Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Simon_Jester
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

Post by Simon_Jester »

Thanas wrote:What makes a soldier more deserving of such care than a firemen, police officer or sea/air rescuer who go through a lot of highly dangerous stuff every year?
Regardless of this, I'm all for very generous pensions and so on for first responders. There aren't quite so many retired police and firemen, compared the huge masses of draftees that necessitate a major bureaucracy for veterans' affairs.

Note: In the US, the sea rescue mission is handled by the Coast Guard which is military.

During wartime, at least, being a soldier is more dangerous. Peacetime, not so much, although there's still an argument- someone who manned a Cold War era Air Force base played a part in warding off an existential risk, on a level that is... I dunno, to me it seems more fundamental.

I'm sorry; this is very qualitative. It ties into my own sense of degrees of obligation and so on. I don't really think I can somehow demonstrate it as objective reality, there's no geometric proof of it. It's an opinion.
Maybe due to the US love of warfare there is a higher risk for soldiers but I fail to see why the state paying you a lot of money to do highly dangerous work requirers special consideration.
The pay really isn't all that good. It's not bad for the skill level required, but it's not that good.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

Post by Aaron MkII »

Thanas wrote:
Simon_Jester wrote:I think the state has an unusual obligation to veterans, which justifies having some unusual organization to keep track of them and... I dunno, help them find a job or give them someone to bitch at if stuff is going wrong. Because they went through a lot of unholy dangerous shit because you told them to, you owe them after that.
What makes a soldier more deserving of such care than a firemen, police officer or sea/air rescuer who go through a lot of highly dangerous stuff every year?

Maybe due to the US love of warfare there is a higher risk for soldiers but I fail to see why the state paying you a lot of money to do highly dangerous work requirers special consideration.
In a just and sane world every country would have UHC and it wouldn't be as much as an issue. For me, it's that we often require soldiers to do some very...awful shit.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Aaron MkII wrote:In a just and sane world every country would have UHC and it wouldn't be as much as an issue.
Agreed.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Destructionator XIII wrote:Threatening the Soviet Union is something we could have lived without. It wasn't existencial.
I'm sure if everyone in the United States at the time had gotten access to transcripts of Politburo discussions and had access to the Moscow archives, we would all have been deeply reassured on that point.

Anyway.

There are aspects of wartime military service that aren't duplicated elsewhere. A soldier in a war zone can't quit. He's subject to a wide range of punishments and privations that would be intolerable in most civilian jobs. He is required to go out and wander around in front of things that are actively trying to kill him, sometimes without even being able to make reply and defend himself. Police get some of that, firemen get some of that, but a much narrower range of it, and have more options when it comes to "screw this I quit" if they're tired of getting shot at.

You sign up for the military in general, but I think that if the state is going to put someone through all that crap, including the forced parts that they can't back out of if they think it's too dangerous, and the even-higher-than-fishermen rate of deaths and woundings...

Again. I think that if the state isn't going the extra mile for anyone it sends out to that, the state isn't owning up to its own responsibilities. Does this mean war is a good idea? No. Does this mean all soldiers are D&D paladins or something like that? No.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Even in peacetime your subject to some pretty strict stuff. Most civvie jobs aren't going to charge and fine you if you fall asleep at the beach on sunday and get avsevere sunburn.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Simon_Jester wrote:There are aspects of wartime military service that aren't duplicated elsewhere. A soldier in a war zone can't quit. He's subject to a wide range of punishments and privations that would be intolerable in most civilian jobs. He is required to go out and wander around in front of things that are actively trying to kill him, sometimes without even being able to make reply and defend himself. Police get some of that, firemen get some of that, but a much narrower range of it, and have more options when it comes to "screw this I quit" if they're tired of getting shot at.
That depends. Over here I'd wager the vast majority of our military experiences less danger than police officers or say, riot police.
You sign up for the military in general, but I think that if the state is going to put someone through all that crap, including the forced parts that they can't back out of if they think it's too dangerous, and the even-higher-than-fishermen rate of deaths and woundings...
The higher-than-fisherman rate of deaths and woundings? How do you arrive at that conclusion?
Again. I think that if the state isn't going the extra mile for anyone it sends out to that, the state isn't owning up to its own responsibilities.
If you know what you are going into, volunteer for it and know the consequences I don't see a reason to make the state do more than it is required to do. It is not as if we still live in the day of "round up the local males, I want to burn my neighbour's castle" anymore.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

Post by Losonti Tokash »

Buh? That reads to me as "they knew it was a shitty job, they shouldn't expect special treatment."
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Losonti Tokash wrote:Buh? That reads to me as "they knew it was a shitty job, they shouldn't expect special treatment."
No, that should read as "they knew it was a shitty job, so they should expect the treatment they need". Not the blind hero-worship the US is fond of.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

Post by Losonti Tokash »

True enough. It's probably worth noting that even in troop worship land here returning vets have significantly higher rates of (untreated!) mental illness and unemployment, though, so I'd say they definitely need some extra support.

