If the military paid little to nothing and gave little to no benefits, few Americans would love it, and fewer still would join it voluntarily. If Americans loved the military because it was authoritarian, richer Americans among them, who could afford not to work for wages for at least several years of their lives, should love it and join it without getting paid or with only an honorary pay. Moreover, Americans would enthusiastically support the draft and enjoy getting conscripted if they were in love with the military's authoritarian aspects. What's more authoritarian than the draft?
Americans also love the military because so many of their family members, friends, and acquaintances are or were in it. When they say they love the military in the abstract, they are thinking of people they care about who are or used to be in the military.
Very few Americans love getting ordered around -- which I think is the essence of an authoritarian aspect of American lives (or any lives) in the military (or any other dominant institution) -- but Americans put up with it (while complaining, as soldiers invariably do) because there are other things that compensate for it. It's a leftist myth that Americans love the military mainly because Americans love authoritarian politics -- a mirror image of a rightist myth that Americans love the military because they are patriots and want to defend freedom everywhere.
Moreover, no one here said that "evangelicals are mostly yuppies." I wrote: "Chip Berlet says that "[a] number of studies have found that people with above average income, education, and social status populate the organizations of the Christian Right in the United States. Many are managers and small business owners" ("The Christian Right and Theocracy," <http://www.publiceye.org/christian_right/cr_intro.html>)" (at <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050221/004073.html>). Keep in mind that "evangelicals" do NOT equal "the Christian Right."
As for incomes of born-agains and evangelicals, I posted the following information:
<blockquote>Another reason that "voting against economic interest" story is not compelling is that income is an extraordinarily good predictor of partisanship among conservative Christians. Figure 7 shows the percentage of born-again white PEW respondents who call themselves Republicans by income. For born-agains and evangelicals, the percentage Republican increases steeply with income. This income gradient is even larger than for non-born again whites. The difference across groups is small for low-incomes, about 8.5 percentage points, but grows to a 20 percentage point difference. This bivariate finding holds up well in our econometric model. If we estimate equation 1 just on white "born-again" Christians, the estimated income effect is .199, 30% higher than the overall effect.
These results suggest that low-income conservative Christians do not completely ignore their economic interests. Certainly, they feel cross-pressures between their Bible and their pocket book and do support the Republicans more than other low income voters. However, their support for Republicans is just about the same of that of the entire electorate and climbs sharply as when the Bible and pocket book point in the same direction (McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal, p. 25)
(at <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050221/004073.html>)</blockquote>
<blockquote>See "Table 7: Republican Identification By Income and Religion, Whites Only" on page 54 (McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal, <http://www.cbrss.harvard.edu/events/encounters/papers/MPRchapter3.pdf>), and you can recognize that the Republican Party does not enjoy the allegiance of a majority of born-again white Americans *below the threshold of the annual household income of $50,000*.
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050221/004096.html></blockquote>
You seem to be completely ignoring evidence, though, probably because it's pretty good news not in keeping with your notion of who Americans -- including conservative Christians among them -- are. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>