SC:
Simple country muppets, trained, perhaps, but "hired killers?" yes, I suppose, in the technical sense but in reality, pawns.
Was my post a bit over the top? Yes. Sorry. I get that way at 2 in the morning after a few beers. But in my defense, Special Forces are not your typical grunts. Those SF boys get a kick out of killing. How do I know? Pure blind prejudice. My Virgilian guide through life. One look at them and I see lethal pre-pubescent boys. However, I suppose it's good that there's a military to channel their sociopathology. To any who have sons or daughters or loved ones in the Special Forces, I apologize, my scurrilous attacks are not against them, but those others. And if I ever come to know a SF person in person, I might have to change my religion, but until then....
Honor is difficult one. The word doesn't seem to have any definite meaning: esteem, reputation, respect, recognition, distinction, rank, ethical conduct, integrity. The easiest of the ten commandments is Honor your father and mother. Ole Yaweh didn't say: "take care of the geezers when they're too old to care for themselves", and thank God for that. Sure, I honor my parents. Who doesn't honor their parents? Honor is our middle name.
But if by 'honor' you mean behaving ethically because it's the ethical thing to do, then I honor that honor. But I don't think that's what most people mean. I think they mean respect and reputation. The stuff of adolescents.
Mike Geary Memphis----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Chilson" <stevechilson@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, December 29, 2006 2:37 AM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Big Army versus Special Forces
On Fri, 29 Dec 2006 02:02:31 -0600, "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:It's not integrity I hold in disrepute, it's the idea that highly trained, hired killers are exemplars of integrity.Perhaps I've missed something in the earlier posts, I thought this was simply about the military. Again, maybe I've missed the context of the previous texts. Honor, like love and pretty much everything else in life, can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how it sorts out for you. I won't bore you with emperical platitudes about honor, I know you're a good man and I know you believe in good things. I too would spit on honor if honor were whored and it often is in the name of something far more putrid but honor itself is not whored any more than your sister or mother is a whore for being a woman. Up until I moved away from America, I believed that military folk got what they deserved and fuck off. There is no conscription, there is no draft. But these aren't mostly inherently evil people. Yes, some of them, as if you would scoop a sampling of Americans, are sinister fuckers who WOULD and have raped Iraqi women, who would (remember this one?) bemoan the lack of Burger Kings and Walmarts in the cradle of civilisation, ignorant fucks that they are. Honor? That's between your own ribs. But it isn't a bad plan. I don't know if I have honor myself, what does it mean? Spitting on people? Things? Codes are bullshit too, no doubt. When in the wrong hands. But again I say, just because America has lost its way doesn't mean that principles that have fed civilisations for better and worse, like marriage, are illegitimate. If you want a real enemy, look to the deities. Those fuckers, wooooo. As Tom Waits once sang: get 'em all jacked up on whiskey then we'll turn the mad dog loose I'm a big fan of yours, Mike. I wish you a good new year. Lastly, do you want Saddam to hang or do you want him to be tried by let's say, the Los Angeles County jury? Personally, (and maybe it's not right but I feel it anyway,) I'm leaning for free Saddam, same as I did for Timothy McVeigh. Steve, Brummyham I find that obscene. Thoseshits will kill anyone they're told to kill without batting an eye. They love killing. It's what they live for. They've sacrificed their private lives for it. That's the only integrity they know -- blind obedience. Honor??? I spit on it. Fathers, brothers kill their daughters for family honor. Men kill one another over insults -- for honor. I spit on honor, I piss on the graves of those who kill for honor. There is no honor in honor. Honor is puffed up megalomania. It is not the military's fault that the American government is so fucked up. It's the American plutocrats who think they own the American government and the American people and the whole rest of the world including you. What this country need is a really good 5 cent cigar and a leveling depression. But who will buy my pencils then? Hopefully the depression comes after I'm dead. Mike Geary Memphis ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html-- Steve Chilson stevechilson@xxxxxxxxxxx -- http://www.fastmail.fm - A no graphics, no pop-ups email service ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
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