reply to post by petrus4
Excellent thread, and needed to be said.
Some observations, but first a caveat: I cannot watch videos, so am not commenting on any content in any video in this thread.
I find it interesting to note how quickly this turned into an argument about dis-respecting military personnel, when in fact the title and apparent
point is about not
worshiping military personnel. And those are two very different things.
Since at least the Vietnam era, the US military has not been used so much to "keep us safe", as the propaganda wants to be the case, but rather as
an enforcement arm of the various multinational corps., so as to secure access to "our oil" that happens to be under someone else's country, and so
on. Oil is by no means the only example.
Consider that the US military is in a state of constantly being trained to the n-th degree, and able to launch into combat operations pretty much
anywhere in the world at a moment's notice. That means the troops are in combat-ready posture all the time.
And you cannot keep troops trained to that level just sitting around doing training exercises... if they aren't used for their primary purpose -
waging war - then they tend to go nuts and unit cohesion and discipline starts to degrade. So such troops must be used, and that means a constant or
near-constant state of low-level war is necessary. Examine the pattern of use of the US military just since the Vietnam era to see this in action.
Military personnel are in a very tough position at this stage of history... for a soldier (using the generic term "soldier" to cover all branches)
to defy an order, it must be pretty clear that said order is illegal. And the legal system in the military has been corrupted to the same degree as
civilian law such that it is very difficult to determine at any given instant whether any given order is illegal or not.
Which brings me to the next point: Based on observation, it is apparent that military personnel, both current active and former, believe they have
some unique perspective on politics and reality and what is going on in the world, simply due to having been in the military. That is not true.
Military personnel that have been
in combat have a unique perspective on mortal danger and dealing with that, but that perspective does not
grant any unique knowledge about anything else external to each person. So the claims by military personnel that they "know better" about politics
and such on a global scale, simply by the fact of being military personnel are not correct.
And in fact, military personnel are likely to have an extremely skewed view of reality when it comes to their job and world politics; working from the
"need to know" model. For example, consider the large number of Iraq veterans who believe or believed Saddam had something to do with 9/11. So we as
a culture need to let go of this myth that military service provides somebody with a unique ability to know "the truth".
Next point - the trend to refer to anybody that joins the military (or fire or police or EMT for that matter) as a "hero" has cheapened heroism. It
is the same as the trend towards giving out "participation medals" for T-ball or something. It reduces the impact of the real heros, of which there
are plenty. Just the mere fact of being a soldier, fire-fighter, cop or EMT does
not a hero make.
Next point - There is a disturbing trend, I don't pretend to know how large or significant but I've personally seen multiple examples, of military
personnel, both current and former, believing they should not be held to the same laws and rules as everybody else, because they have "served the
country". Serving the country is fine, and an admirable thing to do. But that loses its luster when people start wanting laws to not apply to them
"because I was a Marine" (insert branch of choice... no jab at Marines intended). I often want to ask these folks - "So, you went and risked your
life and health to defend our way of life and now you want to throw away our way of life?".
VallentineWiggin's story is a case in point (
on how you handled that, btw).
Final point: To join the US military at this particular stage in history means a person is more likely to be used, misused and abused for the profit
of multinational corps. You stand a very small chance of actually being used to actually defend our freedom, you are more likely to be used to further
restrict it. So if you choose to join the military at this point, do so with your eyes open.
Final final point: It is no surprise or coincidence that the economy is kept such that military service is the best choice available to the not-1%
part of the population. That ensures a steady supply of bodies, even if they know the score. Still gotta eat.