We are told that after a successful campaign in Iraq, we will "set up" a "democratic government".
How would this be done? What would that government look like? I know there are at least three (maybe more) specific geographic regions with differing goals and ideals. Kurds in the north, secular Ba'athists in the center, and Shiites in the southeast.
So what kind of a government would we set up? Maybe one where each region had its own government, with carefully selected national representation. The overall leader would be elected by carefully apportioned votes of the regions. In case any region had problems deciding whether or not a vote was correct, let them elect their own referee first to make the final decisions.
Sound like the US constitution yet? So how many years would it be before a large group of people would "forget" what their constitution said, and instead start screaming "Gore got the popular vote". (So what?)
"Kathleen Harris shouldn't have been allowed to decide Florida". (Just because Floridians elected her to do just that).
So what else could we do? A "popular vote" president would represent the largest group. All other groups become minorities.
I'm not a warblogger. I've said before that I must support the troops, regardless of the politics which sent them there.
But I find it amazing that so little attention is being paid to the "War" on America known as "homeland security". I note today that funds for this abominable war are being asked for along with funds for the war with Iraq. Could this be so that we cannot protest? The concept that Americans will protest a war in Iraq, but no one will protest a war against us, boggles the mind.
I never wanted security/slavery. Am I alone?
I honestly don't understand why more people don't understand the nanny-state. Nanny-states have been with us for many years. All go down the same road, at different speeds. They have different names, like communism, socialism, liberal, leftist, etc. When people look to a central government for solutions to their problems, that government must charge them for the "service". (Farmers still understand that word.)
The first unavoidable consequences of this action are that in a large country the inefficiency of "one size fits all" solutions make the price necessarily much higher than if the individual had purchased the "service" closer to home, and the "service" itself fits less well. And once you're talking real money, the central government has to use forceful means to collect it.
The closer the nanny state gets to its eventual death, the faster it comes apart. To get enough money to continue to operate, it must turn most of the populace into slaves, and the rest into overseers, paid with money of the slaves.
But every time the slaves have a problem, they shout "give us another Law". Not recognizing that 99% of the laws they already have aren't working very well, and one more will just make the situation worse. And since governments have to hire more overseers to enforce most laws, now there is a "constituency" to tell us how dire things will be if their paycheck goes away. So bad laws live forever.
While the examples of the above would fill many pages, I'll limit my examples.
The World Trade Towers disaster. We had, for several years, been paying for overseers to both check slave ID's and then disarm them, before we let them on airplanes. We had many government agencies like the FBI and CIA to ferret out terrorists. Those methods didn't work. So we passed more laws, and hired many federal overseers, to do much more of what didn't work.
Schools. Once they were local. Then the federal government got into the act. Education of our children has gone steadily downhill since, as we have passed a steady stream of laws. So pass more laws; education will get even worse, as costs spiral ever upward.
Freedom and liberty. As the number of overseers goes up, these disappear. But there will never, and can never, be enough overseers to "protect" the slaves. Since the slaves are being taught that the goal of government is "safety", they cry out "give us more laws" "give us more overseers".
While slaves can't hope to have enough money to pay these overseers, one "gimmick" is lottery. An occasional slave can win that big lottery of getting more money or "service" from the government than they put in, and this encourages them to chant "more laws."
So I wish someone would explain it to me. How could anyone want one more law and one more Jack Booted Thug? When the examples have been countries like Stalin's USSR, Castro's Cuba, Hitler's Germany, not to mention Pol Pot's Cambodia?
Safety is apparently the new mantra of America. It has replaced "for the children" as the means of our enslavement. There is no such thing, there never was, and there never will be. We will all die eventually, regardless of what the overseers do.
Patrick Henry said it best, "give me liberty or give me death." A safe slave never gets out of bed in the morning, but even then the sky might fall on him. I mentioned jokingly that when our modern era of "safety" began, our government should have instead built large prison camps, put the overseers on the walls with machine guns, and let anyone who wanted safety to voluntarily enter, and be "safe". Leaving the rest of us outside, to live free. (and unsafe)
The Constitution didn't promise us safety, but it does mention that all men are created equal, (not two classes) an it also mentions life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I Don't Want Safety. When I must bow down to an overseer, he will generally act his arrogant part while he asks me to produce my "papers", and inspects to see that I am unarmed while facing his well-armed self.
