Posted on 04/21/2014 9:57:37 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It may come as an unwelcome surprise to conservatives, but America’s military has one of the only working models of collective living and social welfare the country has ever known.
Every day before dawn, brave men and women of different races and backgrounds rise as one, united by a common cause. They march together in formation, kept in step by their voices joined in song. These workers leave their communal housing arrangements and go toil together “in the field.” While they are out doing their day’s labor, their young are cared for in subsidized childcare programs. If they hurt themselves on the job, they can count on universal health care. Right under your nose, on the fenced-in bases you drive past on your way to work or see on the TV news, a successful experiment in collectivization has been going on for years.
In an era defined by 13 years of continuous war, most Americans still seem to regard the U.S. military as a mysterious and remote way of life. Then a tragedy involving a soldier or veteran happens, and reliably experts come forward to explain the strange customs of the folkloric troop in its native habitat. Shame that so many of the experts seem to have barely a clue what the military is really like. They’ve studied it from a distance without getting a real feel for the customs and characteristics of the culture they’re eager to explain.
It probably comes as a surprise to many, but the army may have more in common with Norway than Sparta....
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
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Isn't the Daily Kos founder also supposedly a veteran?
Military people are socialist when it comes to their benefits. When they were cut earlier this year, a frightened Congress hurriedly voted to restore them.
Active Duty ping
Isn’t this the same U.S. military that the libtards are always telling us costs too much money? Do they not realize that a lot of these costs come from personnel/healthcare? Oh wait, socialized healthcare is paid for by unicorns, pixie dust, and rainbows.
The military is a microcosmic culture within a republic. Always has been.
It has much in common with socialism. The medical system is socialized medicine. it thrives on a relatively healthy population of cooperative, appreciative patient base, which also describes the retiree base. They are quite content to wait six hours in a waiting room in an ER.
The author is correct in the sense that Americans are ignorant not to have looked into this prior to now. The differences between military medicine and Obamacare are as above, oh... and that the military actually has doctors. obamacare will not have providers in due course.
The military is a socialist system in many respects. It’s main succeeding tenet, however, is that thrives in its main purpose, that is to provide and protect the republic. It’s members look back and forward to freedom.
Military members give up their democratic rights. Many times I have heard, “hey, no independent thinking” and “this is NOT a democracy”.
One can only get laughs out of such bold truths when one knows he is out in seven or ten or five or even twenty years.
Siegel forgets the signal difference: the income to support this vast bureaucracy comes from outside.
Socialism works up to a point, but is far from optimal economically. The military is an example of how expensive socialism is: far too little is accomplished with far too much cost.
It is also coercive, which is the hallmark of any military. Is that the model for a entire society?
Most don’t think so, including people in the military. They accept the privation as a necessary sacrifice, typically temporary.
The meritocratic aspects are true up to a point. But like any organized group, individuals advance in many ways, many times unfairly.
Siegel isn’t the first to note these points. It’s well known.
But at least others have been willing to make the counter points.
Siegel isn’t, and omits one militarized socialist society which you’d think someone of his ethnicity would not: National Socialism in Germany, circa 1933 - 1945.
A lot of things are socialistic in nature, but then again, people volunteer for them.
If the government is socialist, you have no choice, but to embrace the suck.
In fact, the military families at the bottom are mostly on foodstamps, or the couple both work in addition to military duties.
Then, the actual waste, i.e. fuels and such, is unbelievable, all due to the weird way of authorization.
Just as with social programs, everything hinges on requisitions from this year. If you didn't use all the fuel this year, you could get less next year, so you burn it needlessly to be sure to use it all--at least that is what I've been told. Just using what is needed and fluctuating requisitions as needed makes too much sense.
govt. run entities are just wasteful, no matter what. The feds cannot run anything efficiently. Just look at what the BLM just wasted in the Nevada standoff. They spent about 10 million to collect a suppsed 1 million and intimidated instead of filing a lien against his privately owned property. Dumb? Yes! But it was raw intimidation of citizens by govt.just because they could,
vaudine
Military veterans deserves their benefits, their job is quite a different from civilian careers to say the least.
