From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Fri Aug 30 2002 - 14:42:26 MDT
Brian D Williams wrote:
>From: Samantha Atkins <samantha@objectent.com>
> Those who did not go into the military have every bit as much
>right to speak up and to be fully respected as those who did.
>Would you disagree with any of that?
This is tied to the question above.
My personal belief is that to have equal rights one should pay an
equal share of the costs.
### I agree with this. This idea forms the basis of most free market
transactions, agrees with my intuitive notion of justice, and empirically
has been shown to work in many types of enterprises.
Luckily, since the dark years of the Vietnam draft much had changed in the
Army, I am told. The current system approaches to some extent a free market.
The employees are not dragged in to serve (and possibly get killed) by a
direct threat of the firing squad or lengthy imprisonment. They look at the
risks attendant to joining the armed forces, and the rewards, both
financial, and intangible. They make a free, conscious decision.
The employers, now that they don't have the luxury of throwing around a lot
of cheaply obtained (for free) cannon fodder, have to be more circumspect
about using up their employees. They upgrade the tools of the trade, get
better body armor and bigger bombs. Sometimes they even give the grunts a
raise.
As it happens in a free market, a natural balance forms. For an investment
of your time in the army you get a pension, just like the cop (more likely
to get killed than many soldiers, nowadays), and the lawyer, and the
hairdresser, and the computer geek, and the other taxpayers. For dangerous
working conditions, you get a college education (if you make it). For an
equal investment, an equal cost in time and financially discounted danger,
you get an equal reward.
Since the majority of the citizenry indeed pay an equal share of the costs,
it is just and proper that they have equal rights.
Rafal
(a non-citizen observer, honorably discharged from a different army)
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