world war 3 if you had a choice would you?

[Silur]

If you're lucky, you'll die drunk?

You don't get drunk on fine whisky! It's... something else! You think too much.

[Magrus]

If there will ever be a WW3 I'll come over to Scotland and help you salvage all the really old whisky. If I'm lucky, I'll die happy. Actually, even if I'm unlucky, I'd die happy.

Hmm, that could be lucrative. At that point, a lot of people would want to get drunk. Money would naturally be worthless in a nuclear war setting, so I could trade wiskey for all sorts of fun things! I'd be in on that. :mischief:

That movie was horrid. :laugh:

If you're lucky, you'll die drunk?

*prays* I want to be lucky.

[The Spartan]

Yes But They Heroes died for you if they did not fight you would be a slave all your life and
ooh!!! you make me so angry they died for you

[fable]

Yes But They Heroes died for you if they did not fight you would be a slave all your life and
ooh!!! you make me so angry they died for you

First, calm down. Now, who asked "them," whomever they might be, to die for Silur, or Moonbiter, or me, or anybody else? Nobody. They died because they couldn't kill the person who killed them instead, and they tried to kill because they were asked to do so by politicians who ran their country. The vast majority of wars throughout history have been about nothing more noble than acquiring resources or preventing another country from acquiring them. Look at Iraq: given what we now know (and suspected all along), could it ever have been about anything other than possessing military bases and offering fat cat contracts to the friends of the US administration? How am I logically a "slave" for not fighting and dying there, or not appreciating the hundreds of thousands of people who were blown to pieces there?

And as you haven't fixed the conditions of a world war to come--which presumably would destroy most of civilization, possibly all of it, for hundreds, maybe thousands of years to come--why should I assume that war would be any different? World War I was a horrific joke, a land grab by politicians on all sides who had lost their nerve. It's always other people, never politicians, who go to fight wars, and who die. Myself? I would rather stop wars, and see politicians who want to fight them, unless they can provide very good, hard evidence in an international court--charged with and convicted of war crimes. And sent to prison for a very long, long time.

In the meantime, if you want to see what death looks like, I suggest you go to Iraq and accompany some soldiers doing the rounds outside the "green zone." Watch dead bodies. Admire the flies in the heat. Jerk when you hear the snap of a gun nearby going off, wondering who got it. Yep, war's fun, alright, alright. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, and all that rot.

PS: By the way, ask Moonbiter to tell him some of your experiences. He's served in combat in a warzone, specifically between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Did you read what he wrote, above? Why not speak to someone who actually did serve, to find out what it's really like?

[Moonbiter]

Fable wrote:

PS: By the way, ask Moonbiter to tell him some of your experiences. He's served in combat in a warzone, specifically between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Did you read what he wrote, above? Why not speak to someone who actually did serve, to find out what it's really like?

Lebanon was a "good start." I didn't really see the "fun" of it before I went to Nicaragua right after the Iran/Contras thing took off. THAT was "fun."

The Spartan wrote:

Yes But They Heroes died for you if they did not fight you would be a slave all your life and
ooh!!! you make me so angry they died for you

Yes they did. On both sides. In my humble opinion we need heroes, but heroes can be both good and bad. Don't rush out and say that this or that person is a hero. Who are you to say so? In my travels I've visited countries where they worship "heroes" who are the vilest scum to the rest of the world. I know I'm splitting hairs here, and I know you're referring to people who've done great deeds in combat with the "enemy," but who's the enemy? That's why wars create "heroes" on one side, and "despicable bastards" on the other side. It all depends on your point of view, doesn't it?

Master Yoda said "War does not make one great." I suggest you take that to heart. If you need a hero, I would suggest Mother Theresa.

[Silur]

Yes But They Heroes died for you if they did not fight you would be a slave all your life and
ooh!!! you make me so angry they died for you

You have obviously been forcefed some rather serious propaganda. Looking at social and cultural development throughout history, you would find that very few of the changes to society have come as the result of war. War generally murders a lot of innocent people, destroys a lot of buildings and causes mountains of grief and suffering for most of those involved. In most (and probably all) cases, the contrary is true; war has set back humanitarian and social development more than anything else. If you need proof of this, have a look at any currently ongoing conflict - including Iraq. If anything, you go to war in order to stifle change.

Changes to society are the inescapable consequence of development in social, intellectual, economic, technical, and any number of other disciplines and it happens all the time, continuously, every millisecond, all around us. For instance, enslaving a population may be fine if all you want them to do is pick cotton. If you expect them to become scientists, you must give them some amount of freedom, and if they're to be any good, you need to accept that they disagree with any number of things. This is a much stronger driving force than putting a bullet through someone's head. Considering there are similar driving forces in any number of aspects of daily life, change is, as they say, inevitable. Slaves make very bad consumers, for instance, which would be a setback to the currently dominant economic system.

As for freedom in general, I feel much less free now than I did five years ago, and it isn't really Al Quaeda's fault. My own government has decided to limit my freedom "for my own good" in ways that I find unacceptable in a modern society. The pretext is of course Al Quaeda, but since the risk of being killed in a terrorist attack is by far lower than just being killed by some junkie who's after my wallet (not to speak of car accidents!), I find the measures to be extreme and uncalled for. All things terrorists do were already illegal before the 9-11 event, and many countries seemed to manage quite well with their existing laws back then. If this is a war against terrorism, then the terrorists are indeed winning, since we are enslaving ourselves.