03-26-2004, 03:57 PM
Hi,
The threat model is not what it was post WW II. It is time, and past time, to realign our forces with the reality of the 21st century rather than with the mid 20th.
But that's not why I replied :)
Future generations of Americans will have fewer chances to grow up as I did, in a foreign but friendly country that allows you to see the world through a different point of view.
And that is a shame, indeed. Unless we re-institute the old custom of fostering (and I, for one, would think that grand), most people will grow up ignorant of other cultures (emotionally ignorant of even the existence of other cultures, thus the stupid Americanism, "All people are the same"). However, there is one institution that at least gives some children the opportunity to interact with more than their neighborhood. That is the student exchange program.
While it is for only one year, that program at least gives a child the opportunity to interact in a different society. The people I've known who have taken part in that program are generally more open minded and more world conscious than their peers. Whether this is caused by the program or whether it is because the program attracts that kind of person, I cannot say.
I think that it would do the world as a whole a lot of good to require something like student exchange as a prerequisite for high school graduation, or its equivalent. But, perhaps like democracy, cosmopolitanism cannot be forced.
--Pete
The threat model is not what it was post WW II. It is time, and past time, to realign our forces with the reality of the 21st century rather than with the mid 20th.
But that's not why I replied :)
Future generations of Americans will have fewer chances to grow up as I did, in a foreign but friendly country that allows you to see the world through a different point of view.
And that is a shame, indeed. Unless we re-institute the old custom of fostering (and I, for one, would think that grand), most people will grow up ignorant of other cultures (emotionally ignorant of even the existence of other cultures, thus the stupid Americanism, "All people are the same"). However, there is one institution that at least gives some children the opportunity to interact with more than their neighborhood. That is the student exchange program.
While it is for only one year, that program at least gives a child the opportunity to interact in a different society. The people I've known who have taken part in that program are generally more open minded and more world conscious than their peers. Whether this is caused by the program or whether it is because the program attracts that kind of person, I cannot say.
I think that it would do the world as a whole a lot of good to require something like student exchange as a prerequisite for high school graduation, or its equivalent. But, perhaps like democracy, cosmopolitanism cannot be forced.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?