I Once Dreamed of Liberty (Op/Ed)

semper what great inventions...or do you just mean better ways to kill people and abuse life. I find it funny, we are the first species to not have a natural preditor...so instead of utilizing it...we decide to kill eachother. Its like we cannot live without killing and dying. We are smart enough to, we have the resources to, we are fully capable. We choose not to though. We choose to fight and kill, not because of biology, but because we dont know what else to do.

We are losing things to thin us out and dont know how to coop with that, so we kill eachother. Actually a majority of us dont even notice it. We do it because we get tricked into it. A hand full of people know that population has to be thinned out some way. Look at the death rates and birthrates. population is just getting bigger and bigger. If it gets too big and the bubble bursts, these rich people lose their lavish lifestyles.

Of course war will solve some problems, of course war is the trace back to what started them...vicious cycle. But lets face it, they save our lives with drugs, just so we can die for war. So much profit for them, but i aint never seen a person that said "thank god we had war" unless they were poorly informed about that war in the first place.

Sometimes I just feel like I should go on a talking strike and just have a shirt that says this is what war is. Its the silence of the voice. Its like you dont know how to talk so all you can do is fight.

Ya know what though your right. maybe war does solve something...err wait a second only if you apply a double standard. Why? In iraq the government is violent, in afganistan the government is violent, in vietnam it was violent, in korea it was violent, yet here at home they tell us to act in peace. Ive got news for you, a human being is a human being. When a afgan boy at 12 loses his mother, father, three brothers, and three sisters in a bombing run, I dont call him and his family collateral damage, but then feel bad when I see US soldier dies in a car bomb explosion. Your not any better then these people.

You justify death with more death. Your government flipped its lid when black panther wanted guns, yet they blow up foreign villages like it wasn't anything. Why you splitting hairs of whos dying, cause these government agencies arent. You die, I die, Afgan child dies, we still all numbers. Why do we see us so different when we are looked at all the same? You put every persons name to shame that died in the WTC by doing these actions. By taking lives you have become the monster that you have fought.

So whats war really worth to you? You agree with gang wars or violent civil activists? By your standards of war you do. They justify their actions just the same that you will when you defend war. You want war til its at your doorstep and bullets flying through YOUR windows, killing YOUR family and friends. All the sudden YOUR the one screaming peace while those people at their offices in washington are saying "we must remain strong against this enemy". Tell me if you still believe in war after bombs get dropped in your neighborhood and your house is ruble and a couple of your family members are dead.

edit: yea war brings great change, like the Nazi party after WW1, the KKK after the civil war, and concentration camps for japanese after pearl harbor. Yep great change. War is better? Tell that to MLK jr. and those activitist. One of the biggests changes in our countries history was done by one side not firing a single shot. it was THOSE actions that brought freedom to an entire race when ALL else failed. so tell THEM that peace doesnt work.

[edit on 23-5-2006 by grimreaper797]

Nice opinion, but that is what it is, your opinion.

OK, Lets get the quote straight.

I NEVER said war solved anything.
Going back a ways, the art of war accelerated the invention of brass, iron and steel. Gunpowder, Kevlar and Plastic. (duponts and all) the 4 wheel drive vehicle, freeze dried food and autonomous assembly. Effective lasers, sonar and the GPS. I could go on but the list is endless.

People die. You can not stop it, I can not stop it. As long as there are people willing to put bombs around children and blow up their own people, war is necessary. In other words, probably forever.

Your idealist world view is great for the classroom, yet no one. NO ONE knows the horror of war better than those that fight it. So RANT on my friend. WHile you were safe in your bed, I have been out there fighting so that people like you can sleep well.

"The tree of liberty must from time to time be refreshed with the blood of patriots."
"The greatest gift a man can give is to place his mortal body between wars devastation and his beloved home."
"So that people like you may sleep safe in your beds, there are men like me ready to do violence."
"All it takes for EVIL to triumph is for GOOD MEN TO DO NOTHING."
"A coward dies a thousand deaths, a brave man tastes of death but once."

All quotes from men MUCH greater than me or you.

So go ahead and DO NOTHING.
I for one am willing to fight and even die for what I believe in.

I just wonder what people like grover and grim think that they are going to make Islamic extremists stop their ways and become peaceful people, smelling flowers every which way they turn and embracing every person they meet, including westerners....

You can't change, no matter how much you want to, people. People are the ones that make the changes themselves, and Islamic extremists, among others, have made it clear what their goal is. Either convert every child, woman and man to their radical wiews of Islam, or destroy as many people as possible for their God.

