Saddam Hussein captured...

On or about Sun, 14 Dec 2003 20:17:11 GMT, Rand Simberg
made the sensational claim that:
On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 20:13:10 GMT, in a place far, far away, LooseChanj
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

On or about Sun, 14 Dec 2003 17:35:21 GMT, Rand Simberg
made the sensational claim that:
No, martydom is only for the sheep that these monstrous people lead,
not themselves.

That's true for *any* culture.

Not all cultures encourage and worship martydom...

I was addressing the rhetorical derison of "not themselves", and I should have
been more clear. Although those in power are always willing to sacrifice the
sheep, and rarely themselves.
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"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 15:24:31 GMT, in a place far, far away, "JimO"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

I'm waiting for the BBC to start whining about how we "humiliated"
him, by showing pictures of us probing him with a tongue depressor

I saw that image. Wow, his mouth glows in the dark -- proof of his nuclear
ambitions. ;-)

Rand Simberg wrote:

On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 19:17:56 GMT, in a place far, far away, Scott
Lowther made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Rand Simberg wrote:

One of the barking
moonbats at Democratic Underground asked this morning, "What right did
we have to shave his beard?"

You can stand to read DU?

It's a dirty job, but someone...

Actually, I was given a tip by someone with a stronger stomach than
me. I think Tim Blair holds his nose long enough to wander over there
occasionally, particularly on a day like this.

I thought about wandering over there,,, then realized life is too short
to read a bunch of "Waaaaaahhhh!!!!" posts.

However, I liked the "barking moonbats" descriptor. Never woulda thought
of that one...


--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address

In sci.space.policy Rand Simberg wrote:
On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 20:13:10 GMT, in a place far, far away, LooseChanj
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

On or about Sun, 14 Dec 2003 17:35:21 GMT, Rand Simberg
made the sensational claim that:
No, martydom is only for the sheep that these monstrous people lead,
not themselves.

That's true for *any* culture.

Not all cultures encourage and worship martydom...

Name one where this is not true of at least the armed forces.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 03:47:39 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
Sander Vesik made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Not all cultures encourage and worship martydom...

Name one where this is not true of at least the armed forces.

Ours.

George Patten: "Your job isn't to die for your country. It's to make
the other son of a bitch die for his country."

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 03:53:26 GMT, in a place far, far away,
h (Rand Simberg) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

George Patten: "Your job isn't to die for your country. It's to make
the other son of a bitch die for his country."

Sorry, that's George *Patton*.

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
Not all cultures encourage and worship martydom...
Name one where this is not true of at least the armed forces.

Ours.
George Patten: "Your job isn't to die for your country. It's to make
the other son of a bitch die for his country."

Then why are so many Medals of Honor (etc.) posthumous? By Patton's
criterion, taken literally, those were guys who did not do their job.

To say nothing of the almost hagiographic attitude toward the firemen and
policemen who died in the World Trade Center collapse.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

(Henry Spencer) wrote in :

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
Not all cultures encourage and worship martydom...
Name one where this is not true of at least the armed forces.

Ours.
George Patten: "Your job isn't to die for your country. It's to make
the other son of a bitch die for his country."

Then why are so many Medals of Honor (etc.) posthumous? By Patton's
criterion, taken literally, those were guys who did not do their job.

To say nothing of the almost hagiographic attitude toward the firemen and
policemen who died in the World Trade Center collapse.

Because they EARNED it, Henry.

--
Reed

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 06:14:45 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Henry Spencer) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

George Patten: "Your job isn't to die for your country. It's to make
the other son of a bitch die for his country."

Then why are so many Medals of Honor (etc.) posthumous? By Patton's
criterion, taken literally, those were guys who did not do their job.

They didn't do it as well as the guys who killed the enemy and lived.

To say nothing of the almost hagiographic attitude toward the firemen and
policemen who died in the World Trade Center collapse.

With rare exceptions, we encourage people to risk their lives when
necessary, but not to commit suicide unless it's absolutely
unavoidable to achieve the objective. We don't put guns in the hands
of five year olds and teach them about the glory of dying for God.

(Henry Spencer) wrote in message ...
Ours.
George Patten: "Your job isn't to die for your country. It's to make
the other son of a bitch die for his country."

Then why are so many Medals of Honor (etc.) posthumous? By Patton's
criterion, taken literally, those were guys who did not do their job.

Nope - those were guys who got killed while doing their job. All
other things being equal, we'd much rather have them alive. That's
not true in a lot of the other cultures in question.

It's true that diving on a grenade thrown into your platoon is a good
way to get a Medal of Honor. So is getting killed while going to
great lengths to save your comrades in general - Shugart and Gordon
are merely the most recent examples of a line going all the way back
to Rodger Young. But throwing your life away to no purpose is not -
the only person we remember from Torpedo Eight at Midway is George
Gay, because he survived.

-jake