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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
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Posted by special_k on March 29, 2006, at 18:49:19
In reply to Re: Freedom » Sobriquet Style, posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 18:08:44
Yes. You can't replicate the Milgram experiment because now it is considered unethical.
The participants were American (though to be fair I expect you would get similar results from people in most countries)
They did the shocking (most of 'em) then afterwards they were informed they were trying to see whether American's follow orders just like the Nazi's did.
Yeah... That's gotta be a little traumatic (more than a little).
I don't support the troops.
I feel sad for them.That was a tragedy (one of the tragedies) of Vietnam... The soliders come home (after being traumatised fighting) only to find that people had been PROTESTING the war and didn't support it.
I personally think the lesson to take from this is that if you go kill people...
You might be popular for a bit but eventually... People might well change their mind and conclude that it wasn't okay for you to have done that.
And we have to live with ourselves :-(
I feel sad for the troops.
Real sad. But personally... I don't support them if supporting them means supporting the killing of more Iraq citizens...
Posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 18:52:59
In reply to Re: Freedom, posted by special_k on March 29, 2006, at 18:49:19
would you support any troops?
Posted by Sobriquet Style on March 29, 2006, at 18:59:33
In reply to Re: Freedom » Sobriquet Style, posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 18:08:44
>I did not necessarily mean in 2003.
My mistake, I thought you was refering to Iraq, and how your freedom was in danger from that country. eg. danger in the sense the US would be invaded, bombs etc,
>I have made it clear what i think of GWB by NOT saying anything but the troops from *my* country are there, right or wrong, risking their lives in conditions i cannot fathom, for me.
And their pay cheque :-)
>GWB put them there, nothing or no one else.
And others pulling the strings behind the scenes no doubt.
>Have you ever lost someone very close to you b/c they were defending in one way or another, your freedom?
It would depend how you define freedom, like freedom in the context of wars and invading countries, or something else, but I think I know what you mean.
~
Posted by Sobriquet Style on March 29, 2006, at 19:03:57
In reply to Not specific to any war but » special_k, posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 18:52:59
>would you support any troops?
I have great respect for Special Forces in particular.
:-)
~
Posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 19:05:51
In reply to Re: Freedom, posted by Sobriquet Style on March 29, 2006, at 18:59:33
but the shame is that their pay check is not much...wonder how much GWB makes??? maybe he should be there...
Posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 19:06:45
In reply to Re: Not specific to any war but, posted by Sobriquet Style on March 29, 2006, at 19:03:57
Posted by Sobriquet Style on March 29, 2006, at 19:09:22
In reply to yes » Sobriquet Style, posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 19:05:51
Posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 19:11:27
In reply to All by himself? :-) (nm) » wildcard11, posted by Sobriquet Style on March 29, 2006, at 19:09:22
Posted by zeugma on March 29, 2006, at 19:41:54
In reply to yes » Sobriquet Style, posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 19:05:51
> but the shame is that their pay check is not much...wonder how much GWB makes??? maybe he should be there...>.
you know, I have had this thought often myself. But I think he should not be sent there all by himself. We could use an entire Administration to manage the chaos there. Dick Cheney would be an especially useful strategic asset. He could plan duck hunting expeditions with suspected insurgents, and use his 'bad aim' to devastating effect.
-z
Posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 19:53:35
In reply to not all by himself » wildcard11, posted by zeugma on March 29, 2006, at 19:41:54
Posted by special_k on March 29, 2006, at 21:09:40
In reply to Not specific to any war but » special_k, posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 18:52:59
> would you support any troops?
um...
i think peaceful alternatives should be exhausted first.
i think... there must be another way.
i don't know that i would... though i guess if someone invaded my country then self defence. i'd support people fighting in self defence. yeah.
it is a hard one.
my grandfather was a pacifist. caused a fair few problems in the family i think. he was a methodist minister. he harbored men who didn't want to fight (because they were pacifists) in the second world war. that is fighting against hitler. he was imprisoned for doing that. kicked out of the church. apparantly that is when he became very bitter... at how god could let that happen to him when he believed he was doing gods will.
a lot of people struggled with his stance on that. because most people think that was a just war if any war was.
but i guess his stance was that people shouldnt be MADE to fight. i agree with that.
would i have supported teh troops fighting against hitler?
depends what you mean by 'supporting' the troops i guess.
i think hitler needed to be stopped yes.
but then civilians were bombed in the name of stopping hitler. i don't support the bombing of civilians...
so it is a hard one.
i guess i don't support violence.
hard to say...
