A Chicken Is Not Pillage

A Neccesary Repost

I'd almost forgotten I'd written this.  But given that others have been so recently and terribly concerned about A Post About Rob Kailey, What Rob Kailey Did, How Rob Kailey Did It and Why Rob Kailey Did It,

It seems apropriate to point out that what the conspiracy theorists care about is every bit as deep and significant as what they accuse others of.  Climate denial seems based on the profit scientists can garner.  The killing of Osama Bin Laden seems based on what witnesses can garner.  To some, everybody's got an angle, except themselves.  Uhh, no.

Rob Kailey wrote this.  Rob Kailey stands behind this.  Rob Kailey thinks this the truth, or at least as close as most of us come to such a thing.  Believing in conspiracy theories doesn't make you important, or special.  It makes you the very thing you tend to revile:  human.

Common Ground

In response to my last post, Craig Moore attempted, poorly, to catch me up in some kind of hypocrisy and he missed my point completely.   That's not very surprising.  He has an agenda and I was being deliberately obscure, though using terrific music in the effort.  So, for those few who might want to know what I was thinking, I just figured I'd explain it.

Back in 2004, the 'Brady Bill' assault weapons ban on sale was set to expire.  Both Presidential candidates in debate waffled about their support for such a thing, politically blaming Congress for what at the time, amounted to inaction concerning a 'hot button' issue in the great culture war between right and left.  A few things have happened since then.  An asshole with two handguns and a lot of loaded clips became the most prolific mass shooter in American history at Virginia Tech.  An asshole who looks like Sideshow Bob dressed in combat gear shot 70 people in a theater, killing 12.  And an asshole walked into a school and killed 20 six and seven year old children, as well as 6 adults trying to save those lives.  As Craig pointed out, in 2004 I called the gun control debate trivial.  It isn't trivial anymore.  Things do change.  For one, the NRA has convinced a remarkable amount of America that gun control means gun confiscation.  For two, we've elected a black President, a President that many including the NRA have worked to convince people wants to take your guns to spur racial fear.  (It should be noted that Obama is the first President elected twice by a majority of the popular vote since Dwight Eisenhower.)  And three, oh yes, assholes are mass killing our children.

Here we are in 2013 having the gun control debate again.  The political will has shifted, but it seems the arguments never do.  That fascinates me more than any policy change.  Policy follows the wind of culture, but culture follows the desires of those who make it.  Since the St. Reagan endorsed 'Brady Bill' passed, FAUX News has become the dominant source of TV misinformation.  The Tea Peeps have risen.  The NRA has shifted focus from promoting gun safety and responsible ownership to lobby support for gun manufacturers and universal ownership of their product, regardless of qualification.  The SCOTUS has decreed a right to keep arms, though still refuses to address the qualifying clause.  We have the Bush doctrine of foreign policy which says 'get them before they get you'.  And our culture, politics and policy has become increasingly divided, antagonistic and extreme.   Yet the arguments concerning gun control really haven't changed that much, save in decibels.

Since the Newtown shootings, I've had several arguments with my brother concerning efforts of gun control.  These haven't been policy arguments.  On policy, we probably are fairly much in agreement, though I think he would favor a more extreme interpretation of such.  No, our arguments have been about 'the opposition'.  He recently posted a Facebook update about the ill-use of his good reason at the hands of "liberals".  His reasoning was okay, for what it was, but he is doing the same as those awful "liberals" are doing.  He is striving in all righteous victim-hood against those most extreme who influence policy the very least.  He paints all gun control advocates with the very same brush.  They are going 'take his guns'.  Of course, they are arguing against gun-nuts, gun addicts,  redneck shooters, holding my brother to a standard of wacko that isn't even remotely applicable, which is exactly the same mistake as he makes with them.  That's the part of the argument that fascinates me.

