Breakdown In Civil Order

[laughing dog]

How curious that you cannot see how your final sentence makes your opening remarks appear gratuituous

How do you mean?

The moral truth of war is messy which makes the comment starting "As though he simply...." rather gratuituous since messy and simple appear contradictory.

 

[Politesse]

How curious that you cannot see how your final sentence makes your opening remarks appear gratuituous

How do you mean?

The moral truth of war is messy which makes the comment starting "As though he simply...." rather gratuituous since messy and simple appear contradictory.

I was questioning your own over-simplification because things are messy. Your son didn't just appear on a battlefield one day with a decision to make. He made a lot of choices that led him to that point, and many, many other people made choices that led to that field being there in the first place. He shouldn't be given carte blanche for all of his actions, and "defending your buddies" only explains an action taken once in that profession and position, not why one became a soldier in the first place. But, he also had very little to do with the national decision to go to war, and his choices once events were in motion were limited. I'm not going to put the whole mess of Afghanistan on his head, you know? I can honor that he was willing to take a risk on behalf of his country, even if I believe his services were abused by the state, and put to purposes that were morally dubious at best.

 

[bilby]

According to a son who served in Afghanistan in the front lines, much of the motivation in combat situations is protecting your comrades not any of the 4 reasons you listed.

A curious statement. As though he simply found himself on the front lines suddenly with no idea how or why he got there, but having to respond to that immediate situation in kind.

I am not endorsing bilby's categories, mind; I think the question of killing in battle is much more complicated than the simplified list he presented, and involves both social and psychological impulses that go well beyond "liking killing" or rationally considering the outcomes therof. The amygdala is a funny beast, and military training can be damned influential on how that neurological crisis gets resolved. I think the question Jarhyn has posed is a bit deceptive really, as the story of a war starts well before a soldier finds themselves walking down such a road. Thank you for your son's service; we (the American people) get into far more wars than most of us are actually willing to fight, and it would be hypocritical to deny him respect for putting his body in the way of the bullets we sent flying, in a war we started. But the moral truth of war, especially that war, is messy as hell and I don't think the conclusion is a pretty one.

They're not my categories; I just formalised the categories Jarhyn presented into a list (@Jarhyn, please correct me if I have misinterpreted you in so doing). But I believe that they are exclusive. Obviously they're very broad, and there's a lot of nuance that goes unsaid, but (as Keith&Co points out), more complex interpretations ultimately boil down to one of these four.

 

[laughing dog]

The moral truth of war is messy which makes the comment starting "As though he simply...." rather gratuituous since messy and simple appear contradictory.

I was questioning your own over-simplification because things are messy. Your son didn't just appear on a battlefield one day with a decision to make. He made a lot of choices that led him to that point, and many, many other people made choices that led to that field being there in the first place. He shouldn't be given carte blanche for all of his actions, and "defending your buddies" only explains an action taken once in that profession and position, not why one became a soldier in the first place. But, he also had very little to do with the national decision to go to war, and his choices once events were in motion were limited. I'm not going to put the whole mess of Afghanistan on his head, you know? I can honor that he was willing to take a risk on behalf of his country, even if I believe his services were abused by the state, and put to purposes that were morally dubious at best.

I think there has been a grave misunderstanding. I was simply adding to the reasons for killing in bilby's example.

Why someone becomes a soldier is also a very messy explanation. A sample of rationales from my son's unit include avoidance of a criminal conviction or sentence, lack of job opportunities, desire to earn a trade, patriotic or nationalistic fervor and, frankly, wanting to kill someone(s). I doubt that is an exhaustive list. Most of his comrades were young (18 to 20). Some had very little self-control or maturity.

I recall watching a Navy recruiting video with my son when he was 17 (he wanted me to give permission for enlistment, which did not happen). Of course, it showed attractive men and women working and waxing patriotically and touting all the different skills and trades one could acquire. During the part about basic training, a voice on the video popped in with "And you get your own bed. too". I think that showed that the Navy understood who part of their demographic was.

