How much insanity can you pack into a single paragraph? I think Thomas Friedman is a strong contender for the prize with this gem from a New York Times op-ed today (thanks to Sheldon Richman for the link):
I want to take time on this Thanksgiving to thank God I live in a country where, despite so much rampant selfishness, the public schools still manage to produce young men and women ready to voluntarily risk their lives in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to spread the opportunity of freedom and to protect my own. And I want to thank them for doing this, even though on so many days in so many ways we really don’t deserve them.
Words fail me.
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The guy is delusional, pure and simple.
My prediction is that after they finish raising the minimum wage again(as Ted Kennedy and Ben Affleck have been campaigning for) they will use the newly unemployed to bolster the forces of the New Model Army of the Republic(apologies to Cromwell AND Lincoln).
That’s basically all that public school is grooming people for these days. It is quite unforunate.
These types of comments are so silly that I wonder if the people writing them are kinda joking. Nobody can be that base…
Why would that be insane?
You may disagree with the cause, but the fact is that they (soldiers) are doing their job. If someone is doing something wrong is the government that sent them there. Thanking someone for doing their job, if you believe it helps you, is nothing to be ashamed about.
Btw, isn’t this blog about economics?
They died for your right to force them to die for that right…
If you think that the job of a soldier is criminal murder, then it is indeed shameful to thank them for doing their job.
Oh, so you are telling me that soldiers should not kill? Or that there is a clear difference between killing now and lets say killing in WW2?
Please… Like I said, you may disagree with the cause, but trying to say that the whole system is wrong because of this war is just silly.
Paul,
Those who are the most libertarian are against offensive warfare. I consider all offensive warfare to be murder.
It’s insane because a) Friedman thinks it’s “selfish” to avoid being killed, b) he likes the fact that the public schools turn out mindless sheep, c) he thinks soldiers who are being forced to re-up in violation of their contracts are there “voluntarily,” d) he thinks bringing chaos and death to Iraq and Afghanistan counts as bringing them freedom, and e) he thinks building a police state here and provoking further terrorist attacks against us counts as protecting our freedom.
P.S. – The full title of this blog is “Austrian Economics and Libertarian Political Theory.”
Friedman will probably strike most people as perfectly sane- that’s what makes him so scary. Friedman’s ideas are deeply flawed for reasons that have nothing to do with what you think about this war or the military in general. There are two things I see right away. First, the idea that the government (and by extension, the military) makes us free. But if the government gives you freedom, doesn’t it then get to decide how much freedom you get? There are plenty of people who believe that it is the military that somehow makes us free, often citing the idea that you can’t enjoy freedom if you don’t have security. They never seem to recognize the contradiction that leads to: that you can’t have freedom without security, but to have security, you have to give up freedom, which makes no sense. The other wrong idea here is that living your own life without constantly thinking (as I’m so sure Friedman does) about what sacrifices you could be making for other people is selfish. By that logic, working in a lab, going to school, teaching philosphy, fixing cars, waiting tables, or working as a retail clerk are all just “selfish”, and we should all be in the military! I’m not sure who would be left to make society work if everybody ran off to fight a war. In any case, I am waiting for this guy to strike a blow against rampant selfishness by enlisting.
The New York Times is full of establishment bromide, which is why it is the last thing to read. Occasionally when I want to get an idea of what the establishment wants people to believe, I read it for kicks, but beyond that, I’m thankful for the internet and websites such as this for an alternative to the mainstream nonsense. Anyone who seriously believes in the hogwash that this guy offers really needs to be left alone in a corner.
I’d have to disagree with some posters on here that soldiers are professional murderers. Murder is something that is not done in self defense; it’s killing an hapless victim. Aside from the question of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (no need to get into that debate), most soldiers are often nice people, if a little economically off (but can you blame them?) Calling them professional murderers is a little bit over the top, Mr. Heinrich.. come on
The real area that I’m kind of worried about in Friedman’s article (man there’s a lot of Friedman’s out there eh?) is the glorification of the State. I thought conservatives hated public schools; here we see that many have turned their coats in for the State, worshipping State sponsored education – so long as it’s in the conservative cause, of course.
