Hyperpartisanship is threatening to destroy our country

[Balta1701]

And yet so many people held it against them, and seemingly still do in some cases. That is the saddest part of all. Most had no choice but to go. And here people are 40 years later still trying to blame them for something.

And here people are 40 years later telling the liberals how they stabbed them in the back.

[BigSqwert]

And here people are 40 years later still trying to blame them for something.

 

Who's doing that?

[southsider2k5]

Who's doing that?

 

Balta pushing the idea that these guys made stuff up and lied about what happened to them when the returned to the US after their tours' of duty. Instead of believing the victim, he is putting them on trial.

[BigSqwert]

Balta pushing the idea that these guys made stuff up and lied about what happened to them when the returned to the US after their tours' of duty. Instead of believing the victim, he is putting them on trial.

LOL ok. Can you be a little more overly dramatic? He suggested that things might have been exaggerated and provides evidence as to why.

Edited August 8, 2011 by BigSqwert

[southsider2k5]

LOL ok. Can you be a little more overly dramatic? He suggested that things might have been exaggerated and provides evidence as to why.

 

She wanted it.

[CrimsonWeltall]

Balta pushing the idea that these guys made stuff up and lied about what happened to them when the returned to the US after their tours' of duty. Instead of believing the victim, he is putting them on trial.

 

No, he was putting forth the idea that the frequency of these kinds of incidents is greatly exaggerated.

[The Sir]

LOL ok. Can you be a little more overly dramatic? He suggested that things might have been exaggerated and provides evidence as to why.

 

Evidence? He cited books that make an argument. He calls the arguments persuasive, but that's no more than his opinion. He does point out the civilian versus military airport idea, but that wasn't always the case. And even when it was, it only spared those troops from abuse the moment they touched down, and not as they tried to return to their everyday lives.

 

There wasn't any evidence.

[BigSqwert]

He calls the arguments persuasive, but that's no more than his opinion.

 

Sort of like this is yours:

 

it only spared those troops from abuse the moment they touched down, and not as they tried to return to their everyday lives.

 

[StrangeSox]

Balta wasn't saying that returning Vietnam vets were or weren't treated poorly. He was pointing out that there's little or no evidence to support the "spit on in airports" claims.

[southsider2k5]

No, he was putting forth the idea that the frequency of these kinds of incidents is greatly exaggerated.

 

So in laymans terms, Balta is saying the vast majority of soldiers were lying. I'm sorry, my first instinct is to believe these guys over someone who is just working off of his interpretation of anecdotal evident years after the fact.

[southsider2k5]

Evidence? He cited books that make an argument. He calls the arguments persuasive, but that's no more than his opinion. He does point out the civilian versus military airport idea, but that wasn't always the case. And even when it was, it only spared those troops from abuse the moment they touched down, and not as they tried to return to their everyday lives.

 

There wasn't any evidence.

 

Besides this also ignores the fact that these guys still had to get from their bases to home at some point.

[StrangeSox]

But that's the thing, you don't have a "vast majority of soldiers" claiming this. You've got a handful here and there at best(/worst, because it is a terrible thing).

[The Sir]

Sort of like this is yours:

 

I was just pointing out that what airport they landed at did not rule out poor treatment, abuse and even troops being spat on. As for actual evidence, I wasn't there but there are plenty of eyewitness accounts of what happened. They were the victims, and by questioning them, we're simply trying the rape victim.

[StrangeSox]

Again, that's the thing: actual eyewitness accounts are sorely lacking.

[southsider2k5]

Again, that's the thing: actual eyewitness accounts are sorely lacking.

 

And that doesn't disprove anything. Again, there weren't exactly throngs of people and reporters waiting to welcome back the "Baby Killers".

[Balta1701]

If we want to have a fair and honest conversation about this...were soldiers coming home from Vietnam treated poorly? Of course. Especially by the government itself, it would appear to me. Are there exaggerations in most of those discussions? If you actually look at the number of stories, there'd have to be armies of blonde-haired hippies hanging out at airports and hunting down homes to make them actually fit with the descriptions.

 

The bigger question is whether we're going to draw a bigger conclusion from these anecdotes...am I trying to allege that the soldiers are en masse liars? Of course not, I'd instead argue that it's a symptom of a larger problem...a complex war we shouldn't have been fighting. But here's the other side...why does this topic get brought up in the first place? It's brought up as a political attack, to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that liberals don't care about the military because how could anyone treat a soldier like that...and that of course is the point that is far more disagreeable. For it to be an effective smear, it has to be rampant, organized, an official act that poisons an entire set of political beliefs.

[southsider2k5]

And if history can be excused away, it takes away a common criticism of the left and their view of the military. The anti-war crowd has just as much, if not more, interest in this being proven "not true".

[StrangeSox]

That's still the thing: there's not much evidence to support that this is actually, you know, history, something that really happened more than a handful of times at most.

[StrangeSox]

The burden of proof is on someone making a positive claim ie "this event happened" because it's impossible to prove a negative.

Edited August 8, 2011 by StrangeSox

[CrimsonWeltall]

So in laymans terms, Balta is saying the vast majority of soldiers were lying. I'm sorry, my first instinct is to believe these guys over someone who is just working off of his interpretation of anecdotal evident years after the fact.

 

...no. Balta isn't saying anything about soldiers lying. He's saying that some people take the relatively few stories that soldiers have of these incidents like spitting and try to pass it off as a widespread phenomenon.

[BigSqwert]

...no. Balta isn't saying anything about soldiers lying. He's saying that some people take the relatively few stories that soldiers have of these incidents like spitting and try to pass it off as a widespread phenomenon.

 

Indeed. And judging by the duration of that war, there must have been over a million soldiers that we sent to Vietnam. How many return plane trips could there have been for the soldiers? Tens of thousands? How many incidents were there where the public spit on the soldiers? 5? 10?

[StrangeSox]

BTW the rape victim analogy doesn't hold up because no one's saying "well, they deserved it" or questioning soldiers' character and whether individually some of them were bad people. People question whether the supposed incidents even happened because there's not much evidence that they did and certainly not enough to support it being a widespread phenomenon.

[southsider2k5]

BTW the rape victim analogy doesn't hold up because no one's saying "well, they deserved it" or questioning soldiers' character and whether individually some of them were bad people. People question whether the supposed incidents even happened because there's not much evidence that they did and certainly not enough to support it being a widespread phenomenon.

 

People are calling soldiers liars. I'd call that trying the victim about as clearly as can be done.

[southsider2k5]

BTW the rape victim analogy doesn't hold up because no one's saying "well, they deserved it" or questioning soldiers' character and whether individually some of them were bad people. People question whether the supposed incidents even happened because there's not much evidence that they did and certainly not enough to support it being a widespread phenomenon.

 

People are calling soldiers liars. I'd call that trying the victim about as clearly as can be done.

[StrangeSox]

No one is calling soldiers liars because there's a distinct lack of actual soldiers that make this claim, certainly not enough to support it being a widespread phenomenon.