The oath to the Constitution is pretty deeply ingrained in that culture, especially the higher up you go.
And, importantly, the higher up you go in the NCO ranks, not just the officers. Those are the folks that actually make things happen or not happen. As any officer worth his salt realizes.
I'd say the target of the "excuse" is, first, all those people who generally don't pay attention. The military going into an American city is a big enough deal to break thru to a lot of them. And their reaction will be along the lines of "Wait! What??? Why???" The excuse won't satisfy all of them, but he can hope that it satisfies enough.
Another target audience is the portion of the Republican Party that is not MAGA cultists. They have enough contact with reality to know that things can blow up in their faces. And that the necessary (but not necessarily sufficient) defense against that is a justification/excuse which sounds half-way plausible. They'll want to believe it; but they won't be on-board without it.
And the final target audience is the military. Most of them, even the very conservative ones, are clear that their oath includes supporting the Constitution. And, absent some kind of justification, military action inside the country are strictly forbidden there.
No doubt there are some who wouldn't care, even some who are devout MAGA cultists. You would have to put a lot of effort into selecting out those individuals. But if you just send in an existing unit, you need that justification.
the failures of the local authorities to enforce the law and ordinances
So, are you expecting the police to successful arrest every criminal? Because that's nothing we've ever seen in history. Or maybe you want them to somehow prevent any crime from happening?
I assume you have more sense than that. So what standard are you using for doing an acceptable job to "enforce the law and ordinances"?
I think that the constitution could be saved, but it would take another Lincoln or FDR to do it,
....
Of course both ended up having their work undone, and here we are again.
What you're actually saying is that the necessary changes won't be permanent fixes. Which is not that surprising -- the authoritarians, given enough time, will find new weak points.
Still, looking at where we were in, say, the early 1800s, I'd say that we've made significant progress over the last two centuries. The reactionaries are trying to roll all those back. But I expect that, the closer they get to realizing their dream, the more massive will be the resistance.
In the end, they will once again fail. We will, temporarily, lose some ground. But only some. And a lot of people will get hurt along the way.
Still, 20-30 years from now (yeah, totally just spit balling on the time frame) we will look back on today rather like most of us look back on other periods in our history where the reactionaries made gains. Asking, "What were they thinking???". But naively confident that we won't go there again. Until the generations that live thru it have passed from the scene.
wonkie, I would note that, at least in the US, the pattern has included an additional phase: the group of outsiders is moved into Our Nation, and then a new group of outsiders emerges. Currently the primary group of outsiders seems to be Hispanics. (Arguably it may be more like brown Hispanics. Except that the Spanish language features so prominently.). Before that, it has been Italians, and before that the Irish. At our nation's founding the boogie man was the Germans.
I won't be astounded if, down the road, South Asians replace Hispanics as the outsiders of choice. Aided by the difference in religion; Hispanics, at least, are Christians.
In the example of Afghanistan (and other Islamic countries), a lot of justification of confronting those countries is based on their approach to the rights of women.
And yet somehow that kind of confrontation never seems to get applied to Saudi Arabia. Which, be it noted, has a worse recond on the subject than any other Islamic country (with the possible exception of Afghanistan).
Making Iran under the mullahs, for example, look like a bastion of liberalism is no mean feat. But the Saudis manage it. With impunity.
Reputed to originate regarding air force dog fights. But the most common occurrence, in my experience, regards truckers (or anyone else driving any long distance). Meaning to arrive somewhere and immediately head back in the other direction. In that context, the "turn" is obvious. But the "burn"? Not so much.
They speculate it could be about compensation for the farmer whose land was destroyed, but I also wonder if it isn’t a humorous extension of “plowing” into the ground.
I seem to recall it referencing the 6' by 3' patch out ground for a grave. Ground which wouldn't be built on, and so was forever rural.
