http://www.progressive.org/mag_mc101305

Read for yourself. Very interesting (and frightening).

I see nothing wrong with what Khan was doing. He was using his freedoms to present the "other side of the story" to the students, while the recruiter was presenting his side of the story for why one should join the army.  I'm not sure if the article in itself or the author of the article is biased or not.  However based on the information from the article Khan's actions were respectable, righteous and just for the most part. 
  I will say however that the form of rhetoric is often a huge issue within the "politics" of this board, so his shirt technically should have read, "Some" recruiters lie.  I know personally and first hand that not all recruiters lie. The recruiter that tried to recruit me into the Army told me all of the cons as well of the pros of joining.  I told him that it wasn't the life God wanted me to go into and he totally respected that and put his best regards in my future endeavors.

I just recently had a close friend enlist into the Air Force, and he is a very intelligent guy. He was just feeling very down on himself because a lot of personal issues which had occurred, and the recruiters came along and got him to enlist. I asked him why he did it, and you know what he said? "Because I don't see anything better in my future." This killed me. He went into the service not because he wanted to, but because he felt like he had no other option. That sort of low self-esteem is a recruiter's bread and butter. My friend could have done anything else he put his mind to, but those low feelings were bringing him down, and they caught him off his guard. Now he's about to ship, and I can't be sure I'll ever see him again.

Guess I'll just jope for the best. It's all I can do.

I just recently had a close friend enlist into the Air Force, and he is a very intelligent guy. He was just feeling very down on himself because a lot of personal issues which had occurred, and the recruiters came along and got him to enlist. I asked him why he did it, and you know what he said? "Because I don't see anything better in my future." This killed me. He went into the service not because he wanted to, but because he felt like he had no other option. That sort of low self-esteem is a recruiter's bread and butter. My friend could have done anything else he put his mind to, but those low feelings were bringing him down, and they caught him off his guard. Now he's about to ship, and I can't be sure I'll ever see him again.

Guess I'll just jope for the best. It's all I can do.


I definitely see where your coming from.  Recruiters do hit the "low steamers" pretty hard.  I've seen my fair share of kids go into the army because they never knew what it was like to hope for something.  They listen to this guy tell them stories about being a somebody in the army, about getting money towards a college education after there service is up.  They think to themselves I've been a nobody my entire life, this is my one chance to have my name mean something.  I have no money and going to school would be something that might help me escape a life of factory work or something of the sorts.  The recruiters also promise these kids a sense of family, a sense of belonging. Some of them never really knew what it was like to have another person care about them, want to talk to them, want to fight beside them.  All of these are huge factors in recruiting.

In a way I suppose the military is a lot like sports.  Sure some guys go into the army or the navy or the air force with high expectations and fenominal goals.  They work there asses off towards their dreams and in the end they stand one of the few, one of the ones in victory, one of the ones in success. However just like you know everytime you see an athlete in celebration after a win, there's some other athlete over in the corner, a world torn apart, he just lost.  Miliatary works in the same fashion.  In the words of John Mellencamp, "There's winners and there's losers"

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant...
;)

I read through that, and I admit that I found myself very offended.

Part 2 of his little "Manifesto" was so offensive, I needed to calm down before I could even make an intelligent reply.

you have to commit human rights violations

As far as the first and third, those are actually accurate.  You have to be willing to react and respond to orders immediately, without thought.  This is because in combat or other dangerous situations, your life (and the lives of others) may depend on that immediate action.

The third one?  Heck, that is no different then almost any other job in America.  Tell me that none of you have never had a job where you hated your boss, but still did what they told you to do.  And do you think it is any different for Police Officers or Fire Fighters?

What really got me seeing red was his conversation with the Marine Veteran.

“How many people did you kill?”

Gee, does this sound at all familiar?  So many of us Veterans fear the return of the "Baby Killer" type of reactions.  And by reading this, it is already starting.

