Jlknapp505's Blog

I originally posted this as a comment to another blogger’s post, and to a commentary that resulted from that post.  Since it’s long and represents my thinking, I thought I’d put it here for anyone who reads MY blog to see.

I was a soldier; I served for 21 years on active duty and retired a Chief Warrant Officer-2 after a career that was most often performed as a non-commissioned officer. I was also a competitive shooter and won medals, a trophy, and was awarded the Schutzenschnoor by the German army, first in bronze, and then later in silver. Not many Americans earned that.
And then I became a teacher. I was teaching when this question began to be raised, whether to arm teachers in the classroom.
I didn’t want any part of it. It’s an incredibly stupid idea.
Teaching isn’t being an armed guard. It cannot possibly be. The mindset for the two activities are too different. After Columbine, I wondered what I would have done had I been there and been armed. The weapon, by the way, would have been a pistol. You can’t teach with a rifle or shotgun strapped to your back, and you can’t leave them in a classroom where they’re available to you because they would also be available to inquisitive students.
A question I couldn’t answer: which student should I shoot?
And keep in mind that level of expertise I have. Vanishingly few teachers have that qualification and the military mindset that allows targeting and killing a human being. Teachers develop empathy as a part of teaching. It’s as necessary as books and chalkboards if you’re to reach a class of some 30 juveniles. People who kill others cannot consider empathy. Do that and you’re the one who gets killed by someone who has no empathy for you.
Accuracy and target selection: it’s incredibly difficult to actually target a human and kill him with a pistol. Consider this:
” NYC police shoot suspect: 73 rounds fired, 2 non-lethal hits, 1 dead bystander…
The New York Times reports that police in Brooklyn responded to a report of a shooting last weekend and encountered an armed suspect who had just shot and killed a man.

The suspect ignored orders to drop his gun, and eight police officers then discharged their weapons, firing a total of 73 rounds, and hitting the suspect, who survived, twice, in his hip and chest. Two of those officers fired 15 rounds each from their Glocks.

A 56 year old woman nearby was fatally wounded by a 9mm bullet, and while the source of the fatal shot cannot be positively identified, police acknowledge it could have come from an officer’s gun.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/ny…ce-say.html?hp”

And keep in mind that these were trained, qualified, police officers. Not quite the mindset of an infantryman or a sniper, but a lot closer to that than any teacher will have.

I own guns. But I have no need for military grade arms. Neither do you.

The idea that a bunch of overweight couch potatoes with a newly acquired Glock and an M16 or AK variant will take on the US Armed Forces is ludicrous. I once trained for riot suppression duty; our weapons were rifles with bayonets, and we didn’t expect to be issued ammunition. But it was there, somewhere, if the necessity arose. And there was backup from armored vehicles and aircraft had we come under attack. They train for that sort of thing; what works in Afghanistan will work on the streets of Podunk, too. Would the armed forces respond? Oh, yes. I haven’t forgotten Kent State. Regulars would be more likely be prepared to use deadly force than would Guardsmen. So don’t expect soldiers to decide that you’re a citizen and that rioting is your national right and to be respected.

Civilians haven’t been equal to soldiers in arms for a century at least. The idea that the 2nd Amendment was there to prevent government from becoming despotic might have had meaning in 1776; that ended at the end of the Civil War.

You might read Dakota Meyer’s book. And consider what happens to civilians who join in battle. If you’re in a combat zone, you’re wearing a friendly uniform or you’re a target.

Add to that this fact: target recognition and selection isn’t easy. The FBI and Army Special Forces and Navy Seals train for this. They have special facilities with a mix of friendlies and enemies represented by life-size target photos. Civilians don’t do that. Police rarely train to that level. So consider what you’d have done had you found yourself in a semi-dark movie theater when an attacker begins shooting. If you see someone with a gun, is he the attacker, or another guy like you who had a pistol under his shirt? Is he a policeman wearing a uniform that wouldn’t be easily seen in a darkened theater?

The whole idea of arming everyone and expecting this to make crazies and criminals less effective is simply ludicrous.

