The tradition is that when someone’s young, dumb, and full of naivety, you get them all hopped-up on patriotic fervor and send them to go serve in the military shooting at some hapless villagers somewhere who never did anything to them, to make someone who lives in Maryland or owns shares in Raytheon a half a billion dollars richer.
Sometimes they got wiser, but sometimes they wound up dying by the side of the road somewhere, so far from home they can’t conceive of the distance, and the wisdom came too late. Or they came back with no legs or a traumatic brain injury. Now we’re hopping those same people up on faux 1776 imagery and turning them loose on Ethel who’s volunteering at the senior center as a poll worker.
I have to say I think this way is better, because it gives them a lot gentler chance at redemption and wisdom. That’s still contingent on the hope that it doesn’t actually work, and nobody chops up Ethel, but I think this way is better. I think.
When some Aussies get out of school with their hopped up hormones and head full of stupid ideas they get a work visa and come snowboard or ski for a season in Whistler BC. Couldn’t Americans do that instead, not come to BC because we’d rather not have them, but go on a world trip to see the world and expand their minds.
Seeing the world but not as a soldier might give them ideas larger than those that fit inside Trump’s head.
