TNZ wrote:
"I don't think there is anything special about our generation"
I disagree. Yes I know that every generation, as it grows older, complains about the next generation. And yes I know at my age prognostications about doom and gloom are the status quo. But I still disagree.
For roughly 10,000 years human civilizations have changed very slowly. Social customs such as marriage and Bar Mitzvah/Confirmation, etc. formed the basis for customs and were slow to evolve. One did what their great-great-great grandparents did with only nuanced differences.
With the advent of jet travel, antibiotics, electronic communications, etc. the customs are rendered meaningless and are dropped (quite reasonably) but not replaced by more relevant substitute.
I think the current war in Iraq a violation of international law and reason and would swoon were George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld dragged in chains before the World Court.
But at the same time I must reasonably agree that were it a justifiable war my generation, and those that follow, wouldn't be willing to sacrifice a Starbuck's latte' to defend their country until someone personally attacked them. They are more likely to get upset by a scratch to their car door than to the genocide in Darfur.
My father was in WWII and I know why he joined. He did it because he understood that with "rights" come "responsibilities." That understanding has ceased to exist.
