"Diversity is not our strength": Cincy's own Ramaswamy 2024!

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(08-09-2023, 09:45 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Also, anyone who is mature enough to pay taxes is mature enough to vote. 

The youngest age to work in the US is 14.  Are you seriously advocating for 14 year olds to vote?

[CJD]

(08-09-2023, 08:54 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I don't think you can count raising the voting age to 25 as a "huge red flag".  We hear a lot about how a person's brain hasn't fully developed until around that age (later for men btw).  This is based on sound scientific fact.  Consequently, there is a concerted effort by the left to raise the age of criminal responsibility to age 25 for this very reason.


https://www.juvjustice.org/blog/1174

As the above link states, Vermont has raised the age to 20.  Now, I'm reasonably sure you'll agree with me on this.  If you aren't responsible enough to be charged with criminal activity as an adult, then you damned sure aren't responsible to enough to vote until that age as well. Or am I wrong?

We're talking about taking away people's right to vote.

People who happen to trend left.

Must be a coincidence that a rightwing nut wants to disenfranchise young voters who probably won't vote for him.

Maybe the Democrat version of Vivek should say "people over the age of 60 can't vote, because we can't be sure that their brain has not degraded." That would certainly help their voting odds, just like this would help Republican's voting odds.

Or maybe we just don't take away people's right to vote once they've received it.

As for the Vermont law, I understand that you've linked "being an adult" to voting as well as being held criminally liable as an adult, so the age for those two activities should be linked, but we have several other age limits that make no sense like this. Why can you smoke at 18 but you can't drink until 21? Why can you drive at 16 and enlist in the military at 17 (with parental consent) but can't vote until 18? Why can't you rent a car until you're 25? Why is the age of consent different in different states, ranging from 16 to 18?

If these things are all things adults are capable of doing, why not standardize them onto one age nationwide? (Rhetorical question, I don't expect an answer to this).

I don't personally like the idea of that Vermont bill. I think we, as a society, have accepted 18 to be the age of adulthood, and it is out duty to raise children to understand the law by that age, or else they will be held responsible as an adult. Changing it now will likely cause more confusion than anything else. But, if that spread across the country, I still do not think it would have a bearing on people's right to vote. Being an informed voter has nothing to do with age. I know 40 year olds who are less politically engaged than 15 year olds.

Now, if someone were to propose requiring a civics test before voting....I'd still be against it (for the same reason I oppose stricter ID laws, because they disenfranchise younger and poorer voters), but I'd at least understand why someone would want that haha. I wouldn't necessarily suspect them of nefarious reasoning like I do with Vivek here.

[*Nately120*]

(08-10-2023, 12:19 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: The youngest age to work in the US is 14.  Are you seriously advocating for 14 year olds to vote?

No one should be allowed to vote except me.

[Dill]

(08-09-2023, 10:26 PM)Synric Wrote: https://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/2690/page/4310/display
Tons of similar stories. Protests did happen when veterans returned. They even happened when we returned from Iraq I seen that first hand. Why are we trying to rewrite history? 

I don't think anyone is disputing that protests occurred either of the Vietnam or the Iraq War. 

The question is whether veterans were spit upon by protestors when they got home. Or to refine this a bit--the question is about whether and how much such alleged "spitting incidents" should be taken as representative of vets homecoming from the Vietnam War, since the issue is rarely raised in a political vacuum.

So this is more about establishing history than rewriting it. As far as I can tell, no one can find photographs or news accounts from the period in question which confirm the spitting--though there is a great deal of news footage and many photographs.  And many vets dispute it.

This columnist from Desert News, Bob Greene, got over a thousand replies when he posed the question to his readers. He selected some here for interesting reading. Many claim the spitting stories are bunk.  But the common thread that runs through them is that their service was not acknowledged. People had no idea what they had gone through and didn't seem to care. (As with many current A-stan and Iraq vets.) One claims he was indeed spit on, every day in Vietnam by Agent Orange and the government which sent him on a losing mission. https://www.deseret.com/1989/2/4/18800994/vietnam-vets-recall-their-homecomings-often-painfully

My own memories of the period (I began college in fall of '69, with vets all over the campus) are dominated by returning veterans joining the anti-war effort. They were probably the most visible group of returning vets. Most appear to have just gone home and integrated back into life. Of the 7-8 vets I knew from HS, only half went to Vietnam, and only one was killed. 

