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Adm. McRaven Urges Graduates to Find Courage to Change the World

utexas.edu

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Re: Adm. McRaven Urges Graduates to Find Courage to Change the World

#101

Post by vacri »

wolf550e wrote: post #57
icebraining wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought soldiers had a little more self-respect than describing themselves as dumb tools used by others. No mind of their own, just following the civilians orders?

Soldiers choose to shoot or not to shoot, and risk getting shot, getting their buddy shot, getting court martialed and/or PTSD if they choose wrong. But soldiers do not choose whether or not their country invades another country.

They do get to choose whether to sign up to a volunteer military that's engaged in an existing war. It's very weird the way some paint US soldiers as a sort of Hero Innocent, absolving them of any sort of moral culpability.

Re: Adm. McRaven Urges Graduates to Find Courage to Change the World

#102

Post by vacri »

Nrsolis wrote: post #89
jacquesm wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a Navy Seals action underway to rescue the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram? That's news to me, all I know is there were a few rumors. The problem is not that navy seals could not be deployed to do good, the problem is that they are just as likely to be deployed to do harm. Anne Frank has nothing to do with any of this, the dutch army was of no significance whatsoever (but the dutch resistance was). As for me '…

I think you're missing the point entirely. The point of the example is to show that without good people who are willing to fight against those who would do innocents harm, those good people get hurt. I think that if you kidnap little girls, you're evil. I think that if you set off a bomb in a hotel lobby, you're evil. I think if you crash a plane into a building and kill thousands, you're evil. In my world, if you in…

You keep on subscribing to this image of the military as valiant crusaders against the dark, yet the most significant deployment of the biggest military in the world this century was an unmitigated disaster, that had nothing to do with defense of innocents, and that left the people of the target country far worse off than they were originally.

The problem is this: by continually glorifying the military the way you do, making them out to be crusader heroes, you fool young, impressionable people. So instead of decrying things like the invasion of Iraq, they sign up in droves, because they've been tricked by the rhetoric into thinking it's somehow about defending their country.

The point is, if the US military was really about fighting your definition of evil, it would be far more involved in Africa. Its mission is "keep the US safe and further its interests", which is fine, but it's not the "fight evil" mission that you say it is. If the US military really was about fighting evil (which is an oversimplistic term), it would have staged a coup when GW Bush declared war on Iraq, a war in which hundreds of thousands of people have died, in a country that was no threat to the US.

Re: Adm. McRaven Urges Graduates to Find Courage to Change the World

#103

Post by thegeomaster »

PavlovsCat wrote: post #76
thegeomaster wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people pull out quotes by globally recognized people in ordee to prove their points? So what if Albert Einstein said that? Are you implying that everything Albert Einstein says is true?

Where am I using Einstein's "authority" to support any of my arguments, except that I don't think it's a naive viewpoint? I agree with him on this, and having read some of his letters and whatnot I don't think he was naive, and I know he thought about people a lot and cared deeply about peace. I don't even care for his work in physics, because that goes right over my head, but find he said and wrote many wise things…

You said: "If that viewpoint is naive, so was Einstein", and then proceeded to reproduce the same quote. You seem to have used his name to give extra weight to the quotation. I am not arguing for or against your stance here (actually, if anything, I think I agree with it), I'm just pointing out that the first sentence was superfluous. If one of Einstein's viewpoints was in fact naive, that wouldn't make Einstein himself naive, and stating something like that just sounds you were trying to appeal to his authority. That's all.

Re: Adm. McRaven Urges Graduates to Find Courage to Change the World

#104

Post by jacquesm »

mpyne wrote: post #75
speakmemory wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an extremely disrespectful and kneejerk reaction to a very thoughtful comment on the parent article. One factor that contributes to the readiness of the United States to go to war that escaped your analysis is that any critique, however mild, of the armed forces is met with furious moral indignation.

> I think this is an extremely disrespectful and kneejerk reaction to a very thoughtful comment on the parent article. I disagree, given that the comment was in keeping with the spirit of the parent comment (i.e., using the opportunity presented to hack in and tear away at the topic being presented). > that any critique, however mild, of the armed forces is met with furious moral indignation. The best possible way to…

> So who do you blame, the people who signed up to fight fires (possibly abroad, with good reasons), or the people starting the fires?

What if they're the same people?

