I wrote this four years ago during my second tour in Iraq. I find it more amusing than embarrassing, so, submitted for your entertainment:
T'was the night before Christmas and all through the COP,
Not a Soldier was stirring, not even Top,
Oh, except for the Ugandans on guard in their towers,
And the Soldiers on the gunline, playing Xbox for hours,
I in my PT's and Smoke in his rack,
Had just settled down for another night in Iraq,
When all of a sudden there arose such a ruckus,
Whatever was wrong, I knew it would probably....
I burst out of my connex to see what was the matter,
When a pile of charred venison landed with a splatter,
"You killed Rudolph, you bastards!" Screamed a corpulent elf,
And I knew right away it was time to get help,
"Smoke!," I cried, "Santa's reindeer just exploded!"
"Oh, great," he said, "the gun wasn't supposed to be loaded,
"When I left they were practicing a dry-fire mission,"
"Oh, crap," I said, "can't wait for the 15-6 on this one!"
It seemed Santa's sleigh and the reindeer he was reigning,
Had just now given my Bravos some direct fire training,
I pulled out my claims card for consequence management,
And Smoke, in a low voice, offered optimistic sentiment,
"If you think about it, sir, it's good in a sense,
"We've done FA and Infantry, and now Air Defense!"
"Smoke, you're not helping," I said, as Santa started to twitch,
I could see he was thinking about where to cram the switch,
"I can't believe you jerks," Santa said in a fury,
"Rudolph was my only night-vision, and I'm in a hurry!"
"Santa," I said, as polite as could be,
"We'll figure this out at our FDC,"
"Please stay calm, and hold the switches and coal,
"I promise we'll find a way to get you out of this hole,"
We rushed to the AFATDS, to see what to do,
Me and Smoke, and Jolly Saint Nick too,
"I've got it," Smoke said, "I know how you can resume!
"Our guns will light your way, with coordinated illum!"
In two minute intervals M485 lit the night,
As Bravo Battery got Santa back in the fight,
"I'll let this one slide," he said, as he climbed on his sleigh,
"Just learn the difference between 'ready' and 'laid.'"
We watched his sleigh soar through the black desert sky,
And finally we breathed a sigh of relief, Smoke and I,
Santa's voice filled the air, over his sleigh bells' rattle,
"Merry Christmas to All, and All Hail the King of Battle!"
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Merry Christmas 9:59 PM
As we come to the close of the Advent Season, I realize I have very little profound to say (well, very little relative to my normal output). I know you're all relieved :)
To my brothers and sisters in Christ; Rejoice! Emmanuel has come to ransom captive Israel.
It has been a hard year, not one given to optimism. I lose sleep over many of the problems facing our nation and often they appear insurmountable to me. But our hope rests in Him. We cannot know the hour or the day, and we can, unfortunately, be assured that many troubles lie between, but the end game is written. A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
To my friends and loved ones who believe differently or not at all, I hope the holiday has given you respite and edification. Though you don't share my religious beliefs, do take comfort in the fact that you are where you are, doing the best you can, and that there are millions of good, decent people like you doing the best they can. Civilization will suffer setbacks, even cataclysmic defeats. Odovacer will overthrow Rome, the library at Alexandria will burn, and it will most likely remain illegal to shoot Westborough Baptists (damn it all), but the human race will continue to strive and achieve. The drive to create something better than the barbarism from which we all spring can be frustrated, but it cannot be destroyed.
Keep up the good fight. Whatever difference of opinion you may have with me, religious, political, whatever, we would not be friends if I didn't consider you in some way an ally in the long struggle to ensure civilization triumphs over savagery.
To Kellen, and all my other comrades spending their Christmas on the front lines of a war that most of our countrymen are all too eager to put behind them, God bless you. I get to spend this one with my family, but I'm thinking about you and praying for you. May the Lord protect and defend you.
Merry Christmas to all.
To my brothers and sisters in Christ; Rejoice! Emmanuel has come to ransom captive Israel.
It has been a hard year, not one given to optimism. I lose sleep over many of the problems facing our nation and often they appear insurmountable to me. But our hope rests in Him. We cannot know the hour or the day, and we can, unfortunately, be assured that many troubles lie between, but the end game is written. A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
To my friends and loved ones who believe differently or not at all, I hope the holiday has given you respite and edification. Though you don't share my religious beliefs, do take comfort in the fact that you are where you are, doing the best you can, and that there are millions of good, decent people like you doing the best they can. Civilization will suffer setbacks, even cataclysmic defeats. Odovacer will overthrow Rome, the library at Alexandria will burn, and it will most likely remain illegal to shoot Westborough Baptists (damn it all), but the human race will continue to strive and achieve. The drive to create something better than the barbarism from which we all spring can be frustrated, but it cannot be destroyed.
