Things Liberals Believe in

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Bone idle is right. It was an irrelevant question.

But whatever man.

[nowhereman 1]

Natty you are arguing with yourself... nobody is saying that only the US military does horrible things from time to time. Also didn't your mom teach you that two wrongs don't make a right? Whether or not another country's military crosses the line has nothing to do with our military. As Americans we should hold ourselves to a higher standard.

[Ban Hammer 13,659]

Lets face it... on thing that sets our country apart from any other, is....

Rednecks!!!

You know, the ones that cling to their weapons and religion. Good luck going in after them!

actually, that's a stereotype too. one of the biggest "rednecks" i knew didn't like guns nor was she religious.

[Ban Hammer 13,659]

Are you arguing your point or mine? Where did muslim extremism come into this?

I'm trying to explain to you that you can't compare what happened in WWI to today because it's apples & oranges. Also in Response to both you and Paul I am not saying that our military is incapable of comitting horrible acts... to make this assertion would be absurd. What I am saying that our soldiers have inherently different beliefs than most other countries because of the values that most Americans grow up with & that the culture of our military is also different than most other militaries. We do have the notion of right & wrong, lawful & unlawful orders, etc. Most non-western militaries don't have these ideals.

Again look up "Army Values" and you will see what I'm taking about... I don't think Al Qaeda has similar values.

But then this kind of contradicts what you were saying about Abu Ghraib. There may well have been incompetent or weak leadership in that situation, but going by what you said earlier shouldn't the individual soldiers have known better? What happened to the individual soldiers' innate moral compass?

They were a bunch of dumbass rednecks from West Virginia

you and i both know that it was a leadership failure, so let's not blame west virginia.

[almaty 19]

total agreement brother charles, my son went there after the incident and the report to him and others, was that the miltary put the wrong personnel in a situation they were not trained for...aferwards, iraqi were the guards there....except for terrorist suspects who were kept on the grounds in tents...for various reasons./.

[Heracles 417]

Someone clearly loves their stereotypes.

It's a shame that you're still in the closet. I think you would have a heavy burden lifted if you just embrace your liberal beliefs instead of castigating others that point out your beliefs and behaviors.

No we cannot be talking about six here.

[*Robert* 2]

Lets face it... on thing that sets our country apart from any other, is....

Rednecks!!!

You know, the ones that cling to their weapons and religion. Good luck going in after them!

actually, that's a stereotype too. one of the biggest "rednecks" i knew didn't like guns nor was she religious.

I agree, Charles. That was a poor attempt at humor, and a shot at Obama’s comments.

I remember some comedian talking about what would happen if some other country would invade someplace in Louisiana, and how there would be a line of pick-up trucks, with a trail of shot gun shells and beer cans behind them... it was pretty funny!

[Heracles 417]

I didn't think you were, I just didn't know the relevance, I still am not sure although I think it pertains to differences between armies.

It's difficult, I know, because I believe you think I am insulting you and your service with my views. I am not, in the same way that I don't believe that the ordinary German foot soldier during the second world war was somehow responsible for the actions of their officers and goverment. They did what they could under the circumstances they were presented with and for it many suffered afterwards.

I guess where I am coming from is, everyone should be very, very careful to avoid complacancy. Morality is not always enough to prevent bad things happening.

Morality isn't always enough to prevent bad things from happening... but without it you have no chance.

Something that is completely foreign to the liberal brain. Civilizations and countries were built on it.

We would still be in caves if previous humans behavior and outlook on life was the same as modern post 60's liberals.

Lets face it... on thing that sets our country apart from any other, is....

Rednecks!!!

You know, the ones that cling to their weapons and religion. Good luck going in after them!

actually, that's a stereotype too. one of the biggest "rednecks" i knew didn't like guns nor was she religious.

I agree, Charles. That was a poor attempt at humor, and a shot at Obama’s comments.

I remember some comedian talking about what would happen if some other country would invade someplace in Louisiana, and how there would be a line of pick-up trucks, with a trail of shot gun shells and beer cans behind them... it was pretty funny!

Now replace the word rednecks with n----r and watch how #### hits the fan. Apparently unlike redneck, that is racist and below the belt.

Edited October 23, 2008 by Aficionado

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I must be missing something Boo - you're agreeing with Cleo (one of your achetypal modern post 60's liberals)

[Danno 1,228]

There has already been an example of the US military repressing US Citizens - the internment of 120,000 Japanese/Asian Americans in WW2.

NOw we have moved from killing to "repression" (however that gets defined).

Since we know at least one Japanese civilian gave the intel needed to bring about Pearl Harbor

... the fears of spy's crawling all over the country were exaggerated but not unfounded.

Q; why is it we only hear about the Japanese being interned, I thought Germans and Italians were

as well for a while on the east-coast.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

There has already been an example of the US military repressing US Citizens - the internment of 120,000 Japanese/Asian Americans in WW2.

NOw we have moved from killing to "repression" (however that gets defined).

Since we know at least one Japanese civilian gave the intel needed to bring about Pearl Harbor

... the fears of spy's crawling all over the country were exaggerated but not unfounded.

