Christian Democrats in the United States
Global Issues - DefenseWe propose a defensive shift away from brute force military strategies, to diplomatic efforts with deals for resources and training by American expertise in civil policing. No human being can live under martial law for long, before such a system would self-destruct. We should not allow free trade to mean weapons sales or construction of military-industrial factories in hostile countries. We also advocate more publicity and openness in the intelligence community. At some point, if U.S. intelligence services do not fulfill core principles of empowering Americans and their spirits with truth, then the country will sink so far into the web of lies, it will fall.
Strategically, putting men and women on the ground with effective body armor, armored vehicles, non-lethal weapons and knowledge is a much more important goal than spending trillions on high-tech mass-murder systems that are never used. If we believe in the values of our American servicemen and women, we should enable them to do the job on the front lines.
We advocate bans on all non-precision explosives such as cluster bombs, and attest that no aerial bombs of any kind can be used in an honorable manner in urban combat. Defensive systems against mass-murder systems ought to be used as diplomatic chips to reduce all stocks world-wide of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons with the goal of eliminating all weapons of mass destruction.
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Friday, March 5, 2010
1:43 PM
anti-government violence makes real reform harder
Idiots like this make real reform impossible... they make it easy for people in power to point at anyone trying to argue for better policy who is justifiably angry about the government and call them lunatics. Bollocks. America may be unsaveable, because of idiots like this, but mostly because of idiots who associate people like this guy with people who want reform. And then they point at those of us who declare ourselves pacifists and call us cowards.> detail, links and comments >>
Monday, August 24, 2009
5:16 PM
If it is true, as the Wall St. Journal Editor asserts, that a nearby gunshot, a power drill threat and cigarette smoke are "all that the uproar over 'torture' is about," then the CIA has nothing to worry about. If we think in terms of the twisted inquisitorial logic they want the power to use against any and all suspects, then after all, if the CIA has done nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about by being investigated.
Water-boarding is certainly more harsh than those three things, and we know that happened under direction of the justice department, so we already know that the WSJ Editor is spinning the details to hide worse offenses from the public mind. That is a crying shame, that the Wall St. Journal panders to the lowest common denominator (of its market).
Our system of justice is not inquisitorial, and that is the point. The fifth amendment is not only the right not to incriminate one's self on the stand, it is the right not to be insulted by accusatory prosecutors with no evidence and not a leg to stand on. That kind of justice system is exactly the kind the terrorists claim they want to impose on the world, clothed in religious garments. That kind of justice system is what we are supposed to be fighting, because when instituted with industry, it destroys freedom and runs rampant, thirsting for blood on a massive scale. Then the ideals exploited for its construction are abandoned, and even the noblest people involved in its origins are obliterated.
To avoid the terror of an inquisitorial state, we create checks and balances against the tendency of human institutions to favor that method of operation. That means that no agency or officer of government can be given special treatment under the law. As far as secrecy, in any interrogation scenario, a hardened terrorist will be a good judge of how much someone is bluffing. Or, they simply will not care if they are killed anyway, because they have deluded themselves with visions of martyrdom.
Most human storytelling is about the hero struggle against unbelievable odds - but it turns out most people want to do good works for God in their lives anyway, so in the long run I hope we'll be okay. If you can imagine yourself a terrorist for a moment, however someone gets into that, they would have to believe themselves to be a hero struggling against the forces of evil. Let's imagine that Hitler won world war two, and now the conflict is between nazi-fascist America and islamic-fascist Asia. (How does that scenario avoid global nuclear war?) Certainly, the United Nazis would be torturing islamic terrorists with acid, electricity, family killings, vivisection, any number of unimaginable horrors.
Yet, because humans are tenacious creatures, people would resist. There is simply no point to torturing people's senses, and if there is no point, then there is no threat in the long run from either bluffing or actually carrying out the threats. The only way to "win" this conflict is a "mutual win." The other alternative is "mutual kill." The way to win is to convince the intellect of human beings, Muslim or not, that the United States is better than that. We must convince terrorists, and people the terrorists appeal to, to examine themselves, to ask if they may be deluded by people who imprint and mis-use that hero complex on them for their own gain. Many people on both sides are deluded by that hero complex into committing senseless violence. The mutual win is when we both step down from our bloody altars, sit down together in the ashes, let go of our sorrow and cry. It would be over.
