upnorthkyosa said:
1. No, they do not. One nation tried and it was bankrupt in forty years.
2. Have you ever seen a John Wayne movie? We don't need big standing stones. In fact, those suckers are entirely inefficient. Instead, we have a standing screen and a film industry that reflects a culture of militarism.
3. We create a warrior mythos that has absolutely nothing to do with reality...and people buy into it.
4. One man I met had both arms and both legs blown off, he clung to those virtues listed above because that was all he had left. He also "clung" to a bottle of scotch and my grandfather "kindly" shared a shot with the man.
5. No, that is just more support for my position. People will overlook the Mai Lei's or the Abu Ghraibs because there sons are only "doing their duty". That is still tacit support of atrocity, is it not?
6. Sure we do. How much do you actually watch the evening news (propaganda)? How about the other "in depth" political conversations that are occuring in the media? This "bad news only" is just a right wing myth. The media has got to play in everyones ball park in order to be profitable. They are not going to leave out 49 or 50% of the view in the entire US! Now that is capitalism...
1. So....no current nation exists that doesn't fit your criteria because a nation that tried to do it differently failed? So the reality is that every nation is 'militaristic' in your opinion? But, we are the 'worst' even though we have the 'most' in terms of interests, geography, assests, population. I would think that proportions like that would matter to an objective mind. BTW, the nation that went bankrupt....Russia (Former Soviet union) did so because it was a Communist country that lost all it's satellites that were paying for it's structure...communism failed.
2. And the obilisk was erected by the government of it's day where the movie industry is privately run, correct? I have made the point in the past about the Cathartic affect of theater and story...this idea that the entertainment industry is creating a culture that glorifies war is similar to that argument that kids that listen to rap music are more likely to do drugs and violence.....
3. We certainly do when we promote codes like chivalry, Budo, .....because NEITHER of those codes were actually laid down and formally discussed or used for educating warriors until after these cultures reached a point of stability that wars were not being fought as much and young nobles were acting like punks and thugs....so they were fed a line of crap about how 'noble' their forefathers were and how 'ethical' a warrior acts in combat and brings glory on himself when he conducts himself within these rules...
War serves a purpose, political pressure. Period. Warriors have a job, to successfully gain objectives and destroy the enemies will to fight by destroying manpower, materials and the will to continue the fight. Period.
How is that ever going to be eliminated? When people, individually or as groups, stop feeling envy, fear, greed, terror, ambition, ......
Is the current "Laws of Land Warfare" or the "Geneva Convention" or the "Army/Marine Corps Values" structures or Leadership traits any less 'noble' a set of ethical practices than those laid down in Chivalry or Budo? Those are what are being taught to real soldiers/Marines/servicemen and women who actually face situations where those values are really tested.
4. So, automatically, because you disagree with his values, the fact that he was an alcoholic comes from his inability to agree with your values? That seems like a pretty big leap. Too bad his psych records are sealed, I wonder what connections and observations a trained psychologist that spent more than a few visits (at the impressionable age of 15 btw) with him would say about his 'clinging to those virtues.'
5. Not a single person I know, nor a single media presentation of either incident is saying that these people were just doing their duty. If your hearing such things from people, are they 'glorifying war' or are they expressing fear/apathy/self preservation......
6. I do watch the news, and I don't hear anything about the 'glorious victories' as much as the more negative/anti support spin of the number ambushes/American Casualties/Iraqi civilian and military casualties, hostage threats or abjuctions.....Is war and the warrior being glorified or is the horror and depression and futility being reinforced?
), let alone operations in Afg. and Iraq, what do you do?
