Soldiers of the United States can go into places like Iraq and Afghanistan and torture, imprison and kill people who have no political or legal rights, no voice or representation in the United States and have no international mechanism through which they can punish soldiers and hold them accountable. The United Nations can't be used to allow the victims of U.S. military oppression a political voice because it's controlled by powerful nations beholden to the U.S. and the U.S. will not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC (International Criminal Court).
Since the people of nations subject to U.S. military influence and control have no legal or political rights it can be truthfully said they have no human rights. If they have no human rights then they are considered subhuman.
And yet support for soldiers who carry out and support their own actions which infringe on the rights of others receives a ridiculous amount of support from the American people. In order to understand why that is we should look at the support the military receives in the United States to get a full picture of their dictatorial influence on the political discourse of this country.
The real problem: the people
To illustrate why soldiers wield unquestioned influence over others they clearly consider subhuman we have to look at the people in general. Despite the claim often heard that soldiers "give" people their freedom the reality is everything is given to them. The luxury and privilege of having a choice of whether to be able to join the military without being forced to through a draft is given to them by the people. If the people wanted a draft there would be a draft. The fact soldier lives are considered top priority over people who deserve far more sympathy than they ever did is because the people have chosen to consider their lives more important. If the people of the United States thought the lives of those in other countries were more important than the lives of soldiers then they would be forced to subordinate their lives on their behalf. The power soldiers think they have is an illusion given to them by the people.
But the people, like a cult, need to use their own deaths to absolve themselves of responsibility of crimes they themselves are committing. Any individual against the military is forced to worship soldiers and acknowledge that they were given rights only God can supposedly give them because soldiers insured their freedom by massacring a bunch of illiterate peasants in a mud hut in the middle of a desert on the other side of the planet. Soldiers are stupid enough to believe that using them in that way is respect rather than the people's way of getting out of responsibility for something horrible they were either dumb enough to support or were too apathetic to even bother forming an opinion about.
Now, soldiers themselves could do something about this. Soldiers are given so much political power that if they asked those who use them to stand on the merits of their own opinions, to stop using the military to lend weight to their political believes and to stop trading in any respect or gratitude they deserve for political influence and power they don't want, even if they agree with what's being said, no one would dare invoke the military in any political debate against anyone who disagreed with what the military was doing. In other words, if using their deaths to impede what somebody believed to be the truth rather than enabling that person to speak out was considered a denigration of their sacrifice then nobody would be told to shut up or leave the country simply for utilizing freedoms soldiers have said they are willing to sacrifice and die for.
All they should care about is whether you are allowed to speak out in a free and democratic society; the content of what you say shouldn't be their concern. Instead, they want you to lie through fear and tell them what they are doing is right because they saw their buddy die in an attempt to murder an illiterate goat herder and their emotionalism as a result has made them politically retarded. Acknowledging the the truth of their actions makes them sad or angry and nobody wants to contradict a group which receives the kind of support they receive from the most powerful people of the most powerful country the world has ever known.
Some stats and observations
We're now going to go over some statistics to see why opposition to the military has been exterminated throughout the United States. Before we see evidence of the ridiculous amount of support the military receives it's important to note those who give the military consistently high confidence, trust and support never bear the brunt of the misery and death they inflict on others. The people on the receiving end of the military's actions have no say in what happens to them. Of course, if soldiers were allowed to burst into the homes of American citizens, arbitrarily arrest their loved ones and imprison them for years without trial then we'd no doubt see a change in attitude, but lucky for the U.S. population they have a constitution that gives their people special racial rights based on citizenship subhumans in other countries aren't allowed to have (void if you move to Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia or any other nation full of poor people forsaken by most of human race).
First, let's see where this began in the modern era:
http://www.people-press.org/2008/05/14/federal-governments-favorable-ratings-slump/
The military continues to get high marks from a large majority of Americans. More than eight-in-ten (84%) offer very or somewhat favorable opinions of the military, up six points from July 2007. Positive ratings of the military have not fallen below 75% since 1990. Positive views of the military reached 94% in March 1991, shortly after the Persian Gulf War.
As we can see, the Persian Gulf War helped dramatically increase and sustain militarism for the modern era. Militarism in this country is by no means new of course, but it's important to know when the modern incarnation began. Most people would assume 9/11 would have been the beginning of support for the military which should only feel natural in a totalitarian dictatorship, but as we can see, blind devotion to the military came with an earlier conflict.
