Social Question

MrGrimm888's avatar

Does one's stance on war affect their perceived patriotism?

Asked by MrGrimm888 (19437points) January 8th, 2018

This came up in a previous thread. If you are opposed to war, do you think that is unpatriotic?

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

22 Answers

Mimishu1995's avatar

It’s a mistake to equal wanting war to patriotism.

True patriotism is about trying to make your country stand strong. There are a lot of ways to it that don’t resort to war. War is an unfortunate result when everything else has failed.

War doesn’t only kill your enemies, but also your own people. Would you want your people to die when you can actually prevent it? If you would then what kind of patriotism is that?

Not to mention patriotism is also about building your country during peace time. Why not use your energy to help your country while there is no war?

Wanting war so bad doesn’t make you a patriot, it turns you into a bloodthirsty killing machine.

SQUEEKY2's avatar

That is a super great answer there^^^ @Mimishu1995 , well said!

Zaku's avatar

No, of course not.

MrGrimm888's avatar

Yeah Mimi. Well done…

rojo's avatar

From a different perspective, yes. your willingness or unwillingness toward supporting or advocating war to settle difference is most certainly used to determine your patriotism. It is considered by many to be the defining characteristic.
.
Those who oppose war are always perceived to be anti-whatevercountrytheylivein by most, particularly if those people have a conservative perspective.

One of the most obvious examples of this in my mind was the “America, Love it or Leave it” campaign during the Vietnam war. The flags, the buttons the fucking country songs.

Our beloved leaders decided that it was in “The Country’s” best interest to send our youth 8000 miles to fight and die in order to halt the advance of communism in the Asian continent. If you opposed this action you were tarred with the anti-patriotic brush. If you refused to participate you were forced to flee to another country to avoid arrest. It took about two decades, over 58,000 American deaths and uncountable deaths of Vietnamese for the majority of this country to finally see that those “unpatriotic scum” that would not support the war in the beginning were right all along; that there was no reason for us to be over there. And yet we still punished those who were forced to flee to remain out of prison for another decade thereafter.

Vietnam fell to the communists, the rest of Asia did not fall like dominos but remained pretty much how it had been and a dozen or so years later we were treating the Vietnamese like our buddies in capitalism and using their cheap labor to undermine our own labor forces here in the US. Had we ignored what was going on and let them settle it the best they could we would have been doing the very same thing twenty five years earlier so, other than the dead and the money made by the Military-Industrial Complex what we did accomplished little if anything.
.
In the first Iraq war almost the entire country cheered to see all those civilians in Baghdad blown to pieces by our “shock and awe” campaign and those few who said this was wrong were shouted down, denigrated as unpatriotic and, again, locked up in yet another round of, as the movie said “Murica! Fuck Yeah!” rhetoric that took little account of the rising death toll.

In the end, Hussein stayed in power and did our bidding for a few more years and we ended up killing a shit load more civilians through our embargo but, hey, we ddid gain major concessions for the energy companies and those providing weapons and other military services did make a killing thus helping the economy. All at the cost of only 4500 dead. Well, 4500 American dead and that is all that counts. We also gave ourselves a reason to invade a second time with similar aftermath except this time after destroying their infrastructure we paid American companies to rebuild it as huge markups that allowed people like Chaney, Bush and Tillerson to become rich, not to mention all the money made by the M-I Complex again yet again.

Afghanistan, sixteen years, 6600 dead Americans and untold Trillions of dollars spent and we will walk away eventually, again accomplishing nothing and yet try to speak out against it and against those soldiers who continue to fight and allow it to continue and see how swiftly your are condemned for your un-American views. We would not be there if it were not a just war and because we are there it is just. Kind of a circular argument but basically what you hear from our politicals. And that is not even mentioning the War without End on Terror perpetrated by those we both trained and armed all those years both preceding and during the conflict. Hey, we both made money on that (if you were invested heavily in the arms manufacturing and sales companies) and will continue to use it as a reason to increase our military budget for decades if not centuries to come. And, any talk of how immoral it is to make money of killing non-Americans is most assuredly not patriotic and possibly treasonous.

Korea. We have been stuck in that mess for 71 years now and yet we are not allowed to question why without being tarred with the epithet “Unpatriotic” Have a fucking loonie threatening to turn another country into glass? Doesn’t matter, he is your President and he and his followers will brook no disagreement.

