Bluesman

I just read a cute book on the American Revolution by a guy that thinks he can tell me what an 18th Century soldier was like when he has absolutely NO idea what a modern American soldier is all about. This ivory tower smart dumb guy thinks HE, an academic that almost certainly has never spent any time around troops (he mentions a Medical Corps officer he knows that told him some thrillingly-awful details about gunshot wounds) knows the mind, motivation and method of a 250-years-ago soldier. But, like many another small mind that reads enough about a subject that interests them, they believe they've got the bubble...because the selections they've made reinforce what they already KNOW they know.

It is commonly accepted that the military breeds mind-damaged killing machines, and that's reinforced throughout popular culture. It's now an article of faith that military service DAMAGES people, it doesn't improve them. Well, I happen to know that this is an almost total inversion of reality.

Our military is composed of people that are, on average, BETTER citizens than the society that produced them. But that society doesn't even know them. They de-value them, and assume that they were too dumb to get a job at the Post Office, and the military was their last stop before bum-itude. Oh, I don't say that they're not appreciated, and the love for the troops is, I believe, genuine, much as one loves loyal livestock, or a brave guard dog.

The military is constantly condescended to, looked down on, distrusted, feared and made fun of. Eventually, the message is like liquid under pressure, and it seeps into the hardest wood, and even people that respect the military unconsciously begin to think of military members are some or all of those ways.

And now, like they always have, we see the New York Times peddling the tired old line that they've always believed: if you were normal before you joined the military, you won't be after your service, because the military breaks people that come to them. But far more likely, you're not normal if you're somehow driven to the military. Either you're a poor loser, a mental case, or a bully that wants to shoot brown people. This is what they believe. This is their picture of a military member.

I want you to think back on the DC Sniper stories. Does anybody remember how much the media emphasized his military service? I certainly do; it was considered FAR more important than the fact that he was a Muslim, that he admired Osama, and that he approved of the 9/11 attacks.

Pay attention to ANY similar story in which the criminal was once in the military, and see if that fact is not repeated over and over again, as if it 'explained' it all.

This is what they believe.

__________________
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

gunnut

That's exactly right.

If the criminal doesn't have a military history, the liberals will focus on his implement, usually a gun.

The liberals never focus the attention on the criminals themselves. They believe criminals are good. It's the society that failed them. We must throw more money into our rehabilitation system to make them well again. Let's all hold hands can cast out the evils of military and guns.

Ever notice most of the murders committed by illegals or repeat offenders are quickly swept under the rug? Even if they used guns. Because casting illegal aliens and repeat offenders as career criminals doesn't jive with the liberal agenda.

Think about that one.

__________________
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

dalem

And think about the Muslim who drove over those people in North Carolina. For jihad.

Or the Muslim who drove at all those people in Seattle.

Or the Muslim who shot up the Jewish center.

Or the Muslims who planned to wreck JFK airport.

Or the Muslims who planned to attack the army base in Jersey.

Or the Muslims who were caught with explosives in Florida.

Or...

I think my point is made.

To everyone except the slime-secreters at the NYT and their ilk.

-dale

Bluesman

HAHAHAHAHA!!!

Hooooo BOY, that's good satire, man.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

urmomma158

Damn leftist tree huggers, Hopefully Bill O'Reily trashes the New York Slimes.Unfortunately my textbook for my ethics course bends so far to left. I believe they had an excerpt from some anti war magazine that went something along the lines of........

"The government is using our soldiers are simply volunteering because they feel they need to take out the anger on others"

The mainstream liberal media and all those leftist interest groups funded by the US's public enemy #1 make we want to throw up all over my keyboard........

the greatest threat to United States sovereignty....

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gamercube

I'm sorry, but I don't see the point of comparing the murder rate of ex-veterans to that of the general population.

The murder rate prevalent among the general population is mostly due to gangs, thugs, ex-cons and the mafia. Ex-armymen, by comparison, are supposed to be disciplined, patriotic and upright members of society. Comparing the two murder rates is sheer stupidity. While you're at it, why not compare it with the murder rate in Brooklyn or with that in Somalia or Cambodia? Like the Times says:

The murder rate of veterans is supposed to be lower.

If you really want a comparison, compare it with the murder rate of doctors, engineers, the police (outside of their line of work) or other professionals, not with criminals.

The point of the article, for anyone who cared to read it was that most of these returning veterans had no previous criminal records, and were patriotic and upstanding members of society. Yet, after the war, there have been 121 cases where these fine young men (and one woman) were convicted or charged with murder. Their stories about what drove them to commit these crimes were the focus of that article.

__________________
Hasta la Victoria siempre!

Bluesman

Um, yeah; we got that.

Bluesman

Steyn craps all over the NYT's hit-piece:

gunnut

If we did that, then the result will be skewed as well.

By definition, if we don't include criminals in our population, any population, the result of crime rate is ZERO.

General population includes criminals. So does the military. Lets compare the crime rate of law abiding veterans to that of law abiding doctors. The result is the same. ZERO.

Bluesman

World-class snark, there. Nice.

ofogs

It's quite simple, really. Veterans are a subset of the general population as a whole. To assess if something they were exposed to (in this case, war and military training) influenced their murder rates, it makes perfect sense to compare them to the group as a whole. When you do, you see that veterans are less likely to be murderers, which runs completely contrary to the fearmongering the Times was trying for.

Source?

And the data supports this. The NYT does not because it doesn't address the data. Instead, it relies on anecdotal evidence to try to paint a different picture than that of reality.

Bluesman

Correct, and the part you, me and all the rest of us are going on about is the fact that this misleading hit piece was DELIBERATE - it was false ON PURPOSE. Any first-year j-skool student would know better than to make these kind of easily-checkable 'errors'. This is supposed to be a NEWSpaper, the so-called 'paper of record', no less, and when they turn themselves into a propaganda broadsheet to advance an insane political agenda, people SHOULD be outraged.

People like this are trying, actually TRYING to lose this war. Let that sink in, and if you've thought about that level of treason and you're not outraged, then you simply have lost that capacity.

It's no longer just a difference of opinion; it's now open war on a different front, between American patriots and American traitors.

I hate 'em; I hope terrible things happen to them.