Christian Democrats in the United States
Conceptual Issues - Military ResponsibilityIf an American should choose to fight, he or she should fight with honor. Since the People delegate resources, weapons and authority, the military should be held to a higher standard of conduct, not granted immunities, and the institutions should not waste our money. The U.S. military should seek and promote truth. That's how we would win, as long as "winning" is defined as meaningful and specific objectives by leadership. If an American should choose not to fight, that should be honored. Either way, we aim toward a world free of war. We recognize the reality that many poor Americans see themselves with only a choice only between crime and the military. It is a testament to the principles of the founding fathers that our military does as a good job forging respectable soldiers as it does, and they must be educated on those principles. We owe it to the common soldiers to embrace them when they return from war, to heal their wounds, to attempt to understand their experiences, and to listen.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
Friday, April 16, 2010
12:00 PM
Ten thousand idiots say Mr. Obama is a bad commander-in-chief. He's only a bad commander-in-chief if he does not discipline these soldiers with life in prison for murder. (Just as Jerry Brown doesn't have the guts to charge the BART police officer who murdered restrained man Oscar Grant on video.)
No one can "win" any war anymore. But even in the mindset of military strategy, an army cannot win a war if the command allows soldiers to devolve into brutes and beasts.
I have heard people on the radio making all kinds of lame excuses, like, the soldiers are afraid, so they are justified in doing anything in response to fear. Why is it good for morale or strategy to excuse soldiers for giving into fear?
Or that they radioed base, and base gave the okay, so they were just following orders. A person smart enough to fly an Apache helicopter should be smart enough to know that if they can't tell if a camera is a gun or not, the gun probably cannot hurt them in an Apache helicopter. They are smart enough to know the orders are illegal.
YES, when patrolling a city of civilized people, they have to wait to retaliate until a clear and present danger of an aimed RPG or engagement of active small arms fire. If I were afraid of getting gunned down at random by helicopters while minding my own business, I might be temped to keep an RPG handy. But it wouldn't make sense to aim it at any helicopter, unless maybe if the helicopter started gunning down innocent people without provocation.
There doesn't seem like there's any way for Jesus to work anything out in that scenario, but there is - the helicopter could have landed and thrown a party... these people would have enjoyed that, and everyone would have gone home happy. Instead, they gunned them down.
Perhaps the most disgusting excuse is that they have to distance themselves with sick humor so they are able to carry out the orders of war. Besides being irrelevant to the fact these victims were doing nothing wrong, that is not so.
The Korea and Vietnam wars didn't end the Soviet state. Nuclear deterrence didn't do it. Economics didn't do it. The genuine good spirit of regular American people did it, because enough Russians figured out that they could never value family and God above country if they were not free.
Because we are free to value God and family above the authority and law of country, we are able to refashion our country in the image of what we love the most as human beings.
If we train our soldiers to forget they are human beings just like the people in the sights of their guns and bombs, then they will kill without regard for family or country. They will use the lives of their fellow soldiers as an excuse to destroy all of the values that make their families at home possible. We might win a few battles, but America would wither and die.
only disciplined soldiers win wars
This WikiLeaks video shows U.S. helicopter pilots joking about the innocent people they slaughtered in Iraq, with all the same cruelty the Soviets had for the Afghans.Ten thousand idiots say Mr. Obama is a bad commander-in-chief. He's only a bad commander-in-chief if he does not discipline these soldiers with life in prison for murder. (Just as Jerry Brown doesn't have the guts to charge the BART police officer who murdered restrained man Oscar Grant on video.)
No one can "win" any war anymore. But even in the mindset of military strategy, an army cannot win a war if the command allows soldiers to devolve into brutes and beasts.
I have heard people on the radio making all kinds of lame excuses, like, the soldiers are afraid, so they are justified in doing anything in response to fear. Why is it good for morale or strategy to excuse soldiers for giving into fear?
Or that they radioed base, and base gave the okay, so they were just following orders. A person smart enough to fly an Apache helicopter should be smart enough to know that if they can't tell if a camera is a gun or not, the gun probably cannot hurt them in an Apache helicopter. They are smart enough to know the orders are illegal.
YES, when patrolling a city of civilized people, they have to wait to retaliate until a clear and present danger of an aimed RPG or engagement of active small arms fire. If I were afraid of getting gunned down at random by helicopters while minding my own business, I might be temped to keep an RPG handy. But it wouldn't make sense to aim it at any helicopter, unless maybe if the helicopter started gunning down innocent people without provocation.