I believe this comes from accounts (probably even a film, most likely 8 mm) of chimpanzees (or maybe gorillas?). This behavior seems to occur where humans would shout insults, without reaching the point of physical altercation. But naturally American viewers would see anything but stuff being thrown and hitting others -- i.e. a physical altercation, and with weapons.
A couple of (practically off topic) thoughts occurred to me while reading this:
First, how many here (who weren't already familiar with her) read Sanae Takaichi's name and immediately thought "female". I'm aware that anyone with a Japanese first name ending with a vowel followed by e (or, especially, ending in ko) will be female. But then, I have friends and family who are ethnic Japanese, so I'm hardly typical.
Second, the whole definition of "immigrant" varies. Even though it consistently carries the connotation of "not from here." For example (sorry, Hartmut!) someone of Turkish ancestry in Germany will tend to be viewed as not-German, even if the family has been there for several generations. Then there's California.
Growing up (perhaps still today), you were a real Californian if you were born here, or even moved here with you family when young. Everybody who moved here as an adult was, not exactly "foreign", but close. Definitely "not from here." Even if they came here from elsewhere in the US. If you were Hispanic? Hispanics were here a couple of centuries before the first Anglos showed up. So it still depended on whether you were born in California. East Asian? There were still Issei (immigrants from Japan) around, but most ethnic Japanese, and pretty much all ethnic Chinese, were born here -- so, all real Californians.
One quick test: there is a city just north of San Diego-- La Jolla. Any real Californians will unthinkingly read that as La Hoy-ya. Wereas recent arrivals tend to say La Jol-la. And that applies even to those of us who don't speak Spanish. We learn to pronounce Spanish words at least approximately correctly just from constant exposure growing up.
Perhaps that has something to do with climate. In Germany, untended ground tends to sprout grass pretty quickly. In the US, especially the western US, untended ground tends to be dust. For quite a while across the Great Plains; pretty much permanently in the Southwest.
On the street, sure. But consider the recent case of ICE busting into an apartment building and effectively taking everyone inside into custody. With getting back out of custody being a matter of having to prove your innocence. Being an old white guy like you or me not being any protection against finding yourself in cuffs (more likely zip ties), lying in the street for a couple of hours wearing whatever you happened to be using for sleep wear.
Granted, being in a single family dwelling would tend to avoid that scenario. But there's no reason that I can see that the same treatment might not be visited on, for example, everybody who happened to be in a particular store or restaurant.
I confess that I have considered the merits of routinely carrying my passport with me. Just to have some sort of proof of citizenship readily to hand.
"Papers, please!". (Except that there's no way these thugs say "please".)
The big picture is that, at best, Trump and his cronies are a bunch of idiots.
In December, you could have made that argument. Plausibly, if not particularly persuasively. Today? Not so much.
At this point, it's pretty clear that they are not merely a bunch of idiots. At minimum they are a bunch of armed and dangerous psychopaths and sociopaths. Many of them are also idiots. But that is rather beside the point.
Tony, it might be worth consulting an immigration attorney. Just to find out what constitutes "lawful authority". The law being how it is, it's possible that you (but nobody else) are lawfully authorized. Worth checking out these days.
I have been known to complain bitterly that US business management has gotten incredibly lazy and cheap, unwilling to be flexible or invest in education and productivity tools.
US business management has gotten utterly short-term focused. Investing, for all too many, is anathema unless it can be done with zero impact on quarterly earnings. I suspect that MBA programs are a significant contributor. But vulture capital asset stripping firms, waiting to attack any form which dates to deviate.
There are exceptions, of course. But they are just that: exceptions. Unfortunately.
Pretty much every developed country is looking at a shrinking population -- absent immigration, which seems like a rather temporary solution. Given that, over time, development (at least that feature of development) is spreading.
Now reducing the total world population may well be a good thing. But working out how to manage the transition seems to be an imperative.
Every time someone argues against citizenship for anyone except those whose parents are citizens, I feel moved to ask a couple questions. First, what of those who have one parent who is a citizen and the other not? Or one (or three) grandparents citizens and the others not?
