There are some of us who view the perpetually ongoing increase in the power of governments to oppress publics - from military tactics to technology to psychological practices - as ever further shifting the bar higher on the public's inability to ever meaningfully oppose the government when it is at odds with the public. I've long said the days of 2nd-amendment fans having the revolution are over forever.
60 Minutes did a piece tonight on the growth and effectiveness of unmanned aircraft.
Link
Far up in the sky with an excellent permanent view of whatever they want on the ground, undetected from the ground, and able to destroy in seconds.
Watch the piece and then imagine the people in the crosshairs are your 2nd amendment 'patriots' resisting.
There has always been injustice in wars, unjust war; one restraint on unjst war has been the cost.
The lower the cost of war becomes, the easier it is for the side waging it to get public support for the war.
Imagine these in the hands of Kim Jong Il. The hands of Putin against Chechnya. The hands of the Chinese using them in Tibet and elsewhere. The hands of India or Pakistan. The hands of Iran - or of Israel using them against the Palestinians and Lebanon. Imagine the House of Saud possessing these.
Imagine them in the hands of a US government against its own people.
I know there's no stopping the advance - the benefits are too compelling despite the risks. It's a bit like when those who watched aviation develop recognized that when you add some bombs and guns to the planes, war would be quite a different thing - and the Blkitzkrieg and firebombing followed, before Napalm and Agent Orange.
When nuclear weapons were created, the scientists said that our science was advancing faster than our ability to handle the political issues needed. Luckily, the risks they saw to day have only resulted in coming extremely close to a nuclear exchange, rather than actually having one. But the threat of loose nukes continues to prove their point.
I'm not sure I want any government continuing to increase its powers in this manner, further and further, making its power cheaper, easier, stronger.
How secure would our founding fathers have felt the democracy was with these changes, as they imagined George III in possession of them?
The Boston Tea Party would have been the beginning and end of revolt, resembling Tiannemen square rather than the beginning of revolution.
The technology we cheer today as effective against legitimate enemies is the technology potentially if not likely used for illegitimate repression tomorrow.
On milestones of the government's powers against its people increasing, this may be a large one, following electronic surveillance.
But it'll be cheered and funded and deployed, somewhere, more and more.
One of the few politically costly prices of war remaining are the casualties - which can now be reduced further, making war cheaper - and more likely.
If you think of the world under tyranny, the unmanned aircraft fit well into the image. Sadly, I don't have much to recommend here. Just commentary.
I'd shift resources to pursuing peace in the world and having less need for such weapons. But we know the likelihood of that.
Maybe these will become useful law enforcement tools - tracking fugitives and criminal organizations, while not launching missiles, just filming. Maybe they won't get into the hands of repressive regimes, and will be used with restraing in the US. Maybe they'll not be exploited as pretty much every other technology has.
I watch the men who use these and kill the enemy - and their frame of justice is that they hit the actual enemy combatants rather than civilians - about which there is controversy as to how well they're doing. But what I don't see is these men having any questions about the justice of the wars themselves. And that's dangerous, IMO. It's all too easy to get people to buy into the justice of a war and to wage it strongly committed. The Americans who invaded Mexico under the pretenses of President Polk - a war Lincoln led the opposition to and Grant said was 'the most unjust ever waged' - had no lack of men to wage it over any issue of justice. And there will be men to use these unmanned planes for any purpose the powers that be choose. All seeming so uncontroversial now, merely a 'more effective weapon' in wars not being questioned - any more than the US opposition to the elected, left-wing government in Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion - opposition that led to the creation of the enemy we fight in the region today - was controversial for its injustice.
60 Minutes did a piece tonight on the growth and effectiveness of unmanned aircraft.
Link
Far up in the sky with an excellent permanent view of whatever they want on the ground, undetected from the ground, and able to destroy in seconds.
Watch the piece and then imagine the people in the crosshairs are your 2nd amendment 'patriots' resisting.
There has always been injustice in wars, unjust war; one restraint on unjst war has been the cost.
The lower the cost of war becomes, the easier it is for the side waging it to get public support for the war.
Imagine these in the hands of Kim Jong Il. The hands of Putin against Chechnya. The hands of the Chinese using them in Tibet and elsewhere. The hands of India or Pakistan. The hands of Iran - or of Israel using them against the Palestinians and Lebanon. Imagine the House of Saud possessing these.
Imagine them in the hands of a US government against its own people.
I know there's no stopping the advance - the benefits are too compelling despite the risks. It's a bit like when those who watched aviation develop recognized that when you add some bombs and guns to the planes, war would be quite a different thing - and the Blkitzkrieg and firebombing followed, before Napalm and Agent Orange.
When nuclear weapons were created, the scientists said that our science was advancing faster than our ability to handle the political issues needed. Luckily, the risks they saw to day have only resulted in coming extremely close to a nuclear exchange, rather than actually having one. But the threat of loose nukes continues to prove their point.
I'm not sure I want any government continuing to increase its powers in this manner, further and further, making its power cheaper, easier, stronger.
How secure would our founding fathers have felt the democracy was with these changes, as they imagined George III in possession of them?
The Boston Tea Party would have been the beginning and end of revolt, resembling Tiannemen square rather than the beginning of revolution.
The technology we cheer today as effective against legitimate enemies is the technology potentially if not likely used for illegitimate repression tomorrow.
On milestones of the government's powers against its people increasing, this may be a large one, following electronic surveillance.
But it'll be cheered and funded and deployed, somewhere, more and more.
One of the few politically costly prices of war remaining are the casualties - which can now be reduced further, making war cheaper - and more likely.
If you think of the world under tyranny, the unmanned aircraft fit well into the image. Sadly, I don't have much to recommend here. Just commentary.
I'd shift resources to pursuing peace in the world and having less need for such weapons. But we know the likelihood of that.
Maybe these will become useful law enforcement tools - tracking fugitives and criminal organizations, while not launching missiles, just filming. Maybe they won't get into the hands of repressive regimes, and will be used with restraing in the US. Maybe they'll not be exploited as pretty much every other technology has.
I watch the men who use these and kill the enemy - and their frame of justice is that they hit the actual enemy combatants rather than civilians - about which there is controversy as to how well they're doing. But what I don't see is these men having any questions about the justice of the wars themselves. And that's dangerous, IMO. It's all too easy to get people to buy into the justice of a war and to wage it strongly committed. The Americans who invaded Mexico under the pretenses of President Polk - a war Lincoln led the opposition to and Grant said was 'the most unjust ever waged' - had no lack of men to wage it over any issue of justice. And there will be men to use these unmanned planes for any purpose the powers that be choose. All seeming so uncontroversial now, merely a 'more effective weapon' in wars not being questioned - any more than the US opposition to the elected, left-wing government in Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion - opposition that led to the creation of the enemy we fight in the region today - was controversial for its injustice.
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