In the Muslim ethos, one might say Mohammed was a revolutionary, he changed that part of the world, he forced people out of the sterile darkness they lived in at the time, and that change was like a birth pang for society and culture, which flourished in variety, novelty and intellect for a brief time. I daresay many cultures purporting to be "more Islamist" than each other, men like flamboyant apes puffing for mates and subjugating their women and opponents with force, have taken their minds a step back to a time far before Mohammed, before Jesus, and before Moses. We have been given so much more to work with, so much potential for beauty, and people who set up governments like that squander their potential in blood. Any successful government in the modern world must provide a stable platform for constant change. Public, open, democratic government is the only way to accomplish that.
When Atty. Gen. Holder said it would be "unfair to prosecute... for conduct that was sanctioned in advance," he was wrong. That argument says a soldier "just following orders" is always right, even when those orders are illegal. Due to our essential need for checks and balances in government, under the Bush administration, the CIA should have known better, the CIA should have pushed back against orders from the Justice Department and the White House that were obviously morally wrong and illegal by violating core principles of common law jurisprudence.
The soldier counter-argument, that jarheads can't be legal scholars, does not apply, because these aren't GIs, they are educated, trained CIA interrogators. Besides, Army regulations for proper conduct of field soldiers under command are extremely clear. Mỹ Lai must never happen again. In cases of abuse, when command has deviated from the psyche of civilized, peace-loving people, when the actions are not tactical and disciplined but are offensive against all civilization, soldiers are obligated to mutiny, preferably relieving their command into custody but fighting if necessary. They must risk death to take the matter to higher command above their commander's head, they must risk court martial to do the right thing. If necessary they must take the matter out of the military, above the President's command, to the courts, Congress and the public. It's the right thing to do, dumb-ass, so do it. It's not hard to figure those things out.
due process about cia abuse allegations is a good thing
This WSJ Editorial is a typical response of the threatened power mongers in the industrialized murder system.If it is true, as the Wall St. Journal Editor asserts, that a nearby gunshot, a power drill threat and cigarette smoke are "all that the uproar over 'torture' is about," then the CIA has nothing to worry about. If we think in terms of the twisted inquisitorial logic they want the power to use against any and all suspects, then after all, if the CIA has done nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about by being investigated.
Water-boarding is certainly more harsh than those three things, and we know that happened under direction of the justice department, so we already know that the WSJ Editor is spinning the details to hide worse offenses from the public mind. That is a crying shame, that the Wall St. Journal panders to the lowest common denominator (of its market).
Our system of justice is not inquisitorial, and that is the point. The fifth amendment is not only the right not to incriminate one's self on the stand, it is the right not to be insulted by accusatory prosecutors with no evidence and not a leg to stand on. That kind of justice system is exactly the kind the terrorists claim they want to impose on the world, clothed in religious garments. That kind of justice system is what we are supposed to be fighting, because when instituted with industry, it destroys freedom and runs rampant, thirsting for blood on a massive scale. Then the ideals exploited for its construction are abandoned, and even the noblest people involved in its origins are obliterated.
To avoid the terror of an inquisitorial state, we create checks and balances against the tendency of human institutions to favor that method of operation. That means that no agency or officer of government can be given special treatment under the law. As far as secrecy, in any interrogation scenario, a hardened terrorist will be a good judge of how much someone is bluffing. Or, they simply will not care if they are killed anyway, because they have deluded themselves with visions of martyrdom.
Most human storytelling is about the hero struggle against unbelievable odds - but it turns out most people want to do good works for God in their lives anyway, so in the long run I hope we'll be okay. If you can imagine yourself a terrorist for a moment, however someone gets into that, they would have to believe themselves to be a hero struggling against the forces of evil. Let's imagine that Hitler won world war two, and now the conflict is between nazi-fascist America and islamic-fascist Asia. (How does that scenario avoid global nuclear war?) Certainly, the United Nazis would be torturing islamic terrorists with acid, electricity, family killings, vivisection, any number of unimaginable horrors.
Yet, because humans are tenacious creatures, people would resist. There is simply no point to torturing people's senses, and if there is no point, then there is no threat in the long run from either bluffing or actually carrying out the threats. The only way to "win" this conflict is a "mutual win." The other alternative is "mutual kill." The way to win is to convince the intellect of human beings, Muslim or not, that the United States is better than that. We must convince terrorists, and people the terrorists appeal to, to examine themselves, to ask if they may be deluded by people who imprint and mis-use that hero complex on them for their own gain. Many people on both sides are deluded by that hero complex into committing senseless violence. The mutual win is when we both step down from our bloody altars, sit down together in the ashes, let go of our sorrow and cry. It would be over.
