How Would You Amend the Constitution of the United States?

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I'm not advocating the use of nukes. Having infantry designate materiel targets for aircraft to eliminate and having snipers to eliminate enemies individually is far more accurate and thus allows for less loss of life overall. However, if you were to issue economic sanctions to countries in the middle-east, OPEC nations, they'd probably just give you a thumbs up.

Keet: And this is precisely why I think there is a flaw in the reasoning tech put forward. He cited the motives of military volunteers (which are based upon values that he assumes I do not share) as a reason why their choice is moral. However, this line of reasoning applies to Jihadists as well: they have motives based on values that I do not share. We all agree that their actions must be condemned, so the reasoning has to be wrong. Trying to derive morality from intent then is the wrong way to go.

Tech: No noble reason? Dunno where I've said that... I have repeatedly stated that people join the force for many different reasons. Some of the reasons may be noble, some of them may have noble but misguided intent, some of them may be reasons that I find less-than-commendable (ie the straight-up militarists who just want to fight), others still join for economic reasons. What I dispute is the grotesque over-glorification of the military that so many partake in, apparently yourself included. People constantly talk about soldiers "defending our freedoms" when it is patently obvious that they do no such thing; that simply is not the function of the military. There are legitimate uses of the military, but frankly lawyers do a hell of a lot more to protect our freedoms, and we don't constantly gush enthusiastic praise and hero-worship on them.

All fairly obvious points.


Yeah, it's definitely not that. I suppose for one thing I tend to doubt that fighting for one's liberty (in the literal sense of taking military action to preserve civil liberties for your homeland) really exists anymore. I mean, the entire West has stable, secure governments. If we want to preserve our liberties, it is much more important to make sure that those institutions continue to work to protect, rather than encroach upon, our essential freedoms. There simply isn't currently a threat to freedom that can be plausibly addressed through military means. As far as can be determined, there aren't even any current threats to our physical safety that we can actually deal with effectively through the military.

I mean, let's look at the current threats to our civil liberties that we have in the United States.
1) Governmental encroachments in the name of fighting terrorism such as the PATRIOT Act, warrantless wiretapping, holding prisoners indefinitely without trial, etc. Those problems aren't going to be addressed by joining the military. They have to be dealt with through our political system.
2) Obscenity/blasphemy laws, such as protected status for Islam whereby it cannot be publicly criticized. Again, an issue that has to be dealt with politically, not militarily.
3) Google (or whoever else is collecting large amounts of personal data). Once again, not an issue that can be resolved with guns. The answer lies in laws which protect our privacy from people or organizations that would use it without our consent, and therefore yet again falls within the area of political involvement rather than military action.

What other possible threats have I missed? It looks to me like the military, by its nature, would be completely impotent against any of those. I don't care what they told you on Memorial Day or 4th of July when you were a kid. The real world is a lot more complicated than good vs evil, and addressing actual problems requires more subtlety and sophistication than putting on a uniform and shooting at people.

There are different solutions for different problems. We, in America, may not be facing anything too threatening and as such politicking may solve that. However, for allies such as Israel they face a lot of insane people who keep trying to obtain weapons for the purpose of killing Israeli civilians and otherwise attempting to goad Israel to take military action. Such people as Ahmadinejad keep trying to arm them.

OK, well, our military actions don't really seem to help Israel either. And Israel's attempted military solutions have yet to solve any of their problems, so perhaps that is an indication that they should try something else.

What is there to do when they launch rockets into residential areas other than to send in troopers to neutralize the threat?

The real threat these days is asymmetric warfare, typically coming from countries with very divided populace or where the power groups are too strong for the central government to be held as much of the equation. There can also be international corruption issues where a countries own politicians have their side schemes and can greatly undermine their nation's efficacy, that is one element growing stronger that the military can't control. On the other hand though asymmetric warfare is very much up over traditional, the average WWI or WWII type infantry only make sense in very limited situations however highly trained ops are still great for, say, assisting certain groups in certain regions or performing small-scale strikes to assets.

Most importantly though, hindsight largely being 20/20, most soldiers don't necessarily know what they're signing up for unless a war is on, peace time can evaporate in a puff of smoke. As for our current situations in the middle-east, we're trying to resolve a very difficult problem - everything from terrorism lead by radical Islam to hopefully catching as many threads as we can in the international black market, getting both getting a usual suspects list, and infiltrating their networks to keep our ears to the ground. As for the oil issues - plummet of fossil fuel availability is another thing that could tie our hands almost overnight. Lots of frailties to be concerned with still, unfortunately.

Well, asymmetric warfare is used against our military when we attempt to occupy other countries. Doesn't really do anything to us if we don't have our military there. As far as fighting terror, domestic security measures will do a better job of protecting us, since one of the major effects of our attempted occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan is to radicalize the Islamic world, proving a wonderful recruiting opportunity for terrorist groups.


Yeah, and military action doesn't solve the problem of radical Islam, unless you go for the ruveyn approach of "nuke the hell out of everyone." All it does is piss them off more. Terrorism is basically a function of radical Islam, so anything that fails to deal with radical Islam fails to deal with terrorism. For opium in Afghanistan, there are some things we can do to successfully encourage a move away from poppy cultivation, but none of them involve the military.

