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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (84178)	5/18/2010 9:32:01 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 224755

The Technicality Generation By Larry Pressler Published: May 18, 2010 THE problems faced by Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut’s attorney general, over his depiction of his military service are indicative of a broader disease in our society. The issues of integrity in business and politics that plague us today — the way elites are no longer trusted — are rooted in the dishonesty that surrounded the Vietnam-era draft. The Vietnam War drove members of my generation in different directions. Some served because they believed in the war, others didn’t believe in the war and protested, but when drafted felt an obligation to go. Others were simply drafted. Some refused service out of principle, others out of fear, and still others because they felt that taking the time to go to Vietnam would slow their careers. Many of those who didn’t serve were helped by an inherently unfair draft. I don’t fault anyone for taking advantage of the law. Where I do find fault is among those who say they were avoiding the draft because they were idealistically opposed to the war — when, in fact, they mostly didn’t want to make the sacrifice. The problem is that for every person who won a deferment or a spot in a special National Guard unit, someone poorer or less educated, and usually African-American, had to serve. Thus, many in my generation knew they were using a broken (but legal) system to shirk their duty. They cloaked themselves in idealism but deep down had to know they were engaging in a charade. (I, too, was against the Vietnam war and felt that people should protest, but not dodge their draft responsibility.) This intellectual justification continues to this day, only now these men are among our country’s leaders. I had a unique opportunity to observe the best and brightest of my generation — first as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford in 1964 and then when I attended Harvard Law School after serving in Vietnam. Among both sets of my classmates were some who used elaborate steps to avoid the draft. (At school, I recall articles circulating that explained how to fail Army physicals.) In private conversations with my classmates, I was told over and over that they didn’t want to serve in the military because it would hold up their careers. To the outside world, though, many would proclaim they weren’t going because they were opposed to the war and we should end all wars. Eventually they began to believe their “idealism” was superior to that of those who did serve. They said that it was courageous to resist the draft — something that would have been true if they had actually become conscientious objectors and gone to prison. Too many in my generation did a deeply insidious thing. And they got away with it. Big time. Poorer people went to war. The men who didn’t were able to get their head start to power. Now that flawed thinking has been carried forward. Many of these men who evaded service but claimed idealism lead our elite institutions. The concept of using legal technicalities to evade responsibility has been carried over to playing with derivatives, or to short-changing shareholders. Once my generation got in the habit of saying one thing and believing another, it couldn’t stop. Bizarre outcomes abound. Many of those who avoided the war became advocates of a muscular foreign policy. When I was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I would be invited to meetings in the Pentagon or the White House to discuss troop deployments. In those meetings, I encountered far too many Democrats and Republicans who did not serve in the war when they had a chance, and who overcompensated for their unease by sending others into harm’s way. In the coming days, I imagine we will learn more details of Mr. Blumenthal’s sad story. What we know, though, more generally, is much more troubling. Too many members of my generation learned to believe that they could work within the law to evade basic responsibilities, cloaking their actions in idealism. It’s a way of thinking that scars us to this day. Larry Pressler, a former Republican senator from South Dakota, served in the Army in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (84178)	5/18/2010 9:34:52 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224755

Salazar Admits Lapses in Gulf Spill By MATTHEW L. WALD and TOM ZELLER Jr. 8:20 PM ET Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that weaknesses at his agency might have contributed to the disaster.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (84178)	5/18/2010 9:36:29 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224755

In Tea Party Victory, Rand Paul Takes Ky. Senate Primary By ADAM NAGOURNEY and KATE ZERNIKE 3 minutes ago Rand Paul, the son of Ron Paul, won the Republican race, offering the clearest evidence yet of the strength of the anti-government sentiment simmering at the grass-roots level.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (84178)	5/18/2010 9:37:49 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 224755

From Shaila Dewan in Arkansas — As the voting hours wended to a close, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, refreshed after a 25-hour campaign spree the night before, made an appearance at a precinct in Hillcrest, a liberal enclave in Little Rock. He seemed to be sandbagging his expectations for the results. Mr. Halter said that even if he did not win outright, putting Senator Blanche Lincoln into a runoff would be a victory. “I think any reasonable political observer would say that when a two-term incumbent senator and someone with 16 years of experience in Washington is put into a runoff in her own party primary, that’s a tough sign for the incumbent,” he said. Then he reminded his audience that he had been running for only 11 weeks. “Most folks when they run statewide, it takes them 11 months,” he said. “Some folks work two, three years to get together a statewide campaign.”