Which Do You Value More - C-Span or U.S. Marines?

Think about it just for a moment. Which is of greater value to us as a nation, the U.S. Marine Corps or C-Span?

Which one is more likely to be the force that holds the democracy in one piece?

which of the rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights would you most like to give up?

would you rather lose an arm or a leg? we need them both.

is to ensure we can have a CSPAN. Ergo, the answer to your question, the USMC - Semper Fi. Without the marines, no CSPAN. Without CSPAN, the Marines will keep on grunting. God bless em.

that's what I wanted to say.

the ONLY pseudo-military folks that we should be thanking should be
the Minutemen that confronted and fought the British.
They were fighting an occupying force...a force that was threatening
our future nation.

Marines have been invading foreign nations since (almost) their
inception.
I don't owe squat to a Marine. Nor to any modern military soldier.
NONE of the "wars" and invasions that the US has conducted since
the end of WWII (even that would be suspect IMHO) threatened the US
directly. NONE.

C-SPAN is much more important because we need our RIGHTS to be
heard. Our opinions, as citizens, are paramount and much more
important than a soldier "doing his duty". That soldier counst on
US to make sure that his live is not thrown away. THAT is the key
to a democracy.

Surely, most Europeans would disagree that our involvement in WWII was suspect. It is also unlikely that South Koreans regret that they don't live in that bizarre, impoverished land to the north.

the only complaint I have about the US in WW2 is - why the hell didnt you guys figure out you would be next (and would have fallen if you were on your own) and get here sooner? thanks just the same though.

The US marines can invade anytime they want as far as I am concerned - I trust that having Cspan in the US democracy will mean the marines will only be ordered to show up when we really need them.

Now if the texas air national guard wants to invade we may have some issues...

Let us pray we never have to rely on the likes of bush to serve in the military. Ya know we need those little sissy liberals like John Kerry and George McGovern. I loved my time in Scotland; Fish and Chips in Montrose - to die for.

and Afghanistan...?

:eyes:

Sure, keep on dreaming.

not the Marine Corps

which do you VALUE more: C-SPAN or the Marine Corps.
By selecting the USMC you are clearly stating that you prefer
policy instead of debate.
The USMC is a by-product and they have and should not have
NO SAY in what this country of ours does. They are an instrument.

We should be placing much more value on freedom of expression
and information than a military tool that is utilized far more
frequently to SQUASH such endeavors, i.e., Haiti comes to mind.

Again, I personally believe that there is NO NEED for a so-called
"peace time" military since they are hug resource hogs on our
economy. Unless an invader is amassing troops on our borders,
there is no excuse for glorifying the USMC.

but would I devalue the contribution of the marines to my country of scotland or to yours and my adopted country of the US because one despotic little tick of a man is misusing them? I think you and I agree here - I was referring to the point on the "suspect" involvement in ww2. there I disagree.

Because there are those at both ends of the political spectrum that see no difference between a just, necessary intervention and an imperialistic boondoggle.

that there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats. Utopian idealists should get out more and see the world.

You don't have to owe squat to a Marine. And Marines have been invading nations on the orders of our civilian leadership, not because they just one day woke up with a bug up their ass and said hey let's go invade a country. The U. S. is not threatened directly by anyone because of Soldiers and Sailor and Airmen and Marines and Coast Guardsmen. C-SPAN is extremely important. Thank God our folks in uniform are doing their duty to ensure it remains in existence. Therefore, I remain unswayed. Marines are much more important. Without them, we wouldn't have CSPAN. Thank you for sharing your first amendment rights here, and thank you Marines for allowing me to share mine.

Well said.

:eyes:

I'm a classic kinda guy. Is your response a compliment or do I detect skepticism? Please share with us the success of the equivalent of CSPAN in China and North Korea. Please tell me that we are free just because we want to be. Please tell me that we are wasting billions on defense because we can have it our way just because we want things our way. I'm a 24 year Navy Vet and a flaming liberal and I can share my views here or wherever I want to, not because of CSPAN but because of the grunts who will ensure those "outside" the country don't take that right away. CSPAN STAYS ON THE AIR BECAUSE MARINES STAY ON DUTY - CLASSIC INDEED.

Some are blissfully unaware of the need for the military, as they sit and ponder a nudist utopia. Soldiers hate war more than anyone else.

histories of our two presidential candidates. One doesn't give a flying dog fuck about the lives of our kids. The other who served, likes to take a sober moment before commitment. You are absolutely right, no one hates war more than those who fight it. But ours do so for love of country, love of CSPAN, love of DU, love of Free Republic. And we have been feeling the love for more than 200 years.

