Do you really believe this, you stupid, ignorant, fucking moron? Sure, the South Vitnamese leadership was corrupt. And the Americans soldiers who went over there knew that, but they went there because they were just like the Wermacht.
I’m still waiting for an apology for that remnark, jerk.
So “brain-dead” is a synonym for “wrong, big-time?” OK. Can you provide me with an elucidator-English dictionary, so I can suss these babies out?
Right. Which is why you quoted and responded to one of my posts in GD two days ago. And have responded to posts of mine in the past. And know damned well I post in GD at least as often as you do.
If you’re going to tell a lie, at least tell a believable one, for Christ’s sake. And try to refrain from dragging other people into the Pit for dishonesty.
I’m not weaseling, because I think the question is important to you only to the extent that you can use it to justify your own actions vis-a-vis the war, or whatever else. Furthermore, it assumes a common definition of “dishonorable.” Since your definition of “honorable” would appear to include lying and draft-dodging, I’m going to assume that we do not share a definition.
If you’d like to rephrase the question to, “If I feel my country is on a dishonorable course, what do I feel is my duty?” my answer is “To attempt to change its course at the ballot box, but to otherwise continue to obey the laws of the country for which I am ostensibly standing up.” I don’t get to break them because they’ve become an inconvenience to me.
The funny thing about this thread, even prior to my posting in it, is that I can see exactly what it is about Scylla that bothers you: He might be your political opposite, but he is nearly your behavioral twin. You see more of yourself in him than is comfortable for you to admit. In fact, I think he’s more willing to concede a point – however grudgingly and however long it might take him – than you are.
Then why did you use the Wehrmacht as a parallel example?
At least be consistent in your nonsense.
An excellent question.
Thoreau opposed the Mexican War. so he refused to pay his poll tax and went to jail.
Bertrand Russell opposed Britain’s involvement in WW1, so he protested and went to jail.
Martin Luther King opposed racial segregation, so he protested and went to jail.
The Berrigan brothers poured blood in a draft office as a non-violent protest of our war in Vietnam, so they went to jail.
If you truly believed our action in Vietnam was wrong, and you refused to fight, then your honorable course was to flat out refuse and go to jail, or file for CO status. What is NOT honorable is slinking away to save your sorry behind out of cowardice, and let some other guy go get shot in your place. What is NOT honorable is waving NVA flags and spitting on soldiers. (which is particularly stupid for a Commie, given that persuading soldiers and sailors to revolt was the first step in the Russian Revolution.)
A brave protestor risks his life or freedom; what did you
risk?
Oh, and you can take down that straw man. I AGREE with you that were supporting a corrupt regime in a war-by-proxy with the Soviets (which you’d know if you’d bothered to READ my earlier post, dumbshit.)
The problem is, the North Vietnamese regime was less free, more oppressive, and more cruel. Should we have just sat there and done nothing while N. Vietnam tried to take S. Vietnam over?
It comes down to responsibility. You live in a country and receive benefits doing so, including protection, civil rights, franchise, and they are all yours simply for being a citizen of our country.
As a young man, the price and the responsibility of these rights is to do your part when your country calls on you to protect the countries greater interest, to carry a Letter to Garcia, so to speak.
To run away from this responsibility is an act of self-serving cowardice, IMO.
To allow another to accept this responsibility in your stead while you continue to accept the benefits of a free society for which you are unwilling to pay is hyopocrisy.
To belittle or undermine the efforts of those who are paying the price of your freeloading, goes beyond hypocrisy and into realms of self-serving contemptibility that I don’t care to chart.
I think that some of the taxes I pay are wrong, and used badly, but I still pay them, because the price of living in a free society means you don’t always get to have your way, but must do your part for what is perceived to be the common good.
I could chose not to pay my taxes and risk the consequences, but then others would have to pick up my slack. If everybody decided not to pay then there would be no more common good. There would be no benefits of society. In fact, there would be no society. We would not be able to provide the benefits of society to anybody.
So, if you live in a society, you do your part when you’re called upon, or else you have no integrity.
That brings us to an interesting conundrum. What do you do, if you object enough to a policy of your country that you are unwilling to follow it’s lead and do your part?
I think the Nazi analogy is a poor one. We are a free society. Even so, consider men such as Einstein and thousands of other German dissidents who turned their back on their country, who left, or who fought against the Nazi regime because they had the courage of their convictions.
If the elucidator’s of the world thought America was so wrong and evil, and the Vietcong cause so noble and “right,” why didn’t they have the courage to do something meaningful, like go and help the Vietcong?
Because they didn’t feel that strongly about it. If they did they would have. That makes the conclusion that their actions were cowardly and self-serving rationalizations inescapable in my eyes.
