Reply to a Soldier
Sargent McElroy,
Torture is wrong.
The possibility that such a thing engendered a feeling comraderie in your mind during your CSU days doesn't make it right. It indicates you have a high tolerance for personal discomfort and that is great for you. Such a tolerance writ large to the sphere of International relations is a cause for war; regardless of who started it. Have you never seen one person go just a little too far? That's cool as long as that one's comrades, bro's or buds gives 'em a shove and says "knock it off." Unless of course the one they pushed has their own issues and pulls a gun cuz they've had enough.
You slide a slippery slope Sarge. Whilst your commanders have the reigns on you (which your rank suggests you're well adjusted to accepting and utilizing in our country's service) you are highly unlikely to breach any gap they've not said to breach.
But when your commanders get pissed and tell you to "turn the screw" on a potential terrorist, it doesn't matter whether or not You are morally comfortable with that or even if you understand all of the consequences of it. It is wrong because it is inviting retaliation. INVITING it. That kind of thing only works when it is done Hiroshimacally, so to speak; ie, when it leaves the "screwed" no doubt that they will soon enter the extinction of EVERYTHING they hold dear and valuable.
Rush speaks from the gut. When he uses his intellect, it is in an apparently - very apparently - limited fashion which utilizes only his own fore-gone emotional conclusions as to what is right or wrong. He is emphatically NOT empirically sound in his reasoning for the very fact that such reasoning is interrupted by the emotions your comments defend here so very well.
I'm not going to ask if you think it would be okay to slap a child of yours if she called you a bitch. Nor if she cut the dog's tail off cuz she got hysterically sick of gettin' whacked in the head with it. That slope is just too slippery for extrapolation to the international realm, even though it is emotionally relevant.
You write like you're an excellent soldier and I AM glad - as I'm sure is Clyo and a lot of other folks - that people like you fight yer asses off for your ideals. That means that your doing so potentially offers me safety to write this blog, make fun of my buddies, love my friends, family and self.
But your "DUTY, HONOR, COUNTRY" do not, can not and never have been imbued with the "Right Stuff" needed to build a society of individuals who RESPECT one another whilst they strive for understanding of our Natural environment and the best means to utilize it whilst living as only one part of our species. Those ideals do so no more and no less than those of the sociopathic Islamofascist terrorist head-cases you must deal with in your voluntary tours of duty every single hour, day and week and month.
Good Luck and Much Gratitude to you SFC McElroy. I am sure that you believe in your mission. Perhaps if it were founded on reality instead of the Lies of the neo-con ideology that eeked out a controlling interest in the government of the United States, that mission might actually have some efficacy towards the goal of our healthy and maturing species. Perhaps if our attacks were against the true sources of Islamofascist Terrorism instead being a horrendously misguided campaign against a quasi-secular megalomaniacal and totalitarian dictator whom our country's previous leaders helped to build up, the world-wide threat to Freedom, Liberty, Democracy and Progress that these terrorists are would not be so hopeless in effecting your cause.
If you run for office when you get home, I'll be sure to double check your view points and proposals before I campaign either For or Against you.
And, believe it or not, I sincerely appreciate your posting your views here. As does your military service, such gives me concrete reality to confront inside my own mind so that I can improve my own understanding of my species and myself. Thank you.
Torture is wrong.
The possibility that such a thing engendered a feeling comraderie in your mind during your CSU days doesn't make it right. It indicates you have a high tolerance for personal discomfort and that is great for you. Such a tolerance writ large to the sphere of International relations is a cause for war; regardless of who started it. Have you never seen one person go just a little too far? That's cool as long as that one's comrades, bro's or buds gives 'em a shove and says "knock it off." Unless of course the one they pushed has their own issues and pulls a gun cuz they've had enough.
You slide a slippery slope Sarge. Whilst your commanders have the reigns on you (which your rank suggests you're well adjusted to accepting and utilizing in our country's service) you are highly unlikely to breach any gap they've not said to breach.
But when your commanders get pissed and tell you to "turn the screw" on a potential terrorist, it doesn't matter whether or not You are morally comfortable with that or even if you understand all of the consequences of it. It is wrong because it is inviting retaliation. INVITING it. That kind of thing only works when it is done Hiroshimacally, so to speak; ie, when it leaves the "screwed" no doubt that they will soon enter the extinction of EVERYTHING they hold dear and valuable.
Rush speaks from the gut. When he uses his intellect, it is in an apparently - very apparently - limited fashion which utilizes only his own fore-gone emotional conclusions as to what is right or wrong. He is emphatically NOT empirically sound in his reasoning for the very fact that such reasoning is interrupted by the emotions your comments defend here so very well.
I'm not going to ask if you think it would be okay to slap a child of yours if she called you a bitch. Nor if she cut the dog's tail off cuz she got hysterically sick of gettin' whacked in the head with it. That slope is just too slippery for extrapolation to the international realm, even though it is emotionally relevant.
