Ike on war...

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Yeah, lol..I don't know that ours is technically or artistically brilliant either.

Which doesn't alter misting up when you hear it.  A national anthem is a symbol, and symbols mean what you put into them.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, those are always interesting experiences. OTOH, I'm a cryer. I also have to wipe the eyes at the end of disney flicks and sappy dramas, too. Or when family comes to visit, or leaves, or refuses to leave. The list is practically endless.

The strangest, and this ties in with patriotism and service and the convoluted emotions involved...I cry when I hurt people...which is why I would sing when I shot. It occupied the mind, kept tears back, and boosted accuracy through controlled breathing.

[Brian37]

Yeah, lol..I don't know that ours is technically or artistically brilliant either.

Which doesn't alter misting up when you hear it.  A national anthem is a symbol, and symbols mean what you put into them.

Boru

Laws and policy are what matters over symbols and rituals.

[The Grand Nudger]

Not in the context of what we're discussing. You can hate your country's laws and policies and still love your country, and experience a profound surge of emotion in ritual activities, like standing together for the anthem. As Boru noted, you can do all of this with your eyes wide open, knowing it's silly.

It might even be the case that this experience motivates you and drives the intensity of your opinions about those policies you detest. Watching something you deeply love be put to ruin by feckless assholes isn't pleasant.

Personally, my money would be on a True Believer changing those things, rather than someone who makes it a point to distance themselves from love of country.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Which doesn't alter misting up when you hear it.  A national anthem is a symbol, and symbols mean what you put into them.

Boru

Laws and policy are what matters over symbols and rituals.

Not really the point, and not always correct.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Not in the context of what we're discussing.  You can hate your country's laws and policies and still love your country, and experience a profound surge of emotion in ritual activities, like standing together for the anthem.  As Boru noted, you can do all of this with your eyes wide open, knowing it's silly.

It might even be the case that this experience motivates you and drives the intensity of your opinions about those policies you detest.  Watching something you deeply love be put to ruin by feckless assholes isn't pleasant.

Personally, my money would be on a True Believer changing those things, rather than someone who makes it a point to distance themselves from love of country.

Twain phrased it as, 'Love your country always, and your government when it deserves it.'  That seems fair.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

He has alot of good ones on patriotism. Read chronologically you can see how it soured for him from this

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

to this

Well -- Patriotism has its laws. And it also is a perfectly definite one, there are not vaguenesses about it. It commands that the brother over the border shall be sharply watched and brought to book every time he does us a hurt or offends us with an insult. Word it as softly as you please, the spirit of patriotism is the spirit of the dog and wolf.

---

-and since it;s always a good time to drown a thread in Mark Twain, and this is a thread "on war".......

“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard the words ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory — must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

“Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it —
For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimmage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!
We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

[Anomalocaris]

'God created war so that Americans would learn geography.' - Mark Twain

Boru

Muricans has been at war for but a small handful of years since 1945, and yet starting from having no geographic knowledge whatsoever, our level of geographic knowledge have managed to decrease.

I spoke to one person who said we should build wall on our border with China too to stop them shipping in so much stuff and putting muricans out of work.   Back in 1945 those like him would have known boats were involving in getting from China to here.

---

Sorry but between Ike and Dick Cheney, I'll take Ike over a fucking dick every day of the week.

Why bring up Dick Cheney?  That's a stupid comparison to make.

You'll take Ike?  You can have him.  He was a political general - all front, stupid, dependent on his staff.

Boru

Eisenhower was by no means a mere political general, although politics was a much larger part of role than were the case with most theater commanders.    Operationally he overruled subordinates on both British and American sides frequently and at will to enforce a cautious, methodical, act-only-at-the-last-minute-so-as-to-have-all-options-first-reveal-themselves approach to the land champaign in the west that was and remains out of favor in popular conception of generalship after the German blitzkrieg.

Like jellicoe at Jutland Einsenhower’s mandate was to avoid snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, not to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.  So he did his core part of  job solidly and competently, undistracted by any temporarily potential for glory if he added dash and style that contributed nothing to the attainment of his only important objectives.

---

And why would a man who claimed to hate war spend almost his entire adult life as a soldier? 

Because “do what you love” was not generally considered the best way to conduct one’s life until the last 3-4 decades.    Previously it was generally thought a good life is one in which one molds one self to do what needs doing, not one where one chooses what one does according to what one likes.

[arewethereyet]

Yeah, those are always interesting experiences.   OTOH, I'm a cryer.  I also have to wipe the eyes at the end of disney flicks and sappy dramas, too.  Or when family comes to visit, or leaves, or refuses to leave.  The list is practically endless.

The strangest, and this ties in with patriotism and service and the convoluted emotions involved...I cry when I hurt people...which is why I would sing when I shot.  It occupied the mind, kept tears back, and boosted accuracy through controlled breathing.

I, OTOH, am not a cryer - really never have been.  Last night we attended a high school football game and, as usual, the anthem caused a catch in my breath.  It's not even conscious, it happens every time. 

Though I wasn't a huge Whitney Houston fan, her rendition of The National Anthem was/is breathtaking.  

I don't have the correct words to explain why that is the case for me.

[EgoDeath]

Travel is yet another reason to serve. Patriotism is a strange feeling, rising up from nowhere, even under the weight of metric shitloads of disillusionment about our government. Thankfully, America is not it's government.

I can understand why a person wouldn't feel that way...but there's not much I can do about feeling that way. It's involuntary. I tear up a little when the anthem plays, lol.

Thats fuckin weird dude.