He quietly urged other military personnel to reflect on their own positions. “They should be confident in questioning possibly immoral or illegal orders,” he said, “remembering they are responsible for their own actions, and knowing others are asking the same questions.”
“If they have doubts about their orders, they are not alone,”
All these comments are telling him to stay and fight, but they’re ignoring that could be devastating to his family.
He’s over the 20 year mark and can retire. If he stays and gets a dishonorable discharge, his family gets none of his retirement, no medical, and a family member with financial mobility akin to a felon.
What would you do in that situation?
I don’t think I’d be willing to put my family through that. We don’t have enough in the bank to take a blow like that. I’d probably do what he did. Try to fight another way.
He’s read SunTzu. He knows a good strategy sometimes is to be safe.
I hope he can move with his family out of range of the re-activation order.
Bullies and fascists do not stop unless they are forced to stop. If every american capitulates like this, then we are lost.
This is what it means to fight for country and freedom. It’s not just words in a country music song. Standing up for your beliefs sometimes means real risk and sacrifice.
If the armed forces want to be recognized for their service and sacrifice, this is how its done.
It’s not that Americans can’t and will not fight, it’s that half the population is illiterate. How do you fight 175 million neighbors?
Something like 50% of humans are hard wired to follow their gut. They rely on fairh, authority, and feelings to guide their everyday descision making. They do not live their lives based on facts or logic. If they believe something, then, its true.
Right wing media takes full advantage of this. They spent 40 years making people “feel” a certain way.
So, to answer your question, I think we need to stop the constant flow of poison flowing into their ears. The poison needs to be replaced with a better message.
I generally agree with you, but it flows both ways. And I know we hate this whole both sides thing, and I generally agree, but all news is propaganda these days, it feels like. The constant message I try to spread is to think micro. Stop taking on these world problems and try to solve a problem more locally, try to take an action that you can physically take with your own hands. I firmly believe that stronger communities make a stronger nation.
I live in a place where elections are upcoming, and I see signs of the opposition, but I try to think of these people first and foremost as my neighbors. I truly think that solves a lot of problems, because while the right is thinking of everyone on the left as criminals, the left is painting anyone on the right as Nazi fascists, and this in and of itself is a problem. The other side is not inherently wrong. There is no one correct way to do things. We’re all fumbling through life, nobody knows what theyre doing, lets try to do it without being afraid of each other.
Death and imprisonment, and collective punishment of wife and child. Are not a ask a sane person asks of any man unless the alternative is death.
Could be even worse, look at what happened to Stauffenberg’s family.
Arguable whether he signed up for that.
Fight and die in defence of a NATO ally? Yes. Same as the aggressor, if the elected government decides so, such as in Iraq? Also yes.
Risk having his wife, children, grandchildren taken away and put in Sippenhaft (collective punishment) or put in a reeducation orphanage? Not sure there is a moral obligation to that. Safety for his family was one of the things he got out of all this.
His risks for resisting beyond what he already did are higher than they would be for the average citizen. On the other hand, he also could do more than the average citizen.
A tough call, and I would not judge.