Vision

Everybody, every group, every party has vision. The problem is not that there is no vision. It is that everybody has a different vision.

Most of those visions have some merit, but when people talk about "a vision" they mean a single unifying vision or a small group of visions that may be related, but that have broad applicability, relevance or importance the majority of citizens.

The dynamic at the level below the presidency regarding vision is that each senator or congressman gets elected on a vision ideosyncratic to his constituancy. The problem begins when he gets to the senate or congress because he encounters the other senators or congressmen who were elected on the basis of different visions. The problem then becomes one of getting anyone's vision implemented. From this problem arises such processes as negotiation, compromise, "log rolling", ear marking and other legislative techniques. The result, generally, is that original vision of the legislator is seldom implemented. Rather, some variation of that vision, modified and qualified to satisfy supporters or opponents becomes the vision.

Article II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

This was written at at time when the United States had no standing army.

Two things suggest themselves. First, the right to bear arms is a function of a militia, created to defend the state. In other words, citizens carry arms as members of a citizen's army. Not just any old army, but a "well regulated" one. If someone is going to bear arms, then, it should be in the context of membership in a military unit under the ultimate control of the civilian government.

The so-called "right to bear arms" is not about the security of an individual; it is about the "security of a free State". An individual, bearing arms, outside the control of the state is quite easily construed as a threat to the State -- certainly bank robbers and drug dealers are seen as such.

Second: While the Constitution mentions an army and navy, it does not specifically establish them. There is a suggestion in this article that the militia is voluntary (almost by definition) but that the army and navy should also be a citizen's army and navy, as opposed to a professional one.

In any case, if "national defense" and "national security" are truly issues, then it would be more effective to require that everyone spend some time in the military. This would mean that everyone would be trained to defend their country, rather than having to depend on a few professionals. Paradoxically, citizens' army might also limit the power of the military since citizens might be less inclined to put themselves or their children in harm's way at the whim to satisfy the ambition of a political leader than would professional soliders.

Citizens' Army

Patrick Tillman, a member of the elite military group of Army Rangers, was apparently killed by "friendly fire". After nearly a year, the exact circumstance of his death have not been settled on to the satisfaction of his family. They apparently have good cause for their skepticism since the reports of his death have been reluctant, tardy, contradictory, and have changed over time. A cover-up is suspected, as is incompetence and gross negligence.

As is their right, Mr. Tillman's family has requested a full and truthful accounting. They have secured the support of public officials and the mass media in their attempts to obtain this accounting.

That they should feel that they have a right to any accounting is, I feel, their belief that their son served in a citizen's army. The Tillman's are reacting to the death of their son as though he were any other citizen. The Tillman's are not alone in their reaction. Many parents of soldiers killed in our more recent wars have also demanded a true accounting of their children's death.

What is unusual, though, is that such a reaction and such demands and expectations are probably unique to this time in history. In other times and other places, soldiers in war were expected to die, and the reason for their deaths was of little consequence so long as the cause of the generals was advanced. What justice any soldier could expect depended less on law than on on the expediencies of morale and the support of his comrades. The understanding was that upond entering the military, a soldier signed away his individual rights -- if it was ever considered that he had any in the first place.

The case of Patrick Tillman suggests that this is not the case now. Tillman's parents do not accept that their son gave up his rights as a citizen upon joining the army, and therefore, as a citizen, his death is entitled to a full accounting.

Ware and Abuse

From a website on child abuse: (www.primalspirit.com/deMause3-1_ChildAbuse.htm#1.)

All social violence is ultimately a consequence of child abuse, and we are likely to continue our periodic sacrificial rituals of war if the infliction of childhood trauma continues.

Which got me thinking that our most recent wars could be charactized a children's wars, that is, wars fought by childern. Starting from Vietnam -- these voluntary wars -- many of the men who fought at the front were just out of childhood.

In a sense then, these wars were an extension of child abuse, with the old men -- the politicians and generals -- sending young men to be wounded or to die.