Keep up the good fight. Whatever difference of opinion you may have with me, religious, political, whatever, we would not be friends if I didn't consider you in some way an ally in the long struggle to ensure civilization triumphs over savagery.
To Kellen, and all my other comrades spending their Christmas on the front lines of a war that most of our countrymen are all too eager to put behind them, God bless you. I get to spend this one with my family, but I'm thinking about you and praying for you. May the Lord protect and defend you.
Merry Christmas to all.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Why I Support Legalizing Homosexual Marriage and Why You Should Too, Pretty Much Regardless of Your Religious Beliefs 5:24 PM
I pissed off my liberal friends last week with my brief rant against gun control, so I figured I’d go ahead and piss of my friends on the other side of the aisle this week with this much longer rant in support of gay marriage!
I thought of this a while ago when DOMA was not yet even under judicial review. I was still digesting the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (which will be the subject of its own rant, shortly), and I realized that if homosexuals were going to serve openly, it would be fair and necessary to recognize their spouses for both moral and administrative purposes. I did my whole walk around in circles and talk to myself for a bit, and today I’ve written the results of my internal dialogue.
So, issues with homosexual marriage.
I’m going to ignore bigotry and any variation of, “it’s icky!” Really, if you’re still arguing from there then no one on either side of the issue should care what you think. Don’t get me wrong, I still have my own visceral reactions at open physical displays of homosexuality. That’s not a moral compass, though, folks, that’s just biology and cultural conditioning talking. My glands tell me that two guys doing sexy things are kinda gross and that two girls doing sexy things are kinda hot (sorry, honey!). I am not displaying sound moral or intellectual judgment by appreciating one over the other; I’m experiencing a primitive hormonal reaction. So let’s just ignore “it feels wrong” arguments.
“Homosexuality is deviant sexual behavior and shouldn’t be encouraged because it’s akin to pedophilia.” Oh, brother. You know what? Forget this one as too close to bigotry. Fellow Christians, the minute you compare consensual homosexuality to child-rape, you just lost the argument in the eyes of any civilized person. Don’t do it. Just. Don’t.
“Allowing homosexual marriage will damage the American ideal of the traditional family unit.” Really? How? “Hey, Michele, I noticed Jim and Steve moved in together and it made me think, ‘why don’t I go try sex with men?’ I’m leaving you and the kids to discover myself! Bye!”
Seriously, I don’t know about you, but no matter how many gay dudes I see in committed relationships, I’m not going to be tempted to abandon my smoking hot wife and wonderful kids for a life of knitting sweaters with Larry in Vermont, even if he looks like Daniel Craig (yes… considerably). Besides, gay people aren’t ruining the family unit- we’re doing that all by ourselves. After all, they can’t reproduce kids by accident and then treat them like inconveniences or a means to get a bigger welfare check. Only we can do that. Well, they could, but not with their preferred… oh, you get what I mean.
That’s two common arguments down. So, how about an argument that can hold water? Is there an argument that speaks to my own beliefs and which I cannot dismiss with pithy sarcasm?
“The Bible (and therefore God) condemns homosexuality.” You see what I did there? I ignored the one-man, one-woman variations and everything because they are too easy to shred given the old notables of Judah and Israel were known to have harems that would make Hugh Hefner jealous (you know, accounting for historical differences in hygiene standards that is).
So, the bible condemns homosexuality.
Yes. It does. Unquestionably, in multiple verses of multiple books of the Torah and in Paul’s Letter to the Romans (maybe a couple other places, others with more experience as biblical scholars can probably find a few more citations), there are clear proscriptions against homosexual conduct, no matter how I try to spin it. You got me.
But, and I say this without sarcasm, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, does that make any damn sense?
I mean, really. This is the scenario you’re purporting: God creates one of his children hormonally swayed so that he will be attracted to the same gender, and then tells him that his (or her, whatever) sexual and romantic feelings for another consenting adult are inherently sinful while ours are one of the foundational elements of His plan for us.
“Oh, no,” you say, “It’s not natural, it’s a choice. They could choose not to be gay.”
Deep breath.
Okay, since we’re on this uncomfortable topic, I’m going to make it even more uncomfortable by using first person while talking about sexuality. You brought this on yourself, invisible straw man who lives inside my computer (and sometimes my head).
