Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

War Without End

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 134 posts

Re: War Without End

#91

Post by saiya-jin »

javajosh wrote: post #62

The underlying problem is comfortable war . It's comfortable for us - we give up nothing, there is no draft, no extra tax, no rationing. Even the soldiers live in relative comfort at base, with air conditioning, plentiful food, computer games, etc. We should choose, as a society, to make war uncomfortable for us. It is the moral choice. We should have a draft, which puts the children of the wealthy and powerful at ri…

> We should have a draft, which puts the children of the wealthy and powerful at risk

If you're wealthy its super easy to avoid going to war, it doesn't matter which country we talk about. Bribe physician to have some made-up condition (ie Trump), or get drafted but end up doing some safe job on military base back home/outside of any real danger (i think Bush jr).

Wars are fought by poor under-educated classes (thats where drafting/hiring is aimed at), smart person sees how pathetic the causes are, how incompetent political and military leadership is, and how stupid it would be to lose life or health for no good reason (and very probably introduce hefty chunk of evil into this world).

You can get all the adrenaline thrill doing extreme sports (and much more), you can get paid better elsewhere and it must be kinda hard to strike the patriotic tune when country being attacked by your government is half across the globe, never set a military foot on US soil nor threatened it in any way

Re: War Without End

#92

Post by yontherubicon »

afsina wrote: post #86
ThinkBeat wrote: post #85

The endless (and pointless) wars that our soldier are being spent on has a relatively easy solution Reinstate the draft. That might seem counterintuitive since that would give us a lot more soldiers to use, but it would give a lot of families, a lot of Americans real skin in the game. Wasting soldiers is easy as long as most people dont care and dont notice. But when it is your daughter/cousin/ uncle/parent someone y…

What an unbelievably bad idea. Mandatory drafting is involuntary servitude, slavery. How about taking a non interventionist policy?

Citizenship has historically been defined by military service, in that you are not merely subject to the security apparatus of the state, but a part of it. Because you are a part of it, you have a say in it. It was the removal of the draft which necessarily removed the role of service from citizenship.

What do people who are not a part of the military care about non-intervention? There is a reason we viliify the draft-dodger who becomes a politician and sends others sons off to war.

Re: War Without End

#93

Post by roenxi »

mmjaa wrote: post #67
skrebbel wrote: post #66

Typical NYTimes to underline all the poor dead & wounded American soldiers and not a single word about innocent Iraqi and Afghani citizens, let alone the insane wave of refugees across the globe that America's aggression has helped cause.

Americans are simply not interested in the victims of their wars. It runs counter to every iota of American culture, to acknowledge the failures of their warrior-classes, alas. But, you should know, the article did mention the casualties, at least glibly. "Many more Afghani's have died than were lost in the 9/11 attacks", is the only context the author can find, to appeal to his readers. Its a sad state of affairs wh…

Crickey. I am onboard with your actual point, but consider painting the picture without such broad strokes. There are something like 320 million Americans, and their culture is an impressive mishmash of every other culture that the world has ever produced, held together by string and elbow grease. Give it a little respect, even if you do want to lay out a little of the realpolitik.

"Not supporting the troops" is a conversation ender up there with accusations of racism and sexism. But the issues there are much more complicated than no-one being interested.

Re: War Without End

#94

Post by mmjaa »

roenxi wrote: post #93
mmjaa wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans are simply not interested in the victims of their wars. It runs counter to every iota of American culture, to acknowledge the failures of their warrior-classes, alas. But, you should know, the article did mention the casualties, at least glibly. "Many more Afghani's have died than were lost in the 9/11 attacks", is the only context the author can find, to appeal to his readers. Its a sad state of affairs wh…

Crickey. I am onboard with your actual point, but consider painting the picture without such broad strokes. There are something like 320 million Americans, and their culture is an impressive mishmash of every other culture that the world has ever produced, held together by string and elbow grease. Give it a little respect, even if you do want to lay out a little of the realpolitik. "Not supporting the troops" is a co…

I care not a fig for the constitution of a culture which allows the wanton and wilful destruction of civilisation without any recourse, responsibility, or indeed care in the world.