Second, how many generations back do you go in demanding parents' citizenship? And how do you justify that number? Because, of course, everybody (even Steven Miller) has ancestors at some remove who were immigrants.
The reality, of course, is that those people don't care about parents being citizens. They care about race. (Occasionally ethnicity as well, i.e. nobody from Eastern and/or Southern Europe.). If they finally admit it, ask a) are you advocating going back to the "one drop" standard? And b) if so, what genetic criteria do you propose to establish that? Because there aren't (written) records to establish an answer.
A's for those planning to outsource to AI, perhaps they ought to consider just how much of the stuff on the Internet (where most LLMs are trained) are basically spam from bots set up to push either an ideology or the foreign policy of one group or another. A's contributions to thoughtful discussion they are useless.
As far as I can tell, the major infraction of Iran is being Shia rather than Sunni.** And therefore a rival of Saudi Arabia. We remain allies of the Saudis, and adamant goes of Iran. This despite Saudi Arabia also being a theocracy (albeit with a subservient monarchy as cover), and a far more fundamentalist and repressive one. Iranian women, for example, have rights and freedoms that Saudi women can only dream of.
Once upon a time, the Saudis controlled the price of oil, and that gave them a bargaining chip. We ignored little details like the oil price shock of the mid-70s, and continued the relationship because we felt we had to, lest they ramp up the price of oil on us again. (We also ignore the fact that the perpetrators of 9/11 were Saudis. Iranians have never done anything like that to us.)
Now, of course, we are a net oil exporter. If the price of oil goes up, we make money. But inertia is a powerful force. Someday, I hope, we cut the Saudis off. Not to switch to allying with Iran necessarily. But at least shifting to neutrality in their theological dispute.
** Not that most Americans know. Or have the least clue what the difference is. (For comparison, think Catholics and Protestants during the wars of religion.)
We just got the materials for the Special Election November 4. I'm working this one, not just because I usually try to work elections, but because these days it's an affirmation that elections will happen.
The only item on the ballot is Proposition 50: AUTHORIZES TEMPORARY CHANGES TO CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT MAPS IN RESPONSE TO TEXAS' PARTISAN REDISTRICTING. Talk about brutally honest proposition titles! (Something that has not been universal here, in my observation). The ads are already starting to run. On one side, Governor Newsom talking about defending democracy from Trump. On the other, arguments for preserving the nonpartisan redistricting that we established, for excellent reasons, back in 2010. Perhaps I am a bit biased, but I note that this doesn't abolish the Redistricting Commission, just allows a one-time redistricting outside the usual process. The Con ads (deliberately) make it sound like a permanent change.
I am personally strongly in favor of our nonpartisan approach. In fact, at one point I applied to be on tthe commission. But, "circumstances alter cases." I suspect that the economy will be sufficiently trashed by 2026 that the Democrats end up with a majority in the House regardless of Republican efforts elsewhere. Especially as some of the hardest hit places are already being deep red rural areas. But I'm also in belt-and-suspenders mode these days.
He make an excellent point that, among those with whom we massively disagree, there are (pardon me) nuances. Some had the virtue of opposing his being cancelled and the courage to stand up and say so. Others either supported it, or at least lacked the courage to say so.
Oppose those you disagree with, sure. But acknowledge it when they get something right.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Where are the 5 words?”
The oath to the Constitution is pretty deeply ingrained in that culture, especially the higher up you go.
And, importantly, the higher up you go in the NCO ranks, not just the officers. Those are the folks that actually make things happen or not happen. As any officer worth his salt realizes.
"
I'd say the target of the "excuse" is, first, all those people who generally don't pay attention. The military going into an American city is a big enough deal to break thru to a lot of them. And their reaction will be along the lines of "Wait! What??? Why???" The excuse won't satisfy all of them, but he can hope that it satisfies enough.
