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- Will Folks (NOT a terrorist)
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- Khalid el-Bakraoui, alleged terrorist
To review the rules — this not being a Virtual Front Page, it is not intended as a complete summary of the most important news of the moment. It’s just stuff I think might be interesting to talk about — or that I think you might find interesting:
- The Outsize Role of Brothers in Terror Plots — The two dead Brussels bombers have been identified as brothers — one of whom, if you’ll allow me a wildly irrelevant digression, looked weirdly like Will Folks (see above) — and The New York Times examines this pattern of brothers doing such things.
- Obama rejects calls for change in strategy against Islamic State – At least on one level, I’m with POTUS on this. It’s ridiculous to say that because a terrorist attack occurs, an overall military strategy is a failure. It was grossly unfair several years back for Bud to keep claiming that the Surge didn’t work in Iraq because there were still terrorist attacks, and it’s unfair to say Brussels proves the Obama Doctrine isn’t working today. As long as there are people insane enough to blow themselves up to make a political point, it will still sometimes happen, even if your strategy is ideal. No, I’d go more by who is controlling what parts of Iraq and Syria to judge the efficacy of the president’s approach. But his position will become increasingly untenable if he keeps telling his staff about how many people fall in bathtubs in the U.S. And he needs to recognize that there is a lot of room for maneuver between his strategy and “carpet-bombing.”
- Richland Sheriff’s Department now has three mobile gizmos — They may not be as awesome as having a tank (technically, an armored personnel carrier), but they look like they might be a lot more useful in the everyday business of law enforcement.
- Religious groups take on government in supreme court battle over contraception — You know, whatever the ins and outs and legal fine points, you’re going to have a really uphill battle ever convincing me that the big ol’ government trying to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to do something that violates their consciences is a good thing. If nothing else, from a PR standpoint, it casts our system in a terrible light. It makes the federal government look like the kind of overbearing bully that my libertarian friends think it is. If only the order was named something else, like “Big, Mean Nuns Who Whack You on the Knuckles with a Ruler.”
Related Posts
This is pretty simple really. We had lots of terrorist attacks since the surge therefore it failed. What’s unfair about that obvious observation? There was a very measurable cost to the surge with no benefits. Case closed.
Same story with the drones: big cost, no benefits. Time to stop the drones.
Bud, Obama’s decision to escalate the use drones (which he announced well before the start of his first term) was not based upon the cost of drone munitions and fuel, but by the avoidance of political liability for the alternative … using ground forces to decapitate enemy leadership. How has that tradeoff worked out, in your opinion?
My favorite part of the Presidents remarks on ISIS is that he states once again that ISIS is not an “existential threat” to the country, by which he means it cannot kill every single person in the country and destroy the nation.
So, take comfort in that. Only some of us will be indiscriminately killed or maimed.
So…I guess…don’t worry. They’re not an existential threat. Just kick back, y’all. Take the rest of the week off. Maybe catch a ball game. Don’t trouble yourselves.
Here’s a digression…
It seems to me that when I was in school, “existential” meant something specific that was NOT about living and dying. It had to do with a certain attitude toward life in this here universe. It was about the ideas of Dostoevsky, Satre, R.D. Laing and so on. (I was into existential psychology for awhile, and I thought it made me very cool.)
When did it become about whether one’s actual existence was threatened? Seems to me that happened sometime in the last 20 years or so, and now it’s pretty much accepted without question.
It makes SENSE for it to mean that, of course. But I seem to remember being told in school that if you used it that way, you were using it wrong…
I think it’s always meant “relating to one’s existence”. But yeah, I get your point that the word has been primarily used in the context of philosophy. I guess that’s a feature of having such a philosophical and wise POTUS, eh?
Speaking of which…
This usage seems most popular among folks on the Left since 9/11. It’s usually used in the context of, “Terrorism does not present an existential threat to the nation the way Hitler did; our responses should be more measured and restrained, treating it as discrete crimes rather than ‘war.'” The “falls in bathtubs” crowd, if you will.
