Posts Tagged military

Memorial Day Thoughts

Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Government and Law on May 31st, 2010

My blog reader today is full of people thanking the troops. Call me a cynic, but any validity that the sentiment has for me is dulled by the feeling that I’m not getting both sides of the story.

How does one even begin to honor and thank those that are willing to sacrifice their lives for their country…my country.

Let’s start with the idea that this is “my country” and these are “my troops.” This language of unification stifles dissent by making us internalize the idea that we are each individually morally responsible for the actions of our elected officials, even if we disagree with those actions. If this is “my country” and these are “my troops,” then I have to overcome significant cognitive dissonance in order to believe that the things they are doing are morally wrong.

How do you show sufficient gratitude to those that protect my family… all the while being away from theirs?

Are they protecting your family? From what? Only in the most vague and indirect sense are the military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan protecting us from a foreign threat. The more I examine the political and military history of the U.S., the more I conclude that our military actions have historically been just as much, if not more, about securing foreign resources and economic interests for the U.S., as they have been about protecting us from a foreign threat. This is not conjecture. History is full of quotes from politicians and business-people drooling over the natural resources they’ll have access to once a certain military action is complete.

How can I possibly say thanks to those that have actually laid down their lives for me and my children… while leaving their children without a father or mother?

Did they lay down their lives “for me”? I didn’t send them to war. I say, “bring them home!” I say, “I don’t support the things you are dying for, and would like you to get the hell out of harm’s way so you can stop dying!” But the way our political system works is that the voice of those who disagree is ignored, and they are still held morally responsible for the actions of those in power. And if I say, “They didn’t die for me,” I’m branded a traitor and a subversive.

Are there words big enough to convey the deep and abiding respect I have for our military men and women?

Probably not.

But in my own simple and humble way I just want to say…

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I’m thankful to those who sacrifice for me, but I’m scornful of those who send others to sacrifice for their own economic and political ends, and then who tell me it’s all for my own good. This Memorial Day, I will pay my respect to the military personnel who died for a noble cause, if you can find me one. Otherwise, I will mourn for those who died in service of a lie: that they were proud warriors protecting their country from evil, when in fact, they were proud warriors, being sent to die in the service of the all-mighty GDP.

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“The war on drugs” – More than just a metaphor

Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Consensual Crimes, Government and Law on May 13th, 2009

“The war on drugs.” Let’s look at that phrase.

Wikipedia says, “The word ‘war’ is used to invoke a state of emergency, although the target and methods of the campaign are largely unlike that of a regular war.” It may have been true at one time that the “war” on drugs was largely metaphorical, like the previous “War on Poverty,” but words have power, and this war has become deadly literal. More and more police departments are acquiring military equipment and adopting military-style tactics and attitude.

The image below shows sheriff Leon Lott, from Richmond County, South Carolina, posing with some of his officers in front of the armored personnel carrier they just purchased. You tell me: do these look like police officers or military personnel? Read the rest of this entry »

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“Support our troops” = Military fetish?

Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Government and Law on May 8th, 2009

I recently received this in an email from my Senator:

“In a time when our society looks to the tabloids and the entertainment industry for their heroes. I would adamantly argue that the true heroes in our society are the ones we are recognizing this morning, who have volunteered their lives to serve our country. They are the ones who deserve our respect, our honor, and our prayers.”

The “support our troops” rhetoric abounds. It even has its own web site. Here’s my question: what is it about military personnel that makes them so dramatically worthy of recognition?

Read the rest of this entry »

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Outsourcing my violence

Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Government and Law, Self-Defense on February 17th, 2009

One of the arguments against gun ownership goes something like this: “Given that we have the police and the military to protect us, why do non-police and non-military citizens need guns?” I have several answers to that question, but here is the one that I feel most viscerally.

The fundamental role of the police and the military is to do violence, or to use the potential to do violence, to accomplish societal and political ends, such as the reduction of crime or defending the country against an invading military force. I believe that it is immoral to expect another person to do violence on my behalf if I am capable of, but not willing to do that violence myself.

Ultimately, one thing that keeps me “safe” from crime is acts of violence or the threat of such acts against criminals and potential criminals. In as much as I reap the benefits of that safety, I feel morally obligated to participate in creating that safety. Since guns are an effective means of doing that, I want access to them. I am capable of defending myself. If I were to rely solely on others to keep me safe, I would feel like I was leeching off the system and not living up to my personal standards for how I want to contribute to society.

Putting violence exclusively in the hands of the government has practical down-sides as well. Very few of us are currently directly involved in the creation of our own food. In keeping with the specialization that occurs in large civilizations, we have outsourced the creation of food to a few of us. This means that there is a vast distance between the production of the food and its consumption. Because we are disconnected from and unaware of the processes that produce our food, those processes can evolve in a direction that we would not tolerate if we were more aware of them. We end up eating food that is worse for us, or that destroys the environment in its production. By putting guns exclusively in the hands of the government, we would be doing the same thing for the ability to do violence, with similarly disastrous results.

The food production analogy is not perfect. If I don’t like the way that food is produced, I can grow my own. But giving guns exclusively to the government would be like saying, “Only the government can give you food. You can’t have a backyard garden. You can’t raise a pig and slaughter it yourself. You are not allowed to own hoes and rakes and seeds.” For a government to deny its citizens one of the most fundamental human rights–the right to feed themselves–would be inhumane. The right to effectively defend one’s self, with violence if necessary, is no less a fundamental human right, and it is no less inhumane for a government to deny its citizens access to firearms.

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