As far as your question "why are we rewriting history," in this particular case, the rewriting appears to have begun in earnest in the late '80s and early '90s. I've wondered if Hollywood films might have something to do with it as well. (Didn't Rambo say he was spit on?) Events which may not have happened, or happened very rarely, became a dominant representation of  the war for people who learned about it decades later, a fact easily integrated with the U.S. very own Dolchstosslegende--liberals stabbed the military in the back. The war was lost on the home front, etc. 

Seems to me that David Sirota's conclusion, from the ST link in my previous post, suggest why some groups would want to rewrite history, not only of Vietnam but other wars, like the Iraq War, as well.

Metaphorically, if not explicitly, the mythology equates anti-war activism with dishonoring the troops; implies that such protest is kryptonite to the Pentagon’s Superman; and therefore insinuates that America loses wars not when policies are wrong, but when dissent is tolerated.

Part of the "news legs" this issue gets is, it seems to me, derives from the ideological club it provides for revisionist history. If there are vets who were spat upon and otherwise disrespected when they returned, they'd have to experience this question as one more act of disrespect. Can't question the right wing revision of the war, then, without questioning those personal experiences--so "attacking the troops" yet again. No one who seriously wants to know what happened will treat the question that way, but there are strong ideological motivations here to keep the issue hot and muddled, in hopes the villains in U.S. history continue to be the people who wanted us out of such disastrous wars, not the people/policies that got  Americans into them. 

[GMDino]

(08-10-2023, 12:46 AM)Nately120 Wrote: No one should be allowed to vote except me.

You can't vote!  You might vote for a Democrat!

[Dill]

(08-09-2023, 10:27 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: This one right here, or the one after that?  Inquiring minds want to know.
Interesting, doubling down on actual liberals supporting the Vietnam war.  This is going to be entertaining.
Your posts are often non-sensical, so the concept isn't that farfetched.
I'll make it easy for you.  When I refer to liberals I'm talking about actual liberals.

Oh, so you are just referring to the Democratic party, which not only started US involvement in the Vietnam war but consistently expanded it.  See, I was confused as you said earlier in this very post that you weren't only referring to the Democratic part, but liberals in general.  I guess those hundreds of thousands of anti-war protestors were conservative then.  My bad.

Heavens forbid.  As Napoleon stated, never interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake.  Do carry on.

Nervous quippery. Are you up to this? 

The claim is that "liberals" supported the Vietnam War: "Liberals in general" to use your formulation. 

The claim is not that liberals (some) never protested the war, which could be refuted by a picture of thousands of protestors

As I am using the term "liberal," it would include leaders of the Democratic party, who were indeed BIG GOVERMENT liberals, as the Right has used that term for generations. It would not exclude liberals outside the Dem party though, like liberal Republicans Clifford Case or Mark Hatfield or Rockefeller Republicans, though these later came to oppose the war. And it would not exclude independents. It would not deny that some liberals never supported the war, or that many liberals stopped supporting the war as it dragged on. But it is stronger than a claim that "some" or "many" supported the war. The majority did for most of the war. 

So, to repeat from my earlier post, if the claim is wrong, then you want to show 1) that "liberals" did not support the war at least in any great 
numbers. Or 2) show that the people I've described as leading/supporting the war (Johnson, Rusk, McNamara et al.) were not liberals, along with the majorities who voted them into power and supported the war. In 1968 an anti-war candidate could not even win the Dem presidential primary from a predominately liberal constituency. 

Your counter claim is simply that "hundreds of thousands" protested, and those protestors couldn't be "conservatives," 
therefore, it's a "mistake" to think liberals supported the war.  And "entertaining." 

That formulation implicitly limits the reference of "actual liberals" to protestors, not the millions who supported the war. A circular argument.

Nevermind that for most of the war, most of the nation, including liberals, protested the protestors. Nevermind that the Democrats and party who were objects of protest at the '68 convention also were not "conservatives."  

So yes, I'm doubling down on the historical record vs historical stereotypes from movies and media. 

