Dude, you either support teh troops or out of Delta Psi Kappa Yotta

July 20, 2007 7:32 AM

College Republicans National Committe: A video sample of some young supporters. Interviewing just a few of them reveals an interesting pattern of "I wish I could go Iraq, but some external force out of my control is forbidding me". The "teacher" of All Quiet on the Western Front meets postpubescent peer pressure and groupthink ? Via.
posted by elpapacito (31 comments total)

"I wish I could go Iraq, but some external force out of my control is forbidding me"

Surprise.
posted by Avenger at 7:44 AM on July 20, 2007

This is going to be an interesting test. This is more axegrindy than the TNR cruise post.

Or maybe it's Blumenthal's vocal imitation of Michael Moore that's annoying the hell out of me.
posted by dw at 7:44 AM on July 20, 2007

I wish I could delete this post, but some external force out of my control is forbidding me.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 7:48 AM on July 20, 2007

Related MeFi thread from June 2005: Operation Yellow Elephant "is an attempt to shame young Republicans into enlisting in order to prove their commitment to their leaders' military objectives."
posted by ericb at 7:49 AM on July 20, 2007

indeed. the tnr cruise post should have stayed. this one ...

It's pretty obvious why they haven't enlisted when you hear their reasons about why this "war" is so important: "It's better to fight them over there, than fight them over here."

Translation: "It's much better if somebody else risks his life for my (supposed) benefit."

The weaselly guy who says, "I support my country ... and I didn't enlist ... I dunno ... I didn't wanna" is probably the most honest and revealing into these idiots' mindsets.
posted by mrgrimm at 7:50 AM on July 20, 2007

I'm sorry, elpapacito, but you are consistently one of the most annoying axegrinding posters on metafilter. Why don't you talk about Italian politics for a change?
posted by nasreddin at 7:50 AM on July 20, 2007

nasreddin writes "but you are consistently one of the most annoying axegrinding posters on metafilter"

I report, you decide ! Why do you hate freedom ?
posted by elpapacito at 7:59 AM on July 20, 2007 [3 favorites]

I guess the guy who...like...said that he wouldn't, you know, enlist if he...like...became a good...um...public speaker, he must be like at the recruiter signing up...like, um...right now, right?
posted by JaredSeth at 8:06 AM on July 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Be sure to get to the part where the big burly guy talks about accepting his gay urges in order to come to the conclusion that he's not gay.

I can't help but feel sorry for people who get caught on camera like this.
posted by mediareport at 8:09 AM on July 20, 2007

Despite the fact that 2004 and onward have convinced me that Republicans have no moral compass, I feel morally compelled to mention Bill O'Reilly's cherrypicking of kooky quotes from dkos.
posted by DU at 8:13 AM on July 20, 2007

Yep, DU. It would be painfully easy to put together a similarly embarrasing video from a college Democrats convention.
posted by mediareport at 8:15 AM on July 20, 2007

I would go to Iraq, but I don't want to die for Wall Street.
posted by four panels at 8:21 AM on July 20, 2007

Take some LSD or something instead. Don't waste your college years!

This is why the college conventions are so easy to do this to.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 8:24 AM on July 20, 2007

It would be painfully easy to put together a similarly embarrasing video from a college Democrats convention.

Maybe so, but I suspect it would be unlikely to include the current House Majority Leader saying anything as insane as [to paraphrase] "if millions of poor Americans people hadn't killed their babies, those kids could be mowing our lawns today instead of dirty Mexicans". DeLay really is an astonishing piece of work.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 8:26 AM on July 20, 2007

“I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have never fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation, and destruction. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it. War is hell.” -W.T. Sherman
posted by SaintCynr at 8:27 AM on July 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

It's disingenuous to do this with the college Republicans -- too easy a target. They don't recognize their own hypocrisy, so how is this different than a Borat sketch? They probably weren't even old enough to vote in 2004. Better yet would be to confront those in the population 30 years and older and making more than $50K a year (of whom more than 50% voted for Bush in 2004) and ask them if THEIR children are enlisted and dying "over there so we don't fight them here".
posted by parilous at 8:28 AM on July 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Argh. ...millions of poor Americans people...
posted by Armitage Shanks at 8:29 AM on July 20, 2007

mediareport writes "It would be painfully easy to put together a similarly embarrasing video from a college Democrats convention"