In the Muslim ethos, one might say Mohammed was a revolutionary, he changed that part of the world, he forced people out of the sterile darkness they lived in at the time, and that change was like a birth pang for society and culture, which flourished in variety, novelty and intellect for a brief time. I daresay many cultures purporting to be "more Islamist" than each other, men like flamboyant apes puffing for mates and subjugating their women and opponents with force, have taken their minds a step back to a time far before Mohammed, before Jesus, and before Moses. We have been given so much more to work with, so much potential for beauty, and people who set up governments like that squander their potential in blood. Any successful government in the modern world must provide a stable platform for constant change. Public, open, democratic government is the only way to accomplish that.
When Atty. Gen. Holder said it would be "unfair to prosecute... for conduct that was sanctioned in advance," he was wrong. That argument says a soldier "just following orders" is always right, even when those orders are illegal. Due to our essential need for checks and balances in government, under the Bush administration, the CIA should have known better, the CIA should have pushed back against orders from the Justice Department and the White House that were obviously morally wrong and illegal by violating core principles of common law jurisprudence.
The soldier counter-argument, that jarheads can't be legal scholars, does not apply, because these aren't GIs, they are educated, trained CIA interrogators. Besides, Army regulations for proper conduct of field soldiers under command are extremely clear. Mỹ Lai must never happen again. In cases of abuse, when command has deviated from the psyche of civilized, peace-loving people, when the actions are not tactical and disciplined but are offensive against all civilization, soldiers are obligated to mutiny, preferably relieving their command into custody but fighting if necessary. They must risk death to take the matter to higher command above their commander's head, they must risk court martial to do the right thing. If necessary they must take the matter out of the military, above the President's command, to the courts, Congress and the public. It's the right thing to do, dumb-ass, so do it. It's not hard to figure those things out.
> detail, links and comments >>
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
3:52 PM
But it's more telling that it seems controversial to a lot of people that such a debate might take place. It makes all the more remote the possibility that we could debate whether war itself is legitimate, that we could debate not only automatic killing but killing itself. And anyone who stands up and says the whole damn idea of war is an antiquated, outmoded symptom of genetic throwbacks, of a primitive or damaged mind, is framed by the self-sacrificed slaves of the machine to be a traitor, when it is they who seek not to kill anyone in particular, but to kill everyone in their path.
That kind of behavior reminds me of a story a while back that a man lost a bet on a cock fight in Jalisco Mexico and in anger tossed a hand-grenade into the crowd of spectators, killing eight people at random.
It's the stupor of a mad bomber, made drunk by killing and enflamed with a desire to see the whole world die. It's wrong, and it always will be wrong, whether the target is selected by a person or by a computer.
Meanwhile in Germany Angela Merkel is visited by a ghost from her past, a weapons dealer friend-of-friends who armed Saudi Arabia and stole from them. I don't know about you but it seems rather un-christian to sell guns and bombs and then steal from the people paying you... all that stuff is not how I choose to fill my day in any case.
But this guy Karlheinz Schreiber only went to jail for fraud. This distracts us from the larger irony of the label "Christian Democrats" used to promote the industrialization of murder from Arabia to Persia and to fill the tinderbox to the brim with bombs in the Holy Land. It makes it more palatable for the public, etc. that "Glock doesn't kill people, it's the dang A-rabs who kill people," though Schreiber plays the "ali baba" role in that drama parallel to the Iran-Contra sales of Reagan, Cheney, North etc. in the 1980's.
We get so tied up in going after their fall guys that we forget about the bigger problem, that these wars are being fought in the first place and that the bulk of the sale of arms to the third world bears the official stamp of our wealthy governments.
debate on killer robots, but not about killing?