[GMDino]

(08-10-2023, 07:11 AM)Dill Wrote: I don't think anyone is disputing that protests occurred either of the Vietnam or the Iraq War. 

The question is whether veterans were spit upon by protestors when they got home. Or to refine this a bit--the question is about whether and how much such alleged "spitting incidents" should be taken as representative of vets homecoming from the Vietnam War, since the issue is rarely raised in a political vacuum.

So this is more about establishing history than rewriting it. As far as I can tell, no one can find photographs or news accounts from the period in question which confirm the spitting--though there is a great deal of news footage and many photographs.  And many vets dispute it.

This columnist from Desert News, Bob Greene, got over a thousand replies when he posed the question to his readers. He selected some here for interesting reading. Many claim the spitting stories are bunk.  But the common thread that runs through them is that their service was not acknowledged. People had no idea what they had gone through and didn't seem to care. (As with many current A-stan and Iraq vets.) One claims he was indeed spit on, every day in Vietnam by Agent Orange and the government which sent him on a losing mission. https://www.deseret.com/1989/2/4/18800994/vietnam-vets-recall-their-homecomings-often-painfully

My own memories of the period (I began college in fall of '69, with vets all over the campus) are dominated by returning veterans joining the anti-war effort. They were probably the most visible group of returning vets. Most appear to have just gone home and integrated back into life. Of the 7-8 vets I knew from HS, only half went to Vietnam, and only one was killed. 

As far as your question "why are we rewriting history," in this particular case, the rewriting appears to have begun in earnest in the late '80s and early '90s. I've wondered if Hollywood films might have something to do with it as well. (Didn't Rambo say he was spit on?) Events which may not have happened, or happened very rarely, became a dominant representation of  the war for people who learned about it decades later, a fact easily integrated with the U.S. very own Dolchstosslegende--liberals stabbed the military in the back. The war was lost on the home front, etc. 

Seems to me that David Sirota's conclusion, from the ST link in my previous post, suggest why some groups would want to rewrite history, not only of Vietnam but other wars, like the Iraq War, as well.

Metaphorically, if not explicitly, the mythology equates anti-war activism with dishonoring the troops; implies that such protest is kryptonite to the Pentagon’s Superman; and therefore insinuates that America loses wars not when policies are wrong, but when dissent is tolerated.

Part of the "news legs" this issue gets is, it seems to me, derives from the ideological club it provides for revisionist history. If there are vets who were spat upon and otherwise disrespected when they returned, they'd have to experience this question as one more act of disrespect. Can't question the right wing revision of the war, then, without questioning those personal experiences--so "attacking the troops" yet again. No one who seriously wants to know what happened will treat the question that way, but there are strong ideological motivations here to keep the issue hot and muddled, in hopes the villains in U.S. history continue to be the people who wanted us out of such disastrous wars, not the people/policies that got  Americans into them. 

I'm not willing to say no soldier was ever spit on.  It's a big country and everyone has their own individual experiences that we can't discount.  We also can't extrapolate them to encompass everyone else either.

I am willing to ask if some of the "soldiers were spit on" was metaphorical also.  I didn't know about any of the above writings and have not even bothered to go through it all yet though.

I don't know if that's "moral courage" or just having a discussion.  Someone will let me know.

[Dill]

(08-10-2023, 12:00 AM)GMDino Wrote: Yeah I was just saying it might have depended on where you were and when you came back.  I think Dill cited some stuff to consider that it wasn't ALL soldiers being spot in and maybe not even most.  But those kinds of stories are awful and carry much more weight in the public consciousness.

That doesn't take away for anyone's own experiences.  It just says there is more than a black and white view of it.

No one can determine for certain that no vet was EVER spat upon on returning home--over 2 million returned--but one can determine whether it was a "common experience" as SSF puts it. Just as one can determine whether pro-war demonstrators more commonly attacked anti-war demonstrators--which often included vets.

So Dill cited some polling and historical research which pretty much settles the question of how "common" spitting was, without disputing that some vets have claimed it. I.e., not very. The overwhelming number polled in 1979 remember their homecoming as positive. And when they remember protests, they seem to recall them as directed at the government, not the vets whose support they welcomed.