Not that others haven’t used it that way; I’ve just heard it most within that context.
Forgive me another digression…
Hitler didn’t present an “existential” threat in that sense to THIS country, although he did to Russia. We’d live in a worse world if we had failed to fight him to unconditional surrender, but the United States would likely still exist.
On the other hand, Hitler DID do a lot to affect the careers of some leading existentialists…
I mean, 9/11 wasn’t an “existential” threat to us either, right? I mean, they didn’t kill everyone in the US on 9/11, and we’re still here as a country.
Let’s hypothetically say that there was a 9/11 event tomorrow — say, ISIS detonated a bomb in Indianapolis during a final four game and killed a couple hundred people and wounded that times three. Does anyone here think Obama would do anything different? I mean, that’s not an existential threat to the USA. We’re still chugging along. Not everyone is dead.
Would we all here be okay with the President coming out and saying how sad it is…etc. etc., and then saying but look, ISIS isn’t an existential threat, so we’re not going to change what we’re doing because we’re not going to give into fear.
Also, what in WWI was an existential threat to the US that necessitated US involvement?
What in WWII? Pearl Harbor? Was Pearl Harbor an existential threat? I’m not really sure it was. Wasn’t it Japan’s intention to essentially neutralize the ability of the US to fight in the Pacific so the Japanese could have a free hand? Did they ever envision invading the mainland of the United States? I’m not sure they did.
In my opinion, the President is being half honest in stating, “ISIS is not an “existential threat to the [transformed] country” that he has envisioned for the U.S.
Brad, confusion about the word “existential” is not without some historical validity.
During my early college years, French authors noted for their”existentialist” philosophy were commonly assigned. Usage of the philosophical term peaked [according to Google’s Ngram] by 1970, and has waned steadily ever since.
On the contrary, usage of the adjective “existential” began ramping upward with Hitler’s rise in the late 1930s and has remained almost at its 1970 peak since then.
#4. They also pay taxes to provide for our federal war machine and to hold and execute prisoners on death row. If they don’t want their consciouses violated they do not have to make personal use of the services offered. Case closed.
The little old nuns have nothing to stand on. And neither do all the other religious zealots who believe their particular brand of nutty must necessarily have a position at the head of the line.
# Not Included in Your List for the Day: Brad, I am surprised you didn’t include the SC Senate voting to create a registry of Muslim refugees. They love themselves some whipping boys… However, a thanks to the six Senators who voted against such nonsense!
Yep, I missed that. Actually, I had thought about it earlier in the day, but by the time I did my scan of the news late in the afternoon, I didn’t run across it and forgot.
Here’s how I do an Open Thread or a VFP…
I open at least six tabs on my browser, and go to the following: The State, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, NPR, BBC, The Washington Post and The Guardian. And I look to see what they’re promoting at that hour. That’s the minimum. Depending on what’s happening and where, I might seek out other sources — say, if something big is happening in Latin America, I might make a point of checking The Miami Herald… although really the British pubs do good job of covering the rest of the Americas (unlike most American outlets).
And of course, I’m monitoring social media off and on all day, and that might take me anywhere.
This is great for getting plugged into the RIGHT NOW, but sometimes it means I miss something that was big in what we once quaintly called the previous cycle — say, 12 hours earlier…
Mark, you are correct.
The Amish, for instance, neither pay into nor collect from Social Security.
To limit newer religions from opting out of the Social Security payroll tax, both prior law and ACA exclusions apply only to sects [Amish included] in existence before 1950.
A countervening Republichan measure “Equitable Access to Care and Health (EACH) Act” was never passed by the U.S. Senate.
” It’s ridiculous to say that because a terrorist attack occurs, an overall military strategy is a failure.”
I heartily agree. Our overall military and diplomatic strategy has been an abject failure ever since Obama decided to lead from (or with his) behind.
