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EDIT: he just confirmed Mattis for Sec of Defense.
EDIT II: saying there should be consequences for flag burning...
>implying there shouldn't be punishment for burning your countries flag
Have some respect.
I will respect my flag by burning it. My grandpappy didn't fight in Nam for us not to be able to bern colorful clothes if i so felt like it would adequately express my disdain for the crumbling society it is increasingly evident we all live in.
EDIT: he just confirmed Mattis for Sec of Defense.
EDIT II: saying there should be consequences for flag burning...
>implying there shouldn't be punishment for burning your countries flag
Have some respect.
Freedom of speech and dissent is more important than your feeling getting hurt because someone burnt a piece of cloth.
This.
The appropriate response is to tellthe flag burner is an donkey-cave for proving a point... not, to have the power of the government to come down and jail/fine the flag burner.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/02 05:30:53
whembly wrote: Ah... I must have missed that memo... that makes sense.
I always bristled at such admonishment because it was assumed that I was coming from your latter viewpoint... rather in reality I'm coming from your former.
Yeah, I think there's a fair few issues where the primary conflict is people talking past each other.
On the one hand, I'll readily criticize programs like Affirmative Action and the like because of it's structural bias... however, at the same time, I'd tell everyone, if they can, to take advantage of it because it's hard enough to succeed anyways. knowwhatimean?
Damn straight. I've always said it is good to talk about how the rules could be better, and sometimes we even get a chance to change a rule or two, but when the game starts you play by the rules as they are.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
whembly wrote: I'm sure it was there prior to that... right History Professor Hats??
Eh... It's complicated. The Constitution makes it the President's responsibility to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" in Section 3 of Article 2. Executive Orders are generally justified on this basis; that the President is clarifying the execution of law to his branch which is in charge of executing the law. The current issue is definitely a modern issue, but it's also one that is so shrouded in political bickering. Basically, the day to day running of the state has become political in itself rather than a simple matter of civics. This is in my mind a bad thing, which isn't to say people should ignore executive orders, but people definitely pay them far more mind than is warranted, and certainly we blow the whole thing out of perception. No president, not Reagan, not Bush 1 or 2, no Obama, probably not even Trump has ever come close to FDR on executive orders. FDR passed over 3700 of them in his time in office (compare here). Saying that Bush or Obama has leveled unprecedented levels of executive overreach is objectively absurd. Call me when a President orders " any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion."
It's unconstitutional to make a law saying the President can't issue orders to his own branch because that's the job of the office. Is there a constitutional basis for telling George Bush he can't issue an order to cease and desist the release of sensitive documents? Why shouldn't Barrack Obama have the power to issue an order repealing Bush's order? I'm not talking about whether it's right or wrong here (cause I think Bush was wrong), but about the legality of it. What is the constitutional basis to tell Dwight Eisenhower that "we know the courts have ruled separate is not equal and that segregation is unconstitutional, but you can't go around Congress and the states and force schools in Alabama to desegregate." I don't think there is. This is part of the inner workings of the executive, and whether or not the orders are constitutional is a question for the Courts like anything else a President might do.
More History with Hats!
During the Korean War, President Harry Truman tried to nationalize the US Steel industry in an attempt to end a strike. This was Executive Order 10340. In writing a decision for the subsequent case Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, Justice Robert Jackson argued that there existed a "zone of twilight" in which the President may legally make an executive decision wherein Congress has by "inaction or indifference" done nothing. Truman's order was overturned, but this decision formed the basis for why it was legal for Eisenhower to order the desegregation of public schools. And why shouldn't he? The Court declared separate but equal impossible, that segregation was unconstitutional, and illegal. Eisenhower didn't overreach. He issued an order clarifying the position of the executive pursuant to law and he had his Presidency execute that order when it became clear Jim Crow States intended to ignore the ruling that their laws violated the constitutional rights of the people.