One of the books referred to in Sirota's Times article (linked in my previous post), Vietnam Vet Jerry Lembke's The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam, includes accounts of veterans who claim to be spat upon. But could not confirm any of them (e.g., by interviewing other vets who returned with the a guy who claimed he was spit upon and don't remember spitting). 

Spitting gets termed a "myth" in this book, as in others, not because the author claimed it never happened, but because of how, through the machinations of politicians and Hollywood, it comes to be taken as something that regularly occurred. Representative.

Lembke thinks the myth really took off in 1990, as George H.W. Bush referred to VV spitters in a speech to drum up support for the Gulf War. And the use of the spitting image in revisionist history is what keeps people talking about it now. Like missing POWs. It would be interesting to survey still living vets to see if spitting stories break down along party lines.

(Another strange phenomena about the VN War--the number of people who claimed to have served there but did not. Millions according to David Hack's US Wings website: https://www.uswings.com/about-us-wings/vietnam-war-facts/ It would be interesting to know if and how many of those wannabes remember being spit upon. That would confirm the "myth" status.)

[Dill]

(08-10-2023, 09:30 AM)GMDino Wrote: I'm not willing to say no soldier was ever spit on.  It's a big country and everyone has their own individual experiences that we can't discount.  We also can't extrapolate them to encompass everyone else either.

I am willing to ask if some of the "soldiers were spit on" was metaphorical also.  I didn't know about any of the above writings and have not even bothered to go through it all yet though.

I don't know if that's "moral courage" or just having a discussion.  Someone will let me know.

No one is willing to say "no soldier was ever spit on." 

The interest for me is just how the notion took off decades after the war to become, for younger generations, a stereotypical but false image from that period in U.S. history.

Many vets claim it was the government which forgot them, and have claimed that since the war, 
so from a certain ideological position it becomes very useful to deflect that critique onto people who rightly protested the war.

THEY (protestors) mistreated soldiers. etc. While true patriots supported the troops--and, of course, the government's policies.

I always keep the wider ramifications of this kind of revisionism in mind as well, and whom it might serve. E.g.  Ramaswamy wants to abolish the Dept. of Education and, I guess, start from scratch with a kind of education that instills students with "patriotism" and pride in their country. I think that will mean an embrace of revisionist history wherever opportunity presents itself. And if you critique the spit myth in that hodge podge you are attacking the vets, yet again. 
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/vivek-ramaswamy-abolish-department-education-overhaul-education

[Dill]

Anyway, the patriotism issue drives both Ramaswamy's educational proposals AND his proposal about raising the voting age to 25--except for those who can pass a civics test.

According to the below "fact check" by the Poynter Institute, absence of patriotism is linked, at least partly, to distrust of government institutions, one of which Ramaswamy wants to dismantle, namely the Dept. of Education.

Will a "patriotic" curriculum restore trust in government institutions if the people pushing that curriculum also continue to attract voters by delegitimizing government?

Are young Americans really less proud to be American? Vivek Ramaswamy is partially right
Polling shows that young Americans are consistently less patriotic than older ones, continuing a historical trend.
https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2023/are-young-americans-less-proud-to-be-american-vivek-ramaswamy-is-partially-right/

Polling shows that strong feelings of patriotism are at record lows.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, said June 18 on “Fox News Sunday” that it is nonexistent among one age group.
“Young Americans across this country are no longer proud to be American,” said Ramaswamy, who, at 37 years old, is the first GOP candidate from the millennial generation. “I am.”

When PolitiFact contacted Ramaswamy’s campaign for comment, it sent a link to a Jan. 10 story from the Daily Caller, a conservative website. The story’s headline said, “Only 16% Of Gen Z Adults Are Proud To Live In The US,” citing a Morning Consult survey.

We examined two polls, and a few findings were consistent: Strong feelings of patriotism have been declining since at least the early 2000s; and older generations are more patriotic than their younger counterparts.

A March 2023 poll showed that 38% of all respondents consider patriotism to be a “very important” value, down from 61% in 2019 and 70% in 1998. It was conducted by The Wall Street Journal and NORC at the University of Chicago, a nonpartisan research organization. Among younger Americans, 23% of adults younger than 30 said patriotism was a “very important” value.

