Saturday, November 7, 2015

On ISIS, Vietnam and the Military Industrial Complex

Right now, most conservatives truly believe that ISIS, and Islamic jihadists in general, are the greatest threat to American security on the globe.  That is total hogwash.  

Now, does that mean that I don't believe Islamic jihadists are dangerous?  No, I think they're dangerous, just like the communists in Vietnam were dangerous.  Are they 'greatest threat to American security on the globe, engage the entire US war machine' dangerous?  No way.  They are a localized threat to a distant region.  (At least that's all they would be if we left it alone!)  

In Vietnam, we were told by the American military propaganda machine that a failure to engage the communists would have a 'domino effect' - that communism would spread throughout the globe and that freedom everywhere would disappear.  Of course the only way to fight such an evil was with a limited, protracted military engagement that could never realistically be won but was guaranteed to keep the money flowing into corporate coffers.  (Sound familiar?)  And what good did it do?  Not a dang bit.  Saigon fell, we got the heck out, the communists took over and now we have trade and travel between our nations.  

Wait...  What?  

Yep, that's right, the domino effect was a lie.  After Saigon fell and the communists took over, their attempts to imprison the entire nation failed and eventually borders were opened and trade with Western nations was allowed.  And, just like the domino effect, the Islamic jihadist scare is also a lie.  You see, every totalitarian regime will eventually collapse under its own weight.  This is because it is impossible to enslave an entire population.  The average Vietnamese citizen was not a die-hard communist, just like the average Muslim is not a fanatical jihadist.  These are just people.  People with families, businesses, hopes and dreams.  In other words, they're just like us.  And if we, as a people, would rise up, dismantle the Military Industrial Complex, stop the senseless military engagements, bring the troops home and try something like, oh I don't know, free trade, we might just find that the average middle easterner would throw off the shackles the jihadists are trying to impose on them, and that political ideology would collapse under its own weight as well.

Monday, October 5, 2015

On the UCC shooting, gun control, and good and evil

Driving home from work the day after the UCC shooting, I heard local sports radio personality Jason Scukanec talking about the shooting and his reaction to it. He said that he was "tired of this happening" and that it made him want to "get rid of all of his guns". As a second amendment guy, my initial reaction was negative, but as I thought about it, I realized that his was a normal reaction for a good person to have to such a senseless, violent act. Good people do that, they see a problem and want to do something about it, even if it means personal sacrifice. Good people give and sacrifice for the good of others.

But that's not what bad people do. Bad people take. They take from others for their own ends, with no thought of the harm they are doing. That's the way of the world: there are good people and bad people - givers and takers - and even if all of the good people in the world threw all of their guns into the sea, it would not stop one bad person from continuing to use guns to take lives from others. The two actions are mutually exclusive.

Then I realized... we don't need to ban guns, we need to ban evil. If only there was a way, I thought, to gather all of the bad people up and send them off someplace where they could never interact with the good people again. That's what we need! Then it occurred to me, isn't that what heaven and hell are all about?