Another Veterans Day

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarreled with him? Blaise Pascal

Another Veterans Day just passed, another day of genuflecting and paying homage to those who said they fought to protect me and America. They say they sacrificed and risked their lives for my freedom.

When someone tells you they did something for you, and not for themselves, then you can be certain they want something in return.

The Veterans Day celebration is all about saying thank you, thank you, thank you, to the veterans. They want their parades, monuments, emoluments, pensions, and free/reduced health care called Tri/Care. And now the government, the same government that the military bureaucracy enables, wants to reward them even more by giving companies incentives to hire veterans, FIRST, over someone who did the right thing and did not join the War Corps. That smacks of discrimination. They should give tax incentives to employers who hire members of the Peace Corp instead of members of the War Corps. How will the world ever live in peace if tribes keep rewarding men and women for killing strangers in another country.

At the bottom of a good deal of the bravery that appears in the world there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion. -Edwin Hubbel Chapin, minister and orator (1814-1880)

They did not go into some small foreign country and kill another person, a complete stranger, who had done nothing to the veteran, nor to me, in order to protect me. They did it for their own self interest. They did it for the money and glory.

The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature. - Edward Gibbon

Why do these people who claim to be so virtuous and noble constantly need praise. If they did it for noble reasons they would just keep quiet and stop trying to put a guilt trip on the rest of America.

"All men are enamored of decorations...they positively hunger for them." Napoleon

The merchants can't help but exploit this tribal fever. The merchants offer discounts to the veterans. The merchants all see this as a market they want to capture.

And the politicians keep praising the veterans because they want their votes. The politicians also want the support of the military bureaucracy in case there is social unrest. The politicians and military bureaucracy claim they are fighting a war in Iraq and Afghanistan when in fact they are just occupying two other small countries to justify the huge funding for the military bureaucracy. Read this by another blogger about war.
http://blog.independent.org/2011/11/11/armistice-day/

"Army Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs has been sentenced to life in military prison with eligibility for parole in 10 years.

A military court-martial Thursday found Gibbs guilty of murdering three Afghan civilians, illegally cutting off pieces of their corpses to keep as "souvenirs" and planting weapons to make the men appear as if they were Taliban fighters killed in legitimate firefights."

Charles Tolleson