[[The point, again, is that for every one of you who decided you had more important things to do than go to Vietnam, somebody else had to go.]]
Nobody “Had” to go. The U.S. shouldn’t have sent anyone. My father-in-law, a Quaker, was a conscientious objector during WWII. It wasn’t easy for him, either, but he refused to fight. There were heroes who fought and some who didn’t. People can be pacifists or not, but what I object to is the idea that people who won’t fight must be lazy, cowardly or self-serving.
FWIW, Scylla, I think you have a tendency to condescend to, ridicule, and dismiss out of hand those who disagree with you. I think you have a tendency to spin and obfuscate to make your points.
:shrug: I don’t think you’re bad person or anything. But I can see some parallels between your style and elucidator’s.
Mostly, though, I’m still chortling over goboy’s being called a “dittohead.” Mind you, I disagree with some of his politics . . . but he’s anything but a dittohead.
These are two very different statements. Maybe the U.S. should have, maybe they shouldn’t, but the fact is that they did. Considering the average ages of draftees and casualties in Vietnam – I mean, we’re talking about kids here, in many cases poor, uneducated kids – when that notice from the draft board showed up, how contemplative do you think they got? Do you think they sat around and considered the morality of the U.S.'s goals in Vietnam, or do you think they went down and got their physicals, knowing they’d get arrested if they failed to show up for their induction?
So the guys who awarded themselves the luxury of becoming contemplative, debating, and deciding not to show up meant some other poor sap got his notice. That’s the way it went down, and arguing otherwise is disingenuous.
What I object to is jumping out of line so some other poor schmoe has to move up, then standing on the sidelines and calling him a baby-killer. Obviously, as a woman, you were not faced with the prospect of being drafted, and I’m not even saying that most protestors did this. But too goddamned many of them did; and the fact that so many of them did go to Canada and wait it out hoping for amnesty, or got deferment after deferment after deferment, rather than make their stand and take the consequences, shows just how self-serving they were.
Scylla:
I think you and elucidator are, too often, convinced of the elegantness of your own arguments out of all proportion to their usefulness. In fact, the less cogent the arguments, the more impressed you both seem to be by them, if you are the ones making them.
I think you both have a tendency, deliberately or not, to misread what other people are saying.
I think both of you will go to the ends of the Earth to avoid conceding a point, although, again, you will concede one before elucidator will.
I think you both have an unfortunate habit of dismissing what are clearly matters of opinion by others as “Wrong!”
I think you both have ideological opponents whose arguments you both like to look for and nitpick from the word “Go.” In elucidator’s case, it’s you; in your case, it’s Stoid.
Allright. A not uncommon flaw. I do get full of myself, on occasion, usually immediately prior to the fall.
I really don’t know if that’s valid or not. Certainly I’ve misread people’s meanings in the past. Usually I’ll accept a clarification unless I think the person is being disingenuous. Then I’ll hold them to what they actually said. Maybe I shouldn’t do that as much. I’ll think about it and try to watch myself in that area.
[quote]
I think both of you will go to the ends of the Earth to avoid conceding a point, although, again, you will concede one before elucidator will.
[quote]
I’ll take some pretty serious issue with that. I’m rather huffily proud of the fact that I’ll concede a point the moment I feel that I’ve been reasonably proven wrong. As often as I’m wrong, I’d argue that I’ve conceded more points and admitted more errors than anybody else on this board. I even make fun of myself this way with my signature (which I rarely use.) I don’t dodge or refuse to address direct questions that represent problems to my viewpoint. In this I would feel that I’m similar to yourself, I’ll argue to the ends of the earth as long as I feel I’m correct, but will back down the moment I realize I’m not.
If I disagree with it, yes. I’m usually able to back up why, and am willing to hash it out. In my regrettable partially toungue in cheek vegetarian rant you and I were certainly able to discuss and heatably argue our respective opinions without devolving into name calling. Nor did either of us carry our disagreement into subsequent threads.
I really don’t think this is true. I’ve had a major conflict with Stoid in the past, and that is purely water under the bridge as far as I’m concerned.
Since then, I’ve defended her in a thread in the pit (against you, I recall) joked civilly with her in MPSIMS, congratulated her on her restraint after WTC, been in agreement in GD, and answered questions about Ronco Rotisseries in IMHO.
I think some of her political observations are habitually to an extreme, off the wall, dangerous, and prejudiced and when I see them, I do my best to rip them to shreds as I try to do with others.
There’s been a string of about three or four of these recently, as well as one that sprung from the others, so she and others may very well be under the impression that I’m gunning for her, but I’m not. I’m trying to debate the debate, but it seems the more frequent and heated the disagreement the quicker it is to devolve the next time around.
