Nightline

[Ramona_A_Stone]

Certainly Mazer your comment about soldiers "always" choosing to fight was a generalization, but albed could not be satisfied by merely mentioning there are exceptions, he had to search the web to list them, which in his mind discredits your entire "connection to reality."

Meanwhile, his list contains two individuals who've chosen not to fight from the some 130,000 currently in Iraq and the nearly 1.5 million currently enlisted.

I mean my god Mazer, how heinously, blatantly, dangerously false could your characterization have been!!? lol

Not surprisingly, he's so determined to prove you wrong that he seems barely cognizant of having solidly reinforced your basic point: the overwhelmingly vast majority of soldiers exhibit a willingness to comply when called upon to fight.

But this doesn't matter to him because his 'debating strategy' is best summarized in his own words: "Maybe you're just trying to support you position in any way you can."--with the exception that he really doesn't even have a position about the issue per se beyond the apparently overwhelming urge to squelch your position in his own mind by using the word "LIE" as an ignore switch.

Since he rarely offers a coherent alternative point of view in the compulsive negative flatulence he directs at all opinions not his own, one can only assume this is his 'normal' way of dispensing with, in his own world and mind, any and all entities and entire systems of thought with which he is either unequipped to argue, or from which he is too lazy or arrogant to effectively extrapolate.

[albed]

Hi Ramona. I should dig up info on the Soviet war tactics of WWII where they had two separate armies; one to fight the Germans and another behind the first to kill the soldiers who refused to fight. But what the hell. Reality isn't your preferred dwelling place either.

[Ramona_A_Stone]

And proving that there were enough soldiers who were willing kill other soldiers to support a strategy of compelling the reluctant to fight would be another attempt to characterize soldiers as... what? Free-thinking pacifists?

lol, you're a riot.

[albed]

Hey, you just finished claiming I had no position of my own and now you're assigning me the position that soldiers are "Free-thinking pacifists".


No fair. I'm a real person out here in the real world and you can't treat me like I'm one of the voices in your head.

My position is that the statement:

"if given the choice to fight or not a soldier would always choose to fight."

is completely false.

[Ramona_A_Stone]

And toward the end of proving this abjectly false contention, in the context of a thread about present-day soldiers fighting in Iraq, which are part of an entirely elective military, you provided the example of two individuals.

If you can't google up a more profound epiphany than this, I'm afraid it looks rather like you're pissing up a rope just to get wet.

[albed]

Even one example discredits the claim of "always". Which in normal vocabulary doesn't mean "generally".

The fact that they have to face negative repercussions instead of having a truly free choice without consequences makes it even more evident that soldiers don't always choose to fight.

Why don't I see links from either of you supporting your claim?

No search engine in your alternate reality?

[Mazer]

Well I'll go with Sinner here, warrior would have been a better word for me to use. Please pardon my abuse of the English lexicon, but understand that my claims also characterize my desire for soldiers to be true and honorable. If more people used the word soldier in the context I've used here then our society would hold the military to a higher standard. Even those here who are opposed to war, or at least this one, wax patriotic in our military because the soldier is our defender, our standard bearer to the world, and the only envoy that most foreigners ever get to meet, and in that capicity they do us proud. Given the recent accusations of abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers I think that elevating the bar for or our soldiers would do a lot of good. But if the common definition is to precious to change a little then I guess I'm wasting my words.

[Sinner]

Originally posted by Mazer
Well I'll go with Sinner here, warrior would have been a better word for me to use. Please pardon my abuse of the English lexicon, but understand that my claims also characterize my desire for soldiers to be true and honorable. If more people used the word soldier in the context I've used here then our society would hold the military to a higher standard. Even those here who are opposed to war, or at least this one, wax patriotic in our military because the soldier is our defender, our standard bearer to the world, and the only envoy that most foreigners ever get to meet, and in that capicity they do us proud. Given the recent accusations of abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers I think that elevating the bar for or our soldiers would do a lot of good. But if the common definition is to precious to change a little then I guess I'm wasting my words.

The only reason I mentioned "Warrior" was because of the nit-picking....I agree with your post and my use of the word Warrior may be different then others....To me a Warrior is someone who will not back down, whether a soldier, fighter like in Pride or UFC, football player etc.....They could be hurt, out-numbered, or out of their league, doesn't matter because they came to fight.