I'm making it clear that I'm responding but I'm not Hondor (aka, the parent comment to your comment). You don't generally have to be explicit, but since your questions were very much directed at him, I didn't want you to accidentally read that and think it was from "Hondor". I also didn't want Hondor to think I was putting words in his mouth (again, because it was a very one-on-one discussion).
The reason I did reply though was that regardless of any individual belief, there's some facts / laws about this that should be considered.
Yeah, your points were useful, and close to ones I was thinking as well. I was just a little confused by the "you guys are conflating" as I wasn't making any claims, but that's minor, and I should have probably just let it go. Pedantry will get me nowhere!
I'm still wet behind the ears here and am not familiar with all of the jargon. What does this mean? I take it you're scoping your response in some way but it's not clear to me what scope is intended.
If you're responding to my comment ("The military in and of itself isn't necessarily bad"), my only intent was to make sure I understood Hondor, not to make any claims myself. If that wasn't clear, I'll endeavor to be clearer in the future.