Several people on this thread have specifically argued that.
You realise that you are inventing opinions for me that I don’t have, right?
Let me spell it out for you. My disrespect is reserved for people that consider killing people to be “just a job.” The ones who don’t believe in what they are fighting for, but do it anyway for college money.
The ones fighting a war because they believe in the cause, they are worthy of respect. And that means that I respect people that fought the Nazis.
I might even respect a combat medic for going to Iraq, if he thinks the Iraq war is justified, and can explain his reasons.
I use my real name. Do you, Ibn Warraq, use yours?
Turns out, they are also human and fallable.
We’re not measuring these people for sainthood, we’re respecting them for the jobs they do, for putting themselves in harm’s way for us.
Yeah? How are soldiers currently fighting for my freedom?
So you’re saying you don’t deserve special consideration from me then. We agree.
That’s exactly what I said. I also said that I don’t deserve disrespect, either.
When this thread was moved to Great Debates, the Mod noted that the GD rules would apply.
That is true. Had several of the earlier posts been submitted in Great Debates, at least three of you would have received Warnings by now.
That said, everyone needs to back off and cool down.
No more accusations of lying.
No more insults to posters.
And, for heaven’s sake, a lot less chest thumping about one’s own perceived moral superiority.
[ /Moderating ]
Well, I AM a combat medic, I DID go Iraq. You got me on the justified thing. I was hoping to go to Afghanistan, but they don’t give us that choice. As far as my reasons… over 3000 of them. I knew as soon as the towers came down that I was going to join. I thought I would wait until after college, but I got poor, so went early.
Also, you talk alot about soldiers and killing people… here’s a little info for you…
My last deployment lasted 12 months. In that time, my company, 136 paratroopers, killed three people. One was a soldier which killed himself, one rushed our gate with a vest on, and one stabbed my interpreter half to death at a meeting.
You certainly seem to have a lot of issues with soldiers.
You don’t just criticise their job, but their motivation and even their supposed educational standards compared with everyone else in the U.S.
Is it based on deeply held philisophical beliefs or did one of them go outwith a girl you fancied or something ?
Yes. I don’t know what you do for a living, but I was a cop for several years.
Is your job one where almost every contact with another person has the potential to turn violent and even deadly? Is it one where you are constantly exposed to human suffering?
We don’t pay cops, fireman and soldiers anywhere near enough for what we put them through.
‘What we put them through?’ As if they are victims? As has been pointed out, there’s not a single cop, fireman, or soldier currently active who didn’t volunteer for their job. Cops suck up very bennie of their job, one of which is just being a cop. Cops get off on being cops. They get off even more on having people fawn over them for their ‘dangerous’ job they do ‘protecting’ us.
There are few military members who actually do anything particularly dangerous. I do not automatically respect someone in the military simply because they joined.
There is a vast difference between someone who joins the Marine Corps infantry so that they are assured of combat, and someone who gets a technical job in the Air Force and spends their ‘deployment’ in Qatar.
The former gets a greater measure of respect than the latter. Even so, my respect for the former is tempered by some arguments above; in reality, they aren’t doing anything to defend me or protect my freedom.
In my view, we’d all die if not for farmers. Even though life might be far rougher without soldiers, police, and firemen, some people would still survive if we had none.
I think that we should pay appropriate respect to professions according to how much good they do society. I’ve got a lot of respect for a cop or soldier who does his job right with good motivations. Blanket respect for all cops and soldiers because some are deserving of a high degree of respect? never.
Cops who became cops to safeguard their drug dealing, now why are they worthy of respect? I have more respect for the drug dealer that does it without a blanket of protection.
a farmer’s work isn’t always safe either; accidents are common, I know of several farmers who died in accidents. I myself nearly died in a farm accident. And farmers do it for even less pay, very often, than soldiers, police, and firemen, and zero benefits, and arguably they are needed worse than any other sort of worker.
I would not elevate anyone over the respect a farmer is due.
This is overly personal. Please stick to attacking the argument without criticizing individual posters.
The question wasn’t who is more deserving.
Not all cops or soldiers or firefighters get off on the adulation. I’m embarrassed by it, frankly. I think to myself, you know, anybody else would do it in my spot. But that’s just not true. Around .45%, yes, less than one half of one percent, of the US population has served in support of the war on terror. Obviously, not everyone would do it in my shoes.
The real question it seems, is why is there so much hatred towards folk who, for the VAST majority, only want to do something good? A few bad apples don’t, in real life, spoil the whole bunch.
I think society respects these people for purely pragmatic reasons - we want them to be happy, or else things will get bad for all of us. Unappreciated soldiers don’t win wars, unappreciated firefighters don’t pull people from fires, unappreciated cops… well, none of us want that. Best make them feel like welcome members of society, and not outsiders. And I say that as a former and occasional soldier.
I don’t afford more respect to police than any other job, other than their ability to murder me and probably get away with it, or throw me in jail.
The military, less respect than the median job.
I thought the OP was how far the respect for soldiers et al. should be elevated. If so, my answer is “not above this level.”
Wanting to do something good earns some respect points. Wanting to do something good and then doing something bad because you do not have the means to tell what it is you’re doing–loses points. Do it without regard to whether it’s good or bad because you personally wish to profit, lose points.
I’d only respect someone who enlisted, knowing that there was a great possibility of getting sent to Iraq, who is just plain too stupid to figure out that the war against Iraq was not justified. And so there is a danger in fighting at the same time a justified war (afghanistan) and an unjustified one (iraq). Puts the soldier in a very bad spot. Do I wiegh my sense of duty (fight in afghanistan) against my sense of right and wrong (i might have to fight in iraq instead)?
Is there really that much hatred? I mean, I’m not American and when I lived there it would not occur to me to spit at, or otherwise express hatred towards, military folks.
My objections are philosophical and I certainly don’t feel personal animosity toward anyone simply because they’ve fought in Afghanistan or Iraq or wherever.
This didn’t happen.