Support The Troops?

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I’d like to – and would – if “the troops” were actually defending “our freedoms” – rather than stomping the freedoms of people across the globe. Us included, I hasten to add. Because you can’t expect “the troops” who brutalize people abroad to not come home and abuse the people here. The mindset – and the precedents set – cannot be compartmentalized. Brutality – contempt for other human beings – cannot be turned off and on. The transformation of Andy Griffith into Officer 82nd Airborne is no random happenstance.

It has happened for a reason.

The casual bloodlust of the average American – safely cocooned in front of his TeeVee (probably watching fuuuuuuhhhhhhhtttttball) also has consequences. Osama was right. You send troops to other people’s countries, topple their leaders, drop bombs on them from afar. It tends to annoy those people. Some will try to hit back. We call it “terrorism.” Just as the British of King George III’s era called the insurrectionist colonists who dared to fight back “terrorists.” Just as Reinhard Heydrich’s SD thugs called the partisans in the occupied east a few generations later. Just as we – “we” being the comfortable couch potatoes watching “the game” – call anyone who dares object to the American Imperium – and its imperial storm troopers.

No one wants to hear this, of course.

The troops are “fightin’ fer freedom,” god bless ’em. Just exactly as the legions of the Wehrmacht had belt buckles stamped Gott mit uns – and fought for freiheit, too. Or so they were told.

As we are told today.

The problem is one of separating sympathy for the idealistic kid from StumpJump, West Virginia from revulsion at what the kid from StumpJump, West Virginia, will do in my name. With my tax dollars.

I don’t want the kid to have his legs blown off. But I also do not want him to blow the legs off people in far-away lands who have done me no wrong – and done the kid no wrong, either. When he does so anyhow – I am complicit. As are we all. Because we cheer – and we pay. We “support the troops” – by paying the taxes that make it possible for the troops to do their thing. Such as this thing, for instance.

At the very least, we can have the good manners not to cheer. We might even try objecting. Or perhaps at the very least, questioning.

If not, we should not be surprised when our turn comes. Which it will. Has, in fact. Already, we are treated not much different than Iraqi and Afghan peons by buzz cut – and probably recently discharged – Officer 82nd Airborne (ret.). Do anything less than Submit and Obey – immediately – and you know what comes next. “Freeze” drills at the airport. The Holocaust Shuffle.

We face a government headed by a sort of elected Fuhrer, who issues befehls – increasingly, without even the pretense of “democratic” process. The rule of law is null and void.

Force rules.

I once saw a taped interview with Arthur Harris. Bomber Arthur Harris. The man who firebombed Dresden and other German cities. Not for the purposes of achieving any military objective. But specifically for purposes of terror and revenge. To inflict horrors on the ordinary Germans who gave their assent to Der Fuhrer. To make them suffer. He once said openly: “The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”

And, I fear, so shall we. Like this, for instance. And much worse besides.

If, that is, we continue to Support the Troops…

Throw it in the Woods?

468 COMMENTS

  1. After all as much as you don’t think so, I’m on your side. And if an asshole (to use one of your nicknames for me), like me can do it so can others.
    But I also have a bolt hole in case things get real bad. Food , water, ammo etc. this may last a long time.

    • I think most of us adhere to the Swiss redoubt principle. Like the prolific rabbit, I will outlast all those wolves and lemmmings under most scenarios. Military garb, Islam garb, all group force chimpanzee idiocy is useless when SHTF. Howling at old glory or under the golden onion dome is all the same to me.

      Yesterday was raghead new year. Happy 1st of Musharram in the 1434 year of Mo the magnnificent from Mecca. Next Saturday is the day of ashura, where 1.6 billion collectivists celebrate Moses crossing the Red Sea and escaping Pharoah. 1.9 billion christian collectivists want to kill these other monkeys because they ascend the ladder to banana heaven the wrong way.

      If you’re looking for validation because you have a purple heart in napalm laced feces throwing at the other team of monkeys who march for Muhammed, you’re in for a long wait.

      When I hear stories of wounded Texas warmongers being mowed down by trains during the monkey army high holy days, it brings to mind nothing more than karma, going around and coming around, and meh – what a waste of your short time on this earth.

      Distemper vidalia squids pro quo sin non!

      • Those guys got killed on a rail crossing in my old former home town. I’ve driven over that crossing countless times and can’t for the life of me understand how they could have been hit. Unless the trailer was too low and got stuck, in which case the oncoming train was probably expecting them to get the hell out of the way but that never happened so they hit the brakes too late. The bitter irony was that these were wounded vets who now got shuttled off this mortal coil through utter stupidity. Karma? Quite possibly.

        • I poke at a hornets nest, because there is nothing of value there. These old drones produced no honey. The elderly should be a great resource for us, but instead we are asked to idolize the worst of the greatest generation.

          I haved watched 100s of pre 1934 movies with reverence and awe. The world as it once was with no idolization of churches government police and soldiers.
          What happened to those old-timers?
          I have a picture of my Grandma sitting on a piano in flapper attire always in my heart. I will never forget her teaching me how to “speak easily” and that she will always be my special palsy walsy. Jazz, hooch, model A- model Z Henry Ford’s Michigan Carnegie steel Rockefeller Gas Vanderbilt trains American industrial know how I will celebrate not the Goose step Gunverment fucks who hijacked it all. Into a Bad Day at Black Rock Mexican Standoff of who gets to swing at the businessman pinata first.

          There was 30 solid years of Yankee Doodle Douchebaggery with not much to show for it, certainly not something worth marching at a gman gay pride parade about. What the hell are those fags and foxhole cornhole flaggits so proud about anyway?Who listens to J P Sousa without a Ruger pointed at their cerebellum?

          I can hardly stand the sight of the bloated round pumpkin head babbits that drop at the local bovine hospitals of schlub blurbia now. How did we become Newt Gangrenewich Rush Limburghean surpluss cheddar heads in such a short span of time?

          • Tor, great stuff. You make me laugh and think all at the same time. I’m sure that’s a federal felony by now. “We” the sheeple became Newt Gangrenewich Rush Limburghean surplus(s) cheddar heads thanks to publik skule, popular media and “basic training” to lightly scratch at the surface of the problem. Then there was mom & dad, apple pie, Chevrolet and the USMC all telling us to stand at attention, salute the rag, swear allegiance to the transnational thieves and march off to have our legs blown off by people who don’t want us in their backyards to begin with. And the vast majority, made up of the archetypical Boobus Americanus (with an emphasis on the ‘anus’ part), with their Prussian school lobotomies fully incised, believe the lie, march off into the meat grinder or a least wave the rag and cheer the others on that do. But it’s okay because they’re doing it “for the children”, so they have the approval of their own collective conscience. It kind of makes the thinking man feel warm all over…like Willy Peter and Napalm would.

          • Tor you have an amazing mind!

            You still haven’t told me how you know Afrikaans by the way; I don’t remember if you told me you were also South African. I know Ned Ludd is.

            How do you write like that? Does it take a lot of conscious effort or do you just go glassy-eyed and channel a tripped-out muse?

            I don’t care. It’s great to read and it’s a gift; glad you share it with us.

          • Tor, The bulk of the people who are old now grew up government schooled and FDR brain washed. The generation you’re looking for would be over a 100 years old now.

            But ever consider that you are them? It is getting far afield but I wonder if familiarity with things from long before one was born indicate a past life on this rock.

            As to some of the names you mentioned, they brought about the present condition. Ford rejected much of the company town, keep ’em down notions but much of the rest… well we have them to thank for this. This is the government they (and others) created.

    • @gray man:

      As much as you piss me off, this battle is bigger than either of our egos.

      Yeah–it’s THAT big.

      And I’ll tell you something: when they start filling the FEMA camps, when the black vans start rolling in earnest, I’ll have your back if you have mine.

      We can sort out the details when we win the Republic back.

      Maybe a better time for us to argue philosophy is while we’re collecting our brass in the aftermath.

      Right now is the time for everyone who hates the New World Order and its smarmy, chicken-necked pedophile shit-headed demon-faced minions to stand together and ward off the unspeakable evil that’s occupying this once-fine Republic.

      • Agreed. We stand together, but as individuals. Not Rush Limbaugh dittoheads, norSavage nationeers, GleenBeckies, Drudge Reporters, or Bill O’Reileyers. Occupy, Tea Party, Ron Paul, are better, but may not be broad and flexible enough.

        If we met on a vast field, would we form multiacre clocks, Left libertarians at 1 O clock. Anarcho Christians at 6 o clock. Libertarian Defensive Forces at 12 O Clock high?

        How do we simply communicate our Darwinian niche, Echelon, and Voluntaryist preferences. A four digit IndividalistProtocol number that we self-assign?

        We can assign ourselves an IRL for real space.I am Tor Munkov ANarcho Surrealist with Infinite Tolerance. Maybe I am 95% libertarian identifiable but only 15% galt gulch neighbor material. Whereas Gray Man scores only 12% libertarian identity but 85% good galt gulch neighbor.

        We should be East Asian blunt and candid with ourselves and where we fit in so we don’t fall prey to agent provocateurs and emotive idealism when the SHTFocaust really starts blitzen past the kriegsministers.

  2. lbernsl,
    I’m talking about the groups of people as a whole, you may have some tricks and I’m sure other people may too, however military people also have tricks. You don’t learn to hunt down terrorists without learning a trick or two yourselves, and everything learned in Viet Nam, the Philippines, Northern Ireland, are all known by the military, and it’s just a matter of logistics. They can afford to chase you forever, can you run forever? The American Indians learned that.
    All I’m saying is you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
    It’s much better to Say “Hi, Bob” to the local law enforcement who knows you, and is possibly your friend, then to take a buttstroke in the mouth, from some thug who doesn’t know you.
    That is simple strategy that needs to be implemented now.
    Remember, if the military is as bad, or becomes as bad as you think it is or will be. It’s better to have them on your side. By doing that now a lot of the scenarios you envision may very well be avoided.

    • Gray,

      I doubt many of these people will be on our side, should the worst come to pass. In the first place, most are already authoritarian-minded (and violent). In the second, they have been conditioned to Submit and Obey. (Ironic, eh?) In the third, they will remember who butters their bread.

      Let me ask you a hard question.

      If it came down to it, would you use force to compel others to hand over their money so that your benefits would continue to flow?

  3. first: I gave what I received, If you didn’t like it then you should have stopped giving it to me.
    second: I don’t need you telling me about what I get to write or not write to Eric, he’s a grown man if he wants to reply to me he will, you just mind your own business.
    third: I don’t give a crap how long you’ve been active on this website, it’s open to the public, therefor I get to post my opinion on it. If you don’t like it tough.
    Are you one of those “libertarians” that are so full of baloney? You get to yap off all you want, where ever you want, but someone disagrees, I have to shut up or listen to you thinking you are my mother or something?
    I offered advice how to win people like me over, you seem to think you can win this battle without people like me – your fooling yourself.
    All I heard on this blog was how people like me are the scourge of modern society, well sister, if people like me are the scourge of society, you damn sure beter get us on your side. Because if not you won’t stand a chance.
    So mind your own business when I’m talking to someone specific, unless you want to contribute something meaningful.

    • @gray man:

      You can’t be “won over”–you don’t know how to listen, you can’t reason and form a new opinion.

      You want people to kiss your ass because you “served”–and if they don’t you go on a tantrum like a spoiled five-year-old.

      You know who I want on my side to fight the tyranny? Real military patriots who can THINK and have principles like Adam Kokesh, Bradley Manning, Stewart Rhodes (Oathkeepers), Smedley Butler, and Pat Tillman.

      You haven’t shown strength or honor–just a loud mouth and nasty temper.

      • [gray man] can’t be “won over”–[he] do[es]n’t know how to listen, [he] can’t reason and form a new opinion.

        Contemporary Amerika in a one-man nutshell.

        • Thanks Boothe–I didn’t know about him.

          I bet there are dozens or hundreds like him–in fact, there should be tens of thousands now that Panetta and his gaggle of owned generals have declared the US forces officially under UN command.

          Where are they? Why aren’t they refusing un-Constitutional orders?

          Alex Jones reckons there’s a massive awakening in the military and police. I hope like hell he’s right.

          One point gray man made that struck a chord with me: he’s right that we need to proselytize the military and police. I make a point of engaging cops at the supermarket, off-duty guys working at the bank, etc.

          I’ve been handing them copies of the Infowars newspaper; it’s a good primer, well thought out and well-written. It’s nice to have something to hand people that’s not a URL.

          You can buy them here.

  4. America is ruled by Quran Surah/verse 9 Ayat/verse 5.

    ….slay the idolators wherever you find them. Arrest them. Beseige them and lie in ambush everywhere for them…if they pay the alms levy, allow them to go on their way…

  5. Eric,
    My day is over. I’m going to bed. Goodnight.
    I am truly sorry for the incivility displaid by both sides here today.
    Perhaps we can have a discussion another day, perhaps it may have to be with a different subject mater.
    I wish you well, keep putting out your message.
    If you do ever want to physically stand up against the overbearing, write an article on it.
    Tell where and when and if it is my power I will be there to help you.
    But please lets stick with specifics, not generalities.
    Gray man

    • Grayman, familiarize yourself with Grand Jury Presentment* Power. Informed Grand Juries could kick ass.

      tgsam

      *Fifth Amendment

    • Actually, I’ll probably get up early and read an article titled “85 MPH: Almost a Speed Limit” by somebody name Eric Peters.
      Now there is something we can agree 100% on.

      • Gray,

        Thanks – and, please stop to consider that if we agree on so many important things, perhaps I’m not entirely off base with regard to some of the observations I’ve made in re the military. I understand it is hard to separate out your personal experience of 20 years, to avoid getting defensive when an outsider criticizes an institution you respect. But try not to personalize it. Try to look at facts – and draw conclusions from them. Also, consider principles – as opposed to utilitarian arguments. Without principles, we have nothing. We certainly can’t defend a principle once we’ve conceded it by accepting an exception, or making an excuse, or euphemizing an affront to it.

        Examples:

        Aggressive violence is never right.
        Peaceful people have the right to be left in peace.
        Theft is theft.

        America is listing – and may capsize – because all too many of us have forgotten these principles. Or rejected them outright.

        • First one loses virtue, but one still has benevolence. When benevolence is lost, one still has righteous acts. When righteous acts cease, one resorts to expediency. Expediency leads to disorder, and disorder leads to ruin.

          Violnce, no matter how well intentioned, ends up rebounding against the one who initiates it.

          – Lao Tzu, first documented practitioner of libertarian principles, founder of the Tao and wu wei.

        • Eric there are a lot of things you are right on, I believe I acknowledged that many times on this blog. But let me give you some advice. This is your blog and I realize you are pandering to a certain segment of the population (which includes me, whether you like it or not), and you can do whatever you want to, but please listen to this advise.
          You chewed me out for my comment that this article and comment section was bullshit – I believe the term you used was “you’ve been warned”,you were right to chew me out, and I accepted that.
          And yet throughout this comment section you allowed other people to insult me left and right, including yourself. All you did was make me fight back. Another commenter even mentioned how bad I was being treated. Hint: that is not how you win people to your side. Wether you realize it or not you need people like me on your side. You think I’m scum but let me tell you something, this scum may save your life someday.
          Americans are no different in one aspect from anyone else, our capacity for violence – it’s human nature – And if you are not willing to do the dirty work of combat then you better have some people on your side who are willing and actually know what they are doing.
          If this country reaches a tipping point, the french revolution will seem like party games in comparison. Just look at the civil war. And no, I’m not calling it the war of “northern aggression” – you won’t win anybody to your side that way either.
          In this article you generalized about military people, things that were just not true for the vast majority of current military or past military. Can you find a few bad apples? Of course you can, I never said you couldn’t. But what you did was take a paint brush to a group of people that a huge portion of the population respect. And who respect themselves.
          You don’t know why people join the military, from your comments I can tell you’ve never been in the military, and quite possibly hate the military and the people who join it. You certainly showed no respect for it. That is not the way to win people to your side. People you need.
          You have a libertarian view point that most military people actually share with you. Not 100% percent, but most. But military people tend to be realists. They’ve spent too much time doing the dirty work that needs to be done, to be dreamers.
          You can win over these people, but not by insulting them or their profession. Take a hint from Ron Paul’s blunder, as soon as he opened his mouth and implied america deserved 9/11 he lost. That comment sounded too much like the tripe obummer and reverend Wright were selling. RP did not speak the truth on that one, and some of you bought into it. He also didn’t own a lot of what was said by people in his news letter years ago. It was his news letter, he was responsible for the content. Period.
          And last but not least he didn’t live up to his hype, did he accept government pork for his district? Your damn right he did, or he wouldn’t have been voted in over and over.
          If you believe the propaganda that most military people wanted RP you are fooling yourself.
          Most military people in service today know exactly why it happened, they’ve been surrounded by the culture of the middle east enough to know the truth.
          Having said all that, keep selling your message. But I would find a more inclusive way to do it. You need us on your side, and most of us have always been 90% there. We will probably never come the last 10% because the libertarian movement embraces some things most military people will never embrace. Military people are almost exclusively conservative, and from the Christian south, use that.
          God speed.

          • @gray man:

            Wait–now you adopt a conciliatory tone? After rampaging through an (established community) forum and calling people “asshole” and “dumass”, their posts “nonsense” and “bullshit”–

            and you offer advice on how to persuade and convince people??

            Many of us have been posting here for at least a year. We offer argument and ideas based on deep readings of current affairs, history, science, sociology, politics, and economics. There’s a lot to learn.

            We persuade with facts and ideas.

            Eric has thrown you multiple olive branches, and the best you can do is:
            “To convince me and others like me, you have to do it THIS way”?

            Man you’ve got nerve.

        • “Aggressive violence is never right.”
          most people actually don’t agree with that Eric, try telling that to your wife while she is being raped, in her case aggressive violence on her part is very justified.

          :Peaceful people have the right to be left in peace.”
          You do have a right to be left in peace, but passive people lose in the long run, because aggressive people don’t give a crap what your rights are. I believe that was the argument of your whole article.

          Theft is theft.
          I never denied that, but you need to redefine theft. Most people believe that some taxes are required in this country, the constitution makes it clear that the government can tax. It’s just a matter of the amount.

          • Gray man,

            In the case of the wife being raped:

            I would consider this to be a case of defensive violence if the wife fought back. The wife defending herself against a rapist.

          • “but passive people lose in the long run”

            You foolishly assume that everyone will be passive. I wouldn’t waste any more time with you (as in old dog, new tricks)

          • Gray man, a woman defending herself against rape is defensive, not aggressive, albeit violent, as it should be. But let’s say some crude and rather crass guy looks at her out in public and says “Hey baby, I think you’re hot. Want to get it on?” Rude? Yes. Violent? No. But she decides to start clubbing him, pepper spraying him or even pulls out a revolver and shoots him, without him ever even attempting to touch her. That would be aggressive violence. You seem to be a bit challenged on the use of the
            English language. Do you think maybe those opiates the VA gives you “for free” for your disability are affecting your ability to reason?

            Once again gray man, you claim to be a Christian in at least one of your posts. If so why don’t you believe that “The meek shall inherit the earth”? Granted, meek does not necessarily mean passive. But meek does mean that one does not live by the sword. And at present, our all volunteer mercenary standing army is doing just that.

            Do you honestly believe that somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 trillion dollars worth of lithium alone in “them thar hills” had no bearing on the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan? Or perhaps the U.S. military’s sudden involvement in “The Graveyard of Empires” was merely coincidental right after the Chinese bribed the Afghany minister of mines about $30 million for control of the Aynak copper deposits. Not to mention the iron, rare earths and gold (estimated at 20 – 24 metric tons!) waiting to be harvested.

            After all, these are a primitive people, with no infrastucture and a corrupt government, so all these natural resources are no good to them. It’s only logical that the U.S. government should send in the military to make it safe for the big international corporations to “develop” (i.e. steal) them from these “mountain tribesmen.” Oops…I’m sorry…that’s right…it’s the Taliban. I forgot. Give me a freakin’ break.

            You are either woefully misinformed or trying to incite trouble. I hope it’s the former.

  6. All things considered I find it impossible to compare Switzerland with the United States.

    *****

    “. . . testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and dedicated can long endure.” –A. Lincoln

    Sorry Abe but I think we’ve just about reached the end of the line. I can understand what holds Germans, Japanese, Russians and a few other People together, but Americans? I just don’t believe that Nationality alone can do it.

    Foxhole and Firefight brotherhood are pretty damned rare and shallow. Like Glory, they are rather fleeting.

    tgsam

  7. Gray man,

    You brought up Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” which covers much of what us anti-war people are talking about. It is a juvenile audience he was writing for about suffrage, civic virtue, and fascism.

    Officially, the war began when the Arachnids attack Buenos Airies, but later we learn we had been invading their home planet of Klendathu long before their response to our aggression. This attack against them didn’t count because they are soulless bugs unlike us virtuous humans.