It would sound to me that the police would have a valid cause to arrest him, for disturbing the peace.  He was offensive, and he it appears that he wanted to be arrested.  If he had confronted me with some of his conversations, I would probably be getting a lawyer myself, to see him charged with a hate crime.

And once again, we have the ACLU running to defend the wrong person.  If he had been having a quiet protest, I would have had no problems.  But when he accuses Veterans of being war criminals, and asks Veterans how many people they have killed, he has gone way way over the line.

He was being rude and making unfair generalizations.  But he wasn't inciting people to violence or lawlessness, so it was unjust to arrest him.  It would be different if he was explicitly or implicitly encouraging people to do harm to servicemen and women or to otherwise violate the law, but he wasn't.

He was being rude and making unfair generalizations.  But he wasn't inciting people to violence or lawlessness, so it was unjust to arrest him. 


YOu do not have to actually encourage people to be violent in order to be arrested for disturbing the peace.  When you are offensive and beligerant in your actions to people, that is also "disturbing the peace".  This is because your actions can be the cause of a riot or other outbreak of violence.

If I stood in front of the local NAACP office and started hurling insults and slanders, it is obvious that I would be looking for a confrontation.  Would it not be appropriate to have me arrested for "disturbing the peace"?

What if I did it standing in front of a Mosque?  What if I was calling every muslim who entered a terrorist, who will burn in hell for believing in a false prophet?

What if I stood in front of a synagog, screaming that the Jews were subhuman, and were the killers of Christ?

Hate speech is hate speech.  His entire goal was to cause a scene, and hopefully get the kind of press he has obviously recieved.

And personally, I do not care if he was for or against the war, or any other cause.  He wanted a confrontation, and was hurling insults to every active duty and veteran servicemember he ran across.  I am actually amazed that he was not attacked because of some of the things he said.

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant...
;)




Except for Alice.  ;)




Cat

YOu do not have to actually encourage people to be violent in order to be arrested for disturbing the peace.  When you are offensive and beligerant in your actions to people, that is also "disturbing the peace".  This is because your actions can be the cause of a riot or other outbreak of violence.

If I stood in front of the local NAACP office and started hurling insults and slanders, it is obvious that I would be looking for a confrontation.  Would it not be appropriate to have me arrested for "disturbing the peace"?

What if I did it standing in front of a Mosque?  What if I was calling every muslim who entered a terrorist, who will burn in hell for believing in a false prophet?

What if I stood in front of a synagog, screaming that the Jews were subhuman, and were the killers of Christ?

Hate speech is hate speech.  His entire goal was to cause a scene, and hopefully get the kind of press he has obviously recieved.

And personally, I do not care if he was for or against the war, or any other cause.  He wanted a confrontation, and was hurling insults to every active duty and veteran servicemember he ran across.  I am actually amazed that he was not attacked because of some of the things he said.


To me it's not reasonable to make an assumption that someone who is peacefully disagreeing with someone is deliberately trying to cause a scene.  I don't think civil rights workers were trying to cause a scene when they marched peacefully down the street in neighborhoods they KNEW would be hostile to them.

Being confrontational and rude is not the same thing as inciting violence.

While the "how many people did you kill" question may have been a bit over the edge, it is a reasonable question on some levels, and "not enough" has to be a troubling answer, even if you agree with this war.  The guy was standing with a message on his chest, in a public place he had a right to be in.  His Frist Amendment rights were clearly violated, and the cops that arrested him should be fire, as should those who stole his sign (committed violance against his property and his person).  This was an outrage.  And why should the ACLU not defend his right to both protest publicly and not be subject to harrasment for doing so?  If it means anything, the right to free speech is the right to say that which is unpopular.

While the "how many people did you kill" question may have been a bit over the edge, it is a reasonable question on some levels, and "not enough" has to be a troubling answer, even if you agree with this war.  The guy was standing with a message on his chest, in a public place he had a right to be in.  His Frist Amendment rights were clearly violated, and the cops that arrested him should be fire, as should those who stole his sign (committed violance against his property and his person).  This was an outrage.  And why should the ACLU not defend his right to both protest publicly and not be subject to harrasment for doing so?  If it means anything, the right to free speech is the right to say that which is unpopular.


