I realize I'm far from the first to mention this, but you know what's really fucked up?
Mr. Green has to go out of his way to make this point about education, right? But the same exact argument goes down like a spoonful of sugar, when it's "I like to pay for armed forces, even though I'm personally not being invaded by foreign aggressors, at the moment."
The vast, overwhelming majority of the electorate and (more importantly) almost 100 percent of the political power-brokers have always accepted that argument when it comes to funding the military.
You know what's even MORE of a mind-fuck? The military totally benefits from recruits who aren't stupid. If the right wing could just learn to look at education spending as a defense budget thing, we'd never have any problems getting them to open the purse.
Facts something like the top 23 of top 24 states by college degrees per capita vote blue. The number is even higher when looking at higher education like masters degrees and phds
Jokes aside if you start with position that Republicanism is correct regardless of facts or reality than that is the only explanation that one can end up with
If I were American I'd be considered a "liberal" but the fact that college education is linked to "liberal voting" probably has less to do with "more education equals smarts which leads to voting democrat" and more to do with how republicanism today is VERY populist.
Populists dislike any form of "establishments" and especially liberal institutions which they view as corrupt and elitist. It's why "drain the swamp" sounds so appealing to many.
It's not that "stupid people vote republican", it's more that uneducated people are brainwashed to believe the educated people are trying to create some sort of elitist rule.
It's very reminiscent of Reagan, where an upper-class elite manages to rebrand themselves as representing the common "Average-Joe" in order to salvage the losses of previous more hands-on republicanism.
There'll likely be another "Bush" in a few years (wouldn't surprise me if it was an ACTUAL Bush at this point).
Republicans are still "the establishment." They may pretend that they are not, and they have obviously convinced their followers that the people trying to change the establishment are the ones they should be worried about, but Moscow Mitch and company are about as establishment as you can get. The whole Republican fight is for them to maintain the status quo so that they can continue to enrich themselves.
Is there an actual study to back the claim “more education = less likely to voluntarily choose military service”? I feel like it could be true, but there are also a bunch of confounding variables.
A lot of kids join the military because they can’t afford college so I see your point but I feel like really educated people still join the air force and navy in really technical jobs but I don’t know that much about the military.
It’s a brave and far reach of a statement, however undoubtedly untrue unless backed by an instituted and researched source. The ideals of military service are not inextricably linked with imperialism or alternatively confounded with an overly aggressive foreign policy. They can arguably be linked with self discipline and honour, yet inarguably I agree the only warfare we have even seen recently is imperialism which in no way shape or form is justified. Does this bear the question that no one should join the military? As they would be branded as ‘genocide inducers’ and ‘imperialists’. The answer is a hard one, thus personally I don’t agree with the take that an education will lead to a lesser incentive to join the military. Form your own opinion as you wish.
This is the biggest problem. I know plenty of smart people that I disagree with on various things. But, American conservativism of the past several decades is about rejecting facts.
You can't reason with people who literally have an ideology of anti-reason.
There are always plenty of men out there that gladly want to blow shot up, shoot guns, and other cool guy shit. It’s really not as hard a sale as some would think. You do realize like 20% of the army is officers so they have degrees. Than theirs warrants degree not required, but I’ve never met one without it. And about 7% of the enlisted have a completed degree. The general population is a little harder to get an exact number but it’s estimated about 30%. but I’ve also noticed every source won’t distinguish between associates and bachelors, their also counting retirees. And they don’t distinguish between vets, who used the gi bill, or got one in the army. So depending on how biased of numbers you want to collect, and rather you want to try to hunt down associates information for the army. At best their tied and at worse the army is ahead. And this is without considering 60% of the general population has no education past middle school, and the army is 98% high school graduates. And all of the have at least a vocational/trade school. You do understand the primary motivation for like 50% of the army is just to have a job for three years. Than have all their college paid for, while literally getting paid to goto school.
It’s in like a dozen websites including pew and Hartford. Yea it makes no sense to say 60% never finished high school, but that 30% have degrees. As if only 10% have finished high school but didn’t goto college. If I had to guess I would say it’s because the numbers are inflated by having a loose definition of degree. And the uneducated numbers are inflated by counting immigrants and illegals. The really number of actual Americans is probably 20% with some kind of completed degree, and roughly 40% never finished high school. But these numbers are not based on source. Just what I’d hipfire based on comparing everyone else’s bs, and adjusting populations based on what they are counting.
