Trucks, taxes, and benefits

I don’t drive on freeways much anymore, but are there still trucks that have signs on the back that state something like “This truck pays $4,362 per year in taxes.”

Shouldn’t there also be a sign that says the government provides $x,xxx per year in services to this truck”?

What is the pro-rata cost of highways for each truck?  Snow-plowing?  Police investigation of crashes?  Police protection of auto drivers harassed by tailgating truckers?

It seems more that someone benefits from taxes the more they complain about taxes.  Corporations want well-educated employees, but they don’t want to pay the taxes to educate future employees.  They want to sue those they claim have wronged them, but they don’t want to pay the taxes for courts.  They want laws to protect their interests, but don’t want to pay the costs of enforcement.

Corporations and others want a military that costs more than then next two or three next largest militaries, but they don’t want to pay the taxes to support that military.

Robert Reich predicted the likes of Donald Trump

"[People] think if the big guys cheat in big ways, they might as well begin cheating in small ways. And when they think the game is rigged, they're easy prey for political demagogues with fast tongues and dumb ideas.
- Robert Reich,  Beyond Outrage, 2012

 In Beyond Outrage Reich also pointed out that "Conservatives" don't conserve much.  He wrote they are regressives who want to return to a time when very few were very, very well-off and most had to struggle to make a living, often in dangerous, unhealthy conditions.

He didn't spell it out in detail but "conservatives" sure don't want to conserve resources, clean air, or even a well-functioning government.  "Conservatives" are certainly "liberal" in interpreting the Constitution to their ends, "liberal" at "throwing money" at the military, and "liberal" in awarding generous compensation to those at the top of large corporations, even those who really screw up the company.

What do conservatives conserve?

It seems to me that they only want to conserve two things; their view of the world and the power of large corporations.

They don’t want to conserve resources including clean air and water, the right of people to have needed information, and good, free education for all.

Once upon a time conservatives were those who carefully considered any change but didn’t stand in the way of change.  And there were many flavors of conservatism.

Now, “conservatives” must be in lock step on all issues and cannot question any of the official stances.

Ironically, these “conservatives” are liberal with funds for the military and are liberal with sending people to fight all over the world without any understanding of the countries they are sent to.  A real conservative would be cautious about military engagement and strive to know what the risks are.

Are “conservatives” the lackeys of Daesh?

One of the ways that people control a narrative is by defining the terms.  The more the terms are favorable to their narrative, the more they get others to “dance to their tune”.  Both Daesh and “conservatives” have been controlling the narrative to their respective audiences.

What’s this Daesh?  It is the Arabic term for the group that calls itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL), or just the Islamic State (IS).  Keith Ellison, a member of Congress from Minnesota and a Muslim, refuses to use these “Islamic” descriptions and uses Daesh instead.  One, Daesh does not represent the Islam that Ellison and many others follow.  Two, Daesh does not like this name which is somewhat of a pejorative in Arabic.

Look at this another way.  Daesh represents Islam no more than the Coo Coo Clucks Clan represents Christianity.  By the way, many letter writers say that all Muslims should speak out against Daesh; they forget that many Christians did not openly criticize the Coo Coo Clucks Clan.

Many Muslims are speaking out against Daesh.  See the article about Rep. Keith Ellison and Andre Carson, the other Representative who is a Muslim speaking out against Daesh (see CQ Roll Call, 2015-11-17, also published in the Duluth News Tribune the next day).  The article stated that Ellison and Carson shared the same religion as the terrorists; this is way off the mark.  It is like saying those who call for punishment of gays share Christianity with those who believe “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.”

Also, by the time you read this, my friend M. Imran Hayee should have his own take on Daesh published in the Duluth News Tribune.

Why are “conservatives” the lackeys of Daesh?  Because Daesh wants a war with “Christianity” and anybody else who doesn’t share their corrupted view of Islam.  The “conservatives” think that the U.S. is the Calvary of the movies and will save the wagon train from the bandits or the Indians.  As “Leader of the Free World” with the mightiest army in the world, the U.S. will crush anybody who is not for “freedom”.

