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I think the serving in the military seen as honourable is largely due to propaganda. There are different levels to it, but it is very obvious when coming from E

I think the serving in the military seen as honourable is largely due to propaganda. There are different levels to it, but it is very obvious when coming from Europe to the US, where you see "support our troops" signs very regularly.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago
100% this. As a Canadian it's absolutely flabbergasting everytime I go there, the sheer level of martial obsession in the US. It bleeds over into Canada to some degree, but not dramatically. I suspect in part it comes from the country having its genesis in a war, its first president being a general, and its republic built around a president whose title is "commander in chief." That and its economic supremacy / dominance is supported in part by its military dominance.
- meowface 6y ago
  Also possibly due to the fact that due to being so far away from the conflict and having a huge industrial economy with hundreds of millions of people, the US came out of WWII a lot stronger and more influential than they entered it. I think that was the moment the modern US was born. The head of this new force and later the whole country, Eisenhower, even warned us that the military-industrial complex he leveraged was starting to become too powerful: https://youtu.be/uGd-rkPoGa4 https://youtu.be/uGd-rkPoGa4
- thetechimist 6y ago
  Another Canadian who knows next to nothing of how or why its country exists. Also the spoils of war. Only difference is... in the end it wasn’t worth continuing to fight for. What resources? Canadians like to act like morally superior peaceful “nice guys” but we will see what happens when Toronto gets invaded. Meanwhile, much like Switzerland, they enjoy a certain degree of immunity from world affairs and, much like England, like to talk a lot. But at least the UK has earned its stripes and protects it’s island and sticks its nose into things here and there. After all, they do have two aircraft carrier groups and those aren’t for self-defense but forward assault. Canada meanwhile makes syrup. It’s delicious and it’s a nice place to live. But it would be so much nicer if it weren’t full of self-righteous Canadians. Imagine a Canada that wasn’t a neighbor to the USA but instead was still a territory of European countries and a neighbor to Mexico. Things would be very different indeed. P.S. Don’t give me standard rhetoric about Canada being an ally and helping a bit in the Gulf Wars. Every contribution is important. Too bad that Canadians don’t thank the Patriots who fought in the French & Indian War and who later rebuked the greatest military force in the world back to London - twice. Else there would be no Canada as it presently exists. And no luxury to spin yarns about spending less on the military. Easy for you to say when you have the USA as your neighbor. Or as Han said to Leia, “Perhaps you’d like it back in your cell, your highness?”
- animationwill 6y ago
  It actually changed around the turn of the century with the events of the Spanish war. That’s when the US became an imperial power, there were many against it though
an_opabinia 6y ago
The military is the US’s most effective welfare program. Propaganda or not, most of the enlisted (the beneficiaries) are (1) poor and (2) never see combat. Nonetheless is it bad to associate welfare with honor? Defense contracting has complex returns for its owners. On the one hand it’s a ton of fucking money for stuff that again, never sees combat. On the other hand, you have to spend that money in Alabama, not New York or Los Angeles (where rich people want to live). On the other hand, you’re spending a lot of that money in Alabama. I sympathize with the idea that the graft and inefficiency, in this abstract sense, is unethical, at least at the same magnitude as building a missile platform. It will never be used, making it only abstractly a support of violence against innocents. Whereas some enlisted are ultimately sent out to go kill people in the Middle East — but weren’t they just the ones to lose the welfare lotto of a cushy deployment in the 9,999 other places you could be sent? Or that the drones that actually routinely perform violence at a distance are considerably cheaper than the SpaceX missile platform, so if you sought to reduce the military budget the drones would be the LAST thing that gets cut and actually violence per dollar would RISE? Anyway, the ethics are hard to boil down to some pithy one liner, it’s an immature and unjust reduction of the complexities of real politics and how we measure things. Besides, the EU also does this. A lot of governments do.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago

100% this. As a Canadian it's absolutely flabbergasting everytime I go there, the sheer level of martial obsession in the US. It bleeds over into Canada to some degree, but not dramatically. I suspect in part it comes from the country having its genesis in a war, its first president being a general, and its republic built around a president whose title is "commander in chief." That and its economic supremacy / dominance is supported in part by its military dominance.

meowface 6y ago
Also possibly due to the fact that due to being so far away from the conflict and having a huge industrial economy with hundreds of millions of people, the US came out of WWII a lot stronger and more influential than they entered it. I think that was the moment the modern US was born. The head of this new force and later the whole country, Eisenhower, even warned us that the military-industrial complex he leveraged was starting to become too powerful: https://youtu.be/uGd-rkPoGa4 https://youtu.be/uGd-rkPoGa4
thetechimist 6y ago
Another Canadian who knows next to nothing of how or why its country exists. Also the spoils of war. Only difference is... in the end it wasn’t worth continuing to fight for. What resources? Canadians like to act like morally superior peaceful “nice guys” but we will see what happens when Toronto gets invaded. Meanwhile, much like Switzerland, they enjoy a certain degree of immunity from world affairs and, much like England, like to talk a lot. But at least the UK has earned its stripes and protects it’s island and sticks its nose into things here and there. After all, they do have two aircraft carrier groups and those aren’t for self-defense but forward assault. Canada meanwhile makes syrup. It’s delicious and it’s a nice place to live. But it would be so much nicer if it weren’t full of self-righteous Canadians. Imagine a Canada that wasn’t a neighbor to the USA but instead was still a territory of European countries and a neighbor to Mexico. Things would be very different indeed. P.S. Don’t give me standard rhetoric about Canada being an ally and helping a bit in the Gulf Wars. Every contribution is important. Too bad that Canadians don’t thank the Patriots who fought in the French & Indian War and who later rebuked the greatest military force in the world back to London - twice. Else there would be no Canada as it presently exists. And no luxury to spin yarns about spending less on the military. Easy for you to say when you have the USA as your neighbor. Or as Han said to Leia, “Perhaps you’d like it back in your cell, your highness?”
animationwill 6y ago
It actually changed around the turn of the century with the events of the Spanish war. That’s when the US became an imperial power, there were many against it though

an_opabinia 6y ago

The military is the US’s most effective welfare program. Propaganda or not, most of the enlisted (the beneficiaries) are (1) poor and (2) never see combat. Nonetheless is it bad to associate welfare with honor? Defense contracting has complex returns for its owners. On the one hand it’s a ton of fucking money for stuff that again, never sees combat. On the other hand, you have to spend that money in Alabama, not New York or Los Angeles (where rich people want to live). On the other hand, you’re spending a lot of that money in Alabama. I sympathize with the idea that the graft and inefficiency, in this abstract sense, is unethical, at least at the same magnitude as building a missile platform. It will never be used, making it only abstractly a support of violence against innocents. Whereas some enlisted are ultimately sent out to go kill people in the Middle East — but weren’t they just the ones to lose the welfare lotto of a cushy deployment in the 9,999 other places you could be sent? Or that the drones that actually routinely perform violence at a distance are considerably cheaper than the SpaceX missile platform, so if you sought to reduce the military budget the drones would be the LAST thing that gets cut and actually violence per dollar would RISE? Anyway, the ethics are hard to boil down to some pithy one liner, it’s an immature and unjust reduction of the complexities of real politics and how we measure things. Besides, the EU also does this. A lot of governments do.