Executive orders have always existed. It was the state department in 1936 that actually started compiling them into a working collect under the National Archives, so in a way I kind of regard the modern controversy over Executive Orders as a byproduct of expanding knowledge and archival work. These things always existed, but they weren't widely accessible before the 90s, creating an illusion that it was new. The overturn of Truman's blatant overreach with US steel factories actually seems to have imposed a basis on Executive Orders, noticeable in how fewer there have been presidency to presidency since. For those who don't recognize it, the quote above is Executive Order 9066, issued by President Franklin Roosevelt authorizing the United States military to summarily intern all persons of Japanese descent within the United States with no regard for their citizenship, their property, or their civil rights. This order was issued at the same time the United States was at war with another country that had summarily interned all persons of non-national descent within its borders with no regard for their citizenship, their property, or their civil rights.
Mitochondria wrote: I like how everyone is saying the Carrier deal cost the government 7 million.
It did not cost the government a damn thing. The government is not going pay any money out.
Nah, you've just gotten confused by an accounting process. Consider if government still collected the money, but then gave it straight back as a subsidy for keeping some jobs in the US. Everyone would know that was government taxing $7m, and then spending $7m. But somehow, if government just cuts out the accounting back and forth, then people somehow get fooled as to what just happened.
This was an argument I read from was Marty Feldstein, by the way. This guy was the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under Reagan, so not exactly a liberal kind of guy. What he was, in fact, was a right wing economist who actually understood what minimal government actually meant, and what it might actually be good for. So he spent his time looking to close loopholes and the mess of tax benefits and subsidies that so many businesses are hooked on, because he knows these special deals have a massive disruptive effect on the allocation of resources, and they force government to raise more money from other sources. As a result he really hated the kind of argument you put made above.
That money, by rights, belongs to the company that earned it. Not the government.
Well, Pence and Trump just made an agreement to waive Carrier's tax obligations, so by the only rights that matter, legal ones, you are right, the money now belongs to Carrier. But before the deal that moeny didn't belong to Carrier, it was legally obligated to be paid to government. If they had failed to make payment, and when government attempted collection then Carrier would have looked like damned idiots if they attempted to claim it was there's by right just because.
You might need to spend some time thinking about what property rights actually are.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/12/02 06:09:32
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
ShieldBrother wrote: >implying there shouldn't be punishment for burning your countries flag
Have some respect.
The first amendment does not only protect speech that you consider respectful. Aren't conservatives like you supposed to consider "obey what the constitution says" a defining element of your political beliefs?
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
Peregrine wrote: Aren't conservatives like you supposed to consider "obey what the constitution says" a defining element of your political beliefs?
Only if it's conservative enough for them
I'm actually surprised how lax US is about whole flag. In Finland it's not allowed for flag to even touch a ground. Now albeit you can burn it but violation/act of scorn isn't so presumably say burning it publicly as a protest would be illegal. Burning is preferred method for destroying say old flags that aren't pristine enough for using(say white has started to turn yellow). But I have suspicion anybody burning it publicly as a protest would have hard time convincing that was act of non-scornful disposal of flag not fit for use.
We have the US flag code, but enforcing it would be against the first amendment (free speech and expression), so it's not. The US is sort of unique in having something like the first amendment. Even other liberal democracies, such as the UK, France, or Germany don't have anything as overarching and inalienable as it. They have "free speech", but only to the point where the governments don't make laws that massively restrict it. It's why there can be swastika bans in Germany.
Homosexuality is the #1 cause of gay marriage.
kronk wrote: Every pizza is a personal sized pizza if you try hard enough and believe in yourself.
sebster wrote: Yes, indeed. What a terrible piece of cultural imperialism it is for me to say that a country shouldn't murder its own citizens
BaronIveagh wrote: Basically they went from a carrot and stick to a smaller carrot and flanged mace.
Co'tor Shas wrote: They have "free speech", but only to the point where the governments don't make laws that massively restrict it. It's why there can be swastika bans in Germany.
