OT - Jimmy Carter - energy visionary

Reply from: Les Cargill

Date: 16 May 2008, 23:20

Re: OT - Jimmy Carter - energy visionary

DGDevin wrote:
> Les Cargill wrote:
>
>>> Is it an infringement of your rights to be called for jury duty?
>> For six years? Even two? For what? Gimme a buck. Now gimme
>> a million bucks. Hey, there's a difference, isn't there?
>
> Oh, so it's the duration that bothers you, you don't object to helping out
> just so long as it doesn't seriously inconvenience you.
>

Yup. Emphasis on "seriously". The draft was always full of
holes, anyway - you could guy your way out, get a deferment...
Cheney, Rumsfeld, et all never served.

ObDisclosure: I did not either. I was gonna, but at the time, it
was not clear to me exactly how I could help. 1985, fresh graduate,
talked to a Navy recruiter, talked to my Dad, decided not to.

I thought about that a *long* time. Dang near did it. My Dad really
talked me out of it. I don't groupthink very well - it would
have been a problem. And I wanted to raise my kid. In 1985, the
military was in semi-poor shape. They needed True Believers. Had I known
Gulf War I was on the horizon...

>> Do you have any idea just how massive and complete an error
>> was committed by the United States in participating in WWI,
>> leading to WWII, leading to... now?
>
> No idea, because that's a basket of moonbeams, neither you nor anyone else
> can say with confidence what would have happened if America had not entered
> the war. If you wanna play "What if?' you've come to the wrong place.
>

There is some truth to that, but the more I read about it,
the stronger the sense that that was a serious mistake comes on.

>> Yes. "Duty" is the word people use before they sacrifice you to a
>> volcano. "But it's your *duty* to go."
>
> Did you by any chance have a male ancestor who dressed in woman's clothing
> to sneak onto a lifeboat as the Titanic sank?
>

No. Cute, but irrelevant. It's about people deciding for themselves.

>> When you understand that false dichotomy, you will have learned.
>
> In other words you have no answer.
>

That was my answer. You drew to a false dichotomy. Military service
isn't altruism. It's a way to make a living, albeit one that allows
the participant to partake a little higher on the hog in
terms of abstract ideas of service. It's still organized on a basis of
self-interest

>> Look at the budget. Other than Social Security, military service
>> is *the* largest single subsidy in the United States. It is
>> the most direct transfer of funds available.
>
> Believe it or not but the value of many things cannot be determined only in
> financial terms. Every kid who gains social and economic skills doing
> national service (or whatever you want to call it) is one less kid who will
> end up in jail after a criminal career, one less kid on welfare. Can you
> calculate what that might be worth even just in financial terms much less in
> social terms? It won't work for everyone, but it's sure worth a shot given
> what clearly is not working now.
>

People say that. Yup. They do say that. Ever hear of "put your money
where your mouth is"? "Everybody lies." - House.

>> People *want* to serve. And they do. We are not a tribe, and
>> we don't need anything as primitive as a rite of membership
>> of the sort tribes use. We are, allegedly, people held together
>> by adherence to principles grounded in reason.
>
> What color was the sky when you woke up this morning, I'm trying to get a
> handle on what planet you're posting from. We don't need rites of
> membership? Since when?

Since... now? And forever?

> Name a society that doesn't have them.

All societies past a tribal level. There may be some vestigal thing,
like a bar mitzvah. but it's largely symbolic.

> Besides,
> wherever you live, within driving range are plenty of people who couldn't
> tell you the name of the Sec. of State, who have never read a newspaper, who
> have never voted, whose employment prospects range from grim to poor and so
> on--do you seriously expect these people to participate on the basis of
> their understanding of civics, as if their idea of a good time is a rousing
> round-table discussion of the Federalist Papers over cappuccino and
> biscotti?
>

Welcome to Democracy....

>> It is to be noted equally that, under the Powell Doctrine,
>> the United States military has *roundly* rejected anything
>> like national service, and in terms of its own best interest.
>> Forcing people to serve makes shabby their contribution.
>
> So career officers who knew what the govt. wanted to hear have delivered
> exactly that, very impressive.
>

Not according to the talks I have heard from officers
and from Wesley Clark.

>> Among my family are two retired commander-level Naval officers. Both
>> adamantly oppose the draft, and for reasons they could go on about for
>> at least eight hours each.
>
> I had two uncles who were both captains, shall I relay their thoughts and
> feelings since family anecdotes are suddenly so persuasive? You're also
> overlooking that I suggested various forms of service, most of them of a
> civilian nature. It wouldn't be too hard to use many of them as educational
> tools, providing those giving service with on the job training that would
> keep them employed in future. If some kid from Bumfuque, Arkansas can do
> two years of national service and come out of it with sellable job training,

ROFL. I did CETA after high school. Shakin' the tree, boss. Literally.
Running a weed hook on a county road. Good exercise, though - I got
pretty buff...

> where exactly is the downside of that? However I admit that the notion of
> the children of privilege planting trees or pushing around wheelchairs in a
> VA hospital is also kind of attractive, there might be some real valuable
> life lessons there as well.
>

I keep thinking of the prison farm system in ... say, Georgia,
over the last hundred-fifty years. Some people were just there as
"vagrant" - that was "welfare" pre-FDR.

Shakin' the tree, boss...

> Okay, they were captains in the fire dept., I couldn't keep a straight face
> on that one any longer.
>
>

DALMATIONS GET HIP DISPLAYSIA! Just run yer Lab in the washer with some
bleach instead.

--
Les Cargill