I am told I will be "safer" the more times I show my "papers", and the more checkpoints I pass through. I am told that I am "safer" if guns are outlawed for slaves, or at least only allowed for certain regulated, inspected, permitted, and databased slaves. Meanwhile, the overseer class, except for the armed guards, works in better and better armed compounds, behind concrete barricades. I am told that I am safer on an aircraft if I am inspected to ensure that I have not even a fingernail file, and of course have proper "papers"; if a terrorist happens to be on the airplane, it will be shot down by an F-16 "for my safety".
I am supposed to feel "safer" if I see more overseers with uniforms and guns, even though I know that virtually every time an overseer uses a weapon to shoot someone, it's OK, because he's a certified overseer, but if a slave were to shoot someone, that would be a major crime.
There are now more laws to protect my "safety" than I could possibly list. But I guarantee, I'll die eventually, unless they pass another law.
I find those words so intolerant and hateful that I will not type them again in this essay. Where did that shit come from? And what does it say about us as a people if we not only use them, but indoctrinate our children to abide by them? Down this road is barbarism.
There are those who say, with much historical evidence, that America was founded as a Christian nation, with founders who espoused Christian values. There are still many in America who profess to believe in a Christian religion, and Christian values. So how did the barbarians become those in charge, especially of our schools?
I myself would not be considered a "good" Christian, although, like many Americans, I was taught much of my ethics and values from this source. I can even quote, or misquote, a few words of Jesus Christ, such as: "Turn the other cheek" and "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Surely the words of a man who couldn't even speak the barbaric words Z*** T********.
So when I hear those words I know they are favored by the overseers or their toadies, or most especially by those who indoctrinate our children, I feel we are descending from a civilized world into a world ruled by man's baser instincts. Back to the swamp!!
This issue doesn't seem to die. And maybe it shouldn't. We now live in a world which is not "safe."
Perhaps it never was. More and more Americans are being tought that the overseers will protect us, we don't need to worry.
The overseers won't protect us. They never could, they never will. Whether the problem is earthquake, flood, tornado, hurricane, volcanic eruption, or terrorist attack, we are, and must be, responsible for our own survival. I find the popular TV show "Law and Order" instructive. It almost always begins with the discovery of a dead body, after which the overseers find and punish the perpetrator(s). Great, but it doesn't do me much good if I represent the "body".
So everyone is, in the long run, responsible for his own (and his family's) life. Dial 911 and your death will be professionally investigated, when they get time.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, your survival in any emergency depends somewhat on your preparedness. Certainly, you may end up being prepared for something which never happens. So?
I grew up in a generation where the "duck and cover" skills were taught for nuclear attack. I haven't used them yet. I lived through Y2K, where the dire predictions never came to pass.
The future will be similar to the past. You might never have to deal with a major disaster, but then again you might. And if you do, the only thing you can count on is yourself, as a call to 911 will get you only a busy signal from the overseers. So, you must assess the risks, and take the necessary actions to minimize them. For some, if they live in an area where they can "get away", the answers might be as simple as being sure that the fuel level in their vehicle is never below 1/2 tank. For others, it may be much more complex.
While the overseers don't want you to know this, high on your personal list should be self defense weaponry. A major breakdown in overseer defense will require that you defend yourself. (you really should anyway, unless you believe in "dial 911 and die") From there on, the detailed list can contain many items, which depend on where you live and what the threats are. For most people, food, water, and first aid come high on the list. I, myself, mourn the loss of both my mother and my wife, who were both highly skilled at the application of the "butterfly bandage", the poor man's answer to professional "stitches". For modern perils, duct tape and plastic sheeting will be important to some. Those who don't include them in their "kit" do that at their own peril. I might also suggest some available money, and I don't mean paper stuff, which might be worth no more than plastic cards in a real emergency.
