The White Helmets

[*bfine32*]

(01-01-2017, 02:42 AM)Dill Wrote: And that is what my posts address--the attribution of cowardice to those facing genocide in a broken state.

“A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once." 

Of course someone that abandons their country and those that cannot fend for themselves in the time of civil war are cowards. You and others can paint them as more noble, but...

[Dill]

(01-01-2017, 02:52 AM)bfine32 Wrote: “A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once." 

Of course someone that abandons their country and those that cannot fend for themselves in the time of civil war are cowards. You and others can paint them as more noble, but...

Some 400,000 of the valiant have tasted of death but once since the Syrian war began, though there is no "country" to fight for or against--only factions who represent differing ethnic and religious groups.

You and others can paint those fighting for Assad, ISIS and Al Nusra as noble people who didn't abandon their country, but . . . .

[Benton]

(01-01-2017, 02:52 AM)bfine32 Wrote: “A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once." 

Of course someone that abandons their country and those that cannot fend for themselves in the time of civil war are cowards. You and others can paint them as more noble, but...

I guess as easily as you're painting those who kill unarmed civilians as more noble because they're hanging around fighting for something.

something in this case being genocide, but at least it's better than packing up your family and leaving.

[GMDino]

(01-01-2017, 12:08 AM)bfine32 Wrote: I really don't think it matters who you ask, if these folks are doing a noble deed or not. Anyone that would suggest they are not is all the more a coward.

I'm sure there are many that cannot help themselves that are glad these guys didn't pack and look for the first plot of land where they didn't have to worry about state-sanctioned killing. Some are more noble than the Every man for themselves mentality. 

(01-01-2017, 02:35 AM)bfine32 Wrote: I can only assume you did not read/click the OP. No one is talking about fighting. This is a thread about those that choose to serve their country and countrymen while those around them fight and the cowards (a person who lacks courage in facing danger, difficulty, opposition, pain, etc.) run. 

(01-01-2017, 02:52 AM)bfine32 Wrote: “A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once." 

Of course someone that abandons their country and those that cannot fend for themselves in the time of civil war are cowards. You and others can paint them as more noble, but...

I always forget that there is a segment of society that think fighting and killing each other is the only way to handle things.  And that if you refuse to be put in a situation where you will be killed you are less of a man.  Rather than raising up those who choose to do it they choose to denigrate those who choose not to as "less" of a man or "cowards".


"The man who puts on his armor should not brag. It's the man who lives to take it off who has the right to brag."

Kings 20:11

[*bfine32*]

(01-01-2017, 03:15 AM)Dill Wrote: Some 400,000 of the valiant have tasted of death but once since the Syrian war began, though there is no "country" to fight for or against--only factions who represent differing ethnic and religious groups.

You and others can paint those fighting for Assad, ISIS and Al Nusra as noble people who didn't abandon their country, but . . . .

(01-01-2017, 04:43 AM)Benton Wrote: I guess as easily as you're painting those who kill unarmed civilians as more noble because they're hanging around fighting for something.

something in this case being genocide, but at least it's better than packing up your family and leaving.

(01-01-2017, 01:00 PM)GMDino Wrote: I always forget that there is a segment of society that think fighting and killing each other is the only way to handle things.  And that if you refuse to be put in a situation where you will be killed you are less of a man.  Rather than raising up those who choose to do it they choose to denigrate those who choose not to as "less" of a man or "cowards".


"The man who puts on his armor should not brag. It's the man who lives to take it off who has the right to brag."

Kings 20:11

I have provided an alternative to fighting and still being able to serve your country and countrymen in time of conflict; however, the T-Shirt does not have an answer for this, so you all reply with the non-germane point of killing folk. Frankly because that is all you got. A liberal sure does like attaching names to folks: homophobe, racist, xenophobe, sexist, bigot. ect...and really doesn't need must substance to back their label; however, suggest an able-bodied man that abandons his country and countrymen in time of conflict is a coward. and boy do they get riled up.  

[GMDino]

(01-01-2017, 02:02 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I have provided an alternative to fighting and still being able to serve your country and countrymen in time of conflict; however, the T-Shirt does not have an answer for this, so you all reply with the non-germane point of killing folk. Frankly because that is all you got.

Actually there have been several reason over multiple threads explaining why a "military age" male would not stay and fight.  Just because you choose to ignore them and stick with "they are cowards" (which fits nicely on a t-shirt, btw) doesn't mean they haven't been presented.

I fully understand that as a military person you find people unwilling to fight as weak, and less than worthy of praise and cowards.  Great opinion.  You're welcome to it.  However there are other factors at work that might influence different people differently.

(01-01-2017, 02:02 PM)bfine32 Wrote: A liberal sure does like attaching names to folks: homophobe, racist, xenophobe, sexist, bigot. ect...and really doesn't need must substance to back their label; however, suggest an able-bodied man that abandons his country and countrymen in time of conflict is a coward. and boy do they get riled up.  