Yes, and it's why non-US citizens like myself are so puzzled by debates like this. To us, while the ability to speak one's mind freely is obviously very important, that doesn't necessarily mean that every single possible way of speaking must be protected. I mean, if the only way a person can think of expressing their thought on an issue is by setting something on fire, it's probably not that considered or important a thought
On the flip side, we also don't have that pervasive culture of respect for the flag, either. When we have had little flag burning tiffs maybe half the criticisms are of it as a safety hazard, as if a protest is an Occ Healthy & Safety kind of place to be
I don't know even know what the law here says about flag burning. I also don't really care. If people want to burn something that symbolises something for someone else, then so be it. But if enough people are bothered by that, then the protester will just have to find another way to make their complaint - you can still burn effigies, afterall.
All that said, though for everything Americans talk about their free speech and how powerful it is, this week a bunch of protesters went in to the public viewing galleries of the Australian parliament, and shouted so much they actually forced Question Time to halt, and then they glued themselves to the railings to prevent police escorting them out. None were arrested. The next day some other protesters climbed Parliament House and absailed down with a protest banner, and only two of them were arrested. How do you think that would have played out in the US, I'm guessing you'd see some serious federal charges leveled against them.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/02 06:55:19
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
sebster wrote: I mean, if the only way a person can think of expressing their thought on an issue is by setting something on fire, it's probably not that considered or important a thought
Says you!
This is clearly a metaphor for the US auto industry, how it nearly ran head first into the emergency response of bankruptcy, and how despite all attempts by public servants to save it it's still burning to the damn ground.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/02 06:59:39
Co'tor Shas wrote: We have the US flag code, but enforcing it would be against the first amendment (free speech and expression), so it's not. The US is sort of unique in having something like the first amendment. Even other liberal democracies, such as the UK, France, or Germany don't have anything as overarching and inalienable as it. They have "free speech", but only to the point where the governments don't make laws that massively restrict it. It's why there can be swastika bans in Germany.
Are you talking about the US flag code that was ruled as non-consitutional by the Supreme Court? The one that says there's a fine for burning or desecrating a flag?
Co'tor Shas wrote: We have the US flag code, but enforcing it would be against the first amendment (free speech and expression), so it's not. The US is sort of unique in having something like the first amendment. Even other liberal democracies, such as the UK, France, or Germany don't have anything as overarching and inalienable as it. They have "free speech", but only to the point where the governments don't make laws that massively restrict it. It's why there can be swastika bans in Germany.
Are you talking about the US flag code that was ruled as non-consitutional by the Supreme Court? The one that says there's a fine for burning or desecrating a flag?
Yup, that's why it's not enforced. Because enforcing it would be unconstitutional. It's just sort of, there.
Homosexuality is the #1 cause of gay marriage.
kronk wrote: Every pizza is a personal sized pizza if you try hard enough and believe in yourself.
sebster wrote: Yes, indeed. What a terrible piece of cultural imperialism it is for me to say that a country shouldn't murder its own citizens
BaronIveagh wrote: Basically they went from a carrot and stick to a smaller carrot and flanged mace.
This is clearly a metaphor for the US auto industry, how it nearly ran head first into the emergency response of bankruptcy, and how despite all attempts by public servants to save it it's still burning to the damn ground.
That's my point, stop someone burning a flag, and they'll have to get creative and express their political argument by... burning something else instead.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Yes, and it's why non-US citizens like myself are so puzzled by debates like this. To us, while the ability to speak one's mind freely is obviously very important, that doesn't necessarily mean that every single possible way of speaking must be protected. I mean, if the only way a person can think of expressing their thought on an issue is by setting something on fire, it's probably not that considered or important a thought .
I can't explain the American first ammendment in any other way than "If you want to express an Idea, without violence, then the government may not abridge said ability to express an idea even if it is so intolerable it makes other people physically uncomfortable" Like Hate Speech is technically protected by the 1st ammendemnt (at least 7 SCOTUS cases set precedent for it). Now asking to take up arms and setting crosses on fire on peoples lawns as a form of intimidation that is not protected. It's more from a fear of restrictive government we've created a monster of free expression so powerful that It's legally not stoppable. Unless you deploy the National Guard to brutally attack Native American protesters in cold winter months(hasn't happened yet [keyword is yet]) and yadda yadda yadda militarization of the police forces.
