[kj] FW: Please sign the petition - it's too late

[Brendan]

The dirty dozen is a classic movie where a rag tag bunch of violent crims
(pretty sure they weren't all burglars etc) are given the chance to
redeedm themselves in a dangerous mission behind german lines, and they
do. I was just saying I don't agree with that, in most cases antisocial
violent crims would make useless soldiers IMO.

Raises the question of what is right and what is lawful...just because
something is lawful doesn't mean it's right, and just because something is
unlawful doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong (smoking a joint).

As The Corporation points out, often the most antisocial orrganisations
have perfectly nice people working in them, right up to the top. Same can
be the case, I suppose, with armies performing atrocities...as hard as it
is to get your head around.

So yeah, it's the definition of criminal, which means unlawful, but not
necessarily 'bad'. My example should really have been more
specific...violent psychopaths make terrible soldiers, I probably
shouldn't extrapolate further than that with other criminals.


> Well, if Nazis were "real criminals," they generally made excellent

> soldiers, even if Germany ultimately lost WW2. In other words, as far as

> soldiers go, the German WW2 army was a pretty disciplined and generally

> well-oiled fighting machine. Now, whether they were spread too thin, or,

> being soldiers, suffered from the bad decisions of generals --that

> doesn't make them poor soldiers. Just good soldiers directed towards

> unprofitable/unattainable goals. And almost by definition the Nazis were

> criminals, some moreso than others.

>

> Lockheed Martin has at least 28 criminal convictions against it, but

> it's still one of the globe's most profitable companies. If I had seven

> criminal convictions on my person I wonder how wealthy I could get. It's

> all in how you define "criminal." there's the legal definition, or it

> could be a catch-all phrase to mean a shifty, duplicitous, amoral,

> traitorous person.

>

> -Oliver

>

>

> Brendan wrote:

>

> "The myth of the dirty dozen is just that IMO, real criminals usually

> make shitty soldiers...they desert, attack and kill their own,

> collaborate with the enemy, whatever if it serves their own cause."

>

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