BF2S Forums American Nationalism dead?

Times were much different back then...we trusted the government, were rebounding from an awful Depression, and then we were deliberately attacked by an entire nation.  Not just a fringe group of extremists.

The war stories from all the Veterans started spreading around.  We went on to lose/stalemate the Korean War, royally screwed ourselves in Vietnam, and the media had tagged along, finally showing pictures and videos of battle.  As soon as the public started becoming integrated into the battles through this new media, they began to realize how awful war actually was.  All people had were stories and a few snapshots from WWI to draw upon prior to WWII.  Government had changed, and more and more whistleblowing started occurring, showing the corruption and deceit in DC, to the point now that it's generally accepted that all politicians are liars.

We don't have the same unity nor the ignorance of war that our populous did in the 30s and 40s.  Now we are generally more intelligent, and have access to nearly instantaneous worldwide information.  I do not believe we will ever have that same unity again, as more and more of us can critically think about our situations and offer more to the table than just war.

As soon as the public started becoming integrated into the battles through this new media, they began to realize how awful war actually was.

I don't believe it was the media which caused the problem. Nasty battles and bodies being returned home have been a feature of wars for a while, and many of the 'public' at the time would have served in WW2, or at least known someone who did, so its not as if they didn't know what war was about.

What finished it for Vietnam was seeing the relentless fighting and deaths with no visible progress.

Dilbert_X wrote:

As soon as the public started becoming integrated into the battles through this new media, they began to realize how awful war actually was.

I don't believe it was the media which caused the problem. Nasty battles and bodies being returned home have been a feature of wars for a while, and many of the 'public' at the time would have served in WW2, or at least known someone who did, so its not as if they didn't know what war was about.

What finished it for Vietnam was seeing the relentless fighting and deaths with no visible progress.

True, but the pictures and video weren't as widespread until around Vietnam, especially as the tide of that war started to turn.  Wouldn't say it was a problem though...

lowing wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

lowing wrote:

where do you people come from? I was speaking of national pride. Believe it or not there once was a time in our country where people actually were proud to be an American. Even immigrants that came here, did so to thrive not exploit. They learned the language and flew the flag.

If you think this is not true, then we will agree to disagree.

You're the one that brought up my service as a soldier and assumed I served out of patriotism. Then you say how you want the country returned to it's foundations, yet to you that just means an end to social welfare programs and nothing more. You want to wave your flag and maintain a ridiculously out-sized military.

Here's a fantastic quote for you:
"Over-grown military establishments are, under any form of government, inauspicious to liberty, and are regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty." -George Washington

You really have no idea what you're saying when you say you want a return to our roots...

If you think freedom isn't something that continuously needs defending, if you think a strong military isn't needed to protect our way of life, if you think staying on the top of the military dog pile isn't essential, well, again, we will just agree to disagree.

How exactly does our military protect our way of life? Do you really fear China? The trade embargoes that they would be hit with at the first hint of war would destroy every last bit of progress they have made in the past 40 years. They do not have an internally sustainable economy anymore.

So is it Russia? With what Navy are they to launch an invasion on our shores? Is it Japan? If you're unaware, Japan doesn't even have a military. So it must be the hated Euros coming back for round two eh? The Brits and the French going to team up and invade our shores?

Every major power in the world lives in fear of our nuclear weapons. They're all we need to be safe and snug in our homes with a log fire burning in the fireplace while visions of sugar plums and fairies dance in our heads.



There are three wedges in that pie that need to be cut out, not two.

lowing wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

lowing wrote:

where do you people come from? I was speaking of national pride. Believe it or not there once was a time in our country where people actually were proud to be an American. Even immigrants that came here, did so to thrive not exploit. They learned the language and flew the flag.

If you think this is not true, then we will agree to disagree.

You're the one that brought up my service as a soldier and assumed I served out of patriotism. Then you say how you want the country returned to it's foundations, yet to you that just means an end to social welfare programs and nothing more. You want to wave your flag and maintain a ridiculously out-sized military.

Here's a fantastic quote for you:
"Over-grown military establishments are, under any form of government, inauspicious to liberty, and are regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty." -George Washington

You really have no idea what you're saying when you say you want a return to our roots...

If you think freedom isn't something that continuously needs defending, if you think a strong military isn't needed to protect our way of life, if you think staying on the top of the military dog pile isn't essential, well, again, we will just agree to disagree.

