Re: If Kerry is elected...

From: Mark Fergerson (nunya_at_biz.ness)
Date: 10/20/04 

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 10:08:50 -0700

Rich Grise wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 09:55:06 -0700, Mark Fergerson wrote:

>> > OK. You're my Secretary of Defense.
>>
>> Fine. Do I get to put a CIWS on the front of my house for
>>drive-by control?

> I don't know what a CIWS is, but if you can afford one, why not?

http://navysite.de/weapons/phalanx.htm

   I'd have to modify the targeting loop; rather than trying
to shoot down incoming bullets, it'd aim at the source of them.

   I'd also substitute lead for the U slugs; after all, most
drive-by's aren't all that well armored.

> The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, after all.

   As I see it, the "assault weapon" ban is particularly
stupid, since they also make dandy _anti_ assault weapons.
Yes, I've lived in some very rough neighborhoods.

>> >> Unilateral disarmament doesn't make you "peaceful", it
>>makes you a "corpse".
>>
>> > By whose hand, today? And which corpse? Who's going to
>>start trying to kill 250,000,000 Americans? And how long
>>would they
>> > get away with it, even if we didn't have soldiers stationed
>> > in Afghanistan?
>>
>> By anybody with an axe to grind, or delusions of world
>>conquest. You asked "how long would they get away with it?".
>>As long as they wanted to, since your first three points
>>leave no _defensive_ capabilities at all.

> And exactly what are the mechanics of this invasion? Do they come
> in LA? San Francisco? Miami? New York? Do they just walk ashore in
> South Carolina and Georgia?

   All the above, and across the Mexican and Canadian
borders as well.

> And how many troops are there? When
> they come marching into your neighborhood, don't you think anybody
> at all will be shooting at them? Or are you an antigun nut who wants
> everybody in America unarmed and defenseless?

   If I want a CIWS on my front porch, I'm hardly anti-gun.
  If I planned to live in a coastal site under your original
set of rules, I'd want some medium artillery so I could do
my part in defending the coast. You didn't allow for a Coast
Guard, you see.

   The problem with defense isn't so much firepower, but
threat identification and defense technique selection. You
_are_ aware of the "experiment" done by two college students
demonstrating how easy it was to carry a pair of fifty-pound
backpacks across the Mexican border without detection by our
current pathetically limited Border Patrol? Got any idea
what those backpacks could hold?

   I do, and it scares the hell out of me. It also scares
the hell out of ranchers who live in the "walk-through" zone
and get illegals coming through their properties every day.
It's bad enough that the ranchers occasionally perform
"citizens' arrest" and hold them for the INS, but they've
been known to shoot at the poor bastards trying to escape
Mexico. If they get the idea that there are non-Mexicans
carrying WMDs hiding among the real economic refugees, they
might shoot them all just in case.

   Without a Border Patrol (which you also didn't allow for)
it'll only get worse; the violence would simply escalate as
the innocent refugees started carrying weapons which they
currently don't.

   Of course, the long-term solution isn't militarization of
our border, but economic growth in Mexico so the locals
don't want to leave. That means either hoping that they
eventually become enlightened as per below while defending
ourselves in the meantime, or trying to export
enlightenment, generating complaints of "cultural warfare".

   Let me clarify a few things here. I'm neither a warhawk
nor an extreme pacifist. I studied Martial Arts because I
got tired of being beat up (typical skinny kid) and settled
on Aikido. It's _designed_ to be the perfect unarmed
hand-to-hand defensive system; it has no attack forms
(though it involves staff and sword training so you know how
to defend against them), and those proficient can put down
anyone armed with any weapon that does not leave the hand
_only if_ they choose to attack. For those otherwise armed I
went to the trouble of becoming competent with firearms.

   The only problem with part-time citizen soldiers is the
total lack of organization. An organized invader would walk
all over them; a _minimum_ of organized professionals are
necessary in the face of organized invasion.

   I envision a National Defense following the philosophy of
Aikido; it will quickly become obvious that we aren't
interested in conquest, but at the same time are unconquerable.

   Sun Tzu showed that you don't need overwhelming
superiority to fend off invaders; you just need to be
smarter and faster. Most modern armies are founded on the
thinking of Von Clausewitz, who was what I'd call an
"overwhelmist". They soak up way too many National resources
and cause others to do the same from fear.

   Mind you most of my opinions come from my experience in
the U.S. Air Force; I saw a lot of things wrong with it, but
also a lot of things it did right. I just want to minimize
the former while keeping the latter.

> Has somebody come up with neighborhood guerilla-fighting tactics
> that work better than what the US is doing to Iraq?

   Sure, seige tactics; starve 'em out. But there're two
problems with that. First, the violent types will hoard all
the consumables, doing the most harm to the nonviolent ones
also trapped inside. Second, in today's "I want it now"
world, it takes too long.