    Ironically, Juan “Johnny” Rico is from the Phillipines, a site of American atrocities that we’re considered warranted because the Filipinos were godless heathens who didn’t count until they became a colony of our benevolent Christian empire.

    Heinlein advocates a militant society where you are not allowed to vote until you render national service. It is modelled on the model of the Confederation Helvetica (Switzerland [sic]). THE SIMILARITY OF OUR SOCIETY TO THE arachnid society is the moral of the story. In the end, no one grows any wiser, but rather sallys forth to find the next antagonistic group with which to engage in senseless combat with.

    Heinlein claims that letting everyone vote for whatever they want leads to societal decay. A fascist meritocracy is better, because the citizens remain grounded in reality and are forced to defend the anthill or be forced to try to survive with no help from the group.

    • Hi Tor,

      The Swiss confederation is arguably pretty laudatory in that it practices national defense and citizen soldiery – as opposed to national offense and Praetorian Guard militarism. The Swiss fiercely defend their territory against aggressors – but never commit aggression outside Swiss borders.

      What a contrast, eh?

      • They have full male conscription and voluntary force. Only 4200 professional soldiers. If you don’t join, you pay extra 3% tax.

        From 19 to age 42, basic soldiers keep a Sturmgewehr 90 assault rifle in their home in working condition. Officers keep a Pistole 75 pistol. Surrender weapon and uniform at age 43.

        America could implement this first in counties with less than 100,000 people and then move to more populous areas. I predict a huge drop in home based crimes. Neighbborhoods with armed men will become much more civil, you can bank on it.

        After a crime is reported, the neighborhood can take the wounded to HQ and hospital and fill out a report of what happened. AAlso get more ammo for future peacekeeping duties.

        • I don’t support conscription – however, the Swiss practice a relatively benign version.Their citizen-soldiery is just that: a citizens’ militia. And it exist for purely defensive purposes.

          The U.S. military is a mercenary force, paid to conduct aggressive war abroad and commit assaults on civil liberties at home.

  8. Eric:

    I have an idea. Have Dom randomly change the poster’s name on several of gray man’s posts to something else.

    Let’s see if he’ll “debate” himself!

    A one-man board all his own? Perhaps you could write another article in the same vein, and close it off to all but his IP address…a kind of closed bubble universe, the ultimate echo chamber!

    • At least I put myself in harms way for what I believed.

      All I’ve heard from this blog is a bunch of shit talkers who would piss all over themselves if someone said boo.Clover

      • More petty insults, Gray. It’s sad, really.

        Try to use logic, now – and let’s walk through one or two things. I am not trying to be gratuitously provocative. I am trying to get you to see:

        “At least I put myself in harms way for what I believed”

        Fine. You are physically courageous. So was Adolf Hitler. Does physical courage automatically mean morally correct?

        “All I’ve heard from this blog is a bunch of shit talkers who would piss all over themselves if someone said boo.”

        What is this supposed to mean, Gray? I’ve addressed you with facts – and rational arguments – not “shit talker,” “dumass” (sic) and other personal insults.

        We here abhor coercion – aggressive violence – in all its forms. Does that make us pussies? “Shit talkers” who “piss themselves”? Is it tough and manly to threaten people who have done you no harm or wrong? Who only wish to be left in peace to live their lives – and leave you free to live yours?

        I’m happy to discuss these issues with you – but I tire of your low-rent (and poorly parsed) personal insults. They’ll be deleted in toto henceforth.

        • No Eric, here is the deal. I sit here listening to insult after insult, I finally fire back. You “warned” me, but no one else. That’s why this is bullshit. The point of me saying what I said is precisely this: you all sound good in the talk department, but you suck in the action department. You don’t want roadblocks, then go stop them. I’ve fought against dirty cops, have you?Clover

          Has anyone else on this blog? Somehow I doubt it. I’ve spent nights in jail, arguing against cops when they were wrong. Have you? The people on this blog talk shit, but they really don’t do anything. The founding fathers risked life, limb, and fortune, and some of them lost it all. You and the others on this blog haven’t lost a fucking thing, haven’t risked a fucking thing – oh, you’ve lost a few rights, but you didn’t do anything to stop it.
          Not really. You’ve still got your job, family, possessions, and until your’e willing to risk that – then it’s all just phony crap. Kipling said it right (IF), TR said it right (man in the arena). So you have puts boots on the ground. When you have risked your life for what you believe – once you’ve walked a mile in my shoes – then you can look down your nose at me. Until then it stinks of phoniness, hypocrisy and cowardice. You talk about chains on me? I laugh in your face, I’m more free then 90% of the people on this blog.

          • Here are some examples and ideas:

            stand in front of the courtroom and hand out jury nullification pamphlets.

            go to road blocks, film cops whenever breaking the laws of the constitution.

            Join JPFO.org, Gunowners.org, NRA

            Hang banners on overpasses spreading your ideas

            film dirty cops and sue the city for what they are doing.

            How ’bout this one for a kicker – everyone that voted for ron paul refuse to pay taxes next year and the year after etc.

            What will the government be able to do when however many millions refuse to play the game?

          • I’ve spent nights in jail, arguing against cops when they were wrong. Have you?

            On the odd chance this just isn’t more fiction, If you ended up in jail you’re doing it wrong. I’ve argued against cops many times and won most of the time and never ended up in jail. I even pushed one to the point where when he had hopelessly lost on reason called me an “asshole” and got back in the car and left me alone at that point.

            Your argument style here is much like that of many cops. It’s only going to result in the cop escalating the situation until you’re sitting in the jail cell. Meanwhile even when up against a roadraging PTSD suffering roid ranging officer 82nd airborne I still won the debate, didn’t get jailed, tazed, or anything but a lame ‘written warning’ that he wrote to cover his ass internally to the department. After that I bought a video camera.

          • Gray,

            Every other post of yours is laced with profanity and petty insults. I’ve responded to several of your posts with factual counterpoints – which you’ve evaded, or ignored (e.g., the facts about Lincoln and the war). It’s tiresome. This board has among the most intelligent, thoughtful, well-read people you’ll find online. We don’t have much use – or time – for “asshhole,” “dumass” and “fuck you.”

          • So I’m a keyboard warrior, gray man, who’s done nothing to fight for the principles I uphold? How exactly do you know that?

            Besides sharpening my philosophy with like-minded people on these boards, I act. But this battle will not be won on a field, it will be won in minds–just as the Revolutionary War was won in the decade before 1776, “setting brushfires in the minds of men”.

            Your list above? Here goes:

            * jury nullification pamphleting–done

            * film cops–done

            * NRA–never, that bunch of traitorous sellouts. I do support JPFO and GOA

            * refuse to pay taxes–well thanks to parasitic fucktards like you, if I do that men with guns will kidnap me and put me in a cage. Because not only do the parasites demand their money, but other parasites enforce their “laws” at gunpoint.

            And yes–you are a parasite no matter how you dress up your “service” as a “contract”. I never signed the contract; I didn’t ask for your “protection”, my freedoms are more threatened since your “service”, not less.

            You never asked if I wanted to hire you; I didn’t, and yet I’ll still pay for it.

            And by the way–today’s military is NOT Constitutional–From Article I Section 8, “To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;”

          • BrentP on November 15, 2012 at 7:27 pm
            I’ve spent nights in jail, arguing against cops when they were wrong. Have you?

            On the odd chance this just isn’t more fiction, If you ended up in jail you’re doing it wrong. I’ve argued against cops many times and won most of the time and never ended up in jail. I even pushed one to the point where when he had hopelessly lost on reason called me an “asshole” and got back in the car and left me alone at that point.

            It’s not fiction Brent, however I did have to go through a learning curve. Contrary to your opinion though, sometimes cops need to be walked over, sometimes that is the only thing they understand. Much like facing a pit bull, you have to show them you are top dog. But, you win some you lose some. In the military I also faced down one Lieutenant Colonel, one Major, a Sergeant Major, the OIC of an MP station (used a JAG officer on that one – must use you resources), and several 1st Sergeants.
            I’ve faced down three civilian cops, lost to one. When you are right you have power over them and they know it. Have I received tickets etc ? Of course, when you are wrong you are wrong.

            Your argument style here is much like that of many cops. Like I said sometimes that is all they recognize.

            Meanwhile even when up against a roadraging PTSD suffering roid ranging officer 82nd airborne I still won the debate, didn’t get jailed, tazed, or anything but a lame ‘written warning’ that he wrote to cover his ass internally to the department. After that I bought a video camera.

            the camera is a good idea, one I’ve used myself.

          • I think my argument stands as is. If you failed to the extent you ended up in jail that isn’t a badge of honor nor does it give you another basis for argument of authority.

        • “You’ve just revealed your true colors. You delight in the fact that the state takes other people’s rightful property and gives it to you.”

          wrong eric, I don’t delight in any of it, in case you haven’t noticed I’m in the same boat you are. But I do know this, I’ve at least tried to do something about it.
          I also know this: I fulfilled my contract and I expect to get paid. As much as we don’t like it taxes are constitutional. This country is a country of contracts. The military is constitutional.

          And all your little clovers on my comments don’t change those facts.

          • Your contract with whom, Gray?

            Not me.

            Taxes may be “constitutional” – that does make them morally right. Theft is theft.

            You’re just euphemising your theft – your use of coercion against others.

            My income doesn’t depend on threatening other people with violence; yours does. You tell yourself you “served.” What you did was work as a mercenary for a period of years. “Service” implies something desired; something needful that people want. I am not interested in enforcing the hegemony of the U.S. government. I am therefore not interested in paying you to enforce it. Yet you are interested in forcing me – and others – to pay for it. In fact, you demand it. You would have me killed for declining to pay for it.

            What does this make you, Gray?

          • eric on November 15, 2012 at 7:24 pm
            Your contract with whom, Gray?

            Not me.
            Wrong it is with you and every other citizen.Clover

            Taxes may be “constitutional” – that does make them morally right. Theft is theft.

            Then change the constitution.

            You’re just euphemising your theft – your use of coercion against others.

            I haven’t coerced anyone in this country. As far as coercion
            against other countries, that is what militaries do, you know the military our constitution supports.
            Clover
            My income doesn’t depend on threatening other people with violence; yours does. You tell yourself you “served.” What you did was work as a mercenary for a period of years.

            “IF” i was a mercenary is was the most honest profession in this country.

            “Service” implies something desired; something needful that people want. I am not interested in enforcing the hegemony of the U.S. government.

            What you as an individual are interested in is actually quite irrelevant in the big picture – the country as a whole is interested in a strong military or else there would not be one.Clover

            I am therefore not interested in paying you to enforce it.

            Then change the tax codes.

            Yet you are interested in forcing me – and others – to pay for it. In fact, you demand it. You would have me killed for declining to pay for it.

            another bullshit comment. I’m not forcing you to pay anything.
            Your lack of courage to change it forces you to pay it – don’t blame me for that.

            What does this make you, Gray?

            What does that make you?

            • Gray,

              I think you’ve just established your Clover bona fides.

              A person cannot be contractually bound who has not been presented with a contract and given the free choice to say yes – or no.

              It is the apotheosis of Cloverism to state, “Wrong it is with you and every other citizen.”

              And also that I should “Then change the constitution” if I object to being threatened with violence to subsidize you. Good Clovers always defend “the law.” They never acknowledge moral principles.

              You add: “I haven’t coerced anyone in this country.”

              Perhaps not personally. But you sure as heck get others to do so on your behalf.

              And then, your Cloveritic magnum opus:

              “What you as an individual are interested in is actually quite irrelevant in the big picture – the country as a whole is interested in a strong military or else there would not be one.”

              That’s right, Clover. The individual’s rights are irrelevant. The Great Collective determines all. The “country as a whole”…. well, why even continue.

              You’re a lost cause.

      • “All I’ve heard from this blog is a bunch of shit talkers who would piss all over themselves if someone said boo.”

        The only one talking shit is the self righteous “Grey Man” who brags about his tax funded “service”.

        Think of all the harm that could’ve been avoided if one respected property rights and sovereignty? Oh, but then again you swore an oath to a piece of paper you then pissed all over, didn’t you?

        If you actually believed the oath you took, you would’ve sworn against the standing Army unless your country was actually invaded.

        What fantastic hypocrisy to wrap oneself in the Constitution to defend taxes and a standing army.

        • The only one talking shit is the self righteous “Grey Man” who brags about his tax funded “service”.

          your lack of reading skills does not make you correct.

          Think of all the harm that could’ve been avoided if one respected property rights and sovereignty?

          I do respect property rights and sovereignty – non-sequitur.

          Oh, but then again you swore an oath to a piece of paper you then pissed all over, didn’t you?

          I didn’t piss on it once, I do respect the constitution that is why I’m in the military.

          If you actually believed the oath you took, you would’ve sworn against the standing Army unless your country was actually invaded.

          I’m not sure where is says that in the constitution – this country has always had a standing army.

          What fantastic hypocrisy to wrap oneself in the Constitution to defend taxes and a standing army

          Don’t blame – me read the constitution IT defends taxes and a standing army

          • If you respected property rights, then you would not partake of other peoples’ property – nor defend those who do. For whatever reason. Wearing a uniform does not give you leave to steal. Not in terms of moral sanction.

            You are a paroxysm of contradictions. A “collectivist conservative.”

          • ………..and the Old Testament and Koran defend killing “non believers”. You are now the equivalent of those you long to fight.

            Any excuse to kill and maim I guess. What a shame. The fallacious argument from Authority. It gets tiresome.

          • ………..and the Old Testament and Koran defend killing “non believers”. You are now the equivalent of those you long to fight.

            Any excuse to kill and maim I guess. What a shame. The fallacious argument from Authority. It gets tiresome.

            nonsense: I’m a Christian, those directives in the old testament have been replaced by new directives – don’t argue the bible unless you know what you are talking about. Also their are no verses in the bible advocating killing unbelievers across the board. Each killing required in the bible was for a specific crimes.

            • Gray,

              A problem with the Bible is that it is literally meaningless. Or rather, that it is subject to open-ended interpretation. No one can say definitively what it means. The language is inscrutable, vague – often unintelligible. It (New Testament) is a 17th century translation of multiple previous translations of certain arbitrarily selected allegorical texts dating back more than 1,000 years. It is subject, therefore, to endless, tedious parsing as to what it “really” means. This is precisely why there is so much squabbling among the faithful. My “reading” of the “word” is no more or less valid than yours – or anyone else’s.

              I prefer a simpler code:

              Leave other people alone, so long as they leave you alone.

          • If you respected property rights, then you would not partake of other peoples’ property – nor defend those who do. For whatever reason.

            And if you respected property rights, you would stop paying the taxes that pay for people like me.
            When you get the courage to do that, then point your finger at me. Until then you are just a hypocrite. Yeah, living up to your rhetoric is hard.

            • Gray,

              Here is the difference:

              Men with guns will come to my home and cart me off to prison if I decline to hand over my property. They will kill me if I resist.

              You are one of those who would send them.

              I, on the other hand, would never send men with guns to your house. In fact I strenuously object to any such aggression. I do not want – and do not take – any of your property. Nor do I advocate others doing so, on my behalf or for any other reason. The only thing I want from you is for you to respect my rights. Just as I respect yours.

              How does this make me a “hypocrite”?

              And: I am a “coward” for not making a suicidal stand against a foe I have zero chance of beating? I’m (implicitly) deserving of oppression, since I don’t physically resist it?

              Isn’t a coward someone who attacks people who can’t fight back? Who preys on weaker people?

              I don’t prey on anyone, Gray. (My home, everything I have – paid for with money earned through voluntary free exchange.)

              But you have – and do.

          • cashes clay, martin luther king jr, wesley snipes, rosa parks, mother teresa, and others have stood up for what they believed and payed the price. when are you going to, or is it all talk?

            all talk and pasting clovers.

          • Gray,

            A problem with the Bible is that it is literally meaningless. Or rather, that it is subject to open-ended interpretation. No one can say definitively what it means. The language is inscrutable, vague – often unintelligible. It (New Testament) is a 17th century translation of multiple previous translations of certain arbitrarily selected allegorical texts dating back more than 1,000 years. It is subject, therefore, to endless, tedious parsing as to what it “really” means. This is precisely why there is so much squabbling among the faithful. My “reading” of the “word” is no more or less valid than yours – or anyone else’s.

            With all do respect your understanding of the bible is not accurate at all. The bible is the most studied, verified, and validated book in the world.
            Scrolls have been found throughout the middle east, written thousands of years ago, that contain scripture passages verbatim. Are there different ways to interpret some portions? Of course, But overall the Bible is not hard to understand, it is just hard to comply with.

            I prefer a simpler code:

            Leave other people alone, so long as they leave you alone.

            I would prefer that code as well, show me in the history of human civilization where it worked.

        • “Think of all the harm that could’ve been avoided if one respected property rights and sovereignty?”

          tell that to the people that destroyed the world trade center.

  9. The whole “gray man” episode has reminded me of a Monty Python movie…

    Ah yes, that one with Kevin Kline, the petty criminal:

    “Don’t call me stupid!”
    “YOU’RE the vulgarian, you Fuck!”

    I’m even beginning to doubt “gray man”‘s bona fides as a military man; military survivors I know are disciplined people not given to loud boasting, nor quick tempers.

    Nor would they have spent all day on a message forum attacking every post like a rabid bulldog humping a chew-toy.

    • I’m even beginning to doubt “gray man”‘s bona fides as a military man; military survivors I know are disciplined people not given to loud boasting, nor quick tempers.

      Nor would they have spent all day on a message forum attacking every post like a rabid bulldog humping a chew-toy.
      Clover
      I don’t give a crap what you doubt, I’ve actually gone to work and come back, and you idiots are still arguing against me.

      Sorry haven’t “boasted” yet and I doubt you know many military survivors, from the vile shit that has come from your mouth all day about the military, any military survivor within earshot would have kicked your ass by now, just for being an insult to America.

      • Actually gray man, by being a sycophant to the national government you’re the disgrace to the true and original non-interventionist American spirit. Apparently you don’t remember or perhaps you simply know about the admonition against “entangling alliances.” And by the way, this is one “military survivor” who would never consider kicking anyone’s ass for their opinion; only out of self defense and only so far as it takes to stop the attack. People that are actually the way that you portray yourself are the ones that enable the sociopaths in charge to carry out their evil wishes. Without the foot soldiers the king is powerless.

      • Gray,

        “…any military survivor within earshot would have kicked your ass by now, just for being an insult to America.”

        You’re a thug if you actually would do such a thing – or condone it. You are saying it’s ok to physically attack people for disagreeing with you, for “insulting” America. An SA brownshirt of 1931 would agree with you. I do not.

    • Methyl, as much as I like you, I have to call you out on that last post. I expect you to apologize to the next rabid bulldog you see humping a chew-toy. 😉

          • You must make peanuts–I hadn’t even noticed the tax.

            Reminds me of another Monty Python–

            Arthur: [grabs Dennis] Shut up! Will you shut up?!
            Dennis: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system!
            Arthur: [shakes Dennis] Shut up!
            Dennis: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I’m being repressed!

            Humor aside, it’s telling of your character that you take glee in plundering what others rightfully earn.

            Perhaps your bitterness is guilt?

            Interesting that you purport to be against this government…yet you’ll take its handouts.

            Sam Adams– Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!

          • Such is the way of the parasite and thug. Like Obama you apparently never earned an honest dollar in the voluntary market.

            But you know something, the government gang bosses consumed you and your body to make themselves richer. You lost your health to serve massa and massa gives you peanuts. You are now dependent on him. Eventually he will just cut you off, then what?

          • Clovermethylamine
            You must make peanuts–I hadn’t even noticed the tax.

            didn’t notice it, then stop complaining about taxes.

            it’s telling of your character that you take glee in plundering what others rightfully earn.

            I had a contract, I did my job and fulfilled my contract, that money is owed me.

            Perhaps your bitterness is guilt?

            guilt? I did nothing wrong.

            Interesting that you purport to be against this government…yet you’ll take its handouts.

            unless you give back all the advantages you get from the Government then you are phony yourself.

            I payed taxes and fulfilled a contract to serve and protect, that money is mine, I earned it.

            Sam Adams– Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!

            I’m not doing any crouching and unless you are actively fighting the government then you are a coward, who ironically, will be saved from tyranny quite possibly by the ex military man you despise. I doubt you’ll do anything yourself, you have the stink of a coward.

            BrentP
            Such is the way of the parasite and thug. Like Obama you apparently never earned an honest dollar in the voluntary market.

            Sorry not dependent, hate to burst your bubble, made 150,000 last year in the voluntary market.

            Sorry not a parasite and thug, the constitution calls for a military, I’ve done more to help this country then you could ever dream of.

            And, I’m not dependent on anybody, I get the pay and benefits due me, no more, no less.

            Keep paying your taxes though, I’ll take every cent the government owes me.

            Ayn Rand explained it quite well.

            Thanks for the money coward, just keep on paying – talking shit the whole time but not actually doing anything.

