Not Giraffe, but the forum rules themselves. They explicitly and unambiguously state that it is OK to wish death on some general category of people, even if it includes SDMB posters, unless one is “clearly directing” such a wish at some individual poster.
AFAICT, there is no credible way to argue that Der Trihs’s statement violates these rules. Jump on him all you like for being a jerk or a troll, but furiously trying to twist an unambiguous rule so that it means what you’d rather it meant instead of what it clearly does mean isn’t accomplishing anything except to make you look like a jerk too. A much more benign and tolerable jerk than Der Trihs, if that’s any comfort, but still a jerk.
I suspect that Iraqi insurgents would do things to your infidel ass that would be most unpleasant for you.
You are trolling. You have wished death on all US Military members–regardless of whether they have ever been anywhere on the same side of the planet as Iraq. BTW, four of those people you wish death upon are my relatives. 15+ years ago, it would have been me. You’re slinging shit with a very broad brush, and you do it just hoping to piss somebody off so you get some attention.
Certainly, and the recent campaign into Lebanon is a rather fine example of the limitations of the Israeli military machine. Israel certainly can’t project force around the globe in a heartbeat like the US can, to say that the US should adopt a system such as Israel’s would essentially be advocating an isolationist foreign policy. That’s not an unreasonable position in and of itself, but I’m sure you can see the downside.
Would it be OK to wish death on a group if that group only had two members on the Dope? Three? How many servicemen post from Iraq? Do you know?
Wishing death on lawyers, or doctors, or mathematicians might be a bit vague, and could be taken as a joke. Wishing death on people who are in harms way every day, when those people are members of this board, is despicable. I could wish death on you all day long and nothing would come of it. Someone could read asshole#1’s screed today and be dead tomorrow.
In the past, I have sided with you and felt myself in good company. If I am being a jerk here (Which is merely your opinion, until I am warned for it. Or are you misapplying a rule yourself? Jerkishness **is **verboten, and we are lousy with mods at the moment,) I again find myself in good company.
I am arguing for an expanded interpretation of the rule, if you will. If you think that makes me a jerk, well, with all the respect you deserve, fuck you.
In general, I respect people who enlist in the military, whether they do it for the money or out of a sense of duty. I have friends serving in the Army and the Marines. As another poster said, they’re regular people, not automatic heroes. If Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, I would seriously consider enlisting, the two considerations being what physical qualifications I could meet and whether my girlfriend would handle it.
When it comes to the actual fighting, the Israelis have managed to hold their own while surrounded by aggresively hostile forces for the past fifty years. They also generally don’t engage in offensive wars. While I don’t generally agree with what they do with the territory they’ve conquered after the fighting has stopped, I don’t think they’ve ever gone out of their way to actually get in to any messes.
I’m not advocating isolationism, either. If we funded the Peace Corps the same way we funded the military, there would probably be a lot less need for the military in the first place.
Der Trihs’ stunning “explanation” of law above readily shows that he’s completely ignorant of the laws relating to armed conflict. His posts on this subject also show that he is not only ignorant but delights in that ignorance.
He’s also quite ignorant of the myriad of reasons why people enlist or accept commissions in the Armed Forces. Some join for the discipline, others join for the benefits for their families, and yet others join for the educational prospects. There are also those who firmly believe in the idea of a well-trained professional standing military and thus understand that there must be volunteers to staff and train it.
By the way, my experience with the military is that those who walk in and say, “I want to join up so I can go over and kill {whomever}!” don’t get to enlist. (It wasn’t I who uttered that, but rather a few prospective enlistees, all of whom were sent packing.)
Wishing death on military members. I don’t get why someone would do that. The people that defend your country. The people that defend your Constitution which allows you to post flaming comments. The people that provide food to people who have lost everything because of an unfortunate weather pattern. Wishing death on those who have never fired a weapon at another human being, but who have tried to save the lives of people who have. Wishing death on people who have witnessed unspeakable horrors. You are wishing death on people who help Service Members deal with their reactions to these unspeakable horrors.
You are wishing death on people who feared for their lives everyday while living on the streets. People who are trying to support a family. People who want an education. People who want to spread the word of God, or Jesus, or Allah, or Moses. People who want to be sure that Service Members don’t violate the laws and customs of the host country, even if that country is the United States. You wish death on the people that sentance to death the people that cannot live within the rules of the American society. The people that publish the sacrifices that Service Members make. The people that move soldiers into harms way, and the people that move Service Members out of it.
You wish death on the people that not only take lives, but those that save it.
I guess I wasn’t clear enough. I was referring to the Judge Advocate General staff. The people who have the job of prosecuting the wrong-doers within the ranks. The second part refers to the military journalists who also cover some of the good that Service Members are doing.
Your anecdote did not answer my question. What characteristics have changed so dramatically since mid 2002 that you have changed your whole perception of enlistees?
Y’know, this could have been a perfectly ordinary IMHO/GD thread about enlistees’ motivations if people did not feel this organic need to fire back at Der Trihs. What makes him so irresistible? BTW, it’s not just the US military, he also vehemently repudiates religious believers, religion, the US Government, governments in general and once wrote something to the effect that he “would probably despise any country (he) were born in”. He’s not a troll, he by all signs IS a person who hews to a worldview that bears no compromise and abides no “respect” for those who are “wrong” according to his parameters. So by now we should know better that to think that getting all riled up will have any effect. Maybe the people whose buttons he pushes could name a designated poster in each thread to follow up the initial DT inflammatory intervention that with *“Yeah, dude, we KNOW, right, let it be so recorded”, * and everyone moves on.
As stated before by someone else: members of the military are humans. They have all sorts of motivations and underlying attitudes. If you believe in such a thing as “necessary evils”, the ability to project force is one such, and you might as well have people who are willing and able to make it so – the alternative is NOT that wars won’t happen, but that they’ll happen with people pressed in forcibly. The fault, the blame, the shame, is upon the heads of the Power Structure that order blood to be wasted (yes, wasted: expending a resource for no gain or benefit IS waste) for vile purposes. I would hope, though, that in the last 5 years, anyone who joins is doing so with eyes wide open of what they’re getting into.