The marines in particular...anything short of combat duty in the infantry is beneath a lot of the enlisted folks. You should have seen the excitement when one squad I was visiting was told they were going to the front line in Iraq a year ago. They were more than ready and thrilled to "go kick some ass".

These guys dont think much about the right or wrong they just go do what they are told. Frightening. but is exactly why we need them - people who can do that and think like that, people who can without a second thought run in front of a fixed gun to draw fire while they surviving members of their team take out the guns. People who dont think about the family of the guy in their crosshairs. people who dont think about the right, wrong or politics, but pull the trigger with no hesitation.

We the civilians NEED them to do what they do, and they need us to watch CSpan and make sure they are not misused by the horrid little fart of a man from texas. They are not letting us down - we are letting them down by not voting out the prick who sent them where they are.

I watch C-Span.

:toast:

We need both of them.

The Army, Navy, or Airforce can do anything the Marines can do, but no one would, or maybe even could, do the job that C-Span does.

Its not that I have anything against the Marines, my father was one and I served in the Army, my Step Father was in the Air Force and my mother was a WAC back in the big war. Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against the military and to tell the truth I think there should be a draft.

How do you kill a marine....throw some sand on a brick wall and tell him to hit the beach.

without the marines and only having the regular forces (great as they are) the US becomes france or australia in terms of military ability.

on edit - it has been pointed out that what i typed above is wrong. The US would be like a bigger britain - great troops and special forces but not the fanatical hit the beach kids of the marines.

always willing to admit the many times Im wrong - sorry army, airforce, navy, coast guard.

You are aware the Army has the 82nd Airborne Division, the Special Forces, Airborne Ranger battalions, and elite light infantry divisions (e.g. 10th Mountain Division, which has been in Afghanistan since Day One). I love the Marines, but it makes me laugh when they claim they are the elite of the military. I know it's good espirit de corps, but don't be insulting the Army, Jasper.

they are the guys who you cabn send in to get shot first. The other forces have some amazing people. so do the british SAS and many others. What most nations do not have is a group like the marines who can be relied on to run en masse at the guns. Everyone has cannon fodder troops, but not the fanatical and effective cannon fodder that make up the marines. I know WW2 - every service did this - everyone had to.

I am not belittling the other services (I was never a marine -just my wife's family business is the corp) but the marines are the guys that the other services look at and say (as I have heard from officers in every service) - well im glad they are around to do it, someone had to. the marines take the jobs no one wants. does that make them better...no. Smarter...definitely not. invaluable yes.

apologies for unintentionally insulting the army or any other service.

I just feel that both have their place in the world and that both are necessary.

The Air Force has no infantry.
Likewise, the Army can't call in Army close air support to support that infantry, becuase -- unlike the Marines -- they have no fixed wing aircraft.

Marines offer the most complete package to win battles. Been doing it well since 1775.

you have to give a nod to the U.S. Air Force Combat Controllers. Anyone who goes to jump school, scuba school, and trains with Marines, Seals, and Rangers is a grunt to me even if he is an air traffic controller. True there is less than 500 of them service wide, but it's unfair to say the zoomies have no ground combat arms. :)

I knew some FACs, and they were top notch.

But my point is that the "Air Force can do what the Marines do."
SOOOOO not true. They have no infantry, they can't send a handful of FACs to secure bridges in Iraq and bring their own tanks across, while (to address what the Army can't do) having Marine Harriers are on station above them.

That's my point.

Semper Fi L.C.

It is more than just rhetoric when we say that without the marines there is no cspan. present use of the marines aside - they do a job that no one else even wants to know about.

without the Marines we couldn't invade countries that don't want us, endlessly..

without C-Span we couldn't watch the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, endlessly...

Which means, right now, my money's on C-Span.

Besides, have you seen the Marines' Logo?! It's a cross between KAOS and parallel universe Empire that Captain Kirk visited:

KAOS:


(not the right color scheme, but the art is spot-on - click to visit, it's geocities... x( )

Kirk's parallel world: (logo on blue door)



Marines:


(not the best example, and I've seen far clearer pictures depicting the anchor piercing the Earth with an eagle's talons grasping North America...)

The similarities aren't pleasant to contemplate.

Incidentially, no offense to those enlisted in the Marines. They just do what they're told. You know, the same quote * doesn't want to hear from Iraqis who wanted to fight against him when the "war" started a year ago...