Also it's symbolic. Traditionally to Retire a US flag you burn it. It's common knowledge here that's how you dispose of a bad US flag. So by Taking the flag and setting it on fire one is retiring the flag, saying in effect the Ideas it represents are no more. The reality is the hardcore Right here just don't care what you're trying to say. If you disrespect the flag it is an afront to god and nation. People are criticized for even flying it upside down (not sure if international but a symbol of distress at least here) which is a much more appropriate way to protest with a flag in my opinion than by burning it personally. But it's drawn roughly the same level of criticism.
Now fun fact. The US Flag Code (that outlines respectful suggestions on how to fly a flag) Not only frowns on the burning of the flag and the inversion of the flag (unless you are actually in distress) But also calls for the prohibition of wearing the flag. But the Right here don't care about applying respect equally. Which is why they wear Flag bandanas, Flag Jackets, Flag Hats, Flag etc... etc... etc... etc... etc... It's just another fun bit of hypocrisy here in our social dynamic. And we have a huge culture of Nationalism as is evident by the recent election.
Co'tor Shas wrote: We have the US flag code, but enforcing it would be against the first amendment (free speech and expression), so it's not. The US is sort of unique in having something like the first amendment. Even other liberal democracies, such as the UK, France, or Germany don't have anything as overarching and inalienable as it. They have "free speech", but only to the point where the governments don't make laws that massively restrict it. It's why there can be swastika bans in Germany.
Are you talking about the US flag code that was ruled as non-consitutional by the Supreme Court? The one that says there's a fine for burning or desecrating a flag?
Yup, that's why it's not enforced. Because enforcing it would be unconstitutional. It's just sort of, there.
And so it doesn't matter
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/12/02 07:29:41
Darth_Lopez wrote: I can't explain the American first ammendment in any other way than "If you want to express an Idea, without violence, then the government may not abridge said ability to express an idea even if it is so intolerable it makes other people physically uncomfortable"
You don't have to explain it, I understand it. Again, other countries have values of free speech, they're just not the same as the US. And don't assume that means 'less than the US', it means different. Note the example I gave above, some protesters entered the public viewing gallery of the federal parliament and made so much noise that our actual chamber of government had to close question time. They then glued themselves to the railings to make it harder for police to remove them from the building. None were charged, it was respected as an act of free speech.
Just because we don't have the same values as you, it doesn't mean we don't understand your values. We just don't prioritise the same things in the same ways.
Now fun fact. The US Flag Code (that outlines respectful suggestions on how to fly a flag) Not only frowns on the burning of the flag and the inversion of the flag (unless you are actually in distress) But also calls for the prohibition of wearing the flag. But the Right here don't care about applying respect equally. Which is why they wear Flag bandanas, Flag Jackets, Flag Hats, Flag etc... etc... etc... etc... etc... It's just another fun bit of hypocrisy here in our social dynamic. And we have a huge culture of Nationalism as is evident by the recent election.
Even funner fact, the US Flag Code is enough of a hassle that Disney only bothers with one genuine flag that they have to treat with respect, all the other flags hung on various buildings around the parks only look like US flags from a distance, they actually have one less star and so don't fall under the Flag Code. This means Disney doesn't have to spend the resources to raise and lower the flags as required under the Flag Code.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Darth_Lopez wrote: I can't explain the American first ammendment in any other way than "If you want to express an Idea, without violence, then the government may not abridge said ability to express an idea even if it is so intolerable it makes other people physically uncomfortable"
You don't have to explain it, I understand it. Again, other countries have values of free speech, they're just not the same as the US. And don't assume that means 'less than the US', it means different. Note the example I gave above, some protesters entered the public viewing gallery of the federal parliament and made so much noise that our actual chamber of government had to close question time. They then glued themselves to the railings to make it harder for police to remove them from the building. None were charged, it was respected as an act of free speech.
