Is America a racist nation?

[a fan]

Made an awful lot of Marines real happy at the time as well as a whole bunch of others.

That's another angle here: pretend you're Truman. Do YOU want to be the guy explaining to your fellow Americans that you sat on the Bomb for months, and let our men die as the war drags on?

And this whole Monday Morning QB about "they were going to surrender", as if we had had flawless intel (ahem, Pearl Harbor) the entirety of the war, and Truman could count on ANYTHING he heard from our intel sources....let alone think that the intel on, say, Japan not wanting to surrender to the Russians, was an iron clad fact.

We hit them once, they didn't surrender. Yeah, debate how many days between the two bombs was reasonable, but bottom line, they didn't surrender after the first hit, folks. This isn't Monopoly or Hungry Hungry Hippos.


Say what you want about the racial angle....are we discussing the topic, or not? And that's a good thing, right? So thumbs up to those who try to inject race into an already complicated question--------why NOT consider that notion? There's nothing wrong with considering an idea. And if you disagree with the idea? Great. And if you don't? Great. All part of the discussion.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Seems winning a war, now has to have an argumenta asterisks and it can not merely be winning for the sake of winning.

This is interesting, echoing TLD, thanks.

I still think like in a fight, if you have to do it you do it to win definitively and if that means biting nuts then so be it. The point if you get into it is to end it as fast as possible.

https://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/2 ... a-nagasaki

Seems like many were of the opinion that the war was over. We make fun of lacrosse teams up 20-5 in lacrosse and then leaving all the starters in to run up the score….but that’s a sport.

Three days later, U.S. leaders ordered “Fat Man,” a plutonium-based bomb with an explosive yield of 21 kilotons, dropped on Nagasaki, home to over 260,000 people.

The attack occurred two days earlier than planned, 10 hours after the Soviets entered the war against Japan, and as Japanese leaders were contemplating surrender.

The Japanese should have contemplated their situation much quicker. It should have taken about 10 seconds after Hiroshima to understand it was game over. The emperor was the person who made the final decision to surrender. The Japanese military would have fought the war until the last Japanese capable of firing a weapon was dead.

That’s the conclusion you and the other historians drew?

That is the conclusion I drew. In what parralel universe could the Japanese not know it was game over? The very nature of the Japanese empire looks at surrender as the ultimate humiliation. They sort of proved that determination through the entire island hopping campaign in the South Pacific. Failure was never an option but it was an inevitability.

Earlier you had made reference to yourself and other historians. Thanks for the clarification. As you may recall, I asked where you studied.

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/educati ... tclips/010

"Did Nuclear Weapons Cause Japan to Surrender?

Another view (and an interesting take and variation on OS postulations). Especially note the second to the last paragraph regarding Japan's cultural bias about using the bomb drops as an explanation for their surrender whilst minimizing their loss of face over it. The first two paragraphs reinforce this view (which was articulated by the Japanese themselves at the time). I find this compelling.

As I have said before, history is often complicated.

... nice find. So basically the bombs made no difference if you believe Japanese sources and Carnegie analysts.

This bothers me in that it requires us to believe the Japanese thought they could go on fighting the US and its allies, WHICH WAS CLEARLY NOT SOMETHING THAT WAS DOABLE. The end of the war was a matter of time, there was no longer any chance the Japanese could win. All they could do was delay. The next step after the bomb was clear and it was not hundreds of thousands of allied troops invading the home islands given the allied fears of the cost of such a campaign. I think either the Japanese were lying or making a very serious miscalculation.

They could not fight the US allies and the Russians, they admit this. But somehow they thought they could fight the US allies by themselves, allies which clearly would pound them into the ground killing millions more Japanese the longer the war went on and ultimately still end in their defeat and surrender. Makes no sense to me.

As I said, history IS OFTEN complicated. This theory might be partially true. I'm sure Hiroshima got the Japanese government's attention in some fashion although this piece posits that the massive incendiary bombing campaign that proceeded it was vastly more damaging and deadly. The theory is that they were much more worried about the Soviets occupying territory than the Americans which is many ways does make some sense. The authors maintain that the deployment of the two nuclear bombs gave the Japanese leaders the cover to surrender as they did to insure an American vs. Soviet occupation. They seemingly found a cultural face-saving rationale in surrendering unconditionally using the atomic bombs as a reason to give up. It's just one opinion but it rings true and some level. The reality may be somewhere in between it and other theories on the reasoning for the dual atomic bombings in such close proximity timewise. Parts of the theory seem plausible. Then again, perhaps it was all coincidental, I suppose.

jhu72 - To leap to the conclusion that the use of nuclear weapons did not matter is just absurd. That's not what that article said. It was pointing out other factors & the timing that factored into the decision to surrender. Before the bomb AND the Soviet entry (on the same day) they hoped for a negotiated peace.