 

[Politesse]

The moral truth of war is messy which makes the comment starting "As though he simply...." rather gratuituous since messy and simple appear contradictory.

I was questioning your own over-simplification because things are messy. Your son didn't just appear on a battlefield one day with a decision to make. He made a lot of choices that led him to that point, and many, many other people made choices that led to that field being there in the first place. He shouldn't be given carte blanche for all of his actions, and "defending your buddies" only explains an action taken once in that profession and position, not why one became a soldier in the first place. But, he also had very little to do with the national decision to go to war, and his choices once events were in motion were limited. I'm not going to put the whole mess of Afghanistan on his head, you know? I can honor that he was willing to take a risk on behalf of his country, even if I believe his services were abused by the state, and put to purposes that were morally dubious at best.

I think there has been a grave misunderstanding. I was simply adding to the reasons for killing in bilby's example.

Why someone becomes a soldier is also a very messy explanation. A sample of rationales from my son's unit include avoidance of a criminal conviction or sentence, lack of job opportunities, desire to earn a trade, patriotic or nationalistic fervor and, frankly, wanting to kill someone(s). I doubt that is an exhaustive list. Most of his comrades were young (18 to 20). Some had very little self-control or maturity.

I recall watching a Navy recruiting video with my son when he was 17 (he wanted me to give permission for enlistment, which did not happen). Of course, it showed attractive men and women working and waxing patriotically and touting all the different skills and trades one could acquire. During the part about basic training, a voice on the video popped in with "And you get your own bed. too". I think that showed that the Navy understood who part of their demographic was.

Yes. I work with young people about that age for a living, and for me it's hard to think of their service in a military as anything other than a tragedy; they are responsible for their decisions, but the deck is often skewed, and they've been purposefully misinformed about the nature of things for the first eighteen years of their life. But the same is true, of course, of the young men they are being sent to kill.

 

[Bomb#20]

There are only a few ways to handle soldiers after a war: find out if they fight on principle, for money, for psychopathy, or from coercion. There are too many to lock up, and if it's principle, they're not going to stop fighting. So inevitably you have to kill a bunch. If it is psychopathy, you try them for war crimes (there aren't many usually of those, thankfully). That leaves draftees and check chasers. The check chasers keep their heads down and the draftees do their level best to shoot at nothing and keep a clean conscience.

This leads me to believe that your understanding of military personnel is based on fiction, not on any actual interactions with soldiers of any sort.

What do you think is incorrect about his claim?

Well, for starts, the obvious: the notion that soldiers who fought for principle aren't going to stop fighting is beyond ludicrous. Millions of soldiers who fought for principle have stopped fighting after their wars were lost, not because their principles changed but because their principle was "Obey orders" and they no longer had orders, or because their principle was "Shoot back when shot at" and the winners had stopped shooting, or because their causes had become hopeless, or because they no longer had an answer to "You and what army?".

What motivations, other than the four he listed, do you think a soldier could have for killing people?

An eternally popular one is to earn the respect of your pro-military family and/or community.

My roommate related how when he told people in his flyover home state he was going to the world-famous top-tier coastal university he'd been admitted to, the usual reaction he got was "Is that a community college around here? With your grades I was sure you'd get into West Point."

Why do you obey that order, and kill a bunch of strangers?

a) Because you like killing people
b) Because you're being paid to do it
c) Because you will be punished if you do not
d) Because you have an ideological objection to the system for which those people are fighting, and you want to kill people who support that system

Is there any other motivation you could have for killing those people?

Um, e) what laughing dog said.

Or f) Because if you don't obey that order the enemy soldiers are more likely to kill you when your comrades open fire. Duh.

Or g) Because you have an ideological objection to the system for which those people are fighting, and you want to kill people who are trying to kill people who oppose that system. You appear to be glossing over the difference between killing enemy combatants and killing enemy civilians.

 

[Emily Lake]

There are only a few ways to handle soldiers after a war: find out if they fight on principle, for money, for psychopathy, or from coercion. There are too many to lock up, and if it's principle, they're not going to stop fighting. So inevitably you have to kill a bunch. If it is psychopathy, you try them for war crimes (there aren't many usually of those, thankfully). That leaves draftees and check chasers. The check chasers keep their heads down and the draftees do their level best to shoot at nothing and keep a clean conscience.

