magnifying glass to a small part of a sentence as though that was the heart and soul of my post is just some kind of major malfunction on your part, dude. I said “on this board” because I was posting on this board, not because I was calling out the behaviour as unique to here.
Why would I have called the OP’s behaviour “peak Americana” if I wasn’t situating it in its larger milieu?
Yup. Iranians weren’t wild about their leadership, and who knows, maybe they would have done something about that. Until we made it obvious that we’re even worse. 
Not to mention all the innocent people we’ve killed, and the cost the to US of losing a war rather publicly.
I feel that, to some Americans, it never even comes into their mind that the US government does bad things around the world. That the US, its policy, its military, its values, etc. isn’t owed any exceptional deference by anyone, and certainly not by those of us who are not even American.
I couldn’t imagine what it must be like for those who’ve never exited out of the fishbowl, but as someone who grew up right outside the border of the American state/empire(?) I was deluged by a constant stream of American political, military, and cultural exceptionalism (rah rah US stuff) packaged in popular media.
I even see rigid enforcement of these ideas and values among Americans via constant public affirmations and reaffirmations in many ways and guises (pervasive fear of anti-Americanism, declarations of tribute to the glory of American power/historic figures, statements on the unique righteousness of US policy, etc.)
Of course these are all evaluations from an outsider. Take that what you will. Also many people here are probably not aligned to these blind spots now that Trump’s administration doesn’t even put up a facade of empathy and love to American unity. So a lot of the self-image could be shattered for SDMB folks.
ETA: It’s a bit poetic that one of the participants in this thread is a user who’s taken his monicker from a retired four star US Army General (Wesley Clark).
This diatribe by the long gone Sofa_King in 2003 is IMHO one of the greatest rants ever posted on these boards.
The whole thing is worth reading given how generally prescient it proved, but these lines:
Why do they fight us? Because they’ve never seen anything scarier than we.
What, I ask you redneck road-farm-game-and-communications-but-not-health-unemployment-traditional-welfare-subsidized maniac solipsists, is the lesser evil compared to us, you fucking fools!
and surrounding comments have stuck with me for 23 years so far.
Oh wow, that was really good. Thanks for linking to it.
I mean, if we’re going to turn this into a series of appeals to emotion, fine i guess, but just consider stacking up those names to the millions who died in Vietnam?
But more to the point, the thesis seems to be that Vietnam veterans were treated really bad, and that explains why Americans today are so uncritically supportive of the troops. My thesis is… maybe they (the Vietnam veterans) weren’t (actually treated so bad). Or at least, if they were treated poorly, it wasn’t so much as veterans for being veterans as it was either (a) as members of already marginalized groups who were treated bad because they were members of marginalized groups or (b) they weren’t a member of a marginalized group, and were just pissed off that they weren’t heaped with praise for going off to kill Vietnamese. Like, they thought what they did was truly praiseworthy, and they were/are perpetually aggrieved that anyone dare disagree. Think your MAGA uncle (or cousin or nephew) who thinks immigrants are poisoning our blood, stealing our jobs, and living off welfare benefits, and who then gets insulted if you dare to disagree with or even merely question his assertions.
I mean, consider me as a counter: I don’t think anything I did in Iraq was particularly praiseworthy, and I wish people would be more critical of the motivations and actions of people who served there. And you might not think it’s analogous because so many Vietnam veterans were conscripts, but to that I say (1) see (a) above and (2) most weren’t.
All that to say, when you point to the American dead from Vietnam and the popular conception of the Vietnam veteran as some poor, downtrodden victim for having been denied the honor and praise that should supposedly be heaped on people who serve in the US military in any capacity, I think what you’re offering up is not so much a justification as an excuse that merely re-states the problem.
What you said here shows one thing, that Principal Skinner is still smarter than you. 
Clearly, as @iiandyiiii, @Chronos and others pointed out, trying to Dunning-Kruger others with no good evidence is still silly.
While I agree with your last sentence, I think that people who are indifferent or complacent about their country’s needlessly starting wars that put servicemembers in harm’s way are effectively inviting accusations that they don’t care enough about servicemembers’ safety.
War should be an absolutely last resort. If somebody is literally warmongering in defense of launching a war whose necessity is, to say the least, highly debatable, then they better have a damn good rationale for why they think its accomplishments were worth deliberately sacrificing American (and many other) lives.
I think that for the last several decades war is the top of the list not the first resort chosen . There appears to be this attitude that if we toss some bombs and flex a bit that whoever we flex at will fall on the knees in awe of us. trump Et.al and many if not the last few presidents seem to think this. We also have this attitude that the lives of our service member are more important than the lives of the c
Calm down. Why does everything with you have to be so confrontational? I was just pointing out that your phrasing could easily have been misinterpreted, as indeed I did, so I was countering what I initially thought you meant. You’ve now explained it. Cool. That is all. Over and out.
Strongly seconded!