This is why these self-loathing, race based, guilt driven revisions of history are a waste of time.
We are now supposed to feel guilty for using the bomb, for using 2 bombs, & for doing it for racist reasons.
We have lost our minds.

Who said anything about feeling guilty?

[Kismet]

Seems winning a war, now has to have an argumenta asterisks and it can not merely be winning for the sake of winning.

This is interesting, echoing TLD, thanks.

I still think like in a fight, if you have to do it you do it to win definitively and if that means biting nuts then so be it. The point if you get into it is to end it as fast as possible.

https://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/2 ... a-nagasaki

Seems like many were of the opinion that the war was over. We make fun of lacrosse teams up 20-5 in lacrosse and then leaving all the starters in to run up the score….but that’s a sport.

Three days later, U.S. leaders ordered “Fat Man,” a plutonium-based bomb with an explosive yield of 21 kilotons, dropped on Nagasaki, home to over 260,000 people.

The attack occurred two days earlier than planned, 10 hours after the Soviets entered the war against Japan, and as Japanese leaders were contemplating surrender.

The Japanese should have contemplated their situation much quicker. It should have taken about 10 seconds after Hiroshima to understand it was game over. The emperor was the person who made the final decision to surrender. The Japanese military would have fought the war until the last Japanese capable of firing a weapon was dead.

That’s the conclusion you and the other historians drew?

That is the conclusion I drew. In what parralel universe could the Japanese not know it was game over? The very nature of the Japanese empire looks at surrender as the ultimate humiliation. They sort of proved that determination through the entire island hopping campaign in the South Pacific. Failure was never an option but it was an inevitability.

Earlier you had made reference to yourself and other historians. Thanks for the clarification. As you may recall, I asked where you studied.

The ultimate humiliation until you face a choice of DEGREES of humiliation and you opt for the lesser humiliation because you can spin it into BUSHIDO code to save some face.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Seems winning a war, now has to have an argumenta asterisks and it can not merely be winning for the sake of winning.

This is interesting, echoing TLD, thanks.

I still think like in a fight, if you have to do it you do it to win definitively and if that means biting nuts then so be it. The point if you get into it is to end it as fast as possible.

https://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/2 ... a-nagasaki

Seems like many were of the opinion that the war was over. We make fun of lacrosse teams up 20-5 in lacrosse and then leaving all the starters in to run up the score….but that’s a sport.

Three days later, U.S. leaders ordered “Fat Man,” a plutonium-based bomb with an explosive yield of 21 kilotons, dropped on Nagasaki, home to over 260,000 people.

The attack occurred two days earlier than planned, 10 hours after the Soviets entered the war against Japan, and as Japanese leaders were contemplating surrender.

The Japanese should have contemplated their situation much quicker. It should have taken about 10 seconds after Hiroshima to understand it was game over. The emperor was the person who made the final decision to surrender. The Japanese military would have fought the war until the last Japanese capable of firing a weapon was dead.

That’s the conclusion you and the other historians drew?

That is the conclusion I drew. In what parralel universe could the Japanese not know it was game over? The very nature of the Japanese empire looks at surrender as the ultimate humiliation. They sort of proved that determination through the entire island hopping campaign in the South Pacific. Failure was never an option but it was an inevitability.

Earlier you had made reference to yourself and other historians. Thanks for the clarification. As you may recall, I asked where you studied.

The ultimate humiliation until you face a choice of DEGREES of humiliation and you opt for the lesser humiliation because you can spin it into BUSHIDO code to save some face.

https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/cgi/v ... ontext=rpj

I know Old Salt and Cradleandshoot don’t see it this way. They are more credible based on their history of posting here. Two objective guys with no skin in the game…..guys that published the writing were just being “woke” and must feel “guilty”.

