My last thread.

The Core RPGC Main Forum
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This place is obviously not for people in the military. There are many complaints about neo-conservatives, but there are many neo-liberals here too and they are just as bad. When I can’t even stand up for myself when I’m called a murderer, things have gotten too bad. In my classes I’ve been learning about free speech. One of the examples that my teacher refers to frequently is how the Supreme Court said that fighting words weren’t protected by the First Amendment. Fighting words are basically defined as words that any reasonable person should expect a violent reaction for speaking. He brings up an example of calling Vietnam vets “baby-killers,” and how you can’t say that and not expect to be punched in the face. Calling me, and everyone else in the military, a murderer is the same thing. Now I am able to take being called a names like that, however, when it is coming from people close, it is hard to take. I realize that I am fighting for your right to say that, but it still doesn’t make it right. It hurts even more when I have some little newbie (this specific one has less than 50 posts) PMing about how I’m an asshole for getting upset. Then I tell him to leave me alone, and pisses me off more by continuing to PM. Then he shows my PMs to the mods to try to give further proof that I need to be banned. He is commended for his actions which I find to be bullshit. Being called a murderer and then having this little douchebag has been too much that I actually want to hurt someone and punch them. You may not consider the words to be fighting words, but they are having that affect on me. In fact, I’ve got to go run now just to get the anger out since I can’t hit anybody. Anyway, this place is filling with neo-liberals and is becoming unfriendly to a jarhead like me, so I’ll be leaving this place. Who knows, I may be back later (weeks, months, or even years). I’ll still finish my shrine though and submit it.

As for my thread about MOUT, I’ll try to break it into something you can all understand. I know that many of you read books and fiction and shit. I’m sure that you all have your favorite author(s). Think about that author, I’m sure that you hold a lot of respect for that author and wish that you could write as well as that person. Afterall, you’ve been writing for years and know how hard writing can be. The guys that foughht in Falluja are like that author to me now. The training I did this weekend showed me how hard it is to do. I can see just how skilled they are, just like you know can see how skilled that author is since you have some experience writing things. I was saying that they did a good job because of that. They overcame many odds and beat many statistics. That is impressive. I was also just trying to rally some support for them, who cares if you support the war or not, since that helps. That is partly why I posted how they kept the damage relatively low.

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Murderer

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I won’t bother addressing MOUT, but the first paragraph where the point wasn’t that you and everyone else in the military is a murderer, but select individuals that commit wrongdoings.

SK said it well in a separate discussion on the topic:

"It was a thread about the war, specifically, about one battle in the war. Infonick posted his thoughts concerning this battle. There’s no reason why Sinistral can’t do the same.

And Sinistral wasn’t “part of the provocation.” All he said was, “It’s horrible that a man can shoot an unarmed individual and get away with it.” He didn’t say, “I think that the United States military consists entirely of murderers.” He didn’t say, “Ha ha, Infonick, I think you’re a murderer.” What Sinistral did say was not “provocation,” unless one equates any criticism of any aspect of the war whatsoever with “blaming the troops.” Nor did Cless say anything “inflammatory,” either; I don’t think Infonick even read Cless’s posts.

Lastly, the point Epic was trying to make is that it’s wrong to write off Iraqi deaths because “that’s what war is like” or “it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.” When Epic said, “Don’t try to shrug it off like killing in a war is any different then anywhere else,” he was addressing this attitude of unconcern that appears to think that saying “well, it could have been even worse!” is enough to absolve anyone of any moral responsibility for anything one might do."

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Bye bye :smiley:

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I’m sorry you feel that way. I pretty new and I don’t think of people in the military as necesarrily murderers. The military is full of jobs that require killing because the world is do messed up that we actually had to make a section of the government dedicated to fighting wars and stuff. Anyway, hope your situation changes and I recomend getting one of those nifty srtess balls.

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Info… Don’t mind Sinistral, he’s a fucking dick. You are not a murderer. You do what you have to fucking do. And who the fuck was PMing you? I even made a topic about how fucking RETARDED Sinistral was for getting pissed about having to fucking PROTECT YOUR OWN LIFE. Don’t leave

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Bye… ;-;

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maybe this is the reason that people who put credibility in the obscene notion that some particular manner of speech is deserving of physical violence are in the military in the first place.

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I just looked through that thread. I honestly don’t see what Sinistral and Cless said that was so objectionable. Sinistral didn’t say that everyone in the military was a murderer, he said, “it’s horrible that a man can shoot an unarmed individual and get away with it,” in reference to one specific example which you yourself brought up (if only in passing). Now, you can yell at me if you want, but I honestly don’t see how this is the same as saying every soldier is a murderer.

Epic’s post is another story, and I can see why you got offended by it. However, I think he was trying to make the point that it’s wrong to just brush off anyone’s death by saying stuff like, “oh, that’s what war is like,” or “it could have been worse.” Yes, he did say that killing in war is murder, but he also said that it could be “necessary” and that he would be no different.

By the way, I know you probably don’t care, but you’re misusing the term “neo-liberal.” That is an actual term which is used (in Europe more than here) to refer to people who hold socially liberal views but are conservative on economics and support globalization. So, in our political system, a “neo-liberal” would be like a moderate Republican or pro-globalization Democrat who maybe supports gay rights or legalizing marijuana or something.

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Fucking honestly guys, it seems like all you “old-timers” ever do is say little subtle things to incite flames. What the hell was with you Epic? You basically told all our troops they are terrible people and they deserve to fucking die BECAUSE THEY ARE PROTECTING YOU.

