I think there is confusion about categories here. Clearly humans are apes because "apes" is a category of a particular wing of primates which happens to include humans as well as chimps, orangutans, and gorillas. Humans are a subset of apes. My point is that birds are not a subset of dinosaurs, though they are clearly descended from some group of dinosaurs. Saying humans are apes is like saying "John Smith is a member of the Smith family." Saying birds are dinosaurs is more like saying "John Smith is his great-grandfather." It just doesn't make sense.

Saying "birds are dinosaurs" (or even "Birds Are Dinosaurs") is rather like saying "French is Latin" or "English is Proto-Indo-European." The lineage is unmistakable, but the one is not synonymous with the other. I am not sure why this conflation seems to be acceptable for birds and dinosaurs, when you never hear, for example, "homo sapiens is homo erectus" or "South America is Gondwanaland" or "Intel is Fairchild Semiconductor."

Here's an idea. I'd institute a military draft that works according to the following rules:

1. Each family with someone of military age must enter a conscription lottery.
2. The lottery is skewed according to (A) income tax bracket and (B) total assets. The higher the income and assets, the more likely that family's candidate will be selected.
3. Run the lottery every year. Minimum service duration is two years, at least half of which must be in a combat-fighting position (i.e. not just an engineer or an administrative assistant for the brass).

If we did this, what would happen to the willingness of the U.S. leadership to go to war? Moreover, would the government continue to put soldiers in crappy hospitals and fail to adequately support veterans with PTSD?

Of course this idea is absurdly unrealistic and anti-egalitarian. The broader point here is that those in power should not be insulated from the consequences of their decisions, and that those who arguably derive the greatest material benefits from society should also endure their fair share of sacrifice. If I were president I would try to enact policies that encourage the powerful to accept more accountability not just for their own actions, but for the actions of a government over which they wield disproportionate influence.