January 2012
41 posts
Resolutions
queentakesking:
Finish a major writing project
Write at least once a week
Send something to a publisher
Pass all classes spring semester
Tumblr is about mindless reblogging, so!
Figure out how to make tumblr understand how to format lists after blockquotes. Without fucking with the HTML. (probably impossible)
Compiler finally
Russian, Mandarin, something
Large software project, or...
1 tag
“I have already crossed the café a couple of times and have looked out of the...”
– If on a winter’s night a traveler
December 2011
19 posts
Why would you want to privatize the military?...
Disconnecting military action from all the other things the government does? So it would be harder to have military stuff influence politics (and vice versa...), or have your military agents kill protesters, etc. It would also be harder to complement armed warfare with trade warfare/tariffs, that sort of thing.
Encourage more "small business ownership" and competition? So you have fewer "monopolies" or "megacorporations", like how the US spends six times as much on the military as the next contender (the PRC).
Maybe you think that it would make it less glamorous? People think very highly of soldiers, or at least they do in the US, but the same does not generally extend to mercenaries. Even the romanticized ones in fiction are still usually more antiheroic.
You think that nations aren't the only ones who should perform military actions? Sort of like UN peacekeepers. Maybe you fantasize about a paramilitary going around knocking down oil platforms.
I don't actually think it's a good idea, but there are some reasons people might have. There's also stuff like "I think a war of nations in Meggido will foretell the end times" or "the government is oppressing us" bla bla.
----
Heh, you were supposed to imagine me asking the question with a facepalm. Anyway I spoke too soon. Scahill goes on to quote Michael Ratner: "To the extent a population is called upon to go to war, there is resistance, a necessary resistance to prevent wars of self-aggrandizement, foolish wars and in the case of the United States, hegemonic imperialist wars. Private forces are almost a necessity for a United States bent on retaining its declining empire. Think about Rome and its increasing need for mercenaries. Likewise, here at home in the United States. Controlling an angry, abused population with a police force bound to obey the Constitution can be difficult--private forces can solve this 'problem'".
----
Who says I didn't imagine a facepalm? Serious replies to irritably rhetorical questions are funny!
And I guess that's an important reason too. Damn hippies. Not that the national guard doesn't have a history of such shit anyway.
Why would you want to privatize the military?...
Disconnecting military action from all the other things the government does? So it would be harder to have military stuff influence politics (and vice versa...), or have your military agents kill protesters, etc. It would also be harder to complement armed warfare with trade warfare/tariffs, that sort of thing.
Encourage more "small business ownership" and competition? So you have fewer "monopolies" or "megacorporations", like how the US spends six times as much on the military as the next contender (the PRC).
Maybe you think that it would make it less glamorous? People think very highly of soldiers, or at least they do in the US, but the same does not generally extend to mercenaries. Even the romanticized ones in fiction are still usually more antiheroic.
You think that nations aren't the only ones who should perform military actions? Sort of like UN peacekeepers. Maybe you fantasize about a paramilitary going around knocking down oil platforms.
I don't actually think it's a good idea, but there are some reasons people might have. There's also stuff like "I think a war of nations in Meggido will foretell the end times" or "the government is oppressing us" bla bla.
A woman asks her programmer husband to go...
alexandertheawesome:
I laughed too hard at this…
bad scoping is an important problem
“Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. both made careers out of using a saintly...”
– Guys I um… I don’t know how to feel about this. (source)
Just read http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html again.
WHAT THE--OH GOD WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST READ →
I’m not sure why it’s happening? Or is it just a reasonless thing? I liked it in any case.
DYING'S FOR FOOLS: [redacted]'s Journal. October... →
OCTOBER 12th, 1985.=
Goon carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of guro porn and lolicon and when the drains finally scab over, all the tropers will drown. …
Haha, but Rorschach’s extremism works well with it.
Aleph One 1.0 is out! →
The v1.0 release of the fan project to let people play the old and great FPS series, Marathon, was today!
Now that I actually know how to build software on Linux, I’ll probably get it and try out some mods. Maybe finally do like I said I would to Charlatan and LP.