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://www.history.com/.amp/news/dresd ... wii-allies

[DMac]

Gotta love these brainy folks who fight the war with pencil and paper from comfy and cozy environments and with 20-20 hindsight vision.

In the unlikely
event that a subsequent full-scale invasion had been mounted in
1946, the maximum estimate found in such documents was 46,000.
46,000 deaths, though significant, pales in comparison to the estimated 105,000
deaths caused by the two bombings.

Nope, 46K doesn't pale to any number when you're one of the 46K.
Justification for dropping the bombs given the times and state of
the world.

[cradleandshoot]

Seems winning a war, now has to have an argumenta asterisks and it can not merely be winning for the sake of winning.

This is interesting, echoing TLD, thanks.

I still think like in a fight, if you have to do it you do it to win definitively and if that means biting nuts then so be it. The point if you get into it is to end it as fast as possible.

https://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/2 ... a-nagasaki

Seems like many were of the opinion that the war was over. We make fun of lacrosse teams up 20-5 in lacrosse and then leaving all the starters in to run up the score….but that’s a sport.

Three days later, U.S. leaders ordered “Fat Man,” a plutonium-based bomb with an explosive yield of 21 kilotons, dropped on Nagasaki, home to over 260,000 people.

The attack occurred two days earlier than planned, 10 h kiours after the Soviets entered the war against Japan, and as Japanese leaders were contemplating surrender.

The Japanese should have contemplated their situation much quicker. It should have taken about 10 seconds after Hiroshima to understand it was game over. The emperor was the person who made the final decision to surrender. The Japanese military would have fought the war until the last Japanese capable of firing a weapon was dead.

That’s the conclusion you and the other historians drew?

That is the conclusion I drew. In what parralel universe could the Japanese not know it was game over? The very nature of the Japanese empire looks at surrender as the ultimate humiliation. They sort of proved that determination through the entire island hopping campaign in the South Pacific. Failure was never an option but it was an inevitability.

Earlier you had made reference to yourself and other historians. Thanks for the clarification. As you may recall, I asked where you studied.

I never meant to include my opinions with that of any historians. There was a point in time in my life where the history of WW2 was a passionate hobby of mine. I'm not and never have been a historian. I did study the war in great depth on my own time as a HS teenager. It was my way of paying homage to my dad and a subject that fascinated me to no end.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Seems winning a war, now has to have an argumenta asterisks and it can not merely be winning for the sake of winning.

This is interesting, echoing TLD, thanks.

I still think like in a fight, if you have to do it you do it to win definitively and if that means biting nuts then so be it. The point if you get into it is to end it as fast as possible.

https://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/2 ... a-nagasaki

Seems like many were of the opinion that the war was over. We make fun of lacrosse teams up 20-5 in lacrosse and then leaving all the starters in to run up the score….but that’s a sport.

Three days later, U.S. leaders ordered “Fat Man,” a plutonium-based bomb with an explosive yield of 21 kilotons, dropped on Nagasaki, home to over 260,000 people.

The attack occurred two days earlier than planned, 10 h kiours after the Soviets entered the war against Japan, and as Japanese leaders were contemplating surrender.

The Japanese should have contemplated their situation much quicker. It should have taken about 10 seconds after Hiroshima to understand it was game over. The emperor was the person who made the final decision to surrender. The Japanese military would have fought the war until the last Japanese capable of firing a weapon was dead.

That’s the conclusion you and the other historians drew?

That is the conclusion I drew. In what parralel universe could the Japanese not know it was game over? The very nature of the Japanese empire looks at surrender as the ultimate humiliation. They sort of proved that determination through the entire island hopping campaign in the South Pacific. Failure was never an option but it was an inevitability.

Earlier you had made reference to yourself and other historians. Thanks for the clarification. As you may recall, I asked where you studied.

I never meant to include my opinions with that of any historians. There was a point in time in my life where the history of WW2 was a passionate hobby of mine. I'm not and never have been a historian. I did study the war in great depth on my own time as a HS teenager. It was my way of paying homage to my dad and a subject that fascinated me to no end.

[cradleandshoot]

Gotta love these brainy folks who fight the war with pencil and paper from comfy and cozy environments and with 20-20 hindsight vision.

In the unlikely
event that a subsequent full-scale invasion had been mounted in
1946, the maximum estimate found in such documents was 46,000.
46,000 deaths, though significant, pales in comparison to the estimated 105,000
deaths caused by the two bombings.