Don Carlos, you make a valid and plausible arguement.  Very clear within facts, however you have to see the double intandra here.

"FIRE FIRE!" in a theatre, isn't part of "Free speech" so maybe the same principle applies here.

While the "how many people did you kill" question may have been a bit over the edge, it is a reasonable question on some levels, and "not enough" has to be a troubling answer, even if you agree with this war.  The guy was standing with a message on his chest, in a public place he had a right to be in.  His Frist Amendment rights were clearly violated, and the cops that arrested him should be fire, as should those who stole his sign (committed violance against his property and his person).  This was an outrage.  And why should the ACLU not defend his right to both protest publicly and not be subject to harrasment for doing so?  If it means anything, the right to free speech is the right to say that which is unpopular.


If I had been asked that question, I probably would have responded in a similar manner.  It falls under "Ask a stupid question, you get a stupid answer".  Or as Al Jafee (of MAD Magazine) so aptly put it: Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions.

Simply asking that is crude, and offensive.  How many have asked people who served in WWII "How many Germans/Japanese did you kill?"

If he had simply been walking around holding a non-beligerant sign, I would have screamed it is his right to do it.  But between line 2 of his "manifesto" and his verbal attacks on a veteran, he gets no such protection in my eyes.

Don Carlos, you make a valid and plausible arguement.  Very clear within facts, however you have to see the double intandra here.

"FIRE FIRE!" in a theatre, isn't part of "Free speech" so maybe the same principle applies here.

How so?

According to Khan, the Marine said: “Not enough. I want to go back and kill more.”

And I walked in, I sat down, they gave me a piece of paper that said: "Kid, see the psychiatrist in room 604."

I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I wanna kill. I wanna kill! I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth! Eat dead, burnt bodies! I mean: Kill. Kill!"

And I started jumpin' up and down, yellin' "KILL! KILL!" and he started jumpin' up and down with me, and we was both jumpin' up and down, yellin', "KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!" and the sergeant came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said "You're our boy". 
--Arlo again
8)

I read through that, and I admit that I found myself very offended.

Part 2 of his little "Manifesto" was so offensive, I needed to calm down before I could even make an intelligent reply.

you have to commit human rights violations

An innumerabe amount of sodiers HAVE been forced to commit human rights violations. Mai Lei massacre comes to mind. The Dresden bombings. The fact that the federal gov't uses our military to prop up and maintain dictators in the third world who are "business friendly" and provide our corporations with ceap labour. You can't deny this as a fact. Sure, not every soldier has had to do it, but he said that you have to be READY to commit human rights violations, and you do. Sorry if you're offended, but hey, a concierge doesn't like being called a bellhop either.

An innumerabe amount of sodiers HAVE been forced to commit human rights violations. Mai Lei massacre comes to mind. The Dresden bombings. The fact that the federal gov't uses our military to prop up and maintain dictators in the third world who are "business friendly" and provide our corporations with ceap labour. You can't deny this as a fact. Sure, not every soldier has had to do it, but he said that you have to be READY to commit human rights violations, and you do. Sorry if you're offended, but hey, a concierge doesn't like being called a bellhop either.


And with think kind of thinking, people wonder why the Military considers "the Left" to be a bunch of nutcases.  And then those of you on "the Left" whine that you are not "Anti-Military".

All I know is that I am starting to see more and more of the type of incidents that happened during and after Viet Nam.  And I am not talking about the Political side, nor am I talking about the anti-war movement.  I am talking about the honest anti-war movement being transformed into an anti-Military movement, and then a "Anti-Serviceman" movement.

Since you mentioned incidents going back to the first half of the 20th Century, what do you think the last "Just War" was?  Do you think the Military has ever been justified in it's actions?  And what conditions do you think it should be used now?  Or do you think it should be disbanded, and the M1 tanks turned into Tractors for the farmers in Botswana?