Not much more responsible than any working person is for "choosing" to work as a wage slave instead of opening one of Tullys easy-to-open co-ops. I don't see any difference between volunteer and conscript since one could suck so terribly at any military skills that require the taking of a human life their assigned job would not make them any more responsible than a civilian that pays taxes and whose job also works to support the whole sick edifice. [JT]
> 2) In some semblance of a democracy, like the one we have, how
> responsible are people for the actions of their government? [Doug[
Not very but it does vary from person to person. Is someone who works for justice and positive change and who opposes the policies of the government as "responsible" as someone who loves shrub and wants a US dominated world as a pragmatic solution to problems? I can't see how anyone could believe they are equally responsible if the word responsible is to retain any meaning. There is no way to measure how responsible someone is though so moving from discussion to a concrete action based on that discussion is more than a little difficult. [JT]
> A large percentage - I don't know the exact number, but it's
> significantly different from 0 - of U.S. soldiers are proud of what
> they're doing in Iraq. Doesn't that invalidate some of the slogans
> you hear at antiwar rallies, or did back in the day when there were
> antiwar rallies? [Doug]
Not to my mind. You have to realize how difficult it is to be in the military and fight against such feelings and thoughts. Almost no one believes they are the "bad guy". Once you join it is difficult to get out, although less so than the Govt. would have you believe, and so choosing to see the conflict as something to be proud of is less of a choice than it might seem. It is survival in a way. There are of course some real sociopaths in the military who enjoy killing and are rewarded for it. They are few and far between but they do exist. They are truly scary people. [JT]
> Did a large percentage of Bush voters vote for him because they like
> what he's doing in Iraq and elsewhere? How can we just blame W, and
> ignore the fact that the guy got scores of millions of votes?
>
> Doug
W is directly responsible for his actions. The people who voted for him are only very indirectly responsible. We cannot ascertain the "level" of responsibility for my neighbor but we can for Bush. We aren't blaming W exclusively but we should punish him (if we were empowered to) exclusively since we can measure his level of responsibility.
John Thornton