What happened to the idea that an adult was expected to display responsibility? Responsibility for the children you’ve borne, responsibility for the family, above all responsibility for self? When did we become a society that accepted the constant use of drugs and alcohol to fuel empty lives?
Why in the world would we want to respect people like that?
When did talent excuse the lack of ability to confront life? Or the simple bad manners and misbehavior that’s now, by most accounts, the norm? Why allow people who are demonstrably the sort none of us would feel comfortable spending time with to be role models for those who need such?
We’ve built a society that’s rotten at the foundation. And no; religion isn’t the cause or the answer. If there is one, it’s realizing that those who need alcohol or drugs to sing or dance or act simply aren’t worth our time or consideration. Who decide that because others enjoy watching them perform or who hold public office are somehow so superior to the rest of us that they need not follow accepted norms of behavior.
We’ve become a society that accepts, even admires, brats. Even 40 or 50 year old brats.
Not me. Here I take my stand.
Want my respect, then earn it.
I couldn’t care less about your need for ‘self expression’. Want to wear a t-shirt that proclaims that you want to fuck, go ahead. But I’ll ignore you as the useless bottom-dweller you are. Want to wear pants that expose your underwear, OK; you’re advertising, but I’m not interested. No respect. Want to sell tickets to a concert after you’ve been photographed dressed like that? I won’t buy.
I’m simply not going to pay attention to society’s brats. I won’t employ them or buy from them or pay money to see them ‘perform’.
Here I stand. But you must make your own choices. That, too, is about responsibility.

My earlier post had drifted from pure economic comments, and so I think this might help. The concept seems important enough to justify a post that is limited to economics.

In a recession or a depression, a nation must invest. They do this by putting people to work and paying them; not bankers, but middle class people who lose jobs in a downturn. Those people will earn a living, build infrastructure, buy houses and cars and kitchen appliances and furniture and so much more. Every dollar paid in will come back in increased economic activity.

What you’re doing in this case is turning your economy ‘inward’. It works like this:

Modern developed economies have excess workers. Simply put, machines are more efficient and more productive than humans in many cases, and so they displace the human workers who once made our widgets. The only way to employ such when the economy is doing well is to employ them making goods for export or to service travelers, tourists or business people who bring in foreign money. This is the ‘external’ part of an economy that employs excess labor working for other nations in order to earn foreign credits. A tractor built in Ohio which is exported to China benefits both China and the USA.

In contrast, when an economy turns down, exports fall. Other nations generally follow whenever this happens to a major linked economy such as that of North America or Europe or China/Asia. People in such instances can’t afford to buy our exports. They retrench, repairing and reusing instead of buying new. This is where the ‘turn inward’ option becomes so important.

By investing in infrastructure, a government uses that ‘excess labor’ to build things that will make the nation stronger when the economic recovery finally happens. Things like the national highway system, or the system of water collection and storage that has supported the development of the American West (think Boulder, now Hoover, Dam), or the National Parks system. Things like the Rural Electrification Agency that strung power lines to isolated people across the South. Or the space program, or the information exchange system that has grown into the internet, or the research initiatives that will produce cars that can drive themselves (they can already park themselves better than most humans can) and possibly recharge from powered roadways. So much more.

Simplified: a robust, functioning economy that is growing at a rate of perhaps 3% annually can employ excess workers ‘externally’. When growth drops below that, unemployment rises and government should invest and thereby turn the economy ‘inward’ by funding the hiring of unemployed workers to address needs in the nation’s infrastructure.

Written in response to a NY Times article published on April 27, 2013:

“After years of insisting that the primary cure for Europe’s malaise is to slash spending, the champions of austerity, most notably Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, find themselves under intensified pressure to back off unpopular remedies and find some way to restore faltering growth to the world’s largest economic bloc. ”

Not that our Republican politicians have figured it out yet. Or even the Democrats.

In a recession or a depression, a nation must invest. They do this by putting people to work and paying them; not bankers, but middle class people who lose jobs in a downturn. Those people will earn a living, build infrastructure, buy houses and cars and kitchen appliances and furniture and so much more. Every dollar paid in will come back in increased economic activity.

What you’re doing in this case is turning your economy ‘inward’. It works like this:

Modern developed economies have excess workers. Simply put, machines are more efficient and more productive than humans in many cases, and so they displace the human workers who once made widgets. The only way to employ such when the economy is doing well is to employ them making goods for export or to service travelers, tourists or business people, who bring in foreign money. This is the ‘external’ part of an economy that uses excess labor to work for other nations in order to earn foreign credits.

In contrast, when an economy turns down, exports fall. Other nations generally follow when this happens to a major linked economy such as that of North America or Europe or even China/Asia. People in such instances can’t afford exports. They retrench and stop buying. This is where the ‘turn inward’ option becomes so important.

By investing in infrastructure, a government uses that ‘excess labor’ to build things that will make the nation stronger when the economic recovery happens. Things like the national highway system, or the system of water collection and storage that has supported the development of the American West, or the National Parks system. Things like the Rural Electrification Agency that strung power lines to isolated people across the South.

