'Stop saying "Support the troops"'

And that's a fair counterpoint. But my point isn't that we should universally condemn the members of the armed forces. It is that we should not universally praise them. Or, even worse, universally decouple our analysis of their decision to enlist from current geopolitics. It's patronizing.

 

I don't have a very positive worldview of teabaggers. I have no doubt given the right opportunity, many would spit on me, and it would also make an awesome victim story for me if one of them did. Given the REALLY right opportunity, I would be happy to spit on plenty of them.

For the opportunity to become a big-time member of the Butthurt Brigade and get quoted in books and on teevee, it would be well worth it to make up a story.

I hung out with some antiwar hippie freaks in the 1970s. I was too young to get into most of the big tear-gas riots, but I did get a few whiffs of a few of the sizable dust-ups.

The vast vast majority of antiwar hippie freaks considered Vietnam vets coming home as most likely unwilling, or more patronizingly unwitting, participants in a war they had no control over for better or worse.

Most Vietnam vets I came in contact (even those who were still crewcut-military) with were quite willing to volunteer the opinion the war was a complete clusterfuck, which put them in complete agreement with the antiwar hippie freaks.

Plus the even vaster majority of antiwar hippie freaks were frisbee-throwing flower children, while Vietnam vets coming home were for the most part pretty toughened up by army life (whether they had seen combat or not) and spitting on any of them would likely have been an express ticket to a major ass kicking. As frequently observed by Vietnam vets and just about everybody else, antiwar hippie freaks were never noted for a fearless willingness to charge headlong into danger, so it fails the bullshit test on that level too.

The problem is there is just no independent corroboration of the alleged fact this supposed spitting ever took place. Not necessarily news stories -- any evidence at all. Just unverifiable first-hand accounts from people all with a pretty stong incentive to paint themselves as victims, because it makes a great story. Mitch Albom territory.

 

My friend who told the story of being accosted coming out of a Georgetown restaurant had absolutely no incentive to paint himself as a victim. Indeed, he kind of laughs about it (kind of ...), because he now considers those who accosted him to be just so pathetic. But, since the story is convenient, as you say, and since it didn't make the Washington Post, I guess you're right. He must be a liar. Can't quite figure out what he stands to gain by it. But I'm sure you'll come up with something.

Oh, and congrats by the way. You've entered into Tea Party territory yourself. No one actually has any evidence of John Lewis being spit on (in/after one of those Obamacare hearings). And the story is very convenient. So, by your standards, he's a liar and a proud applicant to/member of the Butthurt Brigade. Nice work.

Honestly Starman, I disagree with you politically on just about everything. But you're better than this.

 

He stands to gain the same thing as anybody who makes up a story about being set upon by some loathsome individual -- victim status.

And also retroactively discrediting the group beliefs of his assailant -- the main motivation for the Reaganauts, who wanted to promote the idea the antiwar hippie freaks of the 60s/70s were unpatriotic idiots (and the nation would have been far far better off never listening to them for even a minute).


Right about the same time the spitting-on-soldiers stories started gaining steam was when the prevailing opinion of "we would have kicked ass in about 6 weeks in Vietnam if that pansy ass LBJ hadn't been afraid of antiwar hippie freaks and wouldn't allow us to win," did as well.

 

Civil disobedience is a valid option as a principled action against immoral actions. Do you believe it is a principled action against mistaken policies? Or are you arguing that our involvement in Vietnam was immoral?

 

I'm taking no such stance. I'm merely saying that if you accept the premise that our involvement in Vietnam was immoral, then the soldiers' culpability is at least in play for discussion. It at least gets balanced against other factors - their age, their alternatives, etc., etc. You can't just say they were following orders and end the inquiry there.

 

Like swallows to Capistrano ... reductio ad Reaganium ... knew we'd be there soon enough.

 

Did Gerald Ford do it? No.


Of course, he probably figured 1976 was a little too early to jump up on the tabletop, put a star-spangled lampshade on his head, and go into a song and dance about how we would have kicked ass in Vietnam if it hadn't been for those dirty smelly hippies.

By the 1980s the coast was clear.

 

I wonder what Three Bags Full thinks of this.

 

Three Bags deserves to have his life's decisions and motives analyzed and criticized by a bunch of people who have never met him. "Ask not what you can do for your country..." and all that.

 

You must have missed the part about soldiers not having the option to disobey orders.