This post was inspired by the exchange on RICKAMAVENS "Serial Killers" thread. It goes way beyond a threadjack, so I started this one. Adroomi made some very good points, and I thought about several of them, from different angles, and thought they deserved some thoughtful commentary, rather than simply being ignored out of laziness (After reading this whole post, you'll understand). I don't know where to start, but the situation over the tsunami victims seems like a good spot.
I for one stand guilty of the slow uptake on the overall severeity of the situation. Liz said something to me when the death toll started to reach 100K about how she could hardly comprehend that kind of loss of life. I quoted Stalin, " kill a hundred, and it's a tradgedy, kill a million, and it's a statistic". Truly, it really hit home today, when I got to doing the math and realized that when it's all over with, the total casualties will be 100 TIMES the WTC attacks! I know that we as Americans DO get preoccupied with our day to day lives as mundane as they might be. We often have our heads in the sand so far that it takes awhile to realize the scope of something that didn't happen in our own backyard. I am not USUALLY guilty of this, and try toi stay current on the world situation, but imending parenthood and an even more impending deployment have occupied my attention. mea culpa. After we get hit with the proverbial brick, we are among the most generous nations on Earth. Maybe not the most in this case, Somebody pointed out that we sent more aid to Florida than we initially promised to the victims of this disaster, but who ELSE sent relief to Florida? We also led the way in rebuilding Europe after WWII, Japan, South Korea. We sent aid to Bangladesh after the big cyclone devastated that country in the 70's. Yes, there ARE several countries who have surpassed our efforts this time. Good for them! Please don't think that we are crap because we aren't at the top of the list THIS TIME. Yes, Bush stepped on his/our peepee with the initial offer of aid. If that's the worst mistake any POTUS ever made, or will ever make, we probably wouldn't even be discussing this. All the pledges of aid aside, it will be interesting in a year to see who actually delivered what. Read the reports on Bam Iran and the results of the millions of dollars of aid pledged worldwide in the emotional aftermath of the earthquake there a year ago. they received a pitiful fraction of what was pledged. Time will tell who is truly the generous people, I HOPE we make that cut!
As to the overall rudeness of Americans, that is not even arguable. Sometimes I see how some of my shipmates act in foreign ports, and I think the National Anthem should be changed from "The Star Spabgled Banner" to Dennis Leary singing "I'm an ****". This is where there starts to be enough blame to go around, and what turns any serious discussion of what can be done into a collossal intellectual masterbation session.I don't know if the problems are solvable, and if we here on the cbid forum could figure it out, who would listen? That being said, here goes...
The problems with military members acting like a bunch of juvinile deliquents in a foreign port, is because they are culled from the society that acts the same way they do for the most part. Many of these youngsters arec fed up on stories that exaggerate some aspects of the nightlife found in distant lands (this one kinda fits you Adroomi, many on here had a certain picture of what your lifestyle is like over there, and although you vehemently corrected them after they commented on the original thread, you never made to correct their misconceptions prior to that. I can only assume that there is an attraction to the notoriety of having the rep of hanging out in the "fleshpots of the world" that keeps us from setting the record absolutly straight. Yes, I tell sea stories too!) Nevertheless, this alone dosen't excuse some of the behavior I've seen and heard about. Perhaps it's because our youth have no moral compass. That would seem to explain it for the most part. The military pushes their "core values" Honor, Courage, and Commitment, but when you get an eighteen year old who has never seen anyone live these values in front of him before, and who only knows what feels good, and what is fun, and it only hurts if you get caught, then you are beyond naive if you think that they are all going to turn into eagle scouts after a Recruit Company Commander, or Drill Instructor, or whatever the Army and Air Force call theirs tells them this is how you should live from now on. They are ALREADY the product of their upbringing. Respect is the biggest part of it I think. When I was growing up, my Dad would've had a FIT if I tried calling his friends and business associates by their first names. How many of your Frinds kids call you Mr. adroomi? (or whater your surname is) When was the last time you saw a six year old address his parents peers as Mr. or Mrs. Smith, Jones or whatever? When growing up, I understood that you didn't assume familiarity with your elders because they WERE your elders, no other thought needed to be applied. You didn't take something that didn't belong to you, because it belonged to someone else. It was WRONG to act or think otherwise. Nowadays, we aren't allowed to spank children, or if we do, we risk having someone report us for abuse. The educational system teaches moral relativism, and any attempt made to tell the kids that there may be "someone up there watching, and keeping score" is imediately shot down by the ACLU. Whether it's Christian or not, we NEED a moral compass reestablished in this country, and to start bringing our kids up to respect each other, and that it's not good to trust strangers, but most of the strangers are allright! Personally, I favor a Christian moral compass over the one offered by the fundamentalist Moslems, at least we allow our women to show their faces and enjoy sex! The BIGGEST problem with the whole thing, is as soon as someone tries to fix it, they get jumped for trying to force their views down everyone elses throats. This IS often the case, but we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. EITHER extreme is detrimental, both to our society, and how we are viewed abroad. My own fear is that it may be too late, they young adults now having kids and raising them, have never SEEN what you and I accepted as the normal way of conducting yourself as a child, so how can they teach it?
We are being ridiculed in some parts of the world, because companies that build plants here, have to require a college education to get the skills that a high school graduate has in Japan or Germany. Many seem to think that we need to drastically increase spending on education. I've read reports that we already spend more on each student than the aforementioned countries, but we are not seeing the results. It's been my observation over the past forty some-odd years that no problem ever gets solved by simply throwing money at it. We ARE throwing money at it! But when anyone thries to hold educators accountable, they fall back on one or both of two defences. A)The kids are unruly, and they aren't paid/trained to RAISE kids, just teach them (see above paragraph); B)Who is the government to try to tell trained professional educators how to do their jobs? Well, there is some validity to the first argument. All I can say, is get the ACLU out of the schools, and if litle Billy's parents can't teach him to shut upomin class so Jane, ******, and Peter can learn to read. Tell them to come pick up their brat, and not bring him back until he's properly trained and carry on with the daily lesson plan. If mom can't keep her career because Billy acts up, she will probably NOT teach Billy to behave, that would take WAY too much time! Instead call the local press and pith a fit because your child is being deprive of a free public education, and call the ACLU. That's why EVRY child is an "outstanding citizen" at Umpty-Squat Elementary! Many colleges (and some high schools) got away from ranking students so as not to make the underachievers feel inadequate. This got some students upset, as it made it impossible for them to get into schools/graduate rograms that required being ranked in the top X%! The end result is "dumbing down" the curriculum to make sure everybody passes. But it makes up look pretty stupid as a country! During Desert Storm, I remember a news story where they went to college campuses and asked students to point out Kuwait on a map, and most didn't even know where to look! That was college students fourteen years ago!
I could go on and on, and may post more later, but this is enough to start with. Please notice that the incidents and figures cited sometimes go back WAY before the Bush administration, and many of the roadblocks to my proposed solutions are traditionally LIBERAL sacred cows. So lets not sink into simple Bush bashing, or Neo-conservative name calling. Adroomi asked for a well thought out response, and I gave it, now I'm asking for a well thought out dialogue. Check back later! Enjoy a good cigar while mulling this one over!