The biggest problem with cons is that they have no idea where to stop in their compromising with liberals and even libertarians. And their patriotism for America is misguided; look at the gushing over Democracy, mob rule, and the total neglect of the true nature of what our government was supposed to be; a Republic.
Also couldn’t help but feel the whiffs of anti-capitalism coming off of this post – am I the only one? Whenever someone says “rampant selfishness” or “greed” I think “anti-capitalist laws” and “more socialism”. To see conservatives doing it really shows that we’re the only consistent free marketers out there.
Friedman is partially right. Being a soldier is a tremendous sacrifice. For not much pay, soldiers leave their families and friends behind to be shipped off to bizarre lands to be shot at by people they don’t know. I agree that they’re mistaken or misguided, but I don’t think anyone can question their courage or sacrifice. It’s Friedman that disgusts me, not a tech sargeant.
- Josh
Paul,
The difference between murder and self defense is, litterally, “who started it”. Neither the government nor people of Iraq or Afghanistan initiated force against the United States. A group of individuals, mostly Saudi Arabian, did so.
Would the individual who brought Bin Laden’s head on a platter be a murderer? How about Bin Laden’s neighbors head?
If you can grasp the difference between those two proposed acts, you can understand why American soldiers killing Iraqi and Afghani women and children is murder.
It may sound over the top to call soldier’s professional murderers. However, certainly, you must admit that they are professional killers. That’s what they do. Kill people. Now, not all of them I would call murderers — only those who initiate aggression against any non-aggressors (which would be most of them).
My take on soldiers is that many of them are basically good people, who’ve been brainwashed into doing bad things. I don’t rejoice in having to make that conclusion, but its the only conclusion I can make, since I must conclude that any offensive war necessitates the murder of non-aggressors, and someone has to be doing the murdering.
Dead-Check in Fallujah
The Marines constantly debated the morality of what they were engaged in. A sergeant in the platoon told me he had consulted with his priest about killing. The priest had told him it was all right to kill for his government so long as he didn’t enjoy it. By the time the unit reached the outskirts of Baghdad, this sergeant was certain he had already killed at least four men. When his battalion commander praised the unit for “slaying dragons” on the way to Baghdad, the sergeant later told his men, “If we did half the shit back home we’ve done here, we’d be in prison.” By then, the sergeant told me, he’d reconsidered what his priest had told him about killing. “Where the fuck did Jesus say it’s OK to kill people for your government? Any priest who tells me that has got no credibility.”
Imagine having to wrestle with this debate in your own mind as a soldier, instead of on a blog… How does one deal with something like this?
Many people join the military because they believe that they are helping to defend their country. When they are instead forced to kill people who would have posed no danger to their country, what will that do to a person emotionally and spritually?
“Rampant selfishness” is an interesting term. I struggle to conceive of any act that isn’t motivated by adherence to a personal set of values, and is selfish for that reason alone.
I don’t think too many 18 year olds enlist for the noble reasons they give to journalists posing the question. For them the military is the option that made the most sense to them at their present stage of development. And in the age of video gaming, it might even appear to some of them to be a “great and excellent adventure”, to serve as a warrior for that fictitious entity called government. There are surely few who could be expected at 18 to entertain the notion that government is a reification.
Looking back from the perspective of middle or old age at our own 18 year old personas probably elicits mostly embarassment for most of us. We simply had too little experience under our belts to draw accurate conclusions about the world and what it was about. Our gullibilty made us valuable, for it is gullibility that can be made use of by governments and military recruiters. It is no accident that armies the world over are populated by adolescents or young twenty-somethings. Not only do they have the most stamina, they are the most malleable in terms of mindset.
It is disturbing to me that an essayist such as Thomas Friedman, a man of the world—presumably with some adult experience in the same consensual reality as the rest of us—could write: “I…thank them for doing this, even though on so many days in so many ways we really don’t deserve them.” It could be argued that because of the cynical uses of youth by an older generation, it’s really the other way around: They really don’t deserve us…
I must correct a notion that seems pretty wide-spread–that “involuntary extension of enlistment” is a violation of the enlistment contract. It is not. It may be a terrible thing for the government to do (no, it IS a terrible thing) but the problem is that most folks don’t bother to read the enlistment contract.
