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Fair point, and to that I admittedly use this as an explanation for why Ukrainians can fight side-by-side with the likes of more right-wing extremist groups in their military (e.g., Azov). It would be little different if the United States was attacked and I and some dude from the Proud Boys / Oathkeepers / The Base / 3%ers was with me and we were fighting to protect our family.
In that respect, sure. I just couldn’t pursue it during domestic peacetime as a career given that and the volatility I mentioned.
You know, there’s an aspect to the bond, the camaraderie, the discipline, the fitness that I really appreciate about soldiering. Growing up with films like Band of Brothers practically on repeat, having read pretty close to every book that came out from those guys — well, I have admiration. But at the same time as I grew up and became more leftist I of course had many issues with the volatility of our leadership.
If I could’ve joined Norway, Canada, or German armed forces under the NATO banner, I may very well have done that. After seeing everything transpiring in Ukraine, I often wonder if I’d have the courage to do what those brave people are doing every day. In the right context, under purely defensive conditions, I’d like to think I would’ve thrived, but who knows…
But second to volatile leadership is quite honestly the type of people the military tends to attract. The desperate, the jar-head conservative types. If life is on the line, I’d rather not be in a foxhole with them if I’m honest.
But there’s a lot of talk that finally the culture may be shifting within the US Military — to attract smarter, better educated people. I know a lot of conservatives are retiring early and not joining up because they feel the “culture is changing,” which is a good sign to me.
You know what’s so sad about something like this?
The conservative seeing this will opt to blame the individual. This conservative will most frequently espouse themselves to be a Christian nonetheless. “Jesus-like” in aspirations and idolatry.
And yet, they’ll have the knee-jerk reaction to this image that is saying, “Well they put themselves in that position.”
“It wasn’t the happenstance of birth locations,.”
“It wasn’t the culmination of external forces and externalities building to this moment.”
“It wasn’t the fact that their life was harder than my own.”
“Or perhaps my life was hard and I’m using the survivor-bias fallacy to justify kicking the ladder out from under me.”
The conservative believes there are lesser people who deserve what they get coming. It’s seemingly incomprehensible to them that we humans are quite literally of the same species, and that you must come to the conclusion one of two possibilities: Either (1) We are all a blank slate from the start and thus products of our environment. Nurture comprising the vast majority of what influences us. Which means those left out on the streets; those who take drugs in an ideal state of mind don’t want to be there, but are already too far broken from past experiences to reconcile their immediate choices (and need saved; protected; rehabilitated by the same outside forces that put them there in the fist place). Or (2) It is genetic, which means there is a predisposition incompatible with the inherently-flawed system we’ve built for ourselves. They’re a circle in a square system, and it’s thus just the same not their choice. And so again, the system should adapt and accommodate them just the same to promote a healthier society overall.
THAT would be more Jesus-like. Not the lazy cop-out that casts them off as degenerates. Such people lack empathy and cannot comprehend the bigger picture.
Yeah I don’t know how anyone could compel themselves to buy one. Do they really have that much of a monopoly on the industry? Is their tech that much further advanced? I genuinely don’t know.
What is the best, more ethical alternative? Growing up my dad had New Holland and we liked them. Eventually I’ll be going more rural and choosing a route to take and it sure as shit won’t be John Deere.
Ooooh yes. Something similar happened to me out of the blue back in January. I commented, verbatim:
Random fact that I recently learned and thought was kind of cool. One of the very first responses of your body when you get a cut or infection is to synthesize hydrogen peroxide in the area that signals your white blood cells to rally to that area.
I then linked to Science Daily and Harvard articles about it.
Temporary ban for “Harassment,” citing this comment.
Later on I incurred another infraction and my account was permabanned, citing my previous strike as justification for the permanent ban. Smfh. 250 characters to appeal…
Meanwhile these idiots excused cesspools like The_Donald for years. Meanwhile I report a person being objectively racist (Calling them “out of control” and “absolutely feral savages”) and… They reviewed it not once but twice and found nothing wrong. LOL.
I wrote this all up in a medium article in more detail but I’m half-tempted to send all my screenshots to Fidelity and some news outlets for shits.
Not terribly upset at this, but it does suck that we had to look to 3rd-party applications to be able to properly search our own comment history. I have thousands of comments going back a decade and I reference a lot of stuff to save time. In my pursuit to archive some of my write-ups, it became impossible to do so with the absence of Push Shift / Camas.
Oh well fuck it; Reddit admins royally fucked me over with a bullshit suspension and won’t even hear out an appeal. Bonus that they only let you use… 250 characters to explain.
LOL