A few things, I hate white people and I didm't grow up back then...... I was a football player and also a bully.......
Oh please, Denny. What the hell does "until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on" mean? It means nothing! I can be indefinite, or until Trump decides, or what? And total and complete shutdown, when asked, included US citizens returning from abroad. Then it didn't. When Obama said there are Muslim sports heroes and Trump said "What sport is he talking about, and who?” he was not challenging whether Obama had knowledge of people like Ali, Olajuwon, Abdul-Jabbar et al. The clear context was contempt for the idea that a Muslim could be a sports hero.
I just don't believe conscientious objectors are heros. I lost my father in the Vietnam war, so you'll excuse me if I have no tolerance for people who refused to fight.
"When Cassius Clay joined the Black Muslims, he became a champion of racial segregation and that is what we are fighting against." MLK I highly recommend the book Suckerpunch by Jack Cashill.
I'm with you on this. I'm sorry for your loss. I too lost my stepfather to wounds suffered in Vietnam. Ali was very polarizing and did say some incredibly racist and outright means things to the press and most vividly Joe Frazier. He did spend the rest of his life atoning for what he said and Frazier accepted his apology which is all that matters. Ali was very polarizing to those alive during his heyday - something the Wikipedia generation cannot grasp. I was sad to see Ali pass away as he personified a movement both in the ring, and outside the ring later in life.
I'm all for fighting if there's a reason to fight. If someone attacked America, and our way of life was threatened, I would gladly join up. What was the point of fighting in Vietnam? What did it accomplish? Drafting Americans to fight in a war that had almost nothing to do with our country was pointless and wasteful, and some people chose not to participate. The thing I don't agree with was the mistreatment of our troops who were returning home from fighting. It wasn't there fault that they had to go over there.
Mediocre Man, I'm sorry for your loss. Truly. My question, and I am not trying to offend you. You seem to be bothered more by conscientious objectors, who oppose war on principal, than on those who cheered the war from their safe places while people like your father died. Why is a decision of conscience, which you clearly disagree with, more problematic than an exercise in privilege?
We're still paying a heavy price for entering that civil war. It was an arms dealers wet dream, a heroin pipeline and a convenient tool to weed out the less privileged male population...basically a failed real estate deal with a black market that was raining greenbacks. I think it divided the country more than anything since the civil war. I'm sad at anyone's loss from that war because it was a senseless place for us to muck around. I spent over half my adult life in that part of the world and know a ton of vets that never came home....not exactly a ticker tape parade when I arrived in Calif after my tour. Most of us weren't old enough to buy a beer stateside..
And then you have the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War. Neither of which have accomplished anything good. Both places are probably worse off than before we got there.
Oh, I think the exact same way. I guess I was raised to fight the good fight, or whatever? To me, that means if my brother is fighting, I would fight as well.
Where in anything I have ever typed or spoken have I said anything to make you think I am more bothered by one than the other?
That's the problem. We don't know what's "the good fight" most of the time. Our country meddles constantly in other countries. Would you fight if your brother was being an asshole and someone called him on it? The good fight has become murky and hard to determine since the end of the WWII.
Yes, completely. Michael Sam is a great example. So many people declared him a hero after he came out. I'm like....are you fucking kidding me?