What is wrong with us?

Apathy, hopelessness, ignorance, and, in the case of GOP voters, malice.

Trump being an evil peice of shit was never going to make Harris a worthwhile candidate.

Edit: Y’all can downvote me all you want, it’s the truth. Trump won because Harris made people not want to even bother voting.

I had no idea the numbers were that high.

They’re definitely not. First hand experience tells me that when a soldier enlists during in processing they start the process for naturalization. I saw several recruits that came in with me go through the paperwork with a drill instructor. If this 38% is “real” then it must be “all time”. But modern military for sure it is not.

Not sure where they’re getting that number from, honestly. The actual numbers are MUCH smaller, though still non-neglible.

At this point, if you’re trying to become a US citizen, you’re a fucking moron. That’s like swimming up to a sinking ship on fire. Few places have a darker future than the US. God I fucking hate this country.

Honestly I’m not sure “service guarantees citizenship” is a good path to go down.

That was the one thing that I appreciated about being assigned as the “medical and unusual yeoman.” I may have been a recruit like the rest of them, but my RDCs gave me everyone’s paperwork, and told me to make sure that all appointments were made and kept. I guaranteed that all 15 of the enlisted immigrants got that paperwork signed in triplicate, and forwarded to their OOB. I was then a thorn in those OOBs sides emailing them every six months until I got confirmation of US citizenship for all 15 of my shipmates.

Every other thing about that particular duty was an absolute PITA

I learned this by asking questions after Starship Troopers

deleted by creator

Some time

All those for profit prisons will start to look empty and lose money.

No. The racism beats out their fervent patriotism.

“Fake news”

Veterans were also victims of the orphan crushing machine, usually recruited from impoverished areas with the promise of a stable job, health care, and education. They were once broke high school kids from podunk towns with zero opportunities for upward mobility. I think the left in America is missing a huge opportunity to take advantage of the fetishization of veterans. A few charismatic veterans who espouse a leftist platform can lend a lot of pathos for the cause from the view of the average ‘red-blooded American.’

It’s mostly performative.

They love saying it, but they sure hate voting to support them.

American governmental culture fetishizes over the military as a concept in general, while calling out other nations that fetishize over their militaries as bad. Singing the national anthem about bombs bursting at sporting events like that’s something to be happy or proud about. The tour of “hey it’s military week, everyone dress in fatigue-adjacent colors and some random service members get paraded about” that happens every year. Rich politicians saying poignant words on solemn days thanking service members for their service, to then be whisked away by their security patrol and fleet of bulletproof vehicles to go back to their caviar swimming pools, never having had to even consider, really consider, killing a person, or losing a limb, friend’s blood spattered across your face.

America is built on advertising. Unique thoughts need not apply. You’re told what to buy, where to buy it, who to hate, who to love, where to live. You’re never given any programs to back any of that up. Abortion is bad because it kills children, yet after those children are born, they can just die homeless with no medical care. We are to love our troops while treating them like detritus. We support them with a parade after a mission, then they’re on their own. If they die on an “important” mission, well, they’re heroes. That term alone, hero. America uses the word hero when we don’t want to feel bad that someone volunteered their life for something we were too cowardly to do ourselves.

9/11 first responders, as another example, that Jon Stewart spent a good chunk of his life trying to make the government honor their own deal, and even now, the government is still trying to undo it. People who, of the ones that lived, are already going to have shorter more complicated lives. We don’t even have the decency to let this handful of humans live as comfortable (not lavish, without pain) as they can, given what they tried to do to save so many people while buildings and airplanes are crashing down around them. We currently hate the immigrants that pick our food, clean our businesses, lose limbs in meat packing plants, so we can enjoy a $5 hunk of beef at the supermarket, while their children build our cars, so much so that we are willing to violate the Constitution to “get rid” of them in the most cruel way we can think of.

If we even actually followed through on caring about soldiers. If the VA was a temple of success, and veterans actually received proper treatment, care, housing, instead of being abandoned to die in the streets. If the government did one actual thing to back up their claims, instead of market spin. That’d still be a disappointment because we’d be a military-state, but at least it would be truthful, and people would join just the military for the promise of a good life. Instead, it is just a flimsy sham from every direction, trading souls for caviar swimming pools for the few.

About the only thing we are truly consistently good at in the USA is hate, and it has been that way for a long time.

Yet…

He is gonna have some difficulty getting to the VA for medical services.