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Pastimes : Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (3650)	3/19/2010 11:06:29 AM
From: one_less	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3816

I've never been able to get the idea of economic cost/benefit analysis as a reason to engage in war or not. We, Americans, have historically been willing to risk all over a particular issue, like the Revolutionary war or our Civil War. I don't even understand the argument in terms of numbers of dead soldiers. People have been willing to die rather than permit brutal tyranny, terrorism, and insufferable oppression. Twenty five thousand children die every day do to preventable conditions like poverty, starvation, and treatable disease. We will all die eventually. What does this death mean? It means something when it seems untimely, unjust, or just plain cruel. We don't like it, we click our tongues and declare it a shame which someone should do something about. But do we feel real bad? I'll bet each of us has cried more often in the theater over a fictitious movie than we have over those children, each of whom has a tragic story and loved ones who are suffering over the circumstances of their death. The brutality and injustice in the world tears at the global economy and the very fiber of humanity. It would be unconscionable for a country maintaining a viable world force not to answer that with as much force as they/we can muster to over come heinously cruel conditions. We have an equal responsibility to use our wealth to combat poverty and suffering of people who need our help. Of course every kind of complexity is woven through the context of this experience and you can take your pick when casting blame... economic agendas for which energy is but one among many, political power, humanitarian cause, religion, social issues, self-serving egotists, etc. The choices we make as a culture include the choice to innovate and produce solutions that were not imagined a decade ago ... scientific, technical, life style etc. We are all aware of our situation and we've begun heading in a new direction. The revolutionary war, the civil war, World War II, or the Crusading and conquering period of Kings and Nobles may have helped to influence and shape who we are in this time, but we did not influence or take part in resolving the conflicts and suffering of their times any more than our ancestral heros can take part in our conflicts. This is ours. It is our time, and our responsibility.