It's Hard Work Screwing Up The Greatest Country In The World

The only think even remotely close to being wrong or messed up with The United States of America at the present time, is the constant whining and carping from a bunch of mealy mouthed hippy rejects who still can't accept that the flower power nonsense of the 60's is over and done with.

Bellyache as much as you want to, there is no hope that any of you or your beloved Abbie Hoffman (now dead and buried, another drugger gone overboard) is ever going to 'levitate the Pentagon' (those sure were some powerful herbs you fellows were snabbling down).

Not a darned thing being screwed up in this country except the allowance of overpaid underemployed children who think they are the answer to everything in the world and know every blasted thing even though their supposed knowledge comes from watching re-runs of their precious Brady Bunch and Josie& The Pussycats.

It is no wonder the rest of the globe looks at us and shake their heads in utter disbelief.

The United States is as great as the people within it allow it to be and this can only be done by being supportive of the nation as a whole, and not attacking its elected leaders.

washingtonpost.com
Who's Paying for Our Patriotism?

By Uwe E. Reinhardt
Monday, August 1, 2005; A17



President Bush assures us that the ongoing twin wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are worth the sacrifices they entail. Editorialists around the nation agree and say that a steadfast American public was willing to stay the course.

Should anyone be surprised by this national resolve, given that these wars visit no sacrifice of any sort -- neither blood nor angst nor taxes -- on well over 95 percent of the American people?

At most, 500,000 American troops are at risk of being deployed to these war theaters at some time. Assume that for each of them some 20 members of the wider family sweat with fear when they hear that a helicopter crashed in Afghanistan or that X number of soldiers or Marines were killed or seriously wounded in Iraq. It implies that no more than 10 million Americans have any real emotional connection to these wars.

The administration and Congress have gone to extraordinary lengths to insulate voters from the money cost of the wars -- to the point even of excluding outlays for them from the regular budget process. Furthermore, they have financed the wars not with taxes but by borrowing abroad.

The strategic shielding of most voters from any emotional or financial sacrifice for these wars cannot but trigger the analogue of what is called "moral hazard" in the context of health insurance, a field in which I've done a lot of scholarly work. There, moral hazard refers to the tendency of well-insured patients to use health care with complete indifference to the cost they visit on others. It has prompted President Bush to advocate health insurance with very high deductibles. But if all but a handful of Americans are completely insulated against the emotional -- and financial -- cost of war, is it not natural to suspect moral hazard will be at work in that context as well?

A policymaking elite whose families and purses are shielded from the sacrifices war entails may rush into it hastily and ill prepared, as surely was the case of the Iraq war. Moral hazard in this context can explain why a nation that once built a Liberty Ship every two weeks and thousands of newly designed airplanes in the span of a few years now takes years merely to properly arm and armor its troops with conventional equipment. Moral hazard can explain why, in wartime, the TV anchors on the morning and evening shows barely make time to report on the wars, lest the reports displace the silly banter with which they seek to humor their viewers. Do they ever wonder how military families with loved ones in the fray might feel after hearing ever so briefly of mayhem in Iraq or Afghanistan?

Moral hazard also can explain why the general public is so noticeably indifferent to the plight of our troops and their families. To be sure, we paste cheap magnetic ribbons on our cars to proclaim our support for the troops. But at the same time, we allow families of reservists and National Guard members to slide into deep financial distress as their loved ones stand tall for us on lethal battlefields and the family is deprived of these troops' typically higher civilian salaries. We offer a pittance in disability pay to seriously wounded soldiers who have not served the full 20 years that entitles them to a regular pension. And our legislative representatives make a disgraceful spectacle of themselves bickering over a mere $1 billion or so in added health care spending by the Department of Veterans Affairs -- in a nation with a $13 trillion economy!

Last year kind-hearted folks in New Jersey collected $12,000 at a pancake feed to help stock pantries for financially hard-pressed families of the National Guard. Food pantries for American military families? The state of Illinois now allows taxpayers to donate their tax refunds to such families. For the entire year 2004, slightly more than $400,000 was collected in this way, or 3 cents per capita. It is the equivalent of about 100,000 cups of Starbucks coffee. With a similar program Rhode Island collected about 1 cent per capita. Is this what we mean by "supporting our troops"?

When our son, then a recent Princeton graduate, decided to join the Marine Corps in 2001, I advised him thus: "Do what you must, but be advised that, flourishing rhetoric notwithstanding, this nation will never truly honor your service, and it will condemn you to the bottom of the economic scrap heap should you ever get seriously wounded." The intervening years have not changed my views; they have reaffirmed them.

Unlike the editors of the nation's newspapers, I am not at all impressed by people who resolve to have others stay the course in Iraq and in Afghanistan. At zero sacrifice, who would not have that resolve?

The writer is James Madison professor of political economy at Princeton University.


© 2005 The Washington Post Company

I don't know who Sturgis is addressing. His rant doesn't seem to fit anybody who has posted on this particular thread.

edgarblythe wrote:

I don't know who Sturgis is addressing. His rant doesn't seem to fit anybody who has posted on this particular thread.

My lucid and calmly stated views were regarding both the title of the topic and several of the early responses.

The article refers to the president's 50th trip---does that have anything to do with LSD?

barefootTia wrote:

The article refers to the president's 50th trip---does that have anything to do with LSD?

from all I've read his drug of choice was alcohol and cocaine.... but of course I wasn't there. I can tell you this, GWB is the rich guy we would have sent on a beer run and then locked ourselves in the bathroom and snorted all the coke before he got back.

Sturgis what's the difference between that and you living in the days of John Wayne, Audie Murphy and Death Valley Days? Or should I have referred to some of the older radio serials?

Does your toolbox contain oinly a hammer for every job? Because a hammer is not always the right tool for the job ya know. Or do ya?

Yeah - and that's probably exactly what the "cool guys" did to him all the time - hence scarring the damn man - now the whole world is living with the results.

Sturgis said:
Not a darned thing being screwed up in this country except the allowance of overpaid underemployed children who think they are the answer to everything in the world and know every blasted thing even though their supposed knowledge comes from watching re-runs of their precious Brady Bunch and Josie& The Pussycats.

DrewDad, could you explain what you meant by that comment? I mean George Bush has both sides covered quite nicely. Not only does he have all the qualities needed and desired for becoming President he also has those which are needed for being a President

You are free to believe that, Sturgis. From my perspective, being President means upholding all of the laws of the United States. Not just those that are convenient for you to follow at the time.

DrewDad wrote:

You are free to believe that, Sturgis. From my perspective, being President means upholding all of the laws of the United States. Not just those that are convenient for you to follow at the time.

Does that include lying in front of a grand jury? Does that include accepting campaign contributions from people in foreign countries? Does that include selling that country missile technology? All of these things are against the law as well.

14 Marines Killed In Western Iraq




Aug 3, 2005 7:56 am US/Eastern
(1010 WINS) BAGHDAD, Iraq Fourteen U.S. Marines and a civilian interpreter were killed Wednesday in western Iraq, the U.S. command said.

The Marines, assigned to Regimental Combat Team 2, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), were killed in action early Wednesday when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device, the military said. One Marine was also wounded in the attack.

The incident occurred during combat operations just outside Haditha, which is 140 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Names of those killed are being withheld pending notification of next