who gets to be killed in war (a derailment from truman and hiroshima with a nice selection of pet theories as a side)

diane

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War very seldom kills the guilty, you know. They scurry to other countries or back under the rock they crawled out from, or into the background as if it all had nothing to do with them. Maybe justice comes to some but man's justice is usually not enough.
 

O' Be Joyful

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War very seldom kills the guilty, you know. They scurry to other countries or back under the rock they crawled out from, or into the background as if it all had nothing to do with them. Maybe justice comes to some but man's justice is usually not enough.

"Justice comes from the barrel of a gun."

Pardon me deeply for quoting Moa Zedong.
 

diane

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5fish, that's the truth about war. Innocents get killed. It doesn't matter if Americans dropped the bomb on Japan or Japan dropped the bomb on Americans. The innocent still die. Sherman was right - you can't refine it. It's been that way since Cain did in Abel.
 

byron ed

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War very seldom kills the guilty, you know...
Respectfully, that's not even remotely sustainable. A lot of the guilty are killed in war, certainly way more than "seldom."

Where do these kind of truisms even come from? And why?
 

rittmeister

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Respectfully, that's not even remotely sustainable. A lot of the guilty are killed in war, certainly way more than "seldom."

Where do these kind of truisms even come from? And why?
would you say all the guys carrying guns are guilty? the people bombed? if it were about the guilty dubya would have slugged it out with saddam on a personal basis.
 

diane

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would you say all the guys carrying guns are guilty? the people bombed? if it were about the guilty dubya would have slugged it out with saddam on a personal basis.
That's it right there! Except FDR would have to get Harry to step in for him. Or congresses and parliaments. Always liked A P Hill's dour comment about the war: "The politicans have got us into a damn scrape and now it is up to the soldiers to get us out!"
 

diane

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Respectfully, that's not even remotely sustainable. A lot of the guilty are killed in war, certainly way more than "seldom."

Where do these kind of truisms even come from? And why?
Well, byron ed, it comes from the intrinsic fact that war is not fair. Justice isn't, either. (In fact, it's a wonder the concept of justice ever came into our collective minds...)
 

byron ed

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would you say all the guys carrying guns are guilty? the people bombed? if it were about the guilty dubya would have slugged it out with saddam on a personal basis.
That's it right there! Except FDR would have to get Harry to step in for him. Or congresses and parliaments. Always liked A P Hill's dour comment about the war: "The politicans have got us into a damn scrape and now it is up to the soldiers to get us out!"
Well, byron ed, it comes from the intrinsic fact that war is not fair. Justice isn't, either. (In fact, it's a wonder the concept of justice ever came into our collective minds...)

Or rather, how about something related to this:
War very seldom kills the guilty, you know...
A truism that seems nonsense right out-of-the-box -- what am I missing? I understand it's typically unfair to take statements out of context, but in this case it was the leading point. It's reasonable to expect its being backed-up, explained or retracted. No harm, no foul. We each have occasionally mis-phrased stuff.
 

rittmeister

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Rather, we could rightly expect something related to this:


It seems nonsense right out-of-the-box -- what am I missing? I understand it's typically unfair to take statements out of context, but in this case it was the leading point. It's reasonable to expect its being backed-up, explained or retracted. No harm, no foul. We each have occasionally mis-phrased stuff.
could you cide any war were mostly the guilty were killed?

as someone said about wars in europe:
war is when young men who don't know and have no quarrel with eachother kill eachother on behalf of (mostly) old men who not only know but are related to eachother.

... you were saying?
 

diane

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Rather, we could rightly expect something related to this:


It seems nonsense right out-of-the-box -- what am I missing? I understand it's typically unfair to take statements out of context, but in this case it was the leading point. It's reasonable to expect its being backed-up, explained or retracted. No harm, no foul. We each have occasionally mis-phrased stuff.
I didn't mis-phrase anything. I sez whut I means and means whut I sez! It's an observation, anyway - so I needn't back up, explain or retract. (However, you might want to...!)
 

byron ed

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I didn't mis-phrase anything. I sez whut I mens and means whut I sez! It's an observation, anyway - so I needn't back up, explain or retract. (However, you might want to...!)
Ok then, your fully-claimed observation "War very seldom kills the guilty, you know..." can't be backed-up, explained or retracted. Which brings up the point what's it doing here?

