Tartarin wrote:To
So the current administration is fair game. I don't go in for smears, sexual innuendos, or attacks on a politician's personal life -- I go in for disagreement on policy, countering rhetoric, examining a leader's business and political past as well as his current policies; .......
Many, many people -- more than half in this country and millions more overseas -- find this administration's policies and actions to be a frightening and even criminal undertaking. We will stand up against this administration wherever we can.
And yes, I think militarism is in itself atrocious. Obviously, that doesn't mean I think individual soldiers are. Nor is a standing army which defends us and which is not linked to preemptive or aggressive ambitions under fire from me! ........
Like so many institutions which should be kept on a short leash, the military have become self-sustaining, top-heavy and bloated thanks to their close relationship with the defense industry. Worst, they often use words like "patriotism" to protect themselves while they have become, in fact, one of our most unpatriotic institutions, bleeding dollars away from education, infrastructure repair, healthcare, and indeed "homeland security." Again, that doesn't mean that all who have worked with them are stinkers. Obviously not. But in my view anyone who goes on to defend the military establishment is defending deep corruption.
Deep corruption is what I see in the Bush administration. But I don't personally set out to insult even those herein who defend either Bush or the generals. I think these supporters are wrong, ....... ignorance -- IS playing a big part in keeping the administration afloat.
All stuff right out of the Democrat platform and stock campaign rhetoric. I find no particular fault in that - merely note it to put the author's views in context.
Tartarin likes the Army but not "the Military". Given that over 90% of the cuts achieved in Clinton's 'reinventing government' (remember that?) program came from the Defense Department how can Tartarin say it is 'top heavy and bloated'? What is "deep corruption" besides a label for things Tartarin doesn't like?
Evidently Tartarin believes it is 'unpatriotic' to spend government money on anything but 'education, health care, infrastructure repair, or homeland security'. It is very difficult to make the case that government spending on education or healthcare has aided anyone. On the contrary it has corrupted institutions that once performed far better than they do now.
It is a fact that the statistical corelation between per capita spending on education and achievement as measured in standardized tests of capability in K thru 12 schools is negative !! That means more money indicates less performance. The money feeds only an ossified educational bureaucracy, self-serving unions and associations and a book publishing industry corrupted by and corrupting both. The Washington DC school district spends $7,200/year per student - one of the highest in the nation - and is at the bottom in terms of performance. The top four officials of its teachers union local are under Federal indictment for embezzeling millions in union funds for their own personal accounts, some while simultaneously serving in paid political positions of the local Democrat party.
By destroying the marketplace for health services through government funded (and controlled) programs, the government made rationiong inevitable. It is being done for them by insurance companies and HMOs. The government now proposes to impose yet another bureaucratic cure for the disease it created through a 'Patient's Bill of Rights ' law. The only beneficiaries of this are the bureaucrats themselves.
The fact is that our military has performed a good deal better than our K thru 12 school system.
c.i.
