• 48 Posts
  • 334 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • Gun rights are rights of ALL American citizens.

    If you feel the need to arm yourself, train, and protect what means the most to you by all means do it! It is your right to do so. The same info and equipment is available if you want it.

    But like how freedom of religion doesn’t mean everyone is religious, many people opt to not to use that right. And like people in different religions, the people using that same right can differ vastly from one another on beliefs and motivations.

    Some people take up guns for fun and competition and nothing else. Others to defend themselves from crime or other personal harm. And some have guns for added community resilience if government cannot/will not help. Like major disasters, civil unrest etc. It can be all the above too.

    Gun owners are not a simple neat group or a political party. One can’t control what another does or what tolerances they have any more than you can control what another person says when they use free speech. And following that line of thought, you cannot force someone to use their rights in the way you would prefer.




  • When it comes to domestic use america’s military is finding themselves in a bind. I don’t think we’ve seen a president that has pushed so hard for military use in relative peacetime. It’s coming into more and more conflict with how the military has been trained and the principles they are held to. I think that internally the military is taking a hard look at what they can and should do about this.

    They all took oaths. Enlisted members say this

    “I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

    Those regulations include the laws of war. All military members get yearly training on this. What is and isn’t a combatant, what is and isn’t a lawful order etc. This includes a duty and obligation to disobey illegal orders, but usually the process is to get clarification from one of their officers. An officer’s oath of enlistment looks like this.

    "I ___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God. "

    Note there is not a President mentioned there. The enlisted have a duty and obligation to disobey illegal orders, but officers play a key role in leading those units, and they have even greater obligations to their units legally. Enlisted members rejecting an order from some officer is one thing. Officers, or many officers rejecting an order is another.

    I think what we are seeing is a careful balancing act. The military is going where they are told to go, but maybe not sending as many or being as aggressive as they administration would like. Stay involved enough to not be outright fired or replaced but try to hit the brakes on this mess and internally pushing back.











  • I think the question is best answered by reversing it. Why do you choose to listen to music?

    Now don’t get me wrong I listen to a ton of stuff. I have an mp3 player for air travel and I listen to all kinds of things in my car and for my whole shift at a manufacturing job I used to have.

    But out on the street, on a bike or on the trails I never have any music on. From a practical standpoint it’s simply safer to be aware of what’s going on, but that’s not the point for me.

    I use that time to just let my mind wander and internalize info I learned that day or to look back on things that happened recently. That boredom is soon replaced with thoughts and daydreams and feelings and memories. And it’s nice to see my part of the world as it is, without any filter and seeing how places and people change day by day.