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Richard Nikoley's Twitter Updates

Did Sous Vide Scr Egg & then Bavette last night; pork chops tonight + pears in brandy; finished in butter, cinnamon & nutmeg. Blog tomorow about 12 hours ago
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The Division of Labor

Posted Nov 17 2008 9:23pm

If it's good enough to get you your Birkenstocks and 100% organic hemp t-shirts, then just maybe it's good enough to defend your life...

Now and then, someone posts a comment to one of my previous entries that just simply screams out for its own separate posting. In this case, the winner is:Kyle Bennett. The post in question deals with the biggest lie you've ever heard in connection with the war: that those who condemn it can play Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hide by supporting the troops.

There are other lies, too. For instance, there's the lie that it's hypocritical to support the war if you're not personally over there prosecuting it. Tom Harper comments:

OK, we know what you think of people who oppose the Iraqi war and say they support the troops. What do you think of people who support the war -- often to the point of slandering people who are against it -- but haven't enlisted? People who are doing all their fighting at their keyboard instead of in the trenches? (I know you have a military background.)

Just wondering.

And Kyle provides the quintessential unassailable argument:

Bullshit, Tom. 

You want to eat, don't you? So why aren't you down on the farm picking corn and slopping the hogs? You seem happy to use a computer, but do you drive down to the Intel plant to build chips, then over to Redmond to work on that operating system?

You arbitrarily assert that defense is the one thing that shouldn't be done by those best at it, but by everyone for himself, else they're hypocrites of some kind. You're completely transparent in that you only hold that standard for things you disapprove of. You probably think that if I eat meat, I should have to do the butchering myself - but then are perfectly happy to let somebody else harvest your bean sprouts and make your Birkenstocks and 100% organic hemp t-shirts for you.

Your question is beyond manipulative and dishonest, it's downright immoral. In the process of flailing about for some way, no matter how illogical, to discredit any support for the war, you toss out a primary moral imperative in the context of a society of human beings, which is the trading value for value.

The best way to achieve anything you value, whether it be lunch or clothes or defense, is to do whatever thing you do best and trade that effort for the efforts of someone else who is really good at doing the thing you value. Being against the war does not necessarily make you some kind of communist. Using your particular argument in opposing it just might.

The end.

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