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Generation Chickenhawk: With The College Republicans

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by mc mark, Jul 19, 2007.

  1. Refman

    Refman Contributing Member

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    Really? Denial?

    I'd like to see some pscychological or sociological data to back up what you are saying.

    The FACT is that whether terrorism on a broad scale is an acceptable resolution is a value. It is learned early in life. If you feel oppressed, you generally fight the guys with the guns...not fly planes into buildings or blowing up airports with Jeep Cherokees.

    The statement that we can "create" terrorists demonstrates no understanding of the region or the culture. That being said, so does our current tactic in Iraq.

    It sure would be nice to see somebody who has lived in the middle east weigh in on this.
     
  2. FranchiseBlade

    FranchiseBlade Contributing Member
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    It wasn't a weighty decision for this administration or you wouldn't have had administration members hoping that chances for peace would fail, because they wanted war.

    You wouldn't have this administration starting the war in the first place.
     
  3. SamFisher

    SamFisher Contributing Member

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    There is a boatload of anectdotal and intuitive evidence that says you are wrong. In fact i don't even have to bother to cite it. There is also decades worth of theory, scholarship, etc etc etc on it.

    See the palestinian-israeli conflict for the last 30 years, unless you are saying that all palestinians are genetic psychopaths - for which I will ask you for documentation.

    Unless you are just banging the "all muslims are inherently terrrorists" gong. Yawn.

    EDIT: i should also add that your post contradicts itself, you expressly admit that terrorism is "learned" so that answers your own question and refutes your own statemnt, and I don't need "somebody wholives in the Middle East" to tell me that.
     
    #43 SamFisher, Jul 20, 2007
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2007
  4. rimrocker

    rimrocker Contributing Member

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    No disrepect noted... as that is pretty much one of the points I was trying to make... and that is a big difference between the two.

    For clarification's sake though... the fire environment is anything but simple. The military environment is just more complex.
     
  5. Refman

    Refman Contributing Member

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    Where? I certainly saw none in all of my work in psychology. I can say that there are tons of whales falling from the sky, but that doesn't make it so. I am more than willing to be proven wrong. If you have a cite...ANY cite...I would be happy and actually eager to read it.

    First off...it is 40 years. Secondly, the Palestinians have largely conducted their efforts within the borders of the now former Palestine. This is and has been a battle for land. This is not even comparable. The Palestinian efforts within that land could be described as guerrilla warfare. Not tactics I agree with, but nobody has ever tried to displace me with nowhere to go. Oh...and nice job trying to twist it around to call me a racist without actually saying it. Pretty disingenuous argument.

    And since I spout out a point with which you disagree...that means that I have singled out an entire religion as well. I not only never said that...I would NEVER say that. Nice try.

    A value system is learned. It is learned in childhood. If as a kid you learned that theft is wrong, you don't steal. Would replacing the word "learned" with the word "formed" make my point less confusing, and thus, easier for you to understand?
     
  6. pppbigppp

    pppbigppp Member

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  7. giddyup

    giddyup Contributing Member

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    FB: Necessary is a very hard thing to be certain about.
     
    #47 giddyup, Jul 21, 2007
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2007
  8. BMoney

    BMoney Contributing Member

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    Any able bodied American who supports sending other people to fight, kill and die in this war is immoral if the are not willing to do the same. Simple as that. The fact that these same cowards point the finger at the patriotism of other Americans makes them beneath contempt.
     
  9. Dairy Ashford

    Dairy Ashford Member

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    Y'know, I'm against the war and I want it to end yesterday; but this was a good post (even though it could do without the al-Qaeda in America inference). It woud have been pretty easy for Republicans to make the chickenhawk argument 8 years ago during the Kosovo conflict, and I wouldn't have listened to it then.
     
  10. StupidMoniker

    StupidMoniker I lost a bet
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    Is this a phenomenon unique to war, or does it apply to other things? Are we not allowed to call for criminals to be arrested without joining the police force? Are we not allowed to support the imprisonment of child predators without becoming corrections officers? Are we not allowed to like steak without becoming ranchers? What factors are required before you are forbidden from supporting something without actively taking part in executing it?
     
  11. NewYorker

    NewYorker Ghost of Clutch Fans

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    These young men and women volunteer to serve their country in one of the highest and bravest things someone can do.

    Bush returns the favor by sending them into a war of his making for his own personal gain, instead of sending them to where the real fight should be taking place in Afganistan, thus letting our enermy escape and regroup.


    Bush has pooped on these kids, and he has pooped on our country.
     
  12. gifford1967

    gifford1967 Contributing Member
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    I'll draw a clear, bright line for you, so you'll never have to wonder about this again.

    You are not allowed, as an able-bodied man of military age, to call for other people to go fight and die in a preemptive war you suppport, but decline to fight in, unless you want to be branded as a coward. What you and the other chickenhawks conveniently overlook every time you make the lame comparison between serving in the military and serving on a police force or fire department, is that police officers and firefighters can quit anytime they want. Once soldiers sign on the dotted line, if they refuse to fight, they go to prison.

    You, specifically, get bonus chicken hawk points for failing to see how ludicrous it is to try and blame a US defeat on a lack of "will", when you cheerlead this war, but don't have the "will" to fight in it.
     
