I think that’s a pretty offensive way of looking at military service, for a lot of reasons.
First of all, even in ‘Peacetime’ service in the military is inherently hazardous. The US Military suffered more injuries and deaths from accidents from 1991-1992 than from military action; that was during the timeframes of the first Persian Gulf war, for your information. I served during “peacetime,” and personally knew of 5 people who died and 7 more badly injured (two had amputated limbs) as a result of accidents during military service. I have 60% hearing loss and constant ringing in my left ear, as well as easily an easily sprained ankle due to tendon damage, both the result of accidents during training exercises.
Second, I earned every penny of the GI bill and other benefits that I received during my service, as did every other GI I knew. We endured lives of privation and poverty (tell me the military is a ‘cushy job’ when military families living on bases in the US are forced to rely on food stamps to feed their families), were often forced to go on long deployments at very short notice, endured a divorce rate among married servicepeople of roughly 80%, and were on duty 24 hours a day 7 days a week for up to 6 years. We had to work outdoors in all conditions, all over the world, often with little or no sleep, working late nights and early mornings at any superior rank’s whim.
Third, the training I recieved was utterly useless as a civilian. I was trained in two MOS (military occupational specialty); one was Pararescueman, the other was Aircraft Armament Systems Technician. Arguably, the first helped me the most, as that gave me basic first aid to the level of Emergency Medical Technician which I later used in getting a job as a paramedic, but the bulk of the skills I learned there (survival, hand to hand combat, small arms and tactics, use of explosives, etc…) didn’t do me a hell of a lot of good in the civilian world. The second MOS, in spite of the ‘electronics’ I learned in tech school and the BS spewed by my recruiter about all the high-paying defense jobs just waiting for me when I got out, was utterly useless as 90% of my training was in how to load bombs on F-16 and F-15 aircraft (not something in use a lot in the civilian world). And anyone who managed to get a degree while still on active duty has my respect - I worked on average 50 hours a week at my ‘job’ when at home station and was on a temporary deployment constantly (meaning I might spend 3 months at home station per year, broken up between 1 and 6 month duty rotations in such vacation spots as Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, or King Fahd Air Base, Saudi Arabia - both places living in tents) maintaining aircraft flying combat air patrols over Iraq, or standing duty in Korea on the fenceline with a loaded M-16 hoping that the North wouldn’t pick that day to invade the South. Meant I didn’t have much time for study.
Finally, it is offensive because many military people do sign up because they feel a duty of patriotism to their country. This was certainly true of me when I joined; I felt it was my duty to serve to protect my country, or I would never feel like I had truly earned the freedoms I enjoy. To besmirch that patriotism as simply seeking a cushy and high paying job when the job is neither cushy nor high paying is flat-out ridiculous. It would take a significant thing, such as this latest illegal war, to prevent me from serving should I be in the same situation again.
So before you paint such broad strokes that us ‘peacetime’ soldiers, sailors, or airmen were a bunch of slackers who were in it for the cushy job and free education, you might want to check your numbers.
Thanks for the insight into the lives of the peacetime soldier. Before you joined the military, was that your impression of what it would be like? Do you feel that you were fully and properly informed to make the right decision to join?
I’d like to ask you this question. Why must we fight to protect our liberties and freedoms? Who wants to take it away? If they do want to take it away, why would they feel that way towards America? Do they actually hate ‘freedom’? Does anyone? Why is this constant feeling of ‘war is coming’ there? Why would countries that are half-way around the world care about the level of freedom that Americans have?
And once you answer those questions, what about these ones: how does constantly making the military our primary focus keep us ‘safe’? Is the only way to be safe in this world to keep a gun pointed at these alleged “enemies” all the time? How do we expect other countries to focus on peace themselves when they aren’t allowed the luxury of focusing on anything else? Surely we can learn from the past AND strive for peace. Surely, building towards freedom and rejecting war doesn’t mean that we’ve forgotten why wars were fought in the past and what was needed to win them. I have no disillusions towards the current state of the world and the mess that we’re all in, but if we don’t start heading in the right direction by answering the right questions, there will be no noble cause to fight for. Our freedom is not worth the lives of others, nor is their freedom worth our lives. How can we value what we have if to gain it we had to take away that very thing from others?