It's an infinitesimally small glimmer of hope that someone in the US military is trying to talk about putting the brakes on automatic death machines, to communicate to the boardroom idiots that their ideas "artificial intelligence" are based on science fiction, that automatic death drones cannot distinguish good from bad, and that trying to put this decision on a robot is a psychotic, cowardly cop-out to distance one's self from the act, to deny responsibility for murder. And it forces an arms race of robots, invisible robots, robots to detect the invisible ones, robots to interfere with those robots, robots to maintain and re-arm the other robots, etc. I don't know about you but I have better things to do with the tax money that line of thinking will yoke me and the whole world into for the next five hundred years. The Dude said, his yoke is light.But it's more telling that it seems controversial to a lot of people that such a debate might take place. It makes all the more remote the possibility that we could debate whether war itself is legitimate, that we could debate not only automatic killing but killing itself. And anyone who stands up and says the whole damn idea of war is an antiquated, outmoded symptom of genetic throwbacks, of a primitive or damaged mind, is framed by the self-sacrificed slaves of the machine to be a traitor, when it is they who seek not to kill anyone in particular, but to kill everyone in their path.
Between January 2006 and April 2009, [Prof. Sharkey] estimated, 60 such "drone" attacks were carried out in Pakistan. While 14 al-Qaeda were killed, some 687 civilian deaths also occurred, he said.
That kind of behavior reminds me of a story a while back that a man lost a bet on a cock fight in Jalisco Mexico and in anger tossed a hand-grenade into the crowd of spectators, killing eight people at random.
It's the stupor of a mad bomber, made drunk by killing and enflamed with a desire to see the whole world die. It's wrong, and it always will be wrong, whether the target is selected by a person or by a computer.
Meanwhile in Germany Angela Merkel is visited by a ghost from her past, a weapons dealer friend-of-friends who armed Saudi Arabia and stole from them. I don't know about you but it seems rather un-christian to sell guns and bombs and then steal from the people paying you... all that stuff is not how I choose to fill my day in any case.
But this guy Karlheinz Schreiber only went to jail for fraud. This distracts us from the larger irony of the label "Christian Democrats" used to promote the industrialization of murder from Arabia to Persia and to fill the tinderbox to the brim with bombs in the Holy Land. It makes it more palatable for the public, etc. that "Glock doesn't kill people, it's the dang A-rabs who kill people," though Schreiber plays the "ali baba" role in that drama parallel to the Iran-Contra sales of Reagan, Cheney, North etc. in the 1980's.
We get so tied up in going after their fall guys that we forget about the bigger problem, that these wars are being fought in the first place and that the bulk of the sale of arms to the third world bears the official stamp of our wealthy governments.
> detail, links and comments >>
Sunday, October 5, 2008
8:10 PM
10/10/08 notes - lucky so far, but maybe they are waiting until the stock market bottoms out to kick us while we are down. Original post:
Friends, I pray that I am wrong, but something in the back of my mind has been eating at me for the last few weeks. I fear an attack on U.S. soil, possibly on the west coast, possibly a nuclear attack.
Comments in the media increasing our fear and rancor put me ill at ease, followed by Sarah Palin's attempt this week to associate Barack Obama with terrorism despite all the evidence, research and testimonials to the contrary, as well as John McCain's statement that he has always aspired to be a dictator, and the bailout bill which seems like the rats jumping ship before it goes down.
This is my projected timeline. Perhaps this is prophetic. Perhaps I am a wing-nut. I hope the truth is the latter and you can write me off as a crackpot alarmist. (But I have seen the Lord coming on the clouds in great glory, and that saved me from darkness, which is why I am rational and yet have faith, so I know that the end of the age and the coming of the next is near. I don't insist that you believe me.)
Tuesday, October 7th 2008, the second of three presidential debates will take place as scheduled. John McCain will emphasize aggressive American action and claim that this is working. While partly true, that is not the entirety of the story. McCain will attempt to frame Obama as soft on terrorism.
Before the election on November 4th, probably before the last debate, a terrorist attack will occur on U.S. soil, possibly on the west coast. There will first be a coordinated attack designed to increase fear, sow social chaos and disorder and bring the National Guard in to control the situation, at which point the terrorists will use a weapon of mass destruction, possibly a nuclear device, to cause as much death and destruction as possible.
America will be in shock for several days. Then, as that shock turns to anger, the attack will be blamed on Iran and North Korea. This will be used as an excuse to nuke Tehran and Pyonyang with hydrogen fusion bombs and kill hundreds of millions of people. Or, hopefully, Bush will show some restraint and go after specific targets with conventional weapons. But these targets are still not the people responsible. The people responsible will be bought off by Saudi Arabia and Syria and will include traitors at the highest levels of the U.S. military-industrial infrastructure. Why? Why else: thirty pieces of silver - military contracts.
