Reply #34: Only voting for veterans is as bad or worse than never voting for veterans

[NobleCynic]

If you advocate that as your litmus test, why not take the next logical step and require military service for full citizenship? Veterans are no less noble and no more so than other people. You will find just as many good people, and just as many bad both on the civilian side and within the service. They are people just like anyone else. A good person in fatigues is still a good person, and a bastard is still a bastard. The danger in thinking like that, voting for only veterans, is that you end up with idiots like Gibbons. Sure, he was an exemplary fighter pilot, but his political career as hardly been handled with similar skill. If you didn't vote for Titus in '06 just because she isn't a veteran, then you truly deserve the government you have. The rest of us however don't.

I'm not saying you shouldn't consider someone's millitary record when they run for office, I'm saying you can't only consider their military record. If a lack thereof is enough to disqualify someone in your eyes, you seriously need to reconsider your priorities. Such a statement implies that civilians are unfit for office, and that sentiment is just as dangerous to our democracy as anything this administration as done.