Just because we don't have the same values as you, it doesn't mean we don't understand your values. We just don't prioritise the same things in the same ways.
In US is there any penalties for saying something? Say suggesting somebody to kill another person, threatening to kill somebody or for hate speech?
In Finland at least all 3 can lead to penalty of some sort so guess from strict point of view Finland doesn't have full freedom of speech.
Darth_Lopez wrote: I can't explain the American first ammendment in any other way than "If you want to express an Idea, without violence, then the government may not abridge said ability to express an idea even if it is so intolerable it makes other people physically uncomfortable"
You don't have to explain it, I understand it. Again, other countries have values of free speech, they're just not the same as the US. And don't assume that means 'less than the US', it means different. Note the example I gave above, some protesters entered the public viewing gallery of the federal parliament and made so much noise that our actual chamber of government had to close question time. They then glued themselves to the railings to make it harder for police to remove them from the building. None were charged, it was respected as an act of free speech.
Just because we don't have the same values as you, it doesn't mean we don't understand your values. We just don't prioritise the same things in the same ways.
In US is there any penalties for saying something? Say suggesting somebody to kill another person, threatening to kill somebody or for hate speech?
In Finland at least all 3 can lead to penalty of some sort so guess from strict point of view Finland doesn't have full freedom of speech.
Direct threats are punishable, as is libel or slander. Hate speech is not, it is protected speech (for good or ill).
Homosexuality is the #1 cause of gay marriage.
kronk wrote: Every pizza is a personal sized pizza if you try hard enough and believe in yourself.
sebster wrote: Yes, indeed. What a terrible piece of cultural imperialism it is for me to say that a country shouldn't murder its own citizens
BaronIveagh wrote: Basically they went from a carrot and stick to a smaller carrot and flanged mace.
tneva82 wrote: In US is there any penalties for saying something? Say suggesting somebody to kill another person, threatening to kill somebody or for hate speech?
In Finland at least all 3 can lead to penalty of some sort so guess from strict point of view Finland doesn't have full freedom of speech.
Threats, inciting violence, conspiring to commit a crime, etc, can be punished as a crime. Mere hate speech can not. The TL;DR version of it is that speech directly connected with something else that is a crime or creates an immediate danger (the classic "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater" example) is not protected by the first amendment, but speech that is merely unpleasant or unpopular, no matter how much a given listener dislikes it, is protected.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
Co'tor Shas wrote: We have the US flag code, but enforcing it would be against the first amendment (free speech and expression), so it's not. The US is sort of unique in having something like the first amendment. Even other liberal democracies, such as the UK, France, or Germany don't have anything as overarching and inalienable as it. They have "free speech", but only to the point where the governments don't make laws that massively restrict it. It's why there can be swastika bans in Germany.
Are you talking about the US flag code that was ruled as non-consitutional by the Supreme Court? The one that says there's a fine for burning or desecrating a flag?
Yup, that's why it's not enforced. Because enforcing it would be unconstitutional. It's just sort of, there.
It's a nice set of suggestions to follow, if you feel like it though.
Co'tor Shas wrote: We have the US flag code, but enforcing it would be against the first amendment (free speech and expression), so it's not. The US is sort of unique in having something like the first amendment. Even other liberal democracies, such as the UK, France, or Germany don't have anything as overarching and inalienable as it. They have "free speech", but only to the point where the governments don't make laws that massively restrict it. It's why there can be swastika bans in Germany.
Are you talking about the US flag code that was ruled as non-consitutional by the Supreme Court? The one that says there's a fine for burning or desecrating a flag?
Yup, that's why it's not enforced. Because enforcing it would be unconstitutional. It's just sort of, there.
Sort of... parts of the country not covered/protected by 1A follow it, like the military. It's not entirely useless, it's just become something more like an internal policy memo.
tneva82 wrote: In US is there any penalties for saying something? Say suggesting somebody to kill another person, threatening to kill somebody or for hate speech?