There doesn't seem like there's any way for Jesus to work anything out in that scenario, but there is - the helicopter could have landed and thrown a party... these people would have enjoyed that, and everyone would have gone home happy. Instead, they gunned them down.
Perhaps the most disgusting excuse is that they have to distance themselves with sick humor so they are able to carry out the orders of war. Besides being irrelevant to the fact these victims were doing nothing wrong, that is not so.
The Korea and Vietnam wars didn't end the Soviet state. Nuclear deterrence didn't do it. Economics didn't do it. The genuine good spirit of regular American people did it, because enough Russians figured out that they could never value family and God above country if they were not free.
Because we are free to value God and family above the authority and law of country, we are able to refashion our country in the image of what we love the most as human beings.
If we train our soldiers to forget they are human beings just like the people in the sights of their guns and bombs, then they will kill without regard for family or country. They will use the lives of their fellow soldiers as an excuse to destroy all of the values that make their families at home possible. We might win a few battles, but America would wither and die.
> detail, links and comments >>
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
12:43 PM
there can be only one law of the United States
There can be only one law of the United States, whether that law applies to military personnel or not. The notion of "civilian," that somehow makes a person less than a citizen in the eyes of a soldier or official, is repugnant and antithetical to everything the founders and the revolutionaries stood for. Those common men raised up muskets and pitchforks to throw off the regimented chains of state repression from England, with its titles and noble classes, its increasingly mechanistic ways of dividing people from each other and their common God. The people retain all their rights to decide issues locally that do not affect other states or give away their individual rights as human beings, but where the federal government is concerned, there is only room for one law, one system of justice and one tradition of jurisprudence, not a double standard whereby the military makes up its own rules as it goes along, not subject to the will of Congress and the People. It is vital to the security of our nation that Mr. Obama take the unpopular course on the matter of trying terrorists, that he resoundly ignore the bloodthirsty cries of fascists like Mr. Cheney, and try them in public court in the United States for crimes against the public of the United States. The military is not an elite class of people: they are citizens, same as everyone else, and though the country owes them care and respect for their service, we do not owe them worship or devotion. The military owes their obedience to the People, or our nation will fall to ruin.> detail, links and comments >>
Thursday, February 11, 2010
9:06 PM
That's why industry servants in politics call to continue the status quo, the failed "don't ask, don't tell" policy. If the people doing their dirty work realized their orders and actions contradicted the letter and principle of the law of the United States, they might decide to become human beings again and lead the country out of war from the ground up.
And they should. The 14th amendment makes a difference between "citizens" and "any person," and says "any person" deserves equal protection of the laws -- within its "jurisdiction," that is, in the field overseas, not just within national borders.
If troops had to live by the letter of the law of the United States, they would realize how terribly wrong some of the orders have been. They would change the policies and orders that got us into the mess we're in -- the addiction to spending on death and violence that will bankrupt the United States of America financially and morally.
don't ask, don't tell... don't think.
If people in the military had to think about the "equal" part of "all are created equal" and are guaranteed "equal protection of laws," then they might also start thinking about their orders.That's why industry servants in politics call to continue the status quo, the failed "don't ask, don't tell" policy. If the people doing their dirty work realized their orders and actions contradicted the letter and principle of the law of the United States, they might decide to become human beings again and lead the country out of war from the ground up.
And they should. The 14th amendment makes a difference between "citizens" and "any person," and says "any person" deserves equal protection of the laws -- within its "jurisdiction," that is, in the field overseas, not just within national borders.
If troops had to live by the letter of the law of the United States, they would realize how terribly wrong some of the orders have been. They would change the policies and orders that got us into the mess we're in -- the addiction to spending on death and violence that will bankrupt the United States of America financially and morally.
> detail, links and comments >>
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
11:28 AM
Bogey at three o'clock... "Go ahead and shoot... you'd be doing me a favor..." Sam and a drink and a song or two. Sure, why not argue that the world can stop fighting, and prosper, yet remain independent in singular and in country. There is no need for a world government, but a world of functioning democracies can still use the U.N. as a forum to resolve disputes. Resolve doesn't mean "settle for money," either. It can all mean something as humble as an apology to someone you love. Why not make the world a better place, because we do not know whether the hour is late, or far.
So in a sense everyone overseas ought to be a preacher; and why not, because getting along is a lot easier. But to glorify the Lord with human blood... I'm not sure, I don't. Human god customs demanded that, but this turned out to be the unimagined one, right, who was there for all to see, at one time? Physics is God's "Rubricon" apparently, though some seals remain unlocked ... why not have faith that pillar of fire and transmutation of form was not a fable?
