"Bert Robbins" wrote in message
...
Harry Krause wrote:
Bert Robbins wrote:
Don White wrote:
JIMinFL wrote:
"Don White" wrote in message
...

JIMinFL wrote:

"Don White" wrote in message
...


JIMinFL wrote:


http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/natio...ers040908.html
What's your point?
If they helped bring that war to an early close shouldn't they be
honoured?

Honoring cowardly acts is not the American way. I'm surprised that
Canada feels differently.
Do you think they were all cowards?
Pretty much.

Oh yeah....
re "Honoring cowardly acts is not the American way."
Do I dare point out that your current president hid from service?

What branch of your military did you serve in?



Bert, Bert, Bert...get off your high horse. You never served in a
shooting war.

Never said I was in any action. However, I was available to be a bullet
catcher when the phone rang and I needed to be at the assembly point
within hours.

What branch of the military did you serve in, Harry?
Excellent question

wrote in message
oups.com...
This have something to do with boats?

Aren't there some right wing groups some place where people would be
eager to GD your target group?

Conscience bothering you?

"JIMinFL" wrote in message
et...

"Bert Robbins" wrote in message
...
Harry Krause wrote:
Bert Robbins wrote:
Don White wrote:
JIMinFL wrote:
"Don White" wrote in message
...

JIMinFL wrote:

"Don White" wrote in message
...


JIMinFL wrote:


http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/natio...ers040908.html
What's your point?
If they helped bring that war to an early close shouldn't they be
honoured?

Honoring cowardly acts is not the American way. I'm surprised that
Canada feels differently.
Do you think they were all cowards?
Pretty much.

Oh yeah....
re "Honoring cowardly acts is not the American way."
Do I dare point out that your current president hid from service?

What branch of your military did you serve in?



Bert, Bert, Bert...get off your high horse. You never served in a
shooting war.

Never said I was in any action. However, I was available to be a bullet
catcher when the phone rang and I needed to be at the assembly point
within hours.

What branch of the military did you serve in, Harry?
Excellent question


Why does it matter? New rules? Nobody can talk about this if they haven't
served?

"JIMinFL" wrote in message
t...

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"JIMinFL" wrote in message
.net...
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/natio...ers040908.html


I have a question for you. Is it possible that today, you might know
something I don't, and that a year from now, I might also know the same
thing?

Yes


Great! The suits who invented the domino theory knew by the late 1960s that
it was nonsense, and that's what the entire war was based on. All presidents
are the target of various so-called scholars and shmexperts. Many of us
figured out early on that the North Vietnamese were not going to burn their
way through the south and invade Australia next. Do you remember this
nonsense?

Someone knew something before you did, in other words.

JIMinFL wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
This have something to do with boats?

Aren't there some right wing groups some place where people would be
eager to GD your target group?

Conscience bothering you?

Not at all.

I walked away from an offer made by the American Friends Service
Committee (Quaker Church) that would have had me in Vancouver with a
job in a cabinet shop and well out of reach of the draft board. I
stayed in the US, followed the law, was ultimately classified I-0 and
fulfilled my obligation to serve my country for two years. The only way
my conscience would have bothered me now would be if I had ignored it
then. Most people with enough money to do so simply hid out in college
during that time to avoid dealing with the issue, (see the majority of
our current government leaders for specific examples, including the
VPOTUS) or others simply shut up, stood up, and marched off to a war
they felt was very, very wrong. How about you? Got a conscience? If so,
my sincere wish for you is that you can look back on whatever decisions
you made in the 60's (if you were of age then) with the same peace of
mind that I do.

What bothers me are the folks from the left and the right who feel that
their need for self expression trumps the civil courtesy of posting
on-topic. Have you so little imagination that you can't think of a
group where a rant like.... "Look what those damn pinko Canadians are
up to now, they want to honor US draft resistors. Ke-reist, next thing
you know they'll learn how to say 'Jane Fonda' without spitting or
puking,- didn't those SOB's up north of the border ever hear the phrase
'kill a commie for Christ'?"... would be welcome?

If the NG is supposed to be a free-for-all, why not just call it a chat
room? What would be the point of having a nominal topic at all? I
absolutely support your right to free speech, etc, but just like you
wouldn't stand up in a strip joint, grab the microphone, and start
reading from the Book of Leviticus as an exercise in free speech or
stand up in church and read
passages from a porn novel, there are appropriate and inappropriate
venues for the exercise of that free speech. If you want to see what
the NG looks like when nobody has the self discipline to stick with the
topic, go back about 6 months or so and take a look. If you want
threads titled "Poster X is a So-and-so", "Bush's poll numbers are up",
"Bush's poll numbers are down", "The War in Iraq is Shrewd and Heroic,
and protects Main Street USA from suicide bombers", "The War in Iraq is
a BS grab for mid-east colonies", etc, etc, etc, the best way to
propagate them is to go back to running OT political threads.

And hey, the neat thing about everybody putting up just one OT
political thread is we can then all say, "Gee, too bad about the NG,
but it's really somebody else's fault. I only started
a few of the OT threads, and there are dozens of them."

Point summarized: You can find a NG where your type of political
material is actually consistent with the intended topic and participate
there, so there is no real need to f*** up a boating newsgroup with
some inappropriate and OT whine about the choices free people in
another country might be making.

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"JIMinFL" wrote in message
et...

"Bert Robbins" wrote in message
...
Harry Krause wrote:
Bert Robbins wrote:
Don White wrote:
JIMinFL wrote:
"Don White" wrote in message
...

JIMinFL wrote:

"Don White" wrote in message
...