Wednesday, October 15th 2008, the final presidential debate. America's anger will have turned to rage and McCain will feed on that rage, riding it to the presidency. Americans will eat it up and will be convinced that we have to invade and occupy Iran and Pakistan.
China will use our attack on Pyonyang and the resulting power vacuum as an excuse to claim all of Korea and Taiwan, as well as Nepal. Because the U.S. will be occupied with Iran and Pakistan, we will not be capable of showing resistance for our allies in South Korea and Taiwan, and will rely on nuclear deterrence to protect Japan.
World War III will claim hundreds of millions, if not a billion lives throughout Asia and the middle east. Only after years of fighting, and on the edge of complete economic bankruptcy, will America realize the true source of the attacks on our soil: Saudi Arabia and Syria. Why? Because the Sunnis want to play us against the Shi'ites and get them out of the way, so they can establish control over the whole region and control the source of oil for exports by pipeline to China, the world's largest energy consumer by that point.
Then Americans will ally with the Shi'ites, and begin to march westward toward the Holy Land. At this point we will be completely bankrupt and totally financially dependent on China. China's army will march west to control the power vacuum in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran left by our departure. Notice that Jesus and Christianity are not a part of the picture anymore.
In the final days of conflict, who knows what will happen. Perhaps the "abomination that causes devastation" will be the opening of the 7th seal at the Large Hadron Collider. (11 dimensions in string theory, 4 that we perceive, 11 - 4 = 7.) Perhaps it will be a nuclear attack on Jerusalem as our armies march into Israel to divide Syria and Saudi Arabia and attack both. Either way, I pray that "those days will be cut short."
immanent terrorist attack on U.S. soil, or hopefully wing-nut alarmism
11/04/08 notes - very pleased that I was a wing-nut and completely wrong, or that someone stepped up and did the right thing, or that anyone planning to attack was caught.10/10/08 notes - lucky so far, but maybe they are waiting until the stock market bottoms out to kick us while we are down. Original post:
Friends, I pray that I am wrong, but something in the back of my mind has been eating at me for the last few weeks. I fear an attack on U.S. soil, possibly on the west coast, possibly a nuclear attack.
Comments in the media increasing our fear and rancor put me ill at ease, followed by Sarah Palin's attempt this week to associate Barack Obama with terrorism despite all the evidence, research and testimonials to the contrary, as well as John McCain's statement that he has always aspired to be a dictator, and the bailout bill which seems like the rats jumping ship before it goes down.
This is my projected timeline. Perhaps this is prophetic. Perhaps I am a wing-nut. I hope the truth is the latter and you can write me off as a crackpot alarmist. (But I have seen the Lord coming on the clouds in great glory, and that saved me from darkness, which is why I am rational and yet have faith, so I know that the end of the age and the coming of the next is near. I don't insist that you believe me.)
Tuesday, October 7th 2008, the second of three presidential debates will take place as scheduled. John McCain will emphasize aggressive American action and claim that this is working. While partly true, that is not the entirety of the story. McCain will attempt to frame Obama as soft on terrorism.
Before the election on November 4th, probably before the last debate, a terrorist attack will occur on U.S. soil, possibly on the west coast. There will first be a coordinated attack designed to increase fear, sow social chaos and disorder and bring the National Guard in to control the situation, at which point the terrorists will use a weapon of mass destruction, possibly a nuclear device, to cause as much death and destruction as possible.
America will be in shock for several days. Then, as that shock turns to anger, the attack will be blamed on Iran and North Korea. This will be used as an excuse to nuke Tehran and Pyonyang with hydrogen fusion bombs and kill hundreds of millions of people. Or, hopefully, Bush will show some restraint and go after specific targets with conventional weapons. But these targets are still not the people responsible. The people responsible will be bought off by Saudi Arabia and Syria and will include traitors at the highest levels of the U.S. military-industrial infrastructure. Why? Why else: thirty pieces of silver - military contracts.
Wednesday, October 15th 2008, the final presidential debate. America's anger will have turned to rage and McCain will feed on that rage, riding it to the presidency. Americans will eat it up and will be convinced that we have to invade and occupy Iran and Pakistan.
China will use our attack on Pyonyang and the resulting power vacuum as an excuse to claim all of Korea and Taiwan, as well as Nepal. Because the U.S. will be occupied with Iran and Pakistan, we will not be capable of showing resistance for our allies in South Korea and Taiwan, and will rely on nuclear deterrence to protect Japan.
