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Originally Posted by irateplatypus
lol, i can't tell who you are arguing with jb. your post seems to address mine, yet you go back in forth between the discussion of this thread and your gripes with the right side of the aisle in general.
you do demonstrate a very thorough knowledge of the UCMJ and its practical implementation. while you may have felt yourself a civilian in the regular sense after your active duty enlistment period ended, legally you could still be possibly held accountable in military courts. you and i can both agree that the likelihood of all but the most egregious violations would be ignored by the military under normal circumstances.
the problem with kerry is that he was an officer in the military at a time of war who was meeting with the enemy. that is a lot different from your situation or nearly anyone elses. it's clear that the circumstances were exceptional and the stakes unusually high. i'm not suggesting that the navy convene a general courts-martial to review the case... but i do think it is a telling detail to senator kerry's career. i believe it shows a lack of discipline, going further to confirm my perception of kerry as a shameless self-promoter. a person who's convictions only go as far as a vote or fame will take him. this situations, admittedly, reinforces preconceived notions on my part... but i do believe a strong argument can be made from my perspective.
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I do try and correlate what may be a discussion on a particular detail with the larger context in which it resides, and so indeed, parts of my posts may not be focussed on the detail of the issue at hand.
I'm sorry that you seem so eager to reinforce those preconceived notions to the point where you don't see the sillyness in trying to accuse John of some kind of UCMJ violation that the military leadership of the time, who obviously would not have shed a tear at him and his like being dragged before courts martial, didn't even see fit to accuse him of.
If you think it was just bad to be anti-war back then, fine. Stand opposed on the matter straight up, but to claim that his activities are somehow criminal because he was once in the service and thus technically could be brought under military justice although the military never thought to do this, seems a bit of a reach to me.
I guess it all comes down for me as a case where common sense trumps a technicality that may or may not really apply, and doubtfully would pass muster in any court, civil or military.
As for being a self-promoter, okay, that sounds real bad to anyone who considers modesty a virtue, myself included. But think for a second, if you aren't a self-promoter you can't get elected to much in this country. That in itself doesn't make me like it any more, but on the other hand, seeing as some of the greatest leaders and statesmen of all time have been brazenly self-promoting, I can't say that it lessens one's ability to be a leader.