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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (136687)	6/15/2004 10:40:27 AM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 281500

Conscription is a consequence of the idea that individuals are just chattels of the state and that they are a proletariat mass of clones. I think you're right. For people like you and me, individualism isn't an abstract concept, it's an immutable fact. One size does not fit all. I can't help but believe that levelers see things the same way, but have another agenda, motivated by jealousy and resentment. They believe that life is a zero-sum game, so if one person has something that others don't, that means that the others have been deprived of it. They believe they are righting injustices by pretending that everybody is the same. But people like you and I know that life is not a zero sum game. If I am beautiful, that doesn't make you ugly. If you are brilliant, that doesn't make me stupid. If I am rich, that doesn't make you poor. If you are free, that doesn't make me a slave. I also can't help but wonder whether most levelers are into team sports. Team players are fond of expressions like "there is no 'I' in the word team." At any rate, leveling and universal conscription are ideas that I just can't fathom.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (136687)	6/15/2004 11:31:04 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 281500

Hawk, everyone is an individual. We all respond differently to different things. What to some people is trivial is to others a horror which can cause them to collapse. Maurice.. Come on now.. I'm not cold hearted about someone who is overwhelmed by his circumstances during war. IMO, it's not about whether or not this guy was traumatized by what he endured (which many of his buddies also suffered).. But how he handles himself afterward and how he tries to justify not being willing to go back.. It's irrelevant if this war is "oil driven", anymore than if it was "lebensraum", or maybe even a war over disputed territory over a countries territory (eg: Falkland Islands). The issue is that this guy is a soldier who was more than willing to take the money the military (US taxpayers) paid him to perform a service in the national defense of this country. He has a right to desert over political issues regarding the mission he's been assigned, but I don't have to feel sorry for him. I certainly have less sympathy for his situation than if he had merely stated that the things he had seen and done were too much for his conscience to bear, and that he had a mental or religious conviction against returning into combat. But to claim that his reason for desertion is because the war is "oil driven" is specious. Because oil is in the national, AND GLOBAL, interest. And even were this country not dependent upon imported oil, it would be in our national interest to deny the revenues it generates from falling into the hands of Islamo-Fascists. Because they want to wage economic warfare on the west, and we have a vested interest in preventing that. Hawk