several years of "you're the bestest of the best" and hardcore ultra-nationalism being drilled into the skulls of 18 year olds probably breeds all kinds of extremism. Add a dash of PTSD with drug abuse and boy howdy!

Plus, a fair number of them are the sort of people that watch the first half of Full Metal Jacket over and over, but never the second half.

Good one, Bobonne- much wittier than what I was going to say.
Don't spend these stars all in one place.

The stops being funny after R. Lee get's smoked.

SolRo: I'm not siding with this guy (of all the things he could be rebelling against, the Hammond case is just about bottom of the list), but I'd take a drug-addicted, PTSD-suffering Marine over some sneering hipsters any day.

Cena: I actually think the second half is funnier, especially Animal Mother and Joker's cutting sarcasm.

"I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir."

Who's the snearing hipsters? Are we the snearing hipsters?

No, not you Cena. I'm referring to SolRo and other psych-shaming Marineophobes. This guy doesn't represent the Marines (apparently he was a bit of a Blue Falcon, even getting himself discharged for one of the stupidest reasons possible: violating the tattoo policy), and even if he did, the Marines still deserve better than our callous snark.

I haven't had much interaction with Marines, but word is they're cool with Coasties and will take our side in a brawl with squids.
Hipsters like to mock them cause they're the most gung ho of the Armed Forces. So gung ho, the phrase is associated with them.
This guy is still a nutter. He needs to chill.

Marines CAN'T chill, unless ordered to do so. Which they won't be, because no Marine Corps officer would ever issue such an order.

I know a few Marines. They run the gamut from a basic-training-washout who was discharged for smoking pot, to a multi-lingual research chemist who did four tours and now builds medical equipment in his spare time. Most of them have some kind of quote unquote "problem", but then again, who doesn't? I challenge anyone here to say they themselves are vice-free.

I was a Marine. The Corps is a breeding ground for all sorts of nonsense, reactionary politics is very popular among the white Marines from poorer backgrounds.
In the spirit of Marine brotherhood, I'd like to punch this snotty-nosed pantywaste right in the throat. If you're going to pull some bullshit like this, you need to have a better demeanor. Try Ed Harris in "The Rock" as opposed to whatever this crying sack of shit is.

EvilHomer is right, this guy has Blue Falcon written all over himself.

And yes, Cena_mark, we are generally cool with the coasties, and though I've never seen a three-way service rumble, I can imagine that coasties and jarheads would ally. We're both warriors of the seas. I'd imagine that some of the boardings I've done on the high seas against pirates and smugglers/rogue states are quite similar to the anti-narcotic take-downs and interdiction work you guys do in America's waters.

The only close contact I've had with a Marine was one who would not stop groping me. He actually believed he was entitled to assault me because "Hey, I served our country!" I was lucky to get away with "just" being fondled and harassed.

He's a terrorist, and a childish, entitled bully. I don't have sympathy for him.

I like to think that he's doing this because he forgot to buy Christmas presents.

He's doing this to himself. He wants to be a martyr. This isn't like someone who is driving to the supermarket and is killed by some shitty teenager who can't stop playing on their phone. This is 1000% his fault.

if a group of Muslims took over a federal building with a bunch of guns, they would now be a large, smoking, radioactive crater

I kind of amalgamated these two points in another online forum earlier today, not even advocating for the morons in the federal facility to actually get hurt, just pointing out that if they weren't white, well.

Then a CNN talking head came on and said that it was totally different than BLM (no, the other one, not the Bureau of Land Management, this is such a confusing crisis) because 'these guys aren't looting anything'.

that's how the reasoning of most nutjob conservatives works.

the farmers in California are blaming the drought on the federal government (or cali government?) for not damming up every river and creek and piping the water to their farms, destroying countless acres of wildlife preserves, just so they can grow and export more nuts.

Joan Didion, in Where I Was From, talks about just this kind of cognitive dissonance in California farmers and ranchers who detest the government getting in their way with regulation, but fail to realize that both and primarily the former only exist because of federal money and water/land projects.

ripping your rotten chest cavity open and pissing in it is way overdue

Yeah, while I don't approve of Waugh's violence, his basic sentiment is sound. I like you, SolRo, but it's amazing how easily you can switch from loudly condemning fascism, to casually embracing it.

Thankfully, CISA and the NDAA are on hand to save us from this terrorist mastermind.

Yeah, the Hammonds got the short end of the stick, but they seem like reasonable people; they're willing to do their time, and they don't want Ritzheimer's group anywhere near them. The sensible response would be peaceful protests, prison letters, and social media campaigns - but now, thanks to this fucking guy, what we're going to get is a hundred dead bodies, stronger terrorism laws, and yet another crackdown on civil liberties.