George R.R. Martin, Conscientious Objector, Thinks Killing People With Drones Isn’t Bloody Enough

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One of the funnier liberal arguments comes from people who have never served in the military delivering lectures about how war today is too mechanical and detached. Too… impersonal.

Today’s idiotic call for bloodier combat comes from author George R.R. Martin, a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, who thinks that drones are too impersonal a method of killing people.

Martin didn’t want to serve in combat, but he objects to anything that prevents American soldiers from dying.

Taking human life should always be a very serious thing. There’s something very close up about the Middle Ages. You’re taking a sharp piece of steel and hacking at someone’s head, and you’re getting spattered with his blood, and you’re hearing his screams. In some ways maybe it’s more brutal that we’ve insulated ourselves from that. We’re setting up mechanisms where we can kill human beings with drones and missiles where you’re sitting at a console and pressing the button. We never have to hear their whimpering, or hear them begging for their mother, or dying in horrible realities around us.

We had these same complaints about bombers in WW2 and we probably also had them about the longbow.

At the Battle of Agincourt, Henry V’s men killed their enemies at hundreds of yards which was really unfair of them because their enemies were noble knights. They probably didn’t even hear them beg.

Or they might have when they stuck sharpened knives through their visors. Open question.

But the funny thing is that Martin and other liberals seem to think that killing people at close range would sensitize us to the horrors of war… while killing people at a distance desensitizes us.

And yet the modern soldier is far more sensitive to the life of the enemy than the medieval soldier was. What would have been met with a shrug in medieval times, including the killing of prisoners of war, is met with horror today.

Medieval warfare of the kind that Martin seems enthused about, “taking a sharp piece of steel and hacking at someone’s head”, desensitizes the participants far more than drone warfare does.

Exposure to warfare desensitizes far more than lack of exposure. We are part of a society where the civilian population has limited exposure to violent warfare. That was not the case in the medieval period. We’re sensitized to casual violent cruelty in a way that they were not.

There might be a debate about whether we are too sensitized, but the one thing that is certain is that we are far more sensitized to even the suffering of our enemies, with our drones and strategic bombers and ICBMs, than the head hackers were.

  • Nightowl

    Has George R.R. Martin ever wondered whether his novels have desensitized his readers to violence? Does he feel angst when he collects his royalty checks?

    • Daniel Greenfield

      In his mind, he’s no doubt sensitizing his readers to the horrors of war.

    • Seek

      No more than “violent” video games or movies.

  • Louis

    George R.R. Martin can go to H E double toothpicks.

    Al Qaeda never stopped killing after 911. Did they not seen the horror on the faces of their victims?

    Boko Haram hacks peple to death. They show no sign of letting up. Boko Haram is affiliated with Al Qaeda. Have the words Boko Harsam passed by George R.R. Martin’s lips?

    “Boko Haram is likely linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)”

    “Violence linked to the Boko Haram insurgency has resulted in an estimated 10,000 deaths between 2002 and 2013″

    “Human Rights Watch claims that Boko Haram uses child soldiers, including 12 year olds”

    “In mid March 2014, allegations backed by a tapped phone conversation arose about the use of Turkish Airlines to lift weapons to Boko Haram, in an operation directed by the National Intelligence Organization of Turkey, and known by Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s Chief of Staff, Mustafa Varank”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boko_Haram

  • Habbgun

    Interesting he sees both scenarios as dominance by one side. That one side kills and the other is always, always nothing but a hapless victim.

    If you were standing toe to toe you knew it was his head or yours and eventually if you fight enough battles probably your own head for sure. That changes your outlook. It has to if you are to survive and enjoy the amount of life given to you.

    Martin’s own conscientious objection seems to be one of opportunity. Would he stand in front of the other side, defenseless if he was standing toe to toe with another man and a sword? Could he ask others to do it?

    Saying you don’t mind losing a war when your own life does not seem to be immediately in jeopardy is easy. For professional activists profitable. For the less fortunate its suicide.

    • Smoking Hamster

      He very well might lay down his sword.

      Some people don’t have it in themselves to kill someone else. They freeze and don’t have the heart or strength to do the killing blow.

      While those kinds of people may seem rare I imagine it is because they die quickly in combat compared to others. In the ancient world that would likely make soldiers nasty people.

      Modern soldiers don’t have that extreme of a selective pressure and are much better people than the soldiers of old.

      That is basically a long-winded way to say “an armed society is a polite society.”

      • Doc

        Brother as a former soldier I can tell you that when the proverbial hits the fan and your ‘toe to toe’ you man up real quick, that’s what training is for, but your right there are those in the military also that don’t have that killer instinct. You would think that the process for selection into the military would seek out those that cannot kill in the defense of their country and citizens, not so, in my experience (Iraq 04-05, 08-09) it takes several hard, dirty close encounters to change a man or woman into an effective killing machine… for some it is easier than others, for some it never bothers them (Exception not the rule) there

  • Gee

    I do see that people that have never put their lives on the line are so willing to have others kill for their opinion.
    They are nothing but cowards

    • Drakken

      Amen!

  • ncprivateer

    We spend billions of dollars to design, build and deploy armed drones for the simple reason that it is preferable to do so rather than risk the life of someone’s son, daughter, husband, wife, sister or brother to perform the same mission.

  • Davros11

    Our fault, we listen to the libtards. Everyone should just ignore or shame them when they make stupid comments. eventually they shut up and walk away, mumbling under their breath “BUSH’S FAULT”

  • Lightbringer

    Interesting that Martin should speak of the virtues of “taking a sharp piece of steel and hacking at someone’s head…” when this is what the savages we currently fight take such delight in doing.

    • Daniel Greenfield

      There’s a reason lefties sympathize with the enemy. Vicarious savagery.