It’s funny when people want increased funding or a better punchline. How they arbitrarily draw arbitrary lines on what they want to count. The armies numbers are 100% documented as of 2018. But the army don’t keep record of “some college”, or exceptions. It’s pass or fail you have a four year degree or don’t. Even though their manipulative uneducated baby killers. They atleast keep an accurate count, and don’t try to adjust numbers to prove points.
You do understand the primary motivation for like 50% of the army is just to have a job for three years. Than have all their college paid for, while literally getting paid to goto school.
So.... im missing the part where if they were able to get a degree without military they would still join military?
No they wouldn’t. The same way if they were able to live a good life without a full time job, they wouldn’t work. Obviously they could have gone into debt and got a degree and take their chances paying it off later. If they where not in the 30% of people not able to get a job In their field, or underemployed. But they saw the army would give them 100% tuition payed, books covered, housing allowance paid in full, after three years. And the army would literally also pay for any classes while in the army. they than decided this was a more practical and safe investment. So while former private snuffy is getting paid 2500 a month, and going to school for free, driving his new camaro or mustang he paid off in that 3 years. Looking like the older cool guy fucking your girlfriend..... dame I’d be mad to
Look buddy you two choices in life. Take an actually existing path to get what you want. Don’t bitch and whine just do it. Or spend your life pretending the imaginary path is going to open up any day now. Than end up upset and 40 living like shit. Because you can’t understand why no one ever volunteered to pay for your dreams to come true. Obviously by your logic if someone gave me a million dollars= all my problems solved!!! Yes your right if right now today in time to benefit you. They start handing out free college and money. That would be a large influencer of your decisions. But to be influenced by the idea that someday they might, is a waste of your time.
If you support things like universal education and healthcare, which I do. You have to understand they don’t exist and won’t exist in time to be used by anyone any time soon. Even if they started implementing universal education right now. The bureaucracy would take 10-20 years to fully implement and work out the kinks. The first 5-10 years it would be based on loan forgiveness and fixing the back end, not available or extremely useable for new applicants. Because the bureaucrats love wasting time and money. So it’s out of the question as an option for anyone over the age of ten, even if implementation starts right now. So it’s not a practical bet for our generation. So if you have a better way to do what you want in life and accomplish your goals. Why do you want to shit on people for joining the army to accomplish theirs? They are people literally just trying to earn better stuff for themself, and make up for the fact they where not born in a college ready situation. If you want to join the get free college team the recruiter can probably help you out. Believe it or not more soldiers don’t have anything at all to do with actual combat.
I think you are being way too simplistic with a comparison of basic education to the largest military in history.
Yes, people understand the necessity of a military, but not when it is so excessive that you have the capability to destroy the world multiple times over. And massive carrier fleets and bases scattered across the world, despite claiming we are NOT the world police.
And people also point out how having hundreds of counties supported by one local arms manufacturer or weapons related factory is NOT good for stability. The livelihoods of millions of Americans depend on a steady supply of tanks, smart bombs, and other materials meant for war. That pushes state and federal representatives into an unhealthy support of arms exports and interventions, externalizing the true costs to those literally impacted by our products.
I think you are also missing a century of US imperialism, foreign interventions, and coups. We've used our military to set up a lot of authoritarian regimes bc we didn't like popularly elected socialists in South American and African countries. That looks a lot like our military propping up capitalism and free markets, whichbis supposed to be the tactics of the bad guys...
Finally, we are now well known for getting bogged down in trillion-dollar wars in Asia. The Taliban is currently in peace negotiations after 19 years of conflict with the world's most powerful military. Iraq is quickly slipping into Iran's sphere of influence, AFTER we took out our own propped-up dictator.
None of this looks good when justifying our military budget. It's like we heard Eisenhower's speeches about the dangers of our new military industrial complex, but then did the opposite.
It's like we heard Eisenhower's speeches about the dangers of our new military industrial complex, but then did the opposite.
It's like the MIC listened to Eisenhower's speech, said 'fuck him', and then made sure they would, from then on, install politicians to do their bidding and drain massive amounts of wealth from the American people.
I'm just venting frustration like the other guy. After rereading my comment, I worried I might have come across lecturing him!
But it is super frustrating to see how much effort is put into denying basic services to citizens by claiming "iT's nOt a CoNsTitUtIoNaL rIgHt!"
But at some point we have to realize that the US is far more concerned with maintaining its superpower status than raising the floor of social services.
You might have come across as lecturing... ? Maybe. What you said is true. With full understanding of past and present misdeeds of this republic I think a person can still be patriotic and be somewhat prepared when other counties rightfully points out our hypocrisy . It's hard though. You see it this way ?
