Irony is not just like goldy and bronzy but made out of iron.
- First on the oblivious list today is Lindsey Graham. For so many, many reasons; but his call to re-arm ex-military personnel to protect schools just demonstrates that "being a JAG" has almost nothing to do with actual leadership or understanding the enlisted force. In no particular order:
- So you're going to re-arm all of the fine airmen who were — as policy, during your time as a JAG on the USAFE staff, Senator — discharged from military service for a "condition[] incompatible with military service" under AFR 39-10 ¶ 5-26h, captioned "Homosexual Tendencies"? That's not very 'murikan… no matter how you try to evade it, or reject it.
- Draftees, too, or just volunteers? I'm really thrilled about putting firearms back in the hands of former draftees.
- Are you going to provide some training in contemporary firearms usage? How about in conflict deescalation, and while we're at it the Law of Armed Conflict (which, as a JAG with the particular assignment you had, you were supposed to know very well indeed)?
- Who's gonna pay for it — the weapons and ammo, the requalification, the compensation for the poor suckers back on the front line, the insurance premiums, the workers' compensation when someone gets hurt (and someone will; surely even buried inside the military justice section at headquarters you saw some of those reports)?
- More to the point: What makes you think that soldiers, sailors, and airmen who were initially trained (as they all were) to shoot at enemy uniforms, and then had to relax that to "armed combatants posing an immediate threat," are going to deter or shoot more miscreants than innocents? And that's before even whispering "suicide by cop" and pondering how much more of a problem that would prove for relatively untrained former military (except perhaps — and only perhaps — former military police).
Oblivious idiot. But we all knew that. OK, everyone who has been paying attention already knew that.
- It's always fascinating looking in detail at the mechanisms of censorship in action. In all these villages across the land, it's clear that these authors have been classified as unmutual, and their books bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated. Most censorship efforts are merely further proof that the natural enemy of democracy — the one that cannot be overcome without violence — is not mere secular totalitarianism, but theocracy.
- And then there's this paragon of obliviousness. It's almost impossible to list examples, because an exhaustive list would run to thousands of items… and leaving any of them off, just trying to hit the lowlights, risks leaving off important things.
The US had it bad under the ignorant git in the White House from 20 Jan 2017 through 20 Jan 2020. The Brits, if anything have it worse.