Perhaps he doesn't interfere in earthquakes because the lava core spins the magnet that keeps our air here, and if he interfered here or there, where should he stop? The displacement might end up being a dead world like Mars without any air, but he's the living god - for real, and why not?
One Laptop Per Child can help Haiti look up good building plans... adults are not beyond learning to use computers either.
It's good to live while living's good, and he's there, it's good to remember. So he leaves us alone to fend for ourselves against the elements as best we can, because they're here. It's not an apology, it's necessary. We could take care of everyone a lot better and not have to force anyone to do so, with knowledge. People picked knowledge, somehow, to work with, it's what we've got.
bible verses on gun sights
What part of "You shall not kill" is not clear? To put the Lord's word on a weapon of murder is blasphemy, or I hope so, at any rate, or is it all for nothing? The world is not ideal but wow, you really think Jesus wanted people to go around shooting each other when he said "love one another?" Are we supposed to think they'd put us on the cross of their sights for saying so? Or a sword or a stick as we return to pre-stone age in a cataclysmic freeze... could happen. Why keep circling around like the crows and vultures instead fly up.... That is weird, just strange, and frightening. What you do with your own engraver kit on your own gun is your business, weirdos, but no one company or soldier in our citizen volunteer army has the right to make an official religious statement on behalf of command, particularly in war. Command is supposed to be thinking about strategy, and pissing people off is not usually a great way to make friends.Bogey at three o'clock... "Go ahead and shoot... you'd be doing me a favor..." Sam and a drink and a song or two. Sure, why not argue that the world can stop fighting, and prosper, yet remain independent in singular and in country. There is no need for a world government, but a world of functioning democracies can still use the U.N. as a forum to resolve disputes. Resolve doesn't mean "settle for money," either. It can all mean something as humble as an apology to someone you love. Why not make the world a better place, because we do not know whether the hour is late, or far.
So in a sense everyone overseas ought to be a preacher; and why not, because getting along is a lot easier. But to glorify the Lord with human blood... I'm not sure, I don't. Human god customs demanded that, but this turned out to be the unimagined one, right, who was there for all to see, at one time? Physics is God's "Rubricon" apparently, though some seals remain unlocked ... why not have faith that pillar of fire and transmutation of form was not a fable?
Perhaps he doesn't interfere in earthquakes because the lava core spins the magnet that keeps our air here, and if he interfered here or there, where should he stop? The displacement might end up being a dead world like Mars without any air, but he's the living god - for real, and why not?
One Laptop Per Child can help Haiti look up good building plans... adults are not beyond learning to use computers either.
It's good to live while living's good, and he's there, it's good to remember. So he leaves us alone to fend for ourselves against the elements as best we can, because they're here. It's not an apology, it's necessary. We could take care of everyone a lot better and not have to force anyone to do so, with knowledge. People picked knowledge, somehow, to work with, it's what we've got.
> detail, links and comments >>
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
1:18 PM
The poor idiot's own father went to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria and told them to take him seriously.
The U.S. embassy failed to take him seriously, and if entered into the database, intelligence review failed to notice an obvious threat - perhaps because people in U.S. intelligence circles are failed, lonely people who feel they can only trust in their elite circles - and not even then - dysfunctional people who do not trust their own families and cannot communicate love. Therefore, no one in those circles understood the importance of a father's love for his son, who did not want his child to hurt himself or others.
Again: not hurting people is not the mentality that people our intelligence circles choose to live by. So, they were blind to the truth presenting itself in plain language at their doorstep.
Now the intelligence community is on NPR and the BBC whining that President Obama has criticized their behavior, these fat bastards with fat contracts sitting in their fat chairs pushing buttons on Predator drones and blasting the living hell out of innocent people in pursuit of target elements assigned by their self-justifying systematic logic: a logic deliberately partial, and always denying itself knowledge of the bigger geo-political picture, denying itself knowledge of why as an excuse to become more and more violent.
Dude, shut up. You're not fooling anyone but yourself. The President is the Boss - the commander in chief, of USA agencies, embassies and bases, all over the globe, on the moon, on Mars or Europa or where ever our great nation needs to go to get the job done.
It clearly was a failure - of systematic process, but because of fundamental spiritual deficiencies in the human operators of those systems. They ought to get down on their knees and pray people in Africa and Asia are smart enough not to let some schmuck smuggle in a nuke.
As Boss of the United States, whom we People voted to make Boss, President Obama has every right to criticize and reform systematic process and to fire people who failed their basic duties as officials of the United States. Members of the public may disagree, but people in official capacity should not only shut up, they should do and say what the guy says, because he's the Boss, he's doing his job that we People hired him to do, and he's doing a great job at it because he's trying his best to do the right thing. Are you?
