Clearing Up the Confusion

[radar (imported)]

"That idiotic notion like free speech," Huh?

Guess I don't need to prove my case with you. You'll do it yourself.

You'll gladly live without freedom as long as you suck up to the boss and get a paycheck. This is how tyrants get in power.

Your god is money.

Heh, hardly. If my god were money, I'd have shut up and sold my soul years ago, but my own refusals to do so have cost me dearly. And I wouldn't have it any other way. You conveniently missed my point entirely.

The simple fact is, if you acknowledge human nature at all, you will understand that people aren't going to pay good money to someone who insults them. Or even to someone whom they perceive has insulted them. It's idiotic to cry "Free Speech!" in such cases because it ignores the other part of the First Amendment: Freedom of Association, which includes the freedom to choose on whom one is gong to spend his money. Ignore that at your own peril.

The point was, if you will step back one and acknowledge what nearly everone recognizes, that unless you're prepared for the consequences, it is stupid to take overt positions against those who are paying your salary -- in other words, biting the hand that feeds you. And it's disingenuous to hide behind the ideal of free speech while pretending that all the other aspects of a free society don't apply, as though free speech can be viewed in total isolation in situations like this.

What I find so humorous (and so hypocritical) about people like Robbins and Sarandon is how they will seize upon an offhanded remark by someone like Trent Lott, a remark not even intended to mean what they insinuate, and will happily watch him get run out of the room, so to speak. Yet when it happens to them -- and for something they actually meant, no less -- they shriek in indignant protest, claiming that the principle of free speech demands that they face no consequences for their words.

Humbug. Had Robbins limited his criticisms to those who threatened his son or made death threats against him and Sarandon, I would have supported him completely. Those who do such things are threatening his and his family's other rights, simply because he exercised his right to express his opinions freely, and he's correct to point out how that is morally wrong. But when he claims that the exercise of his right to free speech mandates that others give up their rights, i.e., their right to decide how to spend the fruits of their labors, then he's dead wrong, and he demonstrates his ignorance of what this nation really stands for.

[A-1 (imported)]

Of course you have a point.

Thank you for wading into this fray.

It reminds me...buddies...long gone...but never forgotten...

When I say that freedom is not cheap, I mean it. I really cannot express in words the feelings that I have for Tim Robbins and his ilk. They have no idea what kind of pot they are stirring. They have no idea...none what-so-ever.

Of course, the Jane Fonda crowd always has had a priviledged existance and their views bear little resemblance to reality. I always wondered what it would be like to empty a clip into her cunt,... when I was younger. Now, it is just not worth the time away from the grand kids.

I get so sick of hearing Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam when some people talk about war in the Middle East that...well...never mind...I have probably already said too much. But I didn't start any of this.

All that I can say is that it is a wonder that somebody has not run over a bunch those stupid-assed war protestors who lay in the intersections of city streets chained together so that they could not possibly get up and run. Just thinking what I could do with a tandem 80,000lb dump truck full of gravel and sand gives me a MIGRANE. Road kill. Lots and lots of points.

Most vets have lost their rage years ago. The ones who did not died of other things. One of the guys that I went to grade school with came home after his tour and in a year of two his best friend shot him and killed him over a woman. All that I can say is that people like Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon are pretty fucking ignorant and they are passing their ignorance on to their children. It is a shame.

Many vets do not feel complete until they make a pilgrimage back. Even John McCain has done this. Then, it becomes real again and the reality of what was long ago becomes put into perspective, somehow... and then you want to go back again.

If you do understand it is O.K. No explaination is necessary. As for everyone who cannot understand none is possible. It is not guilt that causes this as the ignorant would have you believe to justify their own positions that they took at this era in history. It is just that the vets lost so much that this in part puts back a small piece.

Visit (http://grunt.space.swri.edu/visit.htm)

Memorial (http://grunt.space.swri.edu/bitter.pdf)

But then after one trip the urge to return does not go away. Actually, Vietnam is a paradise that was ruined by the war. the beaches were tropical, white sand, warm water. The surreal beauty broken by moments of unspeakable horror. 28 long years have passed since the fall of Saigon.

No, 9-11-2001 brought horror to New York. We did not deserve it. Vietnam was dead and buried. Why can't these son-of-a-bitches leave it alone? GOD DAMN the bastards that speak Vietnam to stop the horror in Iraq. They have no idea of the demon that they are conjuring up. It is the demon that ate the soul and craved bloody bodies. He is still there. I wish that they would quit invoking him.

