War Is a Racket (1935)

Re:War Is a Racket (1935) by notahacker on Monday March 07, 2016 @08:52PM (#11243101)

That's an awfully longwinded way of continuing to assert the obvious falsehood that civilians generally have less opportunity to flee war zones or imminent death on the front line than conscripted soldiers. If your argument relies on the edge case of a country doing the conscripting being a liberal democracy thousands of miles from the actual fighting and the countries where the civilians are based not to have any natural refugee escape routes to even start to make sense, it probably isn't a good one. And yes, I'm pretty sure that even then the average American soldier's experience of combat was more unpleasant than the average Vietnamese civilian's wartime experience, and I'm pretty sure I've listened to and read more Vietnamese accounts of the war than you.

It's nice of you to reiterate the largely irrelevant point that soldiers shouldn't shoot civilians in the unlikely event of them receiving an order to (unless the civilians are slavers?) so for the avoidance of doubt I agree that shooting civilians is bad.

I'm afraid I can't go down your ratholes any further than that because I'm still none the wiser as to whether your argument that soldiers have greater agency to avoid bloodbaths because "at worst they're holding a gun" and possess the option to "fight back at home" before they even join up is actually intended to be taken seriously...

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Re:War Is a Racket (1935) by EdHominem on Tuesday March 08, 2016 @12:46AM (#11243739)

> That's an awfully longwinded way

Of you dodging such a obvious truth, I agree.

> If your argument relies on the edge case of a country doing the conscripting being a liberal democracy thousands of miles from the actual fighting

Yeah, only the wars my liberal democracy has participated in, all of which have been thousands of miles from home. What an edge case!

> countries where the civilians are based not to have any natural refugee escape routes

By your reckoning there were escape routes from Vietnam so nobody was actually killed!

> I'm pretty sure that even then the average American soldier's experience of combat was more unpleasant than the average Vietnamese civilian's wartime experience

Even if you were right the point is the soldier's agency in choosing a better future. Peasants have very little, the soldiers have much more at every stage especially the beginning.

An american soldier could choose to go home at any time "simply" by refusing to fight and being sentenced to, at most, twenty years in prison. Their family wouldn't be face retribution or anything. Ask someone about to be burnt to death with their family which they'd prefer.

> I'm pretty sure I've listened to and read more Vietnamese accounts of the war than you.

You can't read the memoirs of the dead.

> because I'm still none the wiser

That would require not trying to dodge the point.

> as to whether your argument that soldiers have greater agency

Draftees, particularly before they become soldiers. And it's a fact, not an argument, in all modern cases in my country.

> actually intended to be taken seriously

Oh gosh, of course not. It troubles you so of course it was meant for you to dismissively chuckle at in passing. No more.

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