Bringing Up Children

Three golden rules for bringing up children . . .
Alas, no one knows what they are.

A Definition of War

War is the objectification of politics.
- Tom Philo

This is similar to the Carl von Clausewitz quote: "War is politics carried out by other means."

The difference is that politics is both the spoken and written words - once you start putting into physical terms the ideas that have been talked about once everyone sees the policty only then do they really understand it and usually only then do people really notice both for and against. Not the best way to show policy, but it does get noticed once people start to die.

Trustworthy Generals - Political Correctness Goes Military

I read "The Knox Report" in May 2006 where he talks about the Commanding General  of Alaska's Army military forces, Maj. General Charles Jacoby, has issued orders that no soldier under his command can carry a concealed weapon even with a license. He went on to report that soldiers living in the barracks cannot even use their own weapon without advanced permission from their commanding officer in writing and the weapons must be stored in the arms room. (Storing in the arms room all personal weapons of soldiers living in barracks has long been the policy in Alaska and other bases, at least since 1976 when I was in.) The main difference from then and now is that no one is allowed to store their personal weapons off base and requiring prior written permission from their CO before taking it out. All we had to do was arrange with the arms room person when we wanted to check it out and in and sign the register in both directions.

 

The interesting part is that there are fighter pilots, helicopter crews, and infantry carrying M16s to heavy machine guns with live ammunition around Alaska all the time, yet these same people are too irresponsible to carry a concealed weapon? (This includes the Military Police!)

 

I can see why he instituted this and has became paranoid - the General wants to ensure that if MPs stop people the MPs know that no one on the base has any weapons on them (99.999% of the time ) and so they can act with impunity without fear of being threatened when they pull their guns out to shoot someone (you never pull out a gun on someone unless you are willing to shoot someone, or else the threat is meaningless.) Thus they know if someone acts like they have a weapon they most likely do and they can just kill them, and if wrong oh well, those people should not have acted like they had a weapon.

 

Once you disarm everyone and only allow certain people to carry arms, then you can impose your will and threaten, cajole, intimidate people without worry - they cannot fight back. And by ensuring that the people you do arm, when they are not working, also have no rights and no self defense, then even the enforcers know they could be shot and killed without a chance of defending themselves if they act "wrong" so they become even more paranoid about everyone else and even become "passive" in speaking or acting in any manner that may be construed as being armed and thus shot.

 

If you look through history disarming everyone is what rulers have done when they want to ensure that no one can resist. It a weird nature of the military in that the commanders can pretty much make ANY rule they want and order their subordinates to follow. Unless it is expressly forbidden - and most "laws" in the UCMJ are so vaguely written and often are really just guidelines that soldiers have to obey.

 

It is a weird fact that for US Soliders if you think an order is illegal, you STILL have to do it after objecting to the person who ordered you to do it, then do it. Afterwards if is found to be illegal you are tried for doing it, if it is found legal then you are tried for trying to disobey a lawful command. The perfect "catch 22" for the military since only the lowest solder is held responsible and the person ordering it is not - there is no law in the UCMJ for punishing a person who issues a unlawful order - on punishment for following one.

 

It is nice to see that President Bush fully supports the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution - except when it comes to the solders who are sworn to protect it!

Recognizing Innovation

The problem with innovating isn’t coming up with ideas. It’s knowing which ideas add value.

-- Jared Spool from  http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/