Western Child Soldiers

[Enki]

Met a Mexican-American guy who held some pretty neo-Nazi views, not full blown but close. His rationale was that Goths were Aryan, took over Spain, then the Conquistadors were white, defeated the native inhabitants, and thus Mexicans were Aryans.

I actually used the line Bill Maher says he uses on religious people and lunatics. "Well, anything's possible..."

'I am superior to you because some people who may or may not have been my ancestors raped and slaughtered some other people who were my ancestors.'

Stunning logic.

[Ibrahim]

That's the basis of all ethnic pride and probably nationalism as well. I accept it, it's part of human nature, but I do enjoy some of the more tortured lines of reasoning.


If I were Mexican I like to think I'd be into all of the Aztec stuff. I'm a sucker for pyramids (even if they were rolling a lot of heads down the steps). I actually do have a Quebecois friend who identifies with the ancient Gauls but NOT the ancient Franks or Normans. Anything's possible....

[Demon of Undoing]

If you could just somehow insinuate the idea that most of this nonsense is cheerleading extinct tribes, you'd have something. Some people, however, are immune to irony.

[Carbizene]

my tribes were scottish and cornish and they just got outsmarted by the Angle tribe, my tribes were no holders of any great advantage, if they were they would not have been defeated.

[Marcus]

. . most of this nonsense is cheerleading extinct tribes, . .

"All men are born into some particular bond of loyalty to family, race, country. But all finite forms must die,...

"A myth is a form of mental life which pretends to be deathless; its kernel is alway a fixing of the mind on some transient thing which thereby is immortalized. Nothing on earth is good or forever. The myth pretends it to be. In this pagan fragmentation of mankind by myths every community was enclosed in a private time and space..."

—Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

[Ibrahim]

If you could just somehow insinuate the idea that most of this nonsense is cheerleading extinct tribes, you'd have something. Some people, however, are immune to irony.

I like to make the sports comparison. It gives people a nice abstract sense of belonging without any additional responsibilities. Referring to oneself as a Highland Scotsman even if your family has lived in upstate New York since the 1700's is a bit like referring to you and your favorite football team as "we."

[Simple Minded]

If you could just somehow insinuate the idea that most of this nonsense is cheerleading extinct tribes, you'd have something. Some people, however, are immune to irony.

I like to make the sports comparison. It gives people a nice abstract sense of belonging without any additional responsibilities. Referring to oneself as a Highland Scotsman even if your family has lived in upstate New York since the 1700's is a bit like referring to you and your favorite football team as "we."

Excellent point!!! But why do individuals so often stive to identify themselves as herd/tribe members? White, Black, American, German, Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Conservative, 99%, etc.?

Is it one's desire for instant acceptance/status/recognition (jump in here Dioscuri) with no effort required to earn the label one seeks? Or even the opposite, the need to label those one disagrees with as stupid/not worth listening to/subhuman/beneath contempt? IMO, it often seems that way in the binary world of politics (us vs. them), "you are either on my side and voting with me, or you are one of "those stupid people" who oppose our superior goals/morality/intellect!!!"

I remember one time reading an ad from someone who was seeking work as a Christian babysitter? I thought "what the hell does that mean?" "Not us" need not apply?

[Carbizene]

Marketing 101, by developing and placing oneself in a continuum information is easier to transfer.

[Hoosiernorm]

If you could just somehow insinuate the idea that most of this nonsense is cheerleading extinct tribes, you'd have something. Some people, however, are immune to irony.

I like to make the sports comparison. It gives people a nice abstract sense of belonging without any additional responsibilities. Referring to oneself as a Highland Scotsman even if your family has lived in upstate New York since the 1700's is a bit like referring to you and your favorite football team as "we."

Yeah but we don't have a solid cultural identity as Americans that we can point to and all say "That is what we are!". We are all Irish on St. Pat's day largely due to the fact that we don't have any sort of cultural understanding of what it means to be Irish or what it means to celebrate a religious feast. I have listened to a lot of arguments about what it means to be an American and I do believe that we have a superficial attachment to whatever seems to be popular and trendy at any given time. We only can appreciate the world on the surface because being without any sort of deep cultural roots, we simply don't understand deep cultural roots.

[Ibrahim]

If you could just somehow insinuate the idea that most of this nonsense is cheerleading extinct tribes, you'd have something. Some people, however, are immune to irony.

I like to make the sports comparison. It gives people a nice abstract sense of belonging without any additional responsibilities. Referring to oneself as a Highland Scotsman even if your family has lived in upstate New York since the 1700's is a bit like referring to you and your favorite football team as "we."

