On Force

So following up on my prior post, I've refined my view to the following non-refined firehose-on-all position:

Let everyone have weapons! The whole problem is in the policing. Who is the U.S., the "First World" to say what-have-you to any other nation state? I want every nation on the planet the opportunity to have nuclear weapons. Iran? Nuclear warheads that can reach the mainland. The guy following you on the sidewalk, as you guide your kids and grumpy wife towards the ice cream shop (just four more blocks, honey!)? A loaded .44. He after all hasn't DONE anything yet. He's a person, not some statistic to be manipulated by The Man. Who made some government RULER of his free choices? Who made the U.S. Government RULER of some other nation-state's free choices? Iran, nukes. All the world, nukes. No more bully cops, please. Deadly force everywhere; not that we wish it for its own sake, but only that we have no reason to deny it, while our government itself wields it around.

So I think this position ought to be consistent, in the sense that all of my knee-jerk Liberal friends (but they have the truth!), and my knee-jerk Conservative friends (but they have the truth!) ought to see the value in a hands off policy when it comes to non-felons and non-warring other nation-states, like Joe Bob, or Iran. It's not what they might do, or even what they say they might do, Dick Cheney. It's the question of what gives the current jerks-with-deadly-force the right to take away from them, or to prevent them from acquiring, for fear of what they might do. Who are we to police everyone inside and out, on grounds of what might happen tomorrow? Suppose I buy an AR-15. I might shoot up the mall. Suppose Iran buys weaponized nukes. They might shoot up the Middle East. Neither has happened. So screw off!

We all desire freedom, as W. once said. He must have secretly admired Iran. Get the NRA to help them with messaging, W. They'll assert their rights to nuclear yet. As Timothy McVeigh recited, creepily, moments before his execution by the State: ... I am the captain of my ship...". And so he was. And so we are.

Joe Bob, Iran, and Dunderheads

You know this raging debate in the States over Iran, I've been thinking on it. Conversations more than a few with friends liberal, conservative.

And liberal goes like this: how dare you sir? To suggest that whatever power the First World might have be yielded coercively to attempt to curtail or prevent the development of nuclear weaponry by another nation-state? Iran, for instance, seems docile when compared to no less than the United States: we invaded two Muslim countries in recent history, after all. What has Iran done? You hypocrites!

Yes, feel the injustice. Hear the shrillness. But here's were we have a nice if unintended result, a rare gem of a result: it seems that the dunderheaded liberals and the dunderheaded conservatives can find common dunder: he who chooses weapons is choosing good! Yes, I know this seems at first blush counter-intuitive, but hear me out. First World Liberals want Iran to decide for itself whether it needs nuclear weapons. Let them have them; we either know that they'll not use them in Nazi-like fashion (we're quite good at predicting future conflicts you see, you see not), or we know that if they do decide to use them we're sitting morally pretty by insisting that we stuck up for the sovereignty of other nations. Either way (sans the WWIII stuff), we're good. Real choices! Weapons choices! This is the stuff of autonomy, and autonomy is good!

But here's where things get weird. This let-em-have-weapons-who-are-we-to-say-no idea is pretty comfy with Joe Bob, too, the guy down the street who spits out rage about the U.S. Government, who he views as trying to prevent his own acquisition of deadly force (and how do THEY know how he might someday use his weapons?). But what is Joe Bob saying? What is Iran saying? Here we have a nice, rare meeting of the minds between dunderheaded Liberals and Joe Bob Conservatives, both viciously grumping about the reach of state power into their own or someone else's affairs. Deadly force? Nuclear force? Back off! It's my damn right, and my damn pergogative to have whatever the hell I want, and who are you (Orwellian First World, Orwellian State), to say what or how I might use my deadly force? You over-reaching, power-abusing, beaurocrats! You self-appointed cops of the world!

And so now with the benefit of such wisdom, I see finally that all politics really does come together, and a river runs through it (this last comment means nothing, much like so much poetry, but I like poetry. And guns. And hell, maybe even personal nuclear weapons, though I don't want to pay for them, or store them. But this is for some other blog). It turns out that this stick-up-for-the-little-guy-to-have-insane-amounts-of-deadly-force idea finds a nice cozy home in liberalism and it seems with the NRA: "Who the hell are THEY? To tell me what I can or can't have? Or how I'm going to use it?" Right on, Joe Bob. Right on, Liberals. Don't tell me, you fucking sleezy existing power structure. You're half the enemy yourself...

Iran Flunks Again

Why does Iran want a nuclear capability? Is it at all plausible that it's not for weaponry? No. It's safe to conclude that their nuclear ambitions are militaristic (what fantastic self-deception would convince a thinking person otherwise?). So, then, why does Iran want nuclear weapons? To defend against what threat? Israel? Israel is armed to the teeth, including a nuclear arsenal capable of disintegrating Iran in a cloud of U-235, and hasn't used them to invade or to advance against Iran in spite of constant, hostile threats from the latter. It's pure fiction -- a kind of delusional, racist, Middle Age cogitation emitted by the Iranian clerics and kept endlessly circulating among its people -- that Israel poses some grave offensive threat. What's less fictional are unending remarks by that smiling buffoon Ahmadinejad that the solution to the Middle East crisis is to "destroy Israel".

The West is understandably paternalistic toward Iran and other shit-bag places where rational thought, a respect for historical accuracy, and the pursuit of lofty ideals like knowledge and science are in scarce supply, and subjugated to radicalized religious rhetoric. What's the alternative for the West? Ignore mountains of clear evidence to the contrary and insist on including them in the self-interested but ultimately rational dialogue that developed nations enjoy? That's a Peter Pan foreign policy. It's easiest, safest, and entirely justified in the interest of global and regional stability to just pester the hell out of their regime with paternalistic demands, sanctions, remonstrations, threats, and even if necessary military actions. As long as it keeps their religious-fueled racist craziness toward Israel and the West from taking form in physical weaponry -- making it possible to transform words into actions -- it's a paternalism we ought to embrace. So: those damn Iranian leaders, they act like children, cussing and threatening their neighbors, and never doing their science homework, or getting their history lessons straight. This fanatical ignoramus of a regime must be punished! Punished! Punished!