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Their orders are to protect British life and sovereignty. They do that by making sure other people don't come along and blow you up or shoot you. It isn't a whim.
You've just moved the whim to someone else, the person giving the orders.
How does being at the mercy of the guy giving orders make me free?
i would put money on Shimmer being some little low life with no friends who gets his kicks from talking crap on the internet
No you aren't. You a free because you have men who are protecting that freedom as you type.
Again, look at the examples of the Spain between 30s and 70s, was a born then "free by default"?
As an aside, your logical argument would also suggets that you see no need for any other service, e.g. police, fire, ambulance, health generally, education, waste disposal etc ad nauseum.
Says Mr Kettle
Explain to us how someone being your employee makes you at the mercy of his whim.
Nope. Freedom can only be removed, taken away. Otherwise it's the natural state of a human. They can go anywhere, do whatever they like. This can only be stopped.
I don't follow the second half of your argument, you made a jump I don't understand. Can you fill in the blanks?
Because there is no way of stopping someone with superior force from taking whatever they like from you anyway?
Or, in another form, how do I stop paying if I don't like what my money is buying?
Have you ever seen a newborn?
Fuckwit.
Yes.
They have total freedom, same as all humans.
Why so hostile, btw?
Yes, total freedom (as if there is such a thing) until someone tries to take it away, as they absolutely always do. So how, in your utopia, would you react to that?
What utopia?
There is nothing you can do to fight someone much stronger and more ruthless than than you, other than avoid them if you can.
Perhaps with the exception of the swastika itself, because it's being used by modern nazi's.
And also because the swastika wasn't a symbol of germany, but of the Nazi party. Akin to the conservative party brittania, or the labour party... is it a flower? I dunno.
They don't make logos like they used to, I guess.
You said that freedom meant that "They can go anywhere, do whatever they like." - newborns cannot, they are reliant on others. To feed them, to get them about. In fact without others they would die. The is no "natural state" of freedom.
Because you are trying to be clever, when in fact you're an idiot who has read a few books.
They have total freedom to go anywhere, to do whatever they like.
They don't have much ability, but that's not a limit on that freedom, any more than my inability to jump to the moon is a limit on my freedom.
You are trying to make deterministic what is actually freely chosen, because you have made choices in your own life that your ego cannot face. Therefore, you lie.
Weak.
No not really. There are two strands here, and they are seperate.
One strand says that anyone with superior force is the guy telling you what to do, therefore why on earth would we have a military. The logic of this is absolute and is outlined above.
The other strand is about human freedom. We are free by nature, although that is limited by what is actually possible for us to do. What is possibel for us to do is not given to us by other people, it is just how we are. I can wander around the earth, not becuse soldiers allow me to do so, I just can. As small experiment, I went to the shops. I didnt have to ask for permission, I just did it.
But what does this have to do with the iron cross?
Nothing, it's just where the discussion has gone from me saying that killing a guy for money is exactly the same no matter what token you give them in payment.
Some folks don't like this stark, factual account of what soldiering is - murder for pay in a costume.
Tough, really, because the facts aren't changing any time soon.
You are arguing something frmo the comfort of your home, in a country where you are free to do and say what you lie and so you have no real understanding of what freedom actually is.
The reason that you live in such comfort is because we have a standing army whose job it is to maintain a freedom which has been fought for and won. Without standing armies throughout our history we would not have the freedoms which you are taking for granted.
History is peppered with people who have tried to impose their will on others, whether that is the mongol hordes, the romans, the norman, the Nazis... in other countries you can find similar such examples - the Serbs in Bosnia/Kosovo and Croatia are possibly the most recent in Europe.
Now, in terms of the Iron Cross, or any other medal for gallantry, we have a method of refcognising that there are some "honourable" people who will willingily lay down their life, or put their life in peril, not for their own personal advancement but to ensure that you retain your freedom.
When you talk about the "whim" of the soldier to maintain your freedom, in abstract you are correct. In reality, those "murders" and "hitmen" you refer to are honourable men in this country. Think yourself lucky, in other countries that is not the case.
Do you have anything to add that's not an excuse for killing and is even vaguely attacjed to reality?
All I see is you pushing myths, with no real world facts behind them. Oh, and question dodging. You are good at that too.
You mean apart from thousands of years of human history?
Questions like?
Bloke A says to Bloke B - I will give you money if you murder who I point you at.
Bloke B says "ok then".
This is soldiering.
This question resulted in an insult and no answer.
Is it? I spent a fair part of my soldiering like this
Bloke A - says lets got and kill those pesky Moslem
Bloke B 'ok then'
Flashy's OC says 'You have to get through my Micks first'
Flashy walks up and down a road, hoping that no-one shoots at him
Ok, modifying a little.
Bloke A says "will you kill who I tell you to if I pay you?"
Bloke B says "sure, no problem"
Bloke C says "Will you kill who I tell you to if I pay you?"
Bloke D says "sure, no problem."
Bloke A says kill bloke C and anyone who gets in the way bloke C says kill bloke A and anyone who gets in the way.
Ok, so we have two sets of people willing to kill for money, and two sets of people willing to pay people to murder. So, morally equivalency all round - i.e. none, just sociopaths and those they pay to do their bidding.
Soldiering is killing for money. That's all.
Sociopaths can't be soldiers - or at least not good ones. Soldiers aren't there for pay, or money, but when the shit hits the fan for their mates, their men and their officers. A sociopath wouldn't stay in harms way. If soldiers were sociopaths there would be no wars, because no-one would stay to put their life on the line.
never said that soldiers were sociopaths, I said that they were paid by sociopaths.
Soldiers are perfectly rational people who take cash to murder others. They are good at it, and think long term. Evil doesn't equal stupid.
I'm afraid I'm going to bow out. It's like arguing with a very stupid twelve year old. You obviously don't understand soldiers, their motivations or their job and it's pointless debating with you - because you obviously don't understand why people become soldiers or the difference between murder and legitmate use of force.
All I can say, is that if your predictions come true and the economy collapses and chaos ensures, sadly you may find you need soldiers. let's hope there's some around when the mobs start burning down the houses...