I’m upset by the realization that by arguing against these stances as I’ve done I’ve set myself up to be their opposite, and I get frustrated by what I see as an impervious attitude towards reason, which I remain unsure how best to deal with.
But, I have no personal issue with Stoid.
There may be some truth about becoming what you’re fighting against, but I think “twin” is a strong word, and not an accurate one.
I don’t want to attack the things elucidator does that I don’t, but in total I think we’re very different in our behaviors in the most telling ways.
What, you think I memorize every poster I bump up against? I’ll sure as hell remember you now. Hardly makes me a liar.
Well, yes. If you are at liberty to phrase the question and context as you will, how can you lose? And to phrase my stance as a matter of “convenience” is to willingly warp it to a context that pleases you. Which is what I mean by “weaseling”. By the standards you apply to me, that makes you a bald-faced liar. I dont think it does, mind you.
But pursue the question a step further, if you can bear it. Suppose, indeed, you were German. The law of the land says “kill the Jews”. Surely you don’t expect me to take at face value a “love it or leave it” stance in those circumstances.
Now, of course, we are not Germans. Nonetheless, I remain convinced that the actions undertaken by my government were immoral. Is it your contention that I was obligated to support that action? Is it somehow unclear that cooperation is complicity?
If I understand you right, Kerry and Co., (Viet Nam Veterans Against the War) had a right to protest, having served thier time. But does a rear-echelon company clerk have the same “right” as a combat soldier? (Please note: this is not an argument, it is a question, I’m trying to parse out the qualifications of your morality) Do you disapprove of thier actions as well? Does Sen. Kerry owe you some kind of apology? I think not. What do you think?
So far, your argumentation is made up largely by personal slurs and vilification. You defend yourself by pointing out how little I know about you. I suggest that defence works as well for me as for you.
As for Scylla and myself…I am so not going there. Period. No way.
This is, and already has been, tiresome. The whole ugly fiasco represented by the words “Viet Nam” is one of the few hot buttons I have, it is entirely possible that I have lost my temper. Probable, even.
Let us agree to disagree, and leave it at that, neither of us seem to making any headway, and this is Scylla’s roast, after all. My patriotism cannot be measured by you, nor can it be diminished. Only a fool can claim to have no doubt about every decision he has made. But on this one, I have very little doubt indeed.
You reallyneed to stop drawing parallels between the US in Vietnam and the Nazis because it makes you look like an idiot.
No, in such a situation, “love it or leave it” is not the answer. BTW, you do know that nobody has said that in this thread, don’t you? You could emulate Hans and Sophie Scholl. They were a brother and sister, Christian Germans who founded an anti-Nazi protest group, the White Rose League. They were both convicted of treason and executed. You could emulate the German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He led an underground church that would not swear loyalty to the Nazi regime. He, too, was executed. Or you could follow Fr. Maximilian Kolbe. Imprisoned by the Nazis, he sacrificed his life to save a Jew from death by injection.
Any answer, Elucidator?
Serving in the military does give you a right to protest war, if only from having direct experience. If you oppose war, then you have a duty to protest directly and then take the consequences, as Gandhi did in India. You, from what you posted in the other thread, didn’t do that. Instead, you ran like a cur to save your miserable skin, and let other men serve in your place. You sacrificed nothing.
Why, thank you, Andros, for the compliment. I know it’s a tad odd for a gay guy to be right of center politically, but I like to think my opinions are my own.
Well, I sorta kinda assumed that, like me, other people enjoy knowing whose posts it is they are responding to. Silly me.
What, you think I’m going to agree to your context? As I said, it appears obvious that we do not share a definition of “honorable,” therefore the question was not answerable as asked.
Again, you expect me to adhere to your definition of “honorable?”
I never said “Love it or leave it,” did I? Nope, I said obey the law or accept the consequences of breaking it, but don’t try to have it both ways. Neither “love it or leave it” or anything even approximating that was typed by me. Of course, parsing my argument in such a way probably falls under your definition of “honorable” as well.
Nope.
Is it so unclear that dodging the draft means someone else gets drafted in your place?
Yes, but no. Everyone has a right to protest. Nobody has a right to protest and expect to have it be consequence free if that protest involves breaking the law.
Yep.
Nope.
Nope. In fact, nobody owes me an apology. But I think a lot of draft dodgers owe a lot of other people, both alive and dead, an apology.
Well, I can hardly be expected to argue well in the face of such well-reasoned premises such as “brain-dead,” “gutless,” etc. :rolleyes:
You think it’s a hot button for YOU? Gee, then do you suppose maybe it is for people who were actually there? Or their families?
Last year, on Veteran’s Day, I took my mom to the Wall to see Freddy’s name. She and Freddy were quite close as kids, until her Aunt Betty moved to Connecticut. They were less than a year apart in age. Betty went a little nuts after Freddy was killed, but that’s another story. Anyway, she had never been to see his name on the Wall. This was the first time she mustered up the strength to actually do it.