But what is the reality of the effectiveness of the U.S. military against a “moral” force such as Daesh?

In 1775, a ragtag army took on a heavily trained army of a distant empire.  It took some years, but with the help of another empire they forced that army to surrender.  Then a much better trained U.S. Army took on lightly-armed groups of a widely-dispersed populace.  In the next century, the U.S. military joined several other countries in defeating an opposing army in a long-drawn out struggle.  That led to the same defeated army being reconstituted under a dictator far worse than the Kaiser of two decades earlier.  Again the U.S. joined several other militaries to defeat this dictator and his army.  Half-way around the world the U.S. military joined several other militaries to defeat an Imperial military.

Then with the confidence from that war the U.S. fought an army that tried to unite a country under its dictator rather than the dictator of the other half of the country.  That other half did move to a democracy that is prospering compared to the invading half which has been living under a brutal line of paranoid dynastic dictators.

These military successes led to a confidence that has not been fulfilled since.

First, the U.S. thought it could fight a guerrilla army that knew the language and had willing and unwilling support from a large portion of the country.  The U.S. could never be sure who was friend and who was foe.  The U.S. had to leave for a variety of reasons.  Ironically, that same country is now a trading partner.  Even though the government is still run by “godless” Communists, it seems to have taken to heart the Christian dictum “forgive those who trespass against you.”

The U.S. did have success in defeating a “ferocious” army that was more bluster than power.  It did leave the dictator in power, but the U.S. did accomplish the goal of getting the dictator’s army out of the country he invaded.

Next, the U.S. took on fighters in a strongly religious country that had a very corrupt government.  The U.S. could never tell for sure who was friend or foe.  That fight still goes on.

Then the U.S. took on the dictator with the “ferocious” army again and sent him into hiding.  However, for a variety of reasons, the country became splintered into several factions and no local politician has made any serious attempt to unify the country.  The U.S. tried supporting the government against its antagonists, but like the army of 1776, the antagonists are scattered throughout the populace.

Out of this chaos has come Daesh.  Who does the U.S. have as allies in the region?  A military dictatorship and the country that promotes Wahhabism, the unforgiving variety of Islam that created Daesh, an Islam that ignores “As Allah forgives you, forgive others.”

Now we have “conservatives” who are “liberal” with dropping bombs in the Middle East.  Are they just playing into the hands of Daesh?  These “Christians” want to keep out Muslims who are fleeing Daesh.  They are afraid that terrorists might come in with the refugees.  But by dropping more bombs and by refusing refugees, might we just reinforce Daesh’s claim that there is a Christian war against Islam?

Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth on 2015-11-25 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/11/24/6304_are_conservatives_the_lackeys_of_daesh

Misfeasance and malfeasance: corporate and government

It seems the fashion for one group of people to think that government can do nothing right and that corporations always do everything right, and for another group to think that corporations can do nothing right and that the government always does everything right.  Interestingly, many in the first group think the government knows everything about invading other countries, and many in the second group are eager for the latest gadgets from large corporations.  This second group also buys books from Amazon on how bad corporations are!

This second group should consider buying books from local booksellers.  I know Duluth is down to one local bookseller, but it still has a few used booksellers.  If you do want to buy books online, try ABE Books.  It is a consortium of booksellers around the world.  You can find a whole range of prices, sometimes with free shipping.

This column was inspired by a head-banging problem on Apple’s iPhone.  About the middle of the month the weather app started giving the time for locales in the Central Daylight Time zone as five hours later.  How about sunset at 11 o’clock in the evening?

In the Apple Community Support topics, other users suggested various resets, that might or might not be disruptive to proper functioning.  I did a “soft reset” of my iPhone and it did nothing for this problem.  I and many others thought the problem was really in Apple’s own computers because the problem started happening for many users at the same time.  My post follows:

“Don’t touch that dial!