If you two believe that "stopping the war in Iraq and Afghanistan" will stop terrorists, you are delluding yourselves. Already i have shown, alongside some other members, that even those countries which were against the war, such as France and Germany, have been very close to being victims in massive attacks by Islamic extremists.

Leaving Iraq will only allow the country to be in a quagmire, and open to Islamic radicals taking over the country, including Iran.

You two wanting the world to be at peace and people living only with love and harmony in their hearts is a nice "ideal", but it is just an ideal which will never work. Not in this world.


[edit on 23-5-2006 by Muaddib]

You dont have to kill to do something, just like you dont have to bomb a country to solve a problem. You fight the threat yet never bother once to ask yourself why they are really fighting. Why do you think they are fighting? They would give there lives to attack a lifestyle that hadn't even existed in their part of the world at the time, or because we came in and had CIA operatives overthrow their governments and put in a dictator who oppresses its people for over 20 years? maybe it was the controversy of jewish people claiming israel, not because they hate freedom. Maybe to them its like Iraq funding a terrorist group. Do you go after only the terrorist group...well of course not we went after saddam. Well we support israel so they are going for us.

We came into their land and overthrew any government that didnt do what we want. We came in acting like we owned the place. We gave weapons to dictators that used it on its on population. Gave weapons so these countries could go to war with eachother, killing millions upon millions, when it didnt have to happen. But most of all, we made a huge profit off of their misery, and continue to.

Theres a difference between defending your country you love, and attacking another. 9/11 happened, and yes people died. Instead of living with that, how many more have died now? You say people die, thats life, so are you against the medical establishment trying to find cures to deadly disease? I mean we are going to die anyway, so why waste all that money to save people? Maybe because we have the ability to keep people alive. We have to choice to save lives. Are you against paramedics? they are here to save lives, are they just wasting their time? You arent saving lives by killing more.

You want to defend against things that havent happened and may not even happen. Long as its not your family right? The price of freedom must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrannts, thats right. Your opinion of it though is not the same as mine. Mine reads it as the price of freedom is high, sometimes death. When you life FREE sometimes you will die in this process. This is the price of freedom, and from times you will be reminded of it. Nowhere does that include going to another country and blowing people up.

"An eye for an eye makes everyone blind"-Gandhi
"If it's natural to kill, why do men have to go into training to learn to do it?"
"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."
—Albert Einstein
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in a final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed—those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending its money alone—it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
—Dwight Eisenhower
"Never has there been a good war or a bad peace."
—Benjamin Franklin
"The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure."
—Lyndon B Johnson

I can name quotes too, some from presidents. I will know the war I will fight for when its at my home. Then I know I'm not fighting for capital hill or no damn oil business but true freedom. 9/11 wasn't an act of war. It was an attack. A bad one, but still only an attack. Yea Pearl Harbor got us into ww2, but for the wrong reasons. I will know I'm fighting for freedom when I walk out that front door with my .22 or 12 gauge and theres an enemy coming threatening my family. THATS when I know I'm fighting for freedom. You can keep your iraq war and your vietnam wars for some one looking to die for political agenda, but I'm sticking right here until my freedom is really threatened. 9/11 didn't attack my freedom, it embrassed it, and these terrorists didn't impose on our countries freedom, it reminded us the price of it.

Islamic extremists are taking up where Mohammed left the world in the 7th century AD. The first crusades in this world were made by the newly converted Muslims, who by the mandates of Mohammed went around the world spreading Islam by the sword. Since they were repelled back and they were thrown from many of the countries which they conquered for a while, Islamic extremists groups have been wanting to take all those countries back, and that is what they are doing. But that will not stop them, Islamic extremists will not stop until the whole world is either converted to their version of Islam, or either them or us are underground, permanently.

Not all Muslim people have taken, or would consider to take up the extremist cause, but there are many who do.

There have been, and continue to be even moderate Muslims who have died by the hands of Islamic extremists because there are Muslims that will not take up their cause.

Everyone is in on this war, whether people want it or not, and trying to deny it and "claiming the whole world should be at peace" is not going to change anything.

[edit on 23-5-2006 by Muaddib]

Originally posted by Muaddib
I just wonder what people like grover and grim think that they are going to make Islamic extremists stop their ways and become peaceful people, smelling flowers every which way they turn and embracing every person they meet, including westerners....

I don't care about stopping their ways. Forget them, they can try and do what they want. Make our country secure, and make sure our borders are safe. Im not looking to stop them, thats not OUR job. Im not looking to make them peaceful people. You want to live free, then this is the price. Some people are going to attack it. You deal with it and move on. You dont start taking it like a little kid attacking people just because a terrorist might be around there. This is the price we pay. These people at the WTC on 9/11 died patriots, they died in the name of freedom. Our soldiers, the poor soles, arent dying for freedom, they are dying for nothing.