          • Gray,

            You’ve just revealed your true colors. You delight in the fact that the state takes other people’s rightful property and gives it to you. How is this different from the looter types cheering Obama – like sail fawn lady? Oh, you “served.” Well, I didn’t ask you to – and the fact that others may have doesn’t make your taking my money morally right. You are a tax feeder. You live off others at gunpoint. You are part of the problem – if you believe that collectivism is a problem.

          • I like how your trolling stories keep changing. How’s life in your mother’s basement? Or maybe the CIA’s basement. Doesn’t matter. It’s now clear you are here to disrupt.

          • No gray man, we’re not “paying” you military retirement and disability, you are receiving stolen goods taken from us under threat of violence by your thuggish peers that are still on the empire’s payroll. And I’ll bet you are just as “disabled” as a lot of the other double dipping, dead beat parasites I’ve had the displeasure of cleaning up behind on the job site.

            I don’t buy the “everyone else is doing it” / “if I don’t take it, someone else will” arguments. If you really are a Christian as you claim, then your basic tenets should be: We are to love one another. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And, you reap what you sow. Yeshua (Jesus to the Biblically semi-literate) would never have approved of the U.S. military going on military adventures to line the pockets of the imperial banksters; he through the money changers out of the temple and flogged them.

            You claim to have spent 20 years killing for the empire, or at least condoning it, at our expense and chagrin. You might want to consider repentance and humility vs. pride and arrogance now.

            It’s your freewill though. If you seek your own wisdom and go after your own desires without regard for those around you, even those that are “different” or that you don’t agree with, don’t be surprised when it comes back on you. It always has come back on me. None of us are immune to moral cause and effect, but it is even more important for those of that are believers, because we know (or should) the difference between right and wrong, so we have no excuse.

  10. gray man vomited:

    gray man on November 14, 2012 at 11:03 pm

    Actually I can guarantee I know more than you do, possibly more than anyone on this blog.

    Given that you don’t know me, or anyone else on this blog, from Adam, that’s a pretty ballsy –and incredible stupid, even for you– thing to say. But, moving on:

    I’ve lived among them for years (with an S).

    I’m sure you have – as a stooge in the occupation army. Here’s some questions for you, which I’m going to give you a chance to answer honestly even though I know you won’t:

    1. Do you speak ANY Arabic, never mind with any degree of fluency (I do, so I already know the TRUTHFUL answer to your question)?

    2. Have you ever lived in a Muslim country as a civilian (Again, I already know the TRUTHFUL answer to that question based on your postings here)?

    3. Have you ever interacted with any Muslims in the Islamic World in any capacity other than as an occupier?

    The problem is islam, not the individual peace loving muslim, who doesn’t want to follow jihad.

    “Follow” jihad? It is a concept, not an action.

    The word jihad (verbal noun from the root verb “jahada,” meaning to strive, endeavor, or fight) is a spiritual conflict against worldly values in order to keep faithful to Islam’s key tenets. That it has been co-opted by a tiny minority of Islamic fundamentalists who have turned it into overt acts of violence does not change this fact. The equivalent in the Christian faith is perversion of the concept of evangelism by the (state-worshiping, power-hungry) founders of the early church who exercised coercion, violence, murder, and plunder to “convert” people to the Christian faith, in a manner diametrically opposed to what Jesus Christ himself preached.

    But then according to the koran, hadith, sura, sharia law etc, if they don’t want to commit jihad they are not a muslim. they are appostate and must be killed.

    Please cite for me the SPECIFIC suras of the Qur’an that advocate this. Be VERY careful should you choose to do so, because I have my own copy of the Qur’an readily at hand – along with my “bullshit flag.”

    • Excellent stuff, liberranter. From the same root, those who engage in jihad are mujahideen. Regardless, the Arab world is where I have met some of the kindest, gentlest people I’ve ever encountered. Recent events across the region are nothing short of tragic.

      • No it is not excellent stuff. Muhammed defined jihad, and he made it very clear it was war.

        And if he can’t find where himself then he is a bulshitter.

        Koran9:5, for starters. but there are other references.Clover

        I made it clear I lived in the middle east as a civilian, can’t you read?

          • Probably meant sura 9:5

            9:5 Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

    • @liberranter:

      I’m consistently amazed at how effective the Muslim Boogeyman propaganda has been. I’m inundated with emails from my “conservative, Christian” family with tales of the impending Shariah takeover of Europe, the horrors of Islam…

      …the propaganda is so transparent and childish it’s absolutely comical if you have any perspective on history. It’s even worse than those slavering-fanged “japs” in the WWII posters, or the ludicrous Kaiser in WWI agit-prop.

      How do people fall for this?

      Fascinating–how did you come to speak Arabic?

      You touch on one of my favorite discussion pieces with the brainwashed but ready-to-think: we have more in common with an Iranian shopkeeper than we do with our own “representatives” in Congress…starting with the fact that he and we aren’t psychopaths.

      These wars would have been over in six months if the American people had seen the horrors they’ve paid for over there on prime time TV–the burned-to-charcoal children, the dismembered children, the blood-splattered streets. But the Elites learned well from Vietnam and keep it sanitary and silent.

      Because we’ve always been at war with Eastasia.

      Five fingers, Winston. Five.

  11. Gray,

    The military, like police, fall right into line and obey the egregious, evil orders and laws issued by “the real scumbags.” What does that make them?

    Sorry, military swears oath to uphold the constitution, police do not.

    If a cop kicks in the door to your home during a no-knock raid at 2 a.m. (oops – wrong house!) and shoots you dead (or perhaps your wife) and claims “officer safety” … whom do you fault?

    not the military – they didn’t do it.

    The military routinely does this sort of thing, too – abroad. Do those widgets over in Eyerack and Afgannnystan not have the same human rights as you and I? Or is it ok to brutalize, even kill, them? And if it is ok, what do you suppose will happen when the killers come back here? And become cops?

    war is in fact an ugly thing – I haven’t disagreed with that. But sitting here on the side lines being an arm-chair quarterback, doesn’t mean you know what you are talking about when it comes to the war overseas. No offense ment.

    Very few military people come back and become cops.

    • In both cases, that of the Soldiers and the Peace Officers, the solution to the problem is in the hands of the political Office Holders and the People they legally represent.

      A significant number of the People have supported or acquiesced in political evil. A significant number still do.

      While our Soldiers have killed and died, the political Office Holders have been paid handsomely for the evil they have wrought.

      tgsam

    • Wrong. Cops are sworn officers; sworn to uphold the Constitution.

      Cops are, on average, 15% ex-military–MUCH higher than their concentration in the general population.

  12. I would love to comment on this blog to all the arguments thrown my way, by eric and others. However the way this comment section is set up and operates it is impossible to have a discussion.
    I will do my best to answer your insults, as well as honest query, however a lot of you won’t be answered simply because I am unable to, due to the way this comment section works, of course I just may not understand it.

    • You’ve been targeted by the swarm. It’s good practice so make the most of it. For more than twenty years now I’ve been targeted by the swarm many times in many places . . . especially for condemning the evil Drug War.

      Eric has posted many excellent Blogs but nobody bats a thousand. The sheer unmerited viciousness of this particular one has been a disappointment.

      tgsam

  13. Many here seem to have forgotten that America’s Military is under civilian command. Congress declares war and the President is the Commander in Chief.

    tgsam

    • ROFLMAO!!! Tinsley, you should try out for stand up comedy in Vegas. You’d make a fortune. Seriously, that’s what the Constitution says. But that’s not what the administration (this one or any other in recent history) does in practice. The prez and his coterie take extra-Constitutional police actions based on U.N. authority now. Congress doesn’t declare war anymore and they haven’t since 1941. No my friend, the states lost the war back in ’65 and now we have a National government, not a Federal government. We’s all on dee plantation now, Br’r Tinsley. Bill Clinton’s aide Paul Begala said “Stroke of the pen, law of the land. Kinda cool” referring to executive orders and he meant it. This nation is ruled by executive orders and regulatory fiat now which are enforced at the point of a gun. Congress is little more than a rubber stamp for what the moneyed elite want, the Constitution and Declaration be damned.

  14. I am disappointed to find that no one responded to “Google: Hugh Thompson Jr.” in a positive way. Warrant Officer Thompson initially paid a heavy price for obeying his Conscience. One slimy lawmaker wanted to Court Martial the man for having the decency and courage to do the right thing.

    tgsam

  15. methylamine,
    that’s right, no ones ever dona anything against the US, it’s all made up by the government – whose the clover now, put your tin hat back on.Clover

    • Cloverspeak, Gray –

      Emoting, vague, inarticulate generalizing, straw-manning, ad hominem attacks… non sequiturs…

      Yes, indeed. Uncle Sam is good and great; he vanquishes evildoers and fights for freedom…. He is loved the world over… and those who do not love him are “enemies of freedom” and “with them…” they deserve what they get and have no cause for bitching – must less resisting.

      And ahhmm proud to be an ahhhhhhmmmerrrrikun! Where at least ahhh know ahhhm freeeeeeee!

  16. By and large, men who voluntarily join the ranks of a state sponsored military or paramilitary organization are not paragons of valor. To the contrary, a man who signs on with a gang of gun toting, flag waving killers could hardly be described as “brave” or “courageous”. Such a man is not fit for life in a free society as they are the very antithesis of self-reliant, self-actualized rugged individualism. In short, they are pussies as all bullies are pussies.

    • At minimum, they haven’t thought through the nature of what they do – and haven’t developed a moral compass based on the golden rule. Most would not doubt resent being threatened with deadly violence to compel their compliance and submission – yet never stop to reflect that if they don’t like it, possibly, others don’t like it being done to them. And more, if it’s wrong for it to be done to him, then it is just as wrong for him to do it others.

      Peace-keeping is laudatory. Law enforcement (which is what current cops and soldiers do) isn’t.

      • Eric, allow me this non-sequitur:

        It appears that my post responding to your football article has vanished.

        Although I agree with you 99.99 per cent of the time, I felt compelled to respond with a lengthy perspective from a football loving anarcho-free enterprise-individualist who nevertheless loathes the fly-overs and incessant hero worship in which the NFL engages.

      • Gray,

        I delete posts that are little more than personal attacks (e.g., “you’re a coward”).

        As others have noted, “serving” (or not) is neither here nor there as far as this discussion concerned.

    • “By and large, men who voluntarily join the ranks of a state sponsored military or paramilitary organization are not paragons of valor. To the contrary, a man who signs on with a gang of gun toting, flag waving killers could hardly be described as “brave” or “courageous”. Such a man is not fit for life in a free society as they are the very antithesis of self-reliant, self-actualized rugged individualism. In short, they are pussies as all bullies are pussies.”

      says the coward to justify not going into harms way.Clover

      • “says the coward to justify not going into harms way.”

        Gray,

        Do you believe it is cowardly to be repelled by the idea of harming – killing – people who haven’t done you (or anyone you know) any harm? That it is valorous to drop bombs on people? Why the bloodlust?

        Death is forever. As a great line from a great movie has it: You’re taking away everything a man’s got – and everything he’s ever gonna have.”

        It is something that should be done only when absolutely justified – and when there is no alternative.

        Was this the case in Iraq? Is it in Libya?

        What about here, Gray? When men like you are ordered to come to people’s homes and confiscate the firearms of civilians?

        Your military isn’t defending this country – it is projecting power abroad. It is beginning to project power within the country, too – as has been pointed out to you (not opinions, not assertions – facts).

        You just don’t seem to care.

    • Yes, except his “opinions” are facts. Read up on the attempted military coup he was invited to join. Read up on the financial reasons for U.S. entry into WW I.

        • Gray,

          I’ve challenged you with factual rebuttals – which so far you have completely ignored. Not “opinions.” Facts. Such as the fact that Lyndon Johnson used a false-flag event to drum up support for the Vietnam War. The fact that the U.S. government has been interfering with the internal politics of Iran since the 1950s (just one example). The fact that the US military is used to make aggressive (though undeclared) war – as a matter of routine policy. The fact that US military personnel are being used to intimidate American citizens at internal “checkpoints” – of a piece with similar “checkpoints” in the old Soviet Union. And so on.

    • Your 20 years of “service”* does not guarantee that your opinion is correct.

      On the other hand, I’ve quoted you dozens of facts, which you continue to “refute” with:
      “tin foil hat”
      “nonsense”
      “dumass” (sic)
      “bullshit”

      * begging the question, whom did you “service”, exactly?

    • His rank may not mean he’s automatically correct but sure does blow a fuse in the authoritarian mind. It’s very difficult for someone to make an argument from authority when there is a higher authority saying something very different. It’s a logical rock and hard place. Either they have to admit that authority isn’t a basis of argument invalidating their own arguments that are based on authority or they have to admit they are wrong. Either way it is conceding defeat in the debate.

      • “His rank may not mean he’s automatically correct but sure does blow a fuse in the authoritarian mind.”

        it doesn’t blow a fuse in my mind at all. You say that my rank doesn’t make me correct, and then try to use someone of higher rank to prove your point. that is asinine.

        It’s very difficult for someone to make an argument from authority when there is a higher authority saying something very different.Clover

        It’s not difficult for me – the truth will out.

        It’s a logical rock and hard place.

        Apparently you don’t know what the word “logic” means.

        Either they have to admit that authority isn’t a basis of argument invalidating their own arguments that are based on authority or they have to admit they are wrong.

        talk about not using logic.

        Either way it is conceding defeat in the debate.

        Nope.

        • You spout mainstream media cliches and then fall back on your claims of mensa membership and 20 years in the military. That’s called argument from authority. Then you dismiss someone of higher authority. It’s amusing.

          If it isn’t difficult for you then you’re of lower rational intelligence than I gave you credit for.

  17. @ Eric. New to your website – loved the article.

    By the way, did you know that when you click on “Home” at the top of the page that is says that the link is broken?

  18. Mr. Gray Man – you have been duped – I used to be there as well. I am a practicing attorney and have spent many weeks studying the issues surrounding the 9-11 and Oklahoma city conspiracies. You need to spend some time on ae911truth.org and objectively examine the arguments. Building 7 is the smoking gun and proves that the American government is lying to you. If you refuse to examine the evidence because you prefer the Osama Muslim ninja story sold to you by your government – then there really is no hope for you and you should no longer consider yourself a man.

    • Tolstoyan
      “You need to spend some time on ae911truth.org and objectively examine the arguments. Building 7 is the smoking gun and proves that the American government is lying to you. If you refuse to examine the evidence because you prefer the Osama Muslim ninja story sold to you by your government – then there really is no hope for you and you should no longer consider yourself a man.
      My sex aside – rather than read911truth.org fantasies I prefer Popular Mechanics who explained the entire thing using a thing called science.

      • Right–Popular Science, the Marvel Comics of science literature.

        I’ll consult that for fact right after my lobotomy.

        gray man–have you heard of a phenomenon called “propaganda”, aka the artful telling of lies to befuddle a populace?

        In ANY subject matter, attaining mastery requires reading broadly and deeply. Watching a Discovery channel special then reading the same in Popular Mechanics doesn’t make you a distinguished scholar of structural engineering.

        Take fifteen minutes, and use Google to look up the yielding and melting temperatures of steel.

        Then look up the open-air burning temperature of Jet A and office furniture.

        Then decide for yourself if an office fire can melt structural steel.

        Molten, did I say? Yes–six weeks after the buildings collapsed, there were lava-like pools of molten metal still flowing in the basement.

        Try that sometime without a blast furnace–you’ll huff, and you’ll puff, and nothing will happen.

        In summary: You’re an idiot, which wouldn’t be inexcusable in itself. But you’re voluntarily an idiot, willfully an idiot.

        You don’t have the courage to educate yourself.

        • Whether Methyl calls you an idiot or not is irrelevant. You’re doing a remarkable job of proving yourself one with your own posts.

        • Molten, did I say? Yes–six weeks after the buildings collapsed, there were lava-like pools of molten metal still flowing in the basement.

          I understand perfectly well, why there was molten steel underground, any blacksmith can tell you, any firefighter in alaska can tell you, it doesn’t take PHD.
          Heat stays active underground, for long periods of time because it is insulated. Forest fires happen all the time in Alaska traveling from one side of the yukon river to the other because sparks travel under the Yukon river traveling from root to root beneath the permafrost. Anyone from Hawaii, Iceland, or anywhere there is an active volcano, can tell you that, volcanic rock stays molten on the inside for weeks. It doesn’t take an egghead to figure something that has been known by laymen for centuries.

          Again I can give as many qualified people that disagree with your assessment. I chose to believe the simplest and most common sense explanation.

          • ” I chose to believe the simplest and most common sense explanation.”

            Can you explain how the fires got into the sub levels when the impacts and jet fuel were 80 odd stories above? I mean, wouldn’t there be 80 odd stories of rubble between the source of the fire (magical jet fuel that burns much hotter than advertised) and the molten pools of steel?

            For bonus points, what is the open air burning temperature of jet fuel and what is the liquid melting point of steel?

          • The insulation and duration of melting isn’t the issue–it’s how did the steel become molten in the first place?

            Because there was no process in the official “explanation” whereby steel would reach the minimum 2500 degrees F to melt.

          • Gray man, the simplest and common sense approach is that jet fuel (kerosene) even atomized doesn’t get hot enough to produce molten steel. Second of all, “the ground” is a thermal mass, it is not insulation (study the construction of underground houses for more insight) even if the heat had been sufficient to start with. And six weeks later is a long time for temperatures to stay that high, without some other factor involve such as thermite that hadn’t reacted until exposed.

            Ask yourself these red pill questions gray man: why was all the forensic evidence at the Alfred P. Murrah building disposed of post haste? Why was the same thing done at the world trade center? What really happened to building number 7? Those are three simple questions you should be able to answer very easily if you really are a 20 year veteran. Our government lied to us gray, just like our superiors often did in the military. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that deceit, theft and violence are the stock and trade of rulers down through history. But believe what you will; just because something isn’t true is no good reason not to believe it, huh?

          • The speed at which government cleaned up the debris is astonishing when compared to its operations cleaning up other disasters.

            It’s like someone or some group in the government was motivated for a change. I think we all understand what motivates people in government.

          • Gray,

            The Official Story tells us the WTC towers fell because they were fatally weakened by the impact of commercial jetliners (and subsequent fire). A key element of the Official Story is that the physical impact of the jets blew away the insulation on the buildings’ structural steel (let’s leave aside for now that both Towers were designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707) and this, in turn, led to the steel being fatally weakened by the jet fuel fire – leading, ultimately, to the collapse. I have not stated anything other than the “facts” given in the Official Story.

            Let’s accept the Story as true – for the sake of discussion. Now let’s discuss WT7.

            WT7 was not hit by airplanes. There was no jet fuel fire. Only a (relatively) low-temp standard “paper and wood” fire, fed by office supplies and so on. Such a fire is not capable of weakening structural steel. Fact. Insulation on said steel was also intact. Fact.

            How, then, do we explain the catastrophic failure of the entire building at virtually the same moment? All of WTC7’s structural elements failed at the same time – and the building neatly collapsed at freefall speed onto its own footprint.

            You once mentioned the simplest explanation is very often the correct one. Well, Gray, what is the simplest explanation for the collapse of WTC7? That it was imploded by demolition charges? Or that something unprecedented in the history of tall buildings occurred: A skyscraper collapsed symmetrically into its own footprint as the result of a paper/wood fire?

            Think, man!

          • Gray,

            Another item:

            Is it not odd that there is (apparently) no video of the airplane that struck the Pentagon? I grew up in the DC area. Thousands of tourists with cameras – including video cameras – would have been in a position to film a commercial jet flying erratically (low, doing a corkscrew/banking maneuver). The plane would have been audible – intensely loud – on approach, well before it actually struck the building. All those thousands of people on the ground would have looked up to see what the hell is that… ? And scores of them would have snapped pictures/videos. It is improbable to the point of impossibility that no one took pictures or video of the airplane coming in. This is extraordinary. And utterly unbelievable.

            When I was a kid, I often went to Dulles to watch the Concorde come in. You could see/hear it long before it landed. A 757 doesn’t just appear – and poof, disappear into the side of a building – before anyone has time to react. Where we live now – rural SW Va. – it’s fairly routine for F/A 18s to fly overhead on training missions. You can hear them coming well before you can see them. And they are moving a helluva lot faster than a commercial jet. Etc.

            Again, think!

          • Final thing:

            I have a friend who flew combat in Vietnam (F4s). I consider him qualified to make the observation he made to me. He told me he’d have difficulty executing the maneuvers that the supposed pilot of Flight 77 – Hani Hanjour – executed. This person (Hanjour) was just barely able to pilot a single engine Cessna trainer in straight and level flight – and yet somehow managed to perform a series of high-performance maneuvers in a multi-engine heavy commercial jet that my friend (a combat pilot with hundreds of hours in a supersonic fighter) says he couldn’t have performed. Or at least, which he’d only have been able to successfully perform with great difficulty, absent a lot of seat time in a 757.