They have no idea what they are talking about when they compare the Middle East to Vietnam. They should have their tongues cut out, their teeth knocked out with a gun barrel and their fucking mouths sewn shut for doing it. Every damned one of them.

This is the only thing that I know that can get me mad enough to kill again.

The gifts I happen to lack so utterly and need so sorely-- patience and simple acceptance, letting be and letting go...

A-1

[A-1 (imported)]

Read it. (http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/ ... index.html)

2 things now.

A-1

[radar (imported)]

Trust me, A-1, I understand. I still see the pain and the wounds, both visible and invisible, and it breaks my heart. Those who so unthinkingly conjure up Vietnam as a political tool merely re-open those wounds. And yes, I do also understand the need to go back. 'Nuff said about that.

Of course, you have to understand why they do it, and the answer is quite simple: because Vietnam was the last time in the history of this nation that the political left was able to seize power in a way that actually allowed them to pursue their political agenda without serious constraint. They simply believe that by conjuring it up again, by re-creating the "Anti-War Movement", they can exploit it as they did before, and piggyback onto it a much larger agenda.

They figure that if it worked once, why not try the same play? The only problem is that this time the opposition is ready for them, people have had time to come to terms with that war and our reasons for being in it, and its veterans are sick of being unfairly shamed for having done their duty. So the outrage expressed by the Hollywood liberal elite is mostly that of frustration at their utter lack of success this time around. What they need to do, it seems to me, is to stop this "hating ourselves 'cuz we're so bad" nonsense and get a new playbook. It seems that when using the old one, those whom they don't hurt, they piss off.

[Pueros]

I refer to my earlier post in this thread.

As promised, I've just submitted the third story in my Iraq war trilogy, which began with 'Apocalypses' & 'Retributions'.

The tale is entitled 'Perceptions' & will perhaps truly test the board's liberality towards free speech. It basically reviews, whilst including the necessary genital sacrifice, in this case actually based on fact, the conflict from the perspective of critics in the Muslim world.

My narrative is truly not anti-American, just a cautionary anecdote from a genuine friend on the other side of the Atlantic.

PUEROS

[A-1 (imported)]

I guess you all know how I feel now, ...don't you?

What enraged me in the article that I linked to is the utter betrayal and disrespect that France has shown the U.S. throughout this Iraq thing.

The

Separately, The Sunday Times reported that its own journalists had found documents in the Iraqi foreign ministry that indicate that France gave Saddam Hussein's regime regular reports on its dealings with American officials.

The newspaper said the documents reveal that Paris shared with Baghdad the contents of private transatlantic meetings and diplomatic traffic from Washington.

One document, dated September 25, 2001, from Iraqi foreign minister Naji Sabri to Saddam's palace, was based on a briefing from the French ambassador in Baghdad and covered talks between presidents Jacques Chirac and George W. Bush.

Is illustrative of the total disregard of the French government for the United States and their cowardice in the face of Islamic-rooted terrorism. They do not care and they wilt with fear at shadows in the darkness.

No, Islam is not a terroristic religion. In itself, Islam is peaceful. But they pervert it. They bastardize it and twist it in ways that are evil to the extreme. The militantism of Islam is on the rise.

Instead of preaching the love of Allah they seek to enrage his children and spur them to hatred and acts barbarism so extreme as to pale the Inquisition and the past corruptions of Christianity in comparison.

Just as ANY religion can be twisted and abused, the so-called "Fundamentalists" of all religion are sucking mankind into a hell on Earth.

They, like the Spanish Conquistdors, seek to come to the new world, destroy all that they find and install their culture or corruption and retribution. Pleasing Allah is just an excuse. Who they really want to please are only themselves. They seek to plunder what the wealth of the natural resource of oil in the Middle East cannot buy.

At the root of all of this are the excesses of the Saudi royal family and excesses of other rich Middle Eastern oil barrons. (See the most recent Atlantic magazine and read the cover article.) But even taking that into account, the evil in the world cannot go on forever.

All must be afforded the chance to work hard and achieve. I believe that this is what the common man (and yes, even the women) in the Middle East are all about. This is the dream of Capitalists and Marxists alike, for those systems are but opposite sides of the same coin.

One thing is for sure. When the dust all settles if the common man (and woman) can be educated to help themselves prosparity will come to all who believe that the nature of mankind is to work, succeed and prosper.

Terrorism cannot succeed. America will not let it. You cannot reason with those who have let it know that they intend to harm you. Fuck that pacifist Robbins and his ilk. Either they get on board, get the fuck out of the way or get run down.

Make no mistake, this whole MESS does NOT have a DAMNED THING TO DO WITH VIETNAM!

A-1