You write like you're an excellent soldier and I AM glad - as I'm sure is Clyo and a lot of other folks - that people like you fight yer asses off for your ideals. That means that your doing so potentially offers me safety to write this blog, make fun of my buddies, love my friends, family and self.
But your "DUTY, HONOR, COUNTRY" do not, can not and never have been imbued with the "Right Stuff" needed to build a society of individuals who RESPECT one another whilst they strive for understanding of our Natural environment and the best means to utilize it whilst living as only one part of our species. Those ideals do so no more and no less than those of the sociopathic Islamofascist terrorist head-cases you must deal with in your voluntary tours of duty every single hour, day and week and month.
Good Luck and Much Gratitude to you SFC McElroy. I am sure that you believe in your mission. Perhaps if it were founded on reality instead of the Lies of the neo-con ideology that eeked out a controlling interest in the government of the United States, that mission might actually have some efficacy towards the goal of our healthy and maturing species. Perhaps if our attacks were against the true sources of Islamofascist Terrorism instead being a horrendously misguided campaign against a quasi-secular megalomaniacal and totalitarian dictator whom our country's previous leaders helped to build up, the world-wide threat to Freedom, Liberty, Democracy and Progress that these terrorists are would not be so hopeless in effecting your cause.
If you run for office when you get home, I'll be sure to double check your view points and proposals before I campaign either For or Against you.
And, believe it or not, I sincerely appreciate your posting your views here. As does your military service, such gives me concrete reality to confront inside my own mind so that I can improve my own understanding of my species and myself. Thank you.
Re: Michael Bains
ReplyDeleteTorture is wrong.
The possibility that such a thing engendered a feeling comraderie in your mind during your CSU days doesn't make it right. It indicates you have a high tolerance for personal discomfort and that is great for you. Such a tolerance writ large to the sphere of International relations is a cause for war; regardless of who started it. Have you never seen one person go just a little too far? That's cool as long as that one's comrades, bro's or buds gives 'em a shove and says "knock it off." Unless of course the one they pushed has their own issues and pulls a gun cuz they've had enough.
You slide a slippery slope Sarge. Whilst your commanders have the reigns on you (which your rank suggests you're well adjusted to accepting and utilizing in our country's service) you are highly unlikely to breach any gap they've not said to breach.
But when your commanders get pissed and tell you to "turn the screw" on a potential terrorist, it doesn't matter whether or not You are morally comfortable with that or even if you understand all of the consequences of it. It is wrong because it is inviting retaliation. INVITING it. That kind of thing only works when it is done Hiroshimacally, so to speak; ie, when it leaves the "screwed" no doubt that they will soon enter the extinction of EVERYTHING they hold dear and valuable.
Rush speaks from the gut. When he uses his intellect, it is in an apparently - very apparently - limited fashion which utilizes only his own fore-gone emotional conclusions as to what is right or wrong. He is emphatically NOT empirically sound in his reasoning for the very fact that such reasoning is interrupted by the emotions your comments defend here so very well.
I'm not going to ask if you think it would be okay to slap a child of yours if she called you a bitch. Nor if she cut the dog's tail off cuz she got hysterically sick of gettin' whacked in the head with it. That slope is just too slippery for extrapolation to the international realm, even though it is emotionally relevant.
You write like you're an excellent soldier and I AM glad - as I'm sure is Clyo and a lot of other folks - that people like you fight yer asses off for your ideals. That means that your doing so potentially offers me safety to write this blog, make fun of my buddies, love my friends, family and self.
But your "DUTY, HONOR, COUNTRY" do not, can not and never have been imbued with the "Right Stuff" needed to build a society of individuals who RESPECT one another whilst they strive for understanding of our Natural environment and the best means to utilize it whilst living as only one part of our species. Those ideals do so no more and no less than those of the sociopathic Islamofascist terrorist head-cases you must deal with in your voluntary tours of duty every single hour, day and week and month.
Good Luck and Much Gratitude to you SFC McElroy. I am sure that you believe in your mission. Perhaps if it were founded on reality instead of the Lies of the neo-con ideology that eeked out a controlling interest in the government of the United States, that mission might actually have some efficacy towards the goal of our healthy and maturing species. Perhaps if our attacks were against the true sources of Islamofascist Terrorism instead being a horrendously misguided campaign against a quasi-secular megalomaniacal and totalitarian dictator whom our country's previous leaders helped to build up, the world-wide threat to Freedom, Liberty, Democracy and Progress that these terrorists are would not be so hopeless in effecting your cause.
If you run for office when you get home, I'll be sure to double check your view points and proposals before I campaign either For or Against you.
And, believe it or not, I sincerely appreciate your posting your views here. As does your military service, such gives me concrete reality to confront inside my own mind so that I can improve my own understanding of my species and myself. Thank you.
# posted by MichaelBains @ 8:55 AM