I don’t know about you, but when I turned the corner from childhood into adolescence I noticed that the girl sitting across from me in home room was filling out and that it made me into a stammering idiot because the birds and the bees were screwing up my whole universe with all kinds of inappropriate thoughts and daydreams. Oddly, my friends, Joey, Jake and Anthony inspired no such fantasies. No, my pimply faced young companions inspired only camaraderie and competition. It wasn’t as if I looked at them, looked at the girls and DECIDED I was heterosexual. So, you see, I NEVER GOT A VOTE ON WHO I WANTED TO HAVE SEX WITH. I’m just guessing that you didn’t either. And if you didn’t, and I didn’t, what are the odds Liberace or Elton John did, just because they like dudes?
So, I reiterate, some poor schmuck who is born gay but wants to obey God is left either trying to pretend he’s straight when the idea is as physically repulsive to him as his idea of a good time is to me, or simply alone.
HOW FUCKED UP IS THAT!? DOES THAT SOUND LIKE THE GOD WE WORSHIP?!?!
Does that sound like the God who takes any paper thin excuse he can to forgive us and accept us into his Kingdom? Does that sound like the God who sent his only Begotten Son, who became mortal and, took on the guilt of all our sins, who humbled himself to Death when he didn’t have to, all to save us? Does that sound like the God who commanded us to love our neighbor as ourselves and pray for our enemies and, and, I mean REALLY? Does it?
Isn’t it, JUST possible that when Jesus fulfilled the Law, freeing us from Kosher restrictions, the absolute necessity of circumcision, etc, that was one more cultural meme that just didn’t apply anymore? And isn’t at least possible that Paul, who is kind of a misogynist amongst other things, let’s face it, inserted some of his own ideas on morality when he was writing down the inspiration God had given him? I mean, this is the dude who said it is better not to marry, but better to marry than burn. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for what most other parts of the bible portray as the fundamental human relationship. Paul was a great man of faith, but he was not Jesus. And Jesus has not a damn thing to say about homosexuality in any of the gospels.
But Paul, you say, did take pains to separate his opinion from divine guidance in many places, so, no. Paul’s strictures against homosexuality are divinely inspired.
And maybe you’re right. I am a Christian, and I don’t get to shake scripture like a magic eight ball to make it give the answer I want, so maybe you’re right and same-sex romance is a sin in the truly eternal and cosmic sense of the word. I don’t like it, I hope it’s not, but I have to admit that is a valid and more legalistically correct interpretation of the scripture than I can offer.
So what?
You heard me, so what? What does our shared religious trepidation with regard to homosexuality have to do with US law? Oh, I’m not questioning your right to believe that two men or two women do not constitute a marriage in the eyes of God, I’m questioning your right to say it doesn’t constitute a marriage in the eyes of the United States. We are a Christian nation only in the sense that Christianity is the predominant religion of the population, not that we are allowed to use our own religious beliefs as basis for legislation, you know who does that? Places like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, basically all those Islamic radicals whom I’ve made it a career and an obsession to resist. Yeah, I’ve no interest in being like them.
Yes, most of the Founding Fathers were either Christians or deists with Christian traditions, and they referenced God frequently in their work. They did not, however, use scripture to justify law- the declaration and the constitution, in their mechanics, were inspired by enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Voltaire, Hobbes and Montesquieu, not by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (none of which say anything about being gay, anyway). I’m not saying the faith of the founders didn’t play an important role in their motivations for creating a liberal (classical liberal, not left/right liberal) republic. I’m saying that even those, often very religious, men did not see fit to impose law from scripture on those who might not believe, or even on those who did believe. So why are you trying?
Because you don’t want people to think it’s okay. If gay marriage is legalized, it will be society signaling its acceptance of homosexuality. And if it is a sin, then people shouldn’t think it’s perfectly acceptable.
Ever downloaded something from pirate bay? Ever watched porn, used profanity, overeaten, drank too much, smoked a cigar or cigarette, been angry at God, or put your own desire for financial comfort over his command to be generous with the poor? Yeah? Me too. Guess what, brother? We’re all freaking serial sinners. You can recognize it and reproof it, but if you don’t legislate against me for my frequent use of the F word and tendency to overindulge in both chocolate and scotch (keeping in mind that I am a follower of Jesus Christ and I AM supposed to know better), why in God’s name would you allow yourselves to oppress some poor sap because he likes dudes?
Seriously, if we’re going to get all self-righteous, let’s go after human traffickers, or the terrorists, or, for Christ’s sake, somebody who is actually hurting another human being. Because THAT we have authority over here on Earth. This kind of sin? That’s between a person and God.
If you liked this piece, please tune in next week so I can piss you off by telling you how gender integration in the military is a big failure (and it’s all the Left’s fault) and the unilateral unphased repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was a giant, criminal blunder (and it’s all the Left’s fault).
I thought of this a while ago when DOMA was not yet even under judicial review. I was still digesting the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (which will be the subject of its own rant, shortly), and I realized that if homosexuals were going to serve openly, it would be fair and necessary to recognize their spouses for both moral and administrative purposes. I did my whole walk around in circles and talk to myself for a bit, and today I’ve written the results of my internal dialogue.