Of course I’m not talking about people who are getting there for benefits only.
Self-loathing Jews are a dime-a-dozen at places like that and most of the rest of the MSM. If Soros had a time machine he could easily recruit 10,000 more Kapos (Funktionshäftling) to go back with him among our so-called intelligentsia.
Almost none of the junior enlisted were married and/or had kids when I was in, but I hear that has all changed now. It seemed that people waited until E-5 (promotable) or E-6 to start a family back then.
I don’t think he forgot it. He just didn’t mention it. In its funding, the military is also just as socialist, in that it runs on “other people’s money” the same as civilian socialism, and would fall apart just as fast if that money were to ever run out.
That was NOT socialism. NO ma’am.
That was pure capitalism. It was the government who tried to be socialist about that.
Hugh Hewitt lawyer, correctly charged the government with a major rip off in that case
The fact was that there was a contract involved, the likes of which if they had been treated the same in the private sector would have been a breech of contract case. It was so blatant, the government had to fold.
THe facts that you leave out were this: The officer or enlistee signs away years. It is a gamble. There are many benefits the private sector provides, financial mostly, for any given equal profession or job in the military. The signee trades those financial benefits for security, in this particular case, the pension they signed for and were promised by contract was taken away.
No one does that in the private sector.
But people like you come along and say, hey, you bums are sucking our tax money. but it means nothing. It is ignorant and not based on truth.
That money certainly will be taken away from new signees. How many will not sign up due to reducing benefits? that’s a different subject.
A 1st sgt has given 19 years, and has his future planned responsibly with a set fixed income of half what he gets in the military, per legal contract, and $80,000.00 was taken away from that by breech of contract, do you want to say, good, give it to... whom?
Members have the option of purchasing a deal, a pension investment. For a set fee, they take out a spouse survivor plan which provides the surviving non military spouse with a fraction of the member’s pension when the member dies, upon which time the pension stops so fast it would curl your hair. It is not an IRA. They took that money away, from the surviving spouse. After the member opted for it, paid into it, and was provided it by government contract.
Taking that money is OK? The military wanting that money for his widow is whining?
What do you mean?
anyone who gets into the military for benefits only is quickly and soundly disappointed. It is completely and statistically nearly impossible to go through a military career and get honorably discharged or retired without having to work.
So let’s drop that supposition.
What about ladies getting pregnant the moment there is a deployment abroad?
For some, the military life is a compromise between living a life of a modern day warrior, and trying to share some normality with other humans, a wife and kids, during those periods when they can share the same home.
Being called on to go across the globe within hours and for long periods, with no chance to handle any personal affairs, or make arrangements, or on rare occasions, even call the wife, means that the military has developed a small support system for those warriors over the years, or else it just couldn’t function.
A soldier or sailor has to know that his wife and kids will not be abandoned and alone in Europe, or Norfolk, or Guam, if he has to leave with only hours to prepare his gear, and not knowing when, or if he will ever see them again, he needs to know that the family is in something of a nest, it is part of the contract one signs when giving the government a blank check with your life.
Pssht
That’s so ignorant it’s not even worth getting mad at.
There are plenty of men recruiters who tell women signing up that there is no way they’re getting deployed. Sleazy behavior is not restricted to one or the other gender, ya dope.
I know a lot of women who served many years and in various Mideast deals, six months at a time. I knew some who were pilots who got sent home as soon as the shooting started and they were very upset and disappointed they didn’t get to challenge themselves in combat or near it.
They were not looking to get pregnant, as you say.
Might want to do a check on the company you keep.
~I know a lot of women who served many years and in various Mideast deals, six months at a time. I knew some who were pilots who got sent home as soon as the shooting started and they were very upset and disappointed they didn’t get to challenge themselves in combat or near it.
They were not looking to get pregnant, as you say.~
You say it as if I said all of them are doing this way.
As I said earlier military service is a different type of career. Their benefits are well-deserved most of the time.
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