I could tell by Scotty's twinkly gold cummerbund!

Considering that the Marine Corps has been in existence since 1775 and the emblem in its current form since 1868, I'd believe that it predated Star Trek by some time. :eyes:

By the way, the anchor represents the Marine Corps naval traditions while the eagle represents the United States itself.

http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

I wonder how many people will disregard this Marine's comments. :eyes:

And America needs to protect the Marines. We need to make the Government by and for the People operate honorably and wisely. We need to assure that when the Marines are called to battle, it is for reasons worthy of their valor and sacrifice, not some excercise in empire for the financial interests of a few. We have an obligation to assure they get the resources they need to do our bidding in battle and to be as well protected from harm as can be possible. We are honor bound to provide them with adequate care for healing wounds they receive in service to us. We have a sacred trust to watch their backs, especially when they are at the front.

The military is more than hardware and state of the art tools sold by nationless corporations for obscene profit. The military is flesh and blood, our brothers and sisters, our parents, our children.

As a people, we need to be more vigilant to assure our government honors all our committments to our fighting forces. We need to constantly watch our representatives' dealings and make them do right by our military personell.

Without CSPAN, we cannot do our jobs. We need to get more American citizens involved with watching over the mechanisms of government so we can look the Marines in the eye and know we did out duty to them.

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What's this whole Marine fetish? They're not the only ones doing the work.

Oh, and by the way, war is business - always has been, always will be. C-SPAN is a greater force for democracy.

Sure, they give a lot of time to the right wing, but they also cover things like anti-war rallies and meetings of everyone from Libertarians to Maoists and feature authors' appearances at bookstores, as well as live coverage of Congressional and Senate hearings, so we can see our reps up close and personal without their handlers.

I have a whole new cocept about C-Span now adays !

but plenty of countries remain free without going off and invading others. Yes, we need defense, but one thing about this country that makes me crazy is the sizable percentage of people who will become all gung ho about invading a country they never even heard of until the day before, just because the politicians and TV whores say so.

I'm not gung ho about invading anybody. I'm just happy we have a mechanism (defense) in place to allow you and me to chat freely. Our argument is with the civilian government; not the men and women in uniform. They do what they are told to do; and they do it very well. Gung ho does not equate to supporting the "Defense" Department.

private "enforcer" (in the Mafia sense) for US capital, & always has been, as marvelously described by Gen. Smedley Butler some 70 years ago. The function of the military is primarily to use violence to make the world more profitable for US corporations.

The Pentagon also lies at the very heart of the US economy, & controls the flow of enormous sums of money. This mechanism serves to transfer trillions of dollars from US taxpayers into the hands of well-connected contractors. Cost is socialized; profit is privatized. The waste & corruption involved is legendary.

The US military is basically a gangster operation. It robs US taxpayers, giving them wars and military bases all over the world instead of health care, quality education & a clean environment. When it fights abroad, it is almost never a matter of "defense" - it's OFFENSE, usually murdering innocent helpless people & permanently poisoning their countries with chemicals & radioactivity.

The individuals serving in the military, at least at lower levels, can't really be blamed for this, because they generally don't understand what they are participating in. As an institution, however, the military is a central part of a hideously corrupt system. It would be a significant gain for the mental health of this pathetically confused society, if the military were to be more widely seen for what it really is.

good post.

This Devil Dog can't even believe we are having this discussion.

Semper Fi

why can't you? You prefer militarism to democracy? Invasions
to debate?

Your questions here were almost as ignorant as your questioning the U.S. legitimacy in fighting W.W. II.

:eyes:
Bravo! You learn well from the other side.

Marines Corps!

Semper Fi!

Not everyone has cable TV. :P

Every time I turn C-Span on I fall asleep. I can't stand it.

There is no comparison.

and then we wouldnt have such a need for CSpan.

I watch it all the time and it is valuable in this era of corporate owned media and their propaganda news.

The Marines are badasses. I don't think C-Span strikes fear into anyone's heart.

If you need to send in something: USMC.

If you need to call in something: c-span.

As a former Marine, I am only glad I didn't have this little piss-ant as a President when served.

Frankly I'd like to have both. If I can choose one, I'd have to go with the Marines. Semper Fi.

C-Span is great, but the nation survived years without it. While I myself do appreciate it, I honestly don't believe many do. It's watched by very few people.

So let's keep our C-Span and our Marines -- though with the way Bush is going with all these budget defecits...(wait IS C-Span private?)