5 ms·

I can't speak highly enough of the GI Bill providing this little bit of extra resource to those motivated enough to use it. Like the gentleman in the article yo

I can't speak highly enough of the GI Bill providing this little bit of extra resource to those motivated enough to use it. Like the gentleman in the article you linked, I was applying for electrician jobs as my enlistment neared an end. The fact that the Post 9/11 GI Bill covered tuition plus enough allowance that my wife and I could pay rent means I'm now enjoying a career in engineering and passing that love of learning on to my children. Truly a Godsend in my opinion.

mandmandam 4y ago
Do the people on the receiving end of America's military factor into these effusions?
- batch12 4y ago
  Yes. My education benefits all of humanity.
  - mandmandam 4y ago
    That must be fantastic news to the millions dead and tens of millions displaced by our fun ventures in the Middle East, the democracies destroyed in South America, and the countless millions suffering from proxy wars fueled with US arms.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- sanedigital 4y ago
  Yes, the entire Western world—and Europe especially—benefits greatly from the largess afforded to them by the Pax Americana.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    Citation needed. The US invading countries like Iraq is similar to Russia invading Ukraine in net results for Europe - influx of refugees, higher oil/gas and thus everything prices.
    - sanedigital 4y ago
      The entire European welfare state is dependent on the fact that they don't pay to maintain trade routes internationally—the US does that for them. The huge influx of refugees came a decade after Afghanistan and Iraq, due to US, Russian, Turkish (AND EUROPEAN) meddling in MENA.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  Not much. Perhaps more than your worst imagination might conjure but not much better than that. The US military budget is a back door for all sorts of social programs with really twisted incentives (twist may vary by program, GI Bill being among the most harmless). Because the social programs are buried in a military budget, the extent to which those programs are inclusive of those on the receiving end depends largely on the size of the receiving end (e.g. was military action taken?) and the extent to which the people on the receiving end deserve any consideration at all (e.g. language around accommodating victims of war will likely be more effective than no language around accommodating customers of weapons conducting their own wars). By and large, neither extreme is especially beneficial to those on the receiving end of being outside our borders, unless we have a fairly lax immigration posture… which, is a laughable concept at this point. And the concept of burying social programs in a military budget laughs right along with that. I think it’s deserving of the term ironic to point out that other historical examples of programs which work this way are largely prefixed “Soviet”, or at least were aligned that way.
- danans 4y ago
  You probably know that what the US fought for in WWII was very different for what they fought for in Iraq. Defeating the Nazis was just and invading Iraq was unjust, but we should not differentiate how we treat those whom we sent to do the fighting, as long has they have served honorably.
- missedthecue 4y ago
  This seems less like a relevant conversation topic and more like flamebait to get people riled up about geopolitical events of years past.
danans 4y ago
> Truly a Godsend in my opinion. Perhaps you are using "Godsend" rhetorically, but it was hotly debated and even opposed by members of Congress who felt that the class of people who physically fought the war had no place in institutions of higher education [1]. Some members of congress opposed it on the grounds that it could in theory help African Americans: "On March 24, the Senate passed the G.I. Bill unanimously, but the House continued to debate the unemployment and education provisions for another two months. Rankin, chair of the House veterans committee, had evolved into one of its sharpest critics. An unrepentant segregationist, he worried that African-American veterans would use the benefits to avoid work and live off the government. Rankin also didn’t see the need to give African Americans the same benefits as whites." [2] In the end, ways were found to exclude African Americans from the benefit even after the bill passed [3]. The generational knock-on effects of that are well documented. But the tremendous value added to the economy because of government support (however unequal) of regular "non-genius" people is pretty well demonstrated by the successes of the GI Bill. 1. https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/celebrate/gi-bill.pdf https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/celebrate/gi-bill.pdf 2. https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2014/julyaugust/feature/how-the-gi-bill-became-law-in-spite-some-veterans-groups https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2014/julyaugust/feature/how-t... 3. https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-ben...

mandmandam 4y ago

Do the people on the receiving end of America's military factor into these effusions?

batch12 4y ago
Yes. My education benefits all of humanity.
- mandmandam 4y ago
  That must be fantastic news to the millions dead and tens of millions displaced by our fun ventures in the Middle East, the democracies destroyed in South America, and the countless millions suffering from proxy wars fueled with US arms.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
sanedigital 4y ago
Yes, the entire Western world—and Europe especially—benefits greatly from the largess afforded to them by the Pax Americana.
- sofixa 4y ago
  Citation needed. The US invading countries like Iraq is similar to Russia invading Ukraine in net results for Europe - influx of refugees, higher oil/gas and thus everything prices.
  - sanedigital 4y ago
    The entire European welfare state is dependent on the fact that they don't pay to maintain trade routes internationally—the US does that for them. The huge influx of refugees came a decade after Afghanistan and Iraq, due to US, Russian, Turkish (AND EUROPEAN) meddling in MENA.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
Not much. Perhaps more than your worst imagination might conjure but not much better than that. The US military budget is a back door for all sorts of social programs with really twisted incentives (twist may vary by program, GI Bill being among the most harmless). Because the social programs are buried in a military budget, the extent to which those programs are inclusive of those on the receiving end depends largely on the size of the receiving end (e.g. was military action taken?) and the extent to which the people on the receiving end deserve any consideration at all (e.g. language around accommodating victims of war will likely be more effective than no language around accommodating customers of weapons conducting their own wars). By and large, neither extreme is especially beneficial to those on the receiving end of being outside our borders, unless we have a fairly lax immigration posture… which, is a laughable concept at this point. And the concept of burying social programs in a military budget laughs right along with that. I think it’s deserving of the term ironic to point out that other historical examples of programs which work this way are largely prefixed “Soviet”, or at least were aligned that way.
danans 4y ago
You probably know that what the US fought for in WWII was very different for what they fought for in Iraq. Defeating the Nazis was just and invading Iraq was unjust, but we should not differentiate how we treat those whom we sent to do the fighting, as long has they have served honorably.
missedthecue 4y ago
This seems less like a relevant conversation topic and more like flamebait to get people riled up about geopolitical events of years past.

danans 4y ago

> Truly a Godsend in my opinion. Perhaps you are using "Godsend" rhetorically, but it was hotly debated and even opposed by members of Congress who felt that the class of people who physically fought the war had no place in institutions of higher education [1]. Some members of congress opposed it on the grounds that it could in theory help African Americans: "On March 24, the Senate passed the G.I. Bill unanimously, but the House continued to debate the unemployment and education provisions for another two months. Rankin, chair of the House veterans committee, had evolved into one of its sharpest critics. An unrepentant segregationist, he worried that African-American veterans would use the benefits to avoid work and live off the government. Rankin also didn’t see the need to give African Americans the same benefits as whites." [2] In the end, ways were found to exclude African Americans from the benefit even after the bill passed [3]. The generational knock-on effects of that are well documented. But the tremendous value added to the economy because of government support (however unequal) of regular "non-genius" people is pretty well demonstrated by the successes of the GI Bill. 1. https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/celebrate/gi-bill.pdf https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/celebrate/gi-bill.pdf 2. https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2014/julyaugust/feature/how-the-gi-bill-became-law-in-spite-some-veterans-groups https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2014/julyaugust/feature/how-t... 3. https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-ben...