            Do you think 757s are that easy to fly? In a straight line, perhaps. Maintain course and heading. But executing violent, high-performance maneuvers (including extreme banking, severe changes in altitude, etc.) in an aircraft that was never designed to execute such extreme maneuvers to begin with – and with an inexperienced, marginally competent trainee pilot at the controls?

            You buy this?

            My carrier-qualified pilot friend doesn’t.

          • Eric,

            There WERE videos of the “plane” crashing into the Pentagon.

            The FBI, within hours, had confiscated every single security video from surrounding buildings that had a view of the “plane”.

            Those remain classified to this day, despite hundreds of FOIA demands.

            But the maddening and infuriating part is:

            Did no-one notice there was no airplane debris?

            Where did the tailfin go? The wings? The frikkin’s seats, the baggage, the passengers?

            It’s a critically important psychological trick known to magicians–shock and misdirection. People at the time were so shocked and easily misdirected, they didn’t exercise thought–and ask questions.

            Oh by the way–the engine (single, not plural) was a small turbofan of the size commonly used on cruise missiles.

            Where were the two giant, 7,000 pound Pratt & Whitney PW2000 engines? Perhaps the small engine found was the APU–but it was the wrong size for that.

            Here are some of the comically revealing pictures of the “crash”:
            minutes after, firefighters working
            Nicely done set-piece!
            The only publicly available video footage–grainy, blurry, low-frame-rate shot of the cruise missile/airplane

            Perhaps the most telling shot–Hey! where did the wings and engines hit, I didn’t know a 757 was only thirty feet wide!

            All in all, a tale told by a fool: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

            • Yep –

              In the immediate aftermath of the impact, the pictures from the site showed a roughly tubular hole – of a diameter considerably smaller than the fuselage of a wide-body jet. But much more damning is the absence of impact damage from the alleged 757’s wings, the two huge turbofans hanging underneath them and the several stories’ tall vertical stabilizer. Where did these go? Why no signs of impact damage?

              The Pentagon hit and WTC 7 provide obvious, physical evidence that the official narrative is a lie.

          • Eric as I have probably stated before the government story is that the fire weakened the thin floor trusses which then failed and pulled down the buildings.

            The floor trusses with their relatively weak connections to the main structure. All that failing floor trusses do is create a void inside the building.

      • So let’s ignore the 1,700+ licensed architects and engineers of ae911truth.org (many with PhDs) who are apparently unfamiliar with science in order to unquestionably support the same so-called “independent” scientists who worked on the government’s story because only government approved scientists employed by Popular Mechanics understand science. (And yes, I read the Popular Mechanic’s article many times.)

        I’m sorry, but your unwillingness to examine the evidence is shameful and undeserving of respect. As Sophocles wrote, “Stubborness and stupidity are twins.”

        Unfortunately, in order to have intellectual freedom you must go through a paradigm shift – it’s painful and uncomfortable – most people prefer to be chained and forced to stare at only one side of the cave. I hope that you will be able to break free someday – the truth is not pleasant – but at least your mind will be free.

        • I’m sorry, but your unwillingness to examine the evidence is shameful and undeserving of respect. As Sophocles wrote, “Stubborness and stupidity are twins.”

          I believe in occam’s razor. the simplest answer is what everyone saw with their own eyes.

          I can also count thousands of equally qualified scientists who debunk your nonsense.

          I think this applies to you: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” or “You can fool too many of the people too much of the time”

          • Please share your pseudo Occam’s razor explanation of how WTC Building 7 symetrically collapsed at free-fall speed. Watch the video of its collapse and tell me what your eyes really see?

            I can direct you to the list of 1,700+ architects and engineers that question the official story. Can you please direct me to the “thousands of equally qualified scientists who debunk [my] nonsense”?

            Your patently false statement evinces your lack of sincerity.

          • What DID “everyone” see with their own eyes? Were you there?

            Thought not.

            So we rely on video; and what I see is THREE buildings (WTC I, II, and 7) falling at very nearly free-fall speed.

            I see voluminous clouds of pulverized concrete dust billowing from I & II as they fall.

            I see molten metal streaming out of the corner of I or II just before the collapse begins.

            And I see three steel-and-concrete buildings collapse into their own footprints at free-fall speed without bending, buckling, or toppling….

            …explained by fire which never in the history of steel-and-concrete buildings has ever happened before.

            A simple, basic understanding of physics includes knowing conservation of energy. Absent any external energy input, those buildings’ fall relied on the gravitational potential energy of their mass and height.

            If they were using energy to pulverize the concrete, their rate of fall must be slower–conservation of energy.

  19. methylamine on November 14, 2012 at 1:32 am
    @gray man:

    I’ll counter Lt. Calley with War is a Racket by Smedley Butler–two-time Medal of Honor recipient.

    being a two-time medal of honer winner simply makes you a two-time medal of honor winner, it does not make you smart or correct.

    You revere the UCMJ? How about the Constitution you swore to protect against enemies foreign and domestic?

    The UCMJ upholds the constitution that is the point.

    So–have you participated in any of the recent wars, or lent them material support? Because NONE of them were properly declared “war” by Congress–as demanded by the Constitution.

    Yes I have and and in case you don’t know the first war this country ever fought was not declared by congress – the president can send people to war without congress’ approval. Just for a limited time. By the way, congress did declare this war.

    And all of them were wars of aggression–not defense.
    Now you are living in fantasy land.

    Surely you don’t like seeing your comrades chewed up in Afghanistan, guarding poppy fields, and committing suicide faster than the enemy can kill them?
    I like seeing people grown up enough to know that the world is not a simple place, that it doesn’t always work out the way we want, but they try anyway.

    Look–most of the young men I meet from the military are good, decent people. But they’re being used by disgusting, loathsome, decadent psychopaths.
    nonsense.

    When they figure it out, they either spiral into depression from remorse, or they take the right step–and become TRUE patriots, who understand that the worst threat to a nation is its own government.
    again nonsense.

    America can’t be taken over by a foreign enemy. But it can be taken over–and has been–by a domestic enemy.

    Now, gray man, are you a patriot? Are you brave enough to face the truth, that our government is a criminal gang that’s stolen our country from us?
    I am a patriot, and all I ever do is face the truth – that is why I’m calling nonsense on half these comments, but that has nothing to do with a bad government which I agree is out of control. but that is a discussion another day – it has nothing to do with the military.

  20. skunkbear you said
    ” I do not know what military you were in but that is exactly what basic training is designed to do: condition the recruits to become as one and to follow orders on command.
    The UCMJ is an absolute joke. the words military and justice are mutually exclusive.” I was in the US military, I can see that you were not because your comment is absolutly nonsense.Clover

    • Actually, gray man, I was in the military. But unlike you I am utterly ashamed that I was ever such a putz for The State.

      I spent ten years as a super gung-ho marine; kill-them-all-and-let-God-sort-it-out and all that other false macho bullshit.

      I fought in Desert Shield/Storm. It was then that I had an epiphany on many levels. Mostly that it was all bullshit and I was a damn fool for falling for the lies and propaganda.

      And I spent three years of my time in the suck as an MP so I know very well the mindset of fucking cops too.

      I know damn well what I am talking about.

  21. “slavery would have been left behind intirely within 40-50 years” yep, those uppity slaves just couldn’t wait like a like anyone else would.

    • Have someone read to you some history of the Postbellum (“after the war”) South, from the Reconstruction Period up until the middle 20th Century, in particularly Jeffrey Rogers Hummel’s benchmark work Emancipating Slaves and Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil Warand you’ll see a very clear pattern of cause-and-effect (or rather, someone who knows how to think will see a very clear such pattern). What this cause-and-effect pattern shows is that the federal campaign to end slavery by use of force, which included the dispossession and expropriation of much of the slave-owning Southerners’ property (acts which, curiously, did NOT take place against slaveholders in the Border States that remained part of the federal union), did nothing but cause further hatred of and resentment toward these newly “freed” (HAH!) slaves and further caused socioeconomic chaos for both the newly-“freed” slaves and Southern Whites.

      As other historians have pointed out, slavery was ended peacefully in every other Western nation in which it was practiced. There’s no logical reason why Amerika couldn’t have done it the same way.

      • “As other historians have pointed out, slavery was ended peacefully in every other Western nation in which it was practiced. There’s no logical reason why Amerika couldn’t have done it the same way.”

        except the south didn’t want to, and more states were preparing to vote in slavery.

        • Gray,

          Again – you’ve avoided dealing with the facts I gave you. The fact that Lincoln offered to enshrine slavery forever (in the states where it existed) by Amendment to the Constitution – provided the Southern states continued to pay their taxes. Fact. Read his first inaugural.

          The fact that the Emancipation Proclamation only “freed” slaves Lincoln could not free. Those in the Confederacy. The EP did not apply to slavery in Union states. Fact. US Grant held slaves right up to the end of the war. Fact.

          Lincoln was a virulent racist. Fact.

          Need I go on?

          You have been sold a bill of goods, my friend. A fairy tale history of America. I urge you to read up and find out just exactly what they haven’t told you.

  22. Change your name to brain dead man, it sounds more appropriate. One definition of a narcissistic behaviour is wanting everyone to agree with your viewpoint, and becoming verbally abusive with anyone who disagrees.

    • Change your name to brain dead man, it sounds more appropriate. One definition of a narcissistic behaviour is wanting everyone to agree with your viewpoint, and becoming verbally abusive with anyone who disagrees.
      So I guess you are a narcissist for calling me brain dead. I don’t want everyone to agree with me, but I do stand for ideas that I will defend, it’s called standing up for what you believe. go be a clover compromiser somewhere else.

  23. Steve, if you actually read your history–and not the victor-approved Reader’s Digest version–you’d know that slavery was only one issue causing southern states to leave the Union; freeing all slaves was a second-thought threat made by Lincoln to persuade the South to return, but in the revised history promoted by the North to cover the truth of its illegal aggresson, the Union was willing to sacrifice its blood and bounty to “free those poor souls from their.monstrous masters”.

    Tell us, Steve: if you had millions of dollars invested in a traditional way of life and your livelyhood depended upon that investment, would you be wiling to suddenly give up that investment because someone told you to? Or would it make sense to treat that investment harshly and damge it? (While few did, most did not. It didn’t make sense to do that.)

    The main cause of the war was the difference in the wants and needs of the industrial North vs. those of the agricultural South.

    The Northeastern sea captains had made their fortunes bringing slaves to America (under deplorable conditions and cruelty), and when there was enough “breeding stock” (sic) to maintain a working population without importing more, slave trading became unprofitable and they suddenly “got religion”. Slavery was an archaic practice, practiced by the whole country at one time, and due to the agricultural nature of the Southern states, they were left holding the bag, or the “hot potato” when the timer went off.

    Furthermore, T.G.S. is correct in saying industrialization would have made slavery unprofitable, because machinery was becoming able to take a man’s place and do the job better, faster and cheaper; slavery would have been left behind intirely within 40-50 years and the slave population would have been absorbed into society in a much more gradual and gentle way, with proper knowledge of how to exist in a free society. Instead, they were freed to fail, and many of the social problems we have today are a direct result of Lincoln’s ill-planned threat.

    L.K.Meanoss

      • Indeed it is – right here, right now.

        For what is a slave? Is it not a person who is not legally entitled to control his own life? Whose life is controlled by others?

        We live in a country where it is illegal to do with your own corpus as you wish – because it affronts the owners of your corpus.

        • “Indeed it is – right here, right now.

          For what is a slave? Is it not a person who is not legally entitled to control his own life? Whose life is controlled by others? ”

          just as recently as last year a muslim immigrant to the US was caught owning a slave the family claimed was a daughter. – I’m talking real slaves.

          • Try living your life as you wish to – and you’ll find out right quick how “free” you are.

            Hell, Gray – in most states, you’re not even free to decide whether to wear a seat belt! Let alone build an addition on “your” house.

            You’re not free to make more than the most trivial decisions for yourself: Burger King – or McDonalds? Bavarian Creme? Or Jelly filled…

          • eric, you don’t seem to get me, I agree whole heartedly that our freedoms are being eroded. But it ain’t the military doing it – write some more article on the real guilty scumbags and I’ll back you up all day.

            • Gray,

              The military, like police, fall right into line and obey the egregious, evil orders and laws issued by “the real scumbags.” What does that make them?

              If a cop kicks in the door to your home during a no-knock raid at 2 a.m. (oops – wrong house!) and shoots you dead (or perhaps your wife) and claims “officer safety” … whom do you fault?

              The military routinely does this sort of thing, too – abroad. Do those widgets over in Eyerack and Afgannnystan not have the same human rights as you and I? Or is it ok to brutalize, even kill, them? And if it is ok, what do you suppose will happen when the killers come back here? And become cops?

          • But it ain’t the military doing it

            Well, it ain’t the military helping, either, is it gray man?

            Where are they, with their oaths to the constitution?

            How could the generals sit behind Leon Panetta in front of the Senate, as Panetta announced to the Senate that the military would be deployed on UN orders?

            They just SAT there. A couple of Senators were (finally) so incensed they were hyperventilating.

        • actually Eric, I’m talking real slavery, where one human owns another, and that person has control of life or death over another. I am not a slave nor will I ever be one.
          I am an outlaw, not a criminal, but an outlaw.
          I am prepared to do what it takes against the machine. from what I see on this comment section a lot of you are not, despite all the talk.

          • And there we go–are you going to shift into provocateur mode now?

            Encouraging some ‘real action’, are we?

            They really need to hire better people at whatever department you work for.

          • We are all slaves, Gray. Very real ones. Only you don’t realize it.

            If you’d like to realize it, see what happens if you decline to hand over whatever portion of your income others – your owners – tell you to. See what happens when you decline to obey the command of your owner’s enforcers – as, for example, the command to “buckle up for safety.” Can you do business freely with anyone you wish? No, you can’t. “Your” house is only “yours” so long as you continue to pay its real owners – the government – rent. You are allowed to occupy it, for a time. That is all.

            I could literally go on for pages… but hopefully, you begin to see the point. You are only “free” to do as you are told. To operate within the limits set for you – like a good house nigger. That you get to wear nicer clothes and live in a nicer house in no way changes the fundamental fact. You are owned – because you are controlled.

            As are all of us.

          • Like any statist you cannot see the Rockefeller principle that control is everything about ownership that is worth anything. The federal government, and thus those who shape and manipulate that political body to their bidding, own us all. They claim the fruits of our labor. They claim to tell us what we may eat, drink, or otherwise ingest. They demand tribute for the land which we supposedly ‘own’. They claim to the right to kill us if we sufficiently resist any of their claims on us. And in recent years they claim the right to kill us just because they declare us to be an enemy of their gang.

            So are we slaves with the traditional ownership? No. But we are very much slaves in the same way that Rockefellers protect their wealth for generations from the same taxation that destroys our upward mobility. We are controlled and what we create is harvested from us. Just like the stocks and other assets the Rockefellers don’t ‘own’ but control.

    • ” freeing all slaves was a second-thought threat made by Lincoln ”
      actually if you read his writings you will know Lincoln was always against slavery.

      • Except he was willing to sign an amendment to the Constitution enshrining it in the states where it existed… provided the Southern states agreed to stay in the Union and pay their taxes.

        Read his first inaugural address sometime.

        And don’t forget: He only “freed” slaves held in the Confederate states. The Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to slaves held in Union states.

        • Sometimes it’s not worth arguing about

          “The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it.”

          • Ah yes, the old “break a few eggs for an omelette” argument.

            Except all I see are broken eggs.

            The “greater good”, gray man? How many tyrants have used THAT old saw?

          • The same justification of tyranny trotted out by every would-be and actual tyrant since the time of Caesar.

            We must accept the loss of “our freedoms” in order to preserve them. And people fall for this every time.

          • it’s not justification, it’s just reality.
            I see a lot of talking on this post – but that is just it -talk.
            Start leading if you’re so hot about. Not just writing in the safety of your living room.
            I’ve gone to other countries to help – and no, not just when I was in the military, but as a civilian as well.
            So I don’t need to justify anything to the clowns here.Clover

        • I’d suggest that he read Tom DiLorenzo’s The Real Lincoln, but it would be a waste of his time. Most of the words in it consist of more than two syllables and there are, to my recollection, no pictures in it either.

          • No, it is simply that hind sight is 20/20 – so far all I’ve heard are comments of what should have been done in the past, it doesn’t take a genius to point that out.

            • Wrong is wrong, Gray – and needs to be admitted. When it involves injury, those responsible must be held accountable.

              The Chimp, for example, knowingly launched a war of aggression against a country that he knew had nothing to do with 911. What he did was a war crime, Gray. And those complicit are war criminals. Period. Harsh? What’s harsh, Gray, is the murder of tens of thousands (at minimum) of innocent people. The wholesale destruction of an entire country. That is harsh, Gray. And the US military was the tool that did the work.

          • Hindsight being 20/20 gray man, means that one can clearly see where one has been; but only if they choose to look. If one knows where he has been, then he can better understand where he is now. If you really understood what the so-called “Civil War” was really about, then you would understand that it was a war of federal aggression against the still relatively independent several states. When the smoke cleared our Constitutional Republic was dead and a National government was in place. By 1898 that National government was doing precisely what it was designed to do: expanding the empire.

            The cancerous growth that we loosely refer to as the Federal government started its metastasis during the Lincoln administration. In order to know where we’re headed gray man, you must first know where we’ve really been; not what our handlers tell us. You’re still spewing public grade school pabulum. Take the red pill and join those of us that have disconnected from the matrix and see it for what it really is.

    • Even with the harsh transition some were successful until racists and those who practice the ways of the state, violence, decided they wanted what others had earned.

  24. the reason this article is nonsense is for this simple reason:

    1. “American soldiers are more educated than their peers. A little more than 1 percent of enlisted personnel lack a high-school degree, compared to 21 percent of men 18 to 24 years old [in the general population].”
    2. “Contrary to conventional wisdom, minorities are not overrepresented in the military service.”
    3. “The facts do not support the belief that many American soldiers volunteer because society offers them few opportunities. The average enlisted person or officer could have had lucrative career opportunities in the private sector.”

    • If they could have been productive members of society why did they choose to serve the parasitical ruling class instead?

      Obviously there is some issue that caused them to do that. Be it economics or believing lies or whatever they chose a career with the government instead of serving their fellow man in the creative and productive sector.

      • If they could have been productive members of society why did they choose to serve the parasitical ruling class instead?

        some people actually believe in sacrifice for others – try it some time – it’s quite liberating.

        • I think you actually believe your own neo-Bushido warrior-ethic crap.

          Except you don’t LIVE it–because you’re not outraged that your own military is being used in wars of conquest and aggression…

          …and following orders to engage them.

          • This shows either how utterly brainless he is, or how utterly devoid of either self-respect or a personality of his own he is. Maybe both. Either way, it’s a sickening, sad shame.

        • Sacrifice for others? If you mean, defend their rights as human beings – great. But neither the military nor the police of this country do anything of the sort. You have to know this. If you don’t, I hope that one day, you do. Look around. What are cops – and the military – actually doing? Clear the patriotic rah-rah nonsense from your mind – and look. Then, see. And, you will know.

          • Sacrifice for others? If you mean, defend their rights as human beings – great. But neither the military nor the police of this country do anything of the sort. What are cops – and the military – actually doing?

            You keep confusing the military with the police – they are not the same thing, nor do they have the same job.

            • “You keep confusing the military with the police – they are not the same thing, nor do they have the same job.”

              Sigh. The whole point, Gray, is that – increasingly – they are – and do.

              Are you blind? Do you not see the rampant militarization of law enforcement? Everything from the gear to the attitude. The cops themselves are increasingly ex-military – a disastrous turn of events – because in a free society, peacekeeping and soldiering are mutually exclusive things. A guy who is used to barking orders at cringing Iraqis (and mindlessly obeying whatever orders are barked at him) is the absolute last person you want handling peace-keeping.

              But then, we no longer have peace-keepers. We have law-enforcers. And for that, Officer 82nd Airborne is ideally suited.

          • “You keep confusing the military with the police – they are not the same thing, nor do they have the same job.”

            And yet they have clearly become one and the same and are both willingly destroying the rights of American citizens.

          • We tend to forget that ALL of the states lost the war of federal aggression and the national gun-vernment calls the shots now. A key principle of the law of war is this: When a sovereign occupies a territory with its military, that territory is subject to the will of the sovereign. It’s simple logic; if I have more men with guns on your land than you do, I get to tell you what to do. With that in mind name for me, if you can, any one of the several states or federal territories that does not have a U.S. military presence (i.e. fort, dock yard, naval base, air station, camp, etc.). You can’t do it. Every state is occupied, like it or not. The several states are subject to the will of the occupiers and have been since 1865.

            The United States (Ess on the end not necessarily plural, proper noun for a corporate entity) typically attempts to occupy belligerent territories as transparently as possible. This is done in the tradition of Rome and Great Britain for convenience. It’s simply easier for the occupying sovereign to leave established social and civic institutions intact so far as they are not repugnant to the occupier’s purposes; in this case it is the so-called Federal Government or United States. If you have not done so, study Maj. Birkhimer’s treatise, Military Government and Martial Law and particularly Sections 61 through 66 on this subject. You can download it for free (MilitaryGovernmentAndMartialLaws.pdf). If you really dig in on this subject you will begin to understand that the United States has ruled the several states by force since 1865 and we are considered belligerents subject to paying tribute to the victors.