Nope, 46K doesn't pale to any number when you're one of the 46K.
Justification for dropping the bombs given the times and state of
the world.

I'm not much for statistics. It may be relevant to look at the price paid for victory at Iwo Jima and Okinawa and extrapolate that cost in human life to invade Japan. Iwo Jima was 2 miles wide and 6 miles long and it took 80 thousand Marines 33 days to secure the island with 8 thousand casualties. Think about that.

[MDlaxfan76]

No, the differential was not rationally based. There's no doubt that the Germans were every bit as capable of an aggression via sea, and certainly the possibility of spies and sabotage of ports and rail etc were just as real, indeed arguably much more so, from German and Italian Americans. Indeed, Germans and Italians would have a much easier time of being nondescript in a sea of white Americans than would Japanese.

That is just absurd. You're racial paranoia now extends back into history. The Axis powers had spies in the US, some even came ashore from u-boats. How many ports or rail lines were sabotaged ?

In contrast to Japan, the Germans & Italians did not have adequate seapower or reach to threaten the US mainland. They had no aircraft carriers, limited short range amphib & logistics capabilities. They were bottled up in home waters by the Royal Navy. The Graf Spee & the Bismark broke out. How did they fare ?

At the start of the War, Japan had naval superiority & used it to good effect.
The early fears of a seaborne attack on our W coast were reasonable & rational.

and your denials of all racial prejudice continues, regardless of era.

what are you so afraid of?

Yes, the Japanese dealt a heck of a blow early on and that had us on our heels, but they did not remotely sustain sea superiority for the course of the war, yet we incarcerated Japanese Americans throughout regardless. Even after the war had ended.

And we had every reason to fear German American and Italian American spies and sabotage as we did from Japanese Americans. Yet, we did not do mass incarceration...again, you simply want to ignore the racist zeitgeist of the time.

Typical from you.
Seriously, I don't understand what you're so afraid of on these topics.

[MDlaxfan76]

Gotta love these brainy folks who fight the war with pencil and paper from comfy and cozy environments and with 20-20 hindsight vision.

In the unlikely
event that a subsequent full-scale invasion had been mounted in
1946, the maximum estimate found in such documents was 46,000.
46,000 deaths, though significant, pales in comparison to the estimated 105,000
deaths caused by the two bombings.

Nope, 46K doesn't pale to any number when you're one of the 46K.
Justification for dropping the bombs given the times and state of
the world.

I'm not much for statistics. It may be relevant to look at the price paid for victory at Iwo Jima and Okinawa and extrapolate that cost in human life to invade Japan. Iwo Jima was 2 miles wide and 6 miles long and it took 80 thousand Marines 33 days to secure the island with 8 thousand casualties. Think about that.

We didn't and wouldn't have needed to invade. That's a red herring.

Heck, Salty's been telling us that all it took was for the Soviets to declare war on Japan.

[Farfromgeneva]

https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/educati ... tclips/010

"Did Nuclear Weapons Cause Japan to Surrender?

Another view (and an interesting take and variation on OS postulations). Especially note the second to the last paragraph regarding Japan's cultural bias about using the bomb drops as an explanation for their surrender whilst minimizing their loss of face over it. The first two paragraphs reinforce this view (which was articulated by the Japanese themselves at the time). I find this compelling.

As I have said before, history is often complicated.

... nice find. So basically the bombs made no difference if you believe Japanese sources and Carnegie analysts.

This bothers me in that it requires us to believe the Japanese thought they could go on fighting the US and its allies, WHICH WAS CLEARLY NOT SOMETHING THAT WAS DOABLE. The end of the war was a matter of time, there was no longer any chance the Japanese could win. All they could do was delay. The next step after the bomb was clear and it was not hundreds of thousands of allied troops invading the home islands given the allied fears of the cost of such a campaign. I think either the Japanese were lying or making a very serious miscalculation.

They could not fight the US allies and the Russians, they admit this. But somehow they thought they could fight the US allies by themselves, allies which clearly would pound them into the ground killing millions more Japanese the longer the war went on and ultimately still end in their defeat and surrender. Makes no sense to me.