Posted by deirdrehbrt on March 30, 2006, at 10:54:58
In reply to Re: Not specific to any war but, posted by special_k on March 29, 2006, at 21:09:40
I don't think alot of people have an idea of how brutally terrible war can be.
On my headboard are my godfather's dog tags. He was in the Korean "conflict". He managed to survive one day by hiding beneath the bodies of his dead friends after the North Korean Army had devastated his group.
He used to enjoy hunting, but never after the war. He had a job afterward repairing underwater pipelines and one job took him back to Korea. He couldn't get off the plane.
War is not meant to be fought by human beings. I heard stories of Viet Nam when I first joined the Air Force. That was in 1979, and there were quite a few people who had been there around. One of these people was a medic that worked at my station. His description of injuries that people received were horrendous.
Granted, the people in Iraq now have it better than these two wars. The number of dead and injured is much less than in other wars or conflicts. Still, it's not easy. Many people there are reporting for treatment of mental disorders. It must be especially tough for those there who don't support the war; those who played the odds of receiving an education in the National Guard or regulars without having to fight.
I come from a military family. My Dad was in the Navy, I have one uncle who was a Green Beret. My Godfather was in the army, as were both of my grandfathers. Another uncle was a Marine. One of my cousins was also in the Army. Many of my family expect people to support this war. I can't because I don't believe that the American public has sufficient information to believe that we are there for just cause. Personally, I do not believe that information exists and I don't know if the entire truth will ever be revealed.
Here's what I do know: The United States has the raw materials to make chemical and biological weapons. The United States has active Nuclear weapons. The United States appears to be holding prisoners and treating them in a manner contrary to the Geneva Convention. It appears that the United States invaded a sovereign country without the authority of the United Nations.
My personal opinion is that all nations should be held to the same standards. How to achieve that, I don't know, but to say "You can have WMD, or nuclear power, or whatever, but You over there, can't" just seems wrong.
I"m rambling again... time to shut up.
--Dee
Posted by wildcard11 on March 30, 2006, at 11:07:02
In reply to Re: Not specific to any war but **Trigger**, posted by deirdrehbrt on March 30, 2006, at 10:54:58
you make excellent points!!
Posted by Damos on March 30, 2006, at 15:26:28
In reply to Re: Freedom, posted by special_k on March 29, 2006, at 18:49:19
> That was a tragedy (one of the tragedies) of Vietnam... The soliders come home (after being traumatised fighting) only to find that people had been PROTESTING the war and didn't support it.
>
> I personally think the lesson to take from this is that if you go kill people...
>
> You might be popular for a bit but eventually... People might well change their mind and conclude that it wasn't okay for you to have done that.
>
> And we have to live with ourselves :-(
>
> I feel sad for the troops.
>
> Real sad. But personally... I don't support them if supporting them means supporting the killing of more Iraq citizens...I hate war too special, I hate war so much. I just need to post this and here just seemed like the right place.
I was lucky enough to speak long and hard to two Vietnam veterans a long time ago. And what hurt was NOT that people protested the war. It was that people protested them. What hurt was being spat on and having blood thrown on them and being called "Baby Killers". What hurt was the being made to feel ashamed, deeply crushingly ashamed of who they were, what they'd one, serving their country. What hurt was being looked at with disgust by people in the street, people even crossing the street to avoid them. Being ostracised. Being too ashamed to wear their uniforms in the street (instructed not to) because of what people did. What hurt was bringing home the genetic effects of Agent Orange and other things and passing that on to their children and their children's children. What hurt was not being welcomed home like every other generation of people who'd served their country with courage and honour had been. What hurt was being rejected by the RSL (In Aust) the Returned Services League and told "You wouldn't know what a war was!" and you're not eligible to join cause we've decided Vietnam wasn't one. What hurt was people who didn't know them making judgements about their morality, humanity and basic decency without ever having spoken to them. What hurt was being told that all of their feelings about everything that happened to them weren't valid. Being denied treatment and identity, that hurt.
I'm sorry this just really upsets me. I can still remember seeing the angels of death and despair circling in their eyes. I can still remember them recounting the names of those they had lost to suicide since the war. And I remember their pain. I have failed to do them justice here and I'm sorry for that.