            At the local and state level the constabulary, the “civilian” police, are the occupying presence. If things get out of control to the point of rebellion or insurrection, then the military will move in. But as long as “we” are relatively well behaved the PTB can continue the façade of self government and free elections. But consider this; the “civilian” police have been using military insignia of grade and rank (i.e. Sgt., Lt., Cpt., Major, Col.) for a long time. This is not a coincidence. They are and have been the de facto “peace time” occupying force in the United States. The fact that they are becoming blatantly militaristic in appearance (BDU’s, combat boots, “Fritz” helmets, M4 carbines and now even “hand me down” U.S. military hardware like APCs) merely confirms what was already going on under the radar.

            If gang of thieves writ large are going to impose onerous taxes, imposts, duties and civil seizure on the “belligerents” in a territory they occupy, their use of force must necessarily escalate proportional to the level of confiscation. When that happens, the regime has no choice but to openly show its teeth. When a state actor can taze you for not putting a strap across your chest or even shoot you to death with impunity merely for having a seizure, it should be apparent to anyone with an IQ higher than room temperature that the present system is indeed a “beast.”

          • And what exactly do they produce? I mean other than obvious violations of their fellow human beings rights.

            I ask, again, please show your work…

  25. Yep ,I totally agree. I was young and stupid in the late 60`s when I went to Vietnam to kill little brown people that were no threat to me or my country.When I returned I pilled up all of my military uniforms ,got drunk and burned them in my back yard. Thank God we have a group of cops and military men “The Oath Keepers” who have committed themselves to uphold the Constitution.

      • Another example of an aggressive war launched under “false flag” pretexts.

        We hanged Herr Goring (well, we intended to) for no less than what our B52s did over North Vietnam.

        But it’s ok when we do it.

        • I don’t call stopping the expansion of communism “false flag” I don’t believe the 100,000,000 people killed by communists would either.Clover

          • “Stopping communism” within the bounds of the U.S. Constitution required troops to go no further than our own shores or territorial waters. Not that it mattered: Communism did itself in anyway, as anyone who understood its inherent untenability (i.e., anyone would could read and had an IQ north of zero) already knew.

            Too bad that 100,000 Americans had to needless die in two police actions (i.e., undeclared “wars”) fighting an “enemy” that was no threat, operating under an ideology that committed suicide of its own accord.

          • You can call it whatever you like. The fact remains: Johnson staged a false flag event to enrage U.S. public opinion, in order to grease the skids for war.

            And how many Vietnamese did we kill in order to save?

          • The USA is more communist than many countries. Just read the ten planks and see how they have been implemented in the USA to one extent or another.

          • libberanter,
            “fighting an “enemy” that was no threat”

            Question: If communism is no threat, why are you upset about the way our country is moving politically? Apparently (according to you) there is no threat.

            You do know that communists infiltrated into the US. Flooded our universities in the sixties with spies. The fall of the Berlin wall gave access to the Vanona papers that explains the plans to infiltrate american universities and corrupt our youth in the 60’s. They were successful. Ex-KGB Officer Yuri Bezmenov explains this on youtube.

          • @gray man:

            You do know that communists infiltrated into the US. Flooded our universities in the sixties with spies.

            YES–now you’re talking.

            We were never truly threatened militarily. The “Cold War” was used domestically to reap massive profits, while building a large shadow government in the military-industrial complex.

            It also served nicely to keep the sheeple frightened of their own shadows–just like the “War on Terror” does today.

            Meanwhile, it was largely a diversion–because while we were “fighting Communism” over there, they established it right here.

            And now look who’s president–an ally of the Weathermen. And we’ve instituted 8 or 9 of the 10 planks of the Marxist Manifesto!

            But it goes beyond the importation of Soviet spies–far beyond. Because our own OSS nee CIA in Operation Paperclip imported thousands of high-level SS officers.

            In WWII we defeated Germany–but we didn’t defeat National Socialism.

            And in the grand scope, what ideology to the biggest Elite powers, the globalist banksters, always push on their serfs?

            That’s right–collectivism, in the form of fascism, socialism, or communism…but they’re all really the same–authoritarian, totalitarian, collectivist

            …and grant those same Elites absolute power in the long run.

          • No, Gary – fact.

            “Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace” – one of the war crimes of which the Reichsmarschall was convicted for participating in (among the notables) the attack on Poland in 1939. The US government did no less as regards Vietnam.

      • How did that work out? A war started with a lie to achieve a lie. Vietnam still ended up commie and nothing of significance happened to the USA because of it… well except having another country to trade with many years later.

        I know how to win over any country. Stuff. People like stuff. Making and selling stuff makes you friends. Honest trade will end any and all problems.

        People in Vietnam put aside their feelings to trade. It’s time americans did the same with everyone.

        • How did that work out? A war started with a lie to achieve a lie. Viet nam still ended up commie.

          With an attitude like that , I guess you never will try to prevent your house from being robbed, your wife from being raped, your children being molested – I mean why try, it will happen anyway – right?

          • You really aren’t very smart, are you? What the hell does warfare based on lies have to do with home defense?

            Don’t bother straining your pea brain trying to answer that – it’s a rhetorical question. Morons always vomit out non sequitors when they can’t defend their nonsensical “arguments” with facts.

          • Gray,

            Did it ever occur to you that Vietnam was not “our” house? The premise of your argument is the neo-con/Wilsonian/Lincolnian idea that it is the duty – the moral right – of the U.S. to impose its conception of “democracy” the world over. At bayonet-point.

            If my neighbor’s house is on fire, I would volunteer to help put it out. I would not show up with my rifle and threaten to kill him if he didn’t handle the situation as I “decided” it ought to be handled.

            Violence is only justified in self-defense. North Vietnam did not attack the US.The US – that psychopath Lyndon Johnson – deliberately manufactured a lie (Tonkin Incident) to enrage U.S. public opinion, in order to launch an aggressive war against it. Fact.

            This pattern is recurrent.

            You might ask yourself the detective’s first question: Who benefits?

          • So I see you have no rational counterpoint and thus attempt an emotional personal tangent of irrelevancy.

            Explain to me how people in Vietnam living under communist rule would have any effect on the average american. I calculate the effect to be approximately zero. Now attempting to make it so they did not live under communism had a huge adverse effect that is still being felt.

            Should have just let them be commie.

          • libberanter,
            Morons always vomit out non sequitors when they can’t defend their nonsensical “arguments” with facts.

            Before you use the word non sequiter in a sentence, please make sure you know what it means.

          • Well, well gray man, you apparently need a little education on the definition of a non sequitur yourself or you you wouldn’t have used the “your house” argument in an effort to muddy the waters of debate. That line of “reasoning” does not logically follow as an analogy to invading a country that had not attacked us and in fact had no capacity to do so. So your statement was indeed a non sequitur.

            I suppose it was disheartening to some of the French (mainly the elite) that they lost their colony, but there doesn’t seem to be that much oil under the Tonkin Gulf anyway. So what were “we” actually there for? You need to read Gen. Smedley Butler’s “War is a Racket” and then maybe you’ll see who benefited. Hint: folks make a lot of money selling supplies and armament to warring nations. No war, no sales. Other folks make even more money and have over the centuries amassed huge quantities of real wealth, such as land, gold, priceless works of art and control of international finance lending money to warring nations (often both sides). Contemplate that for a while, then get back to us.

          • liberranter,
            Too bad that 100,000 Americans had to needless die in two police actions (i.e., undeclared “wars”) fighting an “enemy” that was no threat, operating under an ideology that committed suicide of its own accord.

            Your lack of understanding of history shows. Communism was in fact expanding across the globe. We were asked to help stop the communist north from infiltrating the south, both in korea, and in vietnam. we were successful in one, both militarily, and politically (south Korea), unsuccessful in the other. We won the war in vietnam militarily, however we lost politically. We lost the war because of people like Walter Cronkite, voicing un-informed opinions to the people in this country – opinions that were in fact wrong. The supreme commander of the north himself has stated on record that the north lost, until we pulled out because of misinformation. misinformation spread by the left.
            question: If communism collapsed under it’s own accord, why is it still here?

          • Actually gray man, communism was merely replaced with a pseudo-socialistic fascism. With communism, pretty soon practically eveyone defaults to minimum output because there is no benefit (i.e. profit) from being more productive (i.e. working harder) than the next drone. The black marketeers typically make out, but soon there is so little OPM (other people’s money) that the regime must resort to confiscatory taxes and monetary inflation to stay afloat. With fascism (i.e. where the corporations, especially the banksters, actually own the government), there is enough profit allowed to keep the people reasonably happy and productive while allowing the kleptocracy to operate a lot longer. So what you have now in China is merely being represented to the people as Maoist Communism (which went broke), but is in fact a form of fascism run by the insiders for their own benefit. We have basically the same thing going on here too. You just don’t want to see it, so you can’t. But just because you choose to ignore a thing does not change its character or the fact that it exists.

    • With all due respect Mr Peters, you’re always talking about clovers. Well I’m not a clover, I can think for myself, and I actually experienced what you are writing about – the military. When I read some of the nonsense in these comments I have to say something, because I can see a bunch of “clovers” responding, who also have no experience in these matters. If you would like to have a real discussion about the military I’ll have it with you. But I won’t put up with lies (not saying that you are lying) and fabrication about the military.

      • The military in America’s early days brought their own weapons and relied on local citizens for support. Wouldn’t you agree this is better than what we have today?

        The modern “Troop” is a propertyless unaccountable Bolshevik. He has no ownership in anything. The best truckers are the ones who own their own rigs. I would like to see military types put forth the effort to be independent contractors and owner operators of their vehicles and weapons.

        Wouldn’t we get better results if each drone was pilotted by its owner. There would be more profit for the actual fighter and more accountability as well.

        The Libyan regime change made Trillions of dollars for somebody. I would rather see the spoils go to the ones taking the risks not “Defense Contractors” and support contractors with secret connections.

        • The military in America’s early days brought their own weapons and relied on local citizens for support. Wouldn’t you agree this is better than what we have today?

          Actually Washington had an army as well as local militia.

        • I would like to see military types put forth the effort to be independent contractors and owner operators of their vehicles and weapons.

          I have been a military contractor, I also think we should be able to keep our weapons when we leave the military.

      • No one here is “insulting” you. We’re just raising the proverbial “bullshit flag” whenever your nonsensical comments warrant it – which is for almost all of them.

    • warn away,
      I sure wish I could see you warning others, or do you just warn those who disagree with what you have written?
      Are you going to turn into the typical modern “libertarian” who refuses to hear when they are wrong?

  26. I do support the troops. I support them refusing immoral orders. I support them coming home. I support them apologizing profusely to their parents, their communities and their god(s) for their reprehensible decisions and actions. I support them getting real jobs. I support them directing their talents to productive industry and the betterment of their communities. I support them learning that liberty is necessary for human progress, and getting on the right side of history.

    A force of deprogrammed trained killers would be a great asset to the liberty movement.. more as a deterrent than anything else. And whether we want them or not, we appear to have them as a result of this government pursuing several of the most preposterously stupid wars in human history.

    I wonder what percentage of returning soldiers become “Officer 82nd Airborne,” vs what percentage become defenders of liberty..

    • I have wondered the same thing myself.
      They either have embraced being the boot of tyranny or they are die-hard anti-guv. I can’t think of even one i have met or known that is the middle, always one extreme or the other.

      • Once again–Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen…

        Drone strikes in Pakistan, killing civilians? No refusals there?

        C’mon gray man this is like shooting fish in a barrel. At least swim a little to make it feel sporting!

        You quote Calley–ONE guy prosecuted for war crimes. I’ll throw you a bone–that Lynndie England and a few others were thrown under the bus.

        But they just threw out the last conviction of any officers involved.

        So much for the Mighty Mighty UCMJ.

      • And all-but-universally ignored.

        Most recently in Libya, for example. That you (and the government) didn’t like its government is immaterial. A sovereign state that had committed no act of aggression against the United States was attacked by the military of the United States (directly and with its overt support).Libyan people – thousands of them – were murdered.

        War crimes, Gray. Moral outrages. And the military supported it – participated in it.

        • eric on November 14, 2012 at 11:14 am
          And all-but-universally ignored.
          That you (and the government) didn’t like its government is immaterial.

          I’m not sure where I said anything about the libyan government, can you point that out?

          I’ve already made it clear that I don’t agree with our present government on quite a few things,
          you seem not to understand that. I will try to make it clearer – I do not like our present form of government. My only bitch about this whole discussion is the constant accusations to the US military that are false.

          War crimes, Gray. Moral outrages. And the military supported it – participated in it.

          • If the military refused to play along we would not be in this state of affairs today. The whole system runs on violence, on muscle. If people, if the institutions of that muscle, refused, if they stood up as men and said they would not do these things, they could not happen.

            So do I blame the guy in uniform? Yes I do. But I understand he is ignorant and duped so I feel sorry for him, I have empathy for his condition, but he is still responsible for not educating himself.

            Many are good people who cannot live with the things they’ve done or participated in once the veil of bullshit is lifted from their eyes. The result is the high rate of suicide and other issues effecting military and ex-military today.

            So ultimately I feel for them, hope they can save their souls, but this does not mean they aren’t responsible. Because they are. Someone has to say no.

            It’s not like my job where if I back down and just follow orders the warranty rate increases, in their job people die from just following orders. People shouldn’t take those jobs for that very reason.

    • I wonder what percentage of returning soldiers become “Officer 82nd Airborne,” vs what percentage become defenders of liberty..

      Far too many – which, of course, is the intended plan, Iraqghanistan being an incubator for what’s to come here at home. While I could link to a number of his articles, I recommend everyone comb the archives at Will Grigg’s blog for more on this subject. He’s written extensively over the last couple of years on the militarization of domestic law enforcement, especially on some of the specific tragedies and travesties that have resulted once these PTSD and psychotropic drug-addled thugs are given badges and turned loose on local civil populations. (And, of course, he brings up the obvious point that NO combat veteran should EVER be hired as a domestic peace officer – not that there are any “peace officers” anymore.)

      • I’ve read will grigg and when he’s not being a blow hard some of his columns make sense, not allowing any combat veterans to be police is nonsense.

  27. I don’t know about Rotterdam and Warsaw, but I believe Britain bombed Germany two months before Germany bombed Britain. Either way, Bomber Harris was a war criminal–as were FDR, Truman and Stalin.

  28. I support the troops because those are our kids in those uniforms, and if the government lied to them about the reasons for war just as it lied to us, then those kids in uniform are victims of war as much as we are.

        • Yes, I support so-called “desertion.” The military should be like any other job. You should be able to quit at any time. Anything is else glorified slavery.

            • Yes, indeed.

              If one refuses to execute an “order” – if one says, screw this, I’m out of here; I won’t be a party to “regime change” – one will be pursued doggedly by camo’d thugs to “face the consequences.” Bradley Manning, for instance. He dared to reveal evidence of crimes committed by the U.S. military. And unlike the soldiers who exposed Obersturmfuhrer Calley, Manning was ostracized, then crucified.

              Because he didn’t “support the troops.” That is, accept whatever the “troops” do – including murder.

              As you do.

          • Yes, indeed.

            If one refuses to execute an “order” – if one says, screw this, I’m out of here; I won’t be a party to “regime change” – one will be pursued doggedly by camo’d thugs to “face the consequences.” Bradley Manning, for instance. He dared to reveal evidence of crimes committed by the U.S. military. And unlike the soldiers who exposed Obersturmfuhrer Calley, Manning was ostracized, then crucified.

            Because he didn’t “support the troops.” That is, accept whatever the “troops” do – including murder.

            As you do.

            First of all I have refused unlawful orders while in the military, second of all I don’t support murderers.
            Bradley manning is in trouble because he was stupid. He released a lot of material that did no harm and it was good to release it. He also released classified material that got people killed. In the middle of a war, you don’t release information that aids and abets the enemy, he knew that.

    • They’re grown men, Mike – not “kids.” Men armed to the teeth and given leave to use those arms to maim and kill people. They deserve to be regarded as men. And held to the appropriate standard.

  29. I left the military in disgust after 10 years. Yes, it took me ten ears of serving Leviathan to figure out the scam, just as it takes many a lifetime to figure out the scam of central banking. To be clear, government schools produce government soldiers. Until you end one, you will always have the other.

    THEY ARE MADE TO PRODUCE MINDLESS OBEDIENT DRONES.

    The screwall system teaches state worship and obedience to mindless orders. Listen to the School Sucks podcast. Read John Taylor Gatto.

    If I had known these things at 16 I would have never joined at 17.

    • THEY ARE MADE TO PRODUCE MINDLESS OBEDIENT DRONES.
      The screwall system teaches state worship and obedience to mindless orders.
      Nonsense. I guess for the 10 years you were in you never heard of the UCMJ?

      • Oh yes, we all know about military “justice”. I watched officers and senior NCO’s lie and deceive, while the lower ranks were tried as sacrificial lambs. You seriously want to hold up the “UCMJ” as an example?

        Sort of like the criminals in DC holding to the constitution (wink wink). Good one, fella.

        • “Oh yes, we all know about military “justice”. I watched officers and senior NCO’s lie and deceive, while the lower ranks were tried as sacrificial lambs.”

          If you watched officers and senior NCO’s lie and deceive, and you did nothing about it, then you are a coward who deserves to live in shame the rest of your life.

  30. I just heard of the secession petitions last night–from some friends who heard me say that another Civil (sic) War was very possiblle after the election results. My first thought was of a possible hoax, but even if it is a hoax, it puts the real thought in people’s heads.

    I’m not sure how far these petitions, if real, can go toward real success, but, even assuming every t is crossed and every i is dotted, I seriously doubt any state will be allowed to simply walk away. And if all legal provisions are met, and the states are not allowed to leave the Union, then there will be those who will be determined to follow more drastic measures. Whether the number will be enough remains to be seen, but this is a small snowball that could melt away or start rolling and grow. This is a potential situation that could make many survivalist “nut cases” look like geniuses after all. I suggest we all prepare and brace ourselves, because if there is one thing that defines Americans, it’s the intent desire for and belief in freedom (whether they go along with new legal oppression or not), and if this movement is perceived by the couch-potato masses as a real attempt to break free of governmental oppression, we are likely to see the John Wayne come out in a lot of people.

    Also, the governmental reaction to such a movement will almost certainly be drastic and possibly even Martial Law, in which case The Constitution goes out the window, further fanning the flames.

    Hang on, boys, Obama promised change, and it certainly is coming, one way or another.

  31. “Is Smedley Butler required reading in high school?”

    It is in our home school. It wasn’t at USNA, ’72-’76.

    Just as Lysander Spooner’s “No Treason” wasn’t mentioned during law school.

    • The petitions requesting peaceful secession are weird to me. The secession petitioners have the right idea, of course, but they have a very odd way of expressing it.

      They don’t need no stinkin’ permission. Just do it. The whole idea of secession is that the union is a voluntary compact and a state can leave when it wants. You don’t ask for permission. “Yes, Sir. May I have another?” That’s just stupid…

      These so-called ‘petitions’ should each be a “Notice of Withdrawal from the Union.” This should have been preceded by a formalized procedure at the State level to authorize secession and transition to independence. It would require more than just X thousand “web” signatures over a 10 day period to be a serious effort.

      The lazy, half-assed nature of these petitions makes me think they’re just a Red State Bitch Fest after the election. Too bad because secession is exactly what’s needed before we end up the United State of California. This will just give the Statists another persuasive argument against the crazy racists who supported the South.

      • Exactly. The “Declaration” was just that: A Declaration not an idle bit of conversation over tea and biscuits. Likewise if you’re going to do it then just do it. As the Chinese proverb goes “Talk does not cook the rice”.

        • EXACTLY. As I’ve written to a few of the LRC commentators who’ve posted on this issue over the last couple of days, only an idiot would believe that a power-mad central government would even acknowledge, let alone grant such a petition.

      • More than 600,000 White boys and men died and countless more were maimed allegedly because of something that the Industrial Revolution had already doomed.

        Tragically, the White Race still seems determined to self-destruct.

        Tinsley Grey Sammons

        • Tinsley, I believe that the numbers have been adjusted upwards. They now posit it’s closer to 800,000.

          I’ve told people that it’s ridiculous to assume that so many dirt poor Pinto-driving white boys would die just so some rich man could keep his “Ferraris” in the stable. It’s absurd.

  32. Although I am was drafted Vietnam-era vet, I thank providence that I did not have to go there. I knew nothing then, but I have been fully awake and aware for many, many years since.

    Since my awakening I have supported the troops who refuse to fight, and who refuse to follow unlawful, unconstitutional orders. Soldiers like Spc. Alex Horton, 22, who when writing in a blog while a marine in Iraq in 2007, wrote, “In the future, I want my children to grow up with the belief that what I did here was wrong, in a society that doesn’t deem that idea unpatriotic.”

