
America’s love affair with uniformed men is problematic - secfirstmd
https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21730738-it-also-leads-lot-fuzzy-thinking-about-armed-forces-americas-love-affair
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AndrewStephens
As a foreigner in your fine country, the amount of influence the military has
in the US is amazing and slightly scary.

Going to a Baseball game is like visiting a military base - recruiting ads
play of the big screen before the game, during breaks various service people
are honored (the last game I attended it was a random technician who had been
in the Navy for 20 years. Good for him; but not something I expected to cheer
about in a stadium). A large proportion of the audience is made up of military
personnel as well. My impression is that the military has a huge marketing
budget and basically owns baseball, effectively a huge government subsidy for
owners of the teams.

Even in wilder society, every third person you meet is either currently
serving, served at one stage, or worked for one of the large companies with
government contracts to supply the military.

Guys, it is not like this in other countries. In fact it is creepy and weird,
but I don't see it changing anytime soon. The military is so ingrained into
America's economy and culture that de-emphasing it would be a huge change.

I am not a total pacifist - a military is a handy thing to have around. But
the US is crazy in this regard.

~~~
chimeracoder
> As a foreigner in your fine country, the amount of influence the military
> has in the US is amazing and slightly scary.

The US has an outsize military because, for most of the past century, it has
taken on the role of being the primary defense force not just for itself, but
for countries all around the world.

> Guys, it is not like this in other countries. In fact it is creepy and
> weird, but I don't see it changing anytime soon. The military is so
> ingrained into America's economy and culture that de-emphasing it would be a
> huge change. I am not a total pacifist - a military is a handy thing to have
> around.

I'm sure it's not like this in New Zealand, but comparing US military culture
to New Zealand's military culture isn't at all meaningful. New Zealand has the
same population as Brooklyn; given that alone, it's not going to be a dominant
sovereign military force on the global scale anytime soon (and that's ignoring
its history and geographic location).

That's not to say that I'm a fan of much of what the US military does, but
it's rather off-base for foreigners from other NATO and MNNA countries to
criticize the US for its military, when they're far and away the outsize
beneficiaries of it.

~~~
jacquesm
> defense

I beg to differ. The US has been on the offensive side of things _far_ more
than they have ever been on the defensive side.

~~~
throwaway2016a
In the US "defense" is a general term for military. We call it the "Department
of Defense" and companies that contract with the military are "defense
contractors."

With that said (and I've worked at a defense contractor as my college
internship a decade ago) the name is intentionally misleading. Most reasonable
people wouldn't support the "foreign war budget" but "defense"? What person
would be against defending your country!?

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rsp1984
Notice the title says "uniformed men", not "military", and IMO rightfully so.

When I lived in the US I also found that policemen and firefighters enjoy a
very peculiar status there. Usually the answer is "but they put their lives on
the line". However that I find true for a whole lot of other occupations as
well (e.g. coal workers, prof. athletes, (war) reporters and many more) so
it's not a unique characteristic.

~~~
ckinnan
"first responders" is the more common term. Honoring their risk/sacrifice
became a cultural priority after so many died in the emergency response on
9/11.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_workers_killed_in_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_workers_killed_in_the_September_11_attacks)

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MsMowz
I think it's a little too easy to paint things like this as an outgrowth of
culture. While our soldier/police worship is ingrained in culture, it didn't
come about naturally; it was deliberately campaigned for after the labor gains
in the 1890s-onward to try to undermine the red menace, especially once the US
entered World War I, and our government continues to spend tens of millions on
propaganda at sports games and the like. Of course, this is perfect for
politicians who can take funding from defense contractors, but for the rest of
us it's wasteful and, I fear, helps set the stage for the rise of fascist
movements like we've seen for the past few years.

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pizzetta
It's a bit late for the economist to come out with this.

They should have come out against the invasion of Iraq or the campaign to
destabilize the middle east after that.

Why now that we're beginning to disengage from the world? It's a bit strange
to see some dissonance: on the one hand they don't want America to disengage
from the world on the other hand we're too in love with our military.

~~~
chimeracoder
> It's a bit late for the economist to come out with this.

This isn't "The Economist" coming out with anything. This is Lexington, a
long-running column in The Economist. In journalism, columnists do not reflect
the opinion of the publication's editorial board, and columnists receive much
greater leeway with their content editorially than other reporters or op-ed
contributors would.

The current author of Lexington has only been writing it since 2012, when the
previous author died in a car crash. The previous author was, among other
things, the foreign editor for The Economist who covered the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

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fortythirteen
What's most problematic with America is the need for everything to be a black
and white issue. Can it be that both sides have a point in this?

Military worship is pretty ridiculous and the mega advertising budgets for an
"all volunteer" military turn public events into spectacles of propaganda.

But when multiple generations of post-WWII western civilians have lived
extremely cushioned lives, when compared to the other 2/3 of the world, a lack
of understanding of the sheer sacrifice of wartime military service is
inevitable. There's a reason that the vast majority of active-duty and
veterans lean right wing, and it's not because of "lack of education" as the
more snooty people on the left would have us believe.

~~~
dEnigma
So what is the reason?

~~~
fortythirteen
One is the social leftovers of a political left that literally spit on
veterans forty years ago. There may no longer be spitting, but many times the
disdain for military is still palpable.

Another is that the military is a large group of people who have seen the
manifest benefits of the Second Amendment, in that they have witnessed what
happens in countries where only a small portion of the population are allowed
to arm themselves. Since much, if not most of the the American left is
adamantly anti-2A, backed by fear-mongering, left-leaning journalists who are
comically uninformed about firearms, it makes for a huge political rift.

~~~
trowawee
There is no documented evidence[1] that any veterans were spit on. This is a
pernicious myth.

1\. [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/opinion/myth-spitting-
vie...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/opinion/myth-spitting-vietnam-
protester.html)

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maxxxxx
What worries me a little is that the military often gets elevated to the point
that it's not acceptable to question them in any way. If history has taught us
anything it's that military often doesn't think about the big picture of a
situation but do what they are told to do. Civil control is important.

There is also the trend to make military "cool". I think this has led to a lot
of cops wanting to be Navy SEALs and acting accordingly. When I look at the
cops in my town they have a little bit an occupying force mentality instead of
acting as part of the community.

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swagtricker
At first glance, I read this as 'uninformed men': taking it as a reference to
the classic stereotyping of 'real men' being all blue-collar style male
machismo, brutish willful ignorance, and general lack of intellect and culture
(the latter being seen as feminine and weak). I'm a bit disappointed that's
not what the article is about:)

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saosebastiao
America was born from anti-authoritarianism. The first 8 amendments to the
constitution very clearly outline the founding fathers’ skepticism of
authority, whether it be royalty, police, judges, or military. It is scary now
that only blind deference to uniformed authority is given the patriotism stamp
of approval. Even more scary are those that in one breath mutter original
intent and in the next breath condone police executions of suspects or
unwarranted mass spying or military invasions without declaration of war.

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Hydraulix989
We don't need more human volunteers risking their lives in the physical
battlefield, we need more hackers and more robots.

~~~
MsMowz
At the risk of getting too political for HN, I think we need fewer of all
three. What business does the US government have effectively acting as an
imperial power in 2017? I'm with you that we shouldn't be risking lives as
often, but we can accomplish that in multiple ways.

~~~
nindalf
I'm not from America or Europe or China, but many countries might prefer the
status quo of American hegemony to imperialism by any other country because
they prefer a known devil. Starting 2030 you could ask what business the
Chinese have acting as an imperial power but the answer then will be as
obvious then as it is now - because they can.

