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Saturday, December 23, 2006

The Reason for the Season

While we all wither away in numerous traffic jams and shopping lines, thinking about the "perfect gift" for the child or adult who has everything, I thought I would offer a few thoughts on Christmas.

It is no accident that parents spend lavish amounts of money on Christmas. We are, after all, a nation that believes the "pursuit of happiness" is an endowed right. Any parent, aside from the shamefully negligent, wants to see his or her child smile and be happy, and thus, children can be easily gratified with the latest and greatest. In case you don't believe the youthful exuberance that just the right gift can bring, look at this recent BMW commercial that features a home movie of two youths opening the Christmas present of their dreams. The kids go beserk.

But, this season is also about children. After all, the reason we convene and exchange presents, whether we believe in Christ or not, is to celebrate youth. We gather family around, we exchange gifts, we take a moment to catch our breath. We also take a moment to award youth. As a child, I lay awake for hours hoping that Santa had come. When I grew older, I thought of the presents I was entitled to have by virtue of my hard work in school or my obedience to my household's rules. Now, I just want socks. However, the gifts, even the mundane ones, return us to our youth, when someone else took care of us.

The parent celebrates youth by supplying happiness, and in a way, that adult is reliving those sleepless nights of yesteryear, when a wagon or BB gun or doll would have made him or her go beserk. When Modern Mom can duplicate that feeling in her child, she feels validated and valued. When Modern Dad can savor that moment of anticipation, he can revisit his own parents' delight at his excitement 30 years prior.

More importantly, the season is about a child, one born in the dust and grime, but one born with hope and one born to instill hope. Regardless of how much people buy into the Christian message of this season, they still buy into hope. Even if we lose our collective mind as a society, we will never lose hope. It makes us human.

Merry Christmas (and Hope) to all, and to all a good night.
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Wednesday, December 13, 2006

I Told You So

"When military service is compulsory, the burden is indiscriminately and equally borne by the whole community. This is another necessary consequence of the social condition of [democracies] and of their notions. The government may do almost whatever it pleases, provided it appeals to the whole community at once."
-Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy in America (trans. by Henry Reeve)

According to today's Washington Post, the US Marine Corps and US Army seek to augment their personnel numbers for future engagements. Your beloved author has discussed this issue in previous posts, and I again mention that the United States has two choices: change foreign policy goals or change the manpower situation.

It still baffles me that Congress, with the exception of New York Democrat Charles Rangle, and the Defense Department maintain that current troop levels and quality of those troops do not necessitate the need for a draft. Rangle's point is more to illustrate the inequity of who shoulders the burden of fighting the wars rather than make the changes to support the current war. But as the article aptly discusses, the potential scenarios that illicit pangs of fear in the Defense Department require numerous and complicated solutions with a military that is basically unable to handle its current demands.

So I ask you a few questions. What happens if:

1. Iran nukes Israel? Either by missile or a truck laden with a nuclear weapon.
2. Pakistan suffers a coup d'etat? (They are a nuclear power, after all.)
3. Refugees from Iraq spill over into neighboring states? Syria and Jordan and Saudi Arabia don't want Palestinian refugees. Why would they accept Iraqis?
4. Other nightmare scenarios in Asia actually occur: North Korea moves South, China crosses the Taiwan Straight?

Some will accuse me of painting the gloomiest of possibilties. But, what will this country do if just one of these events happen when so many of the youth of America shun military service?
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