miketheidiot
Lifer
You're an embarrassing hypocrite as well.
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A Young Marine (the real McCoy) Speaks Out
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You're an embarrassing hypocrite as well.
miketheidiot
Lifer
Yes because knowing how the world works is beyond the grasp of liberals and communications majors. And only illiterate idiots join the military.
Is that a good summary of your post?
By the way, although I don't condone THIS "letter" posting any more than I liked ProfJohn's thread, I will note that the tone of the people who DON'T like this letter is quite a bit different than ProfJohn's pro war thread. The pro-war folks attacking this anti-war letter seem to be WAY more vicious and nasty than the anti-war folks attacking the other letter. For example, ProfJohn's thread was full of people objecting to the points raised by the letter, or calling into question the validity of one man's point of view in characterizing the whole war...while THIS thread is full of people calling the writer anti-American. Boy, you conservatives sure know how to argue :roll:
Bowfinger
Lifer
Correction, it is almost as stupid. The difference in this case is that the source is credited and there is some circumstantial evidence that the person named could, in fact, be a Marine. It is far from conclusive evidence to be sure ... but it's more than we have for ProfJohn's "letter".
That said, as I pointed out in the other thread, it is still only one person's opinion. I'm sure one can find a full spectrum of opinions among our personnel in Iraq. They prove nothing.
🙂
Fair enough, as that was my objection to ProfJohn's letter in the first place. It was posted like the opinion of that one person was all the proof you could ever need that ProfJohn is right...but like you said, I'm guessing that if you take 5 Marines or soldiers at random and ask them for their opinion on Iraq, you'd get five different opinions on the subject, none of them fitting into the nice little "pro-war" or "anti-war" boxes people like ProfJohn have constructed.
And that's what REALLY bugs me about these kinds of threads. It isn't about letting the opinion of the soldiers be heard, it's about treating the soldiers like some sort of cheap prop for your viewpoint. Neither of the threads have made any attempt to find out what soldiers REALLY think, they just searched until they found an opinion that could be squished into their ideological framework. Maybe it's just me, but this seems pretty disrespectful to the soldiers (and pretty hypocritical of the righties, since "support the troops" is like their battle cry). It's treating them like cheap supporting arguments who don't really have any opinions of their own, they just exist to allow you to bolster your otherwise weak arguments with "but the soldier agrees with me!".
blackllotus
Golden Member
Its not anti-American its anti-Iraq War. A true patriot tries to do what is best for the country regardless of what the government thinks. A Democrat can be just as much of a patriot as a Republican just like a liberal can be just as much of a patriot as a conservative.
QFT. Just because it was written by a soldier does not make the points any more valid than if it was written by a civilian.
ProfJohn
Lifer
What you found is interesting.
However as was pointed out there is NO Philip Martin serving at 29 palms, as the letter states. There are other Philip Martin?s in the Marines, and the blog I got my info from named where they were station. So most likely the Philip Martin in the story you link is one of those.
ProfJohn
Lifer
The letter I posted was filled with some interesting facts and was very light on the propaganda. I posted it not just as a pro-war statement, but because of the interesting details contained in the letter. (Chechen?s, shaped IEDs pained like blocks etc.)
This letter is 100% different. It has NO facts about what life in Iraq is about and is nothing by anti-American propaganda.
It is NOT anti-war propaganda as blacklottus and others want to believe.
Let me quote a few lines, tell me what they have to do with the war and being against the war:
Sure this guy is against the war, but he is against everything Bush had ever done. And yet he joined AFTER the war started. What is wrong with him?
Perhaps this is a real letter written by someone disillusioned by the war. If that is true though then his thoughts and word usage have been seriously effected by web sites such as lewrockwell.com. This is not your typical anti-war letter. This is an anti-American/anti-Bush letter.
That is why those of us on the right are so upset about it. You want to oppose the war, fine that is your right. But when you start calling our leaders fascists and comparing them to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia then there is a problem.
This letter is 100% different. It has NO facts about what life in Iraq is about and is nothing by anti-American propaganda.
It is NOT anti-war propaganda as blacklottus and others want to believe.