The next poll should be kept in mind when anyone brings up the old line about how the mean ol' leftists who called soldiers baby killers and spat on them during the Vietnam era:
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/10/05/war-and-sacrifice-in-the-post-911-era/6/#chapter-5-the-public-and-the-military
The public makes a sharp distinction in its view of military service members and the wars they have been fighting. More than nine-in-ten express pride in the troops and three-quarters say they thanked someone in the military.
The stab in the back myth created during that time in this country's history has helped make support for the military absolute. Sure U.S. soldiers caused death and suffering to millions and over one hundred thousand have been wounded and killed in Vietnam alone from unexploded ordinance since 1975, but some worthless hippies who had no effect on policy didn't show the proper respect to some of those who participated in that atrocity so we're never allowed to criticize soldiers ever again.
The next poll shows that when we see the people have lost faith in every institution the one that increases Al Qaeda's recruitment numbers and makes violence worse year after year wherever they go is always considered the most trusted.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/148163/americans-confident-military-least-congress.aspx
The most notable exception to the general pattern of lower confidence is for the military, whose 78% reading this year is 11 points higher than its historical average. Americans tend to express much greater confidence in the military when the U.S. is actively engaged in military operations, as in an 85% rating in Feb.-March 1991 just after the first Persian Gulf War ended and ratings between 69% and 82% over the last decade coinciding with U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The military has been the top ranked institution each year since 1998 and from 1989 to 1996. In 1997, when small business was added to the survey for the first time, it edged out the military by 63% to 60%.
It's interesting to note the military's comparison to religion as a trusted institution. Note how religion starts getting crushed by the military after the Persian Gulf War. Again we see a jump after 9/11.
Here's something you could try. Go up to someone and describe a man being spat on and jeered at while all he's doing is trying to sacrifice for everybody. Then ask if you're describing Jesus Christ or a soldier coming back from Vietnam. Support for the military has become equivalent to a religious test. If you refuse to acknowledge their sacrifice for all citizens – similar to Christ's sacrifice for humanity – then you don't get a significant voice in the political discourse of this country. It's ironic how soldiers claim they're fighting religious fanatacism when those hypocrites benefit from it evey day.
But what of the youth? Surely members of the new generation who don't trust authority are against the most authoritarian organization this country has to offer.
http://reason.com/blog/2013/05/02/poll-millennials-increasingly-distrust-t
Oddly, the one institution likely to get millennials — specifically, those between 18 and 29 years of age — killed, the military, is the only one they trust to do the right thing all or most of the time. The folks in uniform get the trust of 54 percent trust of this group.
54% trust the military! Here are the results of a Pentagon survey assessing the mental health of troops in Iraq showing what makes the military so darn trustworthy:
A little over half of all soldiers and 40% of the marine corps would report the injury or murder of an innocent person! What's not to trust? Unless there are other soldiers and marines who would injure or murder an innocent person without admitting it on a survey I think we can safely assume maybe around half of all marines and soldiers would bother reporting the injury or murder of innocent civilians.
Only 17% think everyone in the country they invaded should be subject to torture and murder (unless part of that 17% who think every non-combatant should be considered an insurgent wouldn't kill an innocent without reporting it or torture for information, heh). That means only 17% of our trusted troops admit to being genocidal fascists! I like them odds.
I also want to point out how heroic and brave those soldiers are for risking their own safety to help non-combatants. A whole 25%. Truly they came as selfless liberators.
Something else of interest, note how the marines were more psychopathic than the regular army.
Now read this recent news story:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/22/women-military-sexual-assault/2103075/
The highest rate of sexual abuse was in the Marine Corps: Nearly 30% of women said they suffered unwanted sexual contact by another military member. Close behind were the Army and Navy, each with about 24% of women raising the issue.
Not only are the marines far more willing to murder innocents, steal and torture but they are also more likely to molest women within their ranks. Let me guess, they're the most trusted branch of the U.S. military, right?
And just for an overview of "the right thing" they were trusted to do:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/10/24/us-wikileaks-iraq-idUSTRE69L54J20101024
Working with Iraq Body Count, a group run by academics and peace activists that estimates Iraq casualties, WikiLeaks had calculated that the documents revealed about 15,000 previously unknown civilian deaths, Assange said.
"Adding in the combatant deaths reported in these logs ... we are now able to say that more than 150,000 people have been killed in total since 2003, of which about 80 percent were civilians," Iraq Body Count co-founder John Sloboda said.
Well at least 100% killed weren't civilians. Give or take a few more generations of this multigenerational war on terror we can knock that down to 75% or maybe even 70% civilian deaths. Seven dead civilians for every three illiterate peasants who could possibly carry out another 9/11-style attack sounds like freedom to me.
