Official Disclaimer: This take is mine and mine alone.
Today is a national commemoration once called Armistice Day: The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. In its terrible last nine months, 10,000 Americans were dying every month so that this would be the War to End War.
As Julia Ward Howe declared in The Battle Hymn of the Republic:
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free ...
In our sacred wars Americans sacrificed to redeem humanity and renew the nation. As Lincoln taught us:
... that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom
In the sacrifice then the nation might be renewed -- in blood reborn. But this was the blood of an entire young generation of men, so that the whole nation was in a sense sacrificing too. Even the leaders sacrificed themselves in these holy wars: Lincoln at the moment of reunion, Wilson at the failure to realize redemption with the League of Nations, and FDR at the final slaying of Nazi evil.
In our civil war and two world wars the nation, its armies, and its leader were emotionally and symbolically united: They were one in purpose and in spirit.
So days like today used to be about reconsecrating sacred acts of sacrifice and renewal. Yet what we see now could stand in no starker contrast.
Now, just a tiny sliver of Americans volunteer for military service. Ordinary Americans know little of what our legionnaires do in war. The People's elected representative -- known as Congress -- long ago abdicated any say in whether or not this nation goes to war. Custom has thus permanently amended the US Constitution. The decision to go to war is the Leader's alone, as it was in long ago Imperial Germany or Japan.
So our men and women in combat fight the elective wars of our government's executive branch. Its war-prerogative is jealously guarded, so that soldiers' sacrifice, rather than cause for national commemoration, is politically inconvenient. There is no incentive for the state to bring the nation together in active remembrance, or in any way rekindle in sacred rites forgotten political rights.
Yet the state is finding a better way to make war. During the past decade, unmanned vehicles of all sorts, but especially flying drones, have been replacing living American soldiers and airmen. These robot warriors -- really a form of spirit possession by human pilots often 10,000 miles away -- are increasingly taking the fight to the enemy. They are fighting for us.
Years' hence our robots, perhaps as autonomous, sentient beings, and our new "volunteers," may become our nation's representative -- or better yet, the state's instrument -- in battle. So years' hence, when we come around to future Veterans Days, will we commemorate those American robots whose heroic termination was made for us? Will we reconsecrate the "hallowed ground" where they gave "the last measure of devotion" -- and where we experienced a "rebirth of freedom" from their sacrifice of sacred rare earth metals?
Who then shall mourn our drones?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS5vm149vGc
obama authorized a drone strike against an american citizen and his 16 year old son on the strength of a memo from his lawyer.
no trial. no due process. just american citizens taken out by drone because the president claims he has that power.
(the guy taken out WAS likely aiding our enemies, but that's why we have trials; to prove guilt and punish accordingly so politicians can't just claim that someone is a threat and remove them from life without due process).
Who cares...you'd rather send people to die?
We all know how this ends. Machine intelligence is destined to be human level sometime in the 2020's. In the 2030's machine intelligence will be 100's or even 1,000's of times greater than human level.
Imagine trying to play chess against, let alone fight a mind with an equivalent IQ of 1000+ and instant, perfect memory recall with every encyclopedia already stored in its brain when it's born... and it will happen within our lifetimes in the very near future.
The time for humanity to get its act together and figure out what to do with itself has already gone by. The only thing left to do is watch the fireworks and /popcorn.
http://ecocosmology.blogspot.com/2009/10/will-humans-evolve-into-machines.html
ability to reason intelligently. There is still not a single
machine that can carry on a conversation even at the
level of a toddler. The technical algorithmic problems that
need to solved in order to have machines that can even
approach human-level intelligence are insurmountable.
Don't think I've read a more condescending comment in quite a long time. You would lead others to believe that only the uneducated, destitute, lower rung of society would stoop to serving in the Armed Services. Shameful.
1. Only a small number of Americans volunteer because the military isn't defending us or our freedom, they're advancing the goals of the coprpoations and politicians who receive lobbying money from them.
2. Oridinary Americans no little because Bush took away freedom of hte press and we only see war from imbedded reporters who are only allowed into war zones under the tight control of the military.
Mr. Vlahos, go #$*& yourself. We, the men and women who have proudly served our nation, do not need your pity nor your defense. We understand wholeheartedly when we take our oaths of service what it will and may entail. We ask not for your approval nor your analysis of our actions; we will merely do what is required to protect and defend this nation and uphold its Constitution.
We certainly are few, but we do not feel foregone nor ignored. It is only in the mind of the pacifist ideologue that we are a forsaken segment of society. We know that we are loved, supported, cherished and necessary. We do not care for your sentiments. We wish only to be left alone to perform our mission.
So please, heed the wishes of those you claim to admire and shut your blasted mouth on Veterans' Day. We will appreciate it.
And that puts it very mildly.
2. If you were truly interested in protecting the constitution,
you would not tell the very citizens that you're bragging about
protecting to "shut their blasted mouths" on V day - or on any
day of the year for that matter.
The first amendment, freedom of speech, did you forget. Can't you see you want to stop all discussion, this is unconstitutional. Then, you go on and talk for all the vets: "We, the men and women..."
In my extended family an Iraq Vet, a beautiful young man wounded and disabled for life. He disagrees with your position. You do not have the right to talk for all of the Vets. At least you can talk for yourself but not for the all army.