TenuredVulture wrote:Bill Belichik is awesome.

I thought that was the popular opinion.

Mine was formed when I lived and he coached in Cleveland, shortly before I stopped caring about football, so he'll always just be a fully engineered jerk to me.

Alec Baldwin's Trump is mediocre, and I'm already tiring of it.

i never liked it

the guy himself does it way better

I greatly regret my previous unpopular opinion.

Bucky wrote:Andy Borowitz is extremely unfunny

I'm with you

Not a big fan of the military or the praise of us veterans

Warszawa wrote:Not a big fan of the military or the praise of us veterans

I'm partially with you.

i dont think ppl need coffee as much as they think they do

btw i love coffee

I def do. Seriously addicted to caffeine

Warszawa wrote:Not a big fan of the military or the praise of us veterans

agree, disagree. wish we had a world where we didn't need a military, but we live in the worst of all possible worlds. The guys and gals who DO do it deserve our respect and admiration, though. Without them we'd be REALLY screwed.

Arlington is literally running out of room. I agree we should make less veterans.

Bucky wrote:

Warszawa wrote:Not a big fan of the military or the praise of us veterans

agree, disagree. wish we had a world where we didn't need a military, but we live in the worst of all possible worlds. The guys and gals who DO do it deserve our respect and admiration, though. Without them we'd be REALLY screwed.

I agree that without soldiers we may have had to wait to gain our independence from England. They were probably important during the war of 1812. Aside from that I think they are overrated

although with modern warfare methods the likelihood has decreased drastically, I don't think you can overrate the gravity of someone who puts themselves in a predicament where they could die or be maimed for our country. (Whether or not you agree with the reasons they're sent into battle is not their decision and besides my point).

Bucky wrote:although with modern warfare methods the likelihood has decreased drastically, I don't think you can overrate the gravity of someone who puts themselves in a predicament where they could die or be maimed for our country. (Whether or not you agree with the reasons they're sent into battle is not their decision and besides my point).

I here ya, but literally every single person I know who went into the military did it to pay for college, to travel, or to make good money for doing very little. I have never heard anyone I know in the military say they did it for love of country or to protect our freedoms or anything like that. And when Bush started deploying people, they were really pissed, as if they got something they didn't bargain for.

So, it's hard for me to feel all warm and fuzzy about present day soldiers too much, though what happened during WWII was a good bit different.

Monkeyboy wrote:

Bucky wrote:although with modern warfare methods the likelihood has decreased drastically, I don't think you can overrate the gravity of someone who puts themselves in a predicament where they could die or be maimed for our country. (Whether or not you agree with the reasons they're sent into battle is not their decision and besides my point).

I here ya, but literally every single person I know who went into the military did it to pay for college, to travel, or to make good money for doing very little. I have never heard anyone I know in the military say they did it for love of country or to protect our freedoms or anything like that. And when Bush started deploying people, they were really pissed, as if they got something they didn't bargain for.

So, it's hard for me to feel all warm and fuzzy about present day soldiers too much, though what happened during WWII was a good bit different.

Well you know me, sort of. We didn't make all that much dough when I started. I signed up for pretty kewl, patriotic reasons. This was shortly after Vietnam so it wasn't a popular thing. It didn't piss me off when I went off to Desert Shield/Storm. And being in a combat arms unit, or a special ops unit is HARD, man. My motto was "The Army mostly sucks, but every once in a while, you get to do some really kewl shit." And that's what made it worth it.

Plus, these new soldiers are pretty bad ass:

https://www.google.com/search?q=today%2 ... VnLGMqM%3A

Bucky wrote:although with modern warfare methods the likelihood has decreased drastically, I don't think you can overrate the gravity of someone who puts themselves in a predicament where they could die or be maimed for our country. (Whether or not you agree with the reasons they're sent into battle is not their decision and besides my point).

agree 100% but I don't like how disconnected Americans are from the reasons we actually go to war, how we're constantly at war, how little we value foreigners lives, how we have to celebrate the military at sporting events, and how trite comments like "protecting our freedoms" are.

I'm a broken record on this, but:

the labor component of practically every human activity has been diminishing for a long time and will almost certainly continue to do so. This is neither right or wrong, just is, and is probably not materially revisable.

It should influence how we think about practically every facet of a plausible human future, but it seems to belong to that category of "so obvious it need not be articulated" concepts that comes to wallop all of us sooner or later

smitty wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

Bucky wrote:although with modern warfare methods the likelihood has decreased drastically, I don't think you can overrate the gravity of someone who puts themselves in a predicament where they could die or be maimed for our country. (Whether or not you agree with the reasons they're sent into battle is not their decision and besides my point).

I here ya, but literally every single person I know who went into the military did it to pay for college, to travel, or to make good money for doing very little. I have never heard anyone I know in the military say they did it for love of country or to protect our freedoms or anything like that. And when Bush started deploying people, they were really pissed, as if they got something they didn't bargain for.

So, it's hard for me to feel all warm and fuzzy about present day soldiers too much, though what happened during WWII was a good bit different.

Well you know me, sort of. We didn't make all that much dough when I started. I signed up for pretty kewl, patriotic reasons. This was shortly after Vietnam so it wasn't a popular thing. It didn't piss me off when I went off to Desert Shield/Storm. And being in a combat arms unit, or a special ops unit is HARD, man. My motto was "The Army mostly sucks, but every once in a while, you get to do some really kewl shit." And that's what made it worth it.

Plus, these new soldiers are pretty bad ass:

https://www.google.com/search?q=today%2 ... VnLGMqM%3A

I did think of you when I wrote that. I have never heard you talk about your reasons, so I couldn't file you as an exception. I am sure there are many more like you. I was just pushing back against the idea that people in the military are a group of self sacrificers. I was serious when I said I don't know a single person who listed patriotism or anything like that among their reasons for joining. I don't know a single person who didn't list financial reasons at the top of the list. That, by itself, isn't the end of the world because many of these people have no better options and being able to make a living is important, but it does make our armed forced largely mercenary, imho.

Well, there are many folks like me who were/are in the military. It does take a lot of sacrifice to serve. It's not easy to understand if you haven't done it. It's a totally different world.