You’re not reading me correctly. I’m trying to apply your reasoning. Here is how you explained that war is different:
Based on this, the coward standard should apply to anything that creates massive, incredible, colossal harm. Right?
Like I said, it seems like concocting a way to justify calling people names.
Okay, I think you’re closer here, but you’re still missing that it’s about contribution, risk, and sacrifice. All three of those. Random liberal deciding to run for president against Trump doesn’t offer anything at all in the realm of “contribution”, and likely nothing as well in the realms of “risk and sacrifice”, in terms of beating Trump. Rather, if that random liberal doesn’t vote and contribute some degree of spare time and/or money to helping defeat Trump, then I would have no problem considering him a coward (or perhaps a more appropriate negative epithet) if they’re complaining about Trump. But a random gung-ho young and healthy American really can contribute in the military and really would be making a sacrifice in doing so. There might be other ways, but shopping and paying taxes don’t meet the cut.
My point is not about pointless gestures – it’s about real contribution and real sacrifice. If you can come up with a comparison that maintains that level of real contribution and real sacrifice, then I’ll certainly consider it. But a random guy running for president doesn’t cut it.
WillFarnaby has done us the favor of openly showing us what American conservatism has become. Jealously deriding the “privilege” of putting one’s life on the line for one’s country, pooh-poohing the idea that courage lends weight to one’s opinion.
Conservatives, this is what you are now, and you aren’t even embarrassed.
Overall, it probably won’t help. There are too many counter-examples (as seen in this thread) where the side making the accusation wants to wave it off or change the subject.
If Trump is a gutless coward, it is difficult to argue that Hilary Clinton isn’t a gutless coward for the same reasons, and Bill Clinton the draft-dodger even more.
Feel free to try it if you want. No doubt it would go over big on the SDMB. For a less partisan audience - probably not so much.
Regards,
Shodan
Ha! Do you have any illusions that I’d disagree with these statements? I think it’s highly likely that they are indeed cowards (not that I’m sure if the same reasoning applies – I don’t think Bill Clinton was in favor of the Vietnam War… but he’s still probably a coward).
This is not my understanding of iiandyiii’s argument. As I understand, iiandyiii believes a war of choice to be so horrible that reducing public debate to ad hominem attacks is warranted, so long as this improves the chance of avoiding an what he seems an unnecessary war. In other words he considers life more sacred than liberty, in this extreme situation.
It is an admirable position but one that I fundamentally disagree with. Certainly witnessing the horrors of war could impart a different perspective on the debate over life versus liberty. But it seems to me that liberty is still more important - better to die a free man. Perhaps my views will mellow with time… or with war.
~Max
You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
This is mostly accurate – I think social shaming could be an effective tool to reduce warmongering by chicken-hawks.
This is inaccurate, since there’s nothing about encouraging individual citizens to say “you’re a coward!” to some others that reduces liberty.
Let me give you a counter example then. I quite vehemently disagree.
One of the reasons is issues with shaming as a technique. Aside from issues about just how effective it can be it fits in with the kind of rhetoric that seems to fall in line with the research about what triggers authoritarians into their usual defensive techniques – overt bigotry. I’d call helping white supremacist groups recruit and strengthening Trump’s base a pretty major unintended consequence. That may be just what you are proposing.
This is also a more aggressive form of a technique that’s already been used for a long time. That’s an implication of cowardice by asking questions like “when are you going to enlist?” If it works, the effects already mostly baked into our current politics. I’m not sure going from a strong implication of cowardice to an overt accusation helps. I could actually see being more overt hurting the technique by getting more direct pushback.
The people who use that implication also tend, IME, to oppose use of military force in response to all but relatively clear existential threats. That keeps us out of situations where use of force is stupid. It also keeps us out of situations where use of force makes sense and minimizes long term costs and suffering. Sometimes preventative or preemptive strikes make sense. Sometimes fully optional use of force makes sense. IME those who imply cowardice tend to look only at the immediate costs of the operation they oppose while ignoring both the benefits of the action and the costs associated with doing nothing. It’s easy to rationalize opposition to any conflict if you are just ignoring big chunks of the cost vs benefit picture. There’s always bad involved in using force. That’s true even when it’s still the best course of action. I can’t see how turning the rhetoric up to eleven by making the accusations of cowardice overt helps with that issue.
I cut people who are that personally manipulative out of my life as early as possible. If I can’t completely excise them, I ignore them as much as possible while working to minimize interaction. Anybody who tries something similar to your technique on me basically gives up the future opportunity to be heard. I don’t have the time. There are other people, even ones I wildly disagree with, that treat me and those around me with decency and respect.
Fair enough – this appears to be a tactical critique that largely agrees with the overall goal (minimize dumb wars).
Fair enough again. Thanks for your thoughts.
I see a number of possibilities in the near term for use of military force against Iran that I wouldn’t classify as dumb though. As a specific current case, I bet we’re defining dumb quite differently.
My concern isn’t just about avoiding dumb wars. It’s about making smart decisions with regard to using military force. Sure that means being smart enough to avoid some wars. Sometimes it means being smart enough to know when it’s time to go to war even without an existential threat. You are focused on only one piece of my areas of concern. Your solution seems to focus on reducing one kind of dumb decision while accepting significant risk of increasing the other kind of dumb decision. That’s much more than a tactical critique.