[*bfine32*]

(01-01-2017, 02:15 PM)GMDino Wrote: Actually there have been several reason over multiple threads explaining why a "military age" male would not stay and fight.  Just because you choose to ignore them and stick with "they are cowards" (which fits nicely on a t-shirt, btw) doesn't mean they haven't been presented.

I fully understand that as a military person you find people unwilling to fight as weak, and less than worthy of praise and cowards.  Great opinion.  You're welcome to it.  However there are other factors at work that might influence different people differently.

..and you're still bringing up being a combatant. No reason have been ignored; it's just some classify abandoning one's country in time of conflict "smart" others classify it as "cowardly". Perhaps they are both apt.

[Dill]

(01-01-2017, 02:02 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I have provided an alternative to fighting and still being able to serve your country and countrymen in time of conflict; however, the T-Shirt does not have an answer for this, so you all reply with the non-germane point of killing folk. Frankly because that is all you got. A liberal sure does like attaching names to folks: homophobe, racist, xenophobe, sexist, bigot. ect...and really doesn't need must substance to back their label; however, suggest an able-bodied man that abandons his country and countrymen in time of conflict is a coward. and boy do they get riled up.  

Evey one "attaches names to folks." If they did not, we wouldn't be able to discuss anything. The only question is whether the labels fit. If someone who hates homosexuals is called a "homophobe," the label fits. If someone calls Obama a "Muslim" because he won't support a Muslim ban on immigration, the label does not fit because he is demonstrably a Christian. Attaching labels is not some special liberal problem. And it is not the problem here.

Everyone on this list will admit that sometimes people deserve the label "coward". The only question is how appropriate is its blanket application to refugees of a broken country of hopelessly warring factions. When a country is no longer a country, it is not clear what "fighting for one's country" means.
 
Imagine that you are the 3rd son of a Sunni family in Al Raqqa just before ISIS takes over. Your father gives you and the 2nd son almost all the family's money and orders you both to flee to the UK for three reasons: 1) to keep the family name going in case the family in Raqqa is killed; 2) to get jobs and send back money;and 3) so that ISIS does not force you to fight for them.

Becoming a White Helmet for "your country" does not even cross your mind. There are no white helmets in Al Raqqa, as there are in Aleppo or Damascus. But you could not get to Aleppo or Damascus without risking death at the hands of Assad's Alawites on the norther route or Al Nusra on the southern. And if you did make it there, you would be protecting people who are not your neighbors, family, community. You do what your father asked you to do for your family.

The road ahead is daunting. You must pay human traffickers to get you out of Turkey. Your brother dies when your boat capsizes in the Agean. In Greece the police steal the remainder of your money and on the border of Hungary you are beaten by police. You spend six weeks living in a cardboard "tent" in the notorious refugee "jungle" at the port of Calais in France before you finally smuggle your way across the channel in the back of a refrigerator truck. Because you are only 15 years old, the British give you a residency permit for three years, in which time you learn enough English to get a crappy job which allows you to send your family the equivalent of 100 US dollars a month, which allows them to survive. 

Then one day your are in an internet cafe noodling around American websites because you are interested in American football and happen upon this thread where you learn you are a coward who abandoned his country. . . .

[*bfine32*]

(01-01-2017, 03:27 PM)Dill Wrote: Evey one "attaches names to folks." If they did not, we wouldn't be able to discuss anything. The only question is whether the labels fit. If someone who hates homosexuals is called a "homophobe," the label fits. If someone calls Obama a "Muslim" because he won't support a Muslim ban on immigration, the label does not fit because he is demonstrably a Christian. Attaching labels is not some special liberal problem. And it is not the problem here.

Everyone on this list will admit that sometimes people deserve the label "coward". The only question is how appropriate is its blanket application to refugees of a broken country of hopelessly warring factions. When a country is no longer a country, it is not clear what "fighting for one's country" means.
 
Imagine that you are the 3rd son of a Sunni family in Al Raqqa just before ISIS takes over. Your father gives you and the 2nd son almost all the family's money and orders you both to flee to the UK for three reasons: 1) to keep the family name going in case the family in Raqqa is killed; 2) to get jobs and send back money;and 3) so that ISIS does not force you to fight for them.

Becoming a White Helmet for "your country" does not even cross your mind. There are no white helmets in Al Raqqa, as there are in Aleppo or Damascus. But you could not get to Aleppo or Damascus without risking death at the hands of Assad's Alawites on the norther route or Al Nusra on the southern. And if you did make it there, you would be protecting people who are not your neighbors, family, community. You do what your father asked you to do for your family.

The road ahead is daunting. You must pay human traffickers to get you out of Turkey. Your brother dies when your boat capsizes in the Agean. In Greece the police steal the remainder of your money and on the border of Hungary you are beaten by police. You spend six weeks living in a cardboard "tent" in the notorious refugee "jungle" at the port of Calais in France before you finally smuggle your way across the channel in the back of a refrigerator truck. Because you are only 15 years old, the British give you a residency permit for three years, in which time you learn enough English to get a crappy job which allows you to send your family the equivalent of 100 US dollars a month, which allows them to survive. 