    And what is war? US Marine Major General Smedley Butler, one of only 19 people to be twice awarded the Medal of Honor, in 1935 stated, “War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”

    And what do the elite who declare wars and send the common folks to fight their wars, think of the soldiers? Well, here’s what Henry Kissinger said. “Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy.”

    Perhaps Albert Einstein summed up war best when he stated that “Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.”

    As I stated, I support those who refuse to go, or having gone, refuse to fight.

  33. I dunno is Osama was right, but he won. He achieved his goals. no doubt about that.

    His stated goal was to bankrupt the US, and that has been accomplished.

    Osama was instrumental in beating the Russians out of Afghanistan, a war which bankrupted the Soviets, and we will sooner or later have to declare victory in the useless afgan war and leave, and that and Iraq and all the money thats been spent Homeland security and TSA will bankrupt the US, not to mention that most of our liberties have been destroyed in the name of “security”

    • Actually, osama was a very minor person, during the afghan / soviet war. He was in charge of nothing. The reason the soviets were bankrupt is because socialism / communism always bankrupts itself.

      • socialism/communism always bankrupts itself

        We’re about to learn that lesson ourselves, painfully.

        Hey gray man–instead of casting about here fighting against your fellow patriots–believe it or not, we’re REAL patriots here–why aren’t you shouting from the rooftops that we’re being taken over in a non-military coup?

        • I agree completely that our government is corrupt, I agree completely that we are losing our freedoms. I agree completely that it must change, just put the blame where it belongs. It’s not our military doing it.
          I keep hearing people bad mouthing the military as if they are invading this country and taking over. The military, contrary to the thoughts of a lot of people here, has a legitimate purpose. They are bound by the laws of this country.

          • Yeah gray man, we should hate the corrupt government but we should worship its enforcers. It is like saying you are against Al Capone but you love and respect and admire his hit men.

            Government is a racket but government created wars are noble…?!!

            I think you need to take off your government issued costume hat and put on your thinking cap.

            • Gray,

              As Meth and Brent already mentioned: The U.S. military is being used within the borders of the U.S. to man “checkpoints” not unlike those in Iraq and Afghanistan where Americans’ rights are routinely shat upon. Fact. Not assertion. Not opinion. Just cold, awful fact.

              A survey was recently conducted of active duty Marines, asking whether they’d participate in dragnet confiscation of civilian firearms. A majority said they’d obey such an order. Do you have any doubt as to the accuracy of this?

              Would you – if ordered by the “lawful chain of command” – come to my house and threaten to kill me if I did not hand over my weapons?

              Be honest.

          • Sure, the government’s doing it–well, actually, the globalist banksters who own the government.

            But where the hell is this holy military you praise? Oh that’s right, it’s off fighting on the five or six fronts the un-constitutional government told it to.

            And it obeys.

          • I agree completely that our government is corrupt, I agree completely that we are losing our freedoms. I agree completely that it must change, just put the blame where it belongs. It’s not our military doing it.

            gray man, if the military didn’t back up, with its firepower, all of those corrupt scumbag politicians who impose all of those unconstitutional laws and wage all of those destructive, immoral, and unconstitutional wars, THEN THERE WOULD BE NO OUT-OF-CONTROL FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. It is only because brainwashed, desperate, IGNORANT people like you put on a uniform, click your heels, render a salute and say “Yes, sir! How high shall I jump, sir?” that this criminal nonsense exists today at all!

            So,yes, you ARE “doing it” – all of you. Only when you collectively draw a line in the sand and say NO, WE WILL NOT obey an unlawful and unconstitutional order!” will you be part of the SOLUTION.

            But since that requires giving up a guaranteed paycheck and making a stand for freedom, we know that no such thing will ever happen.

          • gray man asked, “skunkbear …please tell me the exact time someone in the military deprived you of you rights. otherwise it’s nonsense.”

            The exact time was Sep 30, 2011 when Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen was murdered by a US drone strike without any trial.

            You say that is not me? Must I really point out that the violation of the rights of one citizen is a violation of the rights of all citizens?

            Who guarded that drone? Who maintained and armed that drone? I do not think it was the US Park Service.

            And who pulled the trigger, killing not just him but other innocents? I may be wrong but I am pretty sure it was not Bob in accounting over at the Congressional Budget Office.

            Also what liberranter said so excellently on November 14, 2012 at 8:34 am.

          • “The exact time was Sep 30, 2011 when Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen was murdered by a US drone strike without any trial.”

            First: I said anyone that deprived you.

            second: Anwar al-Awlaki was in a military zone conducting operations against US troops, by doing that he forfeits a trial, the same as any other combatant in a combat zone. If he had been captured it would have been different, but he was not. The US soldier has no obligation to try to capture an enemy combatant versus kill them.

          • Gray man, I don’t understand the ‘thinking’ of people like yourself. You say our rights are fine until someone decides to stomp us personally. That’s incorrect. Just because what I am doing now and who I am is currently not worth some federal government bureaucrat’s precious time doesn’t mean that my creator endowed rights are not imposed upon or denied.

            Everything we own, everything we are, our very existence is now effectively a grant of the state. The state believes it now has the right to take anything it desires from us. Just because the state doesn’t bother me personally does not mean my rights are not unencumbered by the demands, the claims of the state. It just means they aren’t going to bother me. Today. So long as I pay them to leave me relatively alone.

            But if our dear leader decides tomorrow that this BrentP guy who posts on epautos is a ‘national security threat’, an ‘enemy combatant’ a CIA drone may fire a missile through my window, killing me. It’s all legal too.

            Before Obama the executive had to first declare someone an enemy combatant and then yank their citizenship. All on his command. This was the GWB set up. That was changed with Obama. Now they just declare and kill.

            So this simple minded thing where we have to point to and individual transgression of our rights (and I can name a few if needed, but you just side with the so-called authorities anyway) is simply absurd.

            Imagine for a moment you step through a time portal and find yourself in 1982. When you talk to americans in 1982 of the present they don’t believe you. They think you’re loony. They won’t be able to comprehend what americans put up with today from the government. Just like you won’t believe someone from 2042 if this path continues.

        • eric,
          A survey was recently conducted of active duty Marines, asking whether they’d participate in dragnet confiscation of civilian firearms. A majority said they’d obey such an order. Do you have any doubt as to the accuracy of this?
          And I can tell you just as many said “no”, those kinds of questions have been asked of the military long before now.

          I was asked that myself back in the 90’s.

          resources please.

          • Imagine for a moment you step through a time portal and find yourself in 1982. When you talk to americans in 1982 of the present they don’t believe you. They think you’re loony. They won’t be able to comprehend what americans put up with today from the government. Just like you won’t believe someone from 2042 if this path continues.

            Brent B I was in the military in 1982, I know exactly how they think.Clover

        • eric,
          ” The U.S. military is being used within the borders of the U.S. to man “checkpoints” – the National Guard is not the US military. I know that most of you don’t know the difference, but the national guard of each state is controlled by that state, and guarding that states borders is a legitimate function. They are controlled by the people of that state.

          • That isn’t true. The National Guard is controlled by federal orders ultimately. That’s why the tag says US Army on the chest. It’s why so many guard units have deployed to the current “situations” in the war on “terror”. The founders never wanted a standing army in the country. They knew that if you have it, you tend to use it.

            • Gray,

              Whether the Guard gets paid by the state government or the federal government is immaterial. The National Guard is an element of the U.S. military. Fact. Not opinion.

  34. My grandfather (a WWI vet) told me war was to make rich men richer. In 1964 I thought he was a nut. He told me that in France, in 1918 he was ordered to kill a dozen or so German POWs or he would be court marshaled for failing to carry out an order. He and his fellow soldiers took them down the road and shot them all. I am a vet, getting discharged in 1969, and get really sideways with the rah, rah, “kill all those terrorist ragheads” flagwavers. Bradly Manning is a true patriot currently rotting away in jail. His “crime” was his release of classified information. The information was classified as it was proof of a war crime, the murder of unarmed innocent people! I’m glad you folks are here to demonstrate that I am not nearly as nuts as other people claim I am.

      • Hi Gray. The broken window fallacy does not apply here. It only demonstrates that wealth is not created by the breaking of the window. The glazier is enriched, though at the expense of the shopkeeper and the tailor or shoemaker. In the case of war, the arms merchants do indeed become wealthy, at the expense of military and society at large. Smedley Butler details the huge increases in profits for war contractors during WWI.

          • Gray,

            Wars are almost always about resources. About making a country – that is, the elements which control the country – richer. Do you really believe we have “boots on the ground” in the Middle East because we’re “fightin’ fer freedom”? That it’s not because of the oil that’s there?

            Why did Lincoln pursue the Southern States? He told us: Because he needed their money. The South was paying the lion’s share of the tariff that funded the federal government. The North would be poorer if it did not make war on the South.

            Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union? He needed to secure the oil fields in Romania from Soviet attack and also to acquire the land and resources of European Russia. To enrich the Reich.

            Why did Japan pursue a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity” if not to make Japan richer? It sought oil – and mineral wealth. Which we (FDR) decided would give Japan unacceptable wealth – and thus, power.

            Virtually any war you can think of was launched in order to make the country (its owners) richer. That is the object. Not “glory” – that’s the pap they teach the grunts who fight and die to make their owners richer.

          • Hi Gray. I never said that war makes countries richer. In fact, I was saying the opposite, so your reply has nothing whatsoever to do with what I wrote. If you really think the broken window fallacy counters the fact that arms merchants are enriched by war, I can only recommend reading Bastiat again. And if you think I said that war makes countries richer, I would ask you to read my post more carefully.

      • um it doesn’t apply when you profit from person A breaking person’s B window.

        Wealth is destroyed but you got richer selling rocks and windows and collecting interest on the financing of both.

    • McVeigh’s moral error was INDISCRIMINATE killing. He violated many innocent’s right to life. While I share his rage, I deplore his action.

      Tinsley Grey Sammons

      • Except–he didn’t kill those kids, the bombs planted a priori by the government provocateurs days before did.

        It was so sloppy, they had agents dressed in black removing unexploded ordinance during the cleanup.

        A trail of dead bodies, including cops, who saw what was going on.

        McVeigh was set up.

        Watch A Noble Lie for a detailed accounting. OK City was a test-run for 9/11, with the convenient side-effect of demonizing peaceful militias.

        Finally: examine it logically. A fertilizer bomb, on the outside of the building, supposedly demolished three-foot-diameter reinforced concrete columns, blowing them outward? Almost but not quite as believable as three buildings collapsing into their own footprints from fire.

          • Is that what you say to everything you don’t have the wherewithal to refute logically?

            Tell me about OK City then, gray man.

            Let’s talk conservation of energy, the inverse square law, detonation velocity of ANFO. Let’s talk about 6,000 psi steel-reinforced structural concrete columns.

            Or will you again say “LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-I am not listening!”

            Your debate technique leaves something to be desired.

            Hint: arguing does not consist of:
            “nonsense”
            “tin foil hat”*
            “dumasses”

            And for Christ’s sake use a spell-checker, it’s 2012

            * tin is toxic, we use aluminum now-adays.

          • I say put your tin hat back on because that is exactly the kind of damage fertiliser bombs are designed to do. I know, I’ve built them.

          • As I thought.

            Unable to put forward a logical argument, you repeat your propaganda-induced “slide”–“tin foil hat”.

            Do you know what a “slide” is, gray man? It’s the term the CIA uses to describe a mental diversionary tactic that’s implanted to prevent people from contemplating inconvenient ideas. Read up on a nasty little place called the Tavistock Institute; the “slide” is one of their legacies.

            Most people today use “conspiracy theory” as their slide. It’s not an argument technique, it’s a quick-and-dirty ad hominem.

            But you won’t argue about OK City, because you can’t…or don’t want to, because the truth is too horrible to bear.

          • Unable to put forward a logical argument, you repeat your propaganda-induced “slide”–”tin foil hat”.

            what is it about “I know what they do because I’ve built them” don’t you understand? that is not propoganda

      • Gray,

        “and a whole lot more killers (who have killed many more people) have never been in the military.”

        Again, I am speechless. A Ted Bundy or a Jeffrey Dahmer – record setters, mind – kills perhaps a dozen or two dozen people. I think the record for an individual serial killer is appx. 40 people. The U.S. military has killed – by the most conservative estimates – tens of thousands of Iraqis. Many of them – thousands of them – women and children. Displaced many times that number. This is just Iraq. Just one incident of real mass murder. Performed by the military. It’s horrible to confront, I realize. But it must be confronted nonetheless – unless you are uninterested in being a human being.

        You (apparently) just shrug. I find this attitude incredible. But it explains why “they” hate us. And it’s not because of “our freedoms,” chief.

        • You (apparently) just shrug. I find this attitude incredible. But it explains why “they” hate us. And it’s not because of “our freedoms,” chief.

          no, I don’t just shrug. but I’m grown up enough to know war is hell and in the history of humanity there has never been a time without war. Do I like it? No. But I can’t change that. The “civilizations” and I use the term loosely, that you are crying over are responsible for the deaths of 100’s of millions over the last 1400 years. so cry me a river.
          Why don’t you pay attention to Sweden, England, Germany, France, all of North Africa, Central Africa, Detroit, MI, Phoenix, AZ, I could go on and on. Islam is on the move like locusts again. That is what you should be worried about. Obummer was right about one thing, islam helped found this country – simply because Columbus was trying to avoid islamic pirates when he voyaged west.
          In 1492 coincidently, was the year Spain finally threw off 300 years of islamic occupation.

  35. Most Amerikans are mentally retarded psychopaths – they have been created by the terror-statists with their puhblik skewls, TV broadcasts, and high-carb/low-fat diets. You push these little sub-human mutant Democracy Parasite and they will violently demand that YOU – The evolved sovereign human – live for THEM. Officer 82nd Airborne is the “finest” government can create. It takes a real stupid runt to worship the state and their mass-murderers.

  36. Osama was right? If Sept. 11 and previous/subsequent attacks were about the evils of Western impositions in the Middle East then should the correct thing to do on Sept 12 was profusely apologise to Osama and the people of the Middle East and beg their forgiveness?

    On the other hand, are you practicing what your preach? Do write letters to newspapers? Do you spit on recently returned soldiers and call them “baby killers”? Or do you keep to yourself and say nothing provocative in public?

    • Gee Gil, I am a coward at heart. Our young GIs are “following orders” after being brain washed in boot camp. Been there, done that myself. No sense in splitting on our kids for they know not what they do. The general public is also brain washed by TeeVee and the speeches of known liars who are our self proclaimed “leaders”. Little wonder they wish to disarm the public. I don’t see what can be done with the mess we inherited from “the greatest generation”. They too were brainwashed and it is most difficult to escape from The Matrix. Only a lucky few do.

      • bullshit, I’ve “been there and done that” too and no one was “brain washed”. And if you were really in the service you would know you don’t just “follow orders”. You swear an oath to defend the constitution and that comes before following bad orders. Ask Lieutenant Calley about that.

        • Unless a declaration of war is made by congress it is not a constitutionally just war. The last such war was WWII.

          If you served in any other war or aggressive military action since then then you did not uphold your oath. You merely followed your orders – your bad orders – as all brain washed people in government approved costumes do.

            • “Authorized,” Gray?

              That is weasel wording. The Constitution of the United States – the law of the land, which you swore an oath to defend – states very explicitly that a formal declaration of war is required. Period. Fact.

              But the Deciders just Decided to send the troops – and the bombs…. and you are ok with it. You help do it.

              That makes you part of it. And culpable.

          • Wrong.

            The AUMF was a blanket statement, Congress abrogated their duty. They did NOT declare war, they simply handed the reins to the Executive.

            And it’s run with them.

            Tell me about Libya, then; was there ANY congressional input? Obomber simply declared “number two, make it so!”–NO authorization.

            Shouldn’t the “protect and defend the constitution” generals have refused the order?

            Or are they all “just following orders” now?

            You’re too loyal, gray man, and it’s made you forget the principles you purport to uphold.

        • Except those who give the orders are not defending the Constitution as they take “orders” from civilians who don’t follow the Constitution. So why aren’t they arresting or disobeying these people when they’re clearly violating said Constitution? And if they’re not doing so then they themselves are guilty of not defending it. Ergo they’re fellow liars and hypocrites.

          • gray man:

            so blame the people who don’t follow the constitution.

            I AM: I’m blaming the politicians, and the military that follows orders against their oath to the Constitution.

            Why don’t you get this?

            Their primary duty is to the Constitution, which is the foundation of the country.

            NOT to some snot-nosed, 4-year Johnnie-come-lately president.

            “Commander in Chief” my ass; the Constitution is their commander, and they–the military–wipe their asses with it.

        • “But the Deciders just Decided to send the troops – and the bombs…. and you are ok with it. You help do it.
          That makes you part of it. And culpable.”

          And eric, I guess since you didn’t go to washington and protest, start a revolt, maybe kill a few who sent people, you are part of it and culpable as well.

          • This is real nice!

            “maybe kill a few who sent people”

            I think having a website with over 100k unique visitors a month will do more good than killing people and going to prison. Just my $0.02.

          • Gray,

            Immoral actions committed by others – without my participation or consent – are not things for which I am morally responsible. I do, however, try to call attention to such immoral actions and thereby, work to put an end to them. Or at least, prevent them from occurring again.

            My work is peaceful – yours is violent.

            My associations are based on voluntary cooperation. Yours on coercion.

            For you, might makes right. Do what I say – or else.

            It makes you of a piece with thugs throughout history. That you salute a different flag is purely cosmetic.

    • Granted this is probably a waste of breath given the tone of Gil’s post.

      I’m pretty sure Eric or anyone on this blog doesn’t excuse Bin Laden’s actions. However one can still ask Why he did it and not buy into the Neocon bullshit lie that says “they hate us for our freedoms” It’s not hard to understand (unless your a liberal or a neocon) that if you poke someone with a stick long enough, eventually that person is going to punch you in the mouth.

      If you want to see someone who is provocative and doesn’t buy into the official government 9/11 story nor the popular worshiping of the military then watch this video

      • What is “it” that Osama did?

        Why would any rational person buy the government conspiracy / fantasy theory regarding 9/11?

        Furthermore, the FBI itself has acknowledged that it does not have credible evidence to support the proposition that Osama was behind 9/11.

        • “What is “it” that Osama did?” are you brain dead?

          Why would any rational person buy the government conspiracy / fantasy theory regarding 9/11? put your tin hat back on.

          Furthermore, the FBI itself has acknowledged that it does not have credible evidence to support the proposition that Osama was behind 9/11. – bullshit, OBL claimed credit

          • Yeah two years after he died of kidney complications related to Marfan’s syndrome.

            I would have recognized Marfan’s when I was a second-year med student; once you get to the protein-wasting stage, which he obviously had, you don’t last long…especially not wandering around the Hindu-Kush mountains.

            There were at least four badly-done fake OBL videos and audios; they’re so obvious they’re laughable.

            His immediate response was to deny responsibility; if he wanted maximum impact, he’d take credit immediately. Why would he ‘fess up years later? Think, man, think!

            There’s so much material explaining how 9/11 could not have been due to airplanes hitting buildings I won’t even try to cover it here.

            But I doubt you have the intellectual fortitude and spiritual gumption to go find it, read it, and evaluate it honestly.

            You’d rather cling to comfortable illusions.

          • I’m just an engineer with some medical device experience and I’ve been calling Tim Osman Osama bin Dead for a good number of years now.

            Let’s say OBL got US government certified three times a week clinic dialysis. The odds are in favor of him dying no later than 2006. This is when I declared him dead. He was likely dead years before, but at this point I could mathematically say it.

            Now never mind that the US government has stifled dialysis treatment, with daily state of the art dialysis he could live longer, but he’s not getting that in the caves and on the run. Hard to get the consumables even if he got the machine.

            Now this is not including what caused him to need dialysis in the first place. It just assumes renal disease requiring hemodialysis.

            So we know he had to be dead long before Obama declared him dead.

            The american public believes in fantasies and lies and calls us conspiracy theorists for just pointing out the obvious. Osama bin dead. Long dead. He was probably dead or close to it in 2001 which made him the idea Goldstein.

      • It’s not too hard to understand – it is islam. Period.
        I get so sick and tired of dumasses who don’t study a thing about history. This has been going on for 1400 years and you people act like it’s something new and our fault. wake up!

        • I’ve studied Islam quite a bit. There are some objectionable things in the Koran, but I’d say the same of the Bible. The Muslim advance into the West stopped centuries ago. It was the West that rekindled the “clash of civilizations” by invading Islamic nations, overthrowing their governments, stealing their resources and colonizing Palestine. If it were you in that situation, you’d be fighting back, too.

          • I’ve studied Islam quite a bit. There are some objectionable things in the Koran, but I’d say the same of the Bible. The Muslim advance into the West stopped centuries ago. It was the West that rekindled the “clash of civilizations” by invading Islamic nations, overthrowing their governments, stealing their resources and colonizing Palestine. If it were you in that situation, you’d be fighting back, too.