The President is the Boss and has every right to criticize intelligence failures
Some brave people wrestled down an idiot on a plane. A man with a clear mental health problem from Nigeria who tried to blow his leg off with firecrackers, led astray by an Ali Baba, a charlatan, a false prophet.The poor idiot's own father went to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria and told them to take him seriously.
The U.S. embassy failed to take him seriously, and if entered into the database, intelligence review failed to notice an obvious threat - perhaps because people in U.S. intelligence circles are failed, lonely people who feel they can only trust in their elite circles - and not even then - dysfunctional people who do not trust their own families and cannot communicate love. Therefore, no one in those circles understood the importance of a father's love for his son, who did not want his child to hurt himself or others.
Again: not hurting people is not the mentality that people our intelligence circles choose to live by. So, they were blind to the truth presenting itself in plain language at their doorstep.
Now the intelligence community is on NPR and the BBC whining that President Obama has criticized their behavior, these fat bastards with fat contracts sitting in their fat chairs pushing buttons on Predator drones and blasting the living hell out of innocent people in pursuit of target elements assigned by their self-justifying systematic logic: a logic deliberately partial, and always denying itself knowledge of the bigger geo-political picture, denying itself knowledge of why as an excuse to become more and more violent.
Dude, shut up. You're not fooling anyone but yourself. The President is the Boss - the commander in chief, of USA agencies, embassies and bases, all over the globe, on the moon, on Mars or Europa or where ever our great nation needs to go to get the job done.
It clearly was a failure - of systematic process, but because of fundamental spiritual deficiencies in the human operators of those systems. They ought to get down on their knees and pray people in Africa and Asia are smart enough not to let some schmuck smuggle in a nuke.
As Boss of the United States, whom we People voted to make Boss, President Obama has every right to criticize and reform systematic process and to fire people who failed their basic duties as officials of the United States. Members of the public may disagree, but people in official capacity should not only shut up, they should do and say what the guy says, because he's the Boss, he's doing his job that we People hired him to do, and he's doing a great job at it because he's trying his best to do the right thing. Are you?
> detail, links and comments >>
Monday, November 30, 2009
11:53 PM
Whatever... the point is there is something fishy about each of those couples. Maybe they are testing the defenses and pretending to be reality show wannabes. Maybe they actually are reality show wannabes who are smart enough to be doing anything else more productive with their lives. Maybe there is always another layer to the onion in that shadowy world. (And each one makes you cry.)
In fact a large portion of the attention of the populace and of people in government gets captured by this, as our brains and pundits rattle off the possible reasons it could have happened, knowing none of the facts of that world or how people who are actors so frequently step in and play this or that petty role in some unseen drama, written by people just out of reach of ordinary citizens. So we take the motivations and actions of the characters as fact, because at a certain point most of us have no more energy to look further.
It happens on every "side" of politics, and we all know it. In fact, unconsciously we all can tell when the Deceiver steps into the room, perhaps by instinct, perhaps by smell, even if we cannot verbalize it, even if we choose to cloud our eyes with sleepy acceptance. But we can wake up -- and we can wake them up.
People playing these stupid roles in the farce of "official" politics simply must realize how fake they look, and how immature. They are playing adolescent kid's games, they are just bratty teenagers who never matured, who never took upon themselves a responsibility for their countries and the common wealth and welfare of all men, because that responsibility only bestows itself upon people who seek and promote the truth. This country, that country, "enemy," "ally," it does not make a difference -- these people are liars, behaving like caricatured punks, like spoiled kids who never chose to challenge themselves and take their lives and their efforts to the next level. Instead they play games in what they perceive as darkness that they created, for which they pat themselves on the back, but is really the wool they pull over their own eyes.
The "Spirit of Truth" spoken of in scripture is a "difficult ally" in the sense that devotion to truth must override one's devotion to even one's own principles. Because to acknowledge truth, is to know it is something more than what we know. Therefore, we have to acknowledge our limitations: we do not know the full extent to which our principles, cultural and legal, conform to universal truth. So it can be said, that when we lie, even if we do so because of principle, we have strayed from the spirit of truth. This is a difficult concept for mortal humans to grasp, prone as we are to our evolutionary training to lie to obtain safety and reproduce, that truth is more important than safety -- and that truth achieves those goals in ways we cannot fathom, and that our short-sighted schemes can never encompass.
