Ka Mate wrote:
And did the US army go to the middle east to show all them what respect for other people's cultures looks like?
They're doing a great job if they are.
Heather Lawrence can go fist herself
I have no idea what the first two parts of that message mean. Seriously. What are you trying to say?
As for the third part, wouldn't that feel good?
And finally, we need to cut it with the crap that we are only alive and breathing because someone else is dead. I honor our troops just as much as anyone - my brother was in the Navy for three years - and I agree that we should have nothing but respect for someone willing to lay down their life in the name of a noble ideal.
But saying that we can't be individuals because someone somewhere is diving in front of a bullet for us is both overly-emotional, and something of a propaganda trick. Our country has done a lot of crappy things. I don't understand the people that can't separate honor of our troops, and protest of government policies. They aren't related in that way. The way they are related is that oftentimes sad rich old men send happy poor young men off to die for some illegitimate cause, and the masses eat it up as dying for our rights. The United States is not under any threat from 99.9% of the world. You want to honor the bravery of our fallen soldiers? Stop being cowards that retract in fear every time some rumor gets published in some desperate media outlet about country so and so having so and so capabilities. The fighting in Iraq was never about preserving our liberties here.
The number one quote I hate the most, only because it is used by people like you to support absurd, one-sided, overly sentimental arguments: "I don't agree with what you have to say but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it." The thing is, that quote is outdated in our country. Go tell that quote to the Chinese or the Russians. We are not fighting tyranny or annihilation. We're fighting terrorists. That quote is meaningless in this context, not to mention so goddamn obvious. People think it is making some kind of big dramatic point. No. It's not. It's reiterating the Bill of Rights. There simply is no threat in the modern world that challenges the rights referred to in that quote. So please don't ever say it again.