So, issues with homosexual marriage.
I’m going to ignore bigotry and any variation of, “it’s icky!” Really, if you’re still arguing from there then no one on either side of the issue should care what you think. Don’t get me wrong, I still have my own visceral reactions at open physical displays of homosexuality. That’s not a moral compass, though, folks, that’s just biology and cultural conditioning talking. My glands tell me that two guys doing sexy things are kinda gross and that two girls doing sexy things are kinda hot (sorry, honey!). I am not displaying sound moral or intellectual judgment by appreciating one over the other; I’m experiencing a primitive hormonal reaction. So let’s just ignore “it feels wrong” arguments.
“Homosexuality is deviant sexual behavior and shouldn’t be encouraged because it’s akin to pedophilia.” Oh, brother. You know what? Forget this one as too close to bigotry. Fellow Christians, the minute you compare consensual homosexuality to child-rape, you just lost the argument in the eyes of any civilized person. Don’t do it. Just. Don’t.
“Allowing homosexual marriage will damage the American ideal of the traditional family unit.” Really? How? “Hey, Michele, I noticed Jim and Steve moved in together and it made me think, ‘why don’t I go try sex with men?’ I’m leaving you and the kids to discover myself! Bye!”
Seriously, I don’t know about you, but no matter how many gay dudes I see in committed relationships, I’m not going to be tempted to abandon my smoking hot wife and wonderful kids for a life of knitting sweaters with Larry in Vermont, even if he looks like Daniel Craig (yes… considerably). Besides, gay people aren’t ruining the family unit- we’re doing that all by ourselves. After all, they can’t reproduce kids by accident and then treat them like inconveniences or a means to get a bigger welfare check. Only we can do that. Well, they could, but not with their preferred… oh, you get what I mean.
That’s two common arguments down. So, how about an argument that can hold water? Is there an argument that speaks to my own beliefs and which I cannot dismiss with pithy sarcasm?
“The Bible (and therefore God) condemns homosexuality.” You see what I did there? I ignored the one-man, one-woman variations and everything because they are too easy to shred given the old notables of Judah and Israel were known to have harems that would make Hugh Hefner jealous (you know, accounting for historical differences in hygiene standards that is).
So, the bible condemns homosexuality.
Yes. It does. Unquestionably, in multiple verses of multiple books of the Torah and in Paul’s Letter to the Romans (maybe a couple other places, others with more experience as biblical scholars can probably find a few more citations), there are clear proscriptions against homosexual conduct, no matter how I try to spin it. You got me.
But, and I say this without sarcasm, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, does that make any damn sense?
I mean, really. This is the scenario you’re purporting: God creates one of his children hormonally swayed so that he will be attracted to the same gender, and then tells him that his (or her, whatever) sexual and romantic feelings for another consenting adult are inherently sinful while ours are one of the foundational elements of His plan for us.
“Oh, no,” you say, “It’s not natural, it’s a choice. They could choose not to be gay.”
Deep breath.
Okay, since we’re on this uncomfortable topic, I’m going to make it even more uncomfortable by using first person while talking about sexuality. You brought this on yourself, invisible straw man who lives inside my computer (and sometimes my head).
I don’t know about you, but when I turned the corner from childhood into adolescence I noticed that the girl sitting across from me in home room was filling out and that it made me into a stammering idiot because the birds and the bees were screwing up my whole universe with all kinds of inappropriate thoughts and daydreams. Oddly, my friends, Joey, Jake and Anthony inspired no such fantasies. No, my pimply faced young companions inspired only camaraderie and competition. It wasn’t as if I looked at them, looked at the girls and DECIDED I was heterosexual. So, you see, I NEVER GOT A VOTE ON WHO I WANTED TO HAVE SEX WITH. I’m just guessing that you didn’t either. And if you didn’t, and I didn’t, what are the odds Liberace or Elton John did, just because they like dudes?
So, I reiterate, some poor schmuck who is born gay but wants to obey God is left either trying to pretend he’s straight when the idea is as physically repulsive to him as his idea of a good time is to me, or simply alone.
HOW FUCKED UP IS THAT!? DOES THAT SOUND LIKE THE GOD WE WORSHIP?!?!
Does that sound like the God who takes any paper thin excuse he can to forgive us and accept us into his Kingdom? Does that sound like the God who sent his only Begotten Son, who became mortal and, took on the guilt of all our sins, who humbled himself to Death when he didn’t have to, all to save us? Does that sound like the God who commanded us to love our neighbor as ourselves and pray for our enemies and, and, I mean REALLY? Does it?