Another target audience is the portion of the Republican Party that is not MAGA cultists. They have enough contact with reality to know that things can blow up in their faces. And that the necessary (but not necessarily sufficient) defense against that is a justification/excuse which sounds half-way plausible. They'll want to believe it; but they won't be on-board without it.
And the final target audience is the military. Most of them, even the very conservative ones, are clear that their oath includes supporting the Constitution. And, absent some kind of justification, military action inside the country are strictly forbidden there.
No doubt there are some who wouldn't care, even some who are devout MAGA cultists. You would have to put a lot of effort into selecting out those individuals. But if you just send in an existing unit, you need that justification.
"
the failures of the local authorities to enforce the law and ordinances
So, are you expecting the police to successful arrest every criminal? Because that's nothing we've ever seen in history. Or maybe you want them to somehow prevent any crime from happening?
I assume you have more sense than that. So what standard are you using for doing an acceptable job to "enforce the law and ordinances"?
"
I think that the constitution could be saved, but it would take another Lincoln or FDR to do it,
....
Of course both ended up having their work undone, and here we are again.
What you're actually saying is that the necessary changes won't be permanent fixes. Which is not that surprising -- the authoritarians, given enough time, will find new weak points.
Still, looking at where we were in, say, the early 1800s, I'd say that we've made significant progress over the last two centuries. The reactionaries are trying to roll all those back. But I expect that, the closer they get to realizing their dream, the more massive will be the resistance.
In the end, they will once again fail. We will, temporarily, lose some ground. But only some. And a lot of people will get hurt along the way.
Still, 20-30 years from now (yeah, totally just spit balling on the time frame) we will look back on today rather like most of us look back on other periods in our history where the reactionaries made gains. Asking, "What were they thinking???". But naively confident that we won't go there again. Until the generations that live thru it have passed from the scene.
On “The DIY party”
wonkie, I would note that, at least in the US, the pattern has included an additional phase: the group of outsiders is moved into Our Nation, and then a new group of outsiders emerges. Currently the primary group of outsiders seems to be Hispanics. (Arguably it may be more like brown Hispanics. Except that the Spanish language features so prominently.). Before that, it has been Italians, and before that the Irish. At our nation's founding the boogie man was the Germans.
I won't be astounded if, down the road, South Asians replace Hispanics as the outsiders of choice. Aided by the difference in religion; Hispanics, at least, are Christians.
On “Where are the 5 words?”
In the example of Afghanistan (and other Islamic countries), a lot of justification of confronting those countries is based on their approach to the rights of women.
And yet somehow that kind of confrontation never seems to get applied to Saudi Arabia. Which, be it noted, has a worse recond on the subject than any other Islamic country (with the possible exception of Afghanistan).
Making Iran under the mullahs, for example, look like a bastion of liberalism is no mean feat. But the Saudis manage it. With impunity.
On “WTF moments at cultural borders”
Another oddity: "turn and burn."
Reputed to originate regarding air force dog fights. But the most common occurrence, in my experience, regards truckers (or anyone else driving any long distance). Meaning to arrive somewhere and immediately head back in the other direction. In that context, the "turn" is obvious. But the "burn"? Not so much.
"
They speculate it could be about compensation for the farmer whose land was destroyed, but I also wonder if it isn’t a humorous extension of “plowing” into the ground.
I seem to recall it referencing the 6' by 3' patch out ground for a grave. Ground which wouldn't be built on, and so was forever rural.
"
Going ape-shit
I have no idea regarding the etymology…
I believe this comes from accounts (probably even a film, most likely 8 mm) of chimpanzees (or maybe gorillas?). This behavior seems to occur where humans would shout insults, without reaching the point of physical altercation. But naturally American viewers would see anything but stuff being thrown and hitting others -- i.e. a physical altercation, and with weapons.
