A System of Protections

A comment by a kook here, urges me to discuss this. The comment implies that a warrior is a form of parasite. It goes to the core of why the electorate no longer trusts Hilly, Teddy and Company with the defense of this nation.

He or she takes me to task for my years of service as that ate up all those tax dollars. I'll get to that in a minute.

Let me ask the kooks and nitwits:
What does a policeman get you?
Why put your money in a bank?
Why use a title company?
Do you lock your doors in New York City?
Why do we need the FDIC or the SEC? (Women's and Gay Studies Majors will probably need to look those up)
Courts, Judges and District Attorneys?
Jail Cells?

They are a set of measures that provides a system of protections. They cost money. They don't produce value, but they safeguard value. It's like that fancy alarm system at the bank. It's part of the "cost of doing business".

Unprotected valuables disappear because the vast majority of people are willing to relax the "Golden Rule" if there is a direct and immediate profit in it. Locks and banks keep honest people honest. Police, courts, and jails visit consequences upon the those that violate the sanctity of ownership. But unlike our society, some societies regard the use of force as the path to wealth. In these places, despots and tyrants gather power and then gather wealth. They do not create wealth, they steal it.

The system of protections needs to be sufficient for the value that is being protected. And since the United States of America is the biggest pile of wealth in the world, it needs a big system of protections.

Now, what did I do except eat up tax dollars?

I got up on about 6500 mornings and put the uniform on. I did physical training on half of those days. Hundreds of thousands of push-ups, sit-ups, stretching and strength exercises. Thousands of miles running and jogging. Hundreds of miles carrying a rucksack with 50-100 pounds in it. My knees, hips and back remind me of these things daily.

I jumped out of planes 5 miles up and fell for two minutes before opening the parachute. I stood in the back of a plane on a zero-moon night and jumped even though I knew that unseen obstacles on the drop zone could kill me.
I waded chest deep into an alligator infested swamp to recover a comrade that was lost.
I missed birthdays, anniversaries and holidays with my family, because I was halfway around the world.
I lost most of the hearing in one ear. The one that takes the brunt of the noise when I shoot.
I've lived away from my family for two years so my kids could stay in the same school and I could be where I was needed.
But I'm OK with these things. They left me ready and able to do things that average people cannot imagine. I trained dozens of troops to do the same.

And by participating in huge military exercises in Germany and Korea, we sent a message that making a withdrawal from our bank would cost more than the tyrants and despots could carry away.

What did the taxpayer get for his money? Another year with the "rule of law" and the "sanctity of contract". Reasonable people know that a system of protections is necessary to protect their valuables. If you run your mouth that those protections are the problem instead of the "cost of doing business", you alienate the folks that work hard to produce wealth and want to protect it.