Americans, willing recipients of its treasures, have nevertheless let their military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex run rampant over the worlds "lesser nations" for far too long, and the mechanism by which they fail, as a culture, to take any responsibility for any of it is exactly as you describe.

There is no respect due to a people who allow innocents to be murdered in their name with no recourse, no justice.

Zero respect deserved.

Re: War Without End

#95

Post by afsina »

yontherubicon wrote: post #92
afsina wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an unbelievably bad idea. Mandatory drafting is involuntary servitude, slavery. How about taking a non interventionist policy?

Citizenship has historically been defined by military service, in that you are not merely subject to the security apparatus of the state, but a part of it. Because you are a part of it, you have a say in it. It was the removal of the draft which necessarily removed the role of service from citizenship. What do people who are not a part of the military care about non-intervention? There is a reason we viliify the draf…

Historically most ancient or medieval wars were fought by professional soldiers.

Here is a Wikipedia quote

"The persistent old belief that peasants and small farmers gathered to form a national army or fyrd is a strange delusion dreamt up by antiquarians in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries to justify universal military conscription"

I support Rothbard's view on the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3TY5OhUJhw

Re: War Without End

#96

Post by enraged_camel »

yontherubicon wrote: post #92
afsina wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an unbelievably bad idea. Mandatory drafting is involuntary servitude, slavery. How about taking a non interventionist policy?

Citizenship has historically been defined by military service, in that you are not merely subject to the security apparatus of the state, but a part of it. Because you are a part of it, you have a say in it. It was the removal of the draft which necessarily removed the role of service from citizenship. What do people who are not a part of the military care about non-intervention? There is a reason we viliify the draf…

>>Citizenship has historically been defined by military service, in that you are not merely subject to the security apparatus of the state, but a part of it.

I don't know where you got this idea. Most of the largest empires in history - Romans, Sassanids, Ottomans, British, you name it - had a professional warrior class. It wasn't all voluntary, but ideas like draft only applied to non-citizens.

Re: War Without End

#99

Post by zepto »

mmjaa wrote: post #94
roenxi wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crickey. I am onboard with your actual point, but consider painting the picture without such broad strokes. There are something like 320 million Americans, and their culture is an impressive mishmash of every other culture that the world has ever produced, held together by string and elbow grease. Give it a little respect, even if you do want to lay out a little of the realpolitik. "Not supporting the troops" is a co…

I care not a fig for the constitution of a culture which allows the wanton and wilful destruction of civilisation without any recourse, responsibility, or indeed care in the world. Americans, willing recipients of its treasures, have nevertheless let their military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex run rampant over the worlds "lesser nations" for far too long, and the mechanism by which they fail, as a culture, to ta…

What culture hasn’t allowed for that?

Re: War Without End

#100

Post by BLKNSLVR »

mmjaa wrote: post #94
roenxi wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crickey. I am onboard with your actual point, but consider painting the picture without such broad strokes. There are something like 320 million Americans, and their culture is an impressive mishmash of every other culture that the world has ever produced, held together by string and elbow grease. Give it a little respect, even if you do want to lay out a little of the realpolitik. "Not supporting the troops" is a co…

I care not a fig for the constitution of a culture which allows the wanton and wilful destruction of civilisation without any recourse, responsibility, or indeed care in the world. Americans, willing recipients of its treasures, have nevertheless let their military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex run rampant over the worlds "lesser nations" for far too long, and the mechanism by which they fail, as a culture, to ta…

There are between zero and very few that would be left to cast the first stone.

I'm definitely not trying to defend the stereotype of the standard wilfully ignorant US citizen, but I think the stereotype would be representative of most cultures who have had enough 'victories' (or been told they've had enough victories) that they feel they're deserving of their prizes.

To rearrange your wording slightly: I care not a fig for the constitution of a species which allows the wanton and wilful destruction of it's sustaining environment without any recourse, responsibility, or indeed care in the world.

Nighty night humanity.

Post reply on HN