The American Constitution

[Alan Klein]

Two sources, there may be others.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/five-myths-about-the-vietnam-war/2017/09/29/467ef3e0-a474-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html?utm_term=.1f258df0260c

https://www.vvof.org/factsvnv.htm

Fascinating statistics, the 2nd link.  Many surprises.  Thanks for posting it. 

[Rob C]

I didn't say it would prevent war.  After 9-11, the Armed Forces turned away volunteers there were so many.  It's just that more consideration would occur before we got involved in conflict.  I think that's a positive.    Also, as I lived through VietNam, I recall the huge opposition to the war because of the draft.  There was draft dodging as people fled to Canada.  There was a sudden contagion of bone spurs even infecting our current president.    Never mind their parents. Kids didn't want to get drafted and die in the swamps of southeast asia.  The draft helped contribute to us losing the war. The draft will make politicians think twice before they pull the trigger.

Alan, you have a belief system so certain of itself that you can extrapolate and cross-link pretty much anything to make a point that, in the end, falls.

Have you realised how close all of that takes one to religious fundamentalism - and it really makes no difference which religion. Reality, experience, logic play tiny rôles in such circuits.

Rob

[faberryman]

Fascinating statistics, the 2nd link.  Many surprises.  Thanks for posting it.

Pretty selective which articles you are willing to read and which articles you aren't. An example of confirmation bias at work.

[Alan Klein]

Alan, you have a belief system so certain of itself that you can extrapolate and cross-link pretty much anything to make a point that, in the end, falls.

Have you realised how close all of that takes one to religious fundamentalism - and it really makes no difference which religion. Reality, experience, logic play tiny rôles in such circuits.

Rob

I experienced the riots on American streets during the 1960's by those opposed to the draft during the VietNam War.  Politicians reversed their support of the war because of it.  I've based my belief and point on that experience.  What experience do you have that draws another conclusion?

[Alan Klein]

Pretty selective which articles you are willing to read and which articles you aren't. An example of confirmation bias at work.

What confirmation bias?  I didn't say anything about it one way or the other besides it was interesting.  Also, Omer told us what was in the article to make his point.  IF you had done the same about yours, I may have read it.  I'm always willing to learn something new.

[Rob C]

I experienced the riots on American streets during the 1960's by those opposed to the draft during the VietNam War.  Politicians reversed their support of the war because of it.  I've based my belief and point on that experience.  What experience do you have that draws another conclusion?

We had Northern Ireland with its crazies on both sides; we had the Mau Mau in Kenya, we had Eoka in Cyprus; we had Suez. We have had problems in Malaysia. None of those was existential and all of them offered death for no good reason at all.

Those sorts of "wars" are one thing, and to be avoided at all costs. WW1 and WW2 were a different kettle of stinking fish: they could have signalled the end of Britain and folks below the minimum age were smuggling themselves in to protect the homeland from direct threat, which in WW2 was devastating.

I lived part of those years close to London itself; from the toilet window we could see the flashes and fires of London in the night sky. I could see the gliders overhead leaving on their one-way trip to possible death before hitting land. We used to take the train into town and I'd gaze at the ruins all along the sides of the railway. Have you heard a doodlebug fly overhead, and hope it doesn't go silent? Been rushed to the Anderson shelter in your pyjamas or siren suit of a night? It didn't help that RAF Northolt was rather close.

None of the above led to the abandonment of so-called National Service. It ended because it was pretty useless and professional soldiers don't want conscripts beside them if they have a choice. Learning a trade? Yeah, Bailey and Donovan both did photography in their time of "service", which Bailey tried to avoid by pretending to be gay. Didn't work. But you could pick up an apprenticeship almost anywhere during those years before the thing was dropped.

As for your own country: trying to relate one event with another and cite a direct case of cause and effect is optimism writ large. Perhaps the best one can do is link dying students on campus with trigger-happy National Guardsmen:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

As for mothers of dead conscripts having different emotions to mothers of dead professional troops as the coffins unload, that's a male fantasy, macho military rationalisation gone berserk. Either mother would tear your President's heart out, whoever he/she might be. A folded flag is little comfort, regardless of how pretty the design and colours...

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... None of those was existential and all of them offered death for no good reason at all.

Those sorts of "wars" are one thing, and to be avoided at all costs. WW1 and WW2 were a different...

Had you have the wisdom and courage to fight those "non-existential wars" in due time, you perhaps wouldn't have to fight the WWII. As the recent history proves, fighting those non-existential wars all over the world served the humanity quite well so far in avoiding the next existential one. Putting a small fire out is much easier than fighting an inferno later.

[Alan Klein]

We had Northern Ireland with its crazies on both sides; we had the Mau Mau in Kenya, we had Eoka in Cyprus; we had Suez. We have had problems in Malaysia. None of those was existential and all of them offered death for no good reason at all.

