What Makes Us Different? (Vanity?)

My mind | 10/30/13 | Hoagy62

[hoagy62]

I was speaking with Mrs. Hoagy62 this morning about some of the threads I was seeing here on FR. There is a LOT of things being said about defense in the face of tyranny, tactics to be used when going up against tyrannical forces, and general commentary about what one does in certain situations.

One of the things that I found a little disturbing is the thought that one should target families of those who may be in the employ of the government/military/police forces on the opposite side of a possible CWII conflict. I refer to the comment on the "Breaking MRAPS" thread that "Families of operators don't sleep in the MRAP".

Would we, being the 'moral' people that conservatives claim to be, be willing to stoop to levels that we'd expect our enemies to go to? "If Joe Policeman takes up arms against us, we'll blow up his wife and kids! That'll larn'em!".

If that is how we're planning to respond....what makes US any different from THEM?

We tout our respect for human life, respect for the laws of God, and desire to be law-abiding citizens of a free land. However, when you're openly or almost-openly speaking of blowing up your enemy's families...doesn't that go against the very core of what we're about?

Yes....I acknowledge that the forces that might be arrayed against us would be willing to blow away OUR families. Even so...do we want to become LIKE our enemies? Do we want to be as cold and ruthless as they? If we make the claim that we're better then them, would we be?

Would we then be fighting for a lie?

Even though it's a fictional tale, on the show "Babylon 5" when the forces of a Free Earth fought back against the forces of President Clark, Capt. Sheridan made it clear that only those who actually took up arms against them were the ones who would be punished. He went out of his way to make sure that those who weren't involved in the fighting were spared from it as much as was possible.

If the conflict that many are sure is coming actually happens, will we be willing to discard our morals? Will we be willing to use terror and deadly force against families of those we don't agree with?

Do we really want to go there?

[familyop]

Well written and considered. Thanks. They have even resorted to much historical revisionism (lies about history from fascist perspectives). Here's an comment of mine in an effort to oppose such revisionism.

---

The many exaggerated lies written about Dresden having been intended as a civilian target are nothing more than neo-Nazi propaganda. Incendiaries are needed to destroy military equipment and production machines for making military equipment. I've trained to destroy such equipment with smaller incendiaries. And we didn't have smart bombs during WWII.



https://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/PopTopics/dresden.htm
HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE 14-15 FEBRUARY 1945
BOMBINGS OF DRESDEN

Prepared by:
USAF Historical Division
Research Studies Institute
Air University

[Here's an excerpt:]

24. As related in paragraphs 5-11 above, Dresden became a military target as (1), and of overriding importance, a primary communications center in the Berlin-Leipzig-Dresden railway complex; (2) as an important industrial and manufacturing center directly associated with the production of aircraft components and other military items, including poison gas, anti-aircraft and field guns, and small guns; and (3) as an area containing specific military installations.

[djf]

There is no “us and them”.

So you are walking down the street with an empty gas can trying to get a gallon or two to put in your rig, parked a quarter mile behind you.

You have a sidearm.

You see a person approaching you.

Is he an “us” or is he a “them”?

How do you know? How do you react? Do you honestly think you will be able to carry on a civil discussion about who exactly he voted for last time, then just dust him away if he says he voted for Obama?

There is no “us” and no “them”.

The person you see will do one of two things:
Help you or
Try to kill you.

I’d be very interested in any thoughts on the matter. But no matter how much I think about it, I can’t come up with a solution.

Without a clear definition of “us” and “them”, it soon devolves to just killing people on sight or be killed yourself.

[LibLieSlayer]

I am not going to respond to anything in your post except to state that you are woefully ignorant of American History.

[familyop]

Again, your post is a great and true one. Torture and intentional attacks against civilians are public affairs failures. It’s incompetent for any army or guerilla effort to advocate such tactics. The advocating or implementation of such tactics does help us to see how our nation slides into weakness through immorality, though. It also shows us which factions will fail in insurrection. Pride goes before a fall.

[M Kehoe]

Good afternoon. I rarely answer vanities, but I saw your post on the MRAP thread. You may not want to read the post I posted to RCB regarding lying, so you might want to stop reading right here.

Here goes...

RCB is hired onto the local police force. Goes through the police academy, graduates and does some A.I.T.
After a time, the president by E.O. issues a state of emergency, and bans possession of all firearms.
The new grad, RCB goes out to M Kehoe's house to enforce the E.O. Knocks on M Kehoe's door. "Kehoe, open up, I'm deputy RCB. I have a search warrant for you home." M Kehoe: may I see it? I see everything is in order, come in. RCB: Kehoe (First lady is present), do you have any fire arms or explosives in your house.
M Kehoe: no sir.
RCB and crew search, and find nothing. RCB and jackboots leaving...
M Kehoe: I hope you found everything ok RCB (officer). Thanks for coming. Oh, by the way, who is your supervisor? RCB: Javon Williams.
M Kehoe: Thanks RCB, have a nice day.
RCB, in about 15 days I will plan your demise, Javon's demise, and all of your relatives, his relatives, and friends. The scene will make Hannibal Lecter look like child's play (ever hear of a Columbian neck tie?), and RCB, their deaths will be things of legend.

And yes, I am deadly serious.

5.56mm

[familyop]

No.

