Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Defining Patriotism

In each era, the government attempts to encourage Americans to embrace their current interpretation of Patriotism. They then have problems with citizens after wars and other events that carry a lot of pain.

 

Before the Civil War, citizens were settling the country and beginning to populate cities to support the Industrial Revolution. Life had been hard, but opportunity was abundant. The North had 2.5 million soldiers and the South had 1.2 million soldiers.

https://www.civilwar.org/learn/articles/civil-war-facts

Confederate Casualties totaled 483,000 including killed, wounded captured and died from disease.  Union Casualties totaled 642,000 in the same categories.

https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/facts.htm

The Civil War cost was $5.2 billion.

 

The Civil War took a toll on American families who lost husbands, fathers and brothers. Americans became weary of war and wary of government.

 

Before World War I, the US was fascinated with new inventions like electricity, automobiles and manufactured goods. It was the “Gay Nineties” and the “Gilded Age”. The Indians were on reservations, the west was settling and the cities were growing. Immigration had its problems, but these were beginning to be resolved as populations assimilated. Americans resisted jumping into World War I early, but government used restraint and didn’t enter this war that started in 1914 until 1917 and Americans were more forgiving of government’s decision to enter.  World War I was a horror show for the doughboys. 18 million died 23 million were wounded. The fact that this war was caused by the assassination of the Archduke of Austro-Hungary was ridiculous. World War I created Communist Russia and NAZI Germany. The cost of World War I was $186 Billion.

 

Before World War II, Americans resisted entering the war that started in 1939, but they were ready by 1941 when they did enter the war, because Americans knew they were next to be attacked by Germany from the West and Japan from the East. The US lost 419,400 soldiers and only 12,000 civilians. The countries World War II was fought in lost millions of soldiers and civilians. The total cost of World War II was $341 billion in 1945 dollars.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Human_losses_by_country

 

The Korean War started when Japanese troops left in 1945 and the Communists went for a land-grab. The US entered the Korean war in 1950 and it ended in 1954. The US lost 36,000 soldiers. The cost was $341 billion.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War

 

The Vietnam War started when the French gave up on keeping the Communists out in 1954.  The US entered the war in 1963, it lasted until 1973, produced 58,000 casualties and we lost. The US abolished the “draft” in 1974 and converted to a professional military. This mollified American families, but this war was met with riots and protests from the American Left. The Vietnam War cost was $1 trillion.

 

The Gulf War of 1990 was a sanitary success for the US with 149 casualties. The US government re-established our military supremacy.

 

The war in Afghanistan started in 2001 and is still going on in 2017. The US lost about 2300 soldiers to date. The Iraq War ran from 2003 to 2011. The US lost 4491 soldiers and cost $2.4 trillion. The wounded number 32,226. The total cost of the Afghan and Iraq wars was $2.4 trillion.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Total_Iraqi_casualties

 

Americans are “war weary” and broke. Our economy was almost destroyed by government over-spending on wars, excessive immigration, the 2008 Meltdown, the climate change hoax and other government scams.

 

My patriotism is based on my belief that restoring the US Constitution is the way to go. We still love this country. We’re just not too crazy about spending $Trillions on military foreign aid and bribes to rogue countries. We think it’s time to clean up our government to become accountable and get to work to rebuild our private sector free market economy.

 


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

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