This leads me to believe that your understanding of military personnel is based on fiction, not on any actual interactions with soldiers of any sort.

What do you think is incorrect about his claim?

What motivations, other than the four he listed, do you think a soldier could have for killing people?

Consider yourself as a newly trained soldier. You have been marched to an ambush location in a war zone, and are now concealed in a foxhole overlooking a road. Along that road comes a marching column of soldiers, who are total strangers to you, and whose only noticeable difference from you is that they're wearing different insignia on their uniforms.

You are ordered to fire on them. Why do you obey that order, and kill a bunch of strangers?

a) Because you like killing people
b) Because you're being paid to do it
c) Because you will be punished if you do not
d) Because you have an ideological objection to the system for which those people are fighting, and you want to kill people who support that system

Is there any other motivation you could have for killing those people?

5) Because you wish to defend your fellow citizens and uphold the laws of your land. Defense not offense.

Furthermore, the idea that people who fight for ideological reasons (which would include duty to ones country and ones fellow citizens) won't stop fighting and would need to be put to death is offensive and gross.

 

[Jarhyn]

What do you think is incorrect about his claim?

What motivations, other than the four he listed, do you think a soldier could have for killing people?

Consider yourself as a newly trained soldier. You have been marched to an ambush location in a war zone, and are now concealed in a foxhole overlooking a road. Along that road comes a marching column of soldiers, who are total strangers to you, and whose only noticeable difference from you is that they're wearing different insignia on their uniforms.

You are ordered to fire on them. Why do you obey that order, and kill a bunch of strangers?

a) Because you like killing people
b) Because you're being paid to do it
c) Because you will be punished if you do not
d) Because you have an ideological objection to the system for which those people are fighting, and you want to kill people who support that system

Is there any other motivation you could have for killing those people?

5) Because you wish to defend your fellow citizens and uphold the laws of your land. Defense not offense.

Furthermore, the idea that people who fight for ideological reasons (which would include duty to ones country and ones fellow citizens) won't stop fighting and would need to be put to death is offensive and gross.

So, "because you have an ideological objection to the system for which those people are fighting".

There is nothing gross or wrong to recognize that people who fight ideologically won't stop fighting just because they are "defeated". If you think whatever you fought against was so bad it was worth risking death and causing death for, then no, your danger to the opposing cause does not evaporate just because your army does.

There's something offensive and gross about the idea that someone could believe in fighting and dying in one moment for a cause, for the opposition of whatever it is duty bound you to oppose, and then just give such a decision up like it didn't matter in the next.

Either you accept that you were wrong, and the consequences of killing and such for a wrong reason... Or you don't accept you were wrong and your reason for killing is still a reason for killing.

 

[Derec]

California going to hell in a handbasket ...

Shoplifters Calmly Fill Arms and Walk Out of Marshalls Store on Camera

The reporter is asking why Marshall's did not report the thefts? Probably because local prosecutors are refusing to prosecute these kinds of crimes. The only solution is to vote these fauxgressive DAs out of office and also repeal Prop 47.

 

[Swammerdami]

I posted this a month ago ...

Yes. I remember on article in Forbes which opposed federal law enforcement pursuing tax fraud, saying the resources should be spent targeting crime! (Tax fraud is a trillion-dollar criminal "industry" in the U.S.) I didn't save the quote, but one Republican (Bush-43?) supported the wealthy even if their wealth was acquired by criminal activity like drug smuggling!

Just a few days ago at this very message-board, Bernie Madoff was put forth as an example that law enforcement DOES go after "white-collar crime." This despite that the linked news article by Matt Taibbi points out that Madoff's fraud had been identified 8 years earlier: The feds prosecuted only after the fraud became public. I queried the right-winger about this; his only answer was that Matt Taibbi wrote for a "music magazine."

... And STILL no response from the Board's alleged non-right-winger.

