Tuesday, January 19, 2010

smitten?

Alright, I've heard a lot of crazy shit in my time, but this one is fantastic. for many years now I have firmly asserted that all soldiers do one of three things during their term of service: they " find god ", get married, or start drinking and smoking. sometimes they do a combination of the three but always at least one. this is due to any number of reasons which I will not go into right now as they are not the topic of this particular rant. no what this is about, is the article I just saw that states the company Trijicon is stamping the codes of particular bible verses on the sights that they are selling to the military to send into battle.
Am I the only one who finds this idea hypocritical, hilarious, and kind of sad at the same time? I mean first off even the military grants you the right to chose your own religion to stamp on your dog tags ( although they refuse to let me put atheist ), and even if you do choose some particular denomination you generally aren't asking for god's help to smite your enemy. most of the time people are looking for some sort of protection, absolution, or just plain something greater to believe in. they want to believe the crazy shit they have to do and the insanity that they are dropped smack dab in the middle of have some greater meaning or purpose.
especially in these times with this sort of war against this sort of religious fervor is this the message we want to send? who gives some self righteous prick the right to put something that potentially inflammatory on a soldier's rifle? should they be put further into harms way based on some douche bag who is safe back in the states opinions/beliefs? what if they are captured? already the outlook is not good for anyone who falls into the hands of these zealots, do they really need any more encouragement to do something terrible to these kids who are just over there doing their jobs? agree with the "mission" or not this is an egregious error in judgement. the government goes out of it's way to supposedly separate religion from the state, yet this is allowed to slide? now this chuckle head who own the company says it's within his rights to stamp what he wants on his product and there is nothing illegal about what he is doing, and I agree. it's also the right of the government to pull his contract and award it to someone that to paraphrase the old saying "god gave the sense to come in out of the rain". it is every one's right to have whatever faith they desire, until you put others in harms way, then I propose if you really are so pious you should evaluate they situation and exercise a little restraint. your beliefs are not worth the lives of those who protect every one's right to believe whatever they choose. we live in an amazing country where you are free to espouse whatever nonsense you desire, and those men and women insure that you keep that right, shouldn't we as a people go out of our way to protect them as much as we can? once again, the war being right or wrong in your opinion is not what's important, the lives of the soldiers who have no choice whether or not to be there is, and your personal beliefs do not give you the right to endanger them further.

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