Yeah, bobad, I miss Clinton like I would miss a really bad case of hemmorhoids...or a lengthy terminal illness.

You know, I've visited countries (like Mexico, for example) where many children were simply not able to go to school. They had to work every day to support the family. Some of these little kids or teenagers could manage to get to school a couple of days a week, in between working as servants or shoeshines or something like that. They really valued school, because they went on their own volition, and they knew that every bit of learning they got there might help them someday escape the poverty they were born into. It was a whole different world.

It wasn't like that in the North American middle class life I grew up in. There everybody was dutifully trundled off to public school to learn how to conform, be obedient, and consume, whether it suited their nature or not (Some individuals thrived there, others were psychologically crushed by it or their time was totally wasted there...which better descrives the effects it had on me. It was mostly slow hell...boring, oppressive, useless. This was not so when I had a REALLY good teacher, as happened on about 3 occasions...but my main problem was the system itself, and the other kids...the bullies, that is.)

It's better to have a choice where one goes by one's own free will and according to one's own keen desire than to be simply impressed into a mass system against your will. My view of the military is pretty much the same. Obedience is taught by the carrot and the stick...more notably, the stick. I do not admire such a system.