...

 

[Politesse]

Shoplifters Calmly Fill Arms and Walk Out of Marshalls Store on Camera

The reporter is asking why Marshall's did not report the thefts? Probably because local prosecutors are refusing to prosecute these kinds of crimes. The only solution is to vote these fauxgressive DAs out of office and also repeal Prop 47.

Hemet is hardly a liberal paradise.

 

[TSwizzle]

Shoplifters Calmly Fill Arms and Walk Out of Marshalls Store on Camera

The reporter is asking why Marshall's did not report the thefts? Probably because local prosecutors are refusing to prosecute these kinds of crimes.

It is becoming more frequent but shoplifting is a minor nuisance compared to the crime in places like trendy Melrose Avenue where brazen robbers are holding people up at gun point outside cafes.

The only solution is to vote these fauxgressive DAs out of office and also repeal Prop 47.

Better yet, trying to get George Gascón recalled.

 

[Politesse]

I realize of course that Derec, Tswizzle, etc have no intention of starting actual dialogues about crime and punishment when they share the latest viral videos, but I have a reading recommendation for anyone else curious about what goes on once the cameras stop rolling. It isn't actually true that California or any other state simply tolerates serial shoplifters. It is more than possible to prosecute shoplifting cases that are indicative of a permanent cycle or that result in significant loss. The question is how to address shoplifting, not whether to. Stores themselves don't want daily bloody shootouts on their front porch a la Republican fantasy-land, not in "red states" nor in "blue states". The best practice is to document the crime carefully, and with a cool head, begin an investigation into what happened and who is responsible:

Here's what happened after that viral S.F. Walgreens shoplifting video ended

As for whether there is truly a shoplifting spree in California, there of course is not; shoplifting incidents have been steadily decreasing in frequency relative to state population since 1989. We just have more people, and more stores, than an economically depressed state like Mississippi might have, so you're more likely to see exciting incidents like the one in the video occur here.

The New York Times fabricates a nonexistent shoplifting wave in San Francisco, then wrongly blames it on criminal justice reforms and the city’s supposed soft-on-crime image

 

[Politesse]

It is becoming more frequent but shoplifting is a minor nuisance compared to the crime in places like trendy Melrose Avenue where brazen robbers are holding people up at gun point outside cafes.

I would like to remark, for those non-Californians who may be reading the thread, that holding someone up at gunpoint is, in fact, illegal throughout the state.

 

[TomC]

It is becoming more frequent but shoplifting is a minor nuisance compared to the crime in places like trendy Melrose Avenue where brazen robbers are holding people up at gun point outside cafes.

I would like to remark, for those non-Californians who may be reading the thread, that holding someone up at gunpoint is, in fact, illegal throughout the state.

Perhaps TSwizzle has never visited a big city in a redder state, like Dallas, New Orleans, or Memphis. Republicans in charge doesn't seem to much reduce street crime.
Tom

 

[TSwizzle]

It is becoming more frequent but shoplifting is a minor nuisance compared to the crime in places like trendy Melrose Avenue where brazen robbers are holding people up at gun point outside cafes.

I would like to remark, for those non-Californians who may be reading the thread, that holding someone up at gunpoint is, in fact, illegal throughout the state.

I never said it was legal to hold someone up at gun point in California. You really are ridiculous.

 

[Politesse]

It is becoming more frequent but shoplifting is a minor nuisance compared to the crime in places like trendy Melrose Avenue where brazen robbers are holding people up at gun point outside cafes.

I would like to remark, for those non-Californians who may be reading the thread, that holding someone up at gunpoint is, in fact, illegal throughout the state.

I never said it was legal to hold someone up at gun point in California. You really are ridiculous.

Then why would being "soft on crime" cause that crime to happen more often here than anywhere else? We aren't soft on that crime.

I do support stronger gun control laws; is that what you're advocating for? I can see where those would make gunpoint robbery less of a threat.

 

[Elixir]

It is becoming more frequent but shoplifting is a minor nuisance compared to the crime in places like trendy Melrose Avenue where brazen robbers are holding people up at gun point outside cafes.