Q; why is it we only hear about the Japanese being interned, I thought Germans and Italians were

as well for a while on the east-coast.

Its the most well-known example.

In that respect I'm still not sure I understand what is so different about this country (and the training/organisation of its armed forces) that would entirely preclude the possibility of the military being used against the populace if a dictatorship were to come into power.

We can (and have) identified find historical examples where this has happened in this and other countries.

[Danno 1,228]

There has already been an example of the US military repressing US Citizens - the internment of 120,000 Japanese/Asian Americans in WW2.

NOw we have moved from killing to "repression" (however that gets defined).

Since we know at least one Japanese civilian gave the intel needed to bring about Pearl Harbor

... the fears of spy's crawling all over the country were exaggerated but not unfounded.

Q; why is it we only hear about the Japanese being interned, I thought Germans and Italians were

as well for a while on the east-coast.

Its the most well-known example.

In that respect I'm still not sure I understand what is so different about this country (and the training/organisation of its armed forces) that would entirely preclude the possibility of the military being used against the populace if a dictatorship were to come into power.

We can (and have) identified find historical examples where this has happened in this and other countries.

It's(very) possible I misplaced the original point of this whole mini-debate about what the US military might be willing to do.

As I recall, I thought the main point was: would our troops attack it's own citizens.

I doubted it.

Now we are talking about would our troops kill civilians in OTHER countries.

Would our troops play head games with captured enemy or even act brutal with them... sure.

There is a big difference about what people would do in war to other people as opposed to what they would do to there own people.

The fact that we have no history of this type thing would make it even less likely many commanders and troops would refuse orders to attack citizens in numbers.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Well I think it may be that you can't imagine such a situation arising (neither can I), but I don't think there's anything endemic to the US system that would prevent it, in the right circumstances. Weimar era Germany is the best example of how a national constitution (comparable to that of the US) can be effectively destroyed, given an appropriately charged climate and few carefully crafted pieces of legislation.

The McCarthy era communist witch-hunts are probably the best example I can think of - McCarthy wouldn't have been able to get away with that if a pre-existing condition of fear didn't already exist that he could capitalise on for his own nefarious purposes. While that obviously didn't filter through to the military at large (in a way that would lead them to turn on the public), it clearly did create a situation where the internal procedures of government agencies shifted toward something that was decidedly dodgy.

The natural extension of that was obvious - if it had taken hold more strongly that it did, I think we could well have seen a very different country to the one we live in today.

Edited October 23, 2008 by Paul Daniels

[Peikko 1,575]

I didn't think you were, I just didn't know the relevance, I still am not sure although I think it pertains to differences between armies.

It's difficult, I know, because I believe you think I am insulting you and your service with my views. I am not, in the same way that I don't believe that the ordinary German foot soldier during the second world war was somehow responsible for the actions of their officers and goverment. They did what they could under the circumstances they were presented with and for it many suffered afterwards.

I guess where I am coming from is, everyone should be very, very careful to avoid complacancy. Morality is not always enough to prevent bad things happening.

Morality isn't always enough to prevent bad things from happening... but without it you have no chance.

I don't see how morality helps in this situation unless you can have moral absolutes. The only way you can guarentee that an army does not kill civillians is if your morality states that it is wrong to kill, period.

As soon as you introduce the idea of 'It's ok to kill if...' you have lost the ability to make an absolute determination. Generally speaking, we accept that premise but in so doing we have to accept the premise that in the right circumstances the country's own civillians can end up in the firing line.

What western civilizations have striven to achieve is to put systems in place that reduce the likelihood of coups taking place, rather than expect the military to make moral judgements.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I didn't think you were, I just didn't know the relevance, I still am not sure although I think it pertains to differences between armies.

It's difficult, I know, because I believe you think I am insulting you and your service with my views. I am not, in the same way that I don't believe that the ordinary German foot soldier during the second world war was somehow responsible for the actions of their officers and goverment. They did what they could under the circumstances they were presented with and for it many suffered afterwards.

I guess where I am coming from is, everyone should be very, very careful to avoid complacancy. Morality is not always enough to prevent bad things happening.

Morality isn't always enough to prevent bad things from happening... but without it you have no chance.

I don't see how morality helps in this situation unless you can have moral absolutes. The only way you can guarentee that an army does not kill civillians is if your morality states that it is wrong to kill, period.

As soon as you introduce the idea of 'It's ok to kill if...' you have lost the ability to make an absolute determination. Generally speaking, we accept that premise but in so doing we have to accept the premise that in the right circumstances the country's own civillians can end up in the firing line.

What western civilizations have striven to achieve is to put systems in place that reduce the likelihood of coups taking place, rather than expect the military to make moral judgements.

Pretty much why we have different branches of government, term limits and other checks and balances. If some enterprising politician were to do away with, or otherwise sideline the US Constitution we would lose many of the protections that would ordinary prevent this sort of thing from happening.

If people were able to rely on individual morals and ethics to prevent us from doing questionable things we likely wouldn't need laws or constitutions in the first place.