Procrastadabbler

I just got around to watching the documentary, “Why We Fight.” Incredibly well done, but devastating.

One person makes the comment that capitalism is winning. We send our soldiers not to fight for freedom or liberty or any of those high ideals. We send them to keep what Eisenhower warned us against–the military industrial complex.

One other thing that was eye opening for me was the statement that Washington, in his farewell address, warned against a standing army. He said “they [a union] will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.” Learning this also makes me better understand the second amendment which as ratified by the states reads, “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.”

The second amendment is not about people being able to keep guns in their house just because they want to. The purpose of the right to bear arms is to provide “a well regulated militia” because the founding fathers (Washington) were distrustful of a standing army. The key here is “well regulated.”

But as the author of “Why We Fight” points out, armaments is a big business. Without war, without fear, a huge portion of our economy is at risk.

On that note, I’m off to AERA.