At last, I finally see. Baby Boomers are everything wrong with society.

Originally posted by inimalist
Maybe not everyone was a hippie, but there was way more going on. Maybe it's just rose coloured glasses, but it seems like that era was more aware of the world at large. Maybe it was the draft, or civil rights, or whatever, but I think the radicalism, at least by today's standards, was more widespread than just religating it to a counter-culture would insinuate.

You could see the differences they were addressing with their radicalism, though. A black man would walk down the street, just the same as a white. Same with women of any color. The causes today seem to be the things that everybody back then could agree with. Why can't a black man marry a white woman? Why shouldn't women make as much as men? All of that is fine. But two dudes settling down? That's just wrong. The outrage has gotetn more sophisticated, but only because of the outrage of those days. It's like sitcoms. Sure, there are still the Everybody Loves Raymonds, but there's also Curb Your Enthusiasm and Arrested Development.

Originally posted by King Kandy
There were radical hippies in the 1960s... but, there were tons of "straights" as well. You can't be a counterculture unless there's a larger "regular" culture to be against. When the time comes to vote, hippie candidates never panned out, because in terms of sheer numbers, they weren't as much of a presence as their social impact was.

I don't know about that. Well, at least where I live, there used to be lots of communes, and the city expanded to draw them in, not so much them leaving in favor of the city.

It's kind of hard to slice and dice them when both parties have become corporate whores.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Hahaha. If there had been a draft, Iraq war never could have gotten off the ground.

Why not?

Originally posted by Zeal Ex Nihilo
I touch small girls!!

Why is this man not banned? He is a pedophile!

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
Why not?

Originally posted by King Kandy
Because people would have wanted to inform themselves on the war if they knew they might have to give their life for it, and they would have found out how completely full of shit the reasons were for going there.

Not necessarily. There was always a protest whenever there was a draft in history. But they were just futile expressions of peoples' opinions because the draft carried on anyway, whether it was the Civil War, WW2 or Vietnam. What makes you think that this time it would have been any different? (the answer: nothing.)

Sure, you'd have college kids carrying signs saying "Hell No, We Won't Go", but in the grand scheme of things, nothing would change. The draft would continue.

I think the whole "a draft would cut down on frivolous wars because people would think about them more" is as faulty a notion as was Nobel's belief that the invention of dynamite would forever end war because of how terrible it was. Ditto for the inventor of the Gatling Gun and to a lesser extent early commentators on nuclear weapons.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
I think the whole "a draft would cut down on frivolous wars because people would think about them more" is as faulty a notion as was Nobel's belief that the invention of dynamite would forever end war because of how terrible it was. Ditto for the inventor of the Gatling Gun and to a lesser extent early commentators on nuclear weapons.

Originally posted by King Kandy
I don't see how anti-war protests further wars at all.

They don't further them, they just have zero impact on them. Go to DC or any college campus and you'll find demonstrators opposed to the war. None of their chanting or sign-waiving seems to be ending the war in Iraq.

Originally posted by King Kandy
I don't see why you find that a sound connection at all. Dynamite and Gatling Gun all further wars. I don't see how anti-war protests further wars at all.

The principle that Draft protests would stop all wars, or any wars for that matter is equally faulty.

If the American government wants to go to war the American government will probably go to war, even if it has to drag the public kicking and screaming.

The only surefire way to prevent frivolous war is to have an anti-war government.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Dynamite and the Gatling Gun were both invented with the intent that they present a weapon so terrifying that countries would realize the folly of war and live happily ever after.

The principle that Draft protests would stop all wars, or any wars for that matter is equally faulty.

If the American government wants to go to war the American government will probably go to war, even if it has to drag the public kicking and screaming.

The only surefire way to prevent frivolous war is to have an anti-war government.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
They don't further them, they just have zero impact on them. Go to DC or any college campus and you'll find demonstrators opposed to the war. None of their chanting or sign-waiving seems to be ending the war in Iraq.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Um, right. And to have an anti-war government, you need to vote one into power, by having a public that is anti-war. I think that the draft is a good way to do that.

Originally posted by King Kandy

Right, that's why a draft would help; the general public would have to pay attention to anti-war movements, because it could be a matter of life and death.

Drafts never helped end a war before. This time wouldn't be any different.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
Drafts never helped end a war before. This time wouldn't be any different.

Originally posted by King Kandy
The anti-vietnam attitudes had a serious role in the way that war ended.

Yeah, but it only 12 years of US involvement ...

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
Yeah, but it only 12 years of US involvement ...

Originally posted by King Kandy
I don't see how anti-war protests further wars at all.

It can certainly bring the "war" to the people in a more sentimental definition of "war", which is exactly what happened to the Vietnam.

I also do not see how the protests did anything spectacular to end the war. Politicians were already divided over the issue from "day 1".

Originally posted by King Kandy
I'm awestruck by how long it would have lasted if everyone was in favor of it.

I don't want an anti-war population. I want a population willing to go to war for the right reasons. But right now, I want the troops to come home.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Because people would have wanted to inform themselves on the war if they knew they might have to give their life for it, and they would have found out how completely full of shit the reasons were for going there.

Look how many people signed up after the bombing of pearl harbor, and 9/11. Enlistment skyrocketed after both. I think we would have seen the same war, only with more and more people serving more and more deployments. We saw this for a lot of years under the last administration, and I don't know if that has or has not changed with this administration.