World War III will claim hundreds of millions, if not a billion lives throughout Asia and the middle east. Only after years of fighting, and on the edge of complete economic bankruptcy, will America realize the true source of the attacks on our soil: Saudi Arabia and Syria. Why? Because the Sunnis want to play us against the Shi'ites and get them out of the way, so they can establish control over the whole region and control the source of oil for exports by pipeline to China, the world's largest energy consumer by that point.
Then Americans will ally with the Shi'ites, and begin to march westward toward the Holy Land. At this point we will be completely bankrupt and totally financially dependent on China. China's army will march west to control the power vacuum in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran left by our departure. Notice that Jesus and Christianity are not a part of the picture anymore.
In the final days of conflict, who knows what will happen. Perhaps the "abomination that causes devastation" will be the opening of the 7th seal at the Large Hadron Collider. (11 dimensions in string theory, 4 that we perceive, 11 - 4 = 7.) Perhaps it will be a nuclear attack on Jerusalem as our armies march into Israel to divide Syria and Saudi Arabia and attack both. Either way, I pray that "those days will be cut short."
> detail, links and comments >>
Saturday, September 27, 2008
9:39 PM
I take this to mean that anyone is elegible to bear arms, but they should do so in some relation to "a well regulated Militia." The Founders clearly intended by this language that Congress and the States can regulate weapons ownership.
Consider this: Everyone who wants to own a gun should be trained to use it by a program run by a well-regulated Militia, i.e. the military, National Guard, separate militias run by state governments, or state police, sheriffs, or city police.
Congress should provide a flexible funding scheme and a standard curriculum to all such agencies for the safety training classes that should be required to own a gun. Individual agencies can then build on the standard training to suit the needs of their jurisdiction.
Citizens would have a wide choice of options of the agency they wished to train with. However, a citizen wishing to own a firearm must then register to be on call by the agency of their choice when needed to defend the community or the country, with some reasonable limits on the time they could be required to serve.
If they train with a local agency and move and don't re-register with another agency, their registration would automatically transfer to the National Guard.
This would provide police and the national guard with a pool of citizens who, by their bearing of arms, choose to volunteer to be in a well-regulated militia. It would be a voluntary choice to own a firearm, but by doing so, you could be drafted at any time to serve as a patriot in a well-regulated militia.
This measure, which conforms to the language and intent of the amendment, would have two effects:
1. Idiots who should not own guns would give them up because they wouldn't want to be drafted for militia service.
2. The National Guard would not have any recruitment problems, and soldiers who have been redeployed too many times to Iraq or Afghanistan could come home.
To solve the issue of bearing heavier arms, such as assault rifles, if the courts decide that citizens have a right to these as well (or bombs, or rocket launchers, or tanks, or surface to air missiles for that matter), then they would be required to serve in the National Guard or U.S. military for progressively longer periods of time and be subjected to performance review and psycho-analysis, just as anyone would who would operate these weapons for the Guard in service of the country.
The NRA wouldn't like it, but the NRA can shut up and deal with it. Most people are tired of hearing about kids who shoot each other by accident because their parents had not been trained for gun safety or stored their firearms securely.
solving gun control AND military recruitment
The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution:A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
I take this to mean that anyone is elegible to bear arms, but they should do so in some relation to "a well regulated Militia." The Founders clearly intended by this language that Congress and the States can regulate weapons ownership.
Consider this: Everyone who wants to own a gun should be trained to use it by a program run by a well-regulated Militia, i.e. the military, National Guard, separate militias run by state governments, or state police, sheriffs, or city police.
Congress should provide a flexible funding scheme and a standard curriculum to all such agencies for the safety training classes that should be required to own a gun. Individual agencies can then build on the standard training to suit the needs of their jurisdiction.
Citizens would have a wide choice of options of the agency they wished to train with. However, a citizen wishing to own a firearm must then register to be on call by the agency of their choice when needed to defend the community or the country, with some reasonable limits on the time they could be required to serve.
If they train with a local agency and move and don't re-register with another agency, their registration would automatically transfer to the National Guard.
This would provide police and the national guard with a pool of citizens who, by their bearing of arms, choose to volunteer to be in a well-regulated militia. It would be a voluntary choice to own a firearm, but by doing so, you could be drafted at any time to serve as a patriot in a well-regulated militia.