“I lay awake last night thinking about the weather app having the wrong time for the Central Time Zone.

“It occurred to me that the time given is Greenwich Mean Time.  I even got up and looked up the time in London.  It was one hour later than Greenwich Mean Time because Britain is on daylight savings time.  The British time was one hour later than the time in weather app.

“This morning I checked my wife’s iPhone.  It had the wrong weather time, and she is still on iOS 9.0.1.  I asked several people in a fitness center and they reported that their iPhone weather apps had the wrong time.  Some even reported that this started at the end of last week.

“I think what has happened is that whoever maintains the data for Apple’s weather app took off the -5 adjustment for Central Daylight Time.  So, the problem is not in your phone and no kind of reset will fix the problem.  We’ll just have to wait for somebody in Apple to put the correct adjustment on Central Daylight Time.

“Now I have to find Apple’s Feedback page and post the above to it.”

I did send feedback as did several other users.  The problem was fixed in about three days.  The squeaking wheel does get greased!

I have another iPhone problem in that my bank’s online access will not work when I use cellular data.  It either gives a cryptic error message or states that the connection could not be made.  It works fine if I use Wi-Fi.  The bank says that my provider keeps changing the IP address.  My provider states that they do not change the IP address.

How often have you been caught between corporate pointing fingers?  “Not our problem.”

If corporations can do such marvelous stuff, how come there are so many recalls?  The Volkswagen diesel exhaust problem is one of malfeasance:  knowing the problem existed and not doing anything about it.  The ignition problem with Chevrolets was a mix of misfeasance and malfeasance.  It took GM awhile to realize they had a problem and quite awhile before they acknowledged it.

If corporations are so smart, why can’t they figure out that doing something right in the first place is cheaper in the long run than cutting corners now for short-term profits?

I think in too many cases, corporations have become the broom of the sorcerer's apprentice.  They keep working away mechanically without considering the real needs of their customers.

Many who are pro-corporation relish bashing the federal government, especially the Post Office and the Internal Revenue Service.  My experience is that many government agencies, including these two, strive to do the right thing for their customers.  Unfortunately, they are undercut by those who should be supporting them as part of “Promoting the General Welfare”.

Interestingly, some of these same government bashers think that the military can do no wrong.  Have they forgotten the terms SNAFU and FUBAR were created by draftees or enlisted personnel who were fed up with the bureaucracy and the mistakes of generals and other officers?

I think these military worshipers also forget their history.  A bunch of ragtag farmers held off an imperial army for several years, mostly by avoiding combat until their general thought the situation was favorable.  In another country and in another century, a bunch of civilians kept harassing an occupying army until other countries could mobilize for an invasion to push back the occupiers.  Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent, an army of mostly peasants took horrific losses to repel that same occupying army from their country.

In the long run in case after case, it is the local people who, if they don’t prevail, will keep harassing the invaders as long as there are more to take their places.

The secret to the success of any organization is the management.  Does management come up with ideas to make its employees effective?  Does it listen to its employees and support them when they have good ideas?  Or does it “know best” and keep muddling along until another company takes away its business.  In the case of government, do the elected politicians act in a positive way to support government workers?  Or do the elected politicians do their best to belittle the workers?  We certainly are lucky to have so many thick-skinned government employees.

This was also published in the Reader Weekly, 2015-11-04 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/11/04/6189_misfeasance_and_malfeasance_corporate_and-1.

Defense and Education - More newspeak

Yet another loose note from the Bush days:

The Dept. of Defense is headed by Terence Bell.  Defense of a nation is the passing of traditions and knowledge from generation to generation.

The Dept. of Education is headed by Casper Weinberger.  The U.S. seems to be trying to educate lots of people that the U.S. government knows best by hitting them over the head with a big stick.

Addendum on 2014-08-21:

Have we learned anything since then?  We still have many who think the U.S. should be responsible for hitting others over the head with a big stick.

