I play games with some childhood friends and we use discord. At the time when everyone went off to college, my cousin joined the military (surprise). He's like a brother to me and he's not a chud, so we're still close. Now our discord is overrun with his military buddies. It was alright at first. I could hold my own against one or two of em. A few are even comrades, but now I'm beset on all sides by bootlickers.
In one of the most insane moments yet, this line of argument was tossed out by one of them last night: "America has only lost wars due to its strict rules of engagement" implying of course, that losses in vietnam or afghanistan, for instance, were only due to our humanitarian willingness to not nuke/carpet bomb the enemy.
I don't even know how to respond to shit like this. I just want to keep in touch with my friends, but at what cost?
Anyone pulling rules if engagement stuff believes the goal of those wars was imperial conquest or straight up genocide.
And honestly they're not far from the truth, which is why I think the "America loses all its wars" argument is kind of dead in the water unless you're just using it to dunk on the military, in which case it doesn't matter why they lost, they're still losers and suckers.
The wars are bad and we shouldn't be fighting them is the real argument, we could have "won" Vietnam in a day and it still would have been wrong.
Good point. I think I'm struggling because when we get into these debates, they quickly become about the innerworking minutae of.. the imperial japanese government or the political landscape of the weimar republic. Stuff I'm not able to argue about as I lack enough detailed knowledge of history. Im good on broad ideological stuff, but they set the terms in these incredibly narrow parameters. I have to try and set the terms
Always set the terms, debate isn't about being right, it's about forcing the discussion into your framework. Imply they believe something they don't while making your main point, they can only refute one at once.