There is a common misconception that people who enlist do so for 4 years or some such. The fact is, if you read the contract, everyone who signs enlists for 8 years. The 4 year or other noted period is merely the Active Duty committment. The remainder of the 8 year period is served in the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). This means that you are subject to recall to active duty at any time until the 8 years are over.
If you look at the back of the contract, there are all sorts of little clauses and subclauses pertaining to the agreement. One of these clauses states (if I remember correctly, clause C) if the President declares a state of emergency, you are automatically extended until 6 months AFTER the President declares the state of emergency to be over, unless the president declares an exception to the extension.
So, although I am not going to argue that the contract is a good or fair contract, or that the government is justified in anything it’s doing, the fact is that the contract was voluntarily entered into by those who enlisted, and is not being violated by the government.
Now, before I go drink some strong whiskey to get the bad taste out of my mouth, let me address some further points of military service (by the way, I’m a 10 year Army vet).
Officers come in two types (as far as their commission status, that is): Regular and Reserve. Graduates of the US Military Academies, and honor grads from ROTC programs, and those who have passed the rank of Major (if I remember correctly) and have accepted the commission have Regular Commissions. All the rest have Reserve Commissions.
A Regular Commission basically makes an officer subject to recall to active service for the rest of their life–even if the individual in question retired or otherwise resigned their commission 20 years ago. It doesn’t happen too often, and I believe there is an accepted (even if not legally binding) age maximum of 60 or some such.
During the Spanish-American War, General Wheeler was called back to service in the US Army, despite the fact he had served as a CONFEDERATE General in Lincoln’s War. This was not a rare exception–merely a notable case. There have been many cases throughout post-Lincoln US History of such call-backs, especially during WWI & WWII. “Wild Bill” Donovan of the OSS during WWII had served as an officer during WWI, left the service after the first war, and was called back by FDR for the second–a break in service of 24 years. And all the “5-star” Generals (General of the Armies) were considered to be on full active duty until their deaths (although this was largely a fiction as far as actually having assigned duties–it was mostly just a way to continue paying them and giving them full active duty benefits).
I’m not sure of the actual time limit for Reserve Officers (Not to be confused with those serving in the Reserve Components of the military, e.g. Army Reserves, National Guard, etc) to be called back to service is–I think it’s something along the order of 5 years or so.
Enlisted men (i.e. anyone who was not a commissioned or warrant officer) can be called back to service for (if I’m correct) 5 years after completing their 8 year committment or otherwise leaving the service as well (barring other than honorable discharges or medical discharges or some such).
Now of course, there’s nothing to stop the government from issuing recall orders for anyone who has ever been in the service. But they generally would engage in conscription of people without prior service before they recalled most folks with prior service–those actually contractually required to submit to recall are a small proportion of the whole.
I was going to talk further on this subject, but the taste is getting pretty bad.
Oh, one last note. While I do not in any way support the current war of aggression against whoever the government wants to invade this week, and even though the military IS a volunteer military in a somewhat loose definition, I can’t fault most of the troops. Yes, those who engage in torture, rape, and other such atrocities deserve condemnation and worse, but they are very few.
Most of the troops are not educated enough to know any better (they are former government school inmates, you know). They also are trying to do what they think is right, and are doing their best to just survive and help their comrades survive.
David Drake (sci-fi author) once said: “to give a man a rifle and send him off to war is to create a policy maker…because he will do whatever is necessary to stay alive.” I am also reminded of the Wizard of Id cartoon my Mother sent me after I had been in the Army about a year (I joined at 17). A little boy went to the king and asked if he could join the Army. The king asked how old he was. The boy replied: “8.” The king said: “You have to be 18.” The boy then said: “But I’ll know better by then.” The king then said: “Good point. Sign him up.”
I’m reminded of a line from Star Trek-The Motion Picture, where McCoy is talking about a little-known clause in his contract: “They drafted me!”
Is it possible Friedman is trying to convince rw readers of the value of a public school system?
He would have to use coded language if he wanted to pass the idea in a column: ‘if we go to a voucher system, we might end up with not enough cannon fodder to fight all the wars we are planning‘.
Guys like Friedman talk in two directions, often requiring odd modalities. Sometimes the results appear to be insanity, but are actually utter intellectual decadence.
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