On “The DIY party”
A couple of (practically off topic) thoughts occurred to me while reading this:
First, how many here (who weren't already familiar with her) read Sanae Takaichi's name and immediately thought "female". I'm aware that anyone with a Japanese first name ending with a vowel followed by e (or, especially, ending in ko) will be female. But then, I have friends and family who are ethnic Japanese, so I'm hardly typical.
Second, the whole definition of "immigrant" varies. Even though it consistently carries the connotation of "not from here." For example (sorry, Hartmut!) someone of Turkish ancestry in Germany will tend to be viewed as not-German, even if the family has been there for several generations. Then there's California.
Growing up (perhaps still today), you were a real Californian if you were born here, or even moved here with you family when young. Everybody who moved here as an adult was, not exactly "foreign", but close. Definitely "not from here." Even if they came here from elsewhere in the US. If you were Hispanic? Hispanics were here a couple of centuries before the first Anglos showed up. So it still depended on whether you were born in California. East Asian? There were still Issei (immigrants from Japan) around, but most ethnic Japanese, and pretty much all ethnic Chinese, were born here -- so, all real Californians.
One quick test: there is a city just north of San Diego-- La Jolla. Any real Californians will unthinkingly read that as La Hoy-ya. Wereas recent arrivals tend to say La Jol-la. And that applies even to those of us who don't speak Spanish. We learn to pronounce Spanish words at least approximately correctly just from constant exposure growing up.
On “WTF moments at cultural borders”
Perhaps that has something to do with climate. In Germany, untended ground tends to sprout grass pretty quickly. In the US, especially the western US, untended ground tends to be dust. For quite a while across the Great Plains; pretty much permanently in the Southwest.
On “Citizenship”
On the street, sure. But consider the recent case of ICE busting into an apartment building and effectively taking everyone inside into custody. With getting back out of custody being a matter of having to prove your innocence. Being an old white guy like you or me not being any protection against finding yourself in cuffs (more likely zip ties), lying in the street for a couple of hours wearing whatever you happened to be using for sleep wear.
Granted, being in a single family dwelling would tend to avoid that scenario. But there's no reason that I can see that the same treatment might not be visited on, for example, everybody who happened to be in a particular store or restaurant.
I confess that I have considered the merits of routinely carrying my passport with me. Just to have some sort of proof of citizenship readily to hand.
"Papers, please!". (Except that there's no way these thugs say "please".)
On “Where are the 5 words?”
The big picture is that, at best, Trump and his cronies are a bunch of idiots.
In December, you could have made that argument. Plausibly, if not particularly persuasively. Today? Not so much.
At this point, it's pretty clear that they are not merely a bunch of idiots. At minimum they are a bunch of armed and dangerous psychopaths and sociopaths. Many of them are also idiots. But that is rather beside the point.
On “Citizenship”
Tony, it might be worth consulting an immigration attorney. Just to find out what constitutes "lawful authority". The law being how it is, it's possible that you (but nobody else) are lawfully authorized. Worth checking out these days.
On “Japan unleashed”
russell, immigration is a temporary solution to falling birth rates simply because falling birth rates are spreading. The sources are not permanent.
"
I have been known to complain bitterly that US business management has gotten incredibly lazy and cheap, unwilling to be flexible or invest in education and productivity tools.
US business management has gotten utterly short-term focused. Investing, for all too many, is anathema unless it can be done with zero impact on quarterly earnings. I suspect that MBA programs are a significant contributor. But vulture capital asset stripping firms, waiting to attack any form which dates to deviate.
There are exceptions, of course. But they are just that: exceptions. Unfortunately.
On “Where are the 5 words?”
Tony, I think you missed the heavy dose of sarcasm in Charles' comment
On “Japan unleashed”
Pretty much every developed country is looking at a shrinking population -- absent immigration, which seems like a rather temporary solution. Given that, over time, development (at least that feature of development) is spreading.
Now reducing the total world population may well be a good thing. But working out how to manage the transition seems to be an imperative.