Those sorts of "wars" are one thing, and to be avoided at all costs. WW1 and WW2 were a different kettle of stinking fish: they could have signalled the end of Britain and folks below the minimum age were smuggling themselves in to protect the homeland from direct threat, which in WW2 was devastating.

I lived part of those years close to London itself; from the toilet window we could see the flashes and fires of London in the night sky. I could see the gliders overhead leaving on their one-way trip to possible death before hitting land. We used to take the train into town and I'd gaze at the ruins all along the sides of the railway. Have you heard a doodlebug fly overhead, and hope it doesn't go silent? Been rushed to the Anderson shelter in your pyjamas or siren suit of a night? It didn't help that RAF Northolt was rather close.

None of the above led to the abandonment of so-called National Service. It ended because it was pretty useless and professional soldiers don't want conscripts beside them if they have a choice. Learning a trade? Yeah, Bailey and Donovan both did photography in their time of "service", which Bailey tried to avoid by pretending to be gay. Didn't work. But you could pick up an apprenticeship almost anywhere during those years before the thing was dropped.

As for your own country: trying to relate one event with another and cite a direct case of cause and effect is optimism writ large. Perhaps the best one can do is link dying students on campus with trigger-happy National Guardsmen:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

As for mothers of dead conscripts having different emotions to mothers of dead professional troops as the coffins unload, that's a male fantasy, macho military rationalisation gone berserk. Either mother would tear your President's heart out, whoever he/she might be. A folded flag is little comfort, regardless of how pretty the design and colours...

It's the millions of mothers who might have their sons drafted to die that would create the political problem. 

[Robert Roaldi]

Woman charged in Alabama with harming her own fetus after she was shot in a fight https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/30/us/alabama-woman-marshae-jones.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share.

[RSL]

Had you have the wisdom and courage to fight those "non-existential wars" in due time, you perhaps wouldn't have to fight the WWII. As the recent history proves, fighting those non-existential wars all over the world served the humanity quite well so far in avoiding the next existential one. Putting a small fire out is much easier than fighting an inferno later.

Exactly, Slobodan. But people often realize that only in hindsight.

[Alan Goldhammer]

We had a lot of unrest at UCSB in my senior year, 1970.  Spring exams were taken under martial law when we had a dusk to dawn curfew.  National Guard was mobilized to enforce it.  The is of tear gas was widespread.  It was not pleasant.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Woman charged in Alabama with harming her own fetus after she was shot in a fight...

I assume you are posting this as something people should be outraged with?

It is a rare moment that I would actually agree with you (not that I am easily outraged, mind you, nor I am in this particular case). I think it is a case of taking maternal responsibility during pregnancy to the extreme.

For those not familiar with the case and do not want to read the linked article, it boils down to this: a pregnant mother suffers miscarriage after being shot. The shooter is another women (both black). The shooter is not charged as the grand jury accepted that she was acting in self defense. It was determined that the pregnant woman initiated the fight and escalated it to the point the other had to use lethal force in self-defense. The prosecutor's argument is that a mother has the responsibility to take care of the baby and do nothing that would endanger its life.

As I said, I think that Alabama's prosecutor stance is quite extreme. I heard of cases in countries where abortion is completely banned (certain Latin American countries), that desperate mothers would do horrible things to themselves to deliberately induce a miscarriage. But in the Alabama case, it is hard to argue that the mother initiated the fight with the specific purpose to lose the baby.

[Rob C]

I assume you are posting this as something people should be outraged with?

It is a rare moment that I would actually agree with you (not that I am easily outraged, mind you, nor I am in this particular case). I think it is a case of taking maternal responsibility during pregnancy to the extreme.

For those not familiar with the case and do not want to read the linked article, it boils down to this: a pregnant mother suffers miscarriage after being shot. The shooter is another women (both black). The shooter is not charged as the grand jury accepted that she was acting in self defense. It was determined that the pregnant woman initiated the fight and escalated it to the point the other had to use lethal force in self-defense. The prosecutor's argument is that a mother has the responsibility to take care of the baby and do nothing that would endanger its life.

As I said, I think that Alabama's prosecutor stance is quite extreme. I heard of cases in countries where abortion is completely banned (certain Latin American countries), that desperate mothers would do horrible things to themselves to deliberately induce a miscarriage. But in the Alabama case, it is hard to argue that the mother initiated the fight with the specific purpose to lose the baby.

Up on a delightful hillside overlooking Puerto Pollensa and the sea is a house that was built by an American artist. She sold it and moved further inland (the appeal of the sea as a place too near to which to live shrinks with experience of the expensive nature of wind-driven salty air). I remarked to her son one day that the old house had had a couple of walls painted fierce red. In disgust, he remarked the new owners must be from Alabama. I'm not sure of the implications of that, not being an American, but I can sort of guess.

