Only One

It was once sung that “one is the loneliest number.” This is namely a consequence of the mathematical singularity of the number itself as well as our consistent western belief orientation that promotes the self and the individual more so than the collective.

Over the past year, we as a notation have been focusing on the collective. Whether it is related to collective responsibility of Americans protecting themselves from future terrorist attacks or in the simple form of supporting our troops in Iraq, politicians in particular keep singing these mantra’s in an effort to secure support and finalize their base constituency during this election year.

In the universe there is but one Sun and at the end of each sporting season there are but single champions in Hockey, basketball, baseball and football. But this focus on the single and first unit figure after zero is not a constant as is The Natural Logarithmic Base, e or Planck constant . No indeed in politics, it normally represents a sign of elitism.

I have come to find out that the members of both the House and Senate seem to be disingenuous war mongers. For starters, since the recent war began, there has been a constant banter of support for our troops by these so-called representatives of the people. However, of all the members of these bodies, only one has a child serving voluntarily in the current war effort. There are 535 members of the U.S. House and Senate, only one has a child or grandchild serving in the military. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., has a son in the Army who is serving in Afghanistan.

Making this worse is the observation that neither George Bush nor John Kerry has children serving in this war, yet they always talk about serving the nation. Maybe this is why every politician seems to be so supportive of the war. But it is reasonable to assert that if more members of the House and Senate had children in the military serving their country, they would be less likely to vote in sustain of this occupation.