It’s not kind for the Little Sisters of the Poor to deprive people who don’t hold the same beliefs they do to the same access to medical care as everyone else does. Would you have a boss who was a Jehovah’s Witness withhold payment for blood transfusions from those employees of his who don’t share his faith? Could an employer who was a Christian Scientist refuse to provide any medical insurance at all?
“Could an employer who was a Christian Scientist refuse to provide any medical insurance at all?”
I would hope so, especially if it was a small business and made it known to potential employees beforehand that there would be no insurance. No business should be forced to provide insurance to any employee when there are options available to everyone to purchase insurance on the open market. If the employer pays a higher salary in lieu of providing insurance, why wouldn’t that be sufficient?
It would be great if companies didn’t provide insurance and adjusted salaries accordingly.
I kind of doubt that the Little Sisters would ever dream of standing between anyone and medical care.
But we have this weird situation in which the other side has defined family planning choices as “medical care” — as absolutely essential medical care, as though it were on a par with cancer treatment.
Which is really, really a stretch. But I’ve been forced to acknowledge that smart, well-meaning people on that side, indoctrinated as they are with their ideology, just do not see just how bizarre it is. I’ve been down that rathole too many times; there is no meeting of the minds. And you get into these bizarre side discussions — I’ll hear, “Well, if you’re going to cover Viagra…” At which point I’m like, “Covering Viagra is insane!” And the idea of the government FORCING a plan to cover it is exponentially more insane…
There are plenty of non-catholic married women out there who, with their husbands, have decided that they do not want, or can’t afford (a)nother child. They can have access to medical contraception or they can take a chance. You’re against abortion???? Here’s a good place to start reducing the perceived need. BTW, if we’re going to refuse medically unnecessary treatment, what say we start with Viagra and other medications along that line.
Without insurance, what is the yearly cost of the contraception method that is being discussed here? Is it less than a meal out at a restaurant once a month? Less than the latest iPhone?
How many women truly cannot afford some form of birth control? And let’s not forget, it’s not “free”, Someone is paying for this benefit through higher premiums.
or they can pay for it out of their pocket. I know – I know- we hate the idea of people having to pay for it themselves.
The horror….
Maybe you missed this development; but the general term used for the past twenty years or so is “Health Insurance”. Because people all over have demanded reasonable coverage for all sorts of things which are not strictly about “medical care”. Like braces, eyeglasses, substance abuse counseling, mental health services and care, fertility treatments, wheelchairs, artificial limbs and the list goes on and on.
Viagra is a false analogy anyway. A better one may be fertility treatments. Isn’t it reasonable to argue that we should all not have to pay serious money to cover expensive treatments for people whom God decided aren’t fit to be biological parents? Shouldn’t we just tell them to move on to adoption – and solve two vexing social problems? If not, why is it not reasonable to respect the health concerns that many people have about not procreating?
We have exactly the situation where The Little Sisters are standing between their employees and the health insurance coverage we as a society have sought as the standard of care.
I think you’re assuming I would say “no” to these questions:
But I wouldn’t. I would answer in the affirmative. I don’t see why we should be compelled to pay for other people to get pregnant any more than to help them keep from getting pregnant.
Private insurers can choose to offer coverage for such things, and people can buy such insurance if they choose and have the means.
But this is about what GOVERNMENT will COMPEL employers to offer.
I think we have a compelling national need to make healthcare accessible — so that people don’t have to die, or be financially ruined, if they get cancer or get seriously injured in a car wreck. Or to help them control their asthma or diabetes so that they can go out and be contributing members of society instead of putting them on welfare or something.
You know, HEALTH care — making sick and injured people well. It’s a HUGE task that is difficult enough on its own.
And I think it’s beyond crazy to go out of our way to precipitate culture clashes over things that do not speak immediately to whether a person is healthy and functioning or not….
Health care is not just about making sick and injured people better in the United States. Prevention is seen as important, as data clearly show prevention is more cost effective than treatment. I will not go down this rabbit hole of debating what can and cannot be defined as preventive medicine; to each is own, but the collective is important.