I would like to remark, for those non-Californians who may be reading the thread, that holding someone up at gunpoint is, in fact, illegal throughout the state.

Perhaps TSwizzle has never visited a big city in a redder state, like Dallas, New Orleans, or Memphis. Republicans in charge doesn't seem to much reduce street crime.
Tom

Heh, probably right.
Only time something like that happened to me was ... Miami. Oh, and Nashville. Both times, the assailant scared themselves off when bystanders appeared.
Maybe LA robber/muggers are simply less cowardly than the red-state variety.

 

[ZiprHead]

I realize of course that Derec, Tswizzle, etc have no intention of starting actual dialogues about crime and punishment when they share the latest viral videos, but I have a reading recommendation for anyone else curious about what goes on once the cameras stop rolling. It isn't actually true that California or any other state simply tolerates serial shoplifters. It is more than possible to prosecute shoplifting cases that are indicative of a permanent cycle or that result in significant loss. The question is how to address shoplifting, not whether to. Stores themselves don't want daily bloody shootouts on their front porch a la Republican fantasy-land, not in "red states" nor in "blue states". The best practice is to document the crime carefully, and with a cool head, begin an investigation into what happened and who is responsible:

Here's what happened after that viral S.F. Walgreens shoplifting video ended

As for whether there is truly a shoplifting spree in California, there of course is not; shoplifting incidents have been steadily decreasing in frequency relative to state population since 1989. We just have more people, and more stores, than an economically depressed state like Mississippi might have, so you're more likely to see exciting incidents like the one in the video occur here.

The New York Times fabricates a nonexistent shoplifting wave in San Francisco, then wrongly blames it on criminal justice reforms and the city’s supposed soft-on-crime image

Could not read the first link even in incognito. Got a summary?

 

[Angry Floof]

I realize of course that Derec, Tswizzle, etc have no intention of starting actual dialogues about crime and punishment when they share the latest viral videos, but I have a reading recommendation for anyone else curious about what goes on once the cameras stop rolling. It isn't actually true that California or any other state simply tolerates serial shoplifters. It is more than possible to prosecute shoplifting cases that are indicative of a permanent cycle or that result in significant loss. The question is how to address shoplifting, not whether to. Stores themselves don't want daily bloody shootouts on their front porch a la Republican fantasy-land, not in "red states" nor in "blue states". The best practice is to document the crime carefully, and with a cool head, begin an investigation into what happened and who is responsible:

Here's what happened after that viral S.F. Walgreens shoplifting video ended

As for whether there is truly a shoplifting spree in California, there of course is not; shoplifting incidents have been steadily decreasing in frequency relative to state population since 1989. We just have more people, and more stores, than an economically depressed state like Mississippi might have, so you're more likely to see exciting incidents like the one in the video occur here.

The New York Times fabricates a nonexistent shoplifting wave in San Francisco, then wrongly blames it on criminal justice reforms and the city’s supposed soft-on-crime image

Could not read the first link even in incognito. Got a summary?

A video went viral of a store security guard recording a shoplifter and people went ape shit with accusations of the guard just allowing it to happen and not doing his job.

The link is to an opinion piece by a retail loss prevention professional saying that we don't have the whole story, which is that the guard did exactly the right thing as he was trained to do. No amount of merchandise theft is worth someone's life. The guard used his training in trying to prevent the theft but when the thief brazenly did it anyway and didn't seem to care that the guard and store employees knew what they were doing, the guard's training dictated that he then observe and record if possible rather than confront someone who might be armed. That video was evidence included in his incident report, AND police were able to use it to identify the thief who was also responsible for more than a dozen other thefts in the area. That person is in jail without bail now because of that guard's video.

The whole incident had nothing to do with CA laws being lax. In fact, the progressive way of handling it, which is safer for guards and employees, is what actually helped to catch the thief and take them off the streets awaiting accountability.

So of course that video inspires right wing boners, but they are totally wrong in their assumptions about both the incident and whatever laws and policies might apply, as usual.