Your profile of the "typical soldier" also describes many other professions 
(professional sports, the trades).  Should  they, too, to be more 
integrated to more accurately represent the population??  Are people free 
to choose their path in life, or is every profession going to have quotas?

I would love to eliminate war and the need for a military, but I don't 
think it's being very realistic.  History has proven that, hasn't it?

John Lee

At 12:47 PM 11/10/06 -0500, James B. Byrne wrote:
>On Fri, November 10, 2006 12:11, John Lee wrote:
> > Why did you join the Navy, James. Did you grow up in a poor
> > underprivileged  uneducated single-parent minority household with
> > no hope for the future so you might as well go die for Canada?
> > This,by the way, sounds like the force we're fighting.
> >
> > John Lee
> >
>
>That information is something that I choose to share with a very small
>select group, of which no-one (other than myself) on this list is a
>member.  It is also quite beside the point and the question itself
>demonstrates a willful desire to evade discussion of the issue at hand
>which is: why are the economically disadvantaged disproportionately
>over-represented in the combat forces of the world's military.  The
>evident reluctance by the most voracious proponents of violent conflict to
>face that discrepancy is, in my opinion, quite revealing of the
>intellectual poverty of their positions.
>
>Words like disproportionate and over-representation explicitly concede
>that not ALL members of the group under consideration are motivated by the
>same factors, only that evidence exists that a statistically significant
>factor is at work outside of those that are consciously or generally
>acknowledged.  The emotionally driven negative response to this quite
>unremarkable observation simply betrays a keen desire not to face the
>illusionary nature of ones personal beliefs and does nothing to change the
>evidence or explain it.
>
>
>
>--
>James B. Byrne                mailto:[log in to unmask]
>Harte & Lyne Limited          http://www.harte-lyne.ca
>9 Brockley Drive              vox: +1 905 561 1241
>Hamilton, Ontario             fax: +1 905 561 0757
>Canada  L8E 3C3
>
>* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
>* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *