From: messiah@nevada.edu (mw)
Subject: War ramblings (was Re: Elections)
Organization: University of Nevada System Computing Services
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 15:27:22 GMT

In article <1992Nov5.194321.24801@nynexst.com> sierhuis@nynexst.com writes:
> 
>The VERY conservative (Wim Degroot) writes:

>>>Honor and family values are fine but from where do you imply "blind"
>>>sacrifice? If my neighbor goes to war and I don't, and he comes back home
>>>wounded (or not at all), can I look him in the eye honestly and tell him
>>>"I didn't go because of conscientious objections?"

*COUGH*   :-/   <-- Note that's a "confusey"
 =====              (distorted smiley or "scheve bek")

Actually those are the words of the outlandishly liberal (as opposed to VERY
conservative) Marco from LV, NV, USA (internet: messiah@redrock.nevada.edu)
To avoid confusion between various responses to the original post, just look
for the text that makes the most sense, and that'll be mine :-)

>Rob answers:

>>If your neighbor goes and jumps off a cliff, is it your patriotic duty to
>>follow him?  Some people went to Vietnam because they believed in it.  Well,
>>it is the inalienable right of the people to be stupid. 

The bit about the cliff is amusing, but I don't suppose there's an outside
chance that someone could *STILL* be considered in full possesion of their
faculties whilst *ALSO* believing the Vietnam War was justified? When the
US (and other nations) were present in Vietnam, the aim was to thwart the
encroachment of communism, and they were invited by non-communist Vietnam
to assist in protecting them. At that time the world-wide communist entity
appeared formidable, therefor taking action to prevent it from overwhelming
the free world was not a "stupid" idea based on available facts. 

For those netters who will inevitably say that it was a bad judgement call
because Communism is considered a dying concept now, I submit that this was
certainly not achieved through pacifism (as in refusing to fight). It took 
the willingness to face up to armed conflict, both internally by civilians
and externally by the intervention of other nations to achieve the marked
decline in Communism.

>>Some went [Vietnam] because
>>they were forced to.  Here one might argue for solidarity; however, that same
>>logic would have put all of Europe in the gas chambers 50 years ago.

While eloquently put, your logic is entirely dissimilar to my case for
solidarity. For *ALL* of Europe to end up in the gas chambers, we would have
had to line up with the Jews voluntarily, and/or not have put up any
resistance at all. That is patently different from my standpoint. Many of 
us younger Europeans have family members who experienced World War II, and
by virtue of thier presence with us today we have evidence that Rob's 
interpretation of my logic is fallacious.

I'm not singling out Rob, because he did make several valid points in a
previous post. (i.e. (1) human rights should always take precedence but if a
nation also has economic reasons to help another nation then that is a happy
coincidence. (2) spare the rhetoric about human rights if 'realpolitik' (self
interest) is the motive). 

Rob seems able to present opposing views without being hostile to the other
party. There are some other netters who waste no words in being hostile and
don't realize how contradictory that is when one is advocating pacifism. An
analogy to this would be a peace-protester who dodged the draft because "he
doesn't believe in violence", but when the police come to arrest him, he beats 
them over the head with his sign that reads "make love, not war". 

>>I find
>>that a sufficient flaw that I cannot object to those who do not espouse that
>>logic.  Your milage may vary.

My milage varies considerably on that one :-)

>My thoughts exactly Rob, I wanted to say something similar, but you've
>said it all.

>Doei ... MXS
>Maarten Sierhuis                       NYNEX Science & Technology, Inc.

Zeg Maarten, ik dacht dat jij het zo druk had met enquettes tellen :-) ?
Zelf heb ik er geen eentje ingevuld maar wat mij betreft mag iedereen net
zo veel posten als die wil. De mensen zijn toch vrij om 'k' te drukken?

C-ya... Marco LV, NV
Newsgroups: soc.culture.netherlands