Similarly, a 2022 Gallup poll found that 38% of adult Americans were “extremely proud” to be Americans, down from 45% in 2019. And 25% of people ages 18 to 34 were “extremely proud” to be an American.

In addition, the Pew Research Center reported in 2021 that “roughly four-in-ten adults ages 18 to 29 (42%) say there are other countries that are better than the U.S. — the highest share of any age group.”

Strong national pride is low among younger generations, but a majority of young adults ages 18 to 34 still express some degree of national pride. Gallup’s 2022 poll found that 75% of young adults are at least “moderately proud” to be American.
Gallup Senior Editor Jeffrey Jones told PolitiFact there consistently has been a generational gap since his company began polling about national pride in 2001, and the gap has been increasing in recent years

“All age groups have been less patriotic the past six years than before that, but the declines have been larger among younger adults,” Jones said. “As a result, the age gaps have gotten bigger, especially comparing 18- to 29-year-olds to those 50 and older.”

Pinpointing what has caused the generational patriotism gap is an inexact science, Jones said. But “younger generations are growing up in an era where Americans have never been really happy with the state of the nation, and also at a time when there is declining trust in U.S. institutions.”

Dr. Michael Genovese, president of Loyola Marymount University’s Global Policy Institute, told PolitiFact that the factors behind declining national pride trace back as far as the 1960s.

“The decline in patriotism is linked to the decline in ‘trust’ in government,” Genovese said.

He cited several events that contributed to the decline in trust, including the Vietnam War, which spanned from 1954 to 1975, the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s, the Iran-Contra scandal in the mid- to late 1980s, former President Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment and the Iraq war from 2003 to 2011. In combination with political division and hyperpartisanship, Genovese said, those things fractured Americans’ sense of nation.

Ramaswamy has promised to change voting laws if elected. His campaign promises include increasing the minimum voting age to 25, allowing people ages 18 to 24 to vote only if they demonstrate a commitment to civic duty by serving in the military, working in civil service or passing the civics test immigrants take to become U.S. citizens. Raising the voting age would require amending the U.S. Constitution, a high bar.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(08-10-2023, 09:34 AM)Dill Wrote: No one can determine for certain that no vet was EVER spat upon on returning home--over 2 million returned--but one can determine whether it was a "common experience" as SSF puts it. Just as one can determine whether pro-war demonstrators more commonly attacked anti-war demonstrators--which often included vets.

I never said it was a "common experience", so your putting it in quotes is a flat out lie.  I also want to thank you for the insight into your character that was that post.  You've always been disingenuous, and is this case are flat out lying about what I said, but your attempts to invalidate the lived experiences of some of the men returning home from Vietnam is just flat out odious.  You also gave us a very interesting look into how something like holocaust denial starts.  I suppose when all of the poor men who had the experience under discussion have passed on more people like you can claim they lied about what happened to them and label it a myth.

That post really revealed a lot about your character, and not a bit of it was good.

[*pally*]

My father, a career military officer, returned from serving in Vietnam in 1972. He was sent to Southern Methodist University in Dallas to get his Masters's degree and to run the Air Force ROTC program while he was there. They were told specifically not to wear their uniforms unless they were actually participating in ROTC activities and that included my Dad and his staff. Locker rooms were provided to change in. They were under strict orders not to call attention to themselves

We lived in the Washington DC area from 1968-1972. Now, I get that Washington will skew the perspective of what was happening across the US, but I remember numerous times my mom had to drive through protesters to get to the base gates. It didn't matter which base we utilized in the area there were protesters there. Did they spit on the uniformed military members...I don't know but the atmosphere was there.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(08-10-2023, 11:15 AM)pally Wrote: My father, a career military officer, returned from serving in Vietnam in 1972.  He was sent to Southern Methodist University in Dallas to get his Masters's degree and to run the Air Force ROTC program while he was there.  They were told specifically not to wear their uniforms unless they were actually participating in ROTC activities and that included my Dad and his staff.  Locker rooms were provided to change in.  They were under strict orders not to call attention to themselves

We lived in the Washington DC area from 1968-1972.  Now, I get that Washington will skew the perspective of what was happening across the US, but I remember numerous times my mom had to drive through protesters to get to the base gates.  It didn't matter which base we utilized in the area there were protesters there.  Did they spit on the uniformed military members...I don't know but the atmosphere was there.