Freddy’s name – Lance Corporal George Frederick Edwards, Putnam, CT – is on Panel 44E, Row 6. I have it memorized. He landed in Vietnam in July 1967. My sister got to meet him before she left; she was four months old. By March, 1968, he was dead, seven months shy of his 20th birthday. His cause of death is listed as “Accidental Self-Destruction.” He fell on an NVA grenade, but whether he did so purposefully or on accident was never really known. Either way, it was a messy death. I’m sure he appreciated what you were doing for him back home, though.
He died four days before my sister’s first birthday. My mother was all of 21. She was, naturally, crushed. All these years, she’s mourned him. Seeing his name on the Wall brought her to tears, even 32 year later.
You have the luxury of ruminating about how mad the word “Vietnam” makes you from a distance, relatively unscathed. Others do not have that luxury. So don’t tell me about your “hot buttons,” because I really don’t care.
Elucidator, if PLD’s post didn’t make you ashamed of youself, then you’re a pitiful excuse for ahuman being. Hell, it made me tear up, and I don’t do that just from reading posts.
Phil, I wish I could hug you, man. I can’t imagine the loss your mother and aunt must feel.
pld:Nah, you can go stand in the corner with Clinton and Bush and Gramm and Quayle and all the rest of the draft-dodging schmucks. In fact, I have to give them some credit–at least they beat the system, played the system.
Hmmm. This I don’t get. The reason that a large number of wealthy and/or well-connected white guys were able to “beat the system” of the Vietnam draft is that they or their families exploited their connections to pull some strings. Does that really entitle them to more “credit” than less privileged people who would have done the same if they could?
You folks couldn’t even get enough votes together to keep Nixon out of office – twice! – but you were on the side of the angels, oh yes.
Hmmm, so it’s all the fault of the anti-war protestors because they couldn’t get enough votes together to keep Nixon out of office? Wouldn’t that imply that some of the responsibility should rest with the war supporters and others who voted for Nixon? Or perhaps with Nixon himself?
I think you’re somewhat mixing up different responsibilities here. I happen to agree with you that we as citizens have the responsibility either to obey the law to the best of our ability, or to break it openly and take the consequences as an act of civil disobedience (that’s one of the reasons I don’t do any illegal drugs). So yes, illegally dodging the draft (which, as elucidator points out, he himself in fact never did) is a crime, and anyone who does it ought to accept responsibility for that.
But I don’t agree that that person is therefore directly responsible for whatever happens to another person who subsequently gets called up and doesn’t dodge the draft. (For one thing, it leads to some rather absurd logical consequences: if the person who got called up instead of you happened to be one of the ones who had a relatively peaceful and calm soldiering experience, and came back with a beloved Vietnamese war bride and a fine biracial baby and lived happily ever after, do you get to take the credit for that? If you would have had to bear the guilt of his death if he got killed, why shouldn’t you get the credit for his happy life if he didn’t?) Or if so, then all of us are complicit in the deaths of those who have been sent to fight stupid or unjust wars, because we could have done more to stop it and we didn’t.
No, it was really more a sarcastic jab of mine, of the nature of, “At leat the politicos are honest about being draft-dodging scumbags.”
I never implied otherwise. (Hell, even my dad voted for Nixon in 1968, after he promised to end the war. The bastard sent him back to Vietnam, and he’s never voted for a Republican again.) But I know that a lot of former Vietnam protestors like to imagine that they spoke for the majority of the American people, that they changed the course of history, and that they stopped the war. Well, they didn’t. When the architects of the war realized that they couldn’t win if they kept playing the same way, and realized that they no longer had the political capital to try playing differently, they pulled out.
And after he pointed out that he did not, I stopped referring to him as if he did. (In my defense, he never should have implied that he did, either, with his oh-so-whimsical “delined the invitation” comment. Like I said, if you want a different reaction, write something different.) I do, however, take issue with his failing to realize that his protesting the war did absolutely nothing to help my cousin, or my father, or anyone else over there. I bet he thinks it did, but it didn’t.
I didn’t say they were directly responsible for whatever happens to them; I said they were directly responsible for getting them called up at all. Again, if the Army needs N soldiers, and X% decide to dodge, the Army is not going to simply take N - (X%)N. They’ll call up enough extra guys to make up the difference. Sure, plenty of those guys probably got called up, completed their tours, saw a little action, came home and suffered no permanent effects. But plenty didn’t. And even among those who did, I’m sure that they also had other things they would have preferred to do at the time (like our esteemed VP, Dick Cheney, who “had other priorities”). Too bad for them, I guess.