I remember one of them telling me about the choice to do a second tour. A choice that was based on the fact that his being older and more experienced might mean that one less young man died. I remember him telling me of trying to explain this to his wife and children, and how they could never understand that choice - how no-one could ever understand any of it, unless they'd been there - been faced with those terrible choices.
I remember them both with so much pride - Lest We Forget.
You should be very proud of your Grandfather (I think it was) special, his strength and courage live on in you. It's people like you who CAN change the world.
Posted by Declan on March 30, 2006, at 19:11:40
In reply to Re: Freedom ***Trigger*** » special_k, posted by Damos on March 30, 2006, at 15:26:28
So Damos, that happened to them? They were spat on in the streets and called babykillers? The reason I ask is that I've heard both that this happened and that it is a myth. Apart fom whether it actually happened in Australia or not, the tenor of the times may have been enough to make them feel like that. I never heard of it myself. Blood thrown over the stockexchange I remember. There was the strike that prevented Christmas mail deliveries to the troops in Vietnam. Burning of flags, of course, victory to the Vietcong ditto.
If you have to fight in a war, it might help the way you feel about it after to have a coherant and believable story about the war. Maybe.
Declan
Posted by special_k on March 30, 2006, at 19:32:14
In reply to Re: Freedom ***Trigger*** » Damos, posted by Declan on March 30, 2006, at 19:11:40
i imagine people fight because they believe it is justified.
i imagine people feel proud of people who fight because they believe it is justified.to have the justification undermined / ripped away must be very painful indeed when you (or people you know) have risked their lives (or given their lives) to 'the cause'.
i don't know about the reception the vietnam soldiers got.
my only contact... is in reading "the things they carried" and there the emphasis was on the justification being ripped away (and i guess the point that the justification didn't count for sh*t at the time really because the usual rules didn't apply...)
i guess it is hard when there is a lot of personal stuff at stake.
my concern is that
IMHO
it is better to come to believe war isn't justified than to keep supporting people you care about going... to keep going... to keep on killing innocent civilians.
i mean...
dropping two nuclear bombs put an end to WWII
was it worth it?
depends on where you live maybe...
many japanese civilians...
many descendents are still feeling the effects of that...peaceful means...
i don't think we do that properly :-(
laws were set in place after WWII so that if anybody started doing some of the things Hitler was doing before / during the war then people would be able to move in faster (to apprehend them and try them in a court of law i like to think).
the UN... I don't know too much about them...
but i figure they are the most global organisation we have got.
and i thought... they werent' taken very seriously because they don't have troops / manpower of their own.
i don't understand why if people think it is time to move the troops in...
i don't understand why it isn't up to the UN.
and i don't understand why the UN doesn't get control of the people who wish to fight (i don't believe in compulsory draft i don't think anybody should be made to kill other people not even in self defence)i was a pacifist before i found out my grandfather was a pacifist.
i didn't really know anything about him until his funeral.
and what do you know... he had a masters degree in philosophy and theology...
amazing...
he was very embittered (and also getting on rather) from what i remember of him.
maybe we would have gotten on if i was older... or he was younger or something...
or maybe not.
hard to know.
but rather freaky for me to find points of contact with my ansestors. yuk. or something...
grandfather on my mothers side...
Posted by Damos on March 30, 2006, at 20:28:02
In reply to Re: Freedom ***Trigger*** » Damos, posted by Declan on March 30, 2006, at 19:11:40
Sadly both have passed away, one to cancer and the other a heart attack. Did it really happen, or did they just need to believe it did, I honestly can't say. They believed it did. Sad either way, just so very sad. And like you I've heard both. Only being around 10 at the time we pulled out my 'actual' memories of the times aren't that great.
Posted by Declan on March 30, 2006, at 23:38:56
In reply to Re: Freedom ***Trigger*** » Declan, posted by Damos on March 30, 2006, at 20:28:02
It's interesting to reflect on those times and the particularly uncomfortable position they were in. Cynically used by the government, and assigned a particular place in the youth culture thing that they may have preferred not to have. We're very tribal.
Declan
Posted by Dr. Bob on April 3, 2006, at 14:21:08
In reply to Re: please rephrase that » Dr. Bob, posted by special_k on March 28, 2006, at 23:44:36
Posted by Dr. Bob on April 3, 2006, at 14:21:12
In reply to Re: Here is another view...long but worth reading... » wildcard11, posted by tealady on March 29, 2006, at 15:11:15
> The answer Is NOT to put yourself above the conventions for war. The answer is NOT to rename the invasion as "not a war but unasked for "help"."