Killing those we disagree with or who will not do what they are told is the American Way and if you disagree you are scum, worse than scum! Why, you are an un-American, unpatriotic commie loving tree hugging global warmin’ believin’ libtard!

Such is life.

and death.

stanleybmanly's avatar

There is always the necessity to justify militarism, and nothing known serves better to lubricate the process than the veneer of patriotic necessity. Calls to patriotism invariably are about substituting emotion for intellect. After all, you can’t allow the cannon fodder to dwell on the infliction of death and destruction as legitimate examples in “serving your country”.

ragingloli's avatar

When you live in a ‘country’ that worships its military and their exploits, any opposition to their activities will get you labelled “unpatriotic”.

flutherother's avatar

It depends on the war. Some wars are justified, but to blindly support a war out of “patriotism” is nine tenths of what is wrong with the human race.

elbanditoroso's avatar

War is the last option when diplomacy has failed. To equate patriotism with war is to honor failure.

Blackberry's avatar

Uhm, no… Because I’m not fan of young dead Americans.

War is business for most people. The citizens are meat shields.

People against war are actually the most patriotic.

janbb's avatar

@ragingloli yeah, I guess that’s what Germany was in the 1940s.

I don’t know anyone in America today lining up to think a nuclear war with Korea is a great idea.

MrGrimm888's avatar

^I do. Well, I don’t “know” them. But I have definitely heard more than one American say something along the lines of “we should nuke the middle east” or something like that. Many Trump supporters would probably be all for nuking North Korea. Clearly Trump has no problem playing the nuke card. Or he’s bluffing, which is almost more dangerous…

@rojo . You and I are aligned perfectly on this matter. I bet you could have gone on for pages more. I wish more people had such passion for pointing out the futility of most American conflicts. And the greed driving the machine.

One of the handful of ideas I liked that Trump raised during his campaign, was that he would cut military spending. I guess that went out the window though. It’s as if politicians just make empty promises just to get elected…

NomoreY_A's avatar

I notice the biggest warhawks are somtimes the most reluctant warriors. Rush Limbaugh got a draft deferment, as did Dick “I had other priorities” Cheney, and to be fair, Bill Cllinton had one as well. But they have no qualms about sending others in to harms way.

MrGrimm888's avatar

^Trump too. He didn’t go to Vietnam. He hasn’t been a warmonger, (yet)but he doesn’t seem like he would think much about killing millions of people. Especially if it bumped his approval ratings up…

KNOWITALL's avatar

I live in the Midwest in a red state with people who do practically cry when the National Anthem is performed and they are very proud to send their sons and daughters to fight for our country. Burning a flag here is tantamount to burning the bible and you would get your butt kicked. Most of the patriotic folks around here would not want war, but if it has to be (justified to their minds), then they’re all about supporting the effort.

elbanditoroso's avatar

@KNOWITALL you hit on the key issue here. Justification.

I’m a proud American, but I was utterly against the Viet Nam war (and protested against US troops going there) because it was obvious that we were there for the wrong reasons and it had no hope of victory.

I was for the first Iraq war,(Gilf War, 1990–1991) when Iraq invaded Kuwait and the US stepped in and helped Kuwait regain its independence. That was a just war.

On the other hand, the second Iraq War (the Bush-motivated war in Afghanistan after 9/11) was and continues to be a fiasco. It was a mistake from the beginning, and the Islamic State is a result of those errors.

So if it’s a reasonable and justifiable war, I’ll give the US my full allegiance.

If it’s a made-up fuck-up of a war, I have the obligation as a citizen to say so.

KNOWITALL's avatar

@elbanditoroso And that I totally respect.

zenvelo's avatar

A quote on the subject arrived in my inbox today:

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. -Hermann Göring, Nazi military leader (12 Jan 1893–1946)

NomoreY_A's avatar

“Patriotism is rhe last refuge of a scoundrel”. Samuel Johnson

rojo's avatar

“Having a scoundrel in the Presidency would be a step up” – me.

MrGrimm888's avatar

^You mean there is better out there, than ShitholeMcPussyGrabber?

Answer this question

Login

or

Join

to answer.
Your answer will be saved while you login or join.

Have a question? Ask Fluther!

What do you know more about?
or
Knowledge Networking @ Fluther