As I said, history IS OFTEN complicated. This theory might be partially true. I'm sure Hiroshima got the Japanese government's attention in some fashion although this piece posits that the massive incendiary bombing campaign that proceeded it was vastly more damaging and deadly. The theory is that they were much more worried about the Soviets occupying territory than the Americans which is many ways does make some sense. The authors maintain that the deployment of the two nuclear bombs gave the Japanese leaders the cover to surrender as they did to insure an American vs. Soviet occupation. They seemingly found a cultural face-saving rationale in surrendering unconditionally using the atomic bombs as a reason to give up. It's just one opinion but it rings true and some level. The reality may be somewhere in between it and other theories on the reasoning for the dual atomic bombings in such close proximity timewise. Parts of the theory seem plausible. Then again, perhaps it was all coincidental, I suppose.

jhu72 - To leap to the conclusion that the use of nuclear weapons did not matter is just absurd. That's not what that article said. It was pointing out other factors & the timing that factored into the decision to surrender. Before the bomb AND the Soviet entry (on the same day) they hoped for a negotiated peace.

This is why these self-loathing, race based, guilt driven revisions of history are a waste of time.
We are now supposed to feel guilty for using the bomb, for using 2 bombs, & for doing it for racist reasons.
We have lost our minds.

Who said anything about feeling guilty?

Not Snoop

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GtUVQei3nX4

[cradleandshoot]

Gotta love these brainy folks who fight the war with pencil and paper from comfy and cozy environments and with 20-20 hindsight vision.

In the unlikely
event that a subsequent full-scale invasion had been mounted in
1946, the maximum estimate found in such documents was 46,000.
46,000 deaths, though significant, pales in comparison to the estimated 105,000
deaths caused by the two bombings.

Nope, 46K doesn't pale to any number when you're one of the 46K.
Justification for dropping the bombs given the times and state of
the world.

I'm not much for statistics. It may be relevant to look at the price paid for victory at Iwo Jima and Okinawa and extrapolate that cost in human life to invade Japan. Iwo Jima was 2 miles wide and 6 miles long and it took 80 thousand Marines 33 days to secure the island with 8 thousand casualties. Think about that.

We didn't and wouldn't have needed to invade. That's a red herring.

Heck, Salty's been telling us that all it took was for the Soviets to declare war on Japan.

Then why were so many of those combat units in Europe being trained for the expected invasion of Japan? You bring up an interesting hypothetical. The Soviet declaration of war was more symbolic in any relevant time frame. The one thing I know is the Japanese were ready, willing and able to fight to the death. My opinion is irregardless of all the background static being put forth, our leaders made the right call. Trying to second guess that decision 75 years later is a fools errand.

[jhu72]

According to the terrific historian David Kennedy at Stanford, the Japanese would not have surrendered and would have continued to, (irrationally), fight on, to the very bitter end, if we had not agreed to allow Emperor Hirohito to stay on the throne. When we agreed to that, they surrendered.

... that fits all the facts of their behavior.

[jhu72]

https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/educati ... tclips/010

"Did Nuclear Weapons Cause Japan to Surrender?

Another view (and an interesting take and variation on OS postulations). Especially note the second to the last paragraph regarding Japan's cultural bias about using the bomb drops as an explanation for their surrender whilst minimizing their loss of face over it. The first two paragraphs reinforce this view (which was articulated by the Japanese themselves at the time). I find this compelling.

As I have said before, history is often complicated.

... nice find. So basically the bombs made no difference if you believe Japanese sources and Carnegie analysts.

This bothers me in that it requires us to believe the Japanese thought they could go on fighting the US and its allies, WHICH WAS CLEARLY NOT SOMETHING THAT WAS DOABLE. The end of the war was a matter of time, there was no longer any chance the Japanese could win. All they could do was delay. The next step after the bomb was clear and it was not hundreds of thousands of allied troops invading the home islands given the allied fears of the cost of such a campaign. I think either the Japanese were lying or making a very serious miscalculation.

They could not fight the US allies and the Russians, they admit this. But somehow they thought they could fight the US allies by themselves, allies which clearly would pound them into the ground killing millions more Japanese the longer the war went on and ultimately still end in their defeat and surrender. Makes no sense to me.

