Goebel Gone Global

i-dfallapartwithoutyou-deactiva asked: I didn't say anything about the repercussions of the United States military. I simply stated I do not have any respect for people hating the military who provide the very freedom they live under. I have many friends, and family in the military so I take hating on the military very personally. I don't appreciate you saying that I am the one that deserves the no respect. Yes, what our military does isn't good all the time, but if it has to be done to protect our country, then it has to be done.

You’re right. You didn’t directly say anything about the repercussions of the US military. However, you did suggest that if anyone HAS A PROBLEM with the US military that they are undeserving of your respect. Do you honestly think that nobody who dislikes the American military does so because of the repercussions you claim to have said nothing about?

You try to defend this by suggesting that you meant strictly US citizens, but even then this is incredibly ignorant. Do you think that no US citizen has relatives in countries that we’ve bombed over the years? Do you think that no US citizens have lost family members due to our unnecessary bombings of their family’s country?

I don’t doubt that you have friends and family in the military. In fact, in my initial reply I gave you that said I can understand why you’d be upset because of insults. However, having friends and family in the military doesn’t give you a free pass to write off the objections of those who have suffered losses at the hands of our military and suggest that they are undeserving of respect because they can’t simply take the loss without speaking up about it.

Your ask suggests that soldiers are protecting my freedom, that they are protecting the country, that military action that results in loss of tens of thousands of lives that so many military supporters simply refer to as “collateral damage” are necessary for doing so. I say: “prove it.” I don’t see how any argument can be made that they are protecting our freedoms except perhaps the deplorable argument that they expand our freedoms at the price of the freedoms of those they occupy, that we oppress people in other lands in order to increase the scope of our freedom. I might agree with that, but that also leads to the (undesirable for you) conclusion that the US is essentially equivalent to a tyrant.

Lastly, you look at the wording in my response, you will note that I said if you actually think the way that I described then you don’t deserve respect, not that you don’t deserve respect regardless of whether I was on the mark. Any person with the slightest bit of humility would look at that, see that what they said emanated a pungent, nauseating callousness and apologize, clarify, and so on. What you said was perceived as entirely demeaning to victims of US atrocities, and upon seeing that what you say is that you don’t appreciate my saying that if you think that way you don’t deserve respect? It seems to me that if you didn’t view the lives of our victims as somehow less valuable than our lives that you would immediately explain that their lives have value, that you would agree with me in suggesting that someone who places no value on the lives of our victims and their families’ grievances deserves no respect. But instead you choose to simply assert that you don’t appreciate my suggesting that you are undeserving of my respect. What does that say about you?