If you and I are standing outside a burning building and we are both reasonably capable of going in to rescue someone that is trapped inside, then we might both do a cost/benefit analysis and decide for ourselves whether it is a risk we are each willing to accept. However, if you turn to me and say, ‘I think you need to run inside while I remain safely here.’ I have every right to call you a coward.
I agree.
What I hear you saying is, you are willing to make a strategic decision to sacrifice a few lives now, vs potentially many more lives down the road. Are any of those lives you are willing to sacrifice now your own or of those you love?
We probably are. I can’t conceive of any military action against Iran in which we could have any reasonable prediction of how the aftermath would go – and without that, I see it as rolling the dice. Rolling the dice, militarily speaking, shouldn’t occur unless the choice is between rolling the dice and being obliterated, IMO. We should know by now that the Middle East is an inherently chaotic and unpredictable region, and it’s impossible for outside powers to exert their will militarily there with any decent likelihood that the long-term outcome will be positive.
I think the attitude above is a big part of the problem with the conventional wisdom of the country’s general approach to war. Historically, the US hasn’t even been in the same galaxy as “being smart enough to know when it’s time to go to war even without an existential threat”. The vast majority of the time, at least in recent decades (but probably much longer), we’ve gone to war without an existential threat, it’s been negative. Usually an utter disaster.
Perhaps it’s hubris – we think “we’re the US, the military can solve this problem”. But it almost never can. We need to change this way of thinking, because the military solution almost always makes things worse.
It’s not necessarily just lives. Since WWII, the rules based approach to international relations has contributed a lot of stability that’s helped with lifting people out of extreme poverty and repression. That both saves lives and reduces serious suffering even ignoring the implications of what happens with future conflicts. The international organizations tasked with enforcing the rules are relatively weak. Madeline Albright as Secretary of State under Clinton called the US an “indispensable nation” in ensuring that order. (Former SECDEF Mattis also used that language in his resignation letter.) Without the combination of military and soft power the US possesses in support that system can be extremely weak. It’s not as simplistic as the notion of the US as the world’s policeman. I’ve joked about it as being more like the patrol supervisor for the police shift on duty.
I’m willing to sacrifice lives to maintain that structure and stability in order to both save and improve lives later.
I’m a retired Army officer.
Your stated goal is to prevent what you believe to be “dumb wars”, and if argumenta ad hominem do not stifle public debate via the threat of societal retribution I cannot find consistency between the proposed stratagem and the goal it is supposed to effect. You are attaching a stigma to the liberty of free speech. You haven’t convinced anyone that the label of cowardice is deserved, and you cannot do so without begging the question. An undeserved social stigma is as much a chilling effect on liberty as a government-imposed punishment, particularly if that stigma leads to death threats.
If you will remember our previous exchanges:
I don’t share Bone’s strawman objection because it is clear to me that you would only pursue this stratagem for acts you consider “beyond the pale” such as war, rape, child molestation, etcetera. I am of the opinion that war does not have that sort of near universal consensus, that some people might disagree with you about whether a war is necessary or not, and that your accusation of cowardice is therefore only valid when conditioned upon the war being unnecessary. I don’t think you consider yourself holier than me, so I interpreted your responses to that question as being in agreement.
Now, unlike a politically-selective draft, you are allowed to call people cowards. That is your right. I just don’t think it is the right thing to do.
From where I’m standing, either you hold life/security as more sacred than liberty, or you are merely saying “I am holier than thou” as WillFarnaby suggested.
~Max
This appears to be a fundamental disagreement on the nature of liberty, Max. For example - right now, because of social shaming, people generally don’t advocate for the legalization of sex with children. I don’t believe this social shaming reduces our liberty one little bit. Do you disagree? If not, then I’m not sure why you think the social shaming I advocate for reduces liberty. If you do disagree, then our understanding of liberty is orders of magnitude apart.
I do disagree. There isn’t a serious debate over whether having sex with children is OK, if someone advocated for that they would be rightfully shot down by the rest of society because there is consensus that having sex with children is always wrong.
In contrast there is a serious debate over whether any particular military action is justified or not, and you have admitted yourself that there are at least some military actions that are justified.
~Max
You disagree that social shaming of child sex advocates doesn’t reduce liberty?
Or if this is about a lack of consensus about most military action, that’s what I’m trying to change. I’m saying there should be consensus that the vast majority of military action outside of immediate existential threats, has been foolish and must be opposed. I’m advocating a way that might help move us towards that consensus. I’m advocating for speech. It’s impossible that speech alone can restrict free speech. If so, then you’re creating an endless circle - you’re advocating speech against my speech against other speech… And that makes no logical sense.
By virtue of being a citizen of this country, you have the right to support our government’s decisions to go to war or to not do so whether you intend to commit yourself to joining the fight or not. It’s called democracy and we all get to, and should, participate in the process. That said, even though you have the first amendment right to be a jingoistic saber rattler, you do earn societal rebuke for being so if you are not willing to put yourself on the fronts. Publicly supporting a position is not the same as being in-your-face confrontational about it.