Isn’t it, JUST possible that when Jesus fulfilled the Law, freeing us from Kosher restrictions, the absolute necessity of circumcision, etc, that was one more cultural meme that just didn’t apply anymore? And isn’t at least possible that Paul, who is kind of a misogynist amongst other things, let’s face it, inserted some of his own ideas on morality when he was writing down the inspiration God had given him? I mean, this is the dude who said it is better not to marry, but better to marry than burn. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for what most other parts of the bible portray as the fundamental human relationship. Paul was a great man of faith, but he was not Jesus. And Jesus has not a damn thing to say about homosexuality in any of the gospels.
But Paul, you say, did take pains to separate his opinion from divine guidance in many places, so, no. Paul’s strictures against homosexuality are divinely inspired.
And maybe you’re right. I am a Christian, and I don’t get to shake scripture like a magic eight ball to make it give the answer I want, so maybe you’re right and same-sex romance is a sin in the truly eternal and cosmic sense of the word. I don’t like it, I hope it’s not, but I have to admit that is a valid and more legalistically correct interpretation of the scripture than I can offer.
So what?
You heard me, so what? What does our shared religious trepidation with regard to homosexuality have to do with US law? Oh, I’m not questioning your right to believe that two men or two women do not constitute a marriage in the eyes of God, I’m questioning your right to say it doesn’t constitute a marriage in the eyes of the United States. We are a Christian nation only in the sense that Christianity is the predominant religion of the population, not that we are allowed to use our own religious beliefs as basis for legislation, you know who does that? Places like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, basically all those Islamic radicals whom I’ve made it a career and an obsession to resist. Yeah, I’ve no interest in being like them.
Yes, most of the Founding Fathers were either Christians or deists with Christian traditions, and they referenced God frequently in their work. They did not, however, use scripture to justify law- the declaration and the constitution, in their mechanics, were inspired by enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Voltaire, Hobbes and Montesquieu, not by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (none of which say anything about being gay, anyway). I’m not saying the faith of the founders didn’t play an important role in their motivations for creating a liberal (classical liberal, not left/right liberal) republic. I’m saying that even those, often very religious, men did not see fit to impose law from scripture on those who might not believe, or even on those who did believe. So why are you trying?
Because you don’t want people to think it’s okay. If gay marriage is legalized, it will be society signaling its acceptance of homosexuality. And if it is a sin, then people shouldn’t think it’s perfectly acceptable.
Ever downloaded something from pirate bay? Ever watched porn, used profanity, overeaten, drank too much, smoked a cigar or cigarette, been angry at God, or put your own desire for financial comfort over his command to be generous with the poor? Yeah? Me too. Guess what, brother? We’re all freaking serial sinners. You can recognize it and reproof it, but if you don’t legislate against me for my frequent use of the F word and tendency to overindulge in both chocolate and scotch (keeping in mind that I am a follower of Jesus Christ and I AM supposed to know better), why in God’s name would you allow yourselves to oppress some poor sap because he likes dudes?
Seriously, if we’re going to get all self-righteous, let’s go after human traffickers, or the terrorists, or, for Christ’s sake, somebody who is actually hurting another human being. Because THAT we have authority over here on Earth. This kind of sin? That’s between a person and God.
If you liked this piece, please tune in next week so I can piss you off by telling you how gender integration in the military is a big failure (and it’s all the Left’s fault) and the unilateral unphased repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was a giant, criminal blunder (and it’s all the Left’s fault).
Labels:
politics
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Citizenship, Responsibility and the Peace Corps 11:58 PM
This post comes from a few different places. First is my long held belief that the right to vote and run for office shouldn't be a matter of birth or even passing some citizenship test (which, apparently, a lot of birth citizens can't pass anyway), but actually require some meaningful display of civic awareness. This variation of representative democracy was portrayed, perhaps most famously, by Robert A. Heinlein in the novel Starship Troopers. First one to mention Paul Verehooven's godawful film adaptation with anything other than scorn gets blocked both from this blog and my FB feed. That movie is an abomination and that bastard will never get another dime of my money.
Another military science fiction author, Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Tom Kratman, has recently taken the service-for-citizenship idea and expanded greatly upon it. While Heinlein did a good job laying out the skeleton of the idea and explaining the philosophical justifications for it in Starship Troopers, Kratman has, in his “Carrera” novels, fleshed it out and looked at a lot of the finer points. Some of which I'll get into later.