            If you think the Bible compares to the koran then you know nothing of either. The ottoman empire (islamic expansion) was stop by WWI not centuries ago. There were muslim SS troops in the NAZI party. we pay for the resources they sell us – we steal nothing. Last time I looked american aren’t colonizing palestine. Jews were there millennia before islam was invented. Who’s trying to colonize who? from your comments you really know nothing of islam.

          • “Add another item to your “Resume of Ignorance”: you obviously don’t know any Muslims either.”

            Actually I can guarantee I know more than you do, possibly more than anyone on this blog.
            I’ve lived among them for years (with an S). The problem is islam, not the individual peace loving muslim, who doesn’t want to follow jihad. But then according to the koran, hadith, sura, sharia law etc, if they don’t want to commit jihad they are not a muslim. they are appostate and must be killed.

          • You mean the problem is that some people are manipulated into doing bad things.

            Sounds like what happens to americans who join the US military.

  37. As a vet, like my dad, I can say something without getting the usual “well, you have nothing to say unless you’re a vet” bullshit. It’s the perpetual ace up the sleeve in any argument with goose-stepping statist robots. They don’t like it either but it shuts off a lot of the rambling propaganda at the root.

    I’m only going to repeat what I’ve said before, and elsewhere, that if our so-called “leaders” honestly believed that a course of action they’re pushing for is worth the life of anyone then they should be mandated to lead the assault or have a direct blood relative in the line of fire, not some rear echelon crap, for the duration of said conflict. If they are not willing to sacrifice personally then you can bet your ass it’s not worth your life or the lives of your loved ones.

    If they are then maybe, just maybe, it’s worth considering but only then through volunteering and never a draft. I wonder how many wars we’d be engaged in with requirements like that? I venture precious few to none. And the whole excuse for the military industrial complex comes crashing down. Besides, you don’t have to ask anyone to defend his own home or family. No draft is required to fight off an obvious enemy.

      • Eric in such a case, particularly with the increasingly corpulent uber-villian Hitlery and her cackling laugh…

        …wouldn’t it be more effective to drop them sans parachute?

        Kind of like human bunker-busters. Hitlery would make a very impressive “SPLAT!”, and I’m sure the reeking pustulent contents of that vile bag of offal would qualify as chemical warfare. After all, the Pentagon violates the Geneva convention in every other way.

        • I thought we were trying to end the use of WMD’s (women of mass destruction)? Dropping a “gas bag”, such as Hillary, would constitute war crimes. Have mercy on the victims.

      • sorry Eric, there are sons of politicians who are in the military , that whole argument is nonsense. According to that argument you can’t eat a steak unless you butcher the cow. Can’t drive a car unless you are a mechanic. Can’t own a home unless you built it.

        • C’mon gray man, can you honestly say the percentage of politicians with children in the military is anywhere near as high as, say, the percentage of mill-workers whose kids are?

          You know damn well the politicians and their kids are the least likely to get into that racket–because they KNOW what it is.

          A few sons here and there don’t compensate for the thousands of politicians who’ve skillfully avoided military service…GWB comes to mind.

    • I love shutting down arguments from those warmongers that never served. I give my opinion, they give their opinion, and then they start going off on all kinds of rants and red herrings and straw men.
      Then I say, well I am an ex-Army Ranger, and since I was willing to actually do the front and behind the lines fighting, I think it gives my argument a little more authority then someone cowering at home telling me what they think I am fighting for.

      I KNOW what they were sending me out to fight by God, I was THERE.

      • well, I served, try shutting me down. this whole discussion is nonsense. people volunteer for service, no one is drafted and no one is “brain washed”. Most of the people who join, join for the right reason, and for good reasons.

          • So whaddaya want, a cookie? Some of the rest of us here “served” as well, for about as long as you did, and still came away after all those wasted years with a solid appreciation of the truth: that not one of us ever “served” our country by “defending freedom” (unless you’re an immortal who fought in every battle from Lexington Common to Yorktown). ‘matter of fact, the only way anyone on active duty today will EVER truly “defend freedom” is the day they form an army to march into Washington, D.C. and arrest everyone in the White House, on Capitol Hill, and in the Supreme Court for treason and subversion of the Constitution. (A ceremonial burning of the USAPatriotAct and NDAA would make a good start and show of sincerity.)

            So how about it? Are YOU willing to do your part to “defend our freedoms” so that what you’ve posted here won’t be remembered in the future as mere brainless propaganda bullshit?

          • Major General Smedley Butler wore the Marine Corps uniform for over thirty years, and would tell you you were full of shit. I wore that uniform for eleven and, fortunately, I am still alive and able to tell you you are full of shit. War is the politician’s, corporatist’s and banker’s game. You and I, and all the others who swore the oath, were their pawns. Seriously, wake the hell up!

          • “The Final Days”, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein:

            In Haig’s presence, Kissinger referred pointedly to military men as “dumb, stupid animals to be used” as pawns for foreign policy. Kissinger often took up a post outside the doorway to Haig’s office and dressed him down in front of the secretaries for alleged acts of incompetence with which Haig was not even remotely involved. Once when the Air Force was authorized to resume bombing of North Vietnam, the planes did not fly on certain days because of bad weather. Kissinger assailed Haig. He complained bitterly that the generals had been screamin for the limits to be taken off but that now their pilots were afraid to go up in a little fog. The country needed generals who could win battles, Kissinger said, not good briefers like Haig.

        • No one is brain washed? Seriously? Of eight friends I had in high school, five went into the Marine Corps, two to the army, and one to the navy, not a single one of them came back from boot camp without major alterations to their personalities. The only one I still see regularly, and is still what I would call psychologically healthy, i.e. not an alcoholic, suffering from depression or other mental health issues, is the one who was medically discharged after just over a year in. I am extremely grateful that my father was a vet, drafted for Vietnam, who told me over and over again when I was young, that I could do anything I wanted but “stay the hell out of the military, no matter what”.

        • So what happens to those “good reasons” when they’re sent on wars of aggression?

          Justify Iraq. OK now justify Afghanistan–after “al Queda”* was “destroyed” and the Taliban “removed”.

          Justify Libya. Justify Syria–yeah, there’s boots on the ground.

          You of all people should be furious–are you really this fucking ignorant? Your own comrades are being killed by the Elite playing their little games–breathing depleted uranium while cleaning barrels, consuming lethal experimental vaccines, doing three, four, six, NINE tours of duty…they’re being used up and thrown away.

          Their death benefits are being stolen.

          And how about that VA, chum? How’s that working for you?

          Then when you come home, the fusion centers and their MIAC reports consider you the number one terrorist threat–not an honorable veteran, but a likely domestic terrorist.

          If you speak out, they black-bag you and put you in a psych hospital–look up Brandon Raub. A man I know–John Whitehead–defended him….but there are thousands just like him.

          Throw them in a mental institution; even if they get out–guess what? No more weapons for that young man–he’s crazy after all! Why do you think they’re doing that, Mr. Rosy-Glasses?

          * aka “al-CIAduh”; yes, those are the same mujahideen recruited by, trained by, paid for by, the CIA in the late 70’s against the Soviets. The name itself is a cute little joke; it means roughly “the base”, as in, the CIA database of loyalist mujahideen; but it’s funny because it can also be slang for “toilet”.
          Tim Osman, meet Osama bin Laden…CIA asset.

          • methylamine on November 14, 2012 at 1:52 am
            So what happens to those “good reasons” when they’re sent on wars of aggression?
            All wars are aggression that is the point – to win

            Justify Iraq. OK now justify Afghanistan–after “al Queda”* was “destroyed” and the Taliban “removed”.

            Justify Libya. Justify Syria–yeah, there’s boots on the ground.
            I don’t justify libya

            You of all people should be furious–are you really this fucking ignorant? Your own comrades are being killed by the Elite playing their little games–breathing depleted uranium while cleaning barrels, consuming lethal experimental vaccines, doing three, four, six, NINE tours of duty…they’re being used up and thrown away.

            You do understand that they are all volunteers don’t you?

            Their death benefits are being stolen.

            And how about that VA, chum? How’s that working for you?

            Then when you come home, the fusion centers and their MIAC reports consider you the number one terrorist threat–not an honorable veteran, but a likely domestic terrorist.

            I didn’t vote for the people who believe that – I’m against them like everyone else here.

            If you speak out, they black-bag you and put you in a psych hospital–look up Brandon Raub. A man I know–John Whitehead–defended him….but there are thousands just like him.
            Don’t blame the military for that – blame the people responsible.

            Throw them in a mental institution; even if they get out–guess what? No more weapons for that young man–he’s crazy after all! Why do you think they’re doing that, Mr. Rosy-Glasses?
            again blame the people responsible.

            * aka “al-CIAduh”; yes, those are the same mujahideen recruited by, trained by, paid for by, the CIA in the late 70′s against the Soviets. The name itself is a cute little joke; it means roughly “the base”, as in, the CIA database of loyalist mujahideen; but it’s funny because it can also be slang for “toilet”.

            at the time the soviet union was the biggest threat – you use the tools you have.

            Tim Osman, meet Osama bin Laden…CIA asset.

          • @gray man:

            All wars are aggression that is the point – to win

            I don’t justify libya

            You do understand that they are all volunteers don’t you?

            “Wars of aggression”–i.e. wars unprovoked by an initiating attack. I’m beginning to think you’re not the sharpest tack in the box.

            You don’t justify the Libyan attack–which of the others DO you justify, gray man?

            Iraq? Syria? Soon Yemen, Iran?

            You say you took an oath to defend the Constitution.

            Then why don’t you? All you have to do, is say “those wars are illegal and the military should refuse orders to enter them.”

            And as far as “volunteers”–perhaps, but do they understand what’s being done to them? Is it right for their commanders to put them in mortal danger unnecessarily?

            Why aren’t you mad as hell that your comrades are getting record rates of cancer, birth defects, and sickness?

        • I agree – sort of. They think they are joining for “the right reasons.” Presumably, to defend “our freedoms.” But what do they actually end up doing? Partaking of aggressive violence in support of an authoritarian regime’s authoritarian policies.

          That’s about as far from “right reasons” as you can get.

          • They try to convince themselves that they’ve joined to “defend our freedoms,” “serve our country,” etc. Fact is, most of them aren’t honest enough to admit that they joined only because they couldn’t get jobs anywhere in what little remains of the private sector – a private sector destroyed by the very people for whom they’re working as hired mercenaries.

            • I have sympathy – up to a point – because our society literally marinates young people (and us, too) in flag-humping nationalism-collectivism. It is very hard to break free of this conditioning. A kid grows up, all the while taught how noble it is to “serve,” that “the troops” are “fighting for our freedoms.” He decides to join up, perhaps because he is an idealist – and his ideals have been forged into a tool used to manipulate him into becoming both a slave and a slave-herder. Hopefully, it quickly dawns on him that he is not “fighting for freedom.”

              In GrayMan’s case, this has not happened yet.

          • He won’t. Like I said above, most people on active duty today don’t have the guts to admit that they joined the military only because they either couldn’t find jobs anywhere in the private sector or couldn’t afford college.

          • gray man, “my” senior enlisted career adviser was a pot bellied alcoholic who warned me (in 1981) how bad the economy was, that I wouldn’t be able to get a job (my AFSC was avionics FYI) and that I’d be back in three months, losing my time in grade. He went on and on about how bad it was on the outside and what a good deal we had in the Air Force. I even had an SRB of 4 (worth $20K back then), but I’d already seen what most of the “lifers” were all about and knew I could make a lot more money in the private sector without having to play that game.

            So I informed MSgt. Beergut that I was not a social misfit married to fat woman who hated me to the point that I had to go to the club every night and put away two pitchers of beer before I could go home to face her. And furthermore, that I didn’t need Mother Air Force to feed me, clothe me, house me and wipe my ass for me. Since I had described him and his life to a tee, his knuckles went white, his face turned red and he responded just as intelligently as you have in most of your posts, by yelling “YOU’LL SEE! YOU’LL BE BACK! YOU’LL SEE!” I called the base where I’d been stationed a year later to tell him that I’d already paid more in taxes than he’d made as an E-7, but they’d sent him off to Korea (sigh). Yeah, I saw alright and I didn’t look back.

        • Let me ask you this. Imagine there was no military. No “Rangers”. Nothing of the sort. Now answer me this… What couldn’t you have done that didn’t involve the military or it’s mindset? Answer: just about anything and everything short of being a mercenary. Except that I respect mercenaries more because they don’t delude others into believing they’re anything but hired guns.

  38. The age at which young men are recruited (generally under 25) is by nature a gung-ho and impressionable one–a fact that is capitalized upon by the military, especially the Army and Marines. In this era, the young recruits are exposed to war violence and often intentially glorified gore, thus it remains burned into their psyche even when returned to “normal” society and often seeks a release, and whether that release is focused outward or inward–or both–determines the type of tragedy that is pressed upon the American people, ultimately by our own government.

    What good does it do America to interject itself into the inner politics/military quarrels of another country or region at such self-inflicted expense, not to mention the expense of actions of foriegn terrorists? Perhaps the rich mineral assets of Afghanistan is the true (albeit unstated) reason for attempting to set up a government friendly to the U.S., so that U.S. corporations can monopolize and benefit themselves by exploiting those minerals. This goes to the fact that the elected officials of America represent the lobbyists and interests of corporations instead of the People of America whom they are intended to represent; they and their elections are bought and payed for by, and thus represent, big business.

    In addition, we “good little consumers” support the corporations by purchasing their products, so, in essence, our entire nation exists for the benefit of omnipotent corporations and their elite executives, with their multi-million dollar salaries and golden parachute retirement deals.

    We are a far cry from the largely self-sufficient people of our forefathers’ time, and we are paying the price for letting gov’t make our decisions for us. But do most Americans care, see, or care to see? No, they’re too busy rolling in the clover, right?

    L. K. MeanoSS

    • “Perhaps the rich mineral assets of Afghanistan is the true (albeit unstated) reason for attempting to set up a government friendly to the U.S., so that U.S. corporations can monopolize and benefit themselves by exploiting those minerals. ”

      Solid observation, LK. There’s also another very big, unmentionable reason that comes to mind: Heroin. Just as the British and Japanese empires used opium and its derivatives as cultural weapons in their robberies of China, US interests are using no.4 heroin to facilitate a massive robbery. The difference is that the US empire is using this cultural weapon against its own citizenry, as well as against others worldwide.

      • Ed–

        Nail, hammer, hit!

        How is it that Afghan opium production as a world percentage had dropped below 10% pre-2001; and since we’ve occupied Afghanistan, it’s now producing more than 90% of the world’s opium?

        Enjoy these images of troops guarding poppy fields fightin’ fer our freedoms.

        A truly massive source of funding for the shadow government; hard, unencumbered cash. Drugs are a trillion-dollar-a-year industry; so much so that without the hard cash flowing through the hyper-leveraged too-big-to-fail banks, they’d be insolvent.

        Hell, just last year Wells Fargo and Wachovia paid a piddly $100 million fine for laundering $384 Billion in drug money. Given that they’re leveraged about 30:1, if you pulled that 384 billion out, they’d be totally insolvent.

        What do the government and press (is that redundant?) say about it?

        Nothing to see hear, move along citizen. Sit down, shut up, drink your fluoride, eat your GMO, you scum American.

    • There is not a fifty-year-old alive who is psychologically the same person he was in his teens and twenties. Young males are saturated with testosterone and mentally bombarded with Real He-man nonsense.

      I’ve been personally acquainted with many combat veterans and while in my presence not one ever expressed a desire to “do it again”.

      Tinsley Grey Sammons (1936 –)

      • Nobody should be the same as when they were younger. If they were, and believe me I KNOW some who think they are, they’d be emotionally and mentally stunted.

        • nonsense. If you form good ideas when you are younger there is no reason to change them just because you are older. Iv’e seen plenty of people who got more stupid as they aged.

          • You do not change your ideas because you get older. You change your ideas because, hopefully, you are made wiser with experience and reflected thinking. If you are not a work in progress then you are just a stain.

            “Iv’e seen plenty of people who got more stupid as they aged.” And those are the ones who got promoted.

          • Iv’e seen plenty of people who got more stupid as they aged.

            I know. We’ve seen ample evidence of that in your posts here.

  39. I’ve always thought that in any free society, military recruiting should be looked down on. In fact, I would question if a free society would need to have a bloated military.

    But then, you look at who is recruiting, and for what purpose (in action, not in stated intent), and it all makes sense. Is Smedley Butler required reading in high school? ha!

    • One of my favorite writers, Robert Heinlein, suggested that only those of conscription age may vote to go to war – and must themselves serve in any war they vote to wage.

      A step in the right direction, there.

        • LOL. Does it? When was the last time anyone voted to declare war? And how old were the people who voted? And did those who voted actually go fight?

          You’re smarter than that, right? Guess not.

          • Actually ,as much as I like reading ericpetersautos, this article is full of shit. I served 20+ years, I’m a retired veteran, and I never hurt an innocent person. In case if you dumasses don’t remember history, we were attacked on 9/11. And in case if you think that was our fault, you don’t know jack about history. The first war the US ever did was against islam (barberry pirates). Islam has been at war with the world for 1400 years. Some of you just woke up to it, some of you never will.

          • gray man- just like the getaway driver never robbed any banks, right?

            Even our legal system has an entire segment of law around complicity, from full blown accomplices to those who facilitate. Whether you want to talk about logistical people in the military, or voters, they are ALL complicit in the crimes of politicians and govt.

            So which is it? Either you’re a special exemption, or rules are applied universally? hmmm?

          • gray man, you might want to learn some history yourself. People are people.

            Governments and religions are often run by a small group that manipulates others into serving their interests. That’s just the way it is. It’s true of the guy who signs up for the US Army it’s true of the guy who follows OBL. There are even things called ‘false flag’ attacks that are part of the manipulation.

            War is a racket. It always has been.

          • this ain’t got nothing to do with the get away driver. you seem to think everyone in the military is guilty of every crime committed by someone in the military. asinine nonsense – with that argument everyone in the world is guilty of every crime by every one else in the world. how ’bout researching lieutenant Calley from Viet-nam.

          • gray man- Let me see if I can explain this to you simply, in a language you’ll understand…

            oh yeah?! Well whatever I say is right, and you’re a poo face! Neener neener! I’m not even going to read any of your responses, I’ll cover my eyes while screaming “LALALALALAALALALAAA!” and conflate anything you say into nonsense! Take that, stupidhead!

          • @gray man:

            I’ll counter Lt. Calley with War is a Racket by Smedley Butler–two-time Medal of Honor recipient.

            You revere the UCMJ? How about the Constitution you swore to protect against enemies foreign and domestic?

            So–have you participated in any of the recent wars, or lent them material support? Because NONE of them were properly declared “war” by Congress–as demanded by the Constitution.

            And all of them were wars of aggression–not defense.

            Surely you don’t like seeing your comrades chewed up in Afghanistan, guarding poppy fields, and committing suicide faster than the enemy can kill them?

            Look–most of the young men I meet from the military are good, decent people. But they’re being used by disgusting, loathsome, decadent psychopaths.

            When they figure it out, they either spiral into depression from remorse, or they take the right step–and become TRUE patriots, who understand that the worst threat to a nation is its own government.

            America can’t be taken over by a foreign enemy. But it can be taken over–and has been–by a domestic enemy.

            Now, gray man, are you a patriot? Are you brave enough to face the truth, that our government is a criminal gang that’s stolen our country from us?

          • @methylamine

            “How about the Constitution you swore to protect against enemies foreign and domestic?”

            If they took the oath seriously, they’d have marched into Washington DC years ago.

          • gray man said,”I never hurt an innocent person.”

            Did you hurt any people at all? If so, how did you know who was guilty and who was innocent? Show your work…

          • @meth Tolstoy wrote, in “A Letter to Liberals” about the harmfulness of “good people” getting involved with the government (in positions where they “harm no innocent person” as would be asserted).

            It is harmful because enlightened, good, and honest people by entering the ranks of the government give it a moral authority which but for them it would not possess. If the government were made up entirely of that coarse element – the violators, self-seekers, and flatterers – who form its core, it could not continue to exist. The fact that honest and enlightened people are found who participate in the affairs of the government gives government whatever it possesses of moral prestige.

      • serve? Does one “serve” in a war?

        If you want people around you to unplug their minds from the matrix, you’ve got to reject the conventions that keep people there, such as manipulated language. Military people don’t “serve” anything or anyone, except for politicians, political power, weapons manufacturers, and multinational businesses.

        They aren’t “defending” anyone or anything except for the above also.

        Since we our freedoms haven’t been attacked (except by our own government), in the same way our country hasn’t been attacked by a foreign enemy in as long as anyone now living has been alive (or anyone they might have known who is also now dead), there isn’t any logical reason to bestow military actions with the holy noble language that gives it the morally justifiable feeling that it does not deserve.

        You cannot believe Smedley Butler and the Institution simultaneously. Manipulated language reinforces the institution.

