Ukraine Today

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Radalan said:
You're joking right?
A country isn't an entity and even if one would make that comparison, you probably shouldn't do it with a lion and a zebra.
Not even a little. 

Ok, fine, two lions or lion and a cheetah or a lion and a rhino, who cares. Point is an organism that is not willing to defend itself will perish and be replaced by another organism with more will to live and/or will to power.

Countries and nations may not be organisms in the strict biological sense, but they are certainly a thing, just like a bee hive is a thing or an ant colony is a thing.
 
In a war of defense I think there is definitely merit to joining your nation's defense. Not that it makes you weak not to jump to your country's defense, but occupied populace are almost always treated like ****, and to do nothing about invasion is to roll over and accept that treatment.
 
Radalan said:
Honestly though, I don't think volunteering to fight in a war should be a merit in today's society.  :???:
If mankind are to be under a government, they ought not be under a ****ty one just because the assholes were stronger.
****ing absurdists, nihilists, post modernists.

The same kind of people as those who call our volunteer soldiers, welfare queens, praising the welfare system in the same sentence.
PROTECTIN YOUR MOTHA****IN FREEDOM TO SAY SUCH BULL****.

Human beings lose damn near everything of value when they are ruled by men who view them like bugs or pawns.
Yes we are a chance conglomeration of molecules. Yes we're just a lucky anomaly. But we are here. We have dirt, we have children, and we have a ****ing universe to explore. Stop complaining about how meaningless it is and live like you do have meaning, damnit, or go remove yourself from the gene pool.

Men from centuries and millenia afar have created what freedoms in the world we have today, allowing such ideas as pacifism to even exist.
And they fought. They bled for a humanity that will someday stop dragging itself through the mud of poverty and violence and corruption.
Maybe one day we'll have evolved enough not to require an evil such as the state.
 
Your posts contain just enough coherency to keep me reading until the end, just to wonder what exactly you were trying to say in the first place.
 
Yeah that was only half related to what he wrote.
Muh Freedums

Alright I'll try to be a little less of "writing near midnight after a 10 hour workshift" kind of poster here, even though that's the case again.

So, volunteering to fight in a war, should not be a merit in today's society.
This is a bit vague honestly.

But let's expand this to what I think you meant.
I took this to mean:
"Volunteering, that is, not being drafted/conscripted, to join your nation's armed forces(Whose government and institutions I assume you support, or at least find less repulsive than the enemy fought) to fight other state or non-state organizations, for the sake of the defense of one's land/property, people, and way of government, is not an act which should be called meritorious."

Aside from this there is the fact of many military personnel who joined up voluntarily who do not fight, but who do such excellent things as EOD, Para-Rescue, and Humanitarian Relief/Disaster Response. But they probably aren't the people you're talking about.

You're talking about the grunts. Those men who go and kill because their government said so.
Now I ask what you take issue to. Certain individual conflicts that these men take part in, or the concept of a fighting man who thinks its in the best interest of his nation to go to war?
 
Weaver said:
I am actually curious to hear more about "today's society" and how it is so different from yesterday's society.
Somewhat depends on where you are, but i would argue that blurred concepts of identity are a major difference. Am i french/german/belgian/british or european? Am i european, american, russian or part of a larger international society? Which of these matters most to me? While you will likely still find a majority that supports and identifies with the nation state, it would not be unrealistic to speak of a relative descend of relevance (in the western world, though arguably the islamic world is going through a similar process for different reasons).
 
No, no.. I'm curious to learn what societal changes made it unpopular to protect the sovereignty of one's country.
I agree that ethnic identities are much less important in modern Europe, but it is a somewhat irrelevant remark for Ukrainian conflict has nothing to do with ethnic strife anyway.
 
Rallix said:
You're talking about the grunts. Those men who go and kill because their government said so.
Now I ask what you take issue to. Certain individual conflicts that these men take part in, or the concept of a fighting man who thinks its in the best interest of his nation to go to war?

Well, actually, I was thinking it in a rather simplistic manner. If no one volunteered to fight in wars, there would be fewer wars.
 
Basically, you seem to suggest that if less people were willing to defend themselves, less people would be attacked overall.
To put it politely, this is quite a naive and misleading sentiment.
 
Well no, I'm not suggesting that volunteering to fight a war and having to defend what is yours are the same thing.
If no one in Eastern Ukraine had volunteered to fight against their western counterparts, there wouldn't be a civil war, now would there?
 
Weaver said:
No, no.. I'm curious to learn what societal changes made it unpopular to protect the sovereignty of one's country.
I agree that ethnic identities are much less important in modern Europe, but it is a somewhat irrelevant remark for Ukrainian conflict has nothing to do with ethnic strife anyway.
Right. Protection is usually coupled with taking risks and if you are doing it for others (i.e. your country), you need too strongly identify with that group in order to be motivated to take that risk. Or so goes the theory.

Blurred Identity/ies -> Weak Group Dedication -> Less Volunteering/Less Military Spending
 
Radalan said:
Well no, I'm not suggesting that volunteering to fight a war and having to defend what is yours are the same thing.
If no one in Eastern Ukraine had volunteered to fight against their western counterparts, there wouldn't be a civil war, now would there?
We were specifically talking about someone who volunteered to protect her homeland. And in that context your initial post was quite unambiguous.
I wouldn't go so far as to suggest you actually sold your soul to Satan though, since you backpaddled in time you can still go to Heaven.
Duh said:
Right. Protection is usually coupled with taking risks and if you are doing it for others (i.e. your country), you need too strongly identify with that group in order to be motivated to take that risk. Or so goes the theory.

Blurred Identity/ies -> Weak Group Dedication -> Less Volunteering/Less Military Spending
I (and Huntington) would argue that in the modern world we have much more massive and compelling rallying points than ethnic identity both on global and national levels.
 
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