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war is an ugly thing


Vagus

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"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

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Nice words, found in Chapter 1 of On Liberty..

Nervous breakdown at 21, an employee of the British East India Company, a politician, first person in Parliament to call for women to have the right to vote, then a Lord Rector of the University of St. Andrews.

But I don't see anything in his bio that would indicate he ever faced an enemy. A child of Empire and of privilege.

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I resemble that! However, the veterans with whom I am familiar would rather their children not have to go to war.
That's true, but we'd also want them to be willing to if necessary. Mine has already (we were in the sandbox together).
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I resemble that! However, the veterans with whom I am familiar would rather their children not have to go to war.

___

Yes ,and a lot of us would hope we have in some way been able to convey the importance of understanding government and how/why policy developes and compare those policies to the founders' principles.

A friend of mine, another well traveled and well read military fellow, on one of many visits to China had an interesting conversation with a Chinese Professor. The gentleman said that " America is not a concern to China, for the American people do not know their own history, they live in an eternal present, and therefore have no future."

Edited by Viggen
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War is hell, litterally!

No sane person wants war, but if there are agressors in the world, are they going to attack the Lions or the Lambs.

"If you want peace, then prepare for war."

RPM

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However, the veterans with whom I am familiar would rather their children not have to go to war.

I was the veteran who threatened to break his children's legs and meant it if they even thought too hard about enlisting in anything that might put them where I had been on the ground. The threats worked, they're both squids now :blush: And yes, war is a horrible thing, and the wrier that the OP quoted said it well, whether he knew it personally or not.

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  • 4 weeks later...

that was the second longest quote I had to memorize.

The first longest being Schofield's quote. Boy does that bring back memories... err.. flashbacks.

Then there was the poem High Flight and Bring Me Men.

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"Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" comes to mind. I copied it down on a small peice of paper in 1984 and stuck it in my wallet. Its been in there ever since.

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,

And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.

Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life,

I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.

When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Edited by Tom Freeman
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It seems to me one goes to war for three reasons:

1. To impose one's will upon another.

2. To steal anothers property.

3. To defend oneself from the first two.

It also seems to me there have been polititians throughout history who have been quite skilled at convincing their populaces the first two were necessary in order to effect the third. That is truly ugly.

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"It also seems to me there have been polititians throughout history who have been quite skilled at convincing their populaces the first two were necessary in order to effect the third. That is truly ugly"
And that's precisely what pi**es a lot of people off. UN-just wars are, well, unjust.

If the man from China has "not a concern for America" then, boy, does he have a shock coming.

1. We DO know our history. It just happens to be a lot shorter than some countries. But we know it--warts and all.

2. We live in the eternal present because that's where ALL of us should be living. Too many people/cultures live in the past and that's exceedingly unhealthy and unwise. Learn from the past, yes, but don't drag it around with you every moment of the day, chained to you like some rotting corpse.

3. Precisely BECAUSE we are 'living in the eternal present' we are knowingly creating our future(s) every moment of every day. That's how it works, the Eternal Present... it evolves continually and that's how it works. We are ACUTELY aware, many of us (but not always politicians), of how to create a future. And so we create it.

AMEN.

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"It also seems to me there have been polititians throughout history who have been quite skilled at convincing their populaces the first two were necessary in order to effect the third. That is truly ugly"
And that's precisely what pi**es a lot of people off. UN-just wars are, well, unjust.

If the man from China has "not a concern for America" then, boy, does he have a shock coming.

1. We DO know our history. It just happens to be a lot shorter than some countries. But we know it--warts and all.

2. We live in the eternal present because that's where ALL of us should be living. Too many people/cultures live in the past and that's exceedingly unhealthy and unwise. Learn from the past, yes, but don't drag it around with you every moment of the day, chained to you like some rotting corpse.

3. Precisely BECAUSE we are 'living in the eternal present' we are knowingly creating our future(s) every moment of every day. That's how it works, the Eternal Present... it evolves continually and that's how it works. We are ACUTELY aware, many of us (but not always politicians), of how to create a future. And so we create it.

AMEN.

+1

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America may be a fickle creature...absorbed in the moment, seeking to be entertained and personal fulfillment.

But when Evil threatens or lives or freedom our sons and daughters rise to do battle with those that would commit evil upon us.

From the begining of our history, to this very day, our patriots have given thier lives and all they have, to protect and defend not only our own people

But people around the globe that suffer under tyrany.

I care not for war...but with out it where would we be?...suffering under naziism...communism, what evil dictator would have his boot on our neck?

How many millions of people would be put to death..because those in power did not like their race or religion or for no reason at all?

War is hell...but when evil men threaten the lives of inocent people ....It will be Americas children who break down the gates of hell...spit in the face of evil and do BATTLE!!!!!

Jim

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  • 1 year later...

"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves"

Winston Churchill.

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"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves"

Winston Churchill.

Saved.

FM

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  • 1 month later...

Mill's unedited quote has a few more words. Vagus's version is one frequently attributed to Mill.

But war, in a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice – a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice – is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.

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  • 2 months later...

War cant get much uglier than this.

by Wilfred Owen, WWI poet

DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI (it is sweet and fitting to die for your country.)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

- Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues -

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.*

*"It is sweet and meet (fitting) to die for one's country

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"If you want peace, then prepare for war."

RPM

Desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.

Seems like even a couple thousand years ago this was pretty well understood.

I forget which, but I'm pretty sure it was a Roman general who said, "A warrior's true love is peace."

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