Arizona women demonstrate against “free exercise of religion”

Fortunately, this action was not needed because Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed the amendment to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  The purpose of the amendment was “Modifies the definition of exercise of religion and allows a person to assert a free exercise claim or defense in a judicial proceeding regardless of whether the government is a party to the proceeding.”

The supposed intent of the amendment was to allow businesses to refuse service to gays and lesbians if the owner’s religious views disapproved of gays and lesbians.

Imagine the shock some of the female legislators would have had when a Muslim shopkeeper refused them service because their heads weren’t covered and their skirts were too short.  Imagine the shock of all when a strict Muslim or Orthodox Jew insisted that men and women sit in separate rooms in his restaurant.

Imagine the outcry from “patriotic” Americans if a strongly pacifist Quaker refused service to any past or present military personnel, in or out of uniform.

The list of religious and philosophical ideas that call for people to resist certain actions goes on and on.  Sorry, we all have to get along and accept behaviors which we do not approve of.  The only legitimate resistance are behaviors that impinge on our physical space.  Even making a list of those is a difficult task.

Immigration: in an ideal world…

In an ideal world, anybody should be able to move anywhere they can find a place to live and work.

I was fortunate to live in a time when I was welcome anywhere as a Univac employee.  I requested a transfer to Europe and wound up in Switzerland and then Italy.  I requested a transfer from Italy to Sweden and was given it.  From both places I worked in or traveled to almost all of the countries of Western Europe.

Because I was "from Roseville", the place where most of the 1100 series of Univac computers originated, I was perceived as an "expert", even when local people could solve many problems better than I could.

I had friends ask me to transfer to South Africa or Iran, both of which I declined.

I really think that anybody anywhere should have the mobility that I have had all my life.  I grew up and was educated in Ohio.  But I chose to work in Minnesota. From Minnesota I spent six years in Europe.  Then I spent three years in SE Pennsylvania.  Then I was able to transfer back to Minnesota.  After 22 years in Plymouth MN, my wife was able to get a transfer to Duluth.

I think everyone should have such chances for the changes we had.

But... It is not an ideal world.  Many of those who claim to want immigration reform don't want reform for its own sake, but "reform" to exclude those they don't like and “reform” to have access to those who will reduce their costs.

The people that "immigration reform" proponents want are immigrants who are highly-skilled.  If you think about it and look behind the curtain, what they really want is lower-paid workers and is having somebody else pay for the education of these "highly-skilled" workers.

These potential immigrants were educated with the help of taxes in other countries.  When "immigration reform" proponents entice these people to the U.S., they are depriving those countries of the benefits of their investments.  Those investments could pay off for a better political and economic culture in those countries.  As the saying goes, "Those with get up and go, go!"

The irony is that who want more "skilled" immigrants are destabilizing many of the countries where they immigrants come from.  Rather than paying taxes for a bloated military that goes more places than it should, these people should be willing to pay for taxes to give the children in the United States a high-quality education.

Let's you and him fight!

“There are people who would love to see America fight their war for them,” Kerry said. “But that is not their choice.”

– "U.S. coming under fire from Mideast allies, who see retrenchment", Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, 2014-01-24.

Finally, the U.S. is recognizing that it is not the world's policeman and it cannot stop every "bad guy" from harming the "good guys".  Generally when we fight the "bad guys", many of the "good guys" resent the U.S. coming in and disrupting their country.

I often wonder why the U.S. has to "train" a government's soldiers and police in counter-insurgency or whatever.  It seems the ragtag bad guys do quite well with AK-47s and IEDs than the government does with it more powerful weapons.  Could it be that the soldiers and police are in it only because it is a job, they can extort people, and they really don't have much faith in the government?

I often wonder why we don't say to corrupt or ineffective leaders "Shape up or we ship out!"

