The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Service Guarantees Citizenship

    By Michael Maiello on Fri, 07/06/2018 - 9:38am | Politics

    In the dystopian Starship Troopers an Earth at war with a race of sentient insects solves its military recruiting problems by tying military service with the right to vote.

    The wealthy still mostly avoid service, giving up their political voice for lives of relative comfort as a sort of white collar professional elite. For everybody else, military service is the path.

    It never sat right with me that the United States offered a path to citizenship for immigrants in the U.S., in exchange for their enlisting. It just seems like an unfair carrot to dangle in exchange for risking a life in Iraq or Afghanistan, and maybe a step towards a Starship Troopers world. Had it been up to me, I'd maybe offer a path to citizenship for any public service -- join the military if that's your thing, or work on non-violent disaster relief projects here and abroad, or help children in immigrant communities get educations -- there are a lot of ways to define "service" and the military angle is particularly narrow.

    Well, making sure it can outdo an imaginary government in a satirical science fiction movie, the Trump Administration is now expelling immigrant recruits from the military and blocking their citizenship path. So Service guarantees... nothing.

    What's next, The Hunger Games?

    Topics: 
    Politics

    Comments

    Good to see you tending to this one.  I posted this somewhere here but this needs more attention, like from a talented guy with a follower network like you.  Needs to "go viral." One of them nasty policy issues happening that too many people are ignoring because: it's important to fight back about what the troll wants to talk about today. Might upset many on the right of center is just one reason why. Is a smack in the face to those who are buying that there is a simple way to "get tough on immigration."


    by artappraiser on Sat, 07/07/2018 - 1:58am

    NYTimes has put an op-ed on it at the top right of the home page: 

    Trump’s New Targets Are Immigrants in the Military

    Congress must protect service members from a xenophobic commander in chief.

    By Rob Cuthbert (Rob Cuthbert is an Army veteran and a former manager of the military discharge upgrade clinic at the Veteran Advocacy Project of the Urban Justice Center.)


    by artappraiser on Sat, 07/07/2018 - 3:14am

    Good piece.  Especially impactful coming as it does from a libertarian leaner on some issues.

    My question is why should only immigrants aspiring to citizenship be obliged to give something, including very possibly their lives, to their community or the country in the form of a non-military or military service requirement?

    Sick of too many fellow citizens not pulling their weight as citizens. 


    by AmericanDreamer on Sun, 07/08/2018 - 9:53am

    I’d be terrible at fighting wars.


    by Michael Maiello on Sun, 07/08/2018 - 3:36pm

    Many would. Military or non-military service.


    by AmericanDreamer on Sun, 07/08/2018 - 10:52pm