The local headline of Nicholas Kristof's column today in the Kansas City Star, gave me a laugh: The Socialist U.S. Military System Works -- Hoo-ah! I came to the same conclusion decades ago, not that the realization was anything spectacular, or public, it was merely an ironic realization, before the collapse of communism, and in the kitchen of the government quarters where our family lived. The microcosm in which I lived was, short of being Spartans or 1st century Christians, the epitome of what my husband was actively working against. Given our social group, I didn't bring up this viewpoint much in polite company. (and yes, I supported my husband in his work -- realizing an -ismic irony didn't negate the reality of the opposition's intent)
I don't know that the military model is one that 'society' should emulate as a way of sustaining us all, but invoking socialism and communism as dread -isms, in and of themselves, holds as much truth as saying that pure free-market capitalism, unconstrained by any liberal practices, is the way to go.
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