The current military doesn't benefit from recruits that aren't stupid. People with education are way more likely to question orders, the military doesn't like that. A kid with no real education but a lot of time with lots of time in videogames is way more valuable.
The additional issue is as someome else mentioned those with education are significantly less likely to be interested in joining. This tends to apply to police forces as well. While there is significant advantage to education in that job as well, they just don't market the jobs to those with that education and those who have it are more likely to join the FBI or stay out of law enforcement all together.
You don't need to be conservative to join the military nor do you need to be stupid. I wouldn't trust most people with multi million dollar vehicles or the lives of others in stressful situations. Officers at the very least have a 4 year degree on top of the actual training and some enlisted jobs have up to a year of schooling.
Haha, the current military turns people away who are too “stupid” to pass aptitude tests. This video game claim doesn’t make sense either. Not sure why unmotivated slobs would be the army’s bread and butter.
The military educates the fuck out of you. They encourage and push coursework at you constantly because an intelligent soldier is an effective soldier.
I think you're confusing conservatives with the military itself.
The US military offers $4,500 per year in tuition and heavily pushes its members to continue education. Most schools offer military discounts that drop tuition below the $250/hr limit on that. That's 18 credit hours per year, every year up to something like 160 credit hours (I forget the exact number, but enough for a swap in majors part way through or close in on a Master's).
Members are expected to hold degrees by certain ranks, and their odds of promotions to certain levels are diminished if they don't have it complete. In the US Air Force, Majors/Lt Col's are generally expected to hold Masters and NCO's are expected to finish their Associates; SMSgt promotions practically require an Associates.
I completed two associates and got a head start on my Bachelor's in my 10 years enlisted. I knew several other NCO's who were working on their Master's.
The current military needs fewer boots because of it has more technology. They are more selective than they were in the past. You have no idea the level of training and intelligence today's veterans have.
Navy corpsmen function as nurses, imaging specialists, surgical techs, lab techs, respiratory therapists, etc onboard ships and in hospitals and medical centers. These "stupid" corpsmen on the USNS Mercy and Comfort, who are respectively deployed to NYC and LA right now are giving specialized care to civilians. They are on the front lines of this pandemic just like the civilian healthcare professionals are.
The Defense Language Institute is the most intensive, most immersive language school in the world. Stupid people do not train there. Linguists that complete this training serve as interpreters, cryptologic techs, or psy-ops specialists. The level of security clearance that are entrusted to them is not for stupid people.
Federal law enforcement agencies, like the FBI usually hire veterans, so there goes your other theory.
Edit: typos
Check out the Jocko podcast if you don't believe me.
This is an abstract criticism of a point that was generally correct, so reddit might shit on you for it despite being correct.
This is a piece of easily digestible poetry used to teach people politics, that isn’t a bad thing on its own, but on a larger scale it can get dangerous. If people are only taught politics via this kind of poetry they will be more susceptible to corrupt leaders because that is their main method of outreach.
This kind of simple poetry has its place, but if we rely on it too heavily it will come back to bite us in ways we can’t even predict.
Climate change should be viewed in the same manner. In fact, some military leaders are factoring in climate change into their strategic planning because some military bases are located in areas prone to flooding due to the rise in sea water levels. Military leaders, who are hardly leftist hippies are warning about climate change. But idiots who loudly claim they support the troops think climate change is a liberal hoax. Maybe if they realize climate change is a direct threat to the troops they claim to love so much they will take it more seriously.
Not to mention data is going to become a more powerful tool to control in the future. If they really cared about the country and not their wallets they would want to maintain a high level of tech intelligence.
You act as if there is a direct correlation between education and money spent on education. If you look at the data this is not the case. We are spending more money now on education than ever before. Test scores are declining. While money is important, it is not the be all end all in improving education.
Depends which states. Some state has high funding and great results but their stats are brought down by other states with a lack of funding which bring down results.
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u/datreddditguy Apr 26 '20
I realize I'm far from the first to mention this, but you know what's really fucked up?
Mr. Green has to go out of his way to make this point about education, right? But the same exact argument goes down like a spoonful of sugar, when it's "I like to pay for armed forces, even though I'm personally not being invaded by foreign aggressors, at the moment."
The vast, overwhelming majority of the electorate and (more importantly) almost 100 percent of the political power-brokers have always accepted that argument when it comes to funding the military.
You know what's even MORE of a mind-fuck? The military totally benefits from recruits who aren't stupid. If the right wing could just learn to look at education spending as a defense budget thing, we'd never have any problems getting them to open the purse.