Let me quote a few lines, tell me what they have to do with the war and being against the war:
This is so far beyond any anti-war letter I have ever seen. This guy launches a constant attack on Bush and the country. (Must be why so many people on left love the letter.)
Sure this guy is against the war, but he is against everything Bush had ever done. And yet he joined AFTER the war started. What is wrong with him?
Perhaps this is a real letter written by someone disillusioned by the war. If that is true though then his thoughts and word usage have been seriously effected by web sites such as lewrockwell.com. This is not your typical anti-war letter. This is an anti-American/anti-Bush letter.
That is why those of us on the right are so upset about it. You want to oppose the war, fine that is your right. But when you start calling our leaders fascists and comparing them to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia then there is a problem.
ProfJohn
Lifer
Last post on this topic for a while
Found a nice piece about lewrockwell.com
Recommend it for anyone who wants to see just where this letter comes from.
link
Here are a few choice quotes from lewrockwell.com that are linked to in this article.
About the US government ?We are talking about the greatest centralized power on the globe, the world's largest, most well-armed, and most dangerous government, the only government to have ever used nuclear weapons against civilians and the government that has invaded more countries than any other in modern times,?
and
?Americans need to face the reality that most of the world sees our nation as the new evil empire, and many people in the Gulf region are dedicated to making sure that the Iraq War is the last hurrah for American militarism,?
under a picture of a burnt our German panzer next to an American m-1 "A toast to the defeat of the evil empire - A prayer for the poor fallen souls."
As I said, not ant-war, but Anti-American.
Found a nice piece about lewrockwell.com
Recommend it for anyone who wants to see just where this letter comes from.
link
Here are a few choice quotes from lewrockwell.com that are linked to in this article.
About the US government ?We are talking about the greatest centralized power on the globe, the world's largest, most well-armed, and most dangerous government, the only government to have ever used nuclear weapons against civilians and the government that has invaded more countries than any other in modern times,?
and
?Americans need to face the reality that most of the world sees our nation as the new evil empire, and many people in the Gulf region are dedicated to making sure that the Iraq War is the last hurrah for American militarism,?
under a picture of a burnt our German panzer next to an American m-1 "A toast to the defeat of the evil empire - A prayer for the poor fallen souls."
As I said, not ant-war, but Anti-American.
ProfJohn
Lifer
The quotes I posted are from lewrockwell.com itself. Call it a smear article all you want, but the quotes are there on his site and you can click through to see the actual quotes in context.
I am not posting some article that says "Lew's a nut job" I am posted actual source from Lew himself (or his website) Easy to discredit an extreme partisan website, much hard to explain away actual quotes.
Jeff7
Lifer
I have a feeling that we're going to hear letters from both ends of the political spectrum from soldiers in Iraq. They're Americans, and Americans are pretty evenly divided in terms of political affiliation. It stands to reason that a survey of those in the military would show a similar distribution. And each time one comes out in praise of the war, the Right says, "See? The war is just!" and the Left says, "The letter is a fabrication!". When one comes out against the war, it flip-flops. The Right calls it a fabrication, while the Left says, "See how unjust it is? Bring our people home!"
Vic
Elite Member
What is inaccurate about the quotes?
?We are talking about the greatest centralized power on the globe, the world's largest, most well-armed, and most dangerous government, the only government to have ever used nuclear weapons against civilians and the government that has invaded more countries than any other in modern times,? -- all true.
?Americans need to face the reality that most of the world sees our nation as the new evil empire, and many people in the Gulf region are dedicated to making sure that the Iraq War is the last hurrah for American militarism,? -- true.
I don't agree entirely with Rockwell, particularly his recent alliance with the far left, nor with his support of anarchism, but his opinion of the Bush administration is well-substantiated. Don't let these leftists here on P&N keep you on the defense so much that you miss just how much Bush has betrayed you as a conservative. It's not a stretch to call the Bush administration fascist.
miketheidiot
Lifer
You don't know what anti-american means.
umbrella39
Lifer
All he needs to do is look in the mirror to see what that looks like. No BS.
BMW540I6speed
Golden Member
Vic said:
Indeed...almost "cult-like" thinking from both...
