Our Military: Situation Report
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Matthew Wilkinson on -
Just to get things started here's a link from the IVAW website which states a few things which stress out our soldiers. Understanding where the stress comes from (for some of them) is important to the morale, strength, welfare and viability of out fighting men and women.
http://ivaw.org/faq
There are many, many stressors out there and a moral objection to the current situation is only one of them.
We may have strong feelings about these wars, but we must not forget to support the men and women in uniform who sacrifice and struggle every day.
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Permalink Reply by CaitlinH on -
i've never served in the military.
but one issue i have is "don't ask don't tell".
the homophobia present in the system is appalling.
if you are an able soldier why shouldn't you be aloud to serve your country?
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Permalink Reply by Matthew Wilkinson on
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Hah, you know no sooner did I announce that I was going to re-enlist than I heard a nearly overwhelming argument against it from all but a couple of my Army friends. They all say "avoid it," "stay away," and "go Air Force."
It's pretty hard feedback to ignore. Yet somehow I will still try to. I would try and run off to my recruiter right now and hammer things out. Except I think my recruiter is a weasel, and I get the same impression of his 1SGT. If they are the station commander is most likely just as relaxed and irresponsible.
So right now,...I'm in a holding pattern awaiting more information or intuition.
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Permalink Reply by On Point on -
Re-enlist so as when martial law is declared here in the U.S. you can be the info officer to the N.A.I (New American Insurgency) or is that treason? hehehe
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Permalink Reply by On Point on
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Question is, if martial law was declared. Which side you going to fight for?
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Permalink Reply by Matthew Wilkinson on
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I can't answer that publicly, now can I? Now the answer is obviously that am pro-Constitution, pro-Bill of Rights, and pro-Republic. That is afterall what the oath is.
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Permalink Reply by BSpot1 on -
can marshal law be declared unconstitutionally, or is it automaticly constitutional just if its declared.
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Permalink Reply by On Point on
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1) In 1933, America WAS declared into a state of emergency, which has never been rescinded. We ARE PRESENTLY in a declared state of emergency (and have been for nearly 75 years), 2) multiple paramilitary systems have been raised, readied, operating, and practicing — beginning in 1974, and 3) the president of the united States need only sign a piece of paper to END the constitutional government of the united States.
On May 9, 2007, our president signed a National Security Presidential Directive — an unconstitutional piece of paper — which gave to himself the powers of total dictatorship over the entire nation (NSPD-51) and CONgress has no say so whatsoever. All that is needed is the right situation.
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Permalink Reply by Matthew Wilkinson on
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When Plato projected his ideal Republic, he made definite provisions for a class of warriors. Thus one of the most imaginatively creative men who ever lived, and the father of Utopias, could not dissever himself sufficiently from his age even to speculate upon a civilization which transcended war.
-- Robert F. Wagner, The Ideal Industrial Start, New York Times, 5/9/1937
If Plato couldn't,...just how are we supposed to?
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Permalink Reply by lowkey on -
Well one potential method has been proposed by Jim Bell and is called Assassination Politics.
A few months ago, I had a truly and quite literally "revolutionary" idea, and I jokingly called it "Assassination Politics": I speculated on the question of whether an organization could be set up to legally announce that it would be awarding a cash prize to somebody who correctly "predicted" the death of one of a list of violators of rights, usually either government employees, officeholders, or appointees. It could ask for anonymous contributions from the public, and individuals would be able send those contributions using digital cash.
I also speculated that using modern methods of public-key encryption and anonymous "digital cash," it would be possible to make such awards in such a way so that nobody knows who is getting awarded the money, only that the award is being given. Even the organization itself would have no information that could help the authorities find the person responsible for the prediction, let alone the one who caused the death.
It was not my intention to provide such a "tough nut to crack" by arguing the general case, claiming that a person who hires a hit man is not guilty of murder under libertarian principles. Obviously, the problem with the general case is that the victim may be totally innocent under libertarian principles, which would make the killing a crime, leading to the question of whether the person offering the money was himself guilty.
On the contrary; my speculation assumed that the "victim" is a government employee, presumably one who is not merely taking a paycheck of stolen tax dollars, but also is guilty of extra violations of rights beyond this. (Government agents responsible for the Ruby Ridge incident and Waco come to mind.) In receiving such money and in his various acts, he violates the "Non-aggression Principle" (NAP) and thus, presumably, any acts against him are not the initiation of force under libertarian principles.
The organization set up to manage such a system could, presumably, make up a list of people who had seriously violated the NAP, but who would not see justice in our courts due to the fact that their actions were done at the behest of the government. Associated with each name would be a dollar figure, the total amount of money the organization has received as a contribution, which is the amount they would give for correctly "predicting" the person's death, presumably naming the exact date. "Guessers" would formulate their "guess" into a file, encrypt it with the organization's public key, then transmit it to the organization, possibly using methods as untraceable as putting a floppy disk in an envelope and tossing it into a mailbox, but more likely either a cascade of encrypted anonymous remailers, or possibly public-access Internet locations, such as terminals at a local library, etc.
In order to prevent such a system from becoming simply a random unpaid lottery, in which people can randomly guess a name and date (hoping that lightning would strike, as it occasionally does), it would be necessary to deter such random guessing by requiring the "guessers" to include with their "guess" encrypted and untraceable "digital cash," in an amount sufficiently high to make random guessing impractical.
