Battletard wrote:
Except it's not so much that I'm offended, it's that it is very tiresome to encounter these threads not for the reason that I am incapable of engaging in a civilized dialogue in which my ideas are challenged so much as it is just predictable and unproductive.
If you want to have a discussion, we can have one. I'd advise you to restructure your original post or maybe create a new thread entirely without the obvious 'chip on the shoulder.'
You threw the first turd. Not me. You.
When you altered your tone, I engaged you appropriately.
Battletard wrote:
Not many people disagree that the military needs reforms and that the status quo is unacceptable. I just don't buy into your conspiracy that all Marines are one and the same for the simple fact that they belong to the same organization. This would be like saying all of the Crusaders are one and the same or all of the Storm Troopers are one and the same.
If they belong to the same organization then they are by definition the same in that respect.
Have the Marines attempted to stop this behavior? Bring these people to justice? Or have they institutionalized it?
To belong to a group is to take the good with the bad. You don't get to take pride in what that group means then dither and reject the bad points.
Would you be making this argument if we were talking about tobacco companies? The KKK? he Republican Guard? Al Qaeda?
So why make it with regards to the Marines? Perhaps you're not looking at the issue impartially. Perhaps you are being manipulated and fail to realize it.
Battletard wrote:
It's empirical fact that yes, Aestu, they do question their orders. They do wonder if they are on the right side of history. In a war zone, however, you cannot continually question your orders or you're gonna end up a crater and a stain on a dusty dirt road.
Do you have proof?
Battletard wrote:
You tend to oversimplify issues to the extreme, and then you do the whole 'we can't know everything that means we know nothing' routine. It's old. If you want to have a debate, l2p.
It's a perfectly valid response when applicable. That is the "l2p". Don't make logical fallacies such as
argumentum ad ignorantiam. Or at least be more gracious when it is pointed out.
That you are defending crying foul when an error in your logic is pointed out corroborates my point which is that really your complaints boil down to sore losing.