Nope, sorry.  Dill and the New York Times have determined nothing like this actually took place.

[GMDino]

(08-10-2023, 11:15 AM)pally Wrote: My father, a career military officer, returned from serving in Vietnam in 1972.  He was sent to Southern Methodist University in Dallas to get his Masters's degree and to run the Air Force ROTC program while he was there.  They were told specifically not to wear their uniforms unless they were actually participating in ROTC activities and that included my Dad and his staff.  Locker rooms were provided to change in.  They were under strict orders not to call attention to themselves

We lived in the Washington DC area from 1968-1972.  Now, I get that Washington will skew the perspective of what was happening across the US, but I remember numerous times my mom had to drive through protesters to get to the base gates.  It didn't matter which base we utilized in the area there were protesters there.  Did they spit on the uniformed military members...I don't know but the atmosphere was there.

That's a shame.  I'm sure some, many, were met with all kinds of different people when they came back. Protestors at a military base seems more likely to have had the vitriol then a small town in SW PA where my family was.

I think that's all I and Dill have said:  Everyone had a different experience and some of what is "well known" thanks to the media may not have been as wide-spread as we were told when we were growing up. 

If it happened to your own family you are probably more likely to feel like it happened more everywhere else too and probably take it a lot more personally.  

Back to the topic of the thread I'm not sure what any of this had to do with Ramaswamy' crazy "ideas" though other than trying to make youth "love our country more".

[Dill]

(08-10-2023, 11:15 AM)pally Wrote: My father, a career military officer, returned from serving in Vietnam in 1972.  He was sent to Southern Methodist University in Dallas to get his Masters's degree and to run the Air Force ROTC program while he was there.  They were told specifically not to wear their uniforms unless they were actually participating in ROTC activities and that included my Dad and his staff.  Locker rooms were provided to change in.  They were under strict orders not to call attention to themselves

We lived in the Washington DC area from 1968-1972.  Now, I get that Washington will skew the perspective of what was happening across the US, but I remember numerous times my mom had to drive through protesters to get to the base gates.  It didn't matter which base we utilized in the area there were protesters there.  Did they spit on the uniformed military members...I don't know but the atmosphere was there.

So your father was Air Force? 

Your memory sounds about right to me. ROTC were cautious on a lot of campuses. Understandably so. 

[*pally*]

(08-10-2023, 02:13 PM)Dill Wrote: So your father was Air Force? 

Your memory sounds about right to me. ROTC were cautious on a lot of campuses. Understandably so. 

yes...He actually started off in the Army as an enlisted man.  He wanted to go to West Point but he failed the physical (feet issues + marching do not mix).  He passed the physical for the Naval Academy so he went there.  Then after 4 years at the academy, he decided he really didn't like being on ships for long tours, so when he graduated he transferred over to the Air Force which was still allowed in the 1950s.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(08-10-2023, 02:21 PM)pally Wrote: yes...He actually started off in the Army as an enlisted man.  He wanted to go to West Point but he failed the physical (feet issues + marching do not mix).  He passed the physical for the Naval Academy so he went there.  Then after 4 years at the academy, he decided he really didn't like being on ships for long tours, so when he graduated he transferred over to the Air Force which was still allowed in the 1950s.

When I was in AFROTC at CSULB (it's no longer there before anyone tries to gotcha me on this) we had similar issues with people yelling in our faces and hurling epithets.  A guy the year above me got squirted with two ketchup packets when in uniform.  This is in the mid 90's, so I can only imagine how much worse it was in the 70's.

[Dill]

(08-10-2023, 02:21 PM)pally Wrote: yes...He actually started off in the Army as an enlisted man.  He wanted to go to West Point but he failed the physical (feet issues + marching do not mix).  He passed the physical for the Naval Academy so he went there.  Then after 4 years at the academy, he decided he really didn't like being on ships for long tours, so when he graduated he transferred over to the Air Force which was still allowed in the 1950s.