In Finland at least all 3 can lead to penalty of some sort so guess from strict point of view Finland doesn't have full freedom of speech.
Threats, inciting violence, conspiring to commit a crime, etc, can be punished as a crime. Mere hate speech can not. The TL;DR version of it is that speech directly connected with something else that is a crime or creates an immediate danger (the classic "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater" example) is not protected by the first amendment, but speech that is merely unpleasant or unpopular, no matter how much a given listener dislikes it, is protected.
You are pretty much right... I just wanted to clarify this even more for non-US readers.
You *can* yell 'FIRE!' in a theater if there's truly a fire.
What's illegal, is if you shout 'FIRE!' in a theater with the express purpose for creating chaos, and thus creating an unsafe environment (people rushing for exits, hurting each other).
America knows Gen. James Mattis as a character, Mad Dog Mattis, the font of funny quotes and Chuck Norris-caliber memes. Those of us who served with him know that he is a caring, erudite, warfighting general. We also know that there is a reason he uses the call-sign Chaos: he is a lifelong student of his profession, a devotee of maneuver warfare and Sun Tzu, the sort of guy who wants to win without fighting—to cause chaos among those he would oppose.
To Marines, he is the finest of our tribal elders. The rest of the world, very soon, will know how truly gifted he is. Our friends and allies will be happy he is our new secretary of war; our enemies will soon wish he weren’t.
I worked for Mattis three times: when he was a colonel, a major general, and a lieutenant general. I very much want to work for him again. Here is why.
One: July 1994 I checked into Third Battalion, Seventh Marines in Twentynine Palms, California in 1994. It was 125 degrees in July in the high desert; everyone was in the field. This was a hard place, for hard men training for the hardest of jobs.
Then-Colonel Mattis, the Seventh Marines regimental commander, called for me to come see him. I was not only just a brand-new captain, but an aviator in an infantry regiment. I was a minor light in the Seventh Marines firmament: I was not in any measure a key player.
I arrived early, as a captain does when reporting to a colonel, and waited in his anteroom. There, I convinced myself what this would be: a quick handshake, a stern few sentences on what I was to do while there, and then a slap on the back with a “Go get ‘em, Tiger!” as he turned to the next task at hand. This was a busy guy. Five minutes, tops.
Colonel Mattis called for me. He stood to greet me, and offered to get coffee for me. He put a hand on my shoulder; gave me, over my protestations, his own seat behind his desk; and pulled up a chair to the side. He actually took his phone off the hook—something I had thought was just a figure of speech—closed his office door, and spent more than an hour knee-to-knee with me.
Mattis laid out his warfighting philosophy, vision, goals, and expectations. He told me how he saw us fighting and where, and how he was getting us ready to do just that. He laid out history, culture, religion, and politics, and he saw very clearly not only where we would fight, but how Seventh Marines, a desert battalion, fit into that fight.
Many years later, when Seventh Marines got into that fight, he was proven precisely right. It would not be the last time.
Two: February 2003 Major Gen. Mattis was commanding general of First Marine Division, in charge of the riflemen who were going to bear the brunt of President George W. Bush’s decision to go to war. He was small, wiry, and feisty, energy cooking off of him, the sort of guy who walks into a room of Alpha males and is instantly the leader. Mattis was a lifelong bachelor married to the Marine Corps, with a reputation as an ass-kicking, ferocious leader, an officer who took gak from no man and would do anything for his Marines.
Mattis had led First Battalion, Seventh Marines as part of Task Force Ripper during Desert Storm, and had cemented his reputation as a man on the way up. This reputation, well-earned even then, was solidified when he took Task Force 58, pulled together from two Marine Expeditionary Unit afloat, 400 miles over Pakistan and into Afghanistan late in 2001 to retaliate on behalf of us all against al-Qaeda’s attacks on September 11. He was a blunt, smart warfighter, just the sort of man our bulldog savior, Gen. Al Gray, had started pulling up the ladder behind him when he was commandant in the late 1980s.