And where did I get the idea that the military was a cushy job? Possibly from SATURDAY MORNING Army recruiting commercials. Be all that you can be indeed! All those commercials ever showed was the heroic American soldier training, receiving awards and saluting in front of an American flag. I don’t ever recall seeing bloodshed in those ones. Call me disillusioned.
I’m truly sorry for any person in this world, American, Iraqi or otherwise who’s life is sacrificed for the service of their country. I am truly sorry for the lives of your friends and fellow servicemen that were lost. I respect the devotion that they’ve shown for the causes of their country, but I can’t help but feel that their devotion is somewhat misplaced. Not everyone is given that choice though. It certainly carries a different significance when the enemy is on the doorstep of your home when it comes to making that decision, so I don’t feel that I can truly judge those whose lives are in stark contrast to my own. For if the enemy were on my doorstep and I had no choice, I would pick up a gun and fight them too. However, I don’t see why I’d have the need to search out enemies… suerly we all have better things to do with our lives.
Yes, I was fully informed, because I informed myself. Trusting solely to a recruiter is like trusting solely to a used car salesman.
We attacked Afghanistan because we wanted to proactively defend ourselves from future attacks based on an attack on our country that killed over 3000 innocent civilians. Or have you forgotten about 9/11?
Obviously, someone wants to take our lives. I would consider that a cause worthy of fighting for.
A bit more complicated than that; some people hate us because we represent something they do not want their people to have; some hate us because of things we have done in the past, some people hate us because we’re rich and they are poor.
I think the Taliban does; I also think the Communists do. Both seem to have a pretty long track record of keeping people from freedom.
Because they attacked us, and we don’t want to get attacked again.
Well, they obviously do, or they wouldn’t have sent 19 people to commit atrocities in the US with dozens and dozens more attempting to do the same thing.
The military is not our ‘primary focus’ as a nation; we are one of the least militaristic ‘empires’ the world has ever seen. It just so happens that our military, which consists of about 1% of our population, is so wildly better than the next nearest one that we are the only remaining superpower on the globe. But the military is just one of the several tools that we have for exerting our will on others. The others being economics and diplomacy.
Well, we don’t always have a gun pointed at the enemy. If you want to use an analogy, we have a great big dog on a thick chain. It’s not always attacking people, and even likes a lot of people, helping them up and such, but it’s always ready to be unchained and sent to get someone.
Because we don’t always simply shoot at people whilst telling them that peace is the answer. We spend nearly as much on humanitarian relief and economic solutions to problems as a nation as we do on ‘peacekeeping’.
As soon as our innocent citizens are not being killed in terrorist attacks and as soon as our allies innocent citizens are not being killed, then I will agree with you that we can strive for peace. But this is like telling a hungry person they mustn’t eat because it is ecologically unsound to do so. The person who is hungry will eat first and worry about the environment later; the person who is in danger will remove that danger before thinking of higher things. Otherwise the higher things will never get done because the person is ignoring the danger and will die.
That is where you and I will always disagree; I am more important than random other people to me. My country is more important than other countries to me. I am a citizen of the United States, and my country, whilst not perfect, is one of the best places on the planet. I think our model is sustainable, and think we should do all we can to propogate our philosophy of freedom and justice to as much of the rest of the world as we can.
Well, you obviously should have watched some news reports as well as the recruiting commercials. If all you read is one source, and that source is heavily biased advertising, it’s not my fault that you are wrong about what you see.
I don’t want your pity, and I am sure most of those who have given their lives to defend your freedoms don’t want it either. My devotion was not misplaced, nor was I an automaton who didn’t know any better after watching some recruiting commercials.
I think perhaps you have never served, never will, and perhaps think you’re better than those of us who have. I think that only those who have put their life between the devil and the deep blue sea know truly what it means to be a citizen, and what it really means to have the freedoms we all enjoy.
Well, that is one thing about which we differ; I don’t need to wait until the enemy is at our door, for that is too late. I am willing to engage with them with a bit more distance between us, maybe even take the battle to them.