JIMinFL wrote:


http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/natio...ers040908.html
What's your point?
If they helped bring that war to an early close shouldn't they be
honoured?

Honoring cowardly acts is not the American way. I'm surprised that
Canada feels differently.
Do you think they were all cowards?
Pretty much.

Oh yeah....
re "Honoring cowardly acts is not the American way."
Do I dare point out that your current president hid from service?

What branch of your military did you serve in?



Bert, Bert, Bert...get off your high horse. You never served in a
shooting war.

Never said I was in any action. However, I was available to be a bullet
catcher when the phone rang and I needed to be at the assembly point
within hours.

What branch of the military did you serve in, Harry?
Excellent question


Why does it matter? New rules? Nobody can talk about this if they haven't
served?

I thought it was a fair question since Harry was belittling Bert's service.
Talk all you want Doug. It's a free country. Justify the actions of draft
dodgers if you want. Your freedom has been secured by the millions who have
helped to defend this country and make it free.

"JIMinFL" wrote in message
t...

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"JIMinFL" wrote in message
et...

"Bert Robbins" wrote in message
...
Harry Krause wrote:
Bert Robbins wrote:
Don White wrote:
JIMinFL wrote:
"Don White" wrote in message
...

JIMinFL wrote:

"Don White" wrote in message
...


JIMinFL wrote:


http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/natio...ers040908.html
What's your point?
If they helped bring that war to an early close shouldn't they
be honoured?

Honoring cowardly acts is not the American way. I'm surprised
that Canada feels differently.
Do you think they were all cowards?
Pretty much.

Oh yeah....
re "Honoring cowardly acts is not the American way."
Do I dare point out that your current president hid from service?

What branch of your military did you serve in?



Bert, Bert, Bert...get off your high horse. You never served in a
shooting war.

Never said I was in any action. However, I was available to be a bullet
catcher when the phone rang and I needed to be at the assembly point
within hours.

What branch of the military did you serve in, Harry?
Excellent question


Why does it matter? New rules? Nobody can talk about this if they haven't
served?

I thought it was a fair question since Harry was belittling Bert's
service. Talk all you want Doug. It's a free country. Justify the actions
of draft dodgers if you want. Your freedom has been secured by the
millions who have helped to defend this country and make it free.

If we were faced with something like WWII, I'd the lined up waiting for my
short haircut, just like you. But, you know as well as I do that some
military actions are done solely for political, personal, or pathological
reasons. The Spanish-American war, the Vietnam war, and the current Viagra
substitute in Iraq are all in this category. If some people believe it's
noble to serve even when the reasons are pathetic, they are free to do so.
But, not me.

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...

I thought it was a fair question since Harry was belittling Bert's
service. Talk all you want Doug. It's a free country. Justify the actions
of draft dodgers if you want. Your freedom has been secured by the
millions who have helped to defend this country and make it free.

I'm not really belittling Bert's service, such as it was. I'm belittling
Bert. Bert tries to make a big deal that he "served" while others did not,
and therefore his right-wing commentary has some relevance. . But serving
stateside, as Bert did, is not the same as serving at the front in an
active war zone. That's for starters. More important, of course, is that
Bert is an uneducated, unsophisticated, right-wing horse's butt, and
therefore his opinions have about as much value as a pile of horse manure.


Harry, could you stop with the veiled remarks and be a little more clear
about what you're trying to say here?


:-)

In article et,
says...

Don!! You are drifting from the topic. To refresh your memory, Canada is
planning to celebrate the American draft dodgers who fled to, and were
welcomed in Canada. What say you about that?

By all rights the guys who're serving in the US Executive Branch could
join them in celebration, for they too found ways to avoid the draft.

It just didn't include traveling to Canada.

Instead, they deftly used their parents money and influence.

jps

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"RCE" wrote in message
...

"basskisser" wrote in message
ups.com...

JIMinFL wrote:
"Don White" wrote in message
...
JIMinFL wrote:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/natio...ers040908.html

What's your point?
If they helped bring that war to an early close shouldn't they be
honoured?

Honoring cowardly acts is not the American way. I'm surprised that
Canada
feels differently.

Cowardice had nothing to do with it. People went because they had the
balls to stand up to their political, religious and personal
convictions. They didn't like the reasoning for the war, realized it
was absurd that we were there, and didn't just lemming-like join
because everyone tells them that it's honorable to your country to go
kill a bunch of innocent people.


It had nothing to do with "joining". It was draft evasion. Those that
violated the law and ran to Canada or elsewhere were in the minority, for
sure, but they caused others to be called up to replace them who
otherwise may not have been called. If one was willing to take the time
to prove being a true conscientious objector, there were programs to
allow you to serve the country in other ways other than the military.
Even those of us in the military had limited options. My best friend
served in the fleet marines as a Navy corpsman, caring for the injured
and saving lives. He never carried a rifle. This was by choice because
he didn't believe in killing.

Most of us that were subject to the draft during the 60's were products
of the American culture of the 50's. That culture taught us that military
service was an honorable duty, along with patriotism and a sense of unity
of purpose. By the late 60's things had changed. The drug culture was in
full bloom, the sexual revolution was well underway and the overall
thinking was "me" rather than "us". So, I don't buy all the crap about
draft dodgers being generally categorized as being spiritually and/or
morally opposed to the Vietnam War or our government's actions. They
were, with some exceptions, more interested in themselves and their
personal interests. In a sense this selfish philosophy produced a whole
new group of lemmings.

RCE


If you (and I mean specifically YOU, not some theoretical "other") were
absolutely sure that a war was wrong, would you still serve?


At the time .... yes. It was a duty, not a choice.

RCE