White House party crasher anagrams
Anagrams (letter jumbles) are a classic code mechanism. Sometimes a specific word is used as a key to understand an anagram. There is no evidence to say that the names of the recent White House "party crashers" are using false names, neither can anyone explain who they are or where they came from. They resemble Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, like their characters were created to suck up that visual spot of media attention. It's speculation, of course. Anagrams of the letters in 'michaeletareqsalahi' come up with some interesting phrases among the noise of common words, ripe for speculative consumption, like:- Qatar Elisha aleichem
- Qatar Sheila aleichem
- Iraq's althea aleichem
- Qatar Michael he is L.E.A.
- Michael Iraq hate L.E.A.'s
- Michael Iraq halt ease
- Altai Iraq leech shame
- Iraq Althea heals mice
- Iraq she a tamale chile
Whatever... the point is there is something fishy about each of those couples. Maybe they are testing the defenses and pretending to be reality show wannabes. Maybe they actually are reality show wannabes who are smart enough to be doing anything else more productive with their lives. Maybe there is always another layer to the onion in that shadowy world. (And each one makes you cry.)
In fact a large portion of the attention of the populace and of people in government gets captured by this, as our brains and pundits rattle off the possible reasons it could have happened, knowing none of the facts of that world or how people who are actors so frequently step in and play this or that petty role in some unseen drama, written by people just out of reach of ordinary citizens. So we take the motivations and actions of the characters as fact, because at a certain point most of us have no more energy to look further.
It happens on every "side" of politics, and we all know it. In fact, unconsciously we all can tell when the Deceiver steps into the room, perhaps by instinct, perhaps by smell, even if we cannot verbalize it, even if we choose to cloud our eyes with sleepy acceptance. But we can wake up -- and we can wake them up.
People playing these stupid roles in the farce of "official" politics simply must realize how fake they look, and how immature. They are playing adolescent kid's games, they are just bratty teenagers who never matured, who never took upon themselves a responsibility for their countries and the common wealth and welfare of all men, because that responsibility only bestows itself upon people who seek and promote the truth. This country, that country, "enemy," "ally," it does not make a difference -- these people are liars, behaving like caricatured punks, like spoiled kids who never chose to challenge themselves and take their lives and their efforts to the next level. Instead they play games in what they perceive as darkness that they created, for which they pat themselves on the back, but is really the wool they pull over their own eyes.
The "Spirit of Truth" spoken of in scripture is a "difficult ally" in the sense that devotion to truth must override one's devotion to even one's own principles. Because to acknowledge truth, is to know it is something more than what we know. Therefore, we have to acknowledge our limitations: we do not know the full extent to which our principles, cultural and legal, conform to universal truth. So it can be said, that when we lie, even if we do so because of principle, we have strayed from the spirit of truth. This is a difficult concept for mortal humans to grasp, prone as we are to our evolutionary training to lie to obtain safety and reproduce, that truth is more important than safety -- and that truth achieves those goals in ways we cannot fathom, and that our short-sighted schemes can never encompass.
> detail, links and comments >>
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
11:10 AM
Plural democracy is the only way life doesn't kill us all -- when crazy use of authority de-stabilizes social culture. It is too easy for any human to go over the edge when wielding a sword. This is why our military has a discipline structure that is not supposed to let people get away with gunning down crowds of women and children.
Similarly, if the people tried to vote something like Sharia law into power, or fascism, or Nazis, or any one-party system that concentrates official opinion, this would be an invalid vote under any democratic system.
The military, if their people value all the people they serve, would be obliged to overthrow the government, and to restore honor among the people with a fair, regular vote that distributes power across checks and balances. This distribution of power, in any full public participatory system, and our willingness to stick up for each other's spirit, is what makes democracy so much better than anything else.
military obligation to democracy
Rome... the thrill of battle, but every couple years a new guy in a toga comes along and kills you and your family. The nation thrashes back and forth between a few powerful competing authorities. Not a fun place to live.Plural democracy is the only way life doesn't kill us all -- when crazy use of authority de-stabilizes social culture. It is too easy for any human to go over the edge when wielding a sword. This is why our military has a discipline structure that is not supposed to let people get away with gunning down crowds of women and children.
Similarly, if the people tried to vote something like Sharia law into power, or fascism, or Nazis, or any one-party system that concentrates official opinion, this would be an invalid vote under any democratic system.
The military, if their people value all the people they serve, would be obliged to overthrow the government, and to restore honor among the people with a fair, regular vote that distributes power across checks and balances. This distribution of power, in any full public participatory system, and our willingness to stick up for each other's spirit, is what makes democracy so much better than anything else.
> detail, links and comments >>
Archives May 2007 / November 2009 / January 2010 / February 2010 / April 2010 /