Off topic: what's the Latin in your signature mean?
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Losonti Tokash wrote:True enough. It's probably worth noting that even in troop worship land here returning vets have significantly higher rates of (untreated!) mental illness and unemployment, though, so I'd say they definitely need some extra support.
Then I would say the VA is doing a shitty job, which is another argument against instituting it in Germany.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Losonti Tokash wrote:Off topic: what's the Latin in your signature mean?
"Even if all, not I." It's inscribed above the door to the residence of a participant in failed plots to kill Hitler in 43-44.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Terralthra wrote:"Even if all, not I." It's inscribed above the door to the residence of a participant in failed plots to kill Hitler in 43-44.
Phillipp von Boeselager.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Perhaps I'm jaded, or it's more regional than you all suspect, but I don't really see blind hero-worship of servicemen and vets here. Respect, absolutely. I never cut off a car with vet plates, when I meet an obvious vet in the street I may tip a hat if I'm wearing one, If I meet a vet in the bar I might pay for his drink. That's about it.

We have Veteran's Day, but it's just what we renamed Armistice Day. We get the day off from school, that's just about it. in my house we play songs commemorating the Great War, but we're unusual like that.

We have a Memorial Day, where we honor fallen soldiers. May 30 we have a parade where all the vets in town, escorted by local politicians, girl, boy and cub scouts and the high school marching band have a parade of sorts. I mean, it feels like a parade most of the time, the band plays the service songs, people line up to cheer, but the parade visits every cemetery in town containing war dead, and the party stops. At each site, we say a prayer for the fallen, fire off three volleys of blanks, and play Taps twice (the second trumpeter moves some distance away, to create an impression like an echo.) Then get to town center for a dedication ceremony and patriotic concert (plus free hot dogs and soda.)
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Dude, the very mention of a "patriotic concert" alone would give most Europeans fits. Certainly, most Germans.

And the whole memorial day procedure sounds a lot like that hero worship stuff.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

Post by Kamakazie Sith »

Thanas wrote:Dude, the very mention of a "patriotic concert" alone would give most Europeans fits. Certainly, most Germans.

And the whole memorial day procedure sounds a lot like that hero worship stuff.
What do celebrations of a major German holidays consist of?
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Thanas wrote:Dude, the very mention of a "patriotic concert" alone would give most Europeans fits. Certainly, most Germans.

And the whole memorial day procedure sounds a lot like that hero worship stuff.
They play the anthem and the basic "our country is awesome" songs, yes. The local politicos make a couple canned speeches, but by then the line for free food is already forming.

Eh, we take one day out of the year to do something nice, and then only for the dead ones. Do Germans not honor their war dead?
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Thanas wrote:
Losonti Tokash wrote:True enough. It's probably worth noting that even in troop worship land here returning vets have significantly higher rates of (untreated!) mental illness and unemployment, though, so I'd say they definitely need some extra support.
Then I would say the VA is doing a shitty job, which is another argument against instituting it in Germany.
The VA does a shitty job largely because they're not given the resources they need to do their job. Folding it into Medicaid wouldn't improve anything, because it turns out most politicians just pay lip service and don't have any real reverence or respect for soldiers.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Ahriman238 wrote:Eh, we take one day out of the year to do something nice, and then only for the dead ones. Do Germans not honor their war dead?
Most of their war dead died trying to beat other people up and take their stuff, which makes it kind of awkward.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think you can chart easy parallels between the American and European ideas of patriotism. In Europe, patriotism has been the spark of tremendous, destructive wars that everyone's sure could have been avoided if it weren't for nationalistic chest-beating. In the 20th century, the dominant right-left split saw the left adopt much of the discourse of internationalist socialism. The right, in turn, took over nationalism and often managed something no American party has ever done: they coopted the national flag. This has made activities like flag-waving semi-taboo in some European countries, Germany being the big obvious candidate.

It also, I must say, seems to make Germans really really suspicious of anyone else who does things differently than they do... ;)

The US does not have a similar history. The worst war experience Americans ever had was very much a self-inflicted wound, and nationalism had little to do with making it happen. Most of our other major wars were fought on other people's soil, and for the major wars the US cannot trace the conflict to its own nationalism. Thus, for most Americans there is no perceived "dark side" to waving the American flag.

The Stars and Stripes, the fireworks on the Fourth of July, the "Support Our Troops" slogans... to Americans, the most common emotional association of all that is a sort of vague, historically semiliterate sense of collective bonhomie. It just does not feel, from the inside, like the kind of thing that acts as a prelude to a pogrom or the decision to invade Poland. So many Americans feel few or no misgivings about their public displays of what they consider patriotism.

