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Thread: Do soldiers fight for a flag, or what it represents?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Thing1 View Post
    Discuss.
    Never having been under a hailstorm of enemy fire myself, I am not in a position to say.

    I always got the impression from my great-Uncle, who was at the Battle of the Bulge, that he was fighting for his friends, his mates who in the foxholes with him. I believe to him, the job was to protect his friends and to defeat Hitler so they could all get back home in one piece. I don't know if they were thinking about flags or constitutions foremost in their minds.

    I also have a letter from a distant great uncle on my mother's side of the family from the civil war. Written to his wife, circa 1864. He was serving in a Pennsylvania regiment. You would be amazed at how articulate and thoughtful your average Union soldier could be. His writing seems to make it clear he felt their mission was to end slavery in the southern states. Both as a moral, and practical imperative. Gripping stuff, man!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Stretch View Post
    They are intertwined and inseparable. The flag represents our nation. Both are honored.
    you would think this is a given/known idea. and yes some who die -do actually die for the flag in battle.
    Battle flags are a time honored custom

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    Quote Originally Posted by Amadeus View Post
    According to anatta, soldiers fight for GDP growth and/or the will of oligarchs. Human rights aren't a factor, for example. Because realpolitik.


    incredibly stupid word salad. Your trolling is pathetic
    I don't know how you were diverted / You were perverted too
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    Never having been under a hailstorm of enemy fire myself, I am not in a position to say.

    I always got the impression from my great-Uncle, who was at the Battle of the Bulge, that he was fighting for his friends, his mates who in the foxholes with him. I believe to him, the job was to protect his friends and to defeat Hitler so they could all get back home in one piece. I don't know if they were thinking about flags or constitutions foremost in their minds.

    I also have a letter from a distant great uncle on my mother's side of the family from the civil war. Written to his wife, circa 1864. He was serving in a Pennsylvania regiment. You would be amazed at how articulate and thoughtful your average Union soldier could be. His writing seems to make it clear he felt their mission was to end slavery in the southern states. Both as a moral, and practical imperative. Gripping stuff, man!
    that was on both sides of the civil war-the men who fought had ideals or simply fought for their state or the union itself.

    Ken Burns "Civil War" uses letters to follow a few men on both sides thru their civil war battles.
    It's a great series to watch

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    Quote Originally Posted by The Zax View Post
    i can't speak for every idiot in the nation, but I haven't seen many if any people say that they didn't have a right to sit. they just disagreed with it.
    and wanted to find a way to force him to stand

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    Quote Originally Posted by noise View Post


    incredibly stupid word salad. Your trolling is pathetic
    Well, it's the bottom line of your ideology, and you can't seriously deny it. You've said repeatedly that human rights is a cute or quaint idea, and that economic growth is the only metric of a nation. You've repeatedly said that America should get out of the 'human rights' business, and allow nations to do whatever they want (while pushing for closer relations to such nations). What exactly are soldiers dying for, if not those values?
    In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Thing1 View Post
    Ken nailed it. That cartoon is perfect.

    The whole NFL debate reminds me of when the right was pushing for a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution. Essentially, undermining core American values in the name of "protecting" America. Very backwards.
    no. that was about the first amendment. protected speech from government sanction
    The first doesn't apply to the NFL ( and hopefully i need not explain this) in that it's contract law
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    Quote Originally Posted by noise View Post
    you would think this is a given/known idea. and yes some who die -do actually die for the flag in battle.
    Battle flags are a time honored custom
    You mean that the values behind the flag are a good enough smokescreen to fool the plebs.
    In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Amadeus View Post
    Well, it's the bottom line of your ideology, and you can't seriously deny it. You've said repeatedly that human rights is a cute or quaint idea, and that economic growth is the only metric of a nation. You've repeatedly said that America should get out of the 'human rights' business, and allow nations to do whatever they want (while pushing for closer relations to such nations). What exactly are soldiers dying for, if not those values?
    ridiculous. you conflate "soldiers" to the prosecution of foreign policy. I am not going to waste my time unscrambling that mess, other then to say soldiers (usually) fight and die for their country-not policies

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    Never having been under a hailstorm of enemy fire myself, I am not in a position to say.

