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NoRoadtrippin · 05-01-2009, 11:16

With respect, I have to disagree with all of you who have taken offense to this article. Yes, you know better than most in this world (and certainly better than I) that decisive military action can, and does, solve conflict. But your responses seem to indicate you feel it is the ONLY thing that does so.

What is wrong with shopping with your conscience? Are we as Americans not in fact connected to those around us? Maybe you are only one person, but don't we fight on "though I be the lone survivor?" One person can make a difference.

Here, many of us do our best to support local businesses and small scale manufacturers of our equipment both as a means to support good people and to seek quality items. This will never put Wal-Mart out of business, or BlackHawk, or anyone else, but we still do it because it is right.

Do we not, by the same token, encourage companies to continue supporting the people selling these conflict minerals if we choose to buy the end product? Can we choose to also support only companies who do not use these sources as a way of quietly defending what is right? This doesn't necessarily make us liberal hippies.

I understand Chinese demand and that of many other countries is a huge force on the global market, but again, defeatism of saying "Hey look, there's no point in blaming me or in me changing my behavior, because these people aren't gonna do it too," is not the way I was trained and not the way I was brought up. I am willing to risk that it is certainly not the way a Special Forces Soldier is trained.

We don't buy items from Cuba and bring them to America. The President seeks to change this and improve relations and the members of this board are upset at a slap in the face to American policy and standing in the world that has been established for 40 years. Yet the reason we don't buy them is boiled down to the same reasons we would choose not to except materials from the Congo. Yet now the responding members see it as "blaming" and "socialism."

Personally, I feel there is a disconnect here. I am interested in the responses this post could generate.

05-01-2009, 11:16	#6
NoRoadtrippin Guerrilla Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Da South Posts: 294	With respect, I have to disagree with all of you who have taken offense to this article. Yes, you know better than most in this world (and certainly better than I) that decisive military action can, and does, solve conflict. But your responses seem to indicate you feel it is the ONLY thing that does so. What is wrong with shopping with your conscience? Are we as Americans not in fact connected to those around us? Maybe you are only one person, but don't we fight on "though I be the lone survivor?" One person can make a difference. Here, many of us do our best to support local businesses and small scale manufacturers of our equipment both as a means to support good people and to seek quality items. This will never put Wal-Mart out of business, or BlackHawk, or anyone else, but we still do it because it is right. Do we not, by the same token, encourage companies to continue supporting the people selling these conflict minerals if we choose to buy the end product? Can we choose to also support only companies who do not use these sources as a way of quietly defending what is right? This doesn't necessarily make us liberal hippies. I understand Chinese demand and that of many other countries is a huge force on the global market, but again, defeatism of saying "Hey look, there's no point in blaming me or in me changing my behavior, because these people aren't gonna do it too," is not the way I was trained and not the way I was brought up. I am willing to risk that it is certainly not the way a Special Forces Soldier is trained. We don't buy items from Cuba and bring them to America. The President seeks to change this and improve relations and the members of this board are upset at a slap in the face to American policy and standing in the world that has been established for 40 years. Yet the reason we don't buy them is boiled down to the same reasons we would choose not to except materials from the Congo. Yet now the responding members see it as "blaming" and "socialism." Personally, I feel there is a disconnect here. I am interested in the responses this post could generate. __________________ For Americans war is almost all of the time a nuisance, and military skill is a luxury like Mah-Jongg. But when the issue is brought home to them, war becomes as important, for the necessary period, as business or sport. And it is hard to decide which is likely to be the more ominous for the [terrorists] -- an American decision that this is sport, or that it is business. -D. W. Brogan, The American Character
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