Yeah but we don't have a solid cultural identity as Americans that we can point to and all say "That is what we are!". We are all Irish on St. Pat's day largely due to the fact that we don't have any sort of cultural understanding of what it means to be Irish or what it means to celebrate a religious feast. I have listened to a lot of arguments about what it means to be an American and I do believe that we have a superficial attachment to whatever seems to be popular and trendy at any given time. We only can appreciate the world on the surface because being without any sort of deep cultural roots, we simply don't understand deep cultural roots.

Ah, but "American" is an extant nationality and culture. Certainly you an legitimately call yourself American, and there are very clear rights and responsibility to being an American (or any extant nationality). The "depth" of American culture is slight, owing to the relatively short existence of America compared to an ancient country like China or India, but it is a vibrant and distinct culture nonetheless. I usually don't let people bash American culture for the contribution of baseball alone, but there is certainly plenty of arts and sciences to add to that.

But I think you're on to something. Identifying with ancient cultures is a way for Americans, who have a vibrant modern culture, to add a veneer of age and depth to it as well. You can be American today, but add in the ancient history of, say, the Celts on top of that to gain a sense (even if illusory) of continuity with the distant past. You see this in Canada as well, probably Australia and New Zealand too.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

There is a strong psychological affinity between an industrial-era worker and an infantry soldier. The entire US education system is similar enough to a military academy in its structure and goals that it's not worth differentiating it from the places where they actually teach battle tactics. The latter is for educating officers, the former is for churning out grunts. Maybe in a post-industrial economy that will change.

[Carbizene]

The Institution I went to was for Officer training in that children were taken at age 12 from the wealthy to be transformed from the ground up to be able to handle the full range of duties inherrant to an Officer guarding the interests of the wealthy. A Spartan ethos was fundamental to the regime, in that there was no mercy for the so called weak and they were weeded out, deemed not sufficiently psycopathic.

[Ibrahim]

The upside to all the Jr. Spartan training is that it doesn't really matter anymore. You spend years and hundreds of thousands of dollars training a combat non-com or officer and he still can't win a war against some bearded hick with a 50-year-old rifle.

[Carbizene]

yeah, can't beat motivation.

[monster_gardener]

The upside to all the Jr. Spartan training is that it doesn't really matter anymore. You spend years and hundreds of thousands of dollars training a combat non-com or officer and he still can't win a war against some bearded hick with a 50-year-old rifle.

Thank you Very Much for your post, Ibrahim.

he still can't win a war against some bearded hick with a 50-year-old rifle.

He can't win because........

1. The wrong sort of victory conditions have been set by soft headed/hearted incompetent leaders like Bush W....

STUPID victory conditions like teaching democracy to a demos that prefers sharia

Rather than sensible victory conditions such as degrading the ability of the Afgahns to wage war against US as they did on September 11, 2011....
And killing the perps who did it............

Or at least demonstrating to the Tallywackers of the Taliban that it does NOT pay to betray a benefactor......

And that if they make US come over there, they will regret it........ unless they like dying for Allah and going to Paradise right now instead of having their fun prohibiting kite flying and raping boy dancers............

"It's Milo Time"

A time to Break and Leave........

[Carbizene]

He can't win because........

1. The wrong sort of victory conditions have been set by soft headed/hearted incompetent leaders like Bush W....

STUPID victory conditions like teaching democracy to a demos that prefers sharia

Rather than sensible victory conditions such as degrading the ability of the Afgahns to wage war against US as they did on September 11, 2011....
And killing the perps who did it............

Or at least demonstrating to the Tallywackers of the Taliban that it does NOT pay to betray a benefactor......

And that if they make US come over there, they will regret it........ unless they like dying for Allah and going to Paradise right now instead of having their fun prohibiting kite flying and raping boy dancers............

"It's Milo Time"

A time to Break and Leave........

Think guys in black pyjamas when you say an AK can't win MG and remember it wasn't the Taliban who did 9/11, it was the CIA trained bin Laden.

Ironically it was the Taliban who put a lid on all boy genuflecting and since we turned up it's off the hook, like the poppy fields. Under the Taliban they were being closed down, it was only the Northern alliance, our allies that were producing poppies... now the NA has the backing of fire drops to keep production humming.



no doubt time to leave and screw kite flying.

[Ibrahim]

The Taliban profits widely from poppy production, it just claims that it doesn't. They need money like any other military force.