The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-31-2020, 02:37 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: True. If you know your stuff, you don't have to flaunt it or prove it. All you have to do is show it. I learned that while playing sports. I don't pick fights. I stand my ground and don't back down and force them to make the first move. Once again, who's territory am I in? I picked one fight with a religious conservative/ Evangelical in all the years that I've been posting with you and the others here. Other than that, I've spent my time defeating those who made/make the mistake of picking a fight with me and defeating those who ganged up on me and challenging the integrity of people like you who sit in their safe Ivory Towers and lie and act like traitors and viciously attack our soldiers and our police without seeming to know or  understand of the situation that they're in during times of war or the situations they find themselves in while on the job and not showing any signs of having any appreciation or mercy for them. You are a Liberal piece of shit to me and there is nothing you can do or say to change my mind or improve the lowly status that you and others here have earned with us at this point. You are fair game here, fair game on the streets, fair game in bars and fair game where ever you pop up because there isn't a decent Democrat to defend you from us. All you have to save you from us is a group of transplanted Republicans that you were at war with before Obama.

You are still yapping.  Even while admitting that the yappers are not the serious fighters, you still yap.

Soldiers.  Xenakis is also obsessed with violence,  A different slant.  He deals with xenophobia.  He claims war is about one people that hate another.  I have added two other causes.  War can also be about elites seeking a profit.  War is a racket.  War can be about fulfilling some ideal.  For example, one can be freeing the slaves, shaking the shackles of colonial imperialism, making the world safe for democracy, etc…

In a lot of ways, many conflicts might invoke all three reasons.  You want your troops to think the enemy is inhuman so they will fight without question.  The elite will be looking to make a profit if they think they can use a superior military to cash in.  When talking to the press or the civilian population you will use idealistic reasons for war, whether you believe in them or not.

In this time of insurgent proxy war, when you are fighting for the hearts and minds of the locals, can you afford to dehumanize the locals?  If a sniper opens fire from a village, do you order an artillery strike on the village?  How about if members of a wedding party fire their guns into the air?  Do you wipe out the wedding party?

I heard of one story when some American soldiers were stationed in Iraq, how they spotted a guy carrying an assault rifle.  Bang.  Target down.  Celebration.  High fives.  Happy happy, joy joy.  A pair of binoculars.  The shooters got a good look at a guy in pain from a gut shot, blood, writhing, knowing he was dying, heading that way fast.  

Do you want an army trained to hate, trained to treat the enemy as targets, trained to follow orders to maximum efficiency?  If you work towards that, if you maximize xenophobia, do you have a realistic chance to win hearts and minds?  Should you engage in what might well escalate into a proxy insurgent war?

The new Iraqi government said it would not accept American troops without their facing the people who accuse them of war crimes.  Again, do you want to go in with a murderous intent against the locals, or do you want to win in a battle of hearts and minds?  What sort of military do you want to have?  Is it more prudent to have heartless killers who obey orders, and to keep that you leave Iraq?

No easy answer.  Still, you have to respect the people who ask the question.  Real violence is not what you experienced on the sports field.

The cops?  In many ways they face the same problem.  The choice is a little more clear.  Is their loyalty to the law and to the community, or to their race and the blue wall of silence.  I can respect the former while trying to eliminate the latter.  If you treat people with a certain skin tint as the enemy and feel free to murder them and count on your fellow officers to keep silent, there is a problem.  Such people are not worthy of respect.  If a cop treats a bad cop as a fellow cop in blue, shows no loyalty to the law or the community, we have two bad cops.  That has to be made clear.

Now you have shown me nothing to show you understand real violence.  You are a yapper.  In my career as a software engineer I contributed to all three legs of the nuclear triad: bombers, ICBMs and submarine based missiles.  These were the programs which I can talk about.  Some of the others are more highly classified.  You think what you experienced on the sports field is what it is all about.  Silly you.

Are nuclear weapons a deterrence, responsible for a vast decrease in crisis war trigger events among major powers?  Or are they a horror that should be banned?  Is the Information Age idea that violence is a last resort prudent and wise?  Was the War for Oil launched by Bush 43 and the Neo Cons and wound up destabilizing the Middle East a good idea?  Does your career as an air conditioning repairman qualify you to answer such questions?  What do you know of the use of the violence you are so obsessed with?

I share your final thought.  You have earned a lowly status.