Regarding military service being an advantage in other areas like
politics,
I ran into something interesting the other day. I'm in the middle of
reading
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and I came across a line about
a
certain Roman general that was about to take over the job of Emperor of
the
empire. It said that the military experience of a general was useless
when
it came to administering an empire. In other words military experience
didn't translate to being a politician or administrator. I find it
interesting that even though they knew this hundreds of years ago an
awful
lot of people nowadays don't know that fact and seem to think that being
a
good general means you'll be good at everything else. In fact, good
generals
rarely make good civilian leaders.

Hawke

Sure. They're different sets of skills and radically different modes of
working with others. An individual may be gifted with the ability to do
either job well, but there's no necessary connection between the two.

I think there's a common tendency, though, for people to desire a
strongman
type of executive and a military command structure of government when a
society faces serious threats, whether they're military, economic, or
social. This is as true in liberal democracies as in monarchies. We've
faced
one kind of anxiety or another for most of the period since 1929, so it
should be no surprise that sizeable portions of the electorate have
favored
experienced military men for president throughout most of that period.

In general, it's a bad tendency for a liberal democracy. It tends to
encourage the manufacturing of crises and anxieties, and it encourages
totalitarian thinking on the part of the executive branch of government. A
bunker mentality and military metaphors of government are not good for the
long-term health of a democratic republic.

--
Ed Huntress


I also just happened to catch a few minutes of Michael Moore's movie Bowling
for Columbine. The part I saw showed some Canadians that were being asked
about the US. The gist of what they said was that the US was always fighting
and that fighting was the way it tried to handle all it's problems. As
Canadians they didn't do things that way. Perhaps the reason why many
Americans want a strong leader or someone with military experience is for
just that reason, they expect to be involved in wars and want someone in
charge who is good at warring. As we know, the more wars a country takes
part in the less use it has for democratic principles. Lots of wars leads to
authoritarian leadership. So it's a chicken or egg thing. Do we have so many
wars because that is just how we try to solve all our problems or do we have
so many wars because we elect leaders who are ex military men who think a
war is the solution to all our problems? One thing is for sure McCain is a
guy who believes that war is a great tool for problem solving. So if we
elect him are we more likely to have more wars?

Hawke