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January 6th, 2012, 03:15 PM
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#76 | | Old Salt
Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Dixie
Posts: 1,839
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Originally Posted by LemmyCaution  7th-
That's an absolutely horrible story, and I can understand why you feel the way you do. I'd carry the same grudge myself.
But I think you are holding a grudge that should be directed narrowly at those who wronged you. Instead, it seems you've expanded that grudge to roughly half the United States, up to and including people who weren't even born at the time.
Because people who wronged you believe things in common with others who have not wronged you does not make them morally equivalent.
If those who spat on you also spat on pedophiles, would you become a pedophile to spite them?
That there were war crimes committed in Vietnam is incontrovertible. The people who spat on you were holding you responsible for the crimes of others, and doing so in about the most reckless and stupid way imaginable.
Don't adopt their tactics. It doesn't help you and it doesn't help the country. | I was over there long before the "My Lai Massacre" occurred and the build up had only just started the previous August 64, when the Tonkin Gulf incident went down with the attack on the USS Maddox and Turner Joy. My Lai was many years in the future at that time so your argument is a red Herring. The great ramp up was just beginning when we came home the final time in Feb 66. The fact is that prior to Aug 64 we only had a handful of advisors in country.
Your logic with the paedophiles thing completely eludes me. But it is ironic since I was the chief of police when the "Community Notification Act was passed into law.
I had to write the policy for my agency on how the "Act" would be implemented by my department.
What happened back then in the Nam has not had a detrimental effect of my life. I've had a great career, raised three kids and I am content with my lot in life. Having said that, I am incapable of forgiving those filthy animals for what they did to me and those who served with me and I will forgive them when the Jews forgive Hitler. If that's not sufficient, then I guess I will have to account for it come judgement day.
In summation... I can say that I am fiercely proud of my military service over there and in what we accomplished. This is not being flippant but I find solace in the fact that when we left for the final time in Feb 66, we were winning. I have remained in contact with around ten of my shipmates to this very day and I attended a wonderful ships reunion in Chattanooga in Oct 08.
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January 6th, 2012, 05:46 PM
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#77 | | Designated Marksman
Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Epping, NH
Posts: 624
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I think the thread drift has officially gone off the side of the earth.
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January 6th, 2012, 05:53 PM
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#78 | | Designated Marksman
Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: (the once and future) Vermont Republic
Posts: 591
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Getting back to the original topic, I want to talk about maybe a fourth possibility after the acquiescence, civil disobedience, and the working within the system to change the laws.
I lived in Chicago for six years, and in NYC for nine years after that. Neither city allows citizens to carry firearms, or even knives, for self defense. However, I never spent a day unarmed in all those fifteen years. To this day, I carry a defensive knife whenever I have to travel to these cities. If I am caught with it, I will be arrested and I will take my lumps. I'm talking about a fixed blade fighting knife, not a little pocket knife.
In fifteen years, I had a number of run ins with people who wanted to harm me. Most of the time situational awareness got me out of Dodge before a crisis could begin. On a couple of occasions the prudent move was to run like hell and hope I got around the corner before the clown shooting at me improved his marksmanship. And on a couple of occasions the knife actually came into play.
Would I have rather had a firearm? Yes. And as I get older, the likelihood of me carrying one, even in NYC, grows greater. Because my right to armed self defense is a construction of reason and conscience, not the law.
I don't consider this an act of civil disobedience, as I am not trying to get the law changed by breaking it. I am acting on my conscience and affirming what I have rationally inducted is my human right to self preservation. In that light, the law is still important, but strictly secondary when weighed against my survival. Only an idiot makes his own survival a secondary consideration to the law.
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January 6th, 2012, 06:19 PM
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#79 | | Lifer
Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Tampa
Posts: 3,290
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Originally Posted by LemmyCaution I lived in Chicago for six years, and in NYC for nine years after | Jesus, did you get a POW medal for that? Quote:
Chicago:You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.
-Obi Wan Kenobi
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January 7th, 2012, 04:20 AM
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#80 | | Designated Marksman
Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: (the once and future) Vermont Republic
Posts: 591
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Originally Posted by GARRARD Jesus, did you get a POW medal for that? | I got Mrs. Caution. Who could ask for more?
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January 10th, 2012, 08:29 AM
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#81 | | Rifleman
Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: North Texas
Posts: 78
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Originally Posted by LemmyCaution I don't see anyone in this thread expressing support for the Sullivan Act. Please point one out.
What I do see is you making ad hominem attacks on other forum members and expressing a view of the 2A that smacks of naïveté. You can believe what you want about what the 2A means. But the 2A does not exist in a vacuum, nor is it the word of God, unambiguously handed down on a stone tablet in truth to all and sundry.
The right to armed self defense is one that I think most people come to rationally. Our founders, as part of the enlightenment, did as well, and made an attempt at codifying it in the Bill of Rights. But language is always open to interpretation and always will be. The 2A does not grant the right to armed self-defense. It really is just words on paper. It really is open to interpretation. The 2A serves as a guiding principle for a constitutional republic. But like all human endeavors, the republic can be led astray. Clearly it has in NYC gun laws.
But the underlying right to armed self defense, at the end of the day, is a product of the reason and conscience of the individual citizen, not of the 2A. One must act on one's reason and conscience, but always in light of the conflict between reality and the rights one reasons one's way into.
This is the foundation for civil disobedience. One can protest an unjust law by breaking it. One must also accept the punishment that comes from breaking that law. The purpose of civil disobedience is to bring the injustice of the law to the light of day and shaming the powers that enforce it when the public at large is forced to confront the injustice. For this to work, one must consciously and rationally break the law with the intention of calling the injustice to attention. And one must also be willing to take one's lumps from the authorities as a result. It's what has often been called the 'cost of freedom.'
But that's a whole lot more work than pissing and moaning on the Internet about what one thinks 2A self evidently means.
And it's very different from breaking the law in utter ignorance and expecting to get a free pass. | Excellently put! Beating one's chest and charging everyone else with being sellouts is immature and irrelevant to the topic at hand. Our founding fathers knew about the cost of freedom. But this is not what the marine was doing. He screwed up and is now paying the consequences. No one has thrown him under the bus.
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