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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (76906)	10/12/2004 2:47:04 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793749

If you think about it for more than a minute, I think you will see it IS the salient factor in military enlistment. Why would anyone follow a leader they had no confidence in...? I have thought about it for more than a minute. It seems to me that patriotism would be a likely if not the most likely reason why someone would follow such a leader. Let me review the bidding. UW's point was that, if Kerry won, there would be a drop in enlistments. I observed that that did not speak well for their patriotism and that patriotism must not be as big a factor as I thought. Yes, those who would sign up were there another big incident would demonstrate patriotism, as you say. But those who would reject the military because Kerry was elected are demonstating something other than patriotism. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that some would enlist out of patriotism and others would enlist for the same reasons that someone would take any job, personal fulfillment or compensation or travel or whatever. I haven't a clue about how much the various factors affect enlistments but the evidence as presented by UW is that patriotism isn't THE salient factor, otherwise none would leave with a change of president.