        • I guess you got all your knowledge of history from the “Matrix”, however back in the real world and not fantasy land, this country was attacked on 9/11. It’s been attacked several times.

          • BrentP,
            The way this comment section is set up, I can’t comment directly too you. I know plenty about history, I’ll put my knowledge of history against anyone. And, no I don’t fall for the “chicken little sky is falling” nonsense seen today.
            Maybe you need to learn about the history of islam try here:
            politicalislam.com
            youtube: why we are afraid a 1400 year secret by Dr. bill warner.

          • Obviously you don’t, otherwise you would not spout the ‘they hate us because we are free and they are crazy people’ line. But if you don’t want to learn history try being friendly with people from that region. I have known people who are from many places in the region. Try talking to them. You might be shocked to learn they are people. People who are more like you than like the american ruling class which you served for all those years.

            The average american has more in common with the average person in any of these middle eastern countries than he has with Obama, Bush, Rockefeller, or anyone else of such ilk. Trouble is americans largely don’t bother getting to know these everyday people. They just allow themselves to be manipulated until they are killing people who would be their friends otherwise.

          • It WAS attacked–but not by whom you think.

            If you’re so well-versed in history, you know that the false-flag operation is the rule, rather than the exception.

            The Lusitania. Pearl Harbor. Gulf of Tonkin. Oklahoma City. 9/11.

            And that’s the short list.

            Anyone who’s read history knows the people are reluctant to enter war–and governments are eager and willing.

          • “this country was attacked on 9/11. It’s been attacked several time”

            And I for one think it’s a very useful exercise to list each one of them so no one get’s confused.

            First in my memory would be the German torpedo attack on the Lusitania, a civilian passenger ship. OK, the Lusitania wasn’t a US flag ship, but since over 100 Americans were on board the media had a field day with it and the ensuing outrage cause the US to enter WWI on the side of Britain. Nobody ever asks why over 100 US citizens were on a boat carrying over four million rounds of ammunition to Britain during a war. Poor saps.

            Second we have Perl Harbor, an attack staged by the US, who spent months baiting Japan with oil blockades and repeatedly refused Japanese offers of peace and negotiated settlement. The US didn’t do anything to provoke and did not embargo (attack) Japan first. Oh no. Heaven forbid.

            Next we have Korea. Shit. I have no idea why we got involved in Korea. I don’t think anyone does.

            Then we had the Gulf of Tonkin event. the USS Maddox attacked three Vietnamese “torpedo boats” operating in their own waters, killed a few people, then was a little too embarrassed about it to talk much. Later they staged a fake sortie with some fishing boats in the Gulf of Tonkin and an outraged America gave a gun to the guy who killed Kennedy in his home town. ‘Nuff said.

            Most recently we have the mysterious events of 9/11, wherein several US built aircraft with automated avionics capable of taking off, flying to their destination then landing without a pilot, destroyed a a couple white elephant structures in downtown Manhattan that were costing their owners millions of dollars a year. 19 “Arabs” were ostensibly on-board the aircraft and were accused of flying the planes, though no bodies were recovered and none were known to be competent to fly such equipment in the aerobatic maneuvers demonstrated. This led to outrage in the US and resulted in Shrub killing the guy who bad mouthed his Daddy.

            I think that about covers the history of attacks on the US during the past century.

          • @Lberns1

            I saw a film today Oh, Boy!
            The English army had just won the war.
            A crowd of people turned away, but I just had to look,

            having read the book.

            I’d love to turn you on.

            I read the news today Oh, boy!
            Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire,

            And though the holes were rather small
            They had to count them all. Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.

            I’d love to turn you on.

          • Who the hell is talking about libertarianism? My point, if you bothered to read the thread, was that Smedley Butler advocated taking the power to declare and wage war out of the hands of the male gerontocracy and putting it into the hands of the people (i.e., males under the age of 40) who would actually be the ones to fight the war. This has nothing whatthefucksoever to do with libertarianism.

          • Liberranter, there is nothing unusual about Gil’s cognitive disconnect from what is really being discussed. There are some of us who suspect that when Gil was little, his ma’ma mussa dropped him on his haid…

  40. Spot on, Eric.

    I am a veteran (Navy LT, ’85-’90). I was dumb and idealistic then. Now that I have awakened, I have little use for our military. Yes, we need a home-based reservist militia (I like the Swiss model), but we have no need whatsoever for our presence overseas.

    Five years ago, I would have pushed my straight A, athletic son to attend the Naval Academy; he would have been a great Marine or submarine officer. Now that he is a senior, he agrees with my thoughts and says, ‘No way.’

    Ron Paul was right, bring our troops home now, from everywhere.

    • Thanks, John –

      It’s sad that it’s come to this – but I’m heartened that (relatively speaking) so many people are waking up. This site being a case in point. If you hang around, you’re going to meet some interesting, liberty-minded people who have unplugged from the Matrix…. good to have you with us!

      • It’s good to know that many survive the brainwashing.

        Perhaps the one good thing about the Draft is that it kept a substantial civilian-at-heart presence in uniform. An all volunteer/professional military might be legitimate cause for worry.

        tgsam

          • Actually, Tinsley does have a point (which is NOT to say that the draft is a good or even moral idea – not, I believe, that this what he was trying to say either). When the draft was in force, it affected a far greater cross-section of the nation than does the current all-volunteer (i.e., mercenary) force. The Vietnam War protests were largely the result of the fact that so many American families were affected by the draft, and thus had someone fighting “over there,” that a huge part of the nation had a stake in it. Today, on the other hand, only a relatively tiny percentage of the national population has someone in their family in harm’s way, meaning that the political constituency for just/sane/Constitutional warfare is too small to make any difference to the reigning kleptoligarchy.

        • Thank you liberranter. I wonder if huge aggressive American Armed Forces would still be in the Middle East if the Military Draft still existed? It’s something I think about every time the Vietnam War protesting is televised.

          I can think of few issues that deserve Critical Thinking more than the Military Draft.

          Tinsley Grey Sammons

      • It does nothing of the kind, even though that is the only legitimate purpose of any navy. The U.S. Navy, far from “keeping the sea lanes open,” is merely the forward power-projection arm of the combined imperial forces, the obsolescence of said concept apparently not yet having dawned on the current powerbrokers.

      • The (not “our” – speak for yourself) Navy does nothing of the sort. It projects U.S. power. It enforces the U.S. imperium. As for “free trade” – please. Do you really believe in that fairy tale?

        Try to import some sugar sometime…

      • Rather than ensuring free trade, the Navy exists to ensure that others don’t have free trade. Controlling the flow of trade means controlling the economies of other countries, and in turn controlling the governments of other countries. A prime example is the naval base the US is forcing the Korean government to build on the island of Cheju. It sits astride a route used by Chinese shipping vessels, and the Navy’s job there will be to act as a potential threat to Chinese shipping.

        Smedley Butler was right when he wrote:

        A third step in this business of smashing the war racket is to make certain that our military forces are truly forces for defense only.

        At each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations comes up. The swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are always a lot of them) are very adroit lobbyists. And they are smart. They don’t shout that “We need a lot of battleships to war on this nation or that nation.” Oh no. First of all, they let it be known that America is menaced by a great naval power. Almost any day, these admirals will tell you, the great fleet of this supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate 125,000,000 people. Just like that. Then they begin to cry for a larger navy. For what? To fight the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For defense purposes only.

        Then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For defense. Uh, huh.

        The Pacific is a great big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline on the Pacific. Will the maneuvers be off the coast, two or three hundred miles? Oh, no. The maneuvers will be two thousand, yes, perhaps even thirty-five hundred miles, off the coast.

        The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression to see the united States fleet so close to Nippon’s shores. Even as pleased as would be the residents of California were they to dimly discern through the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles.

        The ships of our navy, it can be seen, should be specifically limited, by law, to within 200 miles of our coastline. Had that been the law in 1898 the Maine would never have gone to Havana Harbor. She never would have been blown up. There would have been no war with Spain with its attendant loss of life. Two hundred miles is ample, in the opinion of experts, for defense purposes. Our nation cannot start an offensive war if its ships can’t go further than 200 miles from the coastline. Planes might be permitted to go as far as 500 miles from the coast for purposes of reconnaissance. And the army should never leave the territorial limits of our nation.

        To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.

        We must take the profit out of war.

        We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war.

        We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.

  41. Eric, You got this one wrong. These guys are not like cops. The troops, in most cases, do not have the necessary perspective to judge whether their orders are immoral or not.

    To blame our troops for the deaths and damage they cause makes no more sense than to blame a gun for killing someone. The blame or credit goes to the person who selected the target, aimed the gun, and pulled the trigger. ( Just so there is no ambiguity in my analogy, the blame rests upon the generals….and the commanders in chief!)

    Additionally, with the exception of veterans who later do choose to become cops, the freedom movement will have few if any better assets than discharged combat vets. Once they are civilians again, the fedgov is going to screw them out of their veterans benefits….in the name of “necessary austerity.” They are going to be very pissed….and fairly capable of doing something about it.

    • I disagree, Mike – because I give them more credit than that. Like cops, they chose to become soldiers. And once they become soldiers, they come know what it means to be a soldier.

      They have the option of saying, no.

      No, I won’t machine-gun helpless people from a helicopter. And yes, I will try to do something to stop those who do.

      • “Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts — a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity.” Henry David Thoreau

        While the Nuremberg defense is never sufficient; I do believe a great degree of guilt lies with the parents, the community, the people who “support the troops” and thus provide a compelling and encouraging environment for young minds to aspire towards military service.

          • eric,
            you saw something on youtube, guess what, on youtube will also see the opposite.
            There are a lot of things on youtube. But lets not generalize. I spent 20+ years in the military and they are some of the smartest people I know. As a matter of fact the military has the highest education level of any demographic in the united states. they are not automatrons like so many people think.

            • I didn’t merely “see something” on YouTube. I saw footage taken by a helicopter gunship slaughtering Iraqis. Despicable.

              Can you try to put yourself in the position of these people? Imagine your country is bombed to ruin by a foreign power, then occupied by its “troops.” You are required to Submit to and Obey the occupiers. They can literally do as they please with you. Because you have no rights they are bound to respect. Some of your fellow citizens are horribly tortured by sadistic “troops.” Others are killed outright.

              Would you not resist? Would you not fight?

              Intelligence is not the issue. The issue is solipsism – and psychopathy.

          • we did not invade and occupy any country in the middle east until after 9/11 -so what was the excuse then. The excuse is that muslims are required by their philosophy to convert the world to islam. It’s been that way for 1400 years. WWI stopped the expansion of the ottoman empire. the ottoman empire is islam. read the founding documents of the muslim brotherhood, the goal is the destruction of america.

            • Gray,

              You claim to be a reader. Might read up about (for example) U.S. direct meddling in Iran since at least the 1950s – including the removal of Iran’s legitimate leader (Mohammed Mossedegh) and his replacement by the chosen puppet of the US: The Shah – a man who brutalized the country and its people for decades, with us providing the muscle and the money.

              Imagine how you’d feel if some foreign power had inserted itself into American politics, actively worked to remove from office an American president – and then facilitated his replacement with its chosen puppet, who proceeded to imprison and torture and kill anyone who dared complain.

              But they hate us “for our freedoms.”

              Right?

          • gray man said: “we did not invade and occupy any country in the middle east until after 9/11 -so what was the excuse then”

            Are you freaking kidding me?!

            Hey mister history man, the US has invaded and occupied the middle east since WWII. Maybe not in the conventional military sense but with the same effect:

            Supplying the military muscle to prop up the house of Saud at the expense of the rest of the Saudi people, the CIA overthrow of Iran in 1956, the instilling of dictators in Egypt and Iraq (yes Saddam used to be a US puppet), the sanctions against the Iraqi people (re: embargo aka an act of war) etc. (Not to even mention the whole Israel-can-do-no-wrong-against-any-and- all-its-neighbors foreign policy.)

            Yeah, the US was just been minding its own business prior to 9/11…

            And if we were not occupying Muslim Holy Land prior to 9/11, then how was it possible for the US Air Force base barracks in the Saudi Arabian city of Dhahra to be bombed in 1996?

            Last time I checked, 1996 came before 2001.

          • “we did not invade and occupy any country in the middle east until after 9/11”

            Only meddling in their affairs, invading territory, setting up military bases, and killing people since the 1950s.

            Not to mention backing Israel’s acts of aggression and supporting oppressive governments.

            Nah no reason to be pissed at all….

            But I know one thing gray man, if someone did that to you and your family I think you’d be one of the first americans setting up IEDs on the local roads or any other act to get back at the meddlers and murderers.

          • “I didn’t merely “see something” on YouTube. I saw footage taken by a helicopter gunship slaughtering Iraqis. Despicable.”
            that’s right you saw some footage, now don’t tell me that you are so nieve that you don’t realize that footage can be made to look like anything. You don’t know what was happening on the ground, or anything about the situation based on film .

            • And: You studiously avoided responding to my main point:

              Can you try to put yourself in the position of these people? Imagine your country is “pre-emptively” attacked and bombed to ruin by a foreign power, then occupied by its “troops.” You are required to Submit to and Obey the occupiers. They can literally do as they please with you. Because you have no rights they are bound to respect. Some of your fellow citizens are horribly tortured by sadistic “troops.” Others are killed outright.

              Would you not resist? Would you not fight?

              Intelligence is not the issue. The issue is solipsism – and psychopathy.

          • @gray man:

            I spent 20+ years in the military and they are some of the smartest people I know.

            Considering your cognitive caliber, I suppose they would seem to be savants.

            Out here in the real world, not so much.

          • @gray cat:

            In this crowd, Mensa doesn’t cut it.

            And–mensa or not, you have no reasoning skills, poor writing skills, and no insight.

            Having failed the Trivium you consider “dipshit” a fitting riposte?

            Mensa’s standards must be slipping…

          • One can get into Mensa by doing well on a standardized test, like the ACT or SAT. It has nothing to do with being able to think and reason, merely do as everywhere else and just be able to spit back to authority what they tell you. Think and problem solve the way they say so to arrive at the answers of convention. That’s of course if you’re not just some guy on the internet making a claim for the sake of making it.

            Furthermore it’s funny how you argue by authority (and trivial authority at that) and then dismiss others’ arguments by saying their authority doesn’t mean anything. Rather amusing.

          • What a remarkably insightful and imaginative reply, even for a member of Mensa. Keep up the good work gray man! You’re proving our point better than we ever could. Me thinks thou hast spelt Mensa wrong though. Based on the intellectual level of that reply, “Mensa” should have been spelled Marine Corps.

      • The army recruits youngsters because they are easiest to mould. Basic training is designed to make you into a group think, shoot first ask questions later automaton.

        I agree they made a choice to become soldiers. But we must be compassionate to them .

        • “Basic training is designed to make you into a group think, shoot first ask questions later automaton.”
          I’ve been in the military for 20+ years, and a veteran, and was an instructor for half of that time. I beg your pardon but that comment was nonsense. For your information the military has a higher education level across the board then mainstream america. No one is treated like that. There is such a thing as the UCMJ.

          • “Basic training is designed to make you into a group think, shoot first ask questions later automaton.”

            gray man’s response, “No one is treated like that.”

            I do not know what military you were in but that is exactly what basic training is designed to do: condition the recruits to become as one and to follow orders on command.

            The UCMJ is an absolute joke. the words military and justice are mutually exclusive.

          • If you really are all of the things you claim to be here, then you know damned good and well that this is EXACTLY what basic training does. Some of us here have been there – and want to ensure that no one else in the future is ever so victimized again.

    • The “just following orders” argument Mike? Really?

      The freedom movement needs better friends than those who will “do something” because someone threatens their govt check, how 47% of them.

  42. The Troops are mostly young. Even the career Service Personnel are comparatively young and many retire before they are forty. Most of those are rather misinformed and fundamentally brainwashed.

    I was rather Gung-ho in my youth and not yet ready to admit that Ivan’s action, or his lack of any, was governed by a Human Nature fundamentally identical to my own. We even share a Nordic Ancestry.

    I was in my late twenties before I routinely questioned government.

    tgsam

  43. I like to respond to “Support our troops!” with “The only way I support them is by advocating that we rid ourselves of governments, which would end all war and military conflict, so they can get real jobs.”

    Of course, this never goes over well with clovers.

    • the biggest wars going on right now are not because of governments but of ideology.
      The islamic expansion has nothing to do with government.

      • Yet governments, and the parasites within it, are motivated by ideology. Why else would they want to purportedly make our lives better by stealing from us?

        • Hold up a second. I am motivated by an ideology – the non-aggression axiom, as are many of you. Is it not the fact that they are motivated by ideology but by what ideology motivates them that makes them in the wrong?

      • Who threatens whom?

        What’s the last war of aggression aimed at America? When was the last time anyone threatened the continental US militarily?

        You’re right–ideology drives war.

        And our wars are driven by the hegemonic, empire-building ideology of the psychopaths who have hijacked our government.

        The military is just used as a pawn in their games.

          • It sure has Imperialist tendencies. While we haven’t actively conquered and colonized in recent years, we still have meddled to kill those who oppose us and install allegiances in foreign lands.

          • Tell that to the neocon authors of the PNAC.

            We are, in every definition, an empire.

            And like empires of the past, we are overextending ourselves militarily–bankrupting ourselves domestically.

            And like empires of the past, the military will be/is being used against civilians.

            Seen a “border” checkpoint lately? Armed Marines. Right here in Texas.

            Where’s Posse Comitatus, gray man? Where’s the UCMJ and the Constitution?

            Look, you have a noble view of the military and that’s fine. But today, it’s fantasy; the reality is, they’re being used for evil purposes and they’re not objecting.

          • Oh, of course not. It merely seeks to dominate and control as much of the earth as it feasible can. Extending NATO to the Urals…. demanding “regime change” in any country not toeing the U.S. line…. having “boots on the ground” in virtually every corner of the world…

          • “Seen a “border” checkpoint lately? Armed Marines. Right here in Texas.”
            you keep whining about the military being all over the world, instead of being home protecting our borders, when they do that you whine some more.

          • @tiresome gray man:

            Did I ever bitch that they’re not protecting the borders? No–and that’s a separate topic. Borders are an artificial construct, exactly like fences around a ranch, meant to keep the cattle contained.

            But hell yes I object to “border” checkpoints–100 miles from any border!

            Yes I object to the military enforcing “law” domestically; in case you didn’t know, it is illegal…and a long-standing harbinger of tyranny.

            Yes I object to some wet-behind-the-ears little shit with wet dreams of being 82nd airborne pointing a loaded M-16 at my family in the car.

            How would he feel if I pointed my Barrett at his skinny ass?

            Because you see gray man, your wonderful sunshine-from-rectum military is being used as an occupying force…here in Amerika, and it’s going to get worse.

            Why did they set up NORTHCOM?

            Every one of those troops should have refused the order to deploy to an inland checkpoint. Period.

    • Clover(Expletive deleted)!!! The blood that we shed wasted on (all caps expletive deleted) like you. This is a testament to my 1st Amendment rights (paid for by American blood). How many countries have laws that demand that every male of age join (for a period of time)? Know that if America had a problem with long haired hippie ***ts like yourself who couldn’t bear arms to support your country then we might have similar laws. I would love to meet you and show you what a true patriot looks like. AMERICA!! (and in case I din’t make myself clear expletive deleted)Clover

      • Michael,

        Normally, I’d never allow a post such as this to be published. But I am making an exception for purposes of demonstration. That is, to show others the sort of mindset that mindlessly “supports the troops.”

        So, Mike – a “true patriot” is one who threatens others with violence when they disagree with him? And how about “our freedoms” that “the troops” have been fighting to protect? Like the freedom to not be black bagged in the middle of the night by government thugs without warrant, probable cause or even a specific accusation of criminal action? The freedom to not have our correspondence monitored and recorded without warrant – or even our knowledge? The freedom to travel without being forced to submit to arbitrary searches – including physical searches of our childrens’ private areas? You mentioned your 1st Amendment rights. Except you haven’t got them anymore. If you wish to seek public redress of grievances – you will be herded into a “free speech zone” far from the object of your (former) free speech. If you say something critical of TSA thugs in the presence of said thugs, you will quickly discover how much free speech you actually have.

        You are free to do as you are told, Mike. Just like all of us.

        But I suppose as long as you can stand to attention and salute the rag at a fuuuuuuhhhhtttball game – and sing how proud you are to be an American, where at least you know you’re free (cough) then free you actually think yourself to be.

      • I always get a kick out of fascist flag waving American exceptionalist turds like Michael who automatically assume that anyone who questions the military is a “long haired hippie ***t who couldn’t bear arms.” They don’t seem to be aware that libertarians/ancaps/voluntaryists are very much into the right to self defense and that many are very proficient when it comes to firearms, and, when the time comes, would have zero problems using them against compliant authoritarian collectivist bootlickers like him.

        Guns and Weed – The Road To Freedom: http://tinyurl.com/3bzq5q9

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