Here's one more factoid about the unquestioned purveyors of freedom and trustworthiness for the road:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-military-sexual-assaults-20130508,0,3779279.story
Reported sexual assaults of both men and women in the military rose to 3,374 last year, up from 3,192 a year earlier, according to the Pentagon. About 1 in 4 of those who were assaulted and received medical care declined to press charges, however, an indicator of the victims' fear of retribution, officials said.
But the annual Defense Department report says about 6% of women surveyed, as well as 1% of male soldiers, declared they had been sexually assaulted but did not report the incidents up the chain of command. Extrapolating those percentages across the military, the report estimates 26,000 sexual assaults occurred, up from 19,300 in 2010.
Lawmakers and experts say many victims are reluctant to come forward because they lack faith in the military justice system and fear their careers could suffer if they try to bring criminal charges, particularly against higher-ranking officers.
So the overwhelming majority of the estimated 26,000 who were sexually assaulted in the military are too afraid to report it and 1 in 4 who do report it declined to press charges out of fear of being punished for being raped.
That's an institution I think we all can trust.
swirlsofhistory posted:Yeah but this probably true of every military on earth. Most Turks probably wouldn't pass a Voight-Kampff test with 'tortoise' replaced with 'Kurd'. The ruling ideas are those of the ruling class and all that.
to be fair though turks are dogs.
Superabound posted:every Marine ive ever known has been an irl rapist. and ive known a lot of Marines!
i know one who wasn't, but he went section 8 after being beaten in the shower with cargo straps in futenma for being a faggot and was separated after like a year after finishing boot camp, so i guess he didn't have the time to rape and they drummed him out for not being fit for raping
daddyholes posted:if there is no political consciousness in the military then what hope does socialism have
civil war between the obummer-led feds and eagle zeal christian patriot warriors for Christ and their respective military allies after the Great Collapse of 2016
daddyholes posted:a currently enlisted man i know regularly reports back to me that the consensus in the barracks is that no one who does not serve should have the right to make any policy regarding war and peace
is starship troopers still obligatted reading in the army
daddyholes posted:a currently enlisted man i know regularly reports back to me that the consensus in the barracks is that no one who does not serve should have the right to make any policy regarding war and peace
judging by our past 3 Presidents maybe he has a point!
Superabound posted:daddyholes posted:
a currently enlisted man i know regularly reports back to me that the consensus in the barracks is that no one who does not serve should have the right to make any policy regarding war and peace
judging by our past 3 Presidents maybe he has a point!
yes bush was Def the best of the three; finally the troops and i agree on something
Goethestein posted:i was reading a thing this morning by some troops and apparently just about everybody in the military, single, committed or married, is banging prostitutes and fucking each other all the time. the navy is apparently the worst because of the travel and the gay undercurrents. they see no problem with this, by the way, they brag about it and say that's all they talk about from port to port. i know that this is not really surprising in principle, but i was stunned at how prevalent it actually was, and more importantly i had never really considered it in light of all this fucking whining about how slut wives are always cheating when our heroes are defending our liberty
when i visited a former, eventually AWOL Troopfriend at his bootcamp over a decade ago, i was surprised by how many girls there were, and asked him why they were there, considering it pays less and is far less moral than stripping or prostitution, and there is no social expectation of heroism or physical ruggedness for Western females and my friend looked at me and with no irony in his voice said "theyre here to get banged by Marines"
Superabound posted:Goethestein posted:i was reading a thing this morning by some troops and apparently just about everybody in the military, single, committed or married, is banging prostitutes and fucking each other all the time. the navy is apparently the worst because of the travel and the gay undercurrents. they see no problem with this, by the way, they brag about it and say that's all they talk about from port to port. i know that this is not really surprising in principle, but i was stunned at how prevalent it actually was, and more importantly i had never really considered it in light of all this fucking whining about how slut wives are always cheating when our heroes are defending our liberty
when i visited a former, eventually AWOL Troopfriend at his bootcamp over a decade ago, i was surprised by how many girls there were, and asked him why they were there, considering it pays less and is far less moral than stripping or prostitution, and there is no social expectation of heroism or physical ruggedness for Western females and my friend looked at me and with no irony in his voice said "theyre here to get banged by Marines"
woman marine=walking mattress as the saying goes
littlegreenpills posted:women don't like sex. assertion destroyed
look at dis guy, applying human values and motivations to Troops
looks like Troops are still more reasonable than the average american
Dusz posted:daddyholes posted:
a currently enlisted man i know regularly reports back to me that the consensus in the barracks is that no one who does not serve should have the right to make any policy regarding war and peace
is starship troopers still obligatted reading in the army
no it used to be for the marines but they replaced it at the top of the list with enders game lol