[jacquesm]

As a conscientious objector I've done plenty of thinking on the subject. My personal stance on this is that I and nobody else determines where and when the line into violence is crossed and that I will not let others determine what my hands are used for when it comes to matters of life and death.

Words like 'sacrifice', 'pride' and so on try to put glory where there is none. Navy seals and their various colleagues from other countries should be a means of last resort (just like armies), unfortunately they find themselves (ab)used as blunt instruments of offence rather than as a way to defend their homelands.

I know a couple of vets, and if there is one thing they collectively agree on then it was that they were used. That's not going to happen to me, I won't let it.

[tptacek]

You just took the words "sacrifice" and "pride" out of context and used them to rebut an argument I didn't make. And, obviously, I didn't make an argument that it was wrong to object to service in the military.

[jacquesm]

> our country (and yours) wouldn't need to ask people to sacrifice that part of their humanity in service to their countrymen.

Sacrifice in that sentence indicates that we are asking those people to give up their humanity in our service, as if that is something that makes it heroic. Besides, I didn't ask them, and never would.

> You might find that while SEALs are happy to speak proudly what they've learned in basic training, not so many of them speak happily about what war forces them to do during deployment.

SEALs speak proudly of their basic training because they glorify a thing that I abhor: violence.

In both cases I think that that exact use of those words is what I have a problem with.

I'm not asking anybody to sacrifice themselves for me and I don't think Navy SEAl basic training is something to 'be proud of'.

Firemen, nurses, ambulance drivers, doctors, single moms working hard to feed and educate their kids have reasons to be proud. Navy SEALs in my book at least not so much, they are for the most part underpaid mercenaries. Of course they are painted as heroes by the government, otherwise how would you get young and intelligent people to set aside their reservations about the aims to which they are generally used.

If every country would stick to using their 'defense' departments for what they are ostensibly named then the world would be a much better place.

[tptacek]

You just read an article by a SEAL proudly talking about their training in terms that had nothing whatsoever to do with violence. That's what I meant earlier when I said you were taking things out of context to rebut arguments I hadn't made.

[jacquesm]

Ah ok, clear. SEALs are all about violence, I can see how some parts of their training have other applications but at the end of the day we're not talking about boy-scouts or pool guards here.

[tptacek]

No part of the article we are talking about appears to be about violence. Moreover, the comment of mine that you replied to draws this point out specifically, attaches "pride" to the non-violent aspects of their service, and suggests that many of them feel the same way about violence that you do. That was the point of the book I suggested; it is largely about the damage that engagement with violence inflicts on the psyche of servicepeople.

[mpyne]

> SEALs speak proudly of their basic training because they glorify a thing that I abhor: violence.

That's not the thing they "glorify" though, any more than surgeons "glorify scalpels". They happen to be very good at using force in the way that a martial artist would be very good at using their hands and feet as weapons, but people don't go around saying that the local Jeet Kune Do instructors are "glorifying war".

The fact is that even for special operating forces (like the SEALs), the vast majority of what they do involves important, but non-violent (or as they'd say, non-direct action) operational missions.

[pavelrub]

That is a very comfortable stance to have, isn't it?. You are very fortunate that there are people out there risking their lives so that people like you can continue living inside their bubble.

[Nrsolis]

"As a conscientious objector I've done plenty of thinking on the subject."

e.g. COWARD.

You abhor violence, eh? That's rich.

[jacquesm]

Ok, as a true coward befits I'll bow out of the discussion here. Thanks for playing. By your definition, that means you win.

[sillysaurus3]

Try not to let trolls get to you. No one was influenced in the slightest by their comments, so there's no reason to let it get under your skin.

[Nrsolis]

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

John Stuart Mill, on the US Civil War, in "The Contest in America", Fraser’s Magazine (February 1862)