Some of these things need replacement and some need repairs, and there are some which have to be built from the ground up. Things like a sophisticated power distribution system to replace what we have, or a national water distribution system that will take excess water from floods and move it to where drought is endemic, or a system of high-speed rail that will relieve the pressure on air travel and highway travel. Things like a national school system that can handle those who could go all the way to PhD or post-doc for the few, but who will produce machinists and farm technicians and water treatment plant workers or technicians trained to clean up pollution from earlier endeavors in mining and such for the many. A system of academics for those whose talents lie in that field, but an apprenticeship system for those who prefer the blue-collar middle-class lifestyle.

None of them will be done by purely-private entities because there’s no immediate profit for them. The nation profits, and the nation’s population profits. Such may be intangible in the short run, but carry immense benefits in the long run.

Profit there will be, of course; governments don’t immediately raise armies of construction workers (that could be done, but it smacks of communism and is less efficient in any case), and so private firms will be hired to do much of the work. Still, there’s a place for such as the CCC or similar programs in emergencies. But private companies can do better than the WPA if they’re regulated and supervised, and government is the agency that pays for them.

And individual government have the power of the printing press. So long as inflation is held at some reasonable level (perhaps 2.5% or something similar), it’s not necessary to borrow the seed money that will begin the economic turnaround. And after this is well underway and private companies begin competing for workers, private investment can be reduced and taxes raised to cool the economy.

The only thing holding us back is national will. And one or more national leaders. Currently, we’ve got politicians, not leaders. Instead of a Roosevelt, we’ve got Obama. Better than the alternative presented by the Republicans, but that’s not saying much. A compromiser-in-chief, as opposed to a tax-evader whose leadership consisted of offshoring and outsourcing jobs and gutting companies for profit. And the previous administrations which were nothing to brag about, either. It will take several generations to get the stench of Bush II from the national nostrils.

Part of that lack of national will is the 1%, who are doing quite will in the current economy and who see no reason to change. Labor is cheap and management profits are continuing to rise; why change this? If the middle class is suffering, too bad for them, but I’ve got mine, you’ve got yours, life is good. And investing in a few politicians will ensure that things stay that way.

And the voting public is too uneducated and too unthinking to force change. We allow our economy to be not inward or outward directed as circumstances require, but just to continue bumbling along as our bribed leaders tell us is best. We can see the evidence all around us, but collectively we ignore it.

At least, for now. I suppose things will have to get worse before we force our politicians to make them get better.

There’s a fellow I know who’s already been advised that he will be getting a pay cut. Forty percent; he’s the worker, and they are about to have their first baby, so there’s no possibility of a second job anytime soon.
They have a mortgage.
Probably a car payment.
And a new arrival any day now.
What effect will that 40% cut have? What kind of stress will this introduce into their lives? They should be happily celebrating, but instead, they have to be worrying.
Not the bankers, of course. They won’t lose, regardless. And defense contractors? They can easily weather the storm until payments get back to normal. But there are going to be a lot of worried people who don’t have that cushion. They won’t be spending as much, even if they have the money.
There will also be new unemployed to add to the already high levels. Companies won’t be hiring; instead, they’ll be laying people off because there’s less money out there to buy things as the cuts begin to kick in. People won’t be buying new cars; they’ll make the old ones go another year or two.
While the politicians wrangle and posture, the economy will slow, and then begin to recede once again. People caught in that will get more desperate. A period of two years or so when the recession began to slow and unemployment dropped is about to reverse.
It’s not as if we don’t have a good idea what will happen. Just look at Europe. Look at Greece and Spain and Portugal. Look at 25% unemployment overall, and 50% unemployment among young adults.
Look at the happy TeaPublicans that have demanded this. Remember that they’ve demanded those cuts while their sponsors, the Koch brothers and others who’ve funneled all that cash through Rove and Norquist have gotten richer all the time. But also realize that even those won’t be happy; they gain riches through an active economy.
Remember the Great Depression. Remember that Republicans were in charge and pushed austerity as the way to get out of the depression. Remember that it took Democrat-led government spending to do that, New Deal spending followed by wartime spending, to finally end the depression and bring on the postwar boom. The Great Depression also had the Dust Bowl to fuel it, but don’t be too happy; we have had a succession of droughts already. Last year those droughts reached into the Midwest. And Phoenix had a succession of dust storms that rivaled those of the Dust Bowl. The west and other areas too had wildfires; austerity means no new planes and fewer firefighters. We don’t need those guys; Mr Romney said so.
But hey, recession is good for us. OK, austerity is good for us; gotta reduce that deficit! Your TeaPublican leaders tell us so.
Comes the next election, I think I might want to tell them a thing or two. At the ballot box.
No Republican. Never again.