When Failure Leads to Death

When failure leads to death.

This day in 2018, we are staring oblivion in the face.  Tribal factions all over the planet are in horrible combat, each with others.  Some with ALL others, not they themselves.

It is beyond tragic, because we all will pay.  

Where did it go wrong?  In this country, U.S.A., it began when we went to war against a foe, who wanted one thing only.  And, that was to be left alone to decide their own fate. Which, had no bearing whatsoever on us.  And yet, to war we went because they did not seem to want what WE thought everybody OUGHT to want.

In that misplaced threat, ALL Americans were held accountable.  Mandatory conscription was the law of the land, so ALL American men between the ages of 18 and 25 were required to register with the government AND to “serve” as soldiers if called.

A short period of peace followed the American defeat - yes, America LOST that war.  The last personnel involved leaping into helicopters from the capitals rooftops. Truly like Nazis in the bunkers in Berlin.  Leave or die.

To stay out of that horrible mistake, young men who were in college and maintaining decent grades, were exempted.  That meant that a lot of young men, who were not anxious to die, did their utmost to get into and stay in Higher Learning.  Failure meant death, or probable death (it seemed)(at the time).

During the very brief peace that followed, Mandatory Conscription (the “Draft”) was, step by step, repealed.  Very quickly an over confident culture became lethargic as to their global safety. College, higher learning, became an expensive, very expensive, “treat” appealing only to those with really high ambitions and maybe, those from families with a lot of expendable income.  

The result has been a culture-wide devaluing of “learning” in general, with the mind-widening study of honest history and the Arts dropping nearly out of consideration “et allus in totum”.  As the few with the mental energy to rise have risen, those with lessening mental discipline have fallen lower and lower on the scales of accomplishment and reward.

And, they have become mindlessly resentful of this fall.  They grasp onto many of the concepts recorded history has proven to be fatal.  Racism, religious zealotry, economic persecution, nationalism over basic moral humanism.  And, as history has proven over and over, when the plowshares are beaten into swords, the death toll mounts and mounts until victory equates to one thing - a snake consuming its own tail.