Wednesday, 8/26/2009
Plato's world?..... Hurry up and Die..?
How about the old military adage "hurry up and wait"?!....to die. The statement was made by an assistant Secretary of defense that the material referring to early death was removed in 2007. It sounds more like doublespeak for, "we got caught with our hands in the cookie jar". Can we expect any better under government healthcare?
Have we become Plato's Republic, where people are divided into three classes: workers,military, and intellectuals? And, guess who gets draft-deferred?...to run the country. Such was the basic policy in the Vietnam Era. College deferments were offered, especially in the education field. If things go badly in the middle east, expect the same policies to be applied again.
Life,liberty, and sacred honor do not apply to the ruling elite. To paraphrase George C. Scott in the movie, "Patton", it is their duty to make sure some other poor dumb "citizen" dies for his country. A gifted college student once expressed to me his frustration with being subject to the draft. His general attitude was, why does the government need to bother me?...when there are so many "dumber" people(who can't go to college) that should be sent to war instead.
Our government seemed to have the attitude that those who chose to work with their hands for a living, instead of their mouths, were second class citizens. Weren't we all created with equal rights and responsibilities under the law regardless of our talents? Is the head more important than the arm or the foot? It didn't take long to bail out of Vietnam once the deferment system was gone.
In the secular world of Plato, human life was expendable if it was born weak or deformed; or if to old to be of use to society. Such is the nature of all heathen societies. We've heard of such in both Indian and Eskimo cultures. However, are we not "a nation under God", where all life is protected?
Worse yet, you may hear as I once did after my service was completed, "your not in uniform any more!" Our collegiate system seems to have created a new British class...born to rule you know! They don't seem to have much regard for those whose patriotism drives them to volunteer to defend our nation when they so easily could get out of it. Maybe in their minds, we are just servants ..you know?
Many of them are great at saying,"Thank you for your service". Have we gone from, "we're all in this together", "to hurry up and die"? Is this the change we need?!! How about don't hurry up........and wait!! Now that all the elite "draft-dodgers" are running the country, why would you expect better than what we have?...a country of,by, and for the lawyers.