What they are doing is a form of footsoldier "battle" in the war of ideas. They are fighting for an "ideal" which in their mind trumps all need to stick to facts and argument and coherence built out of logic and cause-and-effect thinking.
In other words, they are fighting a war. A war against "weak minds." Weak minds are those of us who believe in cause and effect, who think before we act, who change our thinking when new facts come to light. In short "weak minds" are those who can't see the glorious bigger picture of "cultlike" devotion.
People keep trying to point out that they're "wrong" but these people are using a measuring stick they don't understand. Actually it's even worse, they understand it but reject it.
Their minds are in service to the larger good. Ours are not. Theirs are "clear" (ex: Laura Bush's "beautiful mind" comment), ours are "muddied."
Whether or not they're wrong on a specific issue is secondary to their undying fealty to the dedicated mindset for the larger good. Once people understand that by being "wrong" they're actually demonstrating the level of mental dedication needed for the "larger good" (undying mental dedication to the "cause"), then and only then will you understand how they continue to gain media platform.
They see themselves as intellectual footsoldiers. Must as in "1984," the ability to control one's own mind was the greatest virtue in service of the state, so too do these examples of "wrongness" not only not embarrass or shame them, they actually IMPROVE their standing as proof positive of just how mentally subservient they actually are.
Those absolutes of pride and victory override the need for facts and other such inconveniences. The truth is that in order to admit that any of their thinking was wrong would mean that an evalutation of ALL their thinking would take place. To break any little brick could make the whole wall crumble, their world collapse.
The right and extreme leftists are not interested in the truth, and so their statements should be left unchallenged. So just pointing out their factual problems wasn't enough to challenge them.
Indeed...almost "cult-like" thinking from both...
What they are doing is a form of footsoldier "battle" in the war of ideas. They are fighting for an "ideal" which in their mind trumps all need to stick to facts and argument and coherence built out of logic and cause-and-effect thinking.
In other words, they are fighting a war. A war against "weak minds." Weak minds are those of us who believe in cause and effect, who think before we act, who change our thinking when new facts come to light. In short "weak minds" are those who can't see the glorious bigger picture of "cultlike" devotion.
People keep trying to point out that they're "wrong" but these people are using a measuring stick they don't understand. Actually it's even worse, they understand it but reject it.
Their minds are in service to the larger good. Ours are not. Theirs are "clear" (ex: Laura Bush's "beautiful mind" comment), ours are "muddied."
Whether or not they're wrong on a specific issue is secondary to their undying fealty to the dedicated mindset for the larger good. Once people understand that by being "wrong" they're actually demonstrating the level of mental dedication needed for the "larger good" (undying mental dedication to the "cause"), then and only then will you understand how they continue to gain media platform.
They see themselves as intellectual footsoldiers. Must as in "1984," the ability to control one's own mind was the greatest virtue in service of the state, so too do these examples of "wrongness" not only not embarrass or shame them, they actually IMPROVE their standing as proof positive of just how mentally subservient they actually are.
Those absolutes of pride and victory override the need for facts and other such inconveniences. The truth is that in order to admit that any of their thinking was wrong would mean that an evalutation of ALL their thinking would take place. To break any little brick could make the whole wall crumble, their world collapse.
The right and extreme leftists are not interested in the truth, and so their statements should be left unchallenged. So just pointing out their factual problems wasn't enough to challenge them.
ProfJohn
Lifer
You must have missed the swing to the left the website took since the Iraq war started.
Unless I missed the news that Cindy Sheehan is a libertarian/paleoconservative.
How about Lew's embrace of left in this passage:
"I used to complain about the universities and their indoctrination of students in leftist theory. But these days, one has to be grateful that there are at least some pockets of resistance remaining."
This is what Lew wants for America:
"Just to cite one case, the preachers and religious leaders who spoke out prior to the American Revolution were knowledgeable of and friendly toward the liberal tradition. They cited Locke as freely as they cited the Bible. Americans of all classes resented the smallest intrusions on liberty and property as tyranny itself. After the revolution, we enjoyed some 10 blissful years of near-anarchy under the Articles of Confederation. "
Lew wants nearly NO government of any kind. You think the Katrina response was bad under our current government? Under a Lew Rockwell government the people of NO would be left to fend for themselves. War breaks out in the Middle East killing millions, oh well, not our problem.