This brief blog entry in no way is intended to explain all the things You must consider, it's different for every individual. And if it's too much for you to consider, you can always dial 911 and let the overseers figure it out for you. Good luck.
With my basically libertarian and constitutionalist views, I don't believe that G.W. Bush should have sent about a quarter million troops outside our borders, essentially to the opposite side of the world. But he did. When, in his earlier State of the Union speech, he defined the Axis of Evil as Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, my response was Noooooooooo. We will now have to fight all three eventually.
So I welcomed the war protests and protesters, and felt that they might do some good. I even agreed with the arguments of the other gang, the D's, who protest only because they must take the opposite side to the R's, in hopes winning the next election.
But now the troops are there, some in tents in desert sandstorms. And the idiots at the United Nations think that inspections are working, and don't seem to recognize, or care, that they're only "working" because of the abovementioned quarter million troops, some in tents in a sandstorm.
So now anti-war demonstrations are increasing, now that anti-war demonstrations only mean that either the men and women in those tents will just have to wait, or at worst more of them will have to die, while politicians of the world play their silly games. All at the expense of the American taxpayer, by the way.
So, get on with it, dammit. No point in waiting, every minute we get another Tokyo Rose or Hanoi Jane who will get more of our troops killed. And I, who have little to say about all this, will never, never, never criticize those young men and women who make up the most awesome military that the world has ever seen. My only hope is that someday we can get rid of the R's and the D's and return to a country which defends itself.
The Constitution of the United States, with amendments, defines fairly clearly what rights human beings possess. While I have stated before that this document might be someday improved, I firmly believe that we must live by it until it can be improved, since that's all the protection we have.
We must understand that this document protects each and every one, or none. It is the document of a Constitutional republic, not a "democracy', and therefore whether or not to apply it is not subject to majority vote. It protects the least, or maybe the worst, or it protects no one.
While I could go many directions from here, I'll deliberately choose the most unpopular; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Agencies of our government call him a terrorist of most henious stripe, and our news media picks up the hue and cry. "We know, with no trial, that he's a terrorist." "He's not even a Citizen." "Therefore, torture him most cruelly, and under no circumstances give him the right to a fair trial."
What are we afraid of? Surely if the accusations are true, he would not prevail at a fair trial, and, if he did not, I would be right up there with those who wish to bring back public hangings. While we might weave a rope of pigskin for such an event, we would show ourselves and the world how we treat human beings.
One downside to our system is that, without torture, we would get less information. That is a problem, but we have lived with it in the past. How much more might we know had we tortured Timothy McVeigh?
My personal answers are that we can live with the defects far better than living with the world we are all facing, where anyone's civil rights end as soon as someone yells "terrorist" loud enough.
In my last blog, I made the point that R's and D's represent something similar to two street gangs. Only recently has the situation become this dire. I can quote many historical examples of gentlemen who expressed and voted their personal opinions. Early legislators and even presidents swore no allegiance to any gang. The Constitution makes no mention of such gangs. But now, our voting procedures are all gang related, which means that anyone who does not vote for an R or D must choose a new gang. While I personally choose Libertarian values, I don't believe we want or could tolerate a "new" gang.
I would like a legislature composed of a Jefferson, a Washington, a Henry, a Hamilton, an Adams, etc., all arguing about the correct course for our country. Not one a gang member. But when I look at the requirements to even be on a ballot in 2003 or beyond, membership in some gang is required. It appears that Libertarians have a hard time creating a successful gang, and when they try, they often meet the same problems which affect other gangs, like dissention among gang members, and members who want to use the gang for their own economic advantage.
My personal answer is to never vote for an R or D again, and only vote for an L until the first day he turns his baseball cap to a 45 angle and votes with his gang. At which point I'll vote for a G, or an I, or a C, or anyone else who will attempt to influence our government through his or his constituent's opinions, rather than vote with his gang.
All of the above predicates that what I want is Freedom for the individual, and gangs produce the opposite, slavery.