Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] [POLITICS] Cindy Sheehan on Bill Kristol

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Thu, 6 Sep 2007, Jack Smith wrote:

> Pulling the class warfare card may be popular, but it's asinine to do in 
> this situation. The fact remains that the soldiers are there BECAUSE 
> THEY VOLUNTEERED TO BE THERE. They all made the decision to enlist and 
> could have done something else if they wanted to. Sure, many of them 
> might be there because the military offered better pay and benefits than 
> working at McDonald's. But they weren't forced to join.
>
> You'll doubtless pull the class warfare card again in your reply and say 
> that "the poor have no choice and are forced into the military" or 
> somesuch, but just remember that we're currently an all-volunteer 
> military.

This isn't about class warfare, it's about the cost/benefit analysis and 
who makes the call.  Is it worth 5,000 American soldiers lives to obtain 
the situation we have obtained in Iraq?  If you don't know any American 
soldiers, you might say "sure," but would you want the 5,000 people to die 
if they represented everyone from your high school, all of your relatives, 
all of your friends and a few thousand more people you've met or admired? 
I doubt it.  Should we give up the life of one person to save the lives of 
1,000 others?  Suppose you were allowed to make that call, but suppose the 
one person was you, or your son, or your dad.

My point is just that you make very different life/death decisions when 
the lives and deaths are of people you care about.


> And one more thing: you are a professor. You make enough to be 
> considered "rich" by many people. Class warfare doesn't work so well 
> when you are actually a member of the group you are making fun of.

If I vote against my own interests, I think that automatically implies a 
certain level of honesty and genuineness and a commitment to an ideal.  I 
am really not rich.  I figured out the other day that if I could continue 
to make exactly the same salary in dollars and save every penny of my 
income before taxes, but with no interest earnings, and continue to do so 
for 1,000,000 (one million) years, I would be only about 70,000 years away 
from having the amount of money that Bill Gates is said to be worth today. 
I am very concerned about billionaires and the power they wield.  Same for 
people worth more than $10 million.  Economically speaking, I'm a total 
nobody.  Professors are not rich, believe me.

Mike

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