Does this turn Americans into fascists? There are two answers to this, depending on who you ask. One is "not necessarily." The other is "obviously." Me, I think it's "not necessarily."

Culture is not a one-size-fits-all thing. Acts which would have one symbolism in Germany have a very different symbolism in, say, Japan. Or India. Or America.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Ahriman238 wrote:Eh, we take one day out of the year to do something nice, and then only for the dead ones. Do Germans not honor their war dead?
More specifically: Remembering the dead is done at a national level by laying wreaths at war cemetaries with a few speeches. The national anthem is played, maybe even the song of some specific units if it carries on the tradition of past regiments.

At the local level, you just get a special church service, some wreath laying and that is it. No party or something. It is also called "day of national mourning", not memorial day. Honouring the dead is largely done individually - every citizen is invited to participate, but no parade or anything.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Hrm... why not non-WWII veterans I wonder? Why not, say, Spee, Richtofen, and Mackensen?
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Even World War One could be a bit of a sore spot- also, by now it's so far in the past that it doesn't work so well.

Heroes eventually go out of popular circulation, if they're not deliberately kept in it.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Simon_Jester wrote:
Ahriman238 wrote:Eh, we take one day out of the year to do something nice, and then only for the dead ones. Do Germans not honor their war dead?
Most of their war dead died trying to beat other people up and take their stuff, which makes it kind of awkward.
:roll: A pretty stupid statement considering our day of national mourning remembers the dead from all our wars.

EDIT: Most of our war memorials are in fact commemorating the wars of unification, WWI and WWII. A lot even include the Napoleonic wars in that, with people just adding new names of the fallen to them whenever they died in a subsequent war.
The US does not have a similar history. The worst war experience Americans ever had was very much a self-inflicted wound, and nationalism had little to do with making it happen. Most of our other major wars were fought on other people's soil, and for the major wars the US cannot trace the conflict to its own nationalism.
Really now? The Spanish-American War, Vietnam etc. had nothing to do with nationalism? Nor did Iraq II? :wtf:
Thus, for most Americans there is no perceived "dark side" to waving the American flag.
Then Americans are ignorant of their own history in thePhillippines, most of Middle America, Vietnam, Chile, Iraq and a lot of other people who lost relatives to US forces.

There is a very real dark side to the American flag, which is stained by the blood of innocents more than the average American seems to care to think about. Which makes the USA look like jingoistic assholes to people who know about these things or even the recent US history in the middle East.
Does this turn Americans into fascists? There are two answers to this, depending on who you ask. One is "not necessarily." The other is "obviously." Me, I think it's "not necessarily."
Of course, you also think the USA never started a major war out of nationalism.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Thanas wrote:
The US does not have a similar history. The worst war experience Americans ever had was very much a self-inflicted wound, and nationalism had little to do with making it happen. Most of our other major wars were fought on other people's soil, and for the major wars the US cannot trace the conflict to its own nationalism.
Really now? The Spanish-American War, Vietnam etc. had nothing to do with nationalism? Nor did Iraq II? :wtf:
Those are colonial wars and you know it. To the US, by a reasonable standard of "major," those were no more "major" than the Boer War was to the British. It was all in the papers at the time, it had some impact on the course of British history, but it didn't require a true mass mobilization, and it didn't cause enough casualties on the British side to engrave itself in the national psyche the way that World War One did a decade later.

From the point of view of American history, the indisputable major wars are the Revolution, the Civil War, and the World Wars. The Mexican-American War probably qualifies and that should have been your counter-argument. The Spanish-American War, Korea, Vietnam, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan... none of those were nearly as large in scale.

And ultimately, it's a rhetorical argument anyway because "oh, didn't America fight all these bullshit evil wars?" is not the point. The point is that in the American national consciousness, expressions of patriotism simply aren't tied to bad things happening. Most of the bad things in American history happened for reasons that had little to do with nationalism, or that are so easily shrugged off by the average citizen as "no one's fault" or "someone else's fault" that they do not make an impact on the collective sense of history.

So Americans don't remember "oh, yeah, we gave political power to the Flagwaverists and the next thing we knew half the East Coast was on fire and the secret police had killed fifty thousand people in "purges of unreliable elements." There are scars from American jingoism, but they mostly aren't located on America, and so they are not remembered in the same way because it's harder to go look at the bomb craters.

To the casual eye, history looks different in the eyes of someone whose most recent memory of a flag-waving political party didn't end in six years of grinding, annihilating warfare. This affects the way people behave. The US does not have any experience in its own past which makes it look at its own history with anything like the critical eye Germany (or most of the other nations of Europe) apply to themselves.

