From: ibshambat@gmail.com   
      
   In 1970s the solution to everything was government action. Then Reagan came to   
   power saying that the government was the problem rather than the solution, and   
   he dedicated a lot of his political activities toward hobbling the federal   
   government. He    
   however failed to confront the biggest expense of government funding: the   
   military.   
      
   When I was a student at the University of Virginia, people were saying that   
   war was good for the economy. They could away with saying such things because   
   America has not had a war on its soil for a very long time. If war happens on   
   your soil, your    
   economy goes down bigtime. There is at first some economic gain as the assets   
   of the conquered party gets looted; then, as more work is put into military   
   activity and less work into economic activity, the economy goes down.   
      
   There are people who seek to glorify war. They should not. The people who risk   
   their lives for their country are doing a heroic thing; the people who make   
   other people do such a thing are not. The first should be respected, the   
   second should be    
   confronted. In war situations, the good people take the hit for the bad   
   people. That is wrong by just about any computation.   
      
   In analysis of America’s greatest presidents, the three top presidents were   
   George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. All three   
   governed during the time of war. This tells children that to be a hero one has   
   to be a warrior,    
   which then equates war with heroism and creates an incentive for politicians   
   to go to war. This is very wrong. War should be seen as political failure. It   
   happens when people in the government fail to do their job and instead fix   
   their errors and their    
   wrongdoing with thousands of other people’s lives.   
      
   The job of resolving international disputes like adults and addressing   
   problems that may be found in them.   
      
   The things that happen in wars are absolutely horrible. There are few valid   
   reasons to risk such things. Just as government for Reagan, war should be   
   minimized. Instead the attention of people in the government should be   
   directed to negotiating workable    
   agreements with other agents of power, both internal and external. Negotiating   
   peace sounds less heroic than going to war; but it is in every way a superior   
   solution.   
      
   A solution that cares about what happens to people and that spares the   
   innocent from wrongful death and dismemberment for their country.   
      
   If Reagan conservatives can rein in social services, they also can rein in the   
   military. The good guys in this situation are the people who go to war; the   
   bad guys are the people who send them there. Have respect for the military   
   personnel, but control    
   what the political leaders are doing.  Make it heroic to make peace rather   
   than war. And see better political decisions made all across the board.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)