It’s popular in America to say that we support our troops. I agree! But I don’t think it’s nearly enough to say ‘thanks for your service’ or to buy a meal for a veteran or active duty service member.<\/p>\n
I think we might need a “Bill of Responsibilities for Citizens of a Nation Contemplating Sending Troops Into Harm’s Way”<\/p>\n
\n
Here are some seed ideas we could consider adding to such a Bill of Responsibilities:<\/p>\n
1) We as citizens have a responsibility to make sure that our President and legislators are as transparent as possible within the limits of national security about where our troops are being sent into harm’s way, and why.<\/p>\n
2) We have a responsibility to ask our legislators to make certain that we’re using our military assets (who are our friends, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, nephews, and nieces) for vital purposes, and to hold those leaders to account when we feel that those soldiers’ & sailors’ lives are being put at risk for no good reason.<\/p>\n
3) We have a responsibility to the men and women we’ve asked to serve, to give them the medical, psychological, & psychiatric support they need during and after their service.<\/p>\n
4) We have a responsibility to support the families of these men & women while they’re serving and, if they’re wounded or killed in service, that we continue to support their families. Families of active duty service members should not be depending on welfare, food stamps, or charity to make ends meet.<\/p>\n
5) We have a responsibility to service members who are being demobilized, and to veterans, to be sure they’re given support during the transition to civilian life. Not just a hot meal at the airport on the way home, but job training & help finding work. Most of the skills that people learn in the military can be used in civilian work, but it’s not always evident at first glance how<\/em> those skills can be useful. I suggest that fully-paid tuition to any state college would be a nice benefit for anyone who completes their enlistment.<\/p>\nThe most important of these responsibilities may be the first. We citizens need to be critical observers of our president & lawmakers, to ensure we’re sending troops into harms’ way for only good reasons. So many things are hidden behind the label of ‘national security.’ Let’s find out what’s going on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s popular in America to say that we support our troops. I agree! But I don’t think it’s nearly enough to say ‘thanks for your service’ or to buy a meal for a veteran or active duty service member. I think we might need a “Bill of Responsibilities for Citizens of a Nation Contemplating Sending … Continue reading “Do we need a ‘Bill of Responsibilities’?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-commentary"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgY3e-ho","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":60,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=60","url_meta":{"origin":1078,"position":0},"title":"Gmail 4 Troops","author":"Jorah","date":"June 30, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Gmail 4 Troops is an interesting service. They are helping gmail users who want to donate accounts to service members. On their site, they say: Gmail is the new email service from Google (www.Gmail.com) They are offering 1 GigaBybe (1000 megabytes) of free space for their users (compared to 100\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":848,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=848","url_meta":{"origin":1078,"position":1},"title":"People who annoy me. November 29 installment…*","author":"Jorah","date":"November 29, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":" People who confuse the flag and the concepts the flag stands for. People who promote something close to worship of the American military. There are MANY people who risk everything to help others. Why aren't you in awe of those folks as well? If you can't figure it out,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Social commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Social commentary","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=46"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1097,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1097","url_meta":{"origin":1078,"position":2},"title":"No tin pot dictators, please.","author":"Jorah","date":"December 5, 2017","format":"aside","excerpt":"If people want to honor military personnel, I've no issue with that. But if you start demanding that we honor the military itself, I do have a problem. The military is just another extension of governmental might. Imagine if someone insisted that we\u00a0adore the IRS or the CDC. Sounds a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Social commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Social commentary","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=46"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1092,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1092","url_meta":{"origin":1078,"position":3},"title":"…can essentially get away with anything…","author":"Jorah","date":"December 4, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"People talk about breaking paradigms. I'm not sure anyone in modern times has shattered them, ground them to dust, then paved over them like Dear Leader. It occurred to me that he's essentially broken the underlying assumptions that form the fabric of public society. He's discovered that the only thing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Social commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Social commentary","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=46"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":212,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=212","url_meta":{"origin":1078,"position":4},"title":"Pack of angry Chihuahuas attack police officer after escaping their California home","author":"Jorah","date":"December 30, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The Associated Press FREMONT, California - A pack of angry Chihuahuas attacked a police officer who was escorting a teenager home following a traffic stop, authorities said.The officer suffered minor injuries including bites to his ankle on Thursday when the five Chihuahuas escaped the 17-year-old boy's home and rushed the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":62,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=62","url_meta":{"origin":1078,"position":5},"title":"How do we protect ourselves without guns?","author":"Jorah","date":"July 1, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"David Yutar July 01 2004 at 09:53AM \"How will we protect our families now? Criminals prefer unarmed victims and so does the African National Congress.\" That was the message from members of Victims Against Crime who demonstrated outside parliament to protest against the new Firearms Control Act. The legislation, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1078"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1085,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions\/1085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}