The most efficient way to respond to this...?

[Kropotkin Has a Posse]

I've been taking, as usual, a very, very string stance against the millitary. Of course I hear the old one,

"The soldiers fight for your right to say that."

My response has been two-pronged. I ask if the threats they claim to be fighting are as pressing as they say, and I point out that free speech has been repressed by governmens and soldiers and those who fight for it are dissidents, not patriots.

Is there anything else I can use to combat this awfully tedious one-liner?

[Ander]

Tell them that revolutionaries have fought for rights, including the rights to speak without getting shot by king, emperor, czar, dictator, etc. Tell him to thank the rebellious ones who are the ones who have made progress in civilisation, not oppressive soldiers of the state.

As well tell him that soldiers actually fight for the interests of their imperialist governments and the bourgeoisie.

[BreadBros]

Thats the most nauseating response ever. Tell them to explain to you, in very concrete terms, how you would not be able to say "that" if the Iraq War had never happened.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 06:18 pm
I've been taking, as usual, a very, very string stance against the millitary. Of course I hear the old one,

"The soldiers fight for your right to say that."

My response has been two-pronged. I ask if the threats they claim to be fighting are as pressing as they say, and I point out that free speech has been repressed by governmens and soldiers and those who fight for it are dissidents, not patriots.

Is there anything else I can use to combat this awfully tedious one-liner?
I guess the implication is that someone would conquer the U.S. and impose a tyrannical occupation, which is clearly fantasy-land stuff. The U.S. has a larger military budget than the next several countries combined.

Also, wars and those who support them have often suppressed democratic rights in U.S. history - certainly we see that today!

And antiwar movements have expanded democratic rights; especially during the Vietnam War.

Including the democratic rights of soldiers to hold and express their own opinions. As citizens. If the soldiers are fighting for freedom, how come the military is always trying to take theirs away?

[rouchambeau]

I know that it isn't really addressing your question, but changing the subject a little is not a bad way to respond. You could say that soldiers who "fought for my rights" are also the same ones who play a support role for rape and murder when not being the murderers themselves.

http://community.livejournal.com/anarchist...62633#t27662633 (http://community.livejournal.com/anarchists/2002217.html?thread=27662633#t27662633)
Here, "eyelidlessness" goes into this point much better than I have.

[Kropotkin Has a Posse]

These are great, thank you all who participated. My one problem is that I live in Canada, that country that milks the freedom cow for all it's worth (and then turns around and arrests everyone protesting the Olympics.)

So I can't necessarily use Iraq. I have to criticise Afghanistan which to me seems like neo-colonial oil-grabbing with a little humanitarianism on the side, but it's a little tougher to sell because they all think that they're doing right. I can bring up how the USSR was at least building schools until the US began funding mujahedin, I can remind them that Taliban representatives went to Texas to discuss oil pipeline construction with Unocal in the 90s, and I can also ask them if what they are trying to do, convert Muslims to liberal democracy, is exactly the same as trying to convert liberal democrats to Islam as Al-Qaeda wishes.

As well I like to go hyperbolic and ask when the Taliban will begin to paradrop into the Canadian Shiled to set up their first North American base of operations, if it's as pressing as they say.

[rouchambeau]

Oh, you're Canadian. Then what's all of this talk about "your" soldiers fighting for your rights?

[Kropotkin Has a Posse]

It all began when my friend and I actively criticised and then walked out on some millitary recruiters at our school. I know, we have no real reason for an army at all, but there are some millitary families at my school who go out of their way to bring up this arguement, as well as the recruiters themselves who say that they fight for our rights.

They continue claiming that their newly acquired combat role in Afghanistan makes us safer, and I myself can see the propagandic flaws of this, but my debating opponents believe it. (Of course the main idea behind debate is to win over neutral support, so it helps to have some good tactics.)