You misunderstand what I meant, I was not meaning to imply that I, or anyone else was special, what I meant was that you do not have the entire picture as others who have worked in some fields do. You can't unless you were there. Experience IS important.
I didn't misunderstand you at all. Saying that because I wasn't there, I cannot have the entire picture, and because you were, you can, is practically the definition of special. If anything, your experience limits the part of the entire picture you can see.
Someone in the military is going to look at things through the eyes of someone in the military, and they can't see the entire picture. They simply can't, it's impossible for them to do so. It's impossible for anyone to do so, really. Someone in the Intelligence service will look at things not only though the eyes of someone in the military, but also from someone in the Intelligence community, and they can't see the entire picture, either. Yes, experience is important, but more often than not, it's not nearly as important as the practical application of knowledge to be learned from the experience of others.
Experience is important, but knowledge is power.
You only get what is fed to you by the news or wiki or other places that have little idea of what really goes on.
By
"other places that have little idea of what really goes on", which is also where I get a lot of my information, did you purposefully mean to exclude my close relatives who are in the military and in the Intelligence community, whom I talk with on a regular basis?
It is NEVER as simple or one sided as you seem to believe it is. I sometimes feel that those of us who defend our nation are few and far between and are the ones providing the balance.
If you really believe, that I believe, that things are so simple and one-sided, then you haven't been paying attention. I am the epitome of seeing not only both sides on an issue, but all sides of them, and then drawing my own conclusions.
One thing you really, really should learn, is that there is more than one way to defend a nation. Defending a nation and the Constitution isn't limited to those who have put one under their chin.
From my experience and point of view you are very out of balance and out of touch with reality.
I dare you to back that up with a fer instance. I won't kiss your nor anyone else's feet and worship the ground you walk on simply because you were in the military. By the same token, I will not excuse anything and everything the military and intelligence community does because it's for the greater good of national security. I propose that those who do are out of touch with reality. If anything, I'm a pragmatist and a realist, not clouded and disillusioned the paranoia of Janes Quarterly or Spooks Monthly. I can excuse a lot of what goes on both overtly and covertly protect this nation, to be sure, but not all of it. It's those who excuse it all or defend it who are the problem.
My opinion and views are as valid as yours.
I never said anything any different. You're merely wrong when you use them to assume things about me that are incorrect. One can be valid and wrong at the same time.
You are not special either.
Never claimed I was.
And sir, I have NEVER called you names, ridiculed you on a PERSONAL level, cussed at you or anything near what you just said to me. I was NOT a snot nosed Spec 4 radio op. Not when I was a Spec 4 or when I was at the agency or now. Nor would I EVER presume to call you names.
Actually, I didn't call you names, either. When I do, I'll come right out and do it and in explicit manner. And I haven't ridiculed you on a personal level,
other than the level to which you yourself have intertwined the importance of your military and intelligence career with yourself as a person. When you set yourself upon a foundation of "I've been there done that,
therefore you should believe and respect me", and place your views and opinions on the same foundation, then it's all open to ridicule, including you personally within the bounds of your claims, views and opinions.
If you had given your views and opinions
without the qualification of the personal foundation you have laid, then you personally would be out of bounds, but you didn't, you have made you and your previous career one in the same by insisting that your views and opinions are important, trustworthy and worthy of respect, merely by virtue of what you have done personally. That's a dangerous thing.
I do not diminish ANY of your accomplishments, you earned all you have done. So have I. Just as I am unaware what you have done, you, for the most part, are truly unaware of what I have done.
The difference is, I have never said that you should believe me
because of some accomplishment or some experience. Leveling up a challenge like,
"When was the last time you "held one under your chin"?" is not exactly the way to win friends and influence people, not to mention garner respect for you or your opinions.
Show a little respect. We all earned it. Knock my views, NOT my person.
Like I said, when you can offer up views and opinions without demanding they be accepted at face value because of what you have claimed to have done, then I'll respect both the opinions and the person.
Challenging view/opinions is fun, we all learn from it causes people, my self included to look at our views more closely. Name calling and cussing does nothing. And yes, if you have never "held one under your chin" you DON'T have the insight that those of us who did have. Just as I do not have YOUR insight.
Correct, I do not have the insight that someone who has been there and done that, but do not think for a minute that I am incapable of learning from the knowledge of those who have. Believing that only those who have served are the ones capable of understanding that knowledge, is at the very least insulting, and at worst, elitism in the extreme.
[quoteI choose to look at the positive and work on the problems. Only based on what I see from you in here, you choose to only focus on the negative. That may or may not be true. It is just an observation, not an inditement.[/QUOTE]All I can say to that is, for someone who comes from the intelligence community, you're not very observant. Where you choose to look at the positive and work on the problems, I choose to look at both the positive and the problems, and deal with both accordingly.
Yeah, I like to feel all warm and fuzzy to, to have others slather praise upon us as a country, but I also know that while we are busy resting on our Great and Powerful Oz laurels and patting each other on the back, the world around us has changed, and for the most part is leaving us in their dust. We are not what we once were, and to pretend that we are, or that things can go back to the way they were, is a pipe dream of days long past. I simply choose to not live in the past, nor to dream that we can put things back like they were, because we can't.