I felt very confident with these two major generals—Mattis of the infantry and Amos of the air wing—in charge. And I felt even more confident as I looked around the room.
The metal folding chairs held hundreds of men. Pilots were in tan flight suits, pistols hanging on their chests in shoulder holsters. Infantry officers sat farther back; these were battalion fire support coordinators, seasoned majors who commanded a rifle battalion’s weapons company (heavy guns, 81 mm mortars, rockets, and TOW missiles) and were therefore the key men in a battalion’s fire support planning.
These guys were firsts among equals, and were almost always the best and often most senior of the young officers in a battalion. Most had with him his battalion air officer, an aviator serving with a rifle battalion (as I had with 3/7 under Col. Mattis) responsible for coordinating air strikes with the infantry’s scheme of maneuver and the indirect fire of both mortars and artillery.
The senior aviators, squadron and group commanders, sat near the front, with their counterpart battalion and regimental infantry commanders. Lieutenant colonels and colonels sat in front, captains and majors filling in the rear: hair atop heads grew noticeably more sparse the further forward you looked. Heads shined, and jaws firmly set. Showtime.
The discussions began with an intel brief. The first bad guys we were going to come across, and those we were therefore most concerned about, were the Iraqi 51st Mechanized Division. They were not the Republican Guard, but had a reputation as having some tough fighters who could shoot straight. The word was that officers were taking all civilian clothes from their men and having them burned, to prevent the conscripts from stripping off their uniforms and fleeing the war, trying to blend back into the civilian population.
On our side, they were expecting Seventh Marines to be ready to go on 10 March, Fifth Marines ready to go on 20 March, and First Marines ready to go in a month: 1 March. A-day and G-Day would go simultaneously. My ears perked up at this. No pre-invasion bombing? I was expecting the air war to start up any day, to soften the bad guys up for at least month as we did the first time we kicked this Iraqi Army’s ass in 1991.
No air war? Wow. The briefer didn’t come out and say “You grunts are screwed,” but rather used intelspeak: “We anticipate at this time that there will be no formalized shaping of the battlefield.” Rules of engagement would be fairly relaxed: kill people if they need killin’. Maps were flashed up, showing the initial Battlespace Coordination Line (BCL): we were given permission to kill anything beyond that line. This was going to be a huge, high-stakes shooting gallery.
Logistics was going to be an issue. It was a long way to Baghdad from there, and there were a hell of a lot of guys massing on the border. When Mattis took the boys into Afghanistan, it took 0.5 short tons (a “short ton” is 2,000 pounds even, versus a “ton,” which is closer to 2,200 pounds) per Marine deployed. They were expecting that it would be five times that effort—2.5 short tons per Marine—to get a guy to Baghdad. I remembered that Gen. Krulak, our commandant in the late 1990s, had made his reputation as a logistics wizard in Desert Storm.
Good officers study military history, great officers study logistics. Mattis was a great officer. His “Log Light” configuration for the division was meant to get people north fast, and not try to shoot our way through every little town on the way. As only he could do, he described it thus: “If you can’t eat it, shoot it, or wear it, don’t bring it.”
Mattis stood. As always, he spoke without notes, having long ago memorized everything.
“Gentlemen, this is going to be the most air-centric division in the history of warfare. Don’t you worry about the lack of shaping; if we need to kill something, it is going to get killed. I would storm the gates of Hell if Third Marine Air Wing was overhead.”
He looked toward the back of the cavernous room, and spoke loud, clear, and confident, hands on his hips.
“There is one way to have a short but exciting conversation with me,” he continued, “and that is to move too slow. Gentlemen, this is not a marathon, this is a sprint. In about a month, I am going to go forward of our Marines up to the border between Iraq and Kuwait. And when I get there, one of two things is going to happen. Either the commander of the Fifty-First Mechanized Division is going to surrender his army in the field to me, or he and all his guys are going to die.”
