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Originally Posted by Zap
It's not just the Bush administration, as you pointed out.
The US government has a long history of treating it's veterans with a lot less respect than they deserve.
Puzzling behaviour, actually, when you consider the fact that the veterans are literally making sure that the government gets to continue existing.
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Why do you think it's the government's fault?
I think it's very likely that veterans know the secret, that justice is a fairy tale, and they understand the fact that most people live in what could be called a "make-believe world".
We like to think that bad things happen to bad people, and good things happen to good people. Our security depends upon it. We don't want to believe that at any given time of day or night, somebody could come into our houses, rip the heads off our children, rape our wives and eat them with cheese on Ritz crackers.
Life, the materialistic form that we know and TV seems to love, becomes a bit stupid when you know the amount of suffering that happens in this world.
My grandfather was a vet from WW2, Marine, and he saw some nasty action in the Pacific but he absolutely refused to talk about it. He'd just say "it wasn't human". I think he meant, it was extremely brutal.
Will counseling change the fact that the world is full of injustice and suffering? No. I think the suggestion is silly. My brother commit suicide and it was no shock to anybody that knew him. He was super sensitive. He tried to commit suicide once after accidentally killing a deer. (Damn deer was standing on the highway in the middle of the night, and my brother hit the brakes a bit too late. Who knows - maybe the deer was trying to commit suicide?) If people get all shook up over a deer being killed, how do you think they will react to humans being ran over by tanks? Or the tragedy of "friendly fire" deaths?
As far as stopping suicide... why? I often think about my brother, and for the most part I don't think I would have stopped him if I could. He didn't like the way the world worked, and wanted off. If somebody wants off, let them off. Why keep them in pain? What treatment would you suggest? Perhaps a course of materialism and debauchery? Get your mind off the state of reality and get laid. That would fix them up.
Naw, let them go. I have more respect for a lot of people who have committed suicide than I do for the living who choose to not face reality in order to make it livable.
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Originally Posted by Rankenstein
Finally, I read something that weirded me even more. In Japan, the suicide rate averages out at one every fifteen minutes. Four an hour. About ninety a day! WTF is going on over there?
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I asked Reiko who is here in the office and she stated: Because they want to die.
Insightful.
Japanese are not the most likely to commit suicide. Lithuania has that honor. Russia has more suicides per capita than Japan, too.
In Japan, honor is still very important. Suicide is seen as taking responsibility for one's mistakes, and it means you keep your honor. Often times people will commit suicide when their wrongdoing has been discovered - it clears the slate and the family honor remains intact.