The 60s? Don’t have to fight in a war?
Are we just rewriting history to ignore Vietnam?
Oh woops i broke my ankle and an anti war doctor said I’ll never walk again.
Oh woops I’m on extended vacation in Canada.
If you were not upper-middle class (or higher) and white, these really weren’t realistic options to avoid the draft.
Im continuing the idealistic boomer life we are talking about in this thread
Don’t mind me, just thinking about how peaceful Americans were between 1949 and 1965
Yeah north korea what an amazing place to live
do you have an intellectual disability???
My first house in 1999 was an older 4 bdrm on 14 acres of land for $50 grand. There were a lot of homes in the 30-40 grand range but lesser yards.
Now those same houses when they go up for sale are selling for 200-250k easily. (My place would be worth more than that… “hobby farms” like what I are selling for even 300-500k here now.)
That generation got paid $45 an hour in today’s value.
Federal minimum wage in 1965 was $1.25/h, which is $12.69/h today. Looks like Alaska had the highest state minimum at $2.10, $21.32 today. Or were you taking more average rather than minimum wage?
Be born in 1949
Fake and attracted to same gender.
Even just the 90s was crazy. Not calculated with inflation because I’m bad at maths but my folks’ house they bought in 1992 has more than quintupled in value.
There is no war in Vietnam
They were calling citizens in alternating groups of SSNs like a lottery. When it was my Dad’s buddy’s turn to show up for the medical he thought he’d fake extreme scoliosis, slouched one shoulder back and down, then half limped into the doctors office.
He was never even asked to take his shirt off and got excused on medical grounds.
Sounds like a typical trump republican
How did you hear about this? Seems a bit odd he’d brag about it over 50 years later. Yeah, son, I faked a condition to get out of the war like a total coward. Don’t think I’m any less of a badass though. I’m still a total badass.
Not wanting to bomb brown people in the name of fascism is quite a far cry from being a coward.
Vietnam should not have been invaded. Not wanting to participate in that shit show is just a reasonable moral decision.
I think if you asked the dude he’d admit he was doing it out of self-preservation as opposed to a moral stance.
He’s got a fascinating life story: His father was upper class in Russia in the early 20th C. and got drafted into the red army at the start of WW2 as an officer, but got captured by nazis and defected. When Berlin fell his father deserted, married the first German girl he saw and they emmigrated to the USA. My Dad’s friend was literally born on the boat over.
His father was highly educated but due to being in the two least popular armies in US history he had yearly visits from the intelligence services. Wasn’t allowed to get a good job and spent his entire life shifting chemical drums while the family grew up in poverty in New Jersey.
Self-preservation is a morally acceptable reason to not do something unless a reasonable case can be made that you should do that thing.
It’s not cowardly to not throw your life away for no good reason. Unless he had a moral reason to go, he had a moral right to not go.
Conscription produces bad soldiers and it’s morally reprehensible to conscript soldiers to invade a country that does not pose a threat to you.
If this was the current belief thought American culture you would be surprised just how fast the government would be able to manifest a supposed moral case
Yeah I broadly agree. Idk when I was younger (and doing a lot more psychedelics) I had this idea that all soldiers were murders and being a conscientious objector was a moral imperative.
I’ve softened that view the older I’ve gotten but certain wars, like you point out, such as Vietnam or Iraq where the country isn’t posing a threat probably retain that same moral calculus.
It is different when your country is under threat like if you were Ukranian. However I’m not sure what I’d do if I were put in that situation. To be honest I might also try to chase self-preservation over anything else.
Yeah “all soldiers are murderers regardless of whom they fight for/against” is a level of delusional mushrooms I can only dream of. If I was Ukrainian, or even in a position to volunteer to fight in the foreign legion I would. It reminds me a bit of 1956 Hungary. Listening to their final radio broadcast, is to put it mildly, incredibly saddening. Fuck the USSR, and the tankie stupidity about it and their “tHe WeSt”
I could have gone to canada, I could have stayed in school
They left out ‘be white.’ It was a horrific time for anyone else.
Plus not of a religious minority, supporter of womens/gay/black rights, or be LGBT, or be disabled. :/
This post describes an upper-middle class cishet white dude, and that’s it.
Maybe a modern upper-middle class cishet white dude.
The point is that, back then, anyone literally could afford a Plymouth Roadrunner after working a summer job for a month or two.
Yes, it was easier for just anyone to buy a car. Now do the rest of the stuff in that post. None of it was accessible to someone who wasn’t a upper-middle class cishet white dude in the late 60s.
