Obituary: Natalia Estemirova

[The Yosemite Bear]

another bit where those revisionists really repulse me, is that in my high school days we had actual WWII vets come to our school, as part of history class. Having the Japanese guy whose family was stuck in Internment camps while he was fighting for us. Or more memorably the Jewish Bomber Radioman who got shot down and spent 6 months in the camps, and then got interrogated by the Russians because he was an american Bomber crew.

[Steve]

Shep's statement works in a limited context. That the freedom of the press, like other freedoms, is ultimately guaranteed by the force of a military devoted to supporting those freedoms through its oath to the Constitution. Since, obviously, if we didn't have the military and only reporters and our country got conquered by, I dunno, the Fourth Reich or the RED MENACE then all those reporters' abilities to expose criminality and atrocity would be useless since they'd be rounded up for being counter-revolutionaries or opposing state-mandated censorship or what have you and promptly shot. Or worked to death in Alaskan gulags after wiping out caribou herds in a desperate search for food.

[Darth Wong]

Shep's statement works in a limited context. That the freedom of the press, like other freedoms, is ultimately guaranteed by the force of a military devoted to supporting those freedoms through its oath to the Constitution. Since, obviously, if we didn't have the military and only reporters and our country got conquered by, I dunno, the Fourth Reich or the RED MENACE then all those reporters' abilities to expose criminality and atrocity would be useless since they'd be rounded up for being counter-revolutionaries or opposing state-mandated censorship or what have you and promptly shot. Or worked to death in Alaskan gulags after wiping out caribou herds in a desperate search for food.

That kind of reasoning is stupid because if you eliminate 100% of any important worker class, you will be fucked. If you got rid of 100% of the soldiers we couldn't defend ourselves against anything, but if you got rid of 100% of the farmers we'd dissolve into total anarchy and then starve. If you got rid of 100% of reporters, no one would have any idea what's happening or why, and the army could easily be used to institute martial law without people understanding what's happening.

That's not Shep's statement making sense "in a limited context"; it is Shep's statement making sense in an incredibly childish retard context.