My point being, anyone who believes the US is a militaristic Empire is wrong. We have a strong military, and show some of the characteristics of being an Empire, but we are not and never have been a Militaristic Empire as the OP seems to believe…
If democracy is one of the good things we can do with our military then it must be that democracy is good… But is it? Democracies are MOSTLY unstable and quickly deteriorate into dictatorship or into corrupt parodies of democracy: cover-stories for plutocracies like most of the Latin American ones have been. Instability is the typical experience. Stability is the exception. So, why do we create a democracy in Iraq. Maybe a more-benign dictator would be better for them, more suited to their distribution of income, their culture, their level of education, and so on. Yay for democracy! It is already several weeks old. It has already proved itself?
Unfortunately our military democracy-building is a lame excuse, but it will do. It is hard to accuse the Bush Admin of being anti-democratic when they are building a so-called democracy in Iraq. Another beautifully orchestrated distraction from fascism at home. Another distraction from the real role of the military: to support OUR plutocracy by protecting market access abroad and creating distractions, like mindless “patriotism,” at home. We are becoming latin-americanized.
We would not lose a thing from drastically cutting back our military. Terrorism? So what. More Americans are killed by Americans every year. And who hates us when we stop throwing our weight around where it’s not wanted? Sure we’d have a few attacks. We will anyway. Since when did Americans become such pussies? Are we cowards now?
Would we lose economically from cutting back the military. Sure, a bit. But, miraculously, the power of capital and the amazing ability of technology and prices to adjust to change will nullify the negative effects in all the time it takes to recover from a recession (assuming the positive effects on the deficit don’t wipe out most of the negatives from political instability in the mid-east, expensive oil and whatnot). Would oil be threatened? Give me a break! Countries that have no income except from oil are going to… stop selling oil. Our military has very little excuse to exist, frankly. We could just step back, tell ourselves to calm down, remind ourselves that the fetish for national security is a close cousin of the fetishistic need for constantly expanding wealth, and then, remarkably… the world will fail to explode.
Our military presence around the world does but a face, a positive face, of America around the world. I have been to Eastern Europe and in Egypt where some of the locals admitted to hating Americans, but were fairly disarmed when the interacted on in a one-on-one level with GIs. Basically, the average GI is a honest, polite well meaning guy or gal is making a strong effort to be inoffensive to the local population, and trying to (and succeeding) to be a good ambassador for America.
As for Korea, I was there for 6 months and I have a different cut on that. Do the protestors want us out? Yes they do. But just like here in the US, many of these protestors are College kids, 18-20, with very limited really life experience, who happen to get a lot of play when more than two of them get in a group and burn a flag. Talk to the older Koreans and they want us out too, but in the same breath they say they want us out with a safe North Korea, which just isn’t the case. Then they break down and say, they want us there until the North is no longer a threat – which is just want the United States wants.
Well, other than making little or no sense, you’re just flat out wrong. Not all democracies devolve into totalitarian dictatorship, as witnessed by most of the northern hemisphere in the last 200 years.
This ain’t the place to state your opinions; if you can back this up with a single cite I might give you a bit of credit but this just sounds like you’re talking complete opinion.
Except for those little-known places such as Canada, the US, England, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland (stable for over 400 years now), France (except when occupied by the bad guys), Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Germany (for the last 50 years or so it’s been pretty stable and getting more so).
Also, you’re wrong because the Latin American countries are actually trending towards stability, not away from it, as they become more democratic - witness Chile and Brazil. Yes, there are still problems, but they are doing better now than 15 years ago in almost every metric you care to mention.
Man, this is so idiotic… they would be better under Saddam? Or would you rather pick a more suitable dictator?
Democracy is not a good thing. It’s just a far better thing than anything else yet tried. Got a suggestion on something better from your lofty perch? It’s easy to throw stones through glass windows; it is a bit harder to build them.
My patriotism is neither mindless nor at home; I would be willing to bet that I have seen more of the world than you ever will.
Prove that the Bush admin is building a fascist dictatorship at home and I will arm myself to fight them in whatever arena I can find. They aren’t, and you’re wrong.
Hope you don’t mind having no rights, then… especially as you don’t want to study war no more. The military exists for incredibly valid reasons, more so every day. Sorry, mate - it just ain’t a world that your neighborhood cop can patrol and protect anymore.
Look - they hate us, a lot of them. Maybe they have reasons, maybe they don’t, but the fact remains that they do hate us. Really, truly, and fully. They want us dead; they want us under their control. They could be Islamists, Fascists, Communist dictators, or strong-arm leaders who want us to piss off out of their little playground so they can kill and rape their own citizens whenever they choose to, whoever. I for one enjoy having rough and tough armed soldiers ready at a moment’s notice to do nasty things to strangers. It at least makes the bad guys think a bit before they mess with me and my family.