  13. cmiller

    cmiller Contributing Member

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    Very well said gifford, thank you! I just watched the video, loved it. I've said all along that we need to bring back the draft. Not because I would like to see more troops killed obviously, but to bring about and end to this war.
     
  14. Sishir Chang

    Sishir Chang Contributing Member

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    Whether you are aware of it or not the way you speak of the soldiers is callous and gives the impression that they are expendable. You state that they should know what they are getting into so its right to send them into harms way and not bother questioning why. I agree they signed up for a duty that requires them to go into harms way but that doesn't mean that we shrug off concern for their welfare by saying this is what they signed up for.

    The men and women who sign up do sign up with the knowledge that they are very likely to face harm. Given that its the responsibility of the political leadership and ultimately us as a democractic society to see that that isn't taken for granted.

    Just saying, "Well they should know what they are getting into." is not a justification for sending them into harms way.
     
  15. SamFisher

    SamFisher Contributing Member

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    ah, I see, your received wisdom is from a few college psychology classes, taken long ago, no thanks.

    Hmm, no the first intifada started in the 1980's so it's twenty years and I was wrong- and no I'm not saying your a racist i"m just showing you where your line of thinking natuarlly leads us.

    If you could drop your wounded pride for a second and focus on the matter at hand.....



    So you don't think peoples value systems can be learned or altered through traumatic events in childhood or even adulthood - say a US made Israeli Helicopter blowing up your house?

    Again you are disproving your own point.
     
  16. Sishir Chang

    Sishir Chang Contributing Member

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    To follow up on Gifford's response I don't feel it is necessary to join to fight if you support a war. I certainly supported the ongoing battle in Afghanistan and haven't joined the military. What bothers me more about the cheerleading and practically bloodthirsty rhetoric of those who support the war then IMO lame excuses when confronted with the question of why they don't join.

    I'm not a pacifist and believe there is a purpose for our military but I do feel that there is a cavilear attitude among many war supporters regarding the military. To me it strikes me as an abstracted view of these people as being tools rather than real men and women. So while it may be necessary for them to fight the attitude I get is that that is taken for granted by hawks.

    At the sametime the arguments that people have more important things to do or military life isn't for them. That is a slap to those who have chosen to go into the military. One of my martial arts students is an army ranger and in college he was a very good student, a great athlete and very personable. This guy could have a great job earning lots of money here in the US yet he has volunteered to go to the military. Or consider Pat Tillman, he could've stayed in the NFL still playing football and making millions. It could've been easy for him to say that it was more important to make money to help the economy or keep playing football since its important for American morale that pro-sports keeps on going. Many people in the armed forces are very capable of doing something else that according to chickenhawk logic are more important than being in the military yet they chose not to because they believe that even at the possibility of your own death that someone needs to step forward and join.

    I will admit that I'm not brave enough to do that. I lead a comfortable life and like to think that I my work and everything else I do helps the country but whatever I'm doing isn't on the scale of the sacrifice that our troops make. For me I would be happy just hearing some college Republican pushing the war when asked why they didn't join to just admit that they aren't brave enough to do it rather than trying to justify that them earning an MBA is more important for the country.
     
  17. giddyup

    giddyup Contributing Member

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    I'm not callous and I'm sorry if you get that impression. Naturally all of the interpretations you lend are unflattering. My matter-of-factness about it is a contrast to the "unfairness of it all" that I read in so many posts here.

    As has been discussed here before the average soldier in this volunteer army is very different from the average soldier in a drafted army. They are older, better educated and more committed to a military career. Yet you'd think they were naive, unwilling boys and girls yanked away from their mother's breast to serve in the military-- like Viet Nam. It just ain't so.

    Nowhere did I write nor have I heard anyone say (but you) say that ~"... that they should know what they are getting into is justification for sending them into harms way."

    No one. I think recapitulating my remarks with that summarization is dishonest-- whether intentional or not.
     
  18. Sishir Chang

    Sishir Chang Contributing Member

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    I can't see into your mind and I suspect you aren't as callous as we might think you sound but the nature of debate tends to unflattering interpretations.

    I guess I can understand to an extant where you are coming from. I just don't agree with the rhetoric you are using.
     
  19. FranchiseBlade

    FranchiseBlade Contributing Member
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    Agreed, and if there is any legitimate question that it might not be necessary then we owe to the men and women who volunteered to eliminate those questions before sending them into harms way. That is why it is more important with a volunteer army to not subject them to something like Iraq.

    They trusted when they joined that they would serve the nation that their lives wouldn't be spent in situations that just aren't useful to the U.S. as a nation.
     
  20. Refman

    Refman Contributing Member

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    Actually it was a minor in psych and assistance work I did for a friend on his doctoral case study. It's a little more involved than you might think. Besides, even if it were a few classes (which it isn't), it's a whole lot more than you've offered up, buddy boy.

    Actually, the Palestinian-Isreali conflict began in 1967. And you're showing where my line of thinking takes you if you twist it hard enough and are a tad warped.

    Wounded pride? WTF???? You greatly overestimate your prowess. I was responding to the OBVIOUS insinuation regarding my trhoughts on Islam that you made...thinly veiled I might add.

    No. Value systems are formed early in life. Traumatic events may lead you to isolated acts that you wouldn't ordinarily do...but not on par with hijacking planes or blowing up shopping malls. This is not reserved just for militant Islam...see the IRA in the 1980s. Same deal.
     

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