In regards to birth control, there are many non-medical alternatives. Oh, you want convenience AND limited personal responsibility AND have someone else pay for it? That’s different.
People want convenience and of course- limited or no responsibility for their choices. It’s the new American way.
Non medical means of birth control? You mean what me and my wife have done for 20 years?
You can’t expect regular, run of the mill human beings to do such easy, obvious things.
We have to make everyone else pay for it.
I agree with you on this, Brad. Mark it down. And after seeing that Obamacare has not made healthcare “Affordable” after several years, I am onboard with single payer with one condition: EVERYONE pays the tax and pays the same rate.
This is progress, and I welcome it.
We don’t agree on the everybody pays the same rate — aside from all other considerations, I don’t see what you’re going to do with people who simply don’t have the money (blood from a turnip and all), and I think that’s an insufficient reason not to institute this — but this is excellent progress nevertheless, from my point of view.
Now that Doug’s on board, just a few million more to go…
“don’t have money” is a very specific term in my view that applies to only those people who do not have cellphones, cable tv, eat in restaurants, use alcohol or drugs, etc.
If you have ANY income, your own healthcare should come before those items. Taking a small percentage of it to provide access should be the first priority.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
That’s adorable.
I can’t begin to tell you how many people I see in my practice who have all sorts of expenses you listed above, but no healthcare for either themselves or their children. We’re talking above 50%. The common answer for people with no insurance is “Medicaid”. Keep in mind these are people who are both working parents.
Yeah, and that’s part of the problem. Why buy something when you can get someone else to pay for it? Why worry about cost when there is no cost?
I also am not naive enough to think that a single payer system wouldn’t eventually devolve into two systems – an “okay” single payer system with all the issues that come with that: long wait times for elective surgeries, government officials slow on allowing new treatments/drugs; and then a better system accessible to those with the money to afford better care. Boutique style medical facilities outside the single payer system.
I miss Kathryn being here to chastise us for being men talking about how to deal with women’s reproductive health. I’ll take my white privilege and go now.
Braces usually aren’t covered.
Some plans have a limited benefit of $1,000 for children. Of course that doesn’t come anywhere close to paying for braces for a child.
Some plans don’t cover it at all.
And to Mark’s last words, “coverage we as a society have sought as the standard of care”… I think that’s what we’re discussing at the moment. I don’t see that as a settled matter, no matter how many of my friends believe that all enlightened people are in agreement…
I firmly believe that liberals in this country need to make a choice: Are their Culture War aims so important to them that they would endanger the FAR more laudable and justifiable goal of universal health care in order to achieve them?
What we have here is a failure to pursue reasonable priorities, and to have a sense of perspective and proportion…
If we had universal health care it would (hopefully) include access to birth control. That way no one would have to sign anything to refuse it to those who don’t agree with them. When one considers all the medical risks and care that come up during pregnancy, one can certainly consider birth control preventive medicine.
There is free access to birth control.
My wife and I tried it for the 3 years we dated. Didn’t cost us a penny.
I know- I know- you can’t expect everyone to be responsible – or pay for their own choices.
The Culture War you speak of is a largely settled matter with respect to the questions at issue here. Whether it’s abortion or same-sex marriage, public opinion shows roughly equal acceptance of both (with contraception an even more settled matter.) All that’s left is a rear-guard action being fought by traditionalists and moral dogmatists against cultural change. Perhaps I should add that I say this as someone who married into a Catholic family and whose children have been raised in the Catholic Church. But my Catholic relatives are neither traditionalists nor dogmatists (perhaps because they were born into the church and did not convert to it, since the latter tend toward 150%ism when it comes to church doctrines). They do not believe that the church “knows better” simply because it has considered these questions over centuries. Nor are they willing to accept every bit of claptrap spouted from the pulpit, whether it comes from their local priest or from Rome.
