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C'mon now, this isn't a political article, let's not mire the discussion in politics irrelevant to the link

• caio1982 12y ago
  It's a motivational speech by soldiers to soldiers, I guess it's fair to debate that aspect. To be honest I was surprised to see such link at the top of HN, so I'm really curious to know what other HN fellows like coldtea think about it. EDIT: I know the folks are not soldiers, but the tone of the speech makes it sound as that IMHO
  • jacquesm 12y ago
    The tone almost makes it a recruitment speech in disguise.
• coldtea 12y ago
  An article praising soldiers and the "change" they bring IS political (in the general sense). It's just naively political, it doesn't even stop to consider the consquences of the actions it desribes, except on one side. Soldiers = heroes, or "just honest hardworking people doing a dangerous job", is political in itself. It's pro army, for one. Some people for some reason only consider anti-war statements to be political, while statements like the ones in the article pass for some kind of unchallenged truth. (If you mean "partisan", sure, it's not. But I don't care about that, and my point was not about "democrats" vs "republicans". Don't care about either of them).
  • jebblue 12y ago
    The enemy is always at the gate, they care not that your heart bleeds for their children; they only care about making you and your children bleed so they can take what you have and destroy who you are and what your children could have become.
    • PavlovsCat 12y ago
      Nobody is pure evil, and someone who shallowly dismisses others as pure evil, is at least slightly evil. Of course, this is my personal definition of evil. However, I stand by it. Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle. There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blast on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us. Forward! -- Walt Kelly, foreword to "The Pogo Papers"
      • jebblue 12y ago
        I said, "the enemy is at the gate". I dismiss no one. Literature and art are the first things the enemy either takes or destroys, ironic isn't it?
        • PavlovsCat 12y ago
          Unless you were being sarcistic, you did seem to imply there are people who are just being evil for the sake of being evil, and talking about "the enemy" makes it sound like a monolith very unlike to anything found on Earth; so I assume that gate is located in fantasy.
    • coldtea 12y ago
      One would be justified to say that if he was the one being invaded, in his own homeland, and had his children suffer for that. A citizen of a country with its war fingers all the way around the globe, not so much.