Nothing much else needed to be said after that.
Three: March 2003 Early in the afternoon, every British and American officer loaded up and headed across the desert to the marvelously named Camp Matilda, one of the Marine Corps base camps farther north towards Iraq. This was my first foray out into the open desert, and it was a National Geographic special come to life.
Camels ambled along next to the road or stood and stared stupidly at the cars whizzing by mere feet away. I assumed they would be herded by men in flowing robes on camels, like in “Lawrence of Arabia.” The men indeed wore robes and flowing headdresses, but herded their beasts in pickup trucks. Wealthier Kuwaitis zoomed by in red-checked caftans driving the ubiquitous Mercedes sedan.
First Marine Division was holding their first ROC Drill, the rehearsal of concept of what we were about to do. I had never seen a walk-through like this before. Marines had spent days building an enormous reproduction of southern Iraq in a bowl formed by a huge, semicircular sand dune. Each road, each river, each canal, each oil field was built to scale and even in proper color (water was blue dye poured into a sand ditch, and so on.)
Each Marine unit wore football jerseys in different colors, and with proper numbers. First Battalion, Fifth Marines, known as one-fifth, wore blue jerseys with “15” on the back, and other units were similarly identified. Principal staff from those units stood on the “border” drawn in the sand. About 300 officers stood and sat on the dune above. It was the perfect way to visualize what was about to happen.
General Mattis stood up and took a handheld microphone. Without referencing a single piece of paper, he discussed what each unit would do and in what sequence, and outlined his end state for each phase of the early war. He spoke for nearly 30 minutes, and his complete mastery of every nuance of the battle forthcoming was truly impressive.
A narrator then took over and picked up the narrative, the rest of the first week of the early war in sequence. As he described each movement, the officers from that unit walked to the proper place on their terrain model, and by the end of an hour the colored jerseys were spread over nearly a football field’s worth of sand. What a show.
At the end of the drill, questions were answered and then Mattis dismissed everyone. No messing around with this guy. Mike Murdoch, one of the British company commanders, leaned over to me, his eyes wide. “Mate, are all your generals that good?”
I looked at him.
“No. He is the best we have.”
As everyone rose to leave, Mattis fired one last directive over the microphone: “You’ve got about 30 days.”
We all know full well the ACA wont be repealled in its entirety, that would force the GOP to actually think of a replacement. They just want to complain, not actually do work
WrentheFaceless wrote: We all know full well the ACA wont be repealled in its entirety, that would force the GOP to actually think of a replacement. They just want to complain, not actually do work
You do know that the GOP has offered alternative plans (note plural) since 2010... right?
WrentheFaceless wrote: We all know full well the ACA wont be repealled in its entirety, that would force the GOP to actually think of a replacement. They just want to complain, not actually do work
You do know that the GOP has offered alternative plans (note plural) since 2010... right?
WrentheFaceless wrote: We all know full well the ACA wont be repealled in its entirety, that would force the GOP to actually think of a replacement. They just want to complain, not actually do work
You do know that the GOP has offered alternative plans (note plural) since 2010... right?
WrentheFaceless wrote: We all know full well the ACA wont be repealled in its entirety, that would force the GOP to actually think of a replacement. They just want to complain, not actually do work
You do know that the GOP has offered alternative plans (note plural) since 2010... right?
Not really
Yes. Really.
This was Rep. Tom Price's plan that started shortly after the passage of the ACA. It has evolved a bit since then... this is the most recent I can find. Guess what? He's the guy who's going to head the HHS.
He has introduced a plan since the passage ACA in every Congress, per NYT.
Additionally, the House and Senate ACTUALLY PASSED a repeal plan earlier this year. So the repeal is happening.
So, yes, there are plans. Your House Speaker has been pushing this plan for years. Obviously, the obstructionist in Harry Reid & President Obama foiled it... but, it's a "plan".
Next session, it's going to happen... you just might not like what it looks like.
saying there should be consequences for flag burning...
More History with Hats! 
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