No, the Culture War on the left is not what hinders universal health care in the US. What stands in the way is rather the pseudo-religion of free enterprise and private property espoused on the other side of the political spectrum – in a word “mammonism” – a credo that says, “if you can’t pay for it, you shouldn’t have it.” Other than largely empty shibboleths about “patriotism” and “family values,” this is the only kind of faith left that survives in the Republican Party, and on the political right more generally. Today’s “GOP” would NEVER have freed the slaves, for example, because it has enslaved itself to the “eternal glory” of private property and the “sacredness” of private gain.
“What stands in the way [of universal healthcare] is rather the pseudo-religion of free enterprise and private property espoused on the other side of the political spectrum – in a word ‘mammonism’ – a credo that says, ‘if you can’t pay for it, you shouldn’t have it.‘”
Well.
I guess you can mark me down as a fella who is good with free enterprise and private property. There is no other system in history that improves the lot of the ordinary people more than the free-enterprise system. History is crystal clear on that.
How did Soviet Russia work out for average Russians? Grinding poverty. How is the life of an ordinary Chinese person? Grinding poverty. How is the life of an ordinary Venezuelan? Grinding poverty. How are things in Cuba? Grinding poverty.
The funny thing about the free-market system is that it’s set up to give people what they want — not what a particular group thinks they ought to want.
It looks like Mprince’s credo is: “If you can pay for it, you can pay for it for someone else too!”
Is it our regulated system of free enterprise or could it be our form of government? I agree our country deals with inequality better than most other countries, but there is debate as to the cause. Balance; it’s probably a bit of both.
Our system of free enterprise and private property rights are a result of our form of government.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” (emphasis added)
Stuff Thomas Jefferson Said, Vol. I
82 percent of Americans say they’d be willing to pay “a little more” to buy domestically produced goods to protect workers from foreign imports, according to a new poll by Bloomberg. The figure is another indicator of just how conflicted Americans are when it comes to free trade.
That amazes me. If two items are identical, I am amazed that 82% of people will buy the more expensive one, regardless of the reason.
In don’t see free enterprise mentioned in the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution. I agree there is a correlational connection to our form of government and free enterprise, but not a causal connection.
“I don’t see free enterprise mentioned in the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution.”
It’s in there. It’s spelled “liberty”. 🙂
Must be nice to be able to edit your comments, Bryan!
/brushes dust off shoulders.
Yeah. It is. 🙂
Don’t get a big head now.
Next he’ll be taking off a wetsuit to reveal a tuxedo beneath…
Just a regular ol’ Friday night for me.
Bryan, Adam Smith’s invisible hand of the market and other Enlightenment Era principles of free enterprise inform our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. These documents (or America’s impulses) didn’t spring from whole cloth, however.
The guarantee of private property rights is set forth in our Constitution, but the idea of the desirability of that principle is a long-held human desire – at least in some parts of the world.
Oh, I agree with that 100%. My point was simply that our founders designed our system of government explicitly for those purposes.
I do agree with that.
I would also be good with the idea that we have a baseline standard of preventative and medical care that would be covered under a plan available to everyone. I am not sure sure about the single payer part, however. I would like to see private competition. And that would come in with insurance companies offering a multitude of enhanced policies – also available to anyone who can pay and with some risk profiling.
Selecting that baseline of care would be a monster of a job, though, and would certainly require “death panels”. This would be as true for preemies as it would for those who fall into a coma , etc. as it would for the elderly who are on death’s door. However, I think we can all agree that this would involve such heavy ethical decisions as to make it almost unworkable to draw this line and proclaim everyone else who can’t pay will die more quickly as a result. If single payer were to pay for everything and anything as we have all discussed above, the country will (really) bankrupt itself in no time.
Weighing this need to be draconian as a society with the current situation of morally challenging a few intermediaries; to me it’s easy to see that I would rather continue our currently fairly expansive, and yet still economically limited, coverage regimes, delivered indirectly through employers.
Somewhere in whatever system we follow, there has to be a mechanism which promotes efficiency and controls costs. The free market has proven to be a better model, overall, than government control. I think we can all agree on that.
