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The US military has only been around for 250 years and look at how much the country has changed in that time. The idea of the welfare state would be totally inc
by jeffreyrogers 6y ago
The US military has only been around for 250 years and look at how much the country has changed in that time. The idea of the welfare state would be totally incomprehensible to the founders[0]. I think the idea of the military as separate from the rest of the state is contingent on that state operating in the interests of the people. Or at least, not against the interests of the people. And history shows that no society has been able to do this forever.
[0]: I'm not saying we shouldn't have a welfare state, it's clearly necessary in the modern world, but the America of today is nothing like the America that was intended, for better or for worse.
- NotSammyHagar 6y agoI see you weren't meaning to focus on welfare state by your edit. The US is different than revolutionary times in many ways, perhaps more significantly in women's rights, slavery, prisons, illegality of many actions. I think the whole idea of the US being the world's most powerful country and acting outside our borders would have been something the founders would have struggled with, because they fought a war to get away from the world's most powerful country.
- karatestomp 6y ago> The US military has only been around for 250 years And a permanent, standing, large, and fairly dysfunctional (look at descriptions of military leadership and its civilian oversight in WWII and earlier, then look at same in Vietnam, then look at the linked Afghanistan Papers documents in this thread re: same in Iraq and Afghanistan) US military is even newer, only 80ish years. Even more recent if you consider its modern form to have taken shape only after the Vietnam draft ended.