The third place is a recent conversation I had with some friends at church who have worked in Africa doing humanitarian missions with the Peace Corps. For not the first time it occurred to me, where the hell was the Peace Corps when were rebuilding Iraq? I'm not criticizing the people IN the peace corps, I'm wondering why the hell the federal government didn't deploy an obvious asset to an environment that seemed to exactly fit their mission profile? I have no idea what the PC's numbers or assets actually are, but I do know they exist to help less fortunate countries rebuild infrastructure, agriculture, medical and educational facilities, etc, etc etc,
So why the hell was I, Lieutenant Watson, United States Army, assessing sewage systems and elementary schools instead of focusing on hunting and killing insurgents when we have an entire federal organization that is supposed to do all that “soft power” stuff?
I'll come back to that question in a moment.
Going back to the idea of service for suffrage; I've received some outrage (oddly, never from those who have served) at the idea. The most common (and valid) argument is that all the governed should have a say in what their government is doing on their behalf. At face value, that is a most reasonable stance. I mean, you are going to suffer the consequences of your elected officials' decisions, why should you submit to their rule when you didn't vote them into office? Universal suffrage is the only just system.
Well, there's just one problem- it doesn't seem to be working so well anymore.
Our system has proven itself vulnerable to “bread and circuses” mob psychology at its worst on one hand and manipulation by crony capitalists on the other hand. Voting is free, given to you just for being born here and thus many people treat it as being worth what they paid for it. Which is to say- nothing. Few are informed on the issues, and those who are face choosing between two professional politicians running along dogmatic lines rather than trying to do what's legitimately best for the country. Run for office ourselves, you say? Perhaps, but in order to avoid becoming part of the orthodoxy you're going to have to crap a fortune to compete with the existing political machines, and even then the Ross Perots of the world have met with little success, whether that's a good or a bad thing is debatable.
I posit, from the state of our economy and the tone of politics, that giving people the vote for free has failed. The result has been the creation of a class of political and corporate oligarchs, not Jefferson's merit-based “natural aristocracy,” but a society run by manipulators of currency and opinion, rather than by statesmen.
Furthermore, while it's true that all are affected by the decisions of the nation's leaders, not all are affected equally. By casting your votes you, the Great American Public, will decide who has the authority to order me to war, and, just as importantly, which legislators will decide my budget and resources to train and equip in between wars. And yet you will certainly not bear the blood price if you choose wrongly. Think on this, for the last twenty years, no Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces has had legit military service. In this election, neither presidential candidate had served. That means that Somalia, the operations in the Balkans, Second Iraq and Afghanistan were all ordered and administrated by men who were unwilling to risk their own lives when they were my age. But they were sure as hell willing to expend me and my comrades like pieces of ordinance. I learned at my daddy's knee that a leader's moral authority springs from never telling a subordinate to do something you'd be unwilling to do yourself. So... where's the moral authority?
Before one of my friends from my side of the aisle points out Bush Jr.'s service in the Air National Guard, just don't. Okay. Don't. He served from 1968 to 1974 and magically never went to 'Nam? Yeah, I'm sure that was a coincidence.
So what to do? Universal compulsory service? Require everyone to serve and thus earn their full citizenship whether they like it or not?
Two problems. One- you can't force civic virtue. You just can't. I can't make you love this country as much as I do, no matter how hard I try. I never believed in that False Motivation crap for small things, much less something as esoteric as Patriotism. Two- we don't need everybody in uniform, and what do we do with those who either by lack of will or natural aptitude would be disasters in uniform? We don't have enough clerical and admin tasks to take them all.
Germany and other European states do require universal compulsory service, but you have to read the fine print- if a young man or woman is a conscientious objector, or just doesn't care enough about their country to put up with the hardships of the service, he or she can spend their term changing bed pans in a nursing home, or something equally innocuous. How does this make one value their vote more and thus exercise it more carefully?
Which brings me back to the Heinlein model. No compulsion to serve, and no penalties for refusing to serve, save that you don't get to vote in federal elections or run for federal office. Voting is exercising rulership of your country- those who would rule must serve. Authority must equal responsibility, else we are doomed.
There still remain a few problems. Kratman addresses one, both in his novels and in conversations I've had with him. Some of us join and stay in the Army not necessarily out of patriotism, but because we like it. Oh, patriotism generally runs high in servicemen and women, but it not necessary to be a patriot to be a good soldier. Additionally, I fully acknowledge that people like me often have a very specialized field of knowledge. Oh, I'm pretty well educated, but I'd be a disaster as a President because my knowledge of economics and some other key subjects is strictly beer-and-peanuts level.
So I don't get to vote, and I definitely don't get to hold office, while I'm serving actively. Think about it, if we're going to admit that we need a system where citizens are self-selected rather than just given the franchise willy nilly, it's not the Justin Watsons of the world that need to make up the bulk of the body politic. I'm a lifer. I freaking love the Army and I'm obsessed with warfare. I'd be launching cruise missiles at every country whose ambassador looked at me funny! Not to mention what I'd be doing to insurgents and terrorists. I wrote a law of war essay on that very topic which got me 20 hours on the area (West Point punishment, if not familiar and curious ask me in the comments).