“Would you have a boss who was a Jehovah’s Witness withhold payment for blood transfusions from those employees of his who don’t share his faith?”
Sure. As long as he lets potential employees know that information ahead of time.
“Could an employer who was a Christian Scientist refuse to provide any medical insurance at all?”
of course, Some employers don’t provide any health insurance. That’s not a new concept.
Those are easy questions. Freedom: It’s pretty cool.
What about vaccinations? The American Academy of Pediatrics, which represents roughly 64,000 physicians who treat children, filed an amicus brief urging the court to consider “effects far beyond the facts of this case.” “Future objectors,” the document reads, “could prevent children from obtaining critical, life-saving preventive care.” Benard Dreyer, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a pediatrics professor at New York University), states “There’s no discernible difference between a religious objection to contraception and a religious objection to a vaccine. If [the Supreme Court] entitles an employer to be totally exempt from contraceptive coverage, it would presumably allow an employer to do the same for vaccination coverage.”
In other words, a church-run school that condemns intrauterine devices, for example, could more easily say it won’t fund a chickenpox vaccine. And a low-income worker, unsure of how to find another expense-free avenue or come up with the $94 to pay for the vaccine, might have trouble getting that shot for their first-grader.
Just food for thought; this is not a binary issue and I understand both points of view.
I’m all for vaccinations. And all preventive care. I think any public health programs should START with that. the legitimate public interest is so great. DHEC should have a place in each county office where everyone can get their essential vaccinations free of charge. It’s as important and obvious as inspecting restaurants for cleanliness.
But this gets me back to my point about how inadequate the ACA approach to healthcare is — this business of compelling private actors to take certain actions on behalf of the larger society is inherently problematic.
I have little patience with anti-vaxxers — possibly as little patience as my more modern friends have with us atavistic Catholics who refuse to get with the program and embrace abortifacients.
At the same time I strive to be like Bob and “understand both points of view.” Ultimately, I believe we need to require vaccinations for infectious diseases that can be prevented that way. The public interest in that is compelling (there I go again, shifting back and forth between two very different senses of “compelling,” both of them relevant to this discussion) to a communitarian.
But I’m not insensitive to the concerns of parents who are convinced that such vaccinations could be doing active harm to their children. Even when they are WRONG….
Vaccines are covered now.
If you go to a doctor, you don’t have insurance for your child, and can’t pay for it, they will make you sign a form, give your child the vaccine- and I assume recoup some of the costs through the state – or several other available programs out here.
Every time I take any of my 3 children, they have that form there that states that in plain English and Spanish.
#4 The Little Sisters and other parties to this case are wrong, as rulings by four lower courts have indicated. There is no such thing as a “religious health care plan,” as the Sisters’ spokesperson has claimed. The Sisters do not own the plan they subscribe to – nor should they be allowed to dictate the terms of other insurers that end up providing alternative coverage to their employees. The government, as it should, is merely acting to prevent the Sisters and like-minded groups from imposing their religious views on Littlle Sister employees. Once the religious enter the marketplace, whether as for-profits or non-profits, they must abide by the same rules that apply to other businesses. The Hobby Lobby decision was a disaster and, as was foreseeable, it has opened up a huge can of worms.
#2 National security has NEVER been defined as preventing each and every US citizen from suffering harm. Redefining it that way sends us down a million rat holes. The Obama Administration is correct in its take on Daesh – and in its strategy against it. There is a smart way of going about this, and a stupid way. Defining our response to terror by “who holds what parts” of this or that territory is one of the stupid ways, based on old templates of warfare with little to no bearing on this particular type of conflict.
Always good to hear from you, M — I had not yet been called “stupid” yet today, so now I’ve got that under my belt.
Actually, it’s not our strategy or how we define things that “sends us down a million rat holes.” It’s terrorism itself. It’s all rat holes. You’re on defense and the enemy has millions of goals to aim for. You have to defend them all, and when they manage to score in a place where your defense wasn’t perfect, they win and you lose.
