It is, perhaps, not insignificant that when Eisenhower announced our soon to be interstate system, it was as the "National Defense Highway System."
On the other hand, one can read too much into names. We have a "National Defense School Lunch Program" here, too. That's because tacking "National Defense" on (or "Patriot" for that matter) is a way of shutting down debate. "What? You oppose this thing with 'National Defense' on its label? You unpatriotic B#$^#%d!"
Minimal logic? Often no logic. Moreover, when someone tries to present a number of reasons for something, very often none of them have any place in the thing at all, but are just camouflage for some other underlying reason they just don't want to admit to. Kind of a pedestrian example of that: We had this female who had come back from Iraq on emergency leave. Every other day she came up with a different excuse not to go back - my mother's dying, I was sexually assaulted, I have this inexplicable pain...etc. I think there were nine such, in total; not unimpressive from a girl who really wasn't all that bright. Then she made a mistake, she brought her three year old son into the office, at which point it became self evident that _that_ was the real reason she didn't want to go back; she missed her _baby_.
As I pointed out to the SF colonel I was working for, as I handed him the open regulation on how to send her butt back to the war.
Originally Posted by marct
Hi Dayuhan,
Actually, I don't have to hypothesize it; it's how Britain, France, the US and most of Western Europe industrialized. The concrete road phenomenon is a result of post WW I development activities both internally and externally. If you wanted more modern examples, Singapore and Brunei offer different ones (variants on the old Port of Trade model using waterborne transport).
Could be, although I'm not sure how much you could disaggregate them causally given that people often make decisions with minimal logic and multiple justifications (this, BTW, is why I tend to preffer the concept of "mutual arising" to that of "causality").
Cheers,
Marc
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