You can't change, no matter how much you want to, people. People are the ones that make the changes themselves, and Islamic extremists, among others, have made it clear what their goal is. Either convert every child, woman and man to their radical wiews of Islam, or destroy as many people as possible.

let them try, if they think that they can, well let them try to get into this country. Let them try to crumble us. Doesn't matter how big they attack because if we are the country we say we are, no 9/11 can bring us down. Its the job of the people that they are oppressing to fight back, not ours. They, like us, can earn it by their own blood. If they fail and every one of them die, then they die for something they believed in and to them was worth dying for.

If you two believe that "stopping the war in Iraq and Afghanistan" will stop terrorists, you are delluding yourselves. Already i have shown, alongside some other members, that even those countries which were against the war, such as France and Germany, have been very close to being victims in massive attacks by Islamic extremists.

did I ever say that? quote me because I didn't even remotely say that. Id say stop pointing out islamic terrorists, because war on terrorism targets more then just them. "the first casualty of war is the truth" and its pretty true when it comes down to it. Maybe you believe the stuff they are saying, but that quote sums it up pretty well of what I think of a "fact" given out during war time.

Leaving Iraq will only allow the country to be in a quagmire, and open to Islamic radicals taking over the country, including Iran.

ok and that has to do with what I said how? but where did I say to leave in the first place? I said war is worthless, but we already started it.

You two wanting the world to be at peace and people living only with love and harmony in their hearts is a nice "ideal", but it is just an ideal which will never work. Not in this world.

As long as people like you and over war lovers are around, agreed.

I find what your saying incredibly funny Muaddib. Why? because your backing a war that doesnt even agree with what your saying. You say you back the war on terrorism, but you actually back the war on islams extremists. You completely ignore the fact that the government themselves said this is not a war on islam but terrorism in general. Yet you talk all about how islamic extremism is what we are fighting.

NOW we are getting somewhere.

Grim, thanks for quoting
Einstein inventor of the most powerful weapon ever conceived.
Eisenhower Planner and Genius of D-day in which 1000's were killed
Johnson under who's adept leadership we had Vietnam.

You need to follow your hero's more closely.


Muaddib:

Maybe they want to give out flowers at the airport?

No, My guess is they have never experienced anything of which they speak. That said, they can only speak in ignorance. I have heard the ranting of such people all of my military and police life. I am used to it. The simple fact is this...

It is EXACTLY because of people like me, that people like them are even able to spout the ridiculous things they do. Without men and women like me, they would be forced to remain silent. I gave them the freedom to post against me and I am very proud of that fact.

please get your facts straight, einstein didnt create the most powerful weapon. A discovery in his field of science led other scientists to use it to create the most monsterous weapon the world has ever seen. His equation E=mc^2 made it possible. the only reason he even agreed to it with the US is because hitler would have gotten it if the US didnt. It wasnt a matter of it happening anymore, it was whom and when.

"I made one great mistake in my life... when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification - the danger that the Germans would make them."

sounds like he really wanted that to happen.

lets talk about eisenhower though, a war we were already involved in and couldnt just leave. Just because you have to make decisions during war, doesnt mean you were for the war in the first place. You can be against the war but know the serious consequences of dropping out of it before its finished.

lyndon johnson, i guess we should compare him to bush, because at the time he was under teh impressiong vietnam attacked our boats. (I dont agree with this war, but lyndon johnson was almost successful at many thing such as war on poverty, which is a much better war to fight.) The threat of communism then is just like terrorism as far as I can see. Hyped up extremely to get people behind a failing war.

[edit on 23-5-2006 by grimreaper797]

Originally posted by grimreaper797
I find what your saying incredibly funny Muaddib. Why? because your backing a war that doesnt even agree with what your saying. You say you back the war on terrorism, but you actually back the war on islams extremists. You completely ignore the fact that the government themselves said this is not a war on islam but terrorism in general. Yet you talk all about how islamic extremism is what we are fighting.

When the United States was attacked by Islamic extremists, we took the war to them. Whether the government admits it or not, this is a war mainly against Islamic extremism. If they don't proclaim so is not to enfuriate many more Muslims who are in between being moderates and extremists, and puting "Islam and war" together, even if it is against "extremism, would surely raise the ire of many Islamic countries who are at least partly our allies.

[edit on 23-5-2006 by Muaddib]

Originally posted by grimreaper797
...................

sounds like he really wanted that to happen.

He recommended making atom bombs, whether he liked it or not.

