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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: oconnellc who wrote (6909)	10/22/2001 11:26:53 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Okay, being serious for a change, I'm in favour of a Samurai or Knight-styled military service. Not a French Foreign Legion style where spare young guys are dumped into rank and file to be sent off to a battlefield to solve a population problem and maybe get some territory. Therefore, warriors should be highly-paid El Supremo people. Smartest, toughest, courageous, admired champions of their civilization. I would decline service by anyone who didn't fit performance standards. No quotas of women, homosexuals, melanin-rich or other types but no exclusion of them either. I have no idea whether being homosexual is a bad thing for military people to be. Given the success of heaps of homosexual people in many spheres, I'd be surprised if it's automatically a bad thing. In a modern military, there is a lot more needed than marching, polishing and firing rows of muskets. So, there is a wide range of talent needed. Defence is not just a state versus state territorial macho affair. So linguists, women, and all sorts of people would be needed. I'm all for freedom, including in the military because voluntary association is the most powerful association. If somebody's heart isn't in their job, they won't perform well. That sometimes means that they have to agree to do what they are told when they are told but are always the final arbiter of sense. I suppose a reasonable analogy would be the top NBA teams, or baseball, or football, or rugby etc. Capturing individual flair and creating a powerful team are what it's about. Bullying and ordering around of people isn't the way to win. My point was really just that homosexuals are people and that Jerry Falwell is nuts. I am surprised that anybody dies in an engine room. It's not the 19th century with exploding steam engines. They don't stoke furnaces and fall in. What happens to kill somebody in a navy engine room? The main reason I wouldn't hire people for military service is if they were unsuitable for what is needed [or not the best person for the money I had available to hire them]. It would depend on what the specialty was. Stephen Hawking might be ideal for some jobs for example. Not exactly a muscle-bound parade ground champion, but splitting the atom might be better than firing a rifle in some circumstances. The main thing an armed force does is make the opposition give in. Preferably with least killing and destruction, though those are necessary skills for the most part. After the fighting is over, there is some cleaning up and reconstruction needed. Being too enthusiastic about destruction isn't good. Defeat of opposition is what's needed. Best of all is avoiding conflict altogether. The ideal is that no military is needed. Maybe that'll be next year. Mqurice