Please respect the views of others and be sensitive to their feelings. Instead of saying what you think the answer isn't, how about saying what you think it is?
But please don't take this personally, this doesn't mean I don't like you or think you're a bad person.
If you or others have questions about this or about posting policies in general, or are interested in alternative ways of expressing yourself, please see the FAQ:
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faq.html#civil
Follow-ups regarding these issues should be redirected to Psycho-Babble Administration. They, as well as replies to the above post, should of course themselves be civil.
Thanks,
Bob
Posted by TexasChic on April 13, 2006, at 18:55:04
In reply to Re: please rephrase that » Dr. Bob, posted by special_k on March 28, 2006, at 23:44:36
> Then how come the US gets to override the wishes of the majority of citizens in the world?
> So I am wondering just what kind of democracy it is that the US is into... Because I don't understand.I don't completely understand myself, but if the majority rules, we would still have segregated schools.
-T
Posted by special_k on April 14, 2006, at 20:25:18
In reply to If the majority ruled... » special_k, posted by TexasChic on April 13, 2006, at 18:55:04
> I don't completely understand myself, but if the majority rules, we would still have segregated schools.
Really?
I guess it depends on how you do the stats...
I mean...Depending on where you live...
You don't count for one.
(Some count for more some count for less)
Because of electorates and stuff eh.
What do you mean by segregated? Do you mean segregated by race or by socioeconomic class? I'm assuming you mean the former.
Do you mean in the US
Or in the world?
Posted by TexasChic on April 16, 2006, at 16:32:29
In reply to Re: If the majority ruled... » TexasChic, posted by special_k on April 14, 2006, at 20:25:18
> What do you mean by segregated? Do you mean segregated by race or by socioeconomic class? I'm assuming you mean the former.
I was referring to the racial segragation of schools in the US, and how most people didn't want the schools desegregated. As for stats, I'm just saying stuff I've heard. I guess I should check things out before I start blabbing on this board.
> Do you mean in the US
>
> Or in the world?You mean there's more to the world than the US??? Just kidding. I guess I momentarily forgot the world doesn't revolve around ME. Sorry about that.
-T
Posted by capricorn on April 30, 2006, at 21:52:18
In reply to Here is another view...long but worth reading..., posted by wildcard11 on March 28, 2006, at 21:41:57
>
> I pass this on because sometimes we just forget. This is a good one!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Steven R Chandler, CMSgt
> > 332 ELRS/Vehicle Management
> > Flight Balad Air Base, Iraq
> >
> > The other day, my nine year old son wanted to know why we were at
> > war...My husband looked at our son and then looked at me. My husband and
> > I were in the Army during the Gulf War and we would be honored to serve
> > and defend our Country again today. I knew that my husband would give him
> > a good explanation. My husband thought for a few minutes and then told my
> > son to go stand in our front living room window.
> >
> > He said "Son, stand there and tell me what you see?"
> >
> > "I see trees and cars and our neighbor's houses." he replied.
> >
> > "OK, now I want you to pretend that our house and our yard is the United
> > States of America and you are President Bush."
> >
> > Our son giggled and said "OK."
> >
> > "Now son, I want you to look out the window and pretend that every house
> > and yard on this block is a different country" my husband said.
Reading that made me want to throw up. As does the whole 'America-guardian of democracy' BS.Look at the way Bush and his barmy bunch of right wing barbarians insist on p**ing all over democracy with their anti Chavez stance or the way America p*ssed all over a democratically elected left wing government in Nicaragua.
Posted by gardenergirl on April 30, 2006, at 22:38:21
In reply to Re: Here is another view...long but worth reading., posted by capricorn on April 30, 2006, at 21:52:18
> Reading that made me want to throw up. As does the whole 'America-guardian of democracy' BS.
>
> bunch of right wing barbarians insist on p**ing all over democracyPlease be sensitive to and respect the feelings of others who may hold different opinions than you. Different points of view are fine, and in fact encouraged, but your freedom of speech is limited here. It can be therapeutic to express yourself, but this isn't necessarily the place.
If you or others have questions about this or about posting policies in general, or are interested in alternative ways of expressing yourself, please see the FAQ:
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faq.html#civilFollow-ups regarding these issues should be directed to Admin and should of course be civil. Dr. Bob has oversight over deputy decisions, and he may choose a different action.
Regards,
Deputy gg
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