Not many people like wars, and I least of all, but wars are at times inevitable.

Originally posted by grimreaper797
please get your facts straight, einstein didnt create the most powerful weapon. A discovery in his field of science led other scientists to use it to create the most monsterous weapon the world has ever seen. His equation E=mc^2 made it possible. the only reason he even agreed to it with the US is because hitler would have gotten it if the US didnt. It wasnt a matter of it happening anymore, it was whom and when.

"I made one great mistake in my life... when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification - the danger that the Germans would make them."

sounds like he really wanted that to happen.

It's nice your so acquainted with him. HMMM
But off topic.

We all make mistakes, yet the previous statement stands. Great men of history were war like and violent. That does not make it right, but being a panty wasted peacenick is only allowed if there are real, strong, brave men in your country to make sure you can live the panty waste life.
Without us, the best life you could hope for would be to learn the language of your conqueror and say "Yes Sir, Thank You Sir, Please Don't Hurt Me Sir, I believe in peace" in their language.

There will always be those that prey on the weak, so there must be those strong enough to stop them. One good man to stand in the way of the Tyrant. You should be thankful.

yes muaddib leave out the part about him saying it was the biggest mistake of his life. The fact that he didnt believe we would use them because unlike hitler he thought we actually had morals and wouldnt use them. just leave that out.

Also I'm guessing now your a representative of the government because your interepting what their intentions are. That must be it since your telling me what they were actually doing and that their statement is simply a play on words to not get islamic people angry, you must be a spokesperson for them. This is entirely YOUR opinion, not fact at all. The war on terrorism is just that. Like it or not, this is just the first stepping stone to the long list of terrorists we will be going after. They dont have to be islamic to be terrorists. As I recall its the war on terror, so all terrorism, islamic or not is uncluded. I don't need your intereptation of what they REALLY mean, because thats just really your opinion.

Your not defending us though, we can defend ourselves, under the constitution of the united states we have the weapons and right to do so. You act like I think that I would let people bust down the door into my home and I would sit there peacefully. Im more Malcolm X like after he went to mecca. I believe in self defense, and what we are doing isnt self defense. Self defense is when these people are invading our country trying to take land.

self defense is NOT going half way around the world to bomb a village of civilians and possible terrorists, who may or may not attack our country (not to be confused with troops).

But for all of you (muaddib, semper) try telling MLK when he was alive that peace never worked. Tell Gandhi that peace is a fantasy.

[edit on 23-5-2006 by grimreaper797]

MLK, Gandhi never faced Hitler, Rommel, the Vietnamese or even Saddam.

As for protecting your own home, how very peaceful of you. Yet talk is cheap.

I'm not saying you would or would not do anything or something. I'm saying you do not know because you have never done it.

There are those though that refuse to sit and wait until the bad guys come to the homes of their friends and neighbors. Even the peacenicks. Those MEN and WOMEN go out, ahead of the home and fight so that you can sit in your home and dream of what you might do when the Huns come calling.

Spend your life doing something, not talking about what you would do. Your words ring with no substance. The sort of substance that one gains in adversity and challenge. Words without actions are hollow and empty and totally meaning less for you have never proven anything.

Not everyone has the internal fortitude for such things as combat, yet they do their part by supporting the ones that go out and fight so that they do not have to. Others (you) sit around, dream of all you will do to defend yourself without ever really knowing in your heart if you are capable or not and deride those with more courage and convictions. Courage to fight for the innocent, convictions of conscious and the Honor to die like a warrior.

So sit around and tell us all how your peaceful ways are going to keep us safe from tyrants that could care less how peaceful you are. All they want to do is spill your blood and they have the experience to do it in your home or not. Nothing you could do about it. While your sitting around, I'm going to get some sleep so I can get up tomorrow, put my uniform on and go out and fight the fight you are unwilling to fight or even recognize is out there.

Originally posted by semperfortis

Not everyone has the internal fortitude for such things as combat, yet they do their part by supporting the ones that go out and fight so that they do not have to.

Guilt trip. It's not like you were forced to sign up and the 'peacenicks' were not, semperfortis. You had a choice whether to sign up and fight or not, didn't you? It's not like a soldiers only motivation for going out to fight is just so some of his fellow countrymen don't have too, is it? It's a job, buddy, you get paid.

Originally posted by semperfortis
I'm going to get some sleep so I can get up tomorrow, put my uniform on and go out and fight the fight you are unwilling to fight or even recognize is out there.

Good luck. I'm not trying to put any troops down here, but I really think your 'I'm superior to you, because I'm in the Military' attitude is quite unnecessary.