   Did I ever relate the parable of the Mexican hotel? A
salesman checks into a Mexican hotel that has no window
screens or air conditioning. He complains to the desk clerk
about the flies keeping him awake. Desk clerk says "Sorry,
that's why we're so inexpensive". Salesman comes down the
next morning looking chipper and clerk asks how he slept.
Salesman says "Great, after I bunched the flies". Clerk asks
what he means by "bunched". Salesman says "I took a dump in
the corner, and the flies left me alone".

   ISTM that Iraq is being used as a "bunching ground" for
terrorists of other nationalities. It would have worked
better if we could have gotten the civvies to safety first,
but no plan is perfekt.

>> >> 9. Eliminate local funding of school districts; since
>>they have to
>> >> conform with Federal guidelines, support all of them
>>equally from
>> >> Federal funds. Replace the Department of Education with one
>> >> ninety-year-old schoomarm.
>>
>> > No, no, no! Get rid of "federal guidelines" that
>>interfere with local
>> > issues! Lording it over people, telling them how they
>>should/must run
>> > their lives, is the entire cause of all the problems
>>there have ever
>> > been!
>>
>> Competence in English, math, and other fundamentals are
>>not local issues. Would you prefer that schools in L.A.
>>teach Ebonics instead of Standard English? The country's
>>fragmented enough as it is.

> Standards, sure, like the NBS. And I think most people with
> common sense will educate their kids sufficiently one way or
> the other. And who cares about being "fragmented?" What does
> that mean anyway? Where do you draw the line between "fragmented"
> and "marching in lockstep"? This is supposed to be a country
> of individuals, each running their own life, interacting with
> each other from enlightened self-interest.

   Drawing that line is the real sticking point. A start
will be to recognize that the more knowledge you have, the
less hardware you need.

   What do I mean by "fragmented"? I mean that we need a
common level of language/math/etc. competence, just as we
need common traffic rules. What we do not need is a common
habit of following "leaders" because they have a line of
bull*** plausible to the undereducated. We need the ability
in common to see through bull***.

> Unfortunately, for enlightened self-interest to work, the self-
> interested parties need to actually _be_ enlightened. :-)

   Exactly. And how do they _get_ enlightened if the local
schools can't afford to get past Spot 'n' Jane? For
starters, formal logic ought to be taught in kindergarten,
and Constitutional fundamentals immediately thereafter.

>> > No government has _any_ business telling people how to
>>school their
>> > children. Communities used to get together and build
>>schools for their own kids, and parents saw to it that the
>>kids learned stuff.
>>
>> I don't give a *** what was adequate for farmers who
>>didn't need any education beyond "See Spot *** Jane". This
>>is an enormously more complicated world.

> People recognize that, and don't need nanny government making
> their decisions for them. People who aren't taxed into starvation
> can take care of their own quite well, thank yoiu very much -
> and it _is_ within enlightened self-interest to raise kids
> who can make a lot of money to take care of you in your dotage.

   A lot of less-than-enlightened people want to pretend it
isn't though. Not just the "Religious Right", either; look
at the Radical Greens who want us to live like gorillas!

>> > These days, kids are just a prop for some bimbo to
>>swindle a meal
>> > ticket out of some rich sucker, and are shuttled off as
>>soon as
>> > possible to the consumer factories. Big Brother likes it when
>> > everybody marches in lockstep.
>>
>> *** Big Bro _and_ Littler Bros. I'm talking about giving
>>kids the tools to make up their own damn minds.

> Then get government out of the education business immediately!

   That's part of the problem, that it's seen as a business.

> All they do is push propaganda.

   Then stop doing that, by which I mean remove all such
questionable philosophical components. Those can be left to
privately-funded Universities. I suppose I could have
mentioned that in my view Government ought to run K-6
period, and anything more should be left to private
Universities and industry-supported trade schools.

>>That's
>>simply impossible in a locally-funded school in Podunk
>>Arkansas because the local asholes will want to keep them
>>stupid enough to work in Bubba's coal mine.

> If that's what their parents want for them, nobody has any
> right to use coercion on them to get them to change their ways.

   Then their kids are doomed to be as stupid and easily
controlled as they are. I don't know about you, but I prefer
smarter neighbors.

> That's not what America was supposed to be for.

   Exactly. It was supposed to be a place free from _any_
form of coercion, and coercion by stupidification is the
absolute worst kind.

>> >> 10. Open all ex-Federal lands to homesteading.
>>
>> > Yeah - hey, wanna do Department of the Interior too? :-)
>>
>> Gee, will my Defense job leave enough free time? Oh,
>>wait; sure, as I'm the laziest *** I know.

> Well, since America won't be the bull in the china shop knocking
> over everygthing in sight and pissing off every extremist religious
> group on the planet, there won't be anythig to defend from!

   Except those that aren't nearly as enlightened as we
hopefully become, and do to us what happened to Tibet.

> Hmm. How about a culture committee?
>
> George Carlin - president
> Peewee Herman - Secretary
> Steve Martin, Chevy Chase - masters-at-arms
> Janean Garafolo - White House Liaison -- no, wait a minute, I'm
> going to be in the white house. Laura Kightlinger for liaison.
>
> Suggestions, anyone?

   The more balloon-busting standup philosophers, the better.

   Mark L. Fergerson