That’s the nature of asymmetric warfare, a form of conflict that we do not choose, but which is thrust upon us.
I recently watched “Gettysburg” again, and was struck by that pivotal moment when John Buford arrives ahead of the Confederates and has the foresight and determination to hold them off until the Federals can occupy the high ground. There’s all this dialogue between him and his officers about what “good ground” this is and how important it is to hold it.
It’s a great blessing to the nation that Buford was able to choose that ground. It probably saved the republic.
But with terrorism, we NEVER get to pick the ground. We have to defend everywhere. Which is why entities that wish us harm but lack the resources of a superpower choose it…
The really innovative thing about ISIL is that they are a terrorist ARMY — they actually do take and hold ground, in Iraq and Syria. So that provides us with one theater of operation where the conventional ways of keeping score DO have some relevance.
But of course, that has little direct bearing on Brussels. Different problem.
Another place where we are at a disadvantage is that it’s so easy for the enemy to claim a victory, whether ISIL had all that much to do with it or not.
You have these lone-wolf terrorists who act on their own, but leave manifestos saying they were doing it for ISIL. When they are dead, whether they made the claim themselves or not, ISIL can claim responsibility.
You don’t have to go through all that trouble of recruiting, training, equipping and deploying troops. You get on the scoreboard with a Tweet or an email, and the state you are striking at is traumatized and has all the political and diplomatic turmoil as if you actually HAD engineered the whole thing…
“That’s the nature of asymmetric warfare, a form of conflict that we do not choose, but which is thrust upon us.”
and
“But with terrorism, we NEVER get to pick the ground. We have to defend everywhere. Which is why entities that wish us harm but lack the resources of a superpower choose it…”
What you’re really getting at is an old military maxim — The enemy gets a vote.
You can make all the plans you want, but the enemy gets a vote vote in where the engagement is, how it is fought, and the nature of the engagement. Terrorism, or guerrilla warfare is a long-used force multiplier by less powerful/less numerous forces. Think of Francis Marion in the American Revolution, cavalry raiders in the Civil War, the French Resistance in WWII, early Castro in Cuba, the Viet Cong in Vietnam.
Playing the chessboard from ISIS’s point of view, you draw on your strengths (devotion to die, small, virtually-undetectable groups operating independently) and our weaknesses (lax laws regarding immigration, soft civilian targets of an infinite number). What they’re doing makes sense from their point of view. They’re not going to win a pitched battle because they have neither the numbers nor the logistics to win one. Therefore, they’re playing a longer game. Until we decide to change the nature of the game, we’re going to keep getting the same result.
What we’re forgetting is that we get a vote, too. We just lack the willpower to vote to radically change the nature of the engagement to something that favors our strengths. It doesn’t matter how many divisions you have if you’re not willing to use them.
This is the strategic viewpoint that I mentioned in another post. We have to figure out the way to combat not the terrorists but the idea of terrorism within the communities from which it arises.
That’s our asymmetric mandate.
Peace, stability, liberty, opportunity, and dignity are powerful forces that smother terror tactics and grudges.
“Defining our response to terror by ‘who holds what parts’ of this or that territory is one of the stupid ways, based on old templates of warfare with little to no bearing on this particular type of conflict.”
First of all, there’s nothing new under the sun. This isn’t new. ISIS is engaging in what essentially amounts to guerrilla warfare at this point. There are plenty of people in Europe who go to Syria to get training/indoctrination, and then they can go back to Europe and engage in simple to carry off attacks. It’s true that you don’t necessarily defeat a guerrilla warfare strategy by holding all territory, but you do need to deny the enemy a safe haven for training/indoctrination. Rolling up those people in desert of Iraq/Syria would be a good start.
Look up the Creativity Movement and imagine the dangers of letting individual religions decide which laws they want to follow. BTW I’ve donated to the Little Sisters of the Poor of Pittsburgh in the past and respect and admire them.
