You dumb fucks.
Jan. 31st, 2005 03:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theweaselkingRolling Stone, on why a draft is both being planned for and inevitable as long as King George is allowed to remain in office.
Including, not surprisingly, the details on the threats used to keep "volunteers" enlisted: Either you sign up voluntarily for 4 more years of regular service, or you're stop-lossed and assigned involuntarily to front-line active combat duty until *2031*.
Including, not surprisingly, the details on the threats used to keep "volunteers" enlisted: Either you sign up voluntarily for 4 more years of regular service, or you're stop-lossed and assigned involuntarily to front-line active combat duty until *2031*.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-31 08:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-31 08:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-31 08:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-31 09:02 pm (UTC)I won't get drafted short of Red China Invading Ohio. Between my knee, back, elbow, and neck, I won't pass anything that resembels a physical.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-31 09:11 pm (UTC)The only branch to take gimps and/or monkeys is the ChAir Farce.
Ethics is Complex
Date: 2005-02-01 12:39 am (UTC)Basically, all reasonable ethical agents have at least three fundamental rights: the right to life, the right to liberty (that is, the right to do whatever they want so long as they do not intentionally create an unreasonable risk of infringing on the rights of others), and at least the right to defend ones rights (which the only one of these three that warrants the use of force). Is it unreasonable to deny that ethical agents have a duty to defend their rights? Does the defense of rights only extend to ones own rights or to the rights of others? It seems reasonable to say that those who care about defending their own rights should assist each other in defending those rights, or in other words, that those who wish to have those rights protected should be willing to help protect them in whatever capacity they are best capable of performing.
Now, it would be benevolent of those who are willing to help defend those rights to protect the rights of others. So, the question becomes, do we blame those who refuse or praise those who do it and what form of blame or praise would be appropriate? I think it would be better to reward those who do it than to punish those that don't, but what sort of reward is appropriate?
Maybe we should take a hint from Plato's "Republic" and Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" (the novel, most emphatically not the movie), which, regardless of Heinlein's narrator's disparagement of the "Republic", have similarities between the two hypothetical forms of government which are too obvious for me to ignore.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 12:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 01:11 am (UTC)I don't really know what a combat controller is, but if it involves directing an operation of some sort, that's most definitely not a physically intensive job.
Re: Ethics is Complex
Date: 2005-02-01 03:18 am (UTC)Re: Ethics is Complex
Date: 2005-02-01 06:24 am (UTC)With respect to the "war on terror", I'm not a military historian, but I'm not really all that sure how much military history would apply since the whole technological landscape is vastly different now than it ever was before, so this is purely speculative; I'm for surgical strikes guided be intelligence over "sledgehammer to plywood" style "bomb the shit out of 'em" stuff.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 06:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 06:30 am (UTC)I'm scared now
Date: 2005-02-01 06:44 am (UTC)Re: I'm scared now
Date: 2005-02-01 07:12 am (UTC)Re: Ethics is Complex
Date: 2005-02-01 01:59 pm (UTC)Oh!
Date: 2005-02-01 03:17 pm (UTC)By the way, I agree, however, I'm also not necessarily opposed to the idea of continuous compulsory military service, as that would probably make it much less likely that we'd get ourselves involved in stupid wars in the first place.
Re: Oh!
Date: 2005-02-01 04:14 pm (UTC)Re: Oh!
Date: 2005-02-01 04:26 pm (UTC)Have you ever read Heinlein's "Starship Troopers"? Not just seen the movie, which is such total and utter crap that it staggers the imagination.
Re: Oh!
Date: 2005-02-01 04:28 pm (UTC)Re: Oh!
Date: 2005-02-01 04:38 pm (UTC)Re: Oh!
Date: 2005-02-01 05:19 pm (UTC)Re: Oh!
Date: 2005-02-01 05:28 pm (UTC)