The progression of the argument is lamentably historic:  You can't talk about this tragedy because it's still raw and people are emotional.  But people do and they should.  Of course, removed from the tragedy, people are still emotional, both sides attempting the high moral ground.  Both sides hold that the very worst of the other is the norm.  Gun Grabbers!  Gun Addicts!  Shortly after the Newtown shootings, I posted on Twitter that anyone who brings up 'penis' isn't really interested in discussing gun control.  They are interested in demeaning gun owners.   I attempted, gently, to point out to others that those who are concerned about gun crime will never, ever, come to take your guns away.  EVER.  But that is where the argument has gone and will continue to go, nonetheless.   ~sigh~

Which brings me back to the previous post and my point in posting it.  Common ground.  This should be the point of discussion but I have no confidence it will be.  'Gungrabbers' want to protect their children, their families, their property and their society.  'Gun-nuts' want to protect their children, their families, their property and their society.  It doesn't matter if you use a Broadsword or an AR-15 or legislation.  You want the same things, people.  Get a fricking grip.

Droning On

I felt compelled to create 2 new tags for this post.  It's been a while coming, nonetheless.  This will be mostly an opinion piece.  If you're expecting links or narcissistic mention then you will likely be disappointed.

One has not been able to read the blogs or the Twitters, or FaceofEvilBook for months now without encountering the dire stories of drone strikes, Kill Lists, the maniacal psychopath Obama and his blood lust or tales of innocence destroyed by the Skynet machines ... Drones!  The righteous wrath is coming from the right and the left, though I would be remiss in failing to point out that most of the outrage is coming from the left, and much of the 'America, FUCK YEAH!' is coming from the right.  To many on the left, unmanned drones are the horror that spies on us as we plot a new government, as well as the devices that kill entire wedding parties in WhoGivesAFuckistan.   To many on the right, drones are the crushing fist of Obama that will spy on our crops for the EPA, and force us into the FEMA camps.

~Yawn~

Where the hell have these people been for the last 20 years?  Or more to the point, where have they been for the last century?  For over a hundred years science fiction writers have been scribbling about unmanned war machines.  If one needs to go further than that, then the jewish tale of the Golem is about the good and evil of an inhuman killer controlled by those with agenda.  These dread devices are not a new outrage; they were fricking inevitable.   It was going to happen, people.  The only question was "when".  'Walky-talky' wristwatches?  Inevitable.  Social networks based on world-wide communication?  Yes, actually inevitable.  Unmanned machines that fly through the air?  Yep, you got it.  Inevitable.  These are machines, devices.  They have no moral will.  The question concerning those has never been whether we would have them, but how we would use them.  Based on that alone, I find most of the outrage silly.

Every new technology faces opposition based on moral value.  Some passed that test, like cel-phones.  Some fail that test,  like Nukes.  Consider how long it took us to get over that fear ... Oh wait, we haven''t yet.  Drones are no different than cel-phones.  We see the bad use they can be turned to, but fail to recognize that these technologies exist, and there isn't a damned thing we can do to stop their use.

But wait!  Obama has a kill list!  Obama wants to spy on farmers!  Obama, blah blah, blah.  Every President since Clinton has had this technology at his disposal.  I grew up in the Bitterroot valley, where the fly over of SR-71s was frequent.  Screw black helicopters.  Anything that needed to be seen could be from those.  It was the technology of the time.  Drones have replaced the SR-71.  Just as we needed to learn how to deal with ultimate spy plane, we need to learn how to deal with the next ultimate spy plane, which doesn't have a human on board.   And it really doesn't matter which man sits in the White House; the technology will be used.  I'm kinda thinken' that we have a job to make certain that the man (or woman) in the White House uses this technology for good.

Drones aren't going away, anymore than nuclear weapons did back when this same argument was being made about them.  They're not going anywhere.  The choice in every election going forward from this has nothing to do with whether this technological clock can be turned back.  It obviously can't.  It's time to buck up and admit.  Who do you want to use it?  Mitt Rmoney?  The future Mitt Rmoney?  It's time to adapt, people.