Then one day your are in an internet cafe noodling around American websites because you are interested in American football and happen upon this thread where you learn you are a coward who abandoned his country. . . .

Cool story, now as we ease back into why they really flee.

[Dill]

(01-01-2017, 04:04 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Cool story, now as we ease back into why they really flee.

Not because of a civil war?

Or whence comes your "knowledge" of why they really flee?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Mohamed_clock_incident#Hoax_allegations_and_conspiracy_theories

[fredtoast]

(12-31-2016, 02:24 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I have been told that if your country is in conflict, you are a able-bodied male, and you don't want to fight; then fleeing is the smart move and to think otherwise is silly.

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-white-helmets/

And you claimed that if they did not take up arms and fight then they were cowards.  But now you are praising a bunch of people who are not taking up arms against anyone.

[*bfine32*]

(01-02-2017, 04:33 PM)fredtoast Wrote: And you claimed that if they did not take up arms and fight then they were cowards.  But now you are praising a bunch of people who are not taking up arms against anyone.

Nope, I've always said those that do not want to fight can provide aid to those that cannot. But I understand you for going with the fighting aspect; as you all shop for T-Shirts at the same store. 

[fredtoast]

(01-02-2017, 05:56 PM)bfine32 Wrote: But I understand you for going with the fighting aspect; as you all shop for T-Shirts at the same store. 

Sorry, but I do not understand what this means.


What is wrong with T-shirts?

[*bfine32*]

(01-02-2017, 06:04 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Sorry, but I do not understand what this means.


What is wrong with T-shirts?

Nothing wrong with T-Shirts. It's just some read the slogans and say "Hell Yeah" without understanding the ramifications. Then when a point is brought up to counter the point of the T-Shirt, the wearer often only possesses the mental capacity to reread the slogan.

[fredtoast]

(01-02-2017, 06:15 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Nothing wrong with T-Shirts. It's just some read the slogans and say "Hell Yeah" without understanding the ramifications. Then when a point is brought up to counter the point of the T-Shirt, the wearer often only possesses the mental capacity to reread the slogan.

Yeah, I know the type

[fredtoast]

(01-01-2017, 02:02 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I have provided an alternative to fighting and still being able to serve your country and countrymen in time of conflict; however, the T-Shirt does not have an answer for this, so you all reply with the non-germane point of killing folk. Frankly because that is all you got. 

Actually it has been pointed out to you that the white helmets are only working in certain parts of the country, and that many people have no reason to support a country where they are going to lose no matter who wins the conflict.

I am not going to criticize what the white helmets are doing, but I am not going to call every person who choses not to join the white helmets a coward.  Syria is broken, and no matter which side wins there are going to be groups of people who are going to suffer it they continue to live there.  

You are the one using overly simplistic "t-shirt logic" by calling every person that flees the country a coward.

[*bfine32*]

(01-03-2017, 01:34 PM)fredtoast Wrote: You are the one using overly simplistic "t-shirt logic" by calling every person that flees the country a coward.

What stops anyone from rending assistance to those who cannot help themselves in any part of the country?

Never called every person that flees the country a coward. 

There comes a point when you realize your point has been made but not conceded when that the only counters folks can make are to counter things you did not say. This thread has been like that for the last couple pages. I'm gonna let you guys go.

[fredtoast]

(01-03-2017, 02:24 PM)bfine32 Wrote: What stops anyone from rending assistance to those who cannot help themselves in any part of the country?

The fact that they are likely to die if they stay to render assistance.

Just because a person is not willing to die in order to help someone else does not mean he is a coward.  It is great that some people are willing to sacrifice their own lives to help others, but that does not mean that everyone who does not is a coward.

[fredtoast]

(12-31-2016, 02:24 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I have been told that if your country is in conflict, you are a able-bodied male, and you don't want to fight; then fleeing is the smart move and to think otherwise is silly.

(01-01-2017, 02:39 PM)bfine32 Wrote:  it's just some classify abandoning one's country in time of conflict "smart" others classify it as "cowardly". 

(01-03-2017, 02:24 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Never called every person that flees the country a coward. 

This is pathetic.

"You" never said it but "some people" did.

And you disagree with people who call it "silly" but not the people who call it "cowardly"?

Why can't you just state your own opinion clearly instead of weaseling around and making arguments that you are not really willing to stand behind yourself?  You debate like a coward who is unwilling to say what he really thinks.  

I am not afraid to state exactly what i think and stand behind it.  How about you?

[fredtoast]

(01-03-2017, 02:24 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Never called every person that flees the country a coward. 

what about what you said in this thread  http://thebengalsboard.com/Thread-Coordinated-Mass-sexual-assaults-in-Cologne?page=4&highlight=coward

post #64...If you are a male capable of fighting and your country is in Civil War, you are not a refugee; you're a coward.


post #70...There are a number of other ways to serve your country other than fighting. Running away and assaulting women in other countries isn't one of them.  (Got your "Rapefugees" T-shirt yet Bfine?  )



post #80...Look at the definition of coward provided and tell me that an able-bodied man that flees his country in time of a civil war doesn't fit the description