by KaiserJeep » Tue 07 Jun 2016, 04:44:36
Because I refuse to revere a loudmouthed and unintelligent man? My heroes have all had both intelligence and a reverence and appreciation for the country they live in. Note that I am but 9 years younger than Ali, and I registered for the draft just two years after his famous and obviously ignorant 1967 tirade about his "brown brothers", when he was still being prosecuted for his crimes and was considered a national disgrace by most Americans.
Knowing even then - as everyone did - that Ali did not have two wits to rub together and was a puppet dancing to the tune of other smarter men who wanted to use him and his fame for their own agendas, I never did became a fan of Ali.
For the record, I was 1-A status for two years with a student deferment, then voluntarily enlisted and even volunteered to be sent to SE Asia. However, the USA decided that people with knowledge of electronics should be sent to other places than the jungles of Vietnam. Because the nature of Service is that you end up doing what your country needs to have done, even if it is something that you yourself would not choose to do, in places you would never choose to go, in the company of other men with whom you would otherwise not choose to associate with.
Mohammad Ali, claiming "conscientious objector" status on religious grounds - which even then everybody knew to be a false claim that forever dishonored the man - could have chosen to serve his country in a non-combat role. Many, many people had done so before Ali, in WW1, WW2, Korea, and Vietnam/Cambodia before his famous and ignorant and cowardly repudiation of the obligations of an American citizen.
Which is why he deserves no respect or admiration from any other American today. I was there, and I tell you so from first hand experience. I do not take my beliefs from lying words typed into documents found on the Internet, by people who would condone criminal behavior from a loudmouthed braggart, as long as it fits a political agenda.
By the way, what do you think was the net/net of Ali's refusal to be inducted? He did not stop one single person from going to Vietnam as each local draft board had a quota. The way the system worked, when one draftee refused to report, they dipped one person deeper into the local pool of eligible men, and another citizen of Lewisburg, Kentucky - one who had otherwise escaped the draft via a higher lottery number - went in his stead.
For the second time this week I remind you that this country changes course via whomever we elect to positions in national politics, and not via the words of a loudmouthed braggart or the antics of street rioters. The Vietnam War was a Democratic fantasy which was only ended by electing Richard M. Nixon, after both warmongers JFK and LBJ had repeatedly tried to "win". Another famous Democrat, Mayor Daley of Chicago, had recently sent police into the streets to violently suppress anti-war protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, they too (the "Chicago Seven") were still on trial.
An inconvenient truth, perhaps?
KaiserJeep 2.0, Neural Subnode 0010 0000 0001 0110 - 1001 0011 0011, Tertiary Adjunct to Unimatrix 0000 0000 0001
Resistance is Futile, YOU will be Assimilated.
Warning: Messages timestamped before April 1, 2016, 06:00 PST were posted by the unmodified human KaiserJeep 1.0