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none of my friends in the armed forces are smart or socially conscious people. they are not at all curious about any of life's questions.
Yeah, the armed forces is overwhelmingly conservative. Even if you’re not conservative when you go in, being immersed in it for so long means you likely are when you get out. There are outliers, sure. But statistically, the people in the armed forces will only have the opinions that Fox News tells them to have.
I have no horse in this race :)
The fascist armed forces do and they have them trample on protesters.
Normally they just terrorise brown people, also nice that they don't have to take a plane to do that now.
I am recently (last few weeks recent) out of the Navy. Not eoas but I doubt people are interested in the reasons and it would be easy to dox me if I got into details.
Its bad. Most of the people in the navy are more than willing to do whatever they are told. I was a role that had a higher than average level of people leaning left and even then most of them were explicitly republican even if they thought trump was stupid.
The military will just do whatever they are told unless someone higher up is willing to break ranks first.
Let's face it, who do you think elected the Mr. President?
Musk's voting machines?
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Most of the US military have zero qualms about obeying illegal orders.
Reference: Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and most other U.S. instigated wars for their entire history.
This is what has been most depressing/distressing about watching all of this unfold. People online (and I'm not immune to this either) have this impulse to think "Surely not right? Surely these people will come to their senses and not just blindly follow transparently evil orders right? We've been told these people are heroes who stand up for freedom and democracy and our safety right? Surely at least some of them will do the right thing right?" It's so ingrained into us through support our troops propaganda and various TV/Movies showing them and cops as principled heroes saving the day. We've also seen this with corporations. "Wow I can't believe this company turned away from DEI so quickly. I can't believe this company is going to keep selling surveillance tech to the government. Surely someone will see how wrong that is."
And then I snap back to my senses and remember history. We've seen what horrors these people are willing to commit, whether they want to or are "just following orders." Maybe you at least believe that they won't do it to US, as cynical as that is... and then you remember Kent State, segregation, the violent crackdown on unions, the police rallying around protecting cops who execute people in the streets, etc.
Nobody is going to come to their senses. None of them are coming to save us from themselves. If we don't stand up for ourselves this is just going to happen and be another chapter in a long history of cruelty.
The thing is that it becomes different when the order becomes "go to your home town, shoot anyone who disobeys, including your friends and family."
It might take a decade of brutal civil war, but look what happened in Syria. In the end the people in the army were also tired of murdering their own people.
The solution here is even easier than the division they've already been sowing upon the American people.
You don't send them home. You send them to the place that is the most culturally disparate from the way they grew up possible. You're a New England liberal? Great. We'll post you in the center of conservative Texas. Red Cap from a family of Diehard conservatives? You go to Oregon. New York inner city youth? You get special duty, guarding critical corporate infrastructure.
Keep them divided, keep them guessing. All it takes for control of a human being.
The Milgram experiment. The Zimbardo prison experiment. The bystander effect. At the end of the day, humans are just monkeys with smart watches. As social primates, it's really hard to be the one to stand up against the crowd. Our brains decide how to act based largely on the reactions of other humans around us.
It's disheartening.
Don't use the Zimbardo prison experiment. From your link:
Certain critics have described the study as unscientific and fraudulent.[6][7] In particular, Thibault Le Texier has established that the guards were asked directly to behave in certain ways in order to confirm Zimbardo's conclusions, which were largely written in advance of the experiment.
That just makes it worse! (From my point of view here.) People behaving reprehensibly because an authority figure asked them to do it? That's just the Milgram experiment, but without any apparent hesitation!
I'm going to repeat what @plyth said. "Don't use the Zimbardo prison experiment".
Zimbardo was as manipulative as the psychologists from the Robbers Cave experiment,
with the only difference being that the former was only done once, while in the latter,
the subjects figured out that they were being manipulated and turned against the psychologists.
Because of this, the conclusions Zimbardo drew himself are very different from when you conclude that
Zimbardo was behind the whole ordeal pulling the strings.
One only needed to stand up against one person, not a crowd.
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These boots taste great.
You might want to edit your post to read "armed forces" rather than army. The United States armed forces include Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, Air Force, Space Force (LOL), and the National Guard. I apologize if I left anyone out.
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People inside rn be like: "Why are some of these people I'm shooting white??.. Ah well."
If you honestly think they have an issue with following illegal orders, I think you should take a look at The Kent State massacre
The military has done some horrible stuff but going back 50+ years to prove how they feel today seems a stretch.
Get literally any soldier who was deployed to iraq or afghanistan drunk and they'll tell you about unpunished warcrimes they witnessed or participated in.
Fuck off. I have 3 deployments under my belt and 0 war crimes. Some of us are just born poor as fuck and wanted to go to college. The military honestly isn't some monolithic entity.. 90% of the people on this thread literally have never talked to a service member and it shows lol
I served in the military. You don't seem to know much about it.
Literally any soldier? Really? The cooks? The guy at the mechanic shop? Literally any soldier?
Not everyone is going out on patrol. Not every soldier is committing a war crime. I've known dozens of people who went over seas and didn't even see a hint of action. WTF is with these wild assumptions being passed as facts.
Does it happen, for fucking sure. But not at the level you seem to be implying. Not at all. People let their emotions rule over reason way too much.
Even if it was over 50 years ago it was a significant point in history that a lot of people seem to forget, and was a major turning point for the public during Vietnam. It's also relevant to today with what's happening.
Yes, but no one serving then is serving now. Leadership has cycled many times. I mean, how far do you take this? Can you use events from 200 years ago to claim how a group thinks?
Also culture has changed, the type of people in the service has changed, so much has changed in 50 years. This is ignoring all nuance.
Ah, so you think learning from history is pointless because it's not happening here and now, gotcha.
..... How dishonest.
Learning from history is one thing. Holding people accountable for the actions of others, from before they were even born, is stupid.
But you knew that. You're just trolling or hate the military too much to think clearly.
But let's follow your logic. Let's take actions of people in the past and apply them now. So, given the holocaust I'm assuming you think all present day Germans hate Jews and want them to die? I mean we need to learn from the past right? Just because it's not happening here and now you can't ignore it. Right?
"War criminals of lemmy, what do you and your fellow pond scum think about potentially shooting white people for a change?"
Pond scum is an extremely productive microecosystem. I won't stand for you insulting it by comparing US soldiers to it.
Additionally, gonna hazard a guess that the majority of the protesters aren't white or at least wouldn't be considered white by the soldiers regardless of their skin tone. They're literally protesting white supremacist actions by the government.
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Are they allowed on Lemmy? Partially sarcastic
Yeah, since it's "peace time" and less risk there's probably a decent chunk of the armed forces who are just in it for the perks ( free college, Healthcare) and don't believe in it and are trying to serve there time and get out and not make a career of it.
They aren't cops who almost always want to be cops and make it a core part of their identity and belief system. They aren't allowed on lemmy.
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Eyes Left podcast: A Guide to Getting Out of the US Military (Now) w/ the GI Rights Hotline
It's much easier than the Pentagon wants you to think. Whether you're in the military or know someone who is, this is the definitive guide to walking away. And as Biden's support for genocide spins out into new US wars across the Middle East, from the Red Sea to Iraq, now would be a good time to walk away.
Featuring special guest Maria Santelli, longtime counselor with the GI Rights Hotline, which provides secure, free and expert support to any service member who wants to leave the military.
CALL the hotline anytime at 1-877-447-4487 for advice, or visit them online at https://girightshotline.org/
Maria is Executive Director of the Center on Conscience and War: https://centeronconscience.org/ GI Rights Hotline
Anyone who answers this question is doing so at risk to their career. I hope they do either way.
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this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
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