Supporting Your Troops, if you have difficulty understanding the meaning of such a simple sentiment then I shouldn't bother explaining it at all...................but I will. Support your Troops means that though you may or may not support the choice to go to war with the current country, you would much rather see the "other" people die than your boys in green. I am in the service and done my share of deployments, but saying the majority of servicemembers are conservative......thats stretching it a bit. In fact, I haven't met one service member who is willing to vote for McCain, especially now the Sarah Failin is on board. But, thers no use in complaining about it, who ever is going to win will win, and will be my new boss

I meet people who are completely disconnected from the wars. People dying is no longer news in the US. Send a nice note of appreciation to someone in your town who has lost their soldier in the wars. Donate items & time to local organizations that send care packages and notes of encouragement to the troops. Keep it all apolitical.

What if I don't want people either side to die? Does that mean I'm supporting the enemy? Would the two equal forces of support cancel each other out?

I don't accept the "if you don't understand you never will" cop out. I'm a smart guy, I have two degrees and working on a third.

As a veteran I have simple rules for supporting the troops.

1) No foreign wars without an express declaration of war by Congress as required by Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution. No more evasions by Congress as we saw in the Gulf of Tonkin and 2002 Iraq Resolutions. The soldiers deserve this Constitutional protection from being deployed at the whim of the President.

2) The US military should only be used for the actual defense of the nation and not an instrument of imperialism by the US government. Our forces which are deployed to almost 200 bases around the world should be withdrawn. We have no business deploying troops to Korea, Germany, Japan or the Middle East.

3) We have a responsibility to write to our members of Congress demanding that the about two conditions are met.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —
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I'd love to see the link and stats on that one.

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Change you can Xerox.

HMFIC,
Already posted upstream. Enjoy the read.

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"Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain"- Iowa state motto
-Squidward
Ventura/ Paul '12

-Retro Fit

Support the troops is not literal at all, as you eluded to. It is a slogan to support the war. We support our troops in many ways because they are fellow Americans.

I don't believe that the troops are defending my freedom, and I don't have to. Nor do they have to believe that they are. They chose to be in the military and must kill when ordered to.

But I do want them home safe as we will probably have some justifiable military actions coming up as blowback from Bush's policies.

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Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum
(To such heights of evil are men driven by religion)

My problem with that is its patronizing. I put on the same shelf as getting a computer generated Christmas card from the company I work at. Are they really wishing my a Merry Christmas? Are they thanking me for being "part of the family" or are they thinking me for all the revenue I generated over the past seven years?
I don't want to insult the woman's intelligence by sending her a meaningless card. I wish the company I worked for stopped sending me those cards, they clog up my mailbox.

I think "support the troops" has been made to mean what you just said... so when somebody says they don't support the war, the opponent will say he doesn't support the troops. I have been caught in that trap several times and rather than discuss why I'm against the war, I have to go over the fact I don't want anyone getting killed. Once I do that; lunch break is over and I never got to go over why I think the war sucks - the real issues.

Every single person that has a "Support The Troops" bumper sticker supports the war. What does that tell you?

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America's Enemies Are Not Mine

You better believe we have the right to tell other countries--especially ones right next door to us--how to act! - HillsOttfam

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” - Stephen Roberts.