I wish I could find some, that'd point out the blindingly obvious : students badly badly need a clue, at all levels of education..even more so at college.
posted by elpapacito at 8:30 AM on July 20, 2007

I'm going to the next one! The chicks are hot and kind of dumb, and the men are gay! I figure my chances are pretty good!
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:31 AM on July 20, 2007 [5 favorites]

Worth noting that the guy talking about his gay urges is associated a high school the first time he's identified.
posted by mediareport at 8:34 AM on July 20, 2007

^with
posted by mediareport at 8:35 AM on July 20, 2007

You know, whatever you might want to say about someone like Pat Tillman, at least he put his money and himself where his mouth was. These jerks want the war fought, just by somebody else. There's a sense of entitlement that smacks of some king telling a serf 'you should be honored to die for me.'
posted by jonmc at 8:41 AM on July 20, 2007

Of course they are all misguided, amoral, or idiotic, but ad hominem attacks like this are preaching to the converted. Whose mind is going to be changed by this piece of video? We have to keep arguing against the policies, not the people.
posted by howfar at 8:43 AM on July 20, 2007

Of course they are all misguided, amoral, or idiotic, but ad hominem attacks like this are preaching to the converted. Whose mind is going to be changed by this piece of video? We have to keep arguing against the policies, not the people.

I don't know, maybe somebody watching this will snap to the hypocrisy of the situation. Every little bit helps.
posted by jonmc at 8:45 AM on July 20, 2007

It would be painfully easy to put together a similarly embarrasing video from a college Democrats convention.

Well, I'm convinced -- those Democrats are such hypocrites!
posted by aaronetc at 8:46 AM on July 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

The chicks are hot and kind of dumb, and the men are gay! I figure my chances are pretty good!

I might add that this pretty much describes daily life in Washington, DC.

(ducks)
posted by deanc at 8:48 AM on July 20, 2007

I thought it was pretty well done up until the point when the film crew is very politely asked to leave and the narrator instead does an asinine "interpretive dance" and bumps into an old lady.
posted by Espy Gillespie at 8:49 AM on July 20, 2007

Whose mind is going to be changed by this piece of video?

Who cares -- it's fucking hilarious, that's the point. Political communication is not exclusively the venue of deeply thought issue deliberations, nor arguments to be presented to members of the other side. Conservatives get this, which ironically is part of why the TNR cruise story is so funny.
posted by aaronetc at 8:49 AM on July 20, 2007

parilous writes "Better yet would be to confront those in the population 30 years and older and making more than $50K a year (of whom more than 50% voted for Bush in 2004) and ask them if THEIR children are enlisted and dying 'over there so we don't fight them here'."

In 2004 they prob would have said their kids were too young back then ; now that it's quagmire because *they* (whoever) didn't do enough, so why send the kids now that they already started college ? Let them lazy dropouts (let alone investingating the causes of dropping out) do the fighting, their precious kids will support by paying taxes or doing something intelligent..they are too useful here, unlike the precious kids of others.

What is disingenuous is distracting attention from the "kids" who still can "get it", while considering their older hardened parents as more likely to be sensible to dissonance, considering that all they care about is the bottomline and fuck the rest of you, all of you, my kid isn't going to Iraq you losers I earn 50k , he doesn't need the military money for college.
posted by elpapacito at 8:57 AM on July 20, 2007

I'm going to the next one! The chicks are hot and kind of dumb, and the men are gay! I figure my chances are pretty good!

That was exactly my reaction, watching this (except that, the guys also appear to be quite dumb). Also, that if this is the future of the Republican party, we have nothing to worry about--we can just distract them by giving them a shiny toy to sit in the corner and play with.

DeLay really is an astonishing piece of work.

I could not believe what he said in that clip! Yeah, I know it's DeLay, but "we wouldn't need all those illegal immigrants to do our work if we had those 40 million American babies who have been killed in the past 30 years....think about it...."

What a fucking waste of the oxygen it takes to keep his bigoted, hate-filled body going.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:07 AM on July 20, 2007

poor twerps. can't wait until they're my next boss...
posted by kuujjuarapik at 9:09 AM on July 20, 2007