Not sure why, but I have a reflexive urge to downvote this

Jesus, Jesus. What hippy crypt did you dig this brittle old loser out of?

More succinct: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTr60WYjNM4

Once, at a tattoo shop, someone brought me a cup of coffee and, being a coffee addict, this cheered me up greatly. I told them they were my hero, thanked them for their service, and was prepared to fuck them right there (coffee whore).

"Hero" is a not a word important enough to smear it all over real social issues. It seriously degrades the whole conversation. He keeps mentioning real life concerns about violence and power, then goes right back to that word, killing the conversation stone dead and making his rhetoric about the word itself. This is offensive and, like so many things lately, reminds me of Donald Trump's Mexican Axiom.

I think I thought too hard about this video.

I thought this was going to be a gommorrah submission for sure.

Ain't nothing but a sandwich.

Good God I'm liberal as fuck and I couldn't bear more than 2.5 minutes of this guy.

Good find, Choco!

Mr Malloy makes some good points. For my part, I am very much against *society* calling uniformed servicemen "heroes". By this I mean, I am against the _cultural ritual_ whereby citizens are obliged to make public declarations of admiration for soldiers and policemen, basing this declaration upon tradition or rote conditioning, _rather than_ as the result of a freely reasoned, well-informed, and deeply personal decision. I'm not kidding. It pisses me off, for many of the reasons which Mr Malloy discusses here.

As many of you know, I myself am a veteran, and a employee of the VA. This sort of behavior is a HUGE trigger for, particularly around holidays! I'll give you an example: teachers really love to have their students make holiday cards for all the veterans at the VA. Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4th of July for the unfortunate children roped into summer camps, you name a holiday, cards will be coming. I hate this, to the point where I will literally (literally literally, not figuratively literally) have to leave the room. Children, by and large, have no concept of what it means to be in the military. They should not be subjected to nationalist propaganda, or told lies like "the military protects your freedom!" (we *could* protect your freedom, if necessary, but most of what we do has no direct bearing on domestic freedom at all) This not just a matter of splitting doctrinal hairs, either - part of what a democratic nation like the United States so great, is its institutional aversion to authoritarianism. Now the reality of our relationship to authoritarianism is grimmer and more complicated than this, of course, but by promoting the growth of authoritarian ideals in the kinds of young children, these teachers are actually *undermining* the mission of the United States military - which is to defend the Constitution, and the people of the United States! The people of the United States are free already, but how free they will remain, and how free they could become, that is entirely on THEIR shoulders. I do not want to think that anyone died overseas, "for freedom", only to have well-meaning idiots at home happily throw their freedom away. I mean, how about this, teachers: how about, instead of taking an hour out of the day so your students can draw American flags and smiley Army dudes merrily blowing shit up, you spend that hour teaching those young scamps the fundamentals of logic and critical thinking instead. Logic is rarely part of any public school curriculum, but it IS important, and kids should definitely be familiarized with it. Or, maybe you could discuss Reagan's deregulation of media ownership laws, and the consequences that this had for the mainstream media. You could have them read Stokely Carmichael's defense of the right to bear arms; you could teach them about evolution, about music theory, long division, Norman Rockwell, 80s anime cartoons, hell you could even have them put their heads on their desks and take a nap. ANYTHING other than brainwash them by making cards glorifying state power!

Now, with THAT out of the way, I'd like to issue the following statement: everyone in the military is pretty damn heroic.

Even the biggest blue falcon crapbags are considerably more heroic than your average draft-dodging hippie piece of shit - they may not be defending your freedoms or your rights per say, but they ARE busting their asses and making a ton of sacrifices for their battle buddies. And I think that's the key: whatever you can say about the US military-industrial complex, whatever your opinions of the foreign policy of Obama, Bush, and Clinton, the fact remains that the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and even Coasties out there, they aren't doing what they do for the people at home, they're doing it for the people they serve with. Maybe they won't protect your freedom, but they could very well make sure that some farmboy from South Dakota makes it back home to his fiance. And that's pretty damn heroic, Malloy, you limpdick little hippie fuck.