Don't want to pester you too much, but I am curious as to where your father was stationed and what his occupational specialty was. AF get used in funny ways, e.g., postal service on FOBs, so I'm guessing he could have been inland as well as on the big airbases. 

[*pally*]

(08-10-2023, 04:20 PM)Dill Wrote: Don't want to pester you too much, but I am curious as to where your father was stationed and what his occupational specialty was. AF get used in funny ways, e.g., postal service on FOBs, so I'm guessing he could have been inland as well as on the big airbases. 

During the war, he was actually stationed in Ubon, Thailand with the 13th bomb squadron.  He was a navigator on a B-57.  They spent their days drinking and nights dropping bombs

[Dill]

(08-10-2023, 11:13 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Dill: No one can determine for certain that no vet was EVER spat upon on returning home--over 2 million returned--but one can determine whether it was a "common experience" as SSF puts it. Just as one can determine whether pro-war demonstrators more commonly attacked anti-war demonstrators--which often included vets.

I never said it was a "common experience", so your putting it in quotes is a flat out lie.  I also want to thank you for the insight into your character that was that post.  You've always been disingenuous, and is this case are flat out lying about what I said, but your attempts to invalidate the lived experiences of some of the men returning home from Vietnam is just flat out odious.  You also gave us a very interesting look into how something like holocaust denial starts.  I suppose when all of the poor men who had the experience under discussion have passed on more people like you can claim they lied about what happened to them and label it a myth.

That post really revealed a lot about your character, and not a bit of it was good.

LOL "Us" again.  Your quote below, from post #60, was the occasion for my use of your term "common experience."  

"As SSF puts it," followed ONLY by the two words singled out, just means that I am appropriating your TERM as I state one can determine WHETHER spitting was a common experience. I did not say "as SSF claims" it is, as I would have if that is what I meant. And even if I had, the appropriate response would have been a simple, "No that's not what I'm saying," rather than stridently accusing me of lying and linking me, by misconstructed analogy, to Holocaust denial.*  That sort of hyper-emotional and unjustified personal attack, while you are revealing MY character, shuts down threads as well as debate.

In any case, based on the case I've referred to in previous posts--books and polls of vets and documentary evidence from the period--being spit on was not a common experience. Not even close. So why are you "avoiding my points," as you frequently put it? 

(08-10-2023, 12:12 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Quote:That doesn't take away for anyone's own experiences.  It just says there is more than a black and white view of it.

No, Dill is arguing that it never happened.  I allow for it not being the common experience, he does not.  Who do you agree with?

The flipside now--Dill has not been "arguing that it never happened." And you just responded to a post which states that plainly. 

So why isn't the misrepresentation bolded above a "flat out lie," as you put it? 

My posts are not about "invalidating the experiences of some of the men returning home from Vietnam"; 
They are about invalidating the MYTH that this was a common and representative experience. 

And I've given the reasons why so many Vietnam Vets agree with me on this point--it's really THEIR argument, after all--e.g. it deflects criticism FROM the people and policies who created the Vietnam mess and deflects it TO the people who criticized that war and will likely be criticizing future wars as well. But you are not interested in THAT evidence. It's "anecdotal" coming from vets whose experiences you don't mind invalidating to keep your private grievances against "the left" going.

You cannot refute that argument, so you once again make it personal, framing the issue as "personal invalidation," ignoring that I specifically acknowledged how a vet who actually was spit on might feel. You claim to put forward your father's testimony, then make any further contextualization of it a personal insult to him if it does not support your narrative. That closes any further possibility of open discussion and assessment of the factual record of this issue in veteran history, but leaves you in your preferred position of strident, personal moral condemnation of anyone who disagrees with you. Not the first time. 

I'm not going to trade accusations of "ingenuousness" with you. And you are not going to respond to my evidence-based argument as an evidence-based argument. So "we" probably don't require any further revelation of my character. 

*Holocaust denial does not start with people trying to verify historical facts, but with denying facts to create an alternative history based emotional appeal and predetermined political goals, not the historical record. Have you even bothered actually reading such denials? Have you forgotten your recent complaint about people who argue by linking opponents to the worst people? Why do you always except yourself from the rules you want others to follow?