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The digital cash would be placed inside the outer "encryption envelope," and could be decrypted using the organization's public key. The prediction itself (including name and date) would be itself in another encryption envelope inside the first one, but it would be encrypted using a key that is only known to the predictor himself. In this way, the organization could decrypt the outer envelope and find the digital cash, but they would have no idea what is being predicted in the innermost envelope, either the name or the date.
If, later, the "prediction" came true, the predictor would presumably send yet another encrypted "envelope" to the organization, containing the decryption key for the previous "prediction" envelope, plus a public key (despite its name, to be used only once!) to be used for encryption of digital cash used as payment for the award. The organization would apply the decryption key to the prediction envelope, discover that it works, then notice that the prediction included was fulfilled on the date stated. The predictor would be, therefore, entitled to the award. Nevertheless, even then nobody would actually know WHO he is!
It doesn't even know if the predictor had anything to do with the outcome of the prediction. If it received these files in the mail, in physical envelopes, which had no return address, it would have burned the envelopes before it studied their contents. The result is that even the active cooperation of the organization could not possibly help anyone, including the police, to locate the predictor.
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This overall system achieves a number of goals. First, it totally hides the identity of the predictor to the organization, which makes it unnecessary for any potential predictor to "trust" them to not reveal his name or location. Second, it allows the predictor to make his prediction without revealing the actual contents of that prediction until later, when he chooses to, assuring him that his "target" cannot possibly get early warning of his intent (and "failed" predictions need never be revealed). In fact, he needs never reveal his prediction unless he wants the award. Third, it allows the predictor to anonymously grant his award to anyone else he chooses, since he may give this digital cash to anyone without fear that it will be traced.
For the organization, this system also provides a number of advantages .By hiding the identity of the predictor from even it, the organization cannot be forced to reveal it, in either civil or criminal court. This should also shield the organization from liability, since it will not know the contents of any "prediction" until after it comes true. (Even so, the organization would be deliberately kept "poor" so that it would be judgment-proof.) Since presumably most of the laws the organization might be accused of violating would require that the violator have specific or prior knowledge, keeping itself ignorant of as many facts as possible, for as long as possible, would presumably make it very difficult to prosecute.
Additionally he explains how it would work on a international level:
"At the Village Pizza shop, as they were sitting down to consume a pepperoni, Dorothy asked Jim, 'So what other inventions are you working on?" Jim replied, 'I've got a new idea, but it's really evolutionary. Literally REVOLUTIONARY.' 'Okay, Jim, which government are you planning to overthrow?,' she asked, playing along.
'All of them,' answered Jim."
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No military?
One of the attractive potential implications of such a system would be that we might not even need a military to protect the country. Any threatening or abusive foreign leader would be subject to the same contribution/assassination/reward system, and it would operate just as effectively over borders as it does domestically.
This country has learned, in numerous examples subsequent to many wars, that once the political disputes between leaders have ceased, we (ordinary citizens) are able to get along pretty well with the citizens of other countries. Classic examples are post-WWII Germany, Japan, and Italy, and post-Soviet Russia, the Eastern bloc, Albania, and many others.
Contrary examples are those in which the political dispute remains, such as North Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Cuba, Red China, and a few others. In all of these examples, the opposing leadership was NOT defeated, either in war or in an internal power struggle. Clearly, it is not the PEOPLE who maintain the dispute, but the leadership.
Consider how history might have changed if we'd been able to "bump off" Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Kim Il Sung, Ho Chi Minh, Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Moammar Khadafi, and various others, along with all of their replacements if necessary, all for a measly few million dollars, rather than the billions of dollars and millions of lives that subsequent wars cost.
Now Mr. Bell goes into more detail and I think he makes a pretty convincing case for how and why a system like this could work and why many projected problems aren't likely to happen. It's a compelling idea but probably too far out for mainstream acceptance but it makes you think.
Perhaps Plato couldn't figure this our because he didn't have the right tools (internet + anonymous commication + anonymous money). Who knows what he'd come up with given today's tools and knowledge....
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Permalink Reply by Extra-Ordinary!! on -
Wagner's interpretation of Plato may well be a better reflection of 1937 than a solid understanding of what Plato actually wrote. In terms of his provisions for a class of warriors, that class generally seems to be defensive when Socrates talks about them, and when the reference is not actually to the lawmakers and cultural overseers.
Socrates/Plato does, in fact, "speculate upon a civilization which transcended war" from 327a-d (I forgot who those numbers are named after, so someone help me out.) Socrates describes a civilization which "make[s] bread, wine, clothing, and shoes." They work naked during the summer and go about "adequately clothed and shod" in the winter. They seem to have a heavy to strict vegetarian diet, "keep an eye out against poverty or war," and "live out their lives in peace with health."
From 372e-374a, it is only when Glaucon objects to this "city of sows" and requests the trappings of a "luxurious city" that the need to "cut off a piece of our neighbor's land, if we are going to have sufficient for pasture and tillage" arises. Logically, our neighbors will also endeavor to cut off a piece of ours, "if they themselves go to the unlimited acquisition of money, overstepping the boundary of necessity.
Ultimately, at least in this section, Socrates/Plato gives no moral answer concerning war, saying only "that we have in its turn found the origin of war - in those things whose presence in cities most of all produces evils both private and public," namely, again, the unlimited acquisition of money and overstepping the boundaries of necessity.
Finally get to put that semester-long seminar on Plato's Republic to use.
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Permalink Reply by starcadia on
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im a soldier curently in iraq. are current problems that overwelm all others is familys are falling apart and are troops are getting lost within there own minds. divorce rate is rising mental illness rates are rising. recovery time between deployments is dismal. we are a overstreched force and the quality of aceptable soldiers being recruited
is piss poor
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