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You think it’s about the <i>political tendencies</i> of this forum? You insinuated I was smoking drugs and not capable of reading, you called both Epic and I assholes even though Epic’s comment wasn’t direct at you <i>in the first place</i>, you sum up many of the people in this forum with a handy-dandy “neoliberals”, and you try to belittle someone because he has a low post count, and you think it’s about the fucking <i>politics</i>?

I have respect for you, man, but you’re taking every comment way too personally. Are you the marine in question (the one who shot an unarmed man)? No? Then it wasn’t direct at you. When we discuss criminals, and someone says that they’re fuckers who don’t deserve to live, nobody is taking offense to that comment on behalf of the human race, simply because it isn’t directed at them. You shouldn’t take offense either. You can defend the marine, sure, say that conditions could have pressured him into acting differently than what he learned in training, say that he isn’t a murderer because that’s not what the definition of murder is (and I agree with you on both points, as I stated in the thread), but taking it as a personal remark, getting mad and flaming people really doesn’t help.

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Cless, when someone says “All Nebraskans are stupid farmings hicks” I take offense to that. I would take fucking SERIOUS offense to someone making fun of someone else in the army if I were in it.

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Sin, your posts in the thread didn’t piss me off. It was just a discussion. However, when it got to the murderer part (what Epic said), that pissed me off. Also, I did read Cless’ posts. Also, I wasn’t writing off Iraqi deaths. I was trying to get you guys to realize that there are different groups of people. The thing is that this guy was an insurgent. I was also trying to tell you guys that the insurgents have used many tactics on dead and wounded people to troops, which is why the Marine shot him. I was also trying to show that we don’t know all of the circumstances. Since it was done in the middle of a major battle, the Marine probably couldn’t leave the guy there behind him since troops have been shot in the back when they left wounded insurgents alone in the past.

Look, he still shot and killed someone. I don’t care how justified it was, it’s still murder. I don’t believe any of that bullshit that says killing someone in a warzone is different then killing someone anywhere else. Sure, they’re shooting at you, but someone is still taking a bullet to the brain. So what, it’s necessary at that point to survive, and I’m sure in the same situation I probably would have done the same thing, but don’t try to shrug it off like killing in a war is any different then anywhere else. I won’t get all high and mighty saying that no one should be killing anyone, if I was in a battle and someone had a fucking AK-47 pointed at my face, I’d damn well shoot them first, I’m just saying it’s still not right.

This doesn’t seem to be pointed at a slect few individuals, this seems to be more broad. I was also trying to popint out that there is a difference between killing someone and murdering someone.

Lanyx, don’t worry, I knew what your thread was about and I appreciate it a lot. I really like how you tried to put them in the situation.

I won’t mention who kept PMing me since the guy is new.

I was trying to tell Cless that I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad for not supporting the troops. Rather, I was trying to say that many people seem to be confusing supporting the war in Iraq with support for the troops, which are completely different thigns. It seems like many are afraid to support the troops because it’ll be taken as supporting the war, which they are against. It also jsut seemed like Cless wasn’t getting what I was saying. I may have been a bit hard on him though because of Epic’s statement. While some of you may think Epic’s comment was directed at the invididual, it was very braod, which makes it apply to me.

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Godspeed Infonick.

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Ramza… what you’re arguing about doesn’t even make sense.
No one said any generalized, horrible comments about the military. Info mistook them for that. Learn to read a little bit. Taking it the wrong way doesn’t give someone the right to be a fuckhead.

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Being a member of a military does not be default make someone a protector of anything. Would you say a German soldier in 1943 was “protecting” anything other than the ambitions of a small group of the powerful? Many of we liberals believe that a similar idea is occuring in Iraq. Certainly, the German soldier of my analogy might have been deluding into believing that he protecting the fatherland, but it is very likely that our American soldiers of the present day believe the same thing, with a similar discrepency in the actual reason for his fighting. We KNOW that the public, at least, was lied to by the current government. Please, don’t say that “our” troops are automatically “defending/protecting” us, it can interpreted by an informed person as nothing more than propoganda.

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First of all, goodbye.

Secondly, Info is right on one account, supporting the troops and supporting the war are different things, even if you consider that it’s in semantics only.

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Steve have you even fucking LOOKED AT THE THREAD? I don’t care what they might have “meant” (Oh my god people got angry lets change our minds about what we said!!!). Both Sinistral AND Epic made generalized comments about how bad a job we did, or how horrible all military is.

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No they didn’t.

And you know what, killing of one person by another happens so little in North American society (relatively anyway) that the connotation of murder has become killing. I’m sure Epic doesn’t go look at the dictionary every day to refresh his memory on all the proper denotations of the word. I’m speculating this because when he said it I automatically assumed <i>kill</i>, not <i>kill with premeditated malice</i>. So guys, be cool, 'aight?

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You are fucking sick. How can you compare American troops to Nazis? There is so much wrong with that I don’t know where to start. I’ll just go with the easiest and most basic explanation tat’ll be quick. It should also let me get by with posting an essay. Remember 9/11? We were attacked by terrorists and are now fighting those terrorists so that they don’t kill anymore Americans. Now some of the plans from higher up may not be the best, such as going into Iraq, however, it is to protect you. You know what keeps me going when I find something hard or scary, I think about my family and loved ones and remember that it’ll help them.