I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
HATE : 1 a : intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury b : extreme dislike or antipathy : LOATHING
I have recently been accused of hating. What caught my attention was that the implication was that hate is a universally bad thing, that hate should never occur, is completely unjustifiable, and is the root of the world's problems. I can think of nothing but how we Americans have been so mind numbed by political correctness and fear of our own emotions that one can't express an aversion to what he/she feels is wrong. Repression of feelings is psychologically unhealthy and social neutralizing. We come from a rich tradition of being able to defend ourselves,our families, or property (2nd Amendment). But anymore the cow-eyed public bows to criminals and bullies for fear of hate. Mind you, not the fear that the bad guy hates the victim, but the fear that the victim may feel the appropriate response of hatred toward the perp. The victim spends their time more often now trying to discover what makes the criminal do what they do, or how the criminal feels. I say, who the hell cares? Punish antisocial behavior, raise our children with the proper emotional tools to survive instead of encouraging our children to be sheep waiting for the wolves.
When I was a kid, if someone started to bully another kid, a fight usually started. The bully usually got the crap knocked out of him and that ended the tough-guy attitude. Nowadays, principals want to arrest 7 year olds for defending themselves physically. But, you say, "Oh Dorman, you stepped into a trap! You just equated hate with violence." Well, hate does not equal violence but it can fuel it. Hate does not equal anger either. All are normal healthy emotions that fall on the spectrum of the human psyche.
Hate has a use. What do you folks think we soldiers do while we are at war? Is American society that out of touch to think that we are driving around acting as humanitarians and embassadors of good will? Is there a compassionate way to kill someone attacking you with a rocket propelled grenade? Some people have earned hate.
I say to everyone, blind hatred is wrong because it is based on ignorance. Hatred based on experience is a powerful and decisive tool, not to be feared by the bearer, but used discriminately and sparingly.
Title quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower
I have recently been accused of hating. What caught my attention was that the implication was that hate is a universally bad thing, that hate should never occur, is completely unjustifiable, and is the root of the world's problems. I can think of nothing but how we Americans have been so mind numbed by political correctness and fear of our own emotions that one can't express an aversion to what he/she feels is wrong. Repression of feelings is psychologically unhealthy and social neutralizing. We come from a rich tradition of being able to defend ourselves,our families, or property (2nd Amendment). But anymore the cow-eyed public bows to criminals and bullies for fear of hate. Mind you, not the fear that the bad guy hates the victim, but the fear that the victim may feel the appropriate response of hatred toward the perp. The victim spends their time more often now trying to discover what makes the criminal do what they do, or how the criminal feels. I say, who the hell cares? Punish antisocial behavior, raise our children with the proper emotional tools to survive instead of encouraging our children to be sheep waiting for the wolves.
When I was a kid, if someone started to bully another kid, a fight usually started. The bully usually got the crap knocked out of him and that ended the tough-guy attitude. Nowadays, principals want to arrest 7 year olds for defending themselves physically. But, you say, "Oh Dorman, you stepped into a trap! You just equated hate with violence." Well, hate does not equal violence but it can fuel it. Hate does not equal anger either. All are normal healthy emotions that fall on the spectrum of the human psyche.
Hate has a use. What do you folks think we soldiers do while we are at war? Is American society that out of touch to think that we are driving around acting as humanitarians and embassadors of good will? Is there a compassionate way to kill someone attacking you with a rocket propelled grenade? Some people have earned hate.
I say to everyone, blind hatred is wrong because it is based on ignorance. Hatred based on experience is a powerful and decisive tool, not to be feared by the bearer, but used discriminately and sparingly.
Title quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower
posted by Dorman at 14:32
22 Comments:
not to get too technical here but what is social neutralization? we live in a world where people want to kill Americans as proven by 9/11. They will do so again and again if not stopped. No compromise there.
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cool, some are getting my point. And, Crys, just because I 'hate' Islam does not mean that I don't think war is stupid and futile and brutal. Ask yourselves the questions I posed in the comments of the last entry, then tell me how futile and stupid this war is. Remember that there are many different layers of perspective. My personal level does not necessarily need to coincide with the bigger picture(s). When I joined the Army, we weren't involved with Iraq. I never wanted to come here. I wanted to eliminate Islam through the spread of common sense, not bullets and bombs. But they bring the fight to us.
IMHO, this war is not totally futile but our efforts are seriously mismanaged and the premise for our presence is dubious. Did you know that KBR (Kellogg, Brown and Root) is the company that provides us much of our 'life support' comforts? They do a lot of supply trucking, take care of our laundry, run our MWR centers. They are paying a warm body $85,000 a year to hand out towels at the gym and supply guys $10,000 a month to hand out supplies. For our food service though they use Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, etc, for service and labor. Probably at a small fraction of what the warm body makes. I think it is great for those folks to be able to earn respectable money and take back home, but why cut corners there? Have one of the food guys also hand out towels, save that much more money. Plus I have yet to see the 'reconstruction' going on in Iraq. Supposedly commercialization had started at the largest of bases. It is a slow moving process to convert from Army provided internet access to some hi-speed wireless-by-laser commercial product. Funny how it isn't rebuilding an Iraqi town.
Last example of futility is an example of a circular argument. My unit is here to support a Regional Combat Team, you know, they guys who make people crispy. They do combat patrols and sweeps looking for insurgents. Why are there insurgents in the area? Bingo, because we are in the area. No us, no insurgents, no insurgents, no reason for us to be here. I would understand if we were protecting somehting like a newly built infrastructure, but there is nothing around us for miles and miles.
