- You hear? The screaming carries all the way up to the top of the steps.
- I was talking about it with my son - this is my son. I have a friend who's dream was just realized - his son matriculated to Annapolis.
- The Navel Academy. Is that your dream too?
- No. My dream is for my son to go to UCLA. He's starting this year.
- The square down there is the most public place on campus. When I was in school the military cadets had their ritual humiliation done to them in private. Now both the humiliating and humiliated proudly enact their indoctrination in public.
- They have their own culture.
- You call that culture? How is it culture? Culture is building on knowledge and passing knowledge down between generations. The screaming down there is what apes do. The stronger make faces and shake their fists at the weaker who learn to back down rather than get in a losing battle.
- Yes. But the military protects our country.
- Armies function perfectly well with elected leaders, or with the reasoned cautious obedience of employees in a hierarchical corporation. Look at the Israeli army, their officers, many or most mild mannered doctors, lawyers, engineers, are obeyed.- whether they should be is another subject.
- Maybe you're right.
- Of course I'm right. You're not afraid you're looking at your son's future down there? A professor at the law school told me her students were afraid to say what they really thought. Afraid that what they said somehow would end up on the internet and when they had to get a job employers would see and that would be it for them, their future would be 100,000 dollars in debt and no job.
- What can we do?
- Let's walked into the ranks, walk right into their faces. Show them not everyone has given in.
- No. You go. We'll watch from here.