Quote of the day - civilian control out of control

"[T]he notion of civilian control of the military became meaningless, since civilians were the leading militarists."
- Michael Mann, "Incoherent Empire", quoted by Andrew J. Bacevich in "The New American Militarism".

This was in reference to the reaction to 9/11.  Same section states that military felt it failed to protect country against attack, but is it the military's job to stop criminals?

Whither America? Idealism or Ideology?

The following was published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth on 2013-11-14 and can be found at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2013/11/14/2433_party_of_one_whither_america_idealism_or_ideology

Idealism is a set of goals; ideology is a set of rules.  Idealism is a guide to how you act; ideology is a set of rules on how you and everybody else must act.  Idealism takes into account reality; ideology creates its own “reality”.  “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”  This is attributed to Karl Rove or Dick Cheney.  They ignore to our detriment Newton's third law of motion:  "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."  If you create your own reality, then others will create their own reality.  Overwhelming force meets roadside bomb.

The Alworth Center for the Study of Peace and Justice had two recent speakers who addressed these issues.  Robert J. Art, author of “A Grand Strategy for America”, cautiously leaned toward ideology.  Andrew J. Bacevich, author of “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism” and “Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War”, is fed up with the “Imperial Presidency” and the “Wise Men” who are getting us deeper and deeper into problems,  thus creating even more problems.

Art states that we must strike a balance between isolationism and being the world’s policeman. Isolationism often means withdrawing from most of the world’s affairs.  This is rather difficult given how intertwined the world economy has become.  We have already seen how often being the world’s policeman causes more problems than it solves.

Art says we have six important interests:

1) Protect the homeland and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction
2) Keep deep peace among Eurasian great powers
3) Assure assets (oil) for market
4) International economic openness
5) Democracy’s spread and observance of human rights
6) Avert severe climate change

To support these interests, Art gives eight grand strategies, including dominion, isolationism, and selective engagement.  Dominion just won’t work; it will get us into deeper and deeper military involvement.  The U.S. has tried it on various scales for over a century, and our politicians still haven’t learned.  Isolationism has many aspects, but if the U.S. isolates itself from the rest of the world, will the rest of the world help if the U.S. needs help?

Art prefers selective engagement.  Selective engagement is based on fundamental goals, it concentrates on those “regions of most consequence to the United States”, “it maintains a forward-based defense posture”, “it prescribes a set of judicious rules for when to wage wars”, and “it calls for American leadership.”

But the devil is in the details.  It seems to me that this selective engagement has been going on for decades.  President after president, Republican or Democrat, has had a set of fundamental goals, has thought that region after region was consequential, has had “defensive” forces all over the world, has thought his rules for war were correct, and of course, has insisted on being first among “equals”.

In both “The Limits of Power” and “Washington Rules”, Bacevich examines the consequences of strategies like Art proposes.  We have moved to an imperial presidency where the President not only does his best to ignore Congress in “power projection” but ignores the military and diplomatic departments and huddles with his “Wise Men”.  Kennedy did it in the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Bush did it with Afghanistan and Iraq.  Obama is doing it with drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  And often the President doesn’t understand that he, the unelected “leader of the free world” is being manipulated by his “Wise Men”–McNamara, Cheney, and so on.  Bacevich writes about Kennedy’s team, "With the certainty of men unacquainted with the actual use of power, they did not doubt their ability to compel war to do their bidding."  This could apply to just about every inner circle since.
Bacevich sees U.S. leaders having a credo backed up by a “sacred trinity”.

Credo: “The United States—and the United States alone—to lead, save, liberate, and ultimately transform the world.”

Sacred trinity: "an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism”.

Bacevich suggests an alternate credo: “America's purpose is to be America, striving to fulfill the aspirations expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as reinterpreted with the passage of time and in light of hard-earned experience.”

He proposes a new trinity:

“First, the purpose of the U.S. military is not to combat evil or remake the world, but to defend the United States and its most vital interests.”