Crys, Freedom OF religion has turned in to freedon FROM religion to many Americans. Look around at Christmas time. Just because it is a religion doesn't mean it is right, wholesome, or good.
Social neutralization = turning society into an emotionless, non-responsive mass of easily led automatons.
Ever read 'A Brave New World'? How close to that society are we now?
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050516/ap_on_re_us/newsweek_quran
reference for my post above
I would describe them as 'peaceful muslims'.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050516/
ap_on_re_us/newsweek_quran
maybe that will work better?
sorry to be experimenting
here on your blog
Crys, completely agree with you except for our similarity to BNW. Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft == Soma. Free sex taught in our schools with the only moral responsibility - to wear a rubber. We have grandmothers on TV birthing kids conceived in test tubes, sure they aren't incubated in jars or poisoned for class structure. We are segregated into classes in more insuidious ways....and not based solely on race either. We stay youthful through botox and surgery until our skin falls off our bones, then we die like flies or like some gross science experiment in a prolonged, machine enhanced death.
Freedom of religion means we *all* should be free to express it publicly, not just privately. Removing religious artifacts is unfair and biased against certain faiths. Let's face it, American has become anti-christian and not as free as advertised. May I refer back to that Peter Jennings quote that is all too true.
And so what, they flushed a Koran down the toilet. Seems fitting to me. Hell, we burn flags and ban Bibles. Muslims should get the same all-American goodness the rest of us have gotten for years.
(sarcasm not directed toward anyone commenting)
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no one desecrated a mosque or church. They dumped a printed book in the crapper, allegedly. Crys, you just showed the American reaction again. I'm sorry, but that is what makes many of us soldiers cringe. Somehow it is always an American's fault no matter their reaction.
Just a side note of interest that has nothing really to do with the flow here. But it seemed pretty apropos to my blog theme. An allegory on Sisyphus.
There are citizens in Islamic countries that frequently destroy effigies of Bush and burn the American flag. Do Americans react to this in the same overzealous manner as Muslims? I think not. Or is it just the blinders of the media focusing on sensational news of the few, rather than the masses?
So getting back to the ultimate question (which the four of us cannot seem to answer, but only speculate); Why do these people react/think the way they do?
In some ways, this culture is fortunate in that they can protest in this manner. Americans cannot even go to an Inaugural event and voice their displeasure for fear of being arrested. Continued erosion of Americans rights to free speech.
The answer is something I already know. It is the same reason we continue to have race problems in America really only between 1 race and the rest. It is the same reason why communist North Koreans fight to the death. It is inversely the same reason why America has been turned into a bunch of PC passivists. The answer is easy, changing it is difficult.
I won't answer right away, I think it more fruitful for some discussion first. Don't want to make it easy. Hint: answer is very simple.
This might help...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq_al_qaida_rice
This will definitely help us with understanding how they view the Koran.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-05-16-koran_x.htm
Good article. Even more evidence these people are off the scale of rationality. And it's not Islam that's the problem. Please folks, get a grip.
The answer my friends to the provious statement is that all these groups have these ideas programmed into their heads from birth, whether right or wrong, whether justifyiable or irrational. Somehow slavery still plays a trump card in a country that no one alive has even seen a shackle. The Chinese don't have a coalition, though, to always gripe about how the Coolies were mistreated in the 19th century. The Japanese don't continue to harp on the government about their encampment during WWII. So how do the new generations of groups know how to be unhappy and what to complain about? Easy, it is perpetuated in their racism and their culturalism. Many cultures are based on rebellion, without someone to fight or a cause to fight against, they have no purpose. The culture would not sustain itself.How long has slavery and social injustice been a dead issue that just keeps getting held up until a new generation buys into it?
North Koreans are programmed as good self-sacrificing communists to sustain the state and to rebel against capitalistic pigs of the West. That is part of their culture, what makes them North Koreans. But it wasn't always that way nor does it need to be.
People in the muslim world are the same thing. It is all programmed into them from birth, to an extreme. Everywhere they turn is hatred of something or someone, in some self-righteous self-serving fashion. When was the last gesture of humanitarianism recorded in the muslim world by a muslim? Do a search for that. Please.
The question you all must ask yourselves is this - How much license do you all give [fill in the blank] based on their proclaimed culture or religion or ethnicity or sexual preference? How would you view these same rioting muslims if it weren't so far away from home? What if these riots occurred in Dayton, Ohio? What if it were a mob of angry homosexuals that got mad because someone ripped down a pink triangle flag?
How far does the religion justify destructive, dangerous behavior?
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Crys, as we say in the Signal Corps, "offending remarks" etc are a Reception problem not a Transmission problem.
Saije, I agree, back to the BNW analogy.
Crystal, why is my point? What are your ideologies? It would be great to hear another perspective on this.
It probably wasn't the point you were making, but I think that a mob of angry homosexuals isn't really something we have to worry about. Depressingly enough, that seems to be part of the reason why the efforts of the Human Rights Campaign have failed; because there's no violent group to serve as a counterpoint.
Well, if millions have fought and died in history over similar differences, and such wars are still going on today, than it can be said that war cannot be the answer. Sadly, until we find the answer, war is all we have.
Dorman your missing the point completely. There are 3 groups in Iraq the Shiites, the Sunis, and the Kurdish. A good 90% of Iraqis are indifferant to our being over there. The Sunis were the ones who are doing most of the attacks, they are the ones who had all the money and power when Saddam was in control. Even if we leave there will still be attacks. Its nothing religous its about who wants to be in control. Only 5% of the attacks are from Muslim extemists. The rest are people who want power.
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