The question was whether America should sponsor democracy and have our attempts to do so been successful. We can’t take credit for the northern hemisphere. That said, if it was necessary for us to install a democracy in any of those countries I would support it: because they have the fundamental economic, cultural, and judicial characteristics that would support a stable, well-governed democratic regime.
You are stating your opinion, as am I. I suspect that you accuse me of blowing wind out my rear on this one because you have never researched your own opinion. By the standard you apply above you must also put up or shut up. This IS the place to state opinions, though: however it is not the place to write books and assemble endnotes. I do not have time to give you the citations you require. Nor do I intend to require you to provide citations. I have researched all of this stuff at great length. The history of Latin America is easy enough to research without my wasting time on doing it for you. You will find that I have not mis-represented their history or their current conditions.
I believe the point to be made was that America has no track record in making other countries democratic, and that this is because we support democratization without good reasons. You have cited one case (Germany) to support your point and 11 to support mine. Our only unqualified successes were Germany and Japan. With regard to the cases that are relevant (developing country democracies) we are not likely to get anywhere without a working definition of “stable democracy”. Having a few elections, a coup, a dictatorship, another few elections, a coup… obviously is not indicative of stable democracy. How well Latin America is doing today is debateable. Elections continue so far, governance stinks. Somalia, Afghanistan, Serbia… Our record doesn’t improve outside of LA.
In any event, my point was that creating democracies is not an unqualifiedly good goal. If there are no conditions present to support stability and good governance, why do it?
Colombia - in civil war for 30 years now? Venezuela - a populist dictatorship emerging? Mexico - can’t make a move without consulting organized crime. Rule of law debateable. The “middle” latin american countries - Nicaragua, Guatemala… - are basket cases. Brazil: who knows? Another case where the rule of law is barely evident. I am hopeful, but the poverty is not encouraging. Chile’s benign conditions were established under Pinochet. Peru is no advertisement for democracy; another case of drugs. Bolivia is hostage to drugs. All of them are corrupt. I won’t argue that there has not been a good string of elections. But that is not stability. And what if the majority of people in those countries believe that the elections are not truly democratic? That has been the case in Venezuela for the last forty years. Everyone knows its a contest to control oil money. If merely holding elections was enough to call a country a stable democracy then I would have had to call Venezuela stable up till the time of the last coup attempt. And we have seen periods of uninterrupted elected government before. Downturns in the business cycle and disruption of the trend have gone hand in hand. Anyway, we can’t write books here. The debate about what constitutes stable democracy is an old one and won’t be settled by us. I suggest that you consider the possibility that governments that cannot govern well (I mean, not even close to well) are inherently unstable. All of this can be checked out. But the important thing is that I am stating an opinion in the form of an argument and not a bunch of trashy rhetoric and ad hominem attacks and self-glorifying nonsense about how my opinions are ipso facto better because of my life experience. Incidentally, you have provided no citations to demonstrate that your life experience is what you have claimed. This, by your standard, renders those comments inadmissable! Nevertheless, I have no interest in your proving such to me. I believe you.
In all honesty I think Iraq would be better off with a better dictator. He would do some nasty things of course, but it beats us being stuck with propping up a corrupt democracy (corruption that we will support because its good for business) against the forces of nationalist and Islamist movements. And at least with a dictator none of OUR politicians would be able to get too cozy with him.
Maybe my memory is off (or I’m thinking of something I wrote somewhere else) - but either way don’t put words in my mouth. I never said democracy was not a good thing. I said it was not good for every country. All people SHOULD be free, but it is ideology, not reason, that insists they be rushed into political freedom NOW. The hard thing is to face the world as it is… and human nature and human conditions. Otherwise you end up BUILDING GLASS HOUSES.
I hope I didn’t say YOUR patriotism was mindless. I don’t know you. Why take it personal?