“Second, the primary duty station of the American soldier is in America.”

“Third, consistent with the Just War tradition, the United States should employ force only as a last resort and only in self-defense.”

Bacevich quotes Reinhold Niebuhr frequently:
“[H]e warned that what he called ‘our dreams of managing history’–born of a peculiar combination of arrogance and narcissism–posed a potentially mortal threat to the United States.”  “The Irony of American History”, 1952

Niebuhr predates Pete Seeger who said it more simply, “When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn.”

GOP, Make up your mind: Is Government too big or not?

Many in the Republican Party constantly complain that government is too big and inefficient.  On the other hand they want to make the military bigger and bigger, they want increased surveillance of just about anybody, and they want to keep far too many state secrets.

Please make up your mind.  Are we going to have a government that is responsive to people and not corporations?  Or are we going to have a secret government that is responsive to large corporations and ignores the people?

Actions speak louder than words, and news story after news story indicates that corporations and secrecy are more important than open government and people.

Export cones, not drones

Once upon a time, Yemen had rich areas for growing grapes, pomegranates, oranges, and the famed Yemeni coffee.  Then came oil in Saudi Arabia and Yemeni men flocked there for work.  The women cut trees for firewood and the terraces eroded for lack of maintenance.  Water which once could be found at 60 meters is not found until 850 meters or more.  Now Yemenis fight over water.  See "Postcard from Yemen", Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 2013-05-08.

"Trees have the deepest system of root in soil. They evaporate water from sometimes 50 meters deep level of soil. It increase humidity in air and probabilities of rains, dew-sources of water."  Comment by mioffe2000 in response to "Postcard from Yemen".

This comment got me thinking about "The Man Who Planted Trees" about a shepherd who planted acorns over a wide area that had been deforested by charcoal burners.  The land was dry and suitable only for grazing sheep.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Planted_Trees, the story is a work of fiction.  However, people all over the world have planted millions of trees in many countries to stop desertification and alleviate global warming.  This article mentions a few of these projects.

What would the effect be on world peace if the U.S. exported cones instead of drones to some of the trouble spots of the world.  Well, not exactly cones because evergreens are not suitable for many areas.  Actually, for a small fraction of the military budget, the U.S. could send teams to plant trees of any size, from seeds to semi-mature trees a few meters tall.   It would take a few years to bring better rainfall back to areas where water is scarce.  More available water would reduce tensions among various groups and go a long way to reducing the hold terrorists have on some areas.

Why snail research is important

On a Bill Maher show, "Stephen Moore, libertarian economist and Wall Street Journal columnist" kept pounding away that we must reduce the debt and one way to do that is to cut funding for science grants, like $2 million for snail mating research.  "19-year-old Zack Kopplin, science advocate and history student" retorted that government-sponsored science often gives far better returns than many investments.  He gave as an example that the government investment in genome research paid back 140 times the investment.  See "College Kid Forced To Remind Know-It-All Economist That He's Actually Not A Scientist".

Warning: this segment deteriorates into a shouting match!

I might add, would we be reading these stories if the government hadn't invested in the Internet decades ago?  Would we have had Google if the government hadn't given a California university a grant to study search algorithms?

About the snail mating research, "it's to prevent children in developing countries from getting parasitic worms…"  Why should we protect these children from parasitic worms?  Parasites increase poverty.  Poverty leads to corruption.  Corruption leads to terrorism.  Two million dollars is a much better investment to prevent terrorism than two hundred million dollars and rising per F-35, a plane that still has many problems.

Nanny state or bully state

Have you noticed that many who complain about the U.S. becoming a nanny state seem to want the U.S. to be a bully state?

They complain about seat belt and helmet laws, want to do away with food safety regulations, and feel their rights have been trampled when they are stopped for a traffic violation.

On the other hand, some of these same people want every one to support any war the U.S. engages in, including having others do the actual fighting; they support the death penalty without any consideration of the fairness of the trial; and they want long prison terms for those who do things they don't like.

