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13-12-06, 09:49 AM | #1 | |
flippin 'em off
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: the real world
Posts: 3,232
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My favorite acquaintance in the navy was nicknamed "pigfucker" because he freely admitted he used to fuck pigs on the farm in Iowa and his taste carried over to hookers, which he pursued with considerable enthusiasm and little selectivity. No doubt people like him have been labeled "heroes" in the past and people like you would idolize them, but he was just another character to his buddies who covered his back like he covered theirs. |
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13-12-06, 11:41 AM | #2 | |
Earthbound misfit
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Moses Lake, Washington
Posts: 2,563
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Mostly what I'm concerned with is the idea that the armed forces are somehow subverting the democratic process when all they are attempting is to complete their mission. If those service men and women have something to speak out about they can wait to say it when their terms of service end, and in all but rare cases that's what happens. I'm certain that they all have different opinions about the war in Iraq, but in the interest of solidarity they keep their opinions private. If the military did have a political agenda it simply would not be able to function as a single unit, and recruitment rates would drop sharply. This is the one American institution that has to be perfectly neutral, and the fact that it has accomplished anything is evidence that it is neutral. The commander in chief is a civilian. Not only is he allowed to be biased, his job often requires him to be biased. In no way does that reflect on the motives of the military because their oath mentions the president's title, not his name. Whoever the president happens to be, that's who they've sworn to obey. Sure, the president can abuse his power for political purposes, but because the military obeys all of his orders and not just the ones they agree with, all the blame for their actions lies with the president. |
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13-12-06, 03:51 PM | #3 | |||
Formal Ball Proof
Join Date: May 2000
Posts: 2,948
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Of course the military has a political agenda, it's the embodiment of a political agenda. The current agenda is to win the "war on terror," "spread democracy" and make Americans "feel safer" by fighting in Iraq. Now granted this might not seem in the least bit logical to anyone with half a brain, but if it's not a political agenda then I can't imagine what would fucking qualify. You maintain that it's the duty of soldiers to keep their mouths shut about their own political opinions lest recruitment should suffer, but it's apparently lost on you that that in itself is a political agenda, and you go on to argue that the military has ascended to a state of neutrality! Of course the military isn't neutral, the aggressive sterilization of individual opinion itself is a hard political line which is precisely designed to allow it to function as a unit toward a goal. A military goal is anything but "perfectly neutral." Also you suggest that Iraq is blanketed by free agent reportage in a journalistic orgy that must be filling virtual warehouses with videotape as evidence that there's no chance the violence is underreported, and yet oddly you could compile all the footage and reports that have emerged from Iraq and been shown to the American public since the outset, edit it together and probably view it in a single evening. Seems to be a small margin of discrepancy there, no? Quote:
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13-12-06, 05:40 PM | #4 | ||||
Earthbound misfit
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Moses Lake, Washington
Posts: 2,563
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14-12-06, 04:49 AM | #5 |
===\/------/\===
Join Date: Jul 2001
Posts: 2,704
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Maybe, If we bomb all the people without the internets...
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14-12-06, 12:03 PM | #6 | |||||
Formal Ball Proof
Join Date: May 2000
Posts: 2,948
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If you want to be a smart ass, you might say the plumber is there to get paid, but you would really be avoiding answering your neighbor's question. On the other hand if you answered "he's there to fix the toilet," I doubt your neighbor would accuse you of unfairly projecting your own agenda on his. If the almighty Buck Stopper has an agenda and he orders people to carry it out it is exactly the same as saying that those people are serving as the embodiment of his agenda. I don't really understand your need to refute this beyond the fact that you seem to be a self-appointed although somewhat flailing apologist for the sainted, perfectly neutral, politically agenda-less military. Or perhaps you're suggesting that there is in fact a hidden ulterior motive--a concept that, I'd concede, isn't beyond the realm of possibility. Perhaps the plumber is using the idea of fixing the toilet as a ruse and is actually there to raid your medicine cabinet? Quote:
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14-12-06, 01:40 PM | #7 |
Earthbound misfit
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Moses Lake, Washington
Posts: 2,563
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At least I can count on you to understand the difference between secrecy an privacy, but what's the difference between a soldier and a plumber? The plumber has the option to turn the job down and go fix someone else's sink instead. By definition, people without free agency are incapable of serving their own agendas unless their handlers happen to have the same agendas. Your poll says that many soldiers want to leave Iraq. If the president rescinded all his orders and told the Army and Marines that they could pull out of Iraq if they wanted to, do you think they'd stay? I don't know either, but if they actually had an agenda then that's when it would surface. Until that happens—and it probably never will—all this talk about the military's agenda is hypothetical.
Why am I defending the troops from the accusation that they are totally responsible for the effects of Bush's politics? I'm looking for hypocrisy. People can't say they support the troops while criticizing their mission if they believe the troops chose this mission for themselves. Last edited by Mazer : 14-12-06 at 01:54 PM. |
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