Anticipate lower Elok availability

[Sava]

Do you really think the dude who hands out towels at the base gym ever thinks to himself, "man, I am part of an organization of evil and I am helping people murder babies and every towel I pass out is another droned wedding!" No of course he ****ing doesn't.

Agree. However, I think that's a bad example.

Godwinize that question. I'm sure there were more than a few towel guys in the German Army during WW2 who probably didn't care all that much about Jews.

[Sava]

BRB, gonna go ask the Kurds, Yazidis, Kuwaitis and South Koreans whether they think our military is morally repugnant
...
...
...
they say no

Ask the folks living on Okinawa how they feel about US military personnel.
(there's a bit of a rape problem)

[Hauldren Collider]

Considering that German guy was probably conscripted, I wouldn't judge him without knowing a little bit more.

[Hauldren Collider]

Ask the folks living on Okinawa how they feel about US military personnel.
(there's a bit of a rape problem)

That's just the Marines that keep doing that though. You're not going to hear me defend the Marine Corps.

[regexcellent]

Agree. However, I think that's a bad example.

Godwinize that question. I'm sure there were more than a few towel guys in the German Army during WW2 who probably didn't care all that much about Jews.

And that towel guy's involvement in killing Jews would have been zero.

[Sava]

That's just the Marines that keep doing that though. You're not going to hear me defend the Marine Corps.

[Sava]

And that towel guy's involvement in killing Jews would have been zero.

Sure. But how about collective moral responsibility?

[Hauldren Collider]

Sure. But how about collective moral responsibility?

Well yeah I would say it's still totally okay for the US army air force to bomb his ass along with everyone else in Dresden, but that doesn't mean I think he's individually responsible for the holocaust.

[regexcellent]

The question of whether a Wehrmacht towel boy is responsible for the holocaust is neither here nor there; point is, Elok's not going to find himself pressing a gun against his temple from the damage to his psyche over joining an organization that noted leftist loon Cockney believes is evil for looney leftist reasons.

He's going to find himself pressing a gun against his temple because he's ordered around by people who barely graduated high school (if he enlists).

edit: because I never responded to one of Elok's questions: officers are eligible for the GI bill. So you can absolutely get a free master's out of it.

[Sava]

He's going to find himself pressing a gun against his temple because he's ordered around by people who barely graduated high school (if he enlists).

This would be my biggest concern, personally.

[regexcellent]

[self biased]

Elok, however menial your job seems now, it will certainly be way more menial if you decide to enlist in the military.

UNBELIEVABLE! WHY DO YOU HATE FREEDOM, HC?

[C0ckney]

; point is, Elok's not going to find himself pressing a gun against his temple from the damage to his psyche over joining an organization that noted leftist loon Cockney believes is evil for looney leftist reasons.

the point surely is the doubt that he himself feels and expressed mostly especially in post 34. he seems to have moral concerns about the enterprise, about how he could justify his actions to himself. but of course 21 year-old know nothings rarely have such thoughts. that's probably why so many of them get sent off to war.

[C0ckney]

What c0ckney is describing is probably not a consequence of joining the military. Probably half my friends here at CMU are immigrants from other countries. Most of them are like his friend, and always wanted to go to America, and now that they are here, they love it more than almost anyone who was born here. I think it's because they have an even greater appreciation of how much nicer it is here than basically anywhere else, since they've actually lived in places that suck.

i know my friend better than you do and i've told you what happened. you can believe what you like i suppose.

and there's a difference between liking a place and buying into the national narrative, the myth that we share some common interests just because we were born inside the same line on a map, the misty eyed politician wanking on about "the brave men and women protecting our freedom" as another coffin comes back from a war in a far off land, and all the rest of the tawdry charade. you know, all that stuff you lap up.

[Hauldren Collider]

Listen, I don't believe anything about lines on a map, and I like America because I like the idea behind America and because it is objectively an awesome place, not because it happens to occupy a particular set of grids on the globe. If someone moves here, adopts those ideas, and tries to make their way here they're as American in my view as anyone who was lucky enough to be born here, perhaps even more so.