If the United States were a Christian nation…

…it would follow the "second greatest commandment", "do unto others as you would have them do to you."

We do not want other countries invading us.
We do not want other countries assassinating our leaders.
We do not want other countries stationing troops in our country.
We do not want other countries dictating our choice of leaders.
We do not want other countries to have nuclear weapons.
We do not want other countries having bigger or more powerful militaries than we do.

And then there is, "for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword".

We can only be considered a peace-loving nation when the State Department has a bigger budget than the War Department.

Why state secession is a bad idea

Several petitions are under way for various states to secede from the Union.

Be careful what you ask for.

What the proponents of secession ignore is that the United States is and has always been a country with a mobile population.  Not only was the United States started by people who moved from other countries or their descendants, but these people kept moving west, often overrunning people already there.  In the Twentieth Century people moved in almost every direction.  Small town people went to the big city.  People moved from one city to another to seek different opportunities.  Corporations moved people from state to state for many reasons.  I myself have lived in three states and my wife in six.

If a state were to secede, what would they do about "immigration"?  Would business people from other states need a passport to do business in the independent state?  Would tourists need a passport?  If no passport were required, what would the independent state do about "illegal immigration".

What about people in the seceded state?  Would they need passports to work or vacation in other states?

What about all the wars that the United States has been involved in?  Would seceded states continue these wars?  Often the states with secessionist movements have a significant portion of their populations who are bellicose.  If the seceded states were involved in their own foreign wars, would they drag the United States into their wars?

Speaking of war, wasn't it a Republican who led a war against states seceding from the union?  Isn't it ironic that some of the major proponents of secession call themselves Republicans?  Did Lincoln "die in vain"?

Citizens or soldiers, which do we want?

Many talk about the National Guard being citizen soldiers.  Unfortunately, many consider those who become soldiers to no longer be citizens.  That is, once a person becomes a soldier that person is to become an automaton, blindly following orders without dissent.

However, if we are to be a democracy, all must question authority, whether in the military or not.

Our history is full of incidents questioning the decisions of those above in the chain of command, from the Revolution to the Philipines takeover to Bradley Manning.  Sometimes it is only because a higher officer has ignored custom; sometimes it is because the generals or the politicians are lying about the purposes or results of a war.

These situations can also show the fallacy of casting issues as conservative or liberal.

See "Revolt in the Ranks: Dissent in the armed forces is a patriotic tradition", Chris Bray, The American Conservative, 2012-06-12, republished in Utne Reader, Nov.-Dec 2012

Will U.S. be the Soviet Union of the 21st Century?

Is the United States moving towards

A single contradictory ideology
Seeing threats everywhere
Giving a large portion of its resources to military
Meddling in other countries' affairs
Being ruled by an oligarchy with sham elections

Or maybe it will become like today's China, building with few environmental considerations, obsessed with security and squashing dissent, and giving sweeping power to large organizations?

I do wish the U.S. would develop a party with enough confidence to stand up to the pseudo-conservatives who are driving most of the political "discussion".

The people know best how to spend their own money! Really?

Yes, we know how to spend our money on food, shelter, and entertainment, but do we know how to spend our money on infra-structure, police and fire, military, regulatory agencies, foreign policy, and basic research?

"Know best how to spend our own money" has been a mantra of the anti-tax, anti-government crowd as if government is just a sinkhole giving money away for no purpose.  They completely ignore that taxes pay for our roads, our sewers, and many other physical features of a civil society.  They ignore that without regulatory agencies a power company could change its rates willy-nilly without warning.  They ignore that without a military, there would be nobody to fight the wars that they claim we should get into.  They ignore that without the basic research into atomic energy that we would not have the nuclear energy that taxes have heavily subsidized.  And if they found this page with Google, they should thank the National Science Foundation, DARPA, and NASA for the grant to Stanford University in 1994 that made Google possible.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation and many other pages.