    I always got the impression from my great-Uncle, who was at the Battle of the Bulge, that he was fighting for his friends, his mates who in the foxholes with him. I believe to him, the job was to protect his friends and to defeat Hitler so they could all get back home in one piece. I don't know if they were thinking about flags or constitutions foremost in their minds.

    I also have a letter from a distant great uncle on my mother's side of the family from the civil war. Written to his wife, circa 1864. He was serving in a Pennsylvania regiment. You would be amazed at how articulate and thoughtful your average Union soldier could be. His writing seems to make it clear he felt their mission was to end slavery in the southern states. Both as a moral, and practical imperative. Gripping stuff, man!
    Those civil war letters are incredible. A saw a comedian once do a comparison between letters from the civil war & letters from the Iraq war, and it was pretty hilarious. Kind of sad, but hilarious.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Amadeus View Post
    You mean that the values behind the flag are a good enough smokescreen to fool the plebs.
    whatever. that statement is unfounded,and sounds hostile to patriotism ( not to be confused w/jingoism)
    but since you do not expound on that simplistic nonsense, i'm not about to try and unpack it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by noise View Post
    that was on both sides of the civil war-the men who fought had ideals or simply fought for their state or the union itself.

    Ken Burns "Civil War" uses letters to follow a few men on both sides thru their civil war battles.
    It's a great series to watch
    I was watching Ken Burns Vietnam series, which prompted the thread. I don't want to put any words in his mouth, but one of the vets was saying that he really celebrated the protests that were going on in America at that time, and that they represented what he was fighting for.

    That's why the NFL thing reminds me of the flag-burning amendment. I don't think people realize how unique our right to burn the flag is. It's amazing. In some countries, as we know, you can't even say a critical word about the government or country. Being able to actually burn the flag is the ultimate counter to that - our allowance of it, as offensive as it might be, is a profound expression of liberty.

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    Quote Originally Posted by noise View Post
    whatever. that statement is unfounded,and sounds hostile to patriotism ( not to be confused w/jingoism)
    but since you do not expound on that simplistic nonsense, i'm not about to try and unpack it.
    What do Russians fight for, for example? Keeping in mind that Putin controls most aspects of their lives, and pillages the Russian economy. Clear it up for me. What does a Russian solider die for?
    In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Thing1 View Post
    Of course. But the people doling out the consequences should ask themselves why they needed to make what Kap did about the flag, instead of talking for even a minute about what his protest was actually about.
    Blind???

    It's getting a little boring to keep saying the same thing over and over ad nauseum, but I'll say it one more time...and still in English, too. LOL

    I don't care what people want to protest about...right or left. Everybody can speak all they want to according to the Constitution, the law and/or their employer's rules. Who in their right mind would NOT want to ensure that people of all races be treated equally? It's about HOW AND WHEN to deliver such messages in order to gain the most FAVORABLE impact for their cause.

    If one's employer says it's OK on company time, fine. Do it. And, realize it's OTHER people's right to disagree with it.

    Let them work it out with their employers, lawyers, unions, sponsors, whatever.

    There are risks and rewards for public demonstrations. People need to be adults about it and be ready to receive acceptance or rejection of whatever they're standing up for. THAT is also the American way.

    Kap forced his concerns by co-mingling his concerns with the American flag and the National Anthem. THIS has been the problem...NOT his concerns. He just didn't use common sense and FOCUS or ZERO IN if you will, and make it specific. He went with his emotions instead. He wanted the attention for himself, NOT his concerns by wearing pig cop socks, Che Guevara shirts, etc. When people have a true and sincere cause they are striving to bring national attention to, the last thing they would want is more focus on THEM instead of their message.

    Then of course it snowballed and here's the convoluted results we end up with and the consequences that follow.
    Last edited by Stretch; 10-22-2017 at 11:28 AM.
    Abortion rights dogma can obscure human reason & harden the human heart so much that the same person who feels
    empathy for animal suffering can lack compassion for unborn children who experience lethal violence and excruciating
    pain in abortion.

    Unborn animals are protected in their nesting places, humans are not. To abort something is to end something
    which has begun. To abort life is to end it.



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