[familyop]

Dresden victims ‘farfewer than believed’[Bombing of Dresden]
Scotsman ^ | 02 Oct 2008 | BRIAN FERGUSON
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2095479/posts

[familyop]

The U.S.A. is sinking into moral bankruptcy and poverty. There’s no way out of that except for a return to real American morality (doesn’t happen without humiliating sufferings of consequences). If a real war is in our near future, it won’t be a domestic conflict waged by the sick, lame, lazy, aged, laid off and foreclosed. It will be a war against foreign nations.

[sargon]

There once was a day when two sides of a conflict could engage in battle using honorable rules of war. Those days ended decades ago.

Those days never existed.

[JRandomFreeper]

Regardless of whether Dresden was a military target or a civilian target, lots of innocents were killed, as happened at Hiroshima.

War kills innocents.

/johnny

[Billthedrill]

I doubt if anyone would advocate this sort of resort off the starting line, but a cursory glance at recent civil wars in Bosnia, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Darfur, Eretria, Somolia, Uganda, Liberia, and a dreadful host of others will convince you that it absolutely is the resort of a country that has descended into hell. The veneer of civilization is paper-thin. And many of those purportedly innocent civilian victims are the ones who are sending the thugs in and watching the mayhem perfectly happily on the evening news.

I, and I think most reasonable people who are familiar with the effect of firearms on the human body, have no desire whatever to shoot my fellow citizens for differing from my politics (or for any other reason, either). But civil wars don't commonly start with both sides glaring at one another across a No Man's Land with someone yelling "1-2-3, go!", they start with tit-for-tat atrocities and continue to exhaustion. Fueled by hereditary hatred and weapons supplied from outside sources they can last for decades. No, we really don't want to go there but we can be dragged there by people stupid enough to think that a river of blood will magically wash up on the shores of a utopian paradise.

[familyop]

"What distinguishes us from our domestic enemies is not the tactics we are willing to use but rather our cause."

The tactics reveal the nature of the cause for all to see.

[Heavyrunner]

No plan survives first contact with the enemy...We simply don’t know how an armed civil conflict would evolve.

Would military or police refuse to fire on citizens? Would they fall in line and drag our families from their homes in the dead of night?

Conflicts evolve and tactics change to adapt to realities. I don’t think conservatives would honestly seek to terrorize innocents in what is sure to amount to a war of attrition.

We will be painted as worse than militant Islamists by the 24/7 news cycle and our words will be drowned out by the press and the establishment, or twisted into soundbytes of racism, intolerance, or hate.

The nation is too lazy, stupid, and disengaged to revolt or to understand those who do.

Honestly, I hate to say it, but I think if we’re forced into combat with the Federal hydra, we’ve already lost. Only understanding the cause and effect of an entitlement society and suffering the collapse of our currency will start to bring people around. When someone truly has to exhaust themselves working for a morsel of food, and when jobs are simply not to be found anywaywhere and there’s no tax money left to support them, we’ll see a work ethic return and an appreciation for conservative values reignite.

[Joe Brower]

No 'us' and 'them'? Maybe you better ask the aggressors about that. It's a distinction they certainly will make, even if you do not.

Yes, friend or foe? That's a tough one to figure, many times impossible, and yet another aspect of this sort of conflict which makes it especially hellish.

Many mistakes are made. Many 'friendly fire' incidents.

If you're looking for a clear-cut answer, guess what? There isn't one.

Which is why this is to be avoided if at all possible. But as I stated previously, we will not be the ones who attack first, rendering any such sentiments moot.

[djf]

Conservatives get hungry just like liberals do.

If a liberal knocks on your door and starts begging for a bowl of soup, that’s one thing.

If a conservative does it, he is FAR more likely to be ARMED AND DANGEROUS than a liberal.

So, with that in mind, once again please explain the difference to me of “us” and “them”.

[RCB-Catholic]

Please dont send me any more stuff.
I find your last post to me offensive and enigmatic.
I reported it as abuse.
...and no I dont care to understand it.

I’m not interested in your guns anymore than your interested
in my faith.

[pallis]

bump for later

[familyop]

"Only understanding the cause and effect of an entitlement society and suffering the collapse of our currency will start to bring people around. When someone truly has to exhaust themselves working for a morsel of food, and when jobs are simply not to be found anywaywhere and there’s no tax money left to support them, we’ll see a work ethic return and an appreciation for conservative values reignite."

That's a more realistic guess than most (histories, cause and effect, etc.). Well done. Couch potatoes trained by sharing reveries and showing off toys don't fight wars, but we might see something similar to what is happening in Greece (if not much poorer).

Any noticeable bulk of violence may be laid off bureaucrats and helpless pensioners with pension haircuts protesting, throwing junk at police and getting arrested. As for the Walter Mitty types in government paranoid about the rabble, big government can't be big or hysterical without big dollars of real value (from energy production, agricultural production and much more domestic manufacturing than what we're seeing).

Real morality does tend to return, after a population takes a good beating from the poverty and other hardships it asks for. Pride and hatred can only get any of us on any side punished more severely. Too many political foreigners (not all)--only a few generations removed from Europe--fail to understand the nature of our U.S. founding fathers and even try to revise the history of the good work done in early America. They do so in order to try to establish another Europe on our soil. Eventually, they will fail.

[Joe Brower]

If things go south, no one makes it as far as the door unless they are a known entity. Yeah, ugly, isn't it?

Go back and re-read my previous post.

You are looking for an absolute answer where there is none. A false premise.

Good luck with that.

[Admin Moderator]

Please dont send me any more stuff.
I find your last post to me offensive and enigmatic. I reported it as abuse.
...and no I dont care to understand it.

ZOT!