The Dark Side of Valuing Life

Okay, I've written my provocative headline for the year.

We do value life. People complain that we live in a "disposable society" because we replace instead of repair things."We value human labor and thought more than a television set!" retorts I, "This is a good thing."

Kids wearing bicycle helmets strikes old- schoolers as "wussification." I'm concerned that we pamper youth, but much of it is valuing life highly. The same can be said for lawsuits. Life is not cheap anymore.

The dark side is that the investment in war and freedom is now much more costly. Edward Luttwak of the Jerusalem Post (hat-tip Mickey, via Insty) compares eight IDF forces lost to WWII:

When an IDF company attacked the mountain town of Bint Jbail, losing eight men in one night, that number was perceived in Israel - and broadcast around the world - as a disastrous loss.

Many a surviving veteran of the 1943-1945 Italian campaign must have been amazed by this reaction. There too it was one stone-built village and hilltop town after another, and though the Germans were outnumbered, outgunned and poorly supplied, a company that went against them would consider the loss of only eight men as very fortunate, because attacking forces could suffer a 150% or even 300% casualty rates - that mathematical impossibility being explained by the need for a second, third or fourth assault wave to take a small village.

Even that was not much as compared to the 6,821 Americans who died to conquer the eight square miles of Iwo Jima.

As Patton said "thank God that such men lived." They still live. Is not Iraq worth as much as eight square miles?

Freedom on the March Posted by jk at August 22, 2006 11:30 AM