Is that because the US is uncritical and heedless? Partly. I'd argue it's also because the US has different history than Europe, being on an entirely different continent. This results in even basically similar historical events (like a war of imperialism that killed thousands of people, mostly innocent foreigners) getting interpreted differently.

One model does not explain all.
Thus, for most Americans there is no perceived "dark side" to waving the American flag.
Then Americans are ignorant of their own history in thePhillippines, most of Middle America, Vietnam, Chile, Iraq and a lot of other people who lost relatives to US forces.
Do you disagree with me, or are you taking the opportunity to repeat the litany of American crimes?

I get that it's a long litany and should be repeated at every opportunity just in case there's one of the real jingoists lurking around where they might read it. But I want to be clear: are you arguing with me, or with someone else?
Does this turn Americans into fascists? There are two answers to this, depending on who you ask. One is "not necessarily." The other is "obviously." Me, I think it's "not necessarily."
Of course, you also think the USA never started a major war out of nationalism.
Check my list of major wars. The US started the Revolution because it didn't like British government. The US started its own civil war because its people couldn't agree on slavery- the war started largely because of a secessionist movement that you really have to contort yourself to call "nationalist." Hint: YES, SLAVERY IS WRONG. It is a terrible thing. It was terrible that the southern states wanted to perpetuate it. It speaks ill of southern society that even postwar they tried to keep African-Americans down and revise the history of the Civil War to whitewash their ancestors' role. It speaks ill of northern society that the rest of the country often cooperated, and actively cooperated in the oppression of African-Americans. Do you see the pattern in what I'm saying?

Anyway, to finish the interrupted list: the US didn't start either of the World Wars, it entered them well after someone else had already started shooting.

Revolution, Civil War, World Wars. The indisputable major wars America participated in that demanded a maximum-effort mobilization and left major, indelible marks on the American view of war. World War One might be a "minor" by the standard I'm using here. The Mexican-American War, yes, could arguably join the list.

With the possible exception of the Mexican-American War, no other war in American history had anything like the same scope relative to the size of the country at the time. I'll admit that the Mexican-American War is a counterexample to "major American wars weren't triggered by American nationalism." But you didn't think to use it- you shot straight to the wars of imperialism that I had tried to exclude in the first place by using the word "major." Because I was actually trying to analyze American culture instead of launching off into the hundredth repetition of the litany of American crimes.

Yes the US has fought horrific wars of imperialism that were not justified by any reasonable standard, caused huge numbers of unnecessary, horrible deaths, and which the American people do not choose to remember the way I wish they would. I don't deny that they happened; the ones that have happened while I was alive I was even against at the time.

Does that mean I can't even talk about American culture in a neutral tone without getting yelled at on behalf of my birth nation? Do I have to insert an extra side-order of contemptuous adjectives into every sentence in which I use the word "United States," just so people don't forget my opinion of the Spanish-American War while I'm trying to figure out why the hell Americans wave flags in ways that Britons apparently don't?

This is getting ridiculous.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Is there an actual definition of "major war"?
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Thanas wrote: Really now? The Spanish-American War, Vietnam etc. had nothing to do with nationalism? Nor did Iraq II? :wtf:
To be fair, he did specify "major" wars. Which, to an American, are pretty much 1) the Revolutionary War, 2) the American Civil War, 3) World War I (and that's arguable), 4) World War II, 5) Vietnam, and now 6) Iraq Round Two. Maybe throw the Mexican-American War in for the territorial gain.
Then Americans are ignorant of their own history
Ignorant? Try oblivious. And don't get me started on geography.
, most of Middle America, Vietnam, Chile, Iraq and a lot of other people who lost relatives to US forces. [/quote]

Gee, all that and you didn't mention the gross violation of treaty law and common decency that was consistently, repeatedly perpetuated against Native tribes whenever settlement extended further?

Chilè? Can't recall the extent of CIA aid to Pinochet, didn't think it went that far.
There is a very real dark side to the American flag, which is stained by the blood of innocents more than the average American seems to care to think about. Which makes the USA look like jingoistic assholes to people who know about these things or even the recent US history in the middle East.
Every country has a dark side to its past and its behavior. It's just that our education system treats history as a bastard stepchild subject that glosses over almost every issue of complexity or tries to present complex, serious issues as simplistic dilemmas. And we get raised to believe in America as the Promised Land of Freedom, Beacon of Hope to the World.
Of course, you also think the USA never started a major war out of nationalism.
So you and he disagree on the criteria of "major war". I'm not sure that's a viable issue to dismiss his view that Americans are not necessarily fascist.

I honestly don't think Americans are necessarily fascist either. That would require far more intent on the body politic's part than it actually has.

P.S. Dammit Eric, I'll beat you next time! NEXT TIME! *posts anyway*
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
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