Rob

[Rob C]

Had you have the wisdom and courage to fight those "non-existential wars" in due time, you perhaps wouldn't have to fight the WWII. As the recent history proves, fighting those non-existential wars all over the world served the humanity quite well so far in avoiding the next existential one. Putting a small fire out is much easier than fighting an inferno later.

Slobodan, that's not worthy of you!

You know perfectly well that hindsight can be as perfect or otherwise as desired. As we are, broadly, on the topic of 'nam, I guess that's one of the non-existentials to which you refer? So what was achieved, apart from the massive killings and arms marketing opportunities? The war was lost by the "good" guys - always a matter of definition and perspective - and in the end, the far-eastern world continued on very much as if nothing had happened, except that some still get maimed or totalled by mines nobody wants to feel responsible for or about.

As for putting small fires out, who's to determine what's a domestic fire and what's an external "police action", to use a term beloved of some states?

Looking at Muslim countries close to home, yet still safely far enough away (in a sense, but not when we invite revenge), interventions or sidings with the internal/external affairs and personalities of such have resulted in a far worse fate for the poor inhabitants than had they been left under their own system of dictatorship. Does anyone other than the inevitable opportunist that harvests the fruits of unrest in the former lands of Saddam H. and Muammar G. feel any the better off since our kind intervention? Or, indeed, is the peasant of Afghanistan any the better off? Is Europe any better off? Would it face the migrant crisis it faces today without those little fire-fighting expeditions?

And have the folks of the former USSR benefitted much from our proclaimed interest in their well-being? Or have vague dreams of joining a western prosperity made them suffer even more at the hands of the Bear? And that supposed prosperity; how much of it is myth, a life of perpetual debt to the card companies and/or the banks? Feels more like a state of ultra-high nervous tension, a constant living beyond one's means. And the crunch always comes: think 2008.

You know, all those pretty pictures you made of Chicago: not a lot of those buildings are owned by Joe Soap; most of them belong to faceless entities that are no more friendly to you or anyone else than the mugger in the street. Yet, it's visions of such richness that inspire folks outside the west to imagine that but for geography, they, too could have a piece of that. Yeah, just like I have a piece of Mayfair.

[kers]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/surreal-ivanka-trump-plays-a-prominent-role-in-her-fathers-historic-korea-trip/2019/06/30/98695704-9b58-11e9-b27f-ed2942f73d70_story.html

https://twitter.com/ParhamGhobadi/status/1145074623035449357

The USA as a constitutional monargy

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/surreal-ivanka-trump-plays-a-prominent-role-in-her-fathers-historic-korea-trip/2019/06/30/98695704-9b58-11e9-b27f-ed2942f73d70_story.html

https://twitter.com/ParhamGhobadi/status/1145074623035449357

The USA as a constitutional monarchy

Oligarchy is closer. Constitutional, hardly.

Cheers,
Bart

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Rob, it is amazing to watch how having the skin in the (Brexit) game can turn a conservative into a Soviet-loving commie

[faberryman]

I remarked to her son one day that the old house had had a couple of walls painted fierce red. In disgust, he remarked the new owners must be from Alabama. I'm not sure of the implications of that, not being an American, but I can sort of guess.

The color of the University of Alabama football team is red, and their motto is Roll Crimson Tide. People from Alabama are crazy about their football team.

[Rob C]

The very best con is when nobody knows they've been had.

Often, it's achieved by means of long documents on special papers or, if possible, parchments that promise the Earth in language so simple but as opaque as to flummox even resident lawyers. If one is able to attach several impressive stamps and red wax seals, then so much the better.

Once the spadework is done, it's time for the PR parts that, though of minor relative importance are paramount in presenting the acceptance of the fait accompli as a positive, something worth the dying for, if required. This belief is strengthened by devices known as flags, around which the faithful can rally whenever opportunity and mood indicate be a propitious moment. Oh the fun, the tragedies, the laughs that such times provoke.

And then there is the song, the popular affirmation, the anthem to the fantasy that this song of con is far, far superior to all of the other poor people's songs of con.

I'm having trouble accessing my Weebly account in order to edit the website and add some more amazing nothings to it. I have managed to cut through the rubber walls and find a link where it is possible to attach a screen grab showing the problems I face... that took attempts yesterday as well as this morning. Like I said elsewhere, nothing stays the same, especially if it was working well. There is probably an eponymous Law that celebrates that truism.

Even lunch was a cock-up today: the wi-fi was down and for the first time in zonks I had to face the hall and think polite thoughts less my true feelings show and some innocent diners believe my belligerence of expression was for them. You see how much more pleasant it is all round reading LuLa on a filling stomach than not?

[Rob C]

The color of the University of Alabama football team is red, and their motto is Roll Crimson Tide. People from Alabama are crazy about their football team.

That makes sense, at last! Thank you for opening the door to enlightenment - taken several years to suss that one, thank you again.

:-)