On “Citizenship”
Every time someone argues against citizenship for anyone except those whose parents are citizens, I feel moved to ask a couple questions. First, what of those who have one parent who is a citizen and the other not? Or one (or three) grandparents citizens and the others not?
Second, how many generations back do you go in demanding parents' citizenship? And how do you justify that number? Because, of course, everybody (even Steven Miller) has ancestors at some remove who were immigrants.
The reality, of course, is that those people don't care about parents being citizens. They care about race. (Occasionally ethnicity as well, i.e. nobody from Eastern and/or Southern Europe.). If they finally admit it, ask a) are you advocating going back to the "one drop" standard? And b) if so, what genetic criteria do you propose to establish that? Because there aren't (written) records to establish an answer.
On “Ad futurum”
A's for those planning to outsource to AI, perhaps they ought to consider just how much of the stuff on the Internet (where most LLMs are trained) are basically spam from bots set up to push either an ideology or the foreign policy of one group or another. A's contributions to thoughtful discussion they are useless.
"
I can't speak for others, but this is working just fine on my phone.
On “Ran, ran, ran, I blog Iran”
As far as I can tell, the major infraction of Iran is being Shia rather than Sunni.** And therefore a rival of Saudi Arabia. We remain allies of the Saudis, and adamant goes of Iran. This despite Saudi Arabia also being a theocracy (albeit with a subservient monarchy as cover), and a far more fundamentalist and repressive one. Iranian women, for example, have rights and freedoms that Saudi women can only dream of.
Once upon a time, the Saudis controlled the price of oil, and that gave them a bargaining chip. We ignored little details like the oil price shock of the mid-70s, and continued the relationship because we felt we had to, lest they ramp up the price of oil on us again. (We also ignore the fact that the perpetrators of 9/11 were Saudis. Iranians have never done anything like that to us.)
Now, of course, we are a net oil exporter. If the price of oil goes up, we make money. But inertia is a powerful force. Someday, I hope, we cut the Saudis off. Not to switch to allying with Iran necessarily. But at least shifting to neutrality in their theological dispute.
** Not that most Americans know. Or have the least clue what the difference is. (For comparison, think Catholics and Protestants during the wars of religion.)
On “Where are the 5 words?”
We just got the materials for the Special Election November 4. I'm working this one, not just because I usually try to work elections, but because these days it's an affirmation that elections will happen.
The only item on the ballot is Proposition 50: AUTHORIZES TEMPORARY CHANGES TO CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT MAPS IN RESPONSE TO TEXAS' PARTISAN REDISTRICTING. Talk about brutally honest proposition titles! (Something that has not been universal here, in my observation). The ads are already starting to run. On one side, Governor Newsom talking about defending democracy from Trump. On the other, arguments for preserving the nonpartisan redistricting that we established, for excellent reasons, back in 2010. Perhaps I am a bit biased, but I note that this doesn't abolish the Redistricting Commission, just allows a one-time redistricting outside the usual process. The Con ads (deliberately) make it sound like a permanent change.
I am personally strongly in favor of our nonpartisan approach. In fact, at one point I applied to be on tthe commission. But, "circumstances alter cases." I suspect that the economy will be sufficiently trashed by 2026 that the Democrats end up with a majority in the House regardless of Republican efforts elsewhere. Especially as some of the hardest hit places are already being deep red rural areas. But I'm also in belt-and-suspenders mode these days.
On “Rule Six, there is NO … Rule Six!…”
"Home is where you hang your clothes."
Or, if you're an engineer, "Home is where your toolbox is."
On “Indefinitely isn’t what it used to be”
He make an excellent point that, among those with whom we massively disagree, there are (pardon me) nuances. Some had the virtue of opposing his being cancelled and the courage to stand up and say so. Others either supported it, or at least lacked the courage to say so.
Oppose those you disagree with, sure. But acknowledge it when they get something right.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.