Matt, we’re not talking about deciding “which laws they want to follow” in the sense of choosing whether you want to run a red light.
We’re talking about compelling action. And there’s plenty of precedent for that — consider the conscientious objector exemption with the draft.
What’s really wrong here is that instead of doing what we should do — institute single payer — we’re compelling employers to implement this national goal. And that’s bound to create unnecessary conflict…
The part of the conflict that’s unnecessary is the insistence on the part of the anti-birth control group that others follow their religious dictates. Conscientious objectors have no opportunity to prevent others from participating in war, they simply may apply for exemption for themselves. Arguing that their filing the exemption form enables the employee to have access to separate “immoral” means to prevent pregnancy is forcing them into supporting immorality is counter to participating in a diverse society. Perhaps withdrawal into an Amish-style society where their mores would only affect like-minded persons would be in order. That wouldn’t preclude their going out into the hell-bound world to give whatever help they choose to poor people.
“The part of the conflict that’s unnecessary is the insistence on the part of the anti-birth control group that others follow their religious dictates.”
Which is not what we’re talking about, of course. So I don’t know why you would say that.
No one’s trying to get someone to “follow their religious dictates.” They are seeking to be exempted from participating in actions that violate their OWN religious dictates.
I don’t understand what is so hard about understanding that.
This is about what the Little Sisters are being compelled to do, not them compelling someone else.
“I don’t understand what is so hard about understanding that.”
The hard part for those arguing with you about it is they don’t want to admit to that fact because it undercuts their argument.
They have to have a different argument in order to argue the point. It’s typical.
So, should I be able to withhold part of my tax obligation if I object to war (preemptive or otherwise) on religious grounds? Should you be allowed to withhold a tiny part of your tax payments because a state or federal program provides contraception? Withholding the financial ability to obtain birth control compels the employee to use your prescribed sanctified method or to go out and buy such methods separately. From your background, $30-50 per month may be no burden at all, but for many, it is.
Nope. We don’t get to opt out of paying taxes because we may object to how some of it is spent.
Our recourse in our system is to participate vigorously in the public debate about how our taxes will be spent. Which is sort of what we’re doing here, except that we’re talking about the actions private actors will be forced to take, rather than what actions our government itself will take. Which, as I say, is a huge difference.
But no, we can’t opt out of taxes for this or that when we lose the argument. You can’t have a government that way…
And who pays for government programs other than us? If we had single payer universal health care everyone would be paying for it whether they wished to or not.
Not everyone
illegals that are paid under the table to the tunes of tens of millions and hundreds of millions wouldn’t pay for it.
Others that are paid under the table wouldn’t pay for it either – and that number would certainly skyrocket under such a system.
that is unless you slapped on a sales tax of some kind to fund the program.
That’s a good point.
Contraception should be a birthright in this country. Or perhaps a not-birth right.
What’s the big issue here? All the nuns have to do is opt out of the birth control mandate. Don’t see that as any kind of intrusion of religious freedom. Contraception should be regarded as a public good since the benefits accrue to all of us by not having an excessive population. I think it should be handed out to anyone who wants it for free.
Good gracious.
I think IPADS should be a birthright. If you know how to use one property, the benefits are immeasurable.
You have the right to hand it out to anyone you wish and you can even pay for it yourself.
That works out well for everyone.
“Contraception should be regarded as a public good since the benefits accrue to all of us by not having an excessive population.”
Ehhh, I’m not super-comfortable with this. This sort of bleeds over to eugenics.
Um, yeah, Bryan.
All this vehement antifertility stuff gives me the willies. It’s creepy as all get-out. It’s the complete opposite of life affirmation…
It’s not anti fertility. It’s anti having a baby you can’t care for. Every child born into poverty is a tragedy. And there are ways to prevent it.
Eugenics Bryan? Not sure I follow.
I just hesitate to get that gung-ho about population control.
You should. It’s an existential threat to mankind. ISIS, not so much.