This measure, which conforms to the language and intent of the amendment, would have two effects:
1. Idiots who should not own guns would give them up because they wouldn't want to be drafted for militia service.
2. The National Guard would not have any recruitment problems, and soldiers who have been redeployed too many times to Iraq or Afghanistan could come home.
To solve the issue of bearing heavier arms, such as assault rifles, if the courts decide that citizens have a right to these as well (or bombs, or rocket launchers, or tanks, or surface to air missiles for that matter), then they would be required to serve in the National Guard or U.S. military for progressively longer periods of time and be subjected to performance review and psycho-analysis, just as anyone would who would operate these weapons for the Guard in service of the country.
The NRA wouldn't like it, but the NRA can shut up and deal with it. Most people are tired of hearing about kids who shoot each other by accident because their parents had not been trained for gun safety or stored their firearms securely.
> detail, links and comments >>
Saturday, September 20, 2008
10:50 PM
The EFF lawsuit attacks the technology used to make the wiretaps, and not specific instances of the use of that technology without a court order. If NSA did not have some kind of access to facilities like this, they would not be able to do legitimate authorized searches at all.
Background: AT&T built rooms inside AT&T facilities which contain secured database replicas of telephone calls and Internet connections, a mirror of live traffic run through a fiber splitter to sift through content of calls and Internet traffic, and an archival system for at least some of that content. Then they provided the National Security Agency with a private network connection into these rooms. EFF alleges that this in and of itself constitutes a violation of first and fourth amendment protections of free speech, free association and freedom from unreasonable searches without court orders.
This is, on its face, false. If AT&T had not constructed these facilities, NSA would have no means to conduct database searches or wiretaps even when authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). They cannot give NSA direct access to their live business databases, routers and networks, because these are busy doing their jobs, and searches on the live systems would reveal the NSA cyber presence even when authorized.
They cannot filter through the data streams for the people they're looking for, unless their equipment has full access to the entire data stream, because of the way modern communications technology works. Individual "connections" are now "virtual," that is, they are no longer individual wires being connected by switchboard operators or machines. So to find the one they want, their computer has to filter through all of them with some search parameter, i.e. your subscriber endpoint or telephone number.
Because the database replicas, traffic mirrors and content archives all belong to AT&T and are within the AT&T facility, there is no violation of your consent. Because, you consented that AT&T would have possession of your call records and content when you picked up the phone or used the Internet — otherwise you wouldn't be using it.
See the logical problem here? The lawsuit attacks the technology to do wiretaps, not specific instances of illegal wiretaps using that technology.
The straw man argument serves as an easy way for the government to throw out the case and put the media to rest without answering the deeper question, did the NSA access any data in the search archive without authorization from FISC? Plus, it divides public sentiment in an illogical way, making people hate and distrust each other — our recurring theme.
Such contradictions and illogical hysteria sound like propaganda to me... something to distract us from worse sins committed in the dark by monstrous people acting secretly with our community resources. So the EFF is highly suspect, in my opinion, as a possible front for the intelligence agencies themselves.
Instead of causing fear of technology and the government, we should simply and openly develop new technology to achieve a compromise between goals of privacy and the government's interest in legitimate criminal and espionage investigations.
Instead of going to the NSA, the private network out of the AT&T facilities should connect to a facility run by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The FISC facilities would control when NSA could connect to the search archives and wiretap filters at AT&T. By using dual-key cryptographic authentication, both FISC and NSA would have to be keyed in for NSA to connect. FISC personnel would not be able to connect independently, and could not read search or tap results, because the return data stream would be encrypted with NSA's keys. To start a wiretap, NSA would need to define specific rule sets that would be transmitted to FISC. In an emergency situation as prescribed by law, live FISC personnel would key up an emergency tap prior to approval by a FISC judge. The FISC facility would keep all records of these rule sets and access times in a secure way so they can only be decrypted by trusted personnel. To engage an existing wiretap authorization, NSA would key up the rule set, and the FISC computers would automatically authorize the connection cryptographically according to the parameters of the rules.
This would be the basic military concept of "two person integrity" at work institutionally as the separation of powers — checks and balances — that is supposed to make this country a stable success.
If we require (pay) AT&T and other major networks to implement the archival and tapping technology in this way, then the People can be sure that their privacy is protected under law, and the government can do its spying under the rules of statute, with legality enforced by the technology.