As I said, history IS OFTEN complicated. This theory might be partially true. I'm sure Hiroshima got the Japanese government's attention in some fashion although this piece posits that the massive incendiary bombing campaign that proceeded it was vastly more damaging and deadly. The theory is that they were much more worried about the Soviets occupying territory than the Americans which is many ways does make some sense. The authors maintain that the deployment of the two nuclear bombs gave the Japanese leaders the cover to surrender as they did to insure an American vs. Soviet occupation. They seemingly found a cultural face-saving rationale in surrendering unconditionally using the atomic bombs as a reason to give up. It's just one opinion but it rings true and some level. The reality may be somewhere in between it and other theories on the reasoning for the dual atomic bombings in such close proximity timewise. Parts of the theory seem plausible. Then again, perhaps it was all coincidental, I suppose.

jhu72 - To leap to the conclusion that the use of nuclear weapons did not matter is just absurd. That's not what that article said. It was pointing out other factors & the timing that factored into the decision to surrender. Before the bomb AND the Soviet entry (on the same day) they hoped for a negotiated peace.

This is why these self-loathing, race based, guilt driven revisions of history are a waste of time.
We are now supposed to feel guilty for using the bomb, for using 2 bombs, & for doing it for racist reasons.
We have lost our minds.

You might try reading all of what I wrote. I leapt to no conclusion.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Gotta love these brainy folks who fight the war with pencil and paper from comfy and cozy environments and with 20-20 hindsight vision.

In the unlikely
event that a subsequent full-scale invasion had been mounted in
1946, the maximum estimate found in such documents was 46,000.
46,000 deaths, though significant, pales in comparison to the estimated 105,000
deaths caused by the two bombings.

Nope, 46K doesn't pale to any number when you're one of the 46K.
Justification for dropping the bombs given the times and state of
the world.

I'm not much for statistics. It may be relevant to look at the price paid for victory at Iwo Jima and Okinawa and extrapolate that cost in human life to invade Japan. Iwo Jima was 2 miles wide and 6 miles long and it took 80 thousand Marines 33 days to secure the island with 8 thousand casualties. Think about that.

We didn't and wouldn't have needed to invade. That's a red herring.

Heck, Salty's been telling us that all it took was for the Soviets to declare war on Japan.

Then why were so many of those combat units in Europe being trained for the expected invasion of Japan? You bring up an interesting hypothetical. The Soviet declaration of war was more symbolic in any relevant time frame. The one thing I know is the Japanese were ready, willing and able to fight to the death. My opinion is irregardless of all the background static being put forth, our leaders made the right call. Trying to second guess that decision 75 years later is a fools errand.

You ever think that maybe you have been indoctrinated? I have to discount anything you, old salt and anyone else with a vested interest in the military has to say. I consider it, but discount it.

[DMac]

Typical Lax Dad wrote
I have to discount anything you, old salt and anyone else with a vested interest in the military has to say. I consider it, but discount it.

When this is turned around, those who with no vested interest don't take too kindly to it. Claim those with the "vested interest" are playing a superiority/better than card.

[Brooklyn]

It is hard to deconvolve the causes, there were many facts / motivations when the decisions were made. Race was certainly in the room, but not clear it was determinative. Fortunately (or un) we know the answer to the question of racism directed at Asians and it has nothing to do with the war. Asians in the US had been subject to racism since mid 19th century, at least.

It took two decades after the war for there to be serious / widespread questioning of the necessity of the bombs. What I know for certain is it would not have taken nearly as long if those had been German cities. There was no one of Japanese ancestry in the room when the decisions were made. Pretty certain that was and would have been the case in regards to German descendants.

Being Japan, made it easier to make the decisions we did.

It is a matter of historical record that German POW's were treated than black troops especially in Dixie. What a sad and pathetic truth.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Typical Lax Dad wrote
I have to discount anything you, old salt and anyone else with a vested interest in the military has to say. I consider it, but discount it.

When this is turned around, those who with no vested interest don't take too kindly to it. Claim those with the "vested interest" are playing a superiority/better than card.

I just said I have to discount it. I have to consider the impact that indoctrination may have on one’s opinion. I am indifferent really. For me it’s a “wonder”. Like most things in life, very few things are definitive or absolute. In re-reading my post, I don’t dismiss what they say but have to consider their history. Discount may not be the right word. My father and uncles were all in the military. Their level of indoctrination may not have been as great as others. Not everyone buys in at the same rate. My father in law was all in….but he’s passive that way…..go along to get along.