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Do you care about human beings, or an official killing machine?
We have a fetish about the military. The absurdly misnamed “defense budget” is normally sacrosanct — except right now when MAGA nuts want to use it to promote their “culture wars” nonsense. But most times, the military gets MORE money than it requests and even gets weapons systems it doesn’t want. The budgets reflect the lobbying power of military contractors, not the military policy of the United States.
Nonetheless, as a society, we adore everything military. Wherever you are on the political/ideological spectrum, we are all supposed to support our troops and thank them for their service.
When nearly everyone agrees on some kind of “values” in our modern world, you can be pretty sure something is wrong.
The Soldier and the Protester
I was working at the National Constitution Center (all these views are my own, not the NCCs), and I watched an older heterosexual couple at the entrance to an exhibit, Art of the American Soldier. This was more than a decade ago.
I listened in as they entered the exhibit. The man fought in Vietnam. The woman had been an anti-war protester. Now, they were a couple, perhaps married. They were discussing the war. He said that she didn’t understand: they…