Leaders like Lew are a reason the libertarian movement is not more prevalent. Hard to get behind a movement when it believes in such crazy pie in the sky ideas.
BMW540I6speed
Golden Member
Another point to ponder is:
Being wrong isn't incidental to their cause, it is ESSENTIAL.
In other words, they have to be wrong without wavering as a form of masculine intellectual fealty pissing contest.
By holding to wrongness, they are demonstrating a macro dedication to "the cause" and therefore to a larger "rightness" (no pun intended). The wrongness is proof positive of their willingness to self delude to serve the larger clarity of intellectual purity and ideal submission.
It is the same in any cult.
You observe merely that they post arguments and/or argue facts which are then proven wrong and they simply ignore the fact they were wrong. It is much sinister then this. They embrace it as a scarlet letter of "Otherness", as a method of proving worthiness for inclusion into the club of the "true believers."
Like any cult, admission requires the purest of fealty, the ability to, as Orwell observed, simply, clearly and coherently state that two plus two equals five. Without being able to achieve this mental leap, they are exluded. Excluded from financing, from book club sales, from talk show appearances and from their privileged life.
You ask why they aren't bothered by being wrong?
Because being wrong proves them worthy. It demonstrates utter devotion and submission. It signifies the secret handshake that you mistake for simply a "mistake."
It's no mistake. It's quite intentional.
However, "sometimes", the movement doesn't think in categories of "correct/right" or "incorrect/wrong."
They don't think at all.
Rather than thinking about the world, they experience it -- and, they experience it in primitive ways. And their primitive experiences are then translated into the categories of faith or apostasy (or, as Bush is prone to say, good and evil).
Thus, any factual, judgmental, or analytic error they make is merely a test of faith, not an error to be reconsidered or rectified. Hence, Bush talks about his numerous mistakes in Iraq, and their consequences, in terms of renewed "will" or "staying the course," as if his errors are an issue for our faith.
Being wrong isn't incidental to their cause, it is ESSENTIAL.
In other words, they have to be wrong without wavering as a form of masculine intellectual fealty pissing contest.
By holding to wrongness, they are demonstrating a macro dedication to "the cause" and therefore to a larger "rightness" (no pun intended). The wrongness is proof positive of their willingness to self delude to serve the larger clarity of intellectual purity and ideal submission.
It is the same in any cult.
You observe merely that they post arguments and/or argue facts which are then proven wrong and they simply ignore the fact they were wrong. It is much sinister then this. They embrace it as a scarlet letter of "Otherness", as a method of proving worthiness for inclusion into the club of the "true believers."
Like any cult, admission requires the purest of fealty, the ability to, as Orwell observed, simply, clearly and coherently state that two plus two equals five. Without being able to achieve this mental leap, they are exluded. Excluded from financing, from book club sales, from talk show appearances and from their privileged life.
You ask why they aren't bothered by being wrong?
Because being wrong proves them worthy. It demonstrates utter devotion and submission. It signifies the secret handshake that you mistake for simply a "mistake."
It's no mistake. It's quite intentional.
However, "sometimes", the movement doesn't think in categories of "correct/right" or "incorrect/wrong."
They don't think at all.
Rather than thinking about the world, they experience it -- and, they experience it in primitive ways. And their primitive experiences are then translated into the categories of faith or apostasy (or, as Bush is prone to say, good and evil).
Thus, any factual, judgmental, or analytic error they make is merely a test of faith, not an error to be reconsidered or rectified. Hence, Bush talks about his numerous mistakes in Iraq, and their consequences, in terms of renewed "will" or "staying the course," as if his errors are an issue for our faith.
dahunan
Lifer
What is wrong with his quotes?
Was he lying? Who cares if America kills 70,000 - 100,000 Iraqis if we just label it war then all is good.. right?
Why can't we use our power to spread light instead of darkness?
Anyone who wasn't earning profits from the defense industry would tell you that Iraq would turn into a bloodbath like it is today.. yet you think we are the bringers of light and peace and all that is good with the world
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