EFF lawsuit a straw man - tech proposal for privacy
The government has moved to dismiss the case brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and it will probably win, because the lawsuit is a "straw man," that is, a fake counter-argument set up to be easily knocked down.The EFF lawsuit attacks the technology used to make the wiretaps, and not specific instances of the use of that technology without a court order. If NSA did not have some kind of access to facilities like this, they would not be able to do legitimate authorized searches at all.
Background: AT&T built rooms inside AT&T facilities which contain secured database replicas of telephone calls and Internet connections, a mirror of live traffic run through a fiber splitter to sift through content of calls and Internet traffic, and an archival system for at least some of that content. Then they provided the National Security Agency with a private network connection into these rooms. EFF alleges that this in and of itself constitutes a violation of first and fourth amendment protections of free speech, free association and freedom from unreasonable searches without court orders.
This is, on its face, false. If AT&T had not constructed these facilities, NSA would have no means to conduct database searches or wiretaps even when authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). They cannot give NSA direct access to their live business databases, routers and networks, because these are busy doing their jobs, and searches on the live systems would reveal the NSA cyber presence even when authorized.
They cannot filter through the data streams for the people they're looking for, unless their equipment has full access to the entire data stream, because of the way modern communications technology works. Individual "connections" are now "virtual," that is, they are no longer individual wires being connected by switchboard operators or machines. So to find the one they want, their computer has to filter through all of them with some search parameter, i.e. your subscriber endpoint or telephone number.
Because the database replicas, traffic mirrors and content archives all belong to AT&T and are within the AT&T facility, there is no violation of your consent. Because, you consented that AT&T would have possession of your call records and content when you picked up the phone or used the Internet — otherwise you wouldn't be using it.
See the logical problem here? The lawsuit attacks the technology to do wiretaps, not specific instances of illegal wiretaps using that technology.
The straw man argument serves as an easy way for the government to throw out the case and put the media to rest without answering the deeper question, did the NSA access any data in the search archive without authorization from FISC? Plus, it divides public sentiment in an illogical way, making people hate and distrust each other — our recurring theme.
Such contradictions and illogical hysteria sound like propaganda to me... something to distract us from worse sins committed in the dark by monstrous people acting secretly with our community resources. So the EFF is highly suspect, in my opinion, as a possible front for the intelligence agencies themselves.
Instead of causing fear of technology and the government, we should simply and openly develop new technology to achieve a compromise between goals of privacy and the government's interest in legitimate criminal and espionage investigations.
Instead of going to the NSA, the private network out of the AT&T facilities should connect to a facility run by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The FISC facilities would control when NSA could connect to the search archives and wiretap filters at AT&T. By using dual-key cryptographic authentication, both FISC and NSA would have to be keyed in for NSA to connect. FISC personnel would not be able to connect independently, and could not read search or tap results, because the return data stream would be encrypted with NSA's keys. To start a wiretap, NSA would need to define specific rule sets that would be transmitted to FISC. In an emergency situation as prescribed by law, live FISC personnel would key up an emergency tap prior to approval by a FISC judge. The FISC facility would keep all records of these rule sets and access times in a secure way so they can only be decrypted by trusted personnel. To engage an existing wiretap authorization, NSA would key up the rule set, and the FISC computers would automatically authorize the connection cryptographically according to the parameters of the rules.
This would be the basic military concept of "two person integrity" at work institutionally as the separation of powers — checks and balances — that is supposed to make this country a stable success.
If we require (pay) AT&T and other major networks to implement the archival and tapping technology in this way, then the People can be sure that their privacy is protected under law, and the government can do its spying under the rules of statute, with legality enforced by the technology.
> detail, links and comments >>
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
6:11 AM
propaganda about yemen
Today there was a car bomb at the U.S. embassy in San'a, Yemen. The AP story, and the television reporter this morning, reported Yemen as "the ancestral homeland of Osama Bin Laden." But Bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia. His father was a Yemeni immigrant, but his mother is Syrian. "Ancestral homeland?" It's just this kind of incorrect fluff propaganda that makes it impossible for people to understand the facts of people and their motivations. A simple look through Wikipedia shows the error of this association. These idiotic reports do not aid the American people in their quest to understand the complex motivations behind these insane acts of terrorism.> detail, links and comments >>
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