Alejandro Barranco told CNN Monday that his father, Narciso Barranco, was detained by federal agents Saturday afternoon while working as a landscaper at an IHOP in Santa Ana, California. The 25-year-old Marine veteran said his father was born in Mexico and has lived in the US since the 90s. He is undocumented but has no criminal record, his son said.
It’s a bit more nuanced than that. Many join up because it’s family tradition, or more often, because it’s the only option available to them to survive or try to get ahead that is not explicitly criminal. The US forces lower to mid income people into the military by withholding education and healthcare from the populace at large.
Additionally, a surprising number of military personnel align more with center-left than right-wing politics. Capturing this in surveys is very challenging, however, as there is significant fear of punishment for expressing anything that could be critical of the Executive branch, even anonymously.
As someone that spent 7 years in the US military, I’m gonna say I doubt this very much. The vast majority of soldiers, seamen, airmen, and marines I interacted with during my time in voted for Trump’s first term, and most were vocally praising him. Anecdotally, your observation holds no water. Do you have a source for that?
To clarify: By “surprising number” I did not intend to mean “majority”.
My sources are both anecdotal (definitely biased by having lived in W. WA as well as mainly knowing people who enlisted circa 2004 or were retired NCOs) as well as surveys. I was able to find a decent list of surveys for the last ~15 years here.
Basically, yes, right-wing does likely still outnumber center-left but, as of 5 years ago, it looks to be by a smaller margin.
“tradition” is not a valid excuse when the group you are choosing to join has the history it does.
capitalism has, indeed, (and I think we agree here) made a big win by “forcing” it so working class people need to join.
it’s 100% part of the problem.
I don’t disagree but I’ve been opposed to arbitrary traditions for must of my life, likely because of not being neurotypical. Tradition seems to have a significant impact on the decisions of humanity at large. In addition to this, recruitment efforts are pushed heavily before the recruitees’ brains are fully developed, putting them at a lower likelihood of actually understanding the scope of what they are signing up for.
We are indeed in pretty much complete agreement. Understanding why other humans make choices that are generally not pro-humanity and avoiding dehumanization is something that I find very important. Responsibility should not be avoided but, seeing that motivations are not necessarily malicious is necessary to pinpointing the root cause (I’d say not just capitalism, but any authoritarian means of organizing society) and leading groundwork to mitigate it.
don’t get me wrong - I don’t think anyone we are speaking joins out of malicious intent. However, imho, everyone who has joined has been ok with the history of a military and its choices.