Every time you do that, some innocent civilian ends up hurt or killed (whether this is intentional or unintentional is irrelevant). Then that person's brothers, sons, nephews, etc swear vengeance on Israel and you have created a dozen new enemies for yourself for every one you kill. Unless you propose a complete genocide against the Palestinians, you cannot seriously hope to win that fight. Israel is the bigger, stronger, more organized entity here. They have to make the first steps towards peace if they ever want to have it. If Israel wants the rocket attacks to stop, they have to lift their blockades and stop building new settlements. Once that is done, they can claim the moral high ground when negotiating for peace.

I'm not as sure, it won't necessarily be an issue of Islam and even in the case of Islam, I doubt that the scenario would change all that much - that variant of Islam is truly supremacist. I think the main argument against trying to take care of it domestically is that we could run ourselves broke trying to cover every possible creative angle they could think of all the way down to utilities.


I still think, being that by-proxy wars are the only way things can be fought anymore, we'll likely see a lot of different groups learning from them. Causes could range anywhere from religion to radical environmentalism to ultraprogressive rightism/leftism. The scary thing is - some of these may have the brains to do a lot more damage.

True, but if America is seen as a benevolent or neutral power, those groups will be marginalized by the rest of their society. When we are perceived as hostile or aggressive (ie when we invade their countries) such extremist groups gain sympathy and support among the broader population. Any wars we partake in in the Middle East are definitively counterproductive.

Amendment 31: Tits or gtfo

Essentially one and the same. But be careful what you wish for. Congress has three ways to finance its spending:

1) Increase Revenue
2) Decrease Expenditure
3) Debt financing.

Well, there are certain hard realities that you are going to run into. Infrastructure must be built and paid for. Certain mandates must be met (courts, armed forces, diplomatic relations, regulation of interstate commerce, and so forth). There is a certain minimum level below which federal spending cannot fall. After that, in the absence of debt financing, then revenue increases are the only option left.

Furthermore, the elimination of debt financing also eliminates bond issues. While they may pale in significance next to commercial borrowing, then are, nonetheless, a significant source of government finance.



What about writing to a member of Congress on a particular policy issue? This constitutes lobbying. Just because people are advocating on their own behalf, without compensation does not mean that they are not trying to influence public policy making. You intend to lock Congress into a room with no access to the people?



An interesting notion. It does mean that Congress has absolutely no reason to act in the best interests of the people. "You can't vote against me at the end of my term, so I may as well do whatever I want."

But, of course, with no lobbying, they have no idea what you want or what is in your best interests, anyway.



Well, let's leave aside the fact that this is only traditional in a narrow sense. Why is it that in this particular area of public policy you want the Government to go wandering in? Your agenda is pretty much right out of the small-government libertarian model, but when it comes to the freedom of people to marry the partner of their choice, suddenly you want the Government to crack down on them. This smacks of hypocrisy.



You've already got freedom of speech embedded in the Constitution. You have chosen to self-censor rather than face the free speech of others when you express yours. After all, when you choose to be blunt, it is perfectly fair for people offended by your bluntness to be blunt in return.

Still if you do not have the courage of your convictions, then by all means seek the power of the state to protect you.



Well, where the presence of the Ten Commandments can be rationalized, by all means. Of course, they have no place in courthouses (the Common Law developed quite independently, and in fact in opposition to Canon Law, making a religious basis for law in 49 of the 50 states entirely erroneous).

Although, it should be recognized that relying on the ten commandments alone does a disservice to those citizens who are not people of the book. Why don't we set up a random draw of religious iconography? Each religious denomination may put forward a particular symbol, and in each public building a single icon of a randomly selected icon will be erected. This courthouse will have the ten commandments; that school will have a Quran bookstand; this customs office will have a pentacle; and the military base on the other side of town will have statue of Moroni. If you want to balance it in favour of Christians, then we can reorient the numbers on the basis of each decennial census. I can't wait to find out where the Satanists get to put their symbols.



Well, I trust that you are not advocating an end to education. (Perhaps I was too optimistic...) Presumably you want to see education fall into the hands of parents, and economically empowering them to make individual choices. This will allow for the construction of all those Madrassas that are needed in major cities across the country.



I am absolutely certain that every woman who has ever undergone an ectopic pregnancy will thank you. Incidentally, approximately 1%-2% of all fertilizations result in extrauterine placements. About half of them resolve in spontaneous miscarriage, but the other half require surgical intervention. But tough luck for them, I suppose. It's probably those women's fault for having faulty uteruses anyway, right?



I don't disagree with you, but how does this fit in priority with your other amendments? Who's responsible for guaranteeing this right? Given private operators right of freedom to contract, then it looks to me like you either need a public delivery system, or a publicly funded system. I look forward to seeing how this works out with your balanced budget amendment as your population ages.



So, that lady should not have had the right to speak freely?

When confronted by an opinion adverse to your own you have many choices:

1) Comply with the other person's opinion
2) Listen respectfully to their opinion and engage in a healthy discussion
3) Ridicule them
4) Ignore them
5) Tell them where they can stuff their opinions...
etc.

All of these are valid approaches. Why do you need any further constitutional protection to engage in any of them? Freedom of speech means the tolerance of dissent. Grow up and get used to it.

You are correct sir.

Now that I read your post I am thinking of returning to half of my ancestral man,Canada sounds fantastic. Then again I thought either that or the Netherlands,Japan,or Scandinavia as my new home if I ever get the chance unless the US set it self on the right track but with the tea party I am losing hope.

The tea party is set to throw out a ton of senators, congressmen, governors, and state legislators, thus politically neutralizing Obama. So I hope you like your stay in Canada.