Conservatives and the Arms Race Between Civilians and the Military
So, I've mentioned this before, but here's someone with a big platform now making the point.
Although I tend to favor Second Amendment protections of some fairly robust variety, and to do so in some part because I think the populace should have the ability to stand up to the government if absolutely necessary (and, incidentally, to stand up for it in case of invasion). So view obviously tends to be more popular among conservatives than among liberals...though I've never understood why.
Anyhoo, though I'm an advocate of a strong military, I also think that our military could be lots, lots, LOTS smaller and still count as very strong. I also don't understand the conservative inclination to have a much, much bigger and more powerful military than we need.
And, if you advocate both (a) a preposterously strong military and (b) the view that civilians should be well-armed enough to stand up to that military if necessary, then you basically advocate policies that generate a kind of arms race between civilians and the military.
And I think that's crazy.
Instead, if we throttled back on the military, reducing it's size and power to something like reasonable levels, then even those who think civilians should be well-armed enough to stand up to the government as a last resort could comfortably accept less civilian firepower floating around.
That's all I've got.
Although I tend to favor Second Amendment protections of some fairly robust variety, and to do so in some part because I think the populace should have the ability to stand up to the government if absolutely necessary (and, incidentally, to stand up for it in case of invasion). So view obviously tends to be more popular among conservatives than among liberals...though I've never understood why.
Anyhoo, though I'm an advocate of a strong military, I also think that our military could be lots, lots, LOTS smaller and still count as very strong. I also don't understand the conservative inclination to have a much, much bigger and more powerful military than we need.
And, if you advocate both (a) a preposterously strong military and (b) the view that civilians should be well-armed enough to stand up to that military if necessary, then you basically advocate policies that generate a kind of arms race between civilians and the military.
And I think that's crazy.
Instead, if we throttled back on the military, reducing it's size and power to something like reasonable levels, then even those who think civilians should be well-armed enough to stand up to the government as a last resort could comfortably accept less civilian firepower floating around.
That's all I've got.
posted by Winston Smith at
9:39 AM
1 Comments:
Well, yes. I believe I made exactly this point in our last discussion of arms control. If you want to defend against government tyranny, at the very least you need to maintain a stealth cruise missile dialed in on the nearest high-tech weapons factory
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