A Nation of One The current recruiting slogan for the Army is "An Army of One". What the ad campaign intended was to convey the impression that the military is united in purpose. A better description of what "An Army of One" really means is that if you happen to be a soldier and you become injured, you're on your own, sucker. You're an army of one fighting for your health care! According to the Disabled Americans Veterans annual report, the government isn't meeting its obligations to veterans: The President's budget had requested only $1.4 billion above the FY 2003 appropriations for veterans' medical care. The President's budget requested legislation to require certain veterans to pay a $250 annual enrollment fee for medical care and, in addition, to require them to pay higher pharmacy and outpatient treatment co-payments. The goals of this legislation were to shift more of the costs of veterans' medical care from the government to veterans themselves and to make veterans' medical care more expensive and thereby save additional money by driving an estimated 1.2 million veterans away from the VA medical care system. Read The DAV Annual Report: http://www.dav.org/voters/annual_legislative_report.html Well, even if these disabled veterans can't get help via the VA, they can at least depend on Social Security, can't they? The White House has written a memo arguing that changing the Social Security system will require reducing benefits as well as setting up private investment accounts, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The memo, addressed to the administration's conservative allies, is an attempt by the White House to convince members of the Republican Party who advocate creation of the private accounts -- such as former Reps. Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich -- that cuts in benefits paid to future retirees are also necessary, the newspaper said. Read it: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7250623 Under President Bush, we're becoming a "Nation of One", in other words, a completely self-centered Social Darwinist society. Bush refers to this as his "Ownership Society". The conservative CATO Institute defines the Ownership Society in the following way: An ownership society values responsibility, liberty, and property. Individuals are empowered by freeing them from dependence on government handouts and making them owners instead, in control of their own lives and destinies. In the ownership society, patients control their own health care, parents control their own children's education, and workers control their retirement savings. In the conservative mindset, we're all on our own, and we prosper by the sweat of our brows and the strength of our moral fiber. If you're successful, you've earned it, if you're morally weak or lazy, you live in a van down by the river. Those morally weak, lazy disabled veterans. They must have done something to offend God, like watch Spongebob.