As to the second sentence: it is irrelevant. Can’t respond to your life experience or the privileged position that your experiences give you to speak. I don’t want to overstep bounds here, but I honestly think you should read some of your recent posts and consider how many times you have said “shut up” to an opposing person/viewpoint in “code” so to speak. Your insistence in another post that your miltary service makes, as if by magic, your opinions “better” or more worthy of consideration is akin, and coming close (review your wording) to saying that it gives you a greater share of citizenship - as if citizenship can be weighed out in variable quantities. Your conclusion, there as here, was that your opponent had no place to speak. This is the same kind of tactic used by those political correctness people (people I suspect you don’t like too much): in the typical case of PC, victimhood, or some other similar thing, is used as a pretext for silencing opposition, without advancing actual reasons. Anti-PC people often called the growth of this kind of tactic in our public discourse a kind of budding totalitarianism.
I.e.: please state an argument.
I can’t prove it. I am merely reading the trends as best I can, out of concern for the thing that concerns me most - freedom. I don’t like things that tend in the direction of fascism - hence my comment. The creation of an underclass, distracted and made aggressive by fear, a state of perpetual war (the war on terror), mis-directed anger and resentment at their inability to better themselves (never directed at the real cause: the people they elect), chauvinism (a blind faith that we are moral in foreign policy not because we do good things but because we have good intentions, and that intentions, rather than the consequences of our actions, matter - while all the time engaging in grossly immoral activities, like torture, interfering in other governments, propping up evil regimes, like Saudi Arabia, that cheat and impoverish their people…)
This isn’t proof. It is cause for worry. How long can a people maintain a war mentality before it hits home? It is not a question of “if” it hits home. If we can justify using the military for police actions abroad, eventually a reason will be found to do it at home - and there will appear someone who knows how to exploit and stoke our willingness to allow it to happen. It won’t be the Bush Admin. But they are doing things today that lay the groundwork and establish the precedents. I don’t really believe the Admin. has a conscious policy of doing this, I just think they are short-sighted for not realizing how dangerous a path they have chosen (as much as that path does help them to win elections).
Okay… that was an exageration. The point of the exageration was that our level of fixation on military solutions is not commensurate with the threats we face. We have other options.
They hate us for good reasons. We show no respect for their way of life, and no prudence in our methods of helping them to modernize their way of life (Note: I am not saying I think a muslim fanatic’s opinions about the “good life” are valid. Frankly, I think that their culture needs to evolve a bit. Actually, I think they are as deluded as can be. The same could be said of a lot of people in the states - misdirected anger and resentment don’t make people reasonable. But WE have contributed to making them think that way. We participated in creating regimes that impoverish and oppress them. We support some of those regimes still. We heedlessly bombard them with Western culture and justify it as the working of free trade. That is not smart. Obviously there is no excuse for terrorism, but when you trample on people, and their only “moral” option is to fight in a straight-up fashion that can only lead to their defeat, what do we expect them to do? It is not prudent to create enemies for oneself. It is useless to admonish desperate people for acting desperately.) Basically, my biggest complaint about US policy these days is that it is dumb. The Iraq war - the Shock and Awe - and the aftermath are recruiting films for terrorism. Our support of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians is a recruiting film. Our thinly veiled threats to Syria is another. But our intentions are good! Who cares? No one in the US would give a damn about the “good intentions” of a foreign army invading the US to improve our way of life (even if we had erred and lost our democracy in the meantime. They would still be invading foreigners, not wanted and not trusted). We would kick them out by any means necessary - including actions that would fit our own definition of terrorism. It is so obvious when looked at that way, and yet we expect other people to be so impressed by our good intentions.
Sorry, no time to edit. This is a mess. One more time to clarify. It is the lack of prudence, creativity and intelligence in our policies, leading to over-use of the military that I object to. I don’t want people fighting on my behalf if there are other options, and I particularly don’t want them fighting if it only increases the determination, irrationality, and fanaticism of potential enemies - including the people who are pushed over the edge when they see Western “invaders” on Islamic soil.
Maybe that is the question you were answering, but that was not the question posed in the OP or in any of the posts I read. You need to re-read this thread.
I am quoting fact; you are stating opinion. You made the assertion - back it up with cites. And for the record, I do think you’re ‘blowing wind out your rear.’ To put it more bluntly, I think you’re wrong.
Burden of proof is on the one making the assertion. Meaning you.
Wrong again. Read the FAQ. This is Great Debates. What you’re looking for is In My Humble Opinion.
