The Left Still Struggles With Military Heroism

GURPS

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
The Left Still Struggles With Military Heroism


And that, finally, gets us to the kids at Juice Vox Media. The rather unaccomplished Dylan Matthews penned a piece that the also rather unaccomplished Ezra Klein referred to as “powerful.”

That “powerful” piece? The title says it all: “It’s time we have a holiday to honor those who try to stop wars too”.

Yes, that’s right. The kids at Juice Vox Media want a holiday to celebrate those who stood up against our fight with the Nazi, opposed the union’s fight’s with the Confederacy, and just said no to driving Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. In other words, the Academy Awards are not enough for these kids.

The United States has set aside two days to honor our soldiers, sailors, and Marines. We honor those who died with Memorial Day and honor those who served with Veterans Day. As a nation, we have drifted away from the time it was expected our President might have served. But even our Presidents who have not served have worked to honor our military. Contrary to the kids at Juice Vox Media, we already have two holidays to honor those who try to stop wars — Memorial Day and Veterans Day.
 
CrashTest

CrashTest

Well-Known Member
During yesterday's baseball game, Curt Schilling said freedom loving nations love their military.

He's right. Just look at nations where the military is hated. The problem is there are folks in the US who love their freedom yet hate our military.
 
Larry Gude

Larry Gude

Strung Out
CrashTest said:
During yesterday's baseball game, Curt Schilling said freedom loving nations love their military.

He's right. Just look at nations where the military is hated. The problem is there are folks in the US who love their freedom yet hate our military.
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Maybe Kurt missed the deep seated nationalism and military pride in Germany leading up to WWII? Or the militarism of Imperial Japan and the universal national honor of their military? Perhaps he's never heard of the great military parades the USSR used to have every year?

The simple fact of the matter is that our nation was founded with it's happy circumstances of being physically separated from Europe with the SPECIFIC intention of avoiding Europe's wars, of not sending American's to go fight and die in other people's problems. They would have seen Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Obama and both Bush's as traitors to their goals and intentions for our nation. More to the point, they would see we, the people, as having thrown away what they gave us; peace.

Our involvement in WWI made matters worse and guaranteed WWII.
In WWII we made the world safe for communism.
Korea is a mess to this day because of our intervention.
Vietnam is now a pretty stable, productive place absent our involvement and continued interference.
The Middle East, well, our involvement speaks for itself.

Reaganism, being the beacon for freedom, winning the cold war by being American's, minding our business by and large, that's what we should be doing. It's one thing to have a great military. It's how you use it that matters.
 
CrashTest

CrashTest

Well-Known Member
They have those parades in North Korea too. If you don't act like you love them, we all know what happens.
 
Vince

Vince

......
CrashTest said:
During yesterday's baseball game, Curt Schilling said freedom loving nations love their military.

He's right. Just look at nations where the military is hated. The problem is there are folks in the US who love their freedom yet hate our military.
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I think those folks hate the military and take their freedom for granted. One day soon they will lose that freedom. Then you will hear them scream.
 
SamSpade

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Vince said:
I think those folks hate the military and take their freedom for granted. One day soon they will lose that freedom. Then you will hear them scream.
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I've seen two kinds, and sometimes they're both:

1. People who hate the military because in spite of the fact they've spent most of their lives without any connection to a single military person much less a military community or know much about them - they're convinced that people in the military are bloodthirsty killers who love to blow things up. They believe the military does what it does, because it is comprised of people who are straight out of a kid's cartoon, who live to kill things

and/or

2. They seriously don't believe the military has ever actually accomplished anything, and that conflicts have been solved by non-military types like themselves.

And all I can say to #1 is, if you know military or grew up in a military family, you know that it is about as far from the truth as can be imagined - - NO ONE hates war more than the men who have endured it. They've seen it up close and watched their brothers die in their arms. They fight to make sure it is over. The best soldiers I've known are more high-minded than anyone you'll ever meet - they gladly put their lives on the line to save strangers like the people who think they're bloodthirsty warmongers.

To number 2 - I don't know any major conflict the world has ever seen that was NOT resolved by at least one person willing to fight to stop it.
 
H

Hodr

Guest
SamSpade said:
NO ONE hates war more than the men who have endured it. They've seen it up close and watched their brothers die in their arms. They fight to make sure it is over. The best soldiers I've known are more high-minded than anyone you'll ever meet - they gladly put their lives on the line to save strangers like the people who think they're bloodthirsty warmongers.
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Just to riff off of this thought, according to the Brookings institute, of our currently elected congress less than 20% served in the military, and the members who did serve are almost perfectly split between Republicans and Democrats. Tied with the previous congress for the lowest percentage that we have ever had.

So the people who are making the decisions about what battles we fight, overwhelmingly, are the people who never had to fight those battles, who would not have to make any appreciable sacrifices to support these battles, and who quite often benefit financially from others having to fight their battles for them.

I think if the majority of congress were veterans, or if their children/family members served, you might see a considerably different political atmosphere with regards to how and where we deploy our forces.

Wasn't it Roosevelt who said something about speaking softly, but carrying a big stick? We have the might, and everyone already knows it. We have our big stick to protect ourselves and to secure our true interests (through diplomacy). We don't need to be involved in every squabble or regional conflict, we can lead by example and limit our involvement to necessary actions.
 
stgislander

stgislander

Well-Known Member
PREMO Member
Hodr said:
Wasn't it Roosevelt who said something about speaking softly, but carrying a big stick? We have the might, and everyone already knows it. We have our big stick to protect ourselves and to secure our true interests (through diplomacy). We don't need to be involved in every squabble or regional conflict, we can lead by example and limit our involvement to necessary actions.
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That's just crazy isolationist talk! :sarcasm:
 
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