Thursday, January 3, 2013
Another reason to downsize the US military
Like so many others, US Marine Joshua Bolton has been permanently and tragically deranged by his eight years of military service.
This is just the sort of thing that happens to far too many of our youngsters, whether or not they spend a moment in actual combat.
Whatever he was like eight years ago, this fellow is now clearly a Sons of Anarchy wannabe.
And yet, he is unshakably convinced that he is the very model of a responsible and patriotic – not to say masculine – American.
Clearly, for the sake of our young, we need to radically downsize the military to minimize the number who are thus afflicted by their years of service.
As for the point at issue, there is not the least reason to believe the 2nd Amendment prohibits requiring gun owners to register their firearms under reasonable penalties.
If the law is passed then when they arrest Bolton we will have a fine test case.
Disaster socialism?
Naomi Klein’s Disaster Capitalism documented effective and widespread use of economic disaster by neoliberals to undo socialist and progressive achievements and impose severe free market measures.
It is a strategy that has served the right well in the US and Europe since the plutocracy precipitated the crash of 2008.
It appears the left wing version of this sort of thing is the exploitation of the threat of environmental disaster to advance an agenda of global leveling.
One difference appears to be that no one can doubt the reality of the economic disasters the right takes advantage of.
But efforts to prolong and even worsen disasters for political gain are not a difference, since both sides do it quite shamelessly.
The right has its global project of recession-worsening austerity and the left has its deliberate obstruction of development of ways to deal with global warming that do not even pretend to require humanity forgo use of fossil fuels, as do the redistributionist treaties favored by the left.
Oh, note this article in a prestigious neocon journal expresses joy that technological advances will enable much more growth of the human population.
People used to think the Malthusian connection between increased ability to produce food and population increases to eat it all up was a bad thing.
They were right.
Soylent Green is coming.
If you thought only the Republicans did this stuff you were wrong
“In Montana, liberals bought ads for a libertarian candidate who likely siphoned crucial votes away from the Republican challenger.”
The fever breaks?
Make no mistake.
The neocons like McCain dumping the Islamophobes like Gaffney is symptomatic of the declining influence of both.
They have all wanted an attack on Iran since GW was in the White House and have been unable to get it done.
The global war on terror was a global war against Islam and both the rhetoric of the latter and the reality of the former are in decline.
Which is not to say the US will even come close to dumping Israel or ceasing to insist on being chief meddler in the Middle East.
And highly visible security measures will not be abolished for a long time, yet.
On the other hand, the chance of some of the more absurd and conspicuous measures at last being surreptitiously focused on the actual threat – profiling airport and air travel security measures, for instance – will go up.
And none of this, of course, means that Islam isn’t a “totalitarian political ideology,” or even that fewer Americans think so.
And a renewal of the fever is entirely possible, anyway.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Is optional participation in democracy worth the trouble?
Evidently, though as a youth he took the trouble to keep up his citizenship by showing up for required military training, Epicurus taught that seeking office or kingship is not worth the trouble or the risks involved.
Information is lacking as to what he did or would have made of optional participation in the rights (or rites) of citizenship such as voting.
Too, one has to wonder, if voting were a requirement, whether it could matter how one voted, in light of such arguments, commonly made, as appear in the following post.
Should we vote?
It's not that the outcome doesn't matter.
It's not that whether or not the people can vote doesn't matter.
It's that the vote of any given individual does not matter.
It's not that the outcome doesn't matter.
It's not that whether or not the people can vote doesn't matter.
It's that the vote of any given individual does not matter.
Would a like argument hold for individual military service?
Oh, yes.
Ordinarily, the contribution of the anonymous troop cannot be supposed decisive.
And ordinarily, the individual has better options available simply as ways to make a living.
At best, voluntary military service in war is way too much cost for the assured benefits.
They could perfectly well win or lose just the same without you, you know.
But that doesn't mean they could equally well win or lose without hundreds of thousands or even millions of draftees.
Hence despite the floods of propaganda they can and do release on the public in wartime, even democratic leaders generally have to rely heavily on a draft law to make the price of not serving if called at least apparently higher than the price of serving.
Does necessity know no law?
Government necessity, I mean?
No, the 13th Amendment does not remotely mean that.
Perhaps the draft law is like law in general according to some philosophers who follow Hobbes.
Each troop, draftee or volunteer, is better off with a draft than without it if the conduct it requires is such that each is better off if all comply than if none comply.
At least in such a case the draftees are not being treated like so much canon-fodder entirely for someone else’s good.
But then whether it is so rather depends on what the draftees are forced to fight and die for, does it not?
Booman still making excuses for Obama
The best move was to go over the cliff and then demand fixes for the harm done to unemployment, etc., and for the Republicans to say no, publicly and openly.
Trading granny’s life for a tax hike on the rich the bastards will barely miss is not a fair deal or a reasonable compromise.
Sure, Obama is a lesser evil.
But he’s worse than he has to be.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Is a ban on assault rifles partial disarmament?
He wants to include a ban on assault rifles.
Is that just a ban on new sales or a ban on possession?
I hope the latter but I don’t actually know.
Probably limits on magazine capacity for pistols will be
back, too.
This is good but the fact is the 2nd Amendment is in the way of necessary measures of much more widespread disarmament.
Discovering TLC
Honey-boo-boo?
My 600 pound life?
What is this, the white trash channel?
Nobody chooses his own appetites.
Nobody chooses to be straight or gay, to be an alcoholic or a teetotaler.
And nobody chooses to be an anorexic, to have the appetite of a bird, or to eat like six hungry lumberjacks.
What is this, the white trash channel?
Nobody chooses his own appetites.
Nobody chooses to be straight or gay, to be an alcoholic or a teetotaler.
And nobody chooses to be an anorexic, to have the appetite of a bird, or to eat like six hungry lumberjacks.
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