I was reading Tim Knight's post on ZH about Perfect Palo Alto [8], and teen suicide in America.
The heart of the issue isn't the fact that this one railroad crossing is or isn't guarded by someone. It has to do with what the kids think they have to "achieve" to be worthwhile.
This made me think about the movie, American Sniper, and the article I read in D Magazine about the subject of the movie, Chris Kyle [9].
I posted this [10]:
There is hope. Those kids can always join the military and kill some men, women, and children that are just trying to defend their homeland from foreign invaders. This may delay suicide by a couple years, not to mention the 10% discount at Home Depot.
Who knows? If they kill enough, there may even be a book or movie deal and good times at NFL games with hedge fund managers.
I suspect that Tall Tom was referring to another ZH article [11] in his reply:
Is 1628 the magic number? I gotta know...I gotta know.
That way they can feign remorse while bragging about the body count...
Makes for a great book and TeeVee time too.
Below is my response to Tall Tom, which I have now moved to the ZH Contributors blog in the hope it may spur some conversation on this sad matter.
Bass invited Kyle to live at his house with him while Taya finished selling their place in San Diego. He introduced Kyle to as many “big money” people as he could. And the wealthy men were enthralled by Chris Kyle. They loved being around the legend. They loved hearing his stories and invited him to go hunting on their ranches. Bass would hold an economic summit every year at his ranch in East Texas. He would kick off the festivities by introducing his sniper friends.
“I’d have Chris and other SEALs come out and do exhibition shoots,” Bass says. “They would take 600-yard shots at binary explosives, so when they hit them it’s this giant explosion that shakes the ground.” He smiles as he tells the story. “For all the people that manage money all over the world and on Wall Street to come to Texas and see a Navy SEAL sniper shoot a bomb, it’s about as cool as it gets.”
I wish I could get Kyle Bass and [12]all the people that manage money all over the world and on Wall Street to watch this 18-minute video by Sam Richards. [12] Maybe then they might begin to understand why Chris Kyle was killed by another veteran, and why more US soldiers are dying from suicide than are killed by the enemy [13].
And maybe then Wall Street and The City might decide to direct their whores in Washington [14] and London to get our sons and daughters out of Afghanistan, which is the longest war in American history.
Now, that would be about as cool as it gets, in my opinion.
For those that think this is a derailing of the Palo Alto suicide thread, just think for a moment about Tim's point in the article on Palo Alto.
"It has to do with what the kids think they have to "achieve" to be worthwhile."
What American Sniper Chris Kyle "achieved" to become a hero is not so vastly different than what Russian Sniper Vasily Zaytsev "achieved" to become a hero.
Read these two books if you want to better understand.
http://www.amazon.com/Stalingrad-The-Fateful-Siege-1942-1943/dp/01402845... [15]
http://www.amazon.com/American-Sniper-Autobiography-Military-History/dp/... [16]
However, the morality of a nation matters.
The morality of a fight matters, as was taught to a young Chris Kyle by his father, and to me by my father.
It always has.
It always will.
As Bastiat says in, The Law [17]:
Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two.
We do not have the natural right to attack others, imprison others, and to take or destroy others property...even if it is profitable to do so...and even if not doing so may endanger our nation's ability to enforce the petrol dollar.
Get us out of Afghanistan.
Get us out of Iraq.
Get us out of Syria.
Get us out of Bahrain.
Get us out of Saudi Arabia.
Get us out of Yemen.
Get us out of Ukraine.
Stop the drone war.
Peace be with you.