I'll call you out on this one

the U.K is the focus of many terror plots, homegrown (IRA, PIRA, RIRA, etc ad infinatum) and external (Al Q and all their mates), yet we don't feel the need to run off around the world, get our lads killed and get the return of square root of fuckall. As such, while we may covertly defend our interests (MI5+6, CID etc etc) we don't publicly 'defend our freedoms' Furthermore, in terms of the western world the U.K has one of the smallest (although arguably best trained) military per capita, and as so far we havn't found 'staying on top of the military dog pile' to be essential

tl;dr, might isn't always right.

lol as if the EU is a paper tiger

get off your fucking national pride

Pug wrote:

FatherTed wrote:

I'll call you out on this one

the U.K is the focus of many terror plots, homegrown (IRA, PIRA, RIRA, etc ad infinatum) and external (Al Q and all their mates), yet we don't feel the need to run off around the world, get our lads killed and get the return of square root of fuckall. As such, while we may covertly defend our interests (MI5+6, CID etc etc) we don't publicly 'defend our freedoms' Furthermore, in terms of the western world the U.K has one of the smallest (although arguably best trained) military per capita, and as so far we havn't found 'staying on top of the military dog pile' to be essential

tl;dr, might isn't always right.

Why did the UK send troops to Iraq then?

(not baiting, just curious)

Because at the time Tony Blair was in power. No offence to him (because prior to Iraq he did the UK good) but he was up GB's arse. The public opinion of Afghan is quite ok, Iraq was a no-no.

Plus since la cold war + falklands, the U.K army hasn't had a chance to prove itself, and field test most of its gear (Eurofighter/Chally 2/new Tornado and Harrier varients/SA80/Apache Longbow etc etc) so this was a nice opportunity.

Pug wrote:

FatherTed wrote:

Pug wrote:

Why did the UK send troops to Iraq then?

(not baiting, just curious)

Because at the time Tony Blair was in power. No offence to him (because prior to Iraq he did the UK good) but he was up GB's arse. The public opinion of Afghan is quite ok, Iraq was a no-no.

Plus since la cold war + falklands, the U.K army hasn't had a chance to prove itself, and field test most of its gear (Eurofighter/Chally 2/new Tornado and Harrier varients/SA80/Apache Longbow etc etc) so this was a nice opportunity.

So can we argue we only pay attention to homegrown terrorism and don't care about the rest of the world or what happens, because it was Bush's fault?

I have trouble believing the one man's fault theory.  It's too convenient.

Sorry, i didn't mean to imply GB only cares internally, we currently have multiple humanitarian aid operation involving our military on-going, but the iraq thing literally got blown through parliment on the back of afghanistain.

FatherTed wrote:

Sorry, i didn't mean to imply GB only cares internally, we currently have multiple humanitarian aid operation involving our military on-going, but the iraq thing literally got blown through parliment on the back of afghanistain.

Fair enough.  That helps actually. 

I still get surprised that no one remembers everyone was happy about invading Iraq...for a little while.

cpt.fass1 wrote:

Wait wasn't england one of the countries that made Africa the great nation it is today?

and france

JohnG@lt wrote:

lowing wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

You're the one that brought up my service as a soldier and assumed I served out of patriotism. Then you say how you want the country returned to it's foundations, yet to you that just means an end to social welfare programs and nothing more. You want to wave your flag and maintain a ridiculously out-sized military.

Here's a fantastic quote for you:
"Over-grown military establishments are, under any form of government, inauspicious to liberty, and are regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty." -George Washington

You really have no idea what you're saying when you say you want a return to our roots...

If you think freedom isn't something that continuously needs defending, if you think a strong military isn't needed to protect our way of life, if you think staying on the top of the military dog pile isn't essential, well, again, we will just agree to disagree.

How exactly does our military protect our way of life? Do you really fear China? The trade embargoes that they would be hit with at the first hint of war would destroy every last bit of progress they have made in the past 40 years. They do not have an internally sustainable economy anymore.

So is it Russia? With what Navy are they to launch an invasion on our shores? Is it Japan? If you're unaware, Japan doesn't even have a military. So it must be the hated Euros coming back for round two eh? The Brits and the French going to team up and invade our shores?

Every major power in the world lives in fear of our nuclear weapons. They're all we need to be safe and snug in our homes with a log fire burning in the fireplace while visions of sugar plums and fairies dance in our heads.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e … Y_2007.png

There are three wedges in that pie that need to be cut out, not two.

Like I said, you feel we do not need a military superior, and stronger than our enemies or potential enemies, I will diagree. We have been down this road before.

The UK is no longer a world military power.  They have a good military, but they lost most of their global power projection ability shortly after WWII.

JohnG@lt wrote:

Every major power in the world lives in fear of our nuclear weapons. They're all we need to be safe and snug in our homes with a log fire burning in the fireplace while visions of sugar plums and fairies dance in our heads.

Nuclear weapons are of limited use.  They prevent escalation dominance and are a fall-back in true defeats.  However, their use is so catastrophic that most groups don't fear their use during anything but global war scenarios.  Nobody is going to buy the threat "Mop up your pirates or we'll nuke you."