Reply #85: nope, I'm keeping it simple [View All]

[iverglas]

"Why not say 'I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Nam' and refuse to be inducted like Ali did....."

Why are you suggesting that Ali joining the military and not going to Vietnam is somehow equivalent, morally or otherwise, to not joining the military?

"He was offered such an arrangement and refused.... He knew the war was wrong and didn't want to lend his credibility to it..."

Why are you suggesting that someone who stayed out of the military by staying in school was somehow "lending his credibility" to the war?

"If there were more Ali's and less kids gaming the system maybe the Viet Nam Wall would have been a lot smaller..."

Maybe that's true.

But it's for damned sure at least equally true that if there had been more kids refusing to go to Vietnam who in fact went to Vietnam the wall would have been a lot shorter.

Why are you picking on the ones who didn't go and blaming them for what was done by the ones who went?

*I* am not necessarily blaming any individuals among the ones who went. I have made that absolutely clear.

"As Burke said 'all it takes for evil to triumph is for men of good will to do nothing'."

But hey, it sure helps if there are some men of bad will doing something evil, don't you think?

"S-o-r-r-y... I have alot more respect for folks like Ali who risked all to oppose the war than folks who sat it out in college or the National Guard...."

And I simply do not base my respect, or lack thereof, for anyone on whether or not they actively opposed the war in Vietnam irrespective of any other factors. Just as I do not base my respect, or lack thereof, for you on whether you have rescued anyone from the icy St. Lawrence recently.

Not going to Vietnam does not earn disrespect unless some other factor is present. Not going to Vietnam, in and of itself, earns more respect than going to Vietnam, in and of itself, where all other factors are equal.

And you can keep your silly sorries.

"All your intellectual gymnastics obscure the real point which I believe was your intent that the hypotheticals I created represented real groups of people who made real choices...

You're trying very hard to sell me some oranges when I have told you I want apples. Not that I'd necessarily call your gymnastics "intellectual". And if you are unable to determine my real point from what I've written, kindly ask me, and keep your nasty insinuations to yourself.

The heroism of your war heroes occurred AFTER they chose (if that is what they did) to go to Vietnam. It has NOTHING TO DO with the choice to go to Vietnam. It is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to any consideration of the morality of their choice to go to Vietnam. And THAT is what this discussion is about. I'm not going to get dragged into some interminable philosophy exam discussion of whether someone who went to war but rescued his buddy is "morally superior" to someone who resisted the war and housed a homeless person. The point is that unless you're willing to dredge up all the possible moral/immoral things that any of the parties in question did, for purposes of comparison, you don't get to drag war "heroism" into it.

And in all bloody likelihood, to be perfectly frank, that "war heroism" was completely cancelled out, in the moral balance, by the other and reprehensible things they did while in Vietnam. Find me a Vietnam "war hero" who didn't slaughter a few peasants, and I'll go lightly on him.

"Some were simply h-e-r-o-i-c and some were acts of self preservation..."

There is NOTHING IMMORAL about acts of self-preservation, where they are not committed at someone else's expense. They are simply neutral.

And goddamn it, if we're blaming the big shots for what the boys and girls are "having to do" in Iraq right now, how come we get to blame the little fellas for what the big shots did to their peers in the Vietnam era?

How dare you say that people who "gamed the system" to stay out of a war they opposed preserved themselves at the expense of someone else, when you do not say the same about people who obey orders to participate in the atrocity in Iraq? They're "preserving themselves" from getting thrown in jail, right? They're doing it by being parties to the killing of innocent people -- they're preserving themselves at the expense of those people. Is it okay because the latter are doing it at the expense only of non-USAmericans? Can I think of some other explanation? Not at the moment.

Surely the number of names on that wall are the fault of the US governments that prosecuted that war, not of the people who did not participate in it. By your own logic, if nothing else.

How come you let those boys and girls in Iraq off scot free, and in fact praise them, for doing evil things, and yet you will condemn those who did nothing in the Vietnam era except preserve themselves for doing nothing?

Why do you compare the Vietnam-era do-nothings unfavourably to Mohammed Ali, and yet compare the Iraq-era evil-doers unfavourably to no one?

I think I'm giving up.

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