No, the body politic shouldn't be comprised primarily of Spartans, but of men and women who did a term or two, not primarily because the work appeals to them, but because it's the right thing to do. And who, hopefully, learned to place the goals of a group ahead of their own, learned to care more about their comrades' well being and their mission more than their own comfort and safety. We cannot ensure this for every veteran, but future citizens are more likely to learn it in the Army than working at Mickey D's.
So what about once we've taken every potential citizen volunteer with the aptitude and will to fight? Just because you're not a warrior doesn't mean you should be cut out of the political process. Even I know that.
Now we come back to the Peace Corps.
I asserted earlier that simple forced drudgery by itself is not enough to inspire good citizenship out of folks. To value something, they must feel that they've earned it and I don't believe playing post office does that. Hardship, danger, hopefully at least a touch of adventure- these are the things which make experiences all the more valuable to a young person. To those who cannot or will not fight in the defense of the republic to earn their citizenship, the peace corps, beefed up and refocused on US foreign policy priorities, provides a way to serve and to experience the big three I mentioned above without pulling a trigger. By doing the work that the Army has been forced to do in Iraq and Afghanistan, they not only free up our combat forces for their main purpose, they will be ginning a generation of young men and women who have seen the rest of the world and thus appreciate what we have here, who have experienced other cultures and thus may be able to relate better to those who come from different back grounds, and, most importantly, have subsumed their own desire for comfort and safety to go out into the world in service to their nation and, yes, to humanity.
I'm well aware that getting such a system enacted would take a miracle. The proles want their entitlements, the CEOs want to be able to continue buying legislators wholesale, so even if I could get some popular support for this notion, both sides of the main stream media would destroy it before you could say boo. But we better think of something, because we've got more than just a fiscal cliff to worry about. We have millions of Americans in love with rights and derisive of responsibilities- this is not good.
Another military science fiction author, Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Tom Kratman, has recently taken the service-for-citizenship idea and expanded greatly upon it. While Heinlein did a good job laying out the skeleton of the idea and explaining the philosophical justifications for it in Starship Troopers, Kratman has, in his “Carrera” novels, fleshed it out and looked at a lot of the finer points. Some of which I'll get into later.
The third place is a recent conversation I had with some friends at church who have worked in Africa doing humanitarian missions with the Peace Corps. For not the first time it occurred to me, where the hell was the Peace Corps when were rebuilding Iraq? I'm not criticizing the people IN the peace corps, I'm wondering why the hell the federal government didn't deploy an obvious asset to an environment that seemed to exactly fit their mission profile? I have no idea what the PC's numbers or assets actually are, but I do know they exist to help less fortunate countries rebuild infrastructure, agriculture, medical and educational facilities, etc, etc etc,
So why the hell was I, Lieutenant Watson, United States Army, assessing sewage systems and elementary schools instead of focusing on hunting and killing insurgents when we have an entire federal organization that is supposed to do all that “soft power” stuff?
I'll come back to that question in a moment.
Going back to the idea of service for suffrage; I've received some outrage (oddly, never from those who have served) at the idea. The most common (and valid) argument is that all the governed should have a say in what their government is doing on their behalf. At face value, that is a most reasonable stance. I mean, you are going to suffer the consequences of your elected officials' decisions, why should you submit to their rule when you didn't vote them into office? Universal suffrage is the only just system.
Well, there's just one problem- it doesn't seem to be working so well anymore.
Our system has proven itself vulnerable to “bread and circuses” mob psychology at its worst on one hand and manipulation by crony capitalists on the other hand. Voting is free, given to you just for being born here and thus many people treat it as being worth what they paid for it. Which is to say- nothing. Few are informed on the issues, and those who are face choosing between two professional politicians running along dogmatic lines rather than trying to do what's legitimately best for the country. Run for office ourselves, you say? Perhaps, but in order to avoid becoming part of the orthodoxy you're going to have to crap a fortune to compete with the existing political machines, and even then the Ross Perots of the world have met with little success, whether that's a good or a bad thing is debatable.
I posit, from the state of our economy and the tone of politics, that giving people the vote for free has failed. The result has been the creation of a class of political and corporate oligarchs, not Jefferson's merit-based “natural aristocracy,” but a society run by manipulators of currency and opinion, rather than by statesmen.
