Reply #10: My youngest grandchild will turn 14 on Monday [View All]

[ninkasi]

The oldest is now 23. I have 2 great-grandchildren. This was just a boy, a child. Anybody who has ever raised children knows that kids this age are not mature yet. They can't drink until they're 21, because they're considered too immature until then.

In Texas, at least, young men pay higher auto insurance premiums until they are 25. We can acknowledge immature behavior in many ways, except when it comes to sending our young to die, or be maimed in the hell of war.

If a young person is too immature to order a drink, why should that same person be saddled with the responsibility of killing others, or being killed? The ones who wanted, lusted, for this war are older people, mostly men. Let them fight, then and save the younger generation to rebuild society.

I think that fighting a war should be the responsibility of people 50-55, or older. If that were the rule, I think we'd have much less fighting. Those who lie us into war would be put in the position of either joining the conflict, or working out a diplomatic solution. As it is, wars are decided by older people, usually people of wealth, who have no personal investment in what happens.

The deaths, and the maimings, will not be theirs, or their children's. The ghastly toll will be paid by the loved ones of those of us who are poorer, or at most, middle class. It's easy to instigate a war if somebody else fights it, and you only collect the profits due to your crony affiliations.

Whatever it is, the oil, or the power, that Bushco is fighting for, it's not a fight I have an interest in. I don't want to kill other people, or destroy other countries, or steal another country's resources. I wish, many times, that instead of being the worlds only superpower, we were like Great Britain, or France, just a Western world country, comfortable, but not all-powerful, paying more taxes, but enjoying a better quality of life.

What we have become is not anything I ever thought would be possible. What we are under Bush is frightening, and ugly. I can't wait until 2008, and we elect a Democratic president, and have a far larger share of votes in Congress.