As a general rule, the older you get, the less you care about the future. In fact, I've noticed that old people often get very cynical - unreasonably so. After observing this for some time with a number of family members and friends, it dawned on me that it can be a defensive mechanism: They don't want to imagine the world going on without them. So they construct a scenario where the future is so bleak that they might as well be dead anyway. At the least they don't care what happens. Moral of the story: Young people should never trust old people with their future.
I'm not sure of your point. But today we have an all volunteer military. If the war started while these soldiers were in diapers, when they volunteered, they also knew they might be sent to Afghanistan. I see nothing wrong with that. Regardless of one's views on Afghanistan, these are volunteers. Each knew they might be sent into harms way prior to joining. That is the nature of military service.
I agree that all Soldiers are volunteers but the irony is that some Soldiers that are being sent to Afghanistan this year were in diapers when the war started....Which means we have been at war for nearly 18 years....It's a long amount of time for the nation to have been at continuous war when some of the Soldiers about to go fight in it weren't even born when the thing started.
It was just an observation. We have been there a very long time! I think most posters will tell you that if I have a point to make, I don't mince words.
As for observations wrt motive, this would be my point: You have to wonder if the war on terror became the war for lithium. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html
I said that years ago. I was told I was nuts. The only thing there was poppy for heroine. I'm probably an old fart compared to you. I knew we weren't there to stop the poppy and heroine industry. We don't care if folks kill themselves with drugs, it seems. We do care what some ultra wealthy conglomerate wants, if we stand to make some money. Like they said, it's all volunteer. Who can be blamed? And, it's more likely that the older folks have heard, thought or said most of the things young folks do and realize no one learns from the past. Each new generation in charge of it all makes many of the same mistakes. Old folks get tired of that and want left out. They don't want to go through the sorrow and pain again. They know young folks won't listen. They know they need to find out for themselves. How do they know? Once, in a time long long ago, they were young and...............thought and acted the same damn way. Maybe the software wasn't there, or maybe there were no smart phones. Humans are humans are humans. We don't change much, just what we think is important in our time does......until it isn't to the next generation.
For many years we have heard that the quality of the average college student is declining. This has long been viewed by many educators, or seen implicitly by many who discuss such things, as an indicator that the average person is getting dumber. They can point to one example after another where courses were dumbed down to accommodate the average student. However, I suspect this is really because a far greater percentage of the population are obtaining college degrees. This is not a sign that people are getting dumber. It is an indication that college is no longer restricted to only the best and brightest, and those seeking academic careers. Even one of the most critical professors I ever encountered in this regard commented that our best and brightest are just as good as they ever were. This seems to support my hypothesis. It also stands to reason that as a greater and greater percentage of the population obtains college degrees, the IQ of the average student goes down. In the limit that 100 percent of the population had a college degree, the average IQ would be 100.
About 30% of the US population now completes a college degree. In 1905, about 30% of the population completed high school
It has taken several years for scientists to map about 2/3 of the neurons in the brain of a fruit fly. I remember extracting the DNA from a fruit fly in a bio class. You have to remove the salivary glands and get the DNA from those. Have you ever tried to remove the salivary glands from a fruit fly?!?!
In Russia they have a saying: You can't pick your parents. You can't pick your gender. And you can't pick your President.
Due to the idea there may be WMD. The military is one place you don’t volunteer at, there are better things in this world to volunteer for than the military. Anyone who SDSU’s otherwise, I just ask, “So, you’re okay with killing American citizens?” I’m a cynic and critic of the military for a very good reason.
That was the argument for invading Iraq, not Afghanistan. We went into Afghanistan in response to 911.
Here’s an observation. With the technology we have now, and the absurd amount of spending we are putting toward defense, where is the development of mechanical soldiers so we don’t have to put flesh and blood on the battlefield?
Regardless of what the reason was, the next generation should not be subject to what Bush Jr decided to put the nation though. The only good thing that’s come out of this was the killing of Osama Bin Laden.
My phone must have corrected it to something weird, and I forgot all of what I originally typed. I don’t know what SDSU is, but my phone thought that’s what I was typing. After thinking about it, I believe I meant “thinks” Putting American citizens out on the battlefield, when people say “Expand the Military” it really means sacrificing more American bodies. Total casualties don’t get always reported on the news, or even a single casuality for that matter. The idea the only way to serve your nation is via the military is nonsense. You become a big businessman, you are serving your country. You become a well-known author, you are serving your country. Those accomplishments are on behalf of a US citizen so that’s how these two alternatives are serving your country.