Furthermore, while it's true that all are affected by the decisions of the nation's leaders, not all are affected equally. By casting your votes you, the Great American Public, will decide who has the authority to order me to war, and, just as importantly, which legislators will decide my budget and resources to train and equip in between wars. And yet you will certainly not bear the blood price if you choose wrongly. Think on this, for the last twenty years, no Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces has had legit military service. In this election, neither presidential candidate had served. That means that Somalia, the operations in the Balkans, Second Iraq and Afghanistan were all ordered and administrated by men who were unwilling to risk their own lives when they were my age. But they were sure as hell willing to expend me and my comrades like pieces of ordinance. I learned at my daddy's knee that a leader's moral authority springs from never telling a subordinate to do something you'd be unwilling to do yourself. So... where's the moral authority?
Before one of my friends from my side of the aisle points out Bush Jr.'s service in the Air National Guard, just don't. Okay. Don't. He served from 1968 to 1974 and magically never went to 'Nam? Yeah, I'm sure that was a coincidence.
So what to do? Universal compulsory service? Require everyone to serve and thus earn their full citizenship whether they like it or not?
Two problems. One- you can't force civic virtue. You just can't. I can't make you love this country as much as I do, no matter how hard I try. I never believed in that False Motivation crap for small things, much less something as esoteric as Patriotism. Two- we don't need everybody in uniform, and what do we do with those who either by lack of will or natural aptitude would be disasters in uniform? We don't have enough clerical and admin tasks to take them all.
Germany and other European states do require universal compulsory service, but you have to read the fine print- if a young man or woman is a conscientious objector, or just doesn't care enough about their country to put up with the hardships of the service, he or she can spend their term changing bed pans in a nursing home, or something equally innocuous. How does this make one value their vote more and thus exercise it more carefully?
Which brings me back to the Heinlein model. No compulsion to serve, and no penalties for refusing to serve, save that you don't get to vote in federal elections or run for federal office. Voting is exercising rulership of your country- those who would rule must serve. Authority must equal responsibility, else we are doomed.
There still remain a few problems. Kratman addresses one, both in his novels and in conversations I've had with him. Some of us join and stay in the Army not necessarily out of patriotism, but because we like it. Oh, patriotism generally runs high in servicemen and women, but it not necessary to be a patriot to be a good soldier. Additionally, I fully acknowledge that people like me often have a very specialized field of knowledge. Oh, I'm pretty well educated, but I'd be a disaster as a President because my knowledge of economics and some other key subjects is strictly beer-and-peanuts level.
So I don't get to vote, and I definitely don't get to hold office, while I'm serving actively. Think about it, if we're going to admit that we need a system where citizens are self-selected rather than just given the franchise willy nilly, it's not the Justin Watsons of the world that need to make up the bulk of the body politic. I'm a lifer. I freaking love the Army and I'm obsessed with warfare. I'd be launching cruise missiles at every country whose ambassador looked at me funny! Not to mention what I'd be doing to insurgents and terrorists. I wrote a law of war essay on that very topic which got me 20 hours on the area (West Point punishment, if not familiar and curious ask me in the comments).
No, the body politic shouldn't be comprised primarily of Spartans, but of men and women who did a term or two, not primarily because the work appeals to them, but because it's the right thing to do. And who, hopefully, learned to place the goals of a group ahead of their own, learned to care more about their comrades' well being and their mission more than their own comfort and safety. We cannot ensure this for every veteran, but future citizens are more likely to learn it in the Army than working at Mickey D's.
So what about once we've taken every potential citizen volunteer with the aptitude and will to fight? Just because you're not a warrior doesn't mean you should be cut out of the political process. Even I know that.
Now we come back to the Peace Corps.
I asserted earlier that simple forced drudgery by itself is not enough to inspire good citizenship out of folks. To value something, they must feel that they've earned it and I don't believe playing post office does that. Hardship, danger, hopefully at least a touch of adventure- these are the things which make experiences all the more valuable to a young person. To those who cannot or will not fight in the defense of the republic to earn their citizenship, the peace corps, beefed up and refocused on US foreign policy priorities, provides a way to serve and to experience the big three I mentioned above without pulling a trigger. By doing the work that the Army has been forced to do in Iraq and Afghanistan, they not only free up our combat forces for their main purpose, they will be ginning a generation of young men and women who have seen the rest of the world and thus appreciate what we have here, who have experienced other cultures and thus may be able to relate better to those who come from different back grounds, and, most importantly, have subsumed their own desire for comfort and safety to go out into the world in service to their nation and, yes, to humanity.
I'm well aware that getting such a system enacted would take a miracle. The proles want their entitlements, the CEOs want to be able to continue buying legislators wholesale, so even if I could get some popular support for this notion, both sides of the main stream media would destroy it before you could say boo. But we better think of something, because we've got more than just a fiscal cliff to worry about. We have millions of Americans in love with rights and derisive of responsibilities- this is not good.