Then it shouldn’t be much of a problem for you to provide one or two cites to prove your points. Your word ain’t good enough.
Not only have I traveled to most of the places you so glibly mention as falling into totalitarian chaos, I have researched them extensively. I see an almost across-the-board move towards democracy and freedom, and see the lot of the common peoples in almost every case getting better. You say this isn’t the case - prove your argument.
I mentioned all of the following states, which the US helped keep and / or make democractic with our policies. You cannot deny that all of them are variants of democracy, and that few or none of them would exist without the US’s input.
Norway
Denmark
Germany
Japan
Russia
Austria
Holland
England
Republic of China (Taiwan)
Republic of Korea (South Korea)
You’re debating it - prove your points.
By the bye, Somalia isn’t a democracy because we lacked the will to make it one, which could be said for most of Africa, after the Black Hawk Down incident which I am sure you saw in the movies. Serbia is relatively peaceful and has had at least one peaceful transition of power since the civil war there, but more telling examples are Croatia (democractic and stable enough to be a tourist’s paradise again) and Bosnia-Herzegovina, both of which are also stable as a direct result of US intervention, both militarily and diplomatically. Seems like a good yard stick for success in my book.
And as for Afghanistan, are you going to maybe give them a little time considering what that country has been through in the last 20 years to get their feet underneath them? Democracy takes education, and they haven’t had a lot of that recently.
And I say not only are you wrong, but that this view is dangerously short sighted and the same sort of arrogant foolishness shown by the NeoCons advocating a new Pax Americana.
What will it take for you to realize that the easiest way to keep the world from being at our throats is to make them all democratic? Democracies don’t go to war against each other!
I give you Bolivia, Peru and Columbia; the drug problems there make true Democracy hard to work in the face of such a huge amount of money being tossed around and such grinding poverty. Same could be said about areas in Mexico, but to dismiss the whole country as nothing but a chaotic minefield of corruption is both wrong and shortsighted, although I would be interested to see you prove any of that. But how on earth is any of this the fault of the military? We don’t have troops in any of those places, unless you consider FBI, DEA, and such as troops.
Nicaragua - not quite the basket case you speak of. Poverty is rife, but they have had at least two peaceful transitions of power since 1991; Chile is getting better since Pinochet was removed from power, not during his rule. I also noticed you carefully ignored many other success stories - Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama, and Guatemala. Brazil is decidedly better by most measures including decreased poverty and crime since the fascist dictatorship that ruled the country was replaced in democratic elections.
How many times do I have to say this - prove it. You’re making the assertions here, prove anything you say.
They had a dictator. If the turnout of the recent elections is any indicator (better turnout than in the US, and that was with 20% of the population in armed uprising against the other 80%) then I think the people are happier now than with Saddam around. Or at least most of them are…
Read your own posts, then. You did say democracy was a bad thing, and that it was something that we should not be supporting outside the United States.
Your broad brush strokes said all patriotism was mindless.
I never said my opinons were magically better because I have served; I merely used my military experience to rebut some wild misconceptions going about in this thread. I never once said that I had a greater share of citizenship, merely that I appreciated my freedoms much more, as I have seen enough of the world live without them, and understood the need to defend them.
Everyone has the right to speak. If you say something that is wrong, I am within my rights to say so and to use convincing arguments to prove my point. You are entitled to do exactly the same thing. This is in no way PC or victimhood or any of the other strawmen you are attempting to bring into this thread.
As for a coded mehtod for telling people to shut up, what do you call this? Gentle bantering conversation? If I wanted to tell you or anyone else to shut up, I would. I didn’t. At any point.
Thanks, I did. Where’s yours?
Then you shouldn’t be saying it, or your should be saying it somewhere else. Maybe here or here.
You sound like you’re confusing your threads now. It just so happens that I am involved in another thread you’ve posted to talking about American Facism on the rise - sure you don’t mean to post this there?
Never happened yet, and considering the number of governmental controls, including many many laws, against this very activity occuring, I think you’re wandering dangerously close to tin foil hat territory about the UN armies putting us all in camps.
Are you sure you’re posting this in the right thread? I think maybe you want to go here and post this stuff…
You got that right…
Fine, you have a right to your objections. now provide us with a better method. Or at least provide proof that your concerns have merit.