Just because you don’t like what the government is doing does not give you a right to “alter” it. The South tried that during the Civil War. If you are unhappy with the policies of your government than by all means protest and seek change at the ballot box. But to call for armed revolution? Don’t you think you are going too far?

If you really feel that way should you not renounce your citizenship and move to a country where you can work to undermine the United States?

What does the word LOYALTY mean to you? Don’t you think you owe at least some minimal amount of loyalty to your country? You know a man by the name of Socrates knew a lot about loyalty. Even when the people of Athens were going to put him to death for “corrupting the youth” he still remained loyal to Athens. He reasoned that since he lived there his whole life, just because an injustice was being committed did not mean he could become a traitor to the city of his youth and the city that nurtured and protected him for most of his life. Maybe read up on Socrates and then tell me if you really feel so disloyal to the United States.

Did you personally know any of the people who were killed last week? Had they ever done anything to harm you? How about the children who were blown to bits . . . Had they ever threatened you in any way to cause you to have to kill them in self-defense? Can you tell me why you would want to take their lives?

I’m sorry to personalize it in this way, but this slaughter is being conducted in your name and mine, and I’ll tell you, this is blood I don’t want on my hands. We will all have to answer for this some day, and I would like to be able to say that I did not sit by silently while this was being done, and that I did whatever I could to stop it as soon as possible.

. . . this is the question I always ask myself when confronted with whether or not I should ever support a war: Do I believe strongly enough in this cause that I MYSELF would be willing to risk my life to go over there and square it with my conscience to kill.
Please call or write your member of Congress, send a letter to the editor. This is OUR country, not theirs and the corporate interests they really represent. It’s time to start taking it back.

Each cruise missile that is launched could have built a dozen schools or hired another hundred teachers or provided health care to a thousand people. Those millions of dollars could have been spent saving lives and educating children.

It’s been an awfully long time since any troops fought to defend AMERICA. In fact, what our troops are doing is making us less safe from foreign threats, while enabling the government to restrict our freedoms. Our troops are woefully misguided; I think the fair and proper words are “used” and “brainwashed”. I have sympathy for many of them (as you probably don’t care to admit, there are many thugs, criminals, and gang members who’ve been joining the military of late). I’ve always given to veterans organizations, both in private and in public where I’m forced to through paycheck confiscation. EVERY taxpayer gives to the vets. My suggestion is to not lie them into such awful situations in the first place, but that sort of concept takes logic and true compassion. That also deprives people like you of heroes to worship.

“If you hate the military so much, why not move to Switzerland? They have been neutral for a very long time.”

I’m glad to see that you DID pay attention to at least one of my previous posts because now, even though you still use the same tiresome routine about “loving it or leaving it” (as though those are our only TWO free choices), you’re using Switzerland as your option. Of course, your statement betrays yet even more ignorance. If one hates the military but longs for freedom, Switzerland would not be an option since they have compulsory military service. While you wait for another country to fill the gap, I’ll add a little background about why people don’t move as if you actually believe in that absurd ruse. Maybe we don’t move because of the language? The expense? Finding a home? A job? Family? Friends? Maybe — just MAYBE — we want to stay here where we were born, in OUR homes and hometowns. Maybe we prefer to stay here to follow our right and DUTY, of putting this country back on its rightful track. “And what country can preserve its liberties, if it’s rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?” Thomas Jefferson was right, but people like you imply that we must accept your un-American status quo despite the fact that we patriots see the country going down; that we patriots see self-serving politicians lying the nation into its final demise. You denounce our insistence that our fallible, compromised politicians, who’ve been proven to have lied be called to task for it.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,…

That’s all of us here Tim: the governed…

— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,

That’s our government right now…

it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…

It’s our RIGHT to alter it. We choose to excerise that right instead of running away. We’re using the tools that were lawfully given to us.

“But to live in America and not even care about her soldiers serving overseas? These are young kids who are there trying to do what is right. Maybe you strongly disagree with the mission and that is fine, but to not even care about these young men and women? To not even want to send them a care package around Christmas time? Shame on you all for that.”

The purpose of this thread and most of the responses to it is to lament the deplorable treatment of soldiers and veterans and you conclude that people here do “not care about these young men and women”. The negative posts simply state a truth: the soldiers volunteer to kill people without having first familiarized themselves with the facts — ALL sides (the February 2006 poll finding 80% of them believing they’re in Iraq to avenge 9/11 shows a shocking unfamiliarity with even the bogus neocon reasons for being there). They could have familiarized themselves with the contemporaneously lies at the time they joined and/or the lies we’ve historically been told about our wars. They could also have familiarized themselves with the outrageously shoddy treatment they would receive in and out of the service. Instead they chose honor and glory, just like the Marine Corps ads (or more likely, they chose the Army to pay for college, NOT to die or be hideously maimed).

“These are young kids who are there trying to do what is right”? I always think of our drill sergeants in basic training refering derisively to misguided youngsters as HEroes when they do something stupid even if — especially if — they think it’s right. There is no more fitting commentary than that. Their good intentions still pave a road to hell, a road that all of us a forced to travel whether we like it or not. Some people will take this more gracefully than others but either way, you’ve no right to expect anyone who sees the damage these troops do in their names to treat the troops as you wish simply because you’re still willing to parrot the lies. You claim to support our troops when they’ve been lied to; you KNOW they’ve been lied to, yet your pride and politics prevent you from admitting it. Your pride and politics come before their very lives. We say these people shouldn’t be placed in harm’s way for lies; you say they should. And you say WE don’t give a damn about them? Please don’t express your shame Tim. Your hypocrisy and your wrongheaded pusilanimous pursuit of self-preservation are deserving of too much of it to go around.

They are MERCENARIES and as such they are not defending America but rather SERVING and IMPLEMENTING the AGENDA of their MASTERS.

They would be shooting TERRORIZING and TORTURING US just as they do Iraqis, Afgans and others before them.

Bushes neo-fascists with the help of the other faction A.K.A Democratic Party, have DESTROYED the Republic and the Constitution.

Yet these soldiers are our own countrymen, even if they’re misled and exploited by the warmongering buffoons in Washington. It’s hard to grant them a hearty “job well done” when in fact what they’ve done, at their masters’ behest, has been entirely illegal and immoral. But how can we turn our backs on our relatives and friends in the military? I’m unsure exactly where the line is. My support for the soldiers is to bring them back to America, safe and sound, and not render comfort to an operation that is grotesquely wrong.

The Antiwar Blog on low recruitment numbers, high suicide and high desertion rates affecting the United States military. Islam and the west - opinions of a Kashmiri Nomad

Mercenaries are bloodthirsty animals killing and destroying whoever and whatever their masters order them to, as such they should expect no money or other benefits from humanity.

They and their families should be taken care of by their masters.

He knows what’s best. After all, he is the “decider.”