So its value in this discussion is, well, what?

could you cide any war were mostly the guilty were killed?...
No more valid to claim "Mostly the guilty were killed" than to claim ""War very seldom kills the guilty." Neither can be cited as neither is sustainable.

Where are you going with this? If your point is actually that innocents are killed in war, why not just say "Innocents are killed in war," which is totally sustainable. It can be backed-up and explained, and no retractions are necessary.

I'm not understanding the need for truisms here when the facts are plenty ample enough to make any valid point. Ultimately, aren't truisms just a form of exaggeration employed to convey "impact" in the goal of "winning" a conversation? We need to mess with that here?
 
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rittmeister

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Ok then, your fully-claimed observation "War very seldom kills the guilty, you know..." can't be backed-up, explained or retracted. Which brings up the point what's it doing here?
for starters: being the truth, plain and simple!
 

byron ed

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for starters: being the truth, plain and simple!
You now boldly proclaim that your your statement "War very seldom kills the guilty..." is a truth!! -- that you "...needn't back up, explain or retract..." As if truth status is achieved by merely being stated!

oops, even you certainly realize something's been (over) stepped in a bit here.

The point you felt you needed to exaggerate was actually a good one in its plain and simple truth form -- that many innocents are killed in war. Inventing that "war very seldom kills the guilty" was unnecessary, not to mention a somewhat odd metric to begin with.

My hope is we'll all refrain from using truisms going forward, and my prediction is that you'll be less-inclined to it yourself.
 
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rittmeister

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You now boldly proclaim that your your statement "War very seldom kills the guilty, you know..." is a truth!! ...a truth that you "...needn't back up, explain or retract.." As if truth status is achieved by merely being stated!

oops, even you certainly realize something's been (over) stepped in it a bit here. You know, the point you felt you needed to exaggerate was actually a good one in its plain and simple form. The actual truth would have been sufficient to make the point -- that many innocents are killed in war.

Inventing that more innocents than guilty are killed in a war was just, well, unnecessary, not to mention an odd metric to invoke to begin with.

Let's drop it for now. I'm quite certain that at some point beyond pride you'll see it.
how many guilty people were killed fighting WW II? and how many conscripts, volunteers or civilians? statistics is certainly not your best suit.

hitler, goering, göbbels, himmler? all comitted suicide. skorzeny, mengele? on the run. höss and altfuldisch were hanged, but being hanged got nothing to do with fighting, does it? - how many people killed in WW II were guilty?

if you need more names i can do that for a week
 

rittmeister

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Not quite. A tiny minority of those killed in war are those who were guilty of creating the war.
that minority is not much less tiny if you include those comitting war crimes during the conduction of said war
 

byron ed

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Not quite. A tiny minority of those killed in war are those who were guilty of creating the war.
Also completely unsustainable. There is no metric available or implied whatsoever that will ever back that up. In a major war thousands of the guilty are killed along with thousands of the innocent, nothing that could be classed "a tiny minority."

I'm suspecting now that the attempt is to point out that leaders (military and state) comprise who's actually guilty, and leaders being a small minority of all parties in war are not all that likely to be killed in war, as they are behind the lines.

If that's all it is, you fellas need to explain your views better, and not be making blanket statements, truisms, about the relative percentages of guilty to innocent overall. imho of course.
 
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diane

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War is a big animal - that's what Shakespeare was talking about when he referred to the 'dogs of war'. Real indiscriminate!
 

rittmeister

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Also completely unsustainable. There is no metric available or implied whatsoever that will ever back that up. What are you doing?

It seems truisms like this are as catching as COVID-19.
if you want a slightly bigger number you need to endorse mr donovan phillips leitch

 
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