Re: Adm. McRaven Urges Graduates to Find Courage to Change the World

#105

Post by Nrsolis »

pavelrub wrote: post #99
Nrsolis wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you're blaming the WRONG PARTY. It's not the Armed Forces that should receive the criticism. It's the government and the civilians that push for them to go abroad and carry out their wishes. How is that not something you understand?

Why is this downvoted exactly?

Because it goes against the orthodoxy here. Namely: the USG is a hegemon that exerts a disproportionate and negative influence on the world and is hypocritical in its foreign relations.

Of course, these opinions are maintained by people who never risk their lives, their income, or their social strata to effect change. They don't vote. They don't lobby their representatives. I'm willing to bet that a bunch aren't even American and are simply using this forum to air their opinions on US foreign policy.

Re: Adm. McRaven Urges Graduates to Find Courage to Change the World

#106

Post by Nrsolis »

jacquesm wrote: post #31
tptacek wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only nobody anywhere in the world was trained to kill other people, our country (and yours) wouldn't need to ask people to sacrifice that part of their humanity in service to their countrymen. You might read Marlantes _What It Is Like To Go To War_. You might find that while SEALs are happy to speak proudly what they've learned in basic training, not so many of them speak happily about what war forces them to do d…

As a conscientious objector I've done plenty of thinking on the subject. My personal stance on this is that I and nobody else determines where and when the line into violence is crossed and that I will not let others determine what my hands are used for when it comes to matters of life and death. Words like 'sacrifice', 'pride' and so on try to put glory where there is none. Navy seals and their various colleagues fr…

"As a conscientious objector I've done plenty of thinking on the subject."

e.g. COWARD.

You abhor violence, eh? That's rich.

Re: Adm. McRaven Urges Graduates to Find Courage to Change the World

#107

Post by Nrsolis »

jacquesm wrote: post #97
mpyne wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's just leave it at that I've seen authority abused So have we all at some point, I'd imagine. Is it your opinion that anything that can be abused should be forbidden? Because no offense, but that's the same logic in the child's fairy tale about the boy who cried wolf. You're very rightly pointing out that if you make false use of your authority too often that you should expect people to not trust you in the fut…

Those people will stop trusting that particular authority, but that does not mean they have to drop common sense entirely. They definitely should be more skeptical. The boy who cried wolf got eaten, not the others. As for my decision, it was definitely not made possible because other people did not make that same decision, you could easily argue by that exact same rhetorical trick that if everybody would act like me…

Spoken like a true narcissist.

The only correct viewpoint is the one you hold. The only just use of violence is one you approve. The only moral code is your moral code.

I suppose that the good news here is you'll never fight for your beliefs, so we don't have to worry about you at all.

Re: Adm. McRaven Urges Graduates to Find Courage to Change the World

#108

Post by jacquesm »

Nrsolis wrote: post #106
jacquesm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a conscientious objector I've done plenty of thinking on the subject. My personal stance on this is that I and nobody else determines where and when the line into violence is crossed and that I will not let others determine what my hands are used for when it comes to matters of life and death. Words like 'sacrifice', 'pride' and so on try to put glory where there is none. Navy seals and their various colleagues fr…

"As a conscientious objector I've done plenty of thinking on the subject." e.g. COWARD. You abhor violence, eh? That's rich.

Ok, as a true coward befits I'll bow out of the discussion here. Thanks for playing. By your definition, that means you win.

Re: Adm. McRaven Urges Graduates to Find Courage to Change the World

#109

Post by Nrsolis »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #46
tptacek wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only nobody anywhere in the world was trained to kill other people, our country (and yours) wouldn't need to ask people to sacrifice that part of their humanity in service to their countrymen. You might read Marlantes _What It Is Like To Go To War_. You might find that while SEALs are happy to speak proudly what they've learned in basic training, not so many of them speak happily about what war forces them to do d…

They are actually obligated by law not to talk about their operations. It's all classified.

That's not strictly true.

Go read "Inside the Red Circle". The author is a friend of mine.

Re: Adm. McRaven Urges Graduates to Find Courage to Change the World

#110

Post by [deleted] »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #46
tptacek wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only nobody anywhere in the world was trained to kill other people, our country (and yours) wouldn't need to ask people to sacrifice that part of their humanity in service to their countrymen. You might read Marlantes _What It Is Like To Go To War_. You might find that while SEALs are happy to speak proudly what they've learned in basic training, not so many of them speak happily about what war forces them to do d…

They are actually obligated by law not to talk about their operations. It's all classified.

[deleted]
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