Weaponry: Too Smart for Its Own Good

In the past, I have written about my perception that drones are problematic for all sorts of reasons. i question whether are use of drones is ethical, i.e., is our killing subjects legal and, even so, are the unintended casualties justified. Secondly, I have been concerned about our short sightedness. If drones are so good in the business of killing others with minimal loss of US lives, it seemed reasonable to expect other nations to develop such technology and use it against us and our interests. Why not?

Francis Fukuyma has written a blog that is even more telling than any words I could use. They speak for themselves.

Future of Social Security and Medicare

I start off with the assumption that there is virtually universal agreement that the US government has a major fiscal problem. While assigning blame for the problem may be cathartic, it does not change the problem confronting the nation. We are heavily in debt, we collect too little revenue and we spend relatively too much (compared to our revenue). Ultimately, there is a need to increase the revenue stream and/or reduce the expenditures.

The problem is that there is no consensus on what should be done practically. Whether it is the Bowles-Simpson Commission's recommendations, Democratic plans, or Republican options, there is no sign that a consensus is emerging. The election may be the force that will change the stalemate, but even this is uncertain until the status of the congressional races are determined.

Given all of this confusion, each of us has to think of what would be recommended if we were in a position to make a difference.

I clearly am in favor of eliminating the Bush Tax Cuts. I think that we should go back to the same tax levels used in the Clinton era. I am including all income taxes, even for the middle class. To avoid an unnecessary risk to our current economic situation, I would delay the changes to tax rates of those with less $250,000 per year until either the unemployment reaches X, e.g., 7% or a plan to incrementally increase their rates over a period of years, e.g., five.

I would reduce the defense budget significantly. I am unclear how much, but I would listen to those who advocate a reduction of rather exotic aircraft and weaponry and the need to reduce our nuclear stockpile.


The tax system would require major reform. I am quite flexible to what is done, except I would focus on reducing the number of tax expenditures which I think distorts the effects of taxation.


But, regardless of how much we can increase our taxes (without resulting in a major recession) and reduce expenditures, I think that it is inevitable that changes to our Medicare/Medicaid system is required.

If I were in a position to do something, I would explain ad nauseam the benefits of a National Health System for everyone (I would cite Germany as my model).  In short, I would expand the Medicare system to all, but in a different model. In order to address the need to control costs, I would explain that as long as health care is a profit-driven industry, it is impossible to create incentives to control costs. I would not minimize the fact that such a system would alter the options currently available to most beneficiaries of Medicare and the need to restructure the costs of health care personnel that would not be based on fees for services. Salaries, as well as costs for procedures and other medical costs, would be determined by commissions determined by geography so that salaries would reflect the cost of living in their area of the country. Again, this is similar to Germany model where there is a national system, structured by various localities, and managed by private insurers and private health care providers so that people will have a choice.

Vagueness about My Ethnicity

A conversation with my niece yesterday prompted a review of my personal history relative to my ethnicity.

As a youngster, I was aware of my Irish roots. My mother was clearly Irish. You could hear it in her spoken voice. She had a brogue, even if it was not marked. She never talked about her history, her earlier years, what life was like in Ireland, about her relationships with her parents and siblings. How did they celebrate holidays? Were our ancestors or even her immediate family of uncles involved in the Irish Revolution? How did she feel about leaving Ireland? How did she transition from being a citizen of Ireland to one in the United States? Strangely, we never celebrated St. Patrick's Day.

All these questions and more were never referenced. And I, in my relative ignorance as a child, never asked a question. Even though there were times with my mother met with siblings and relatives at our house for tea and Irish bread, I was never included (somewhat understandable at my age). However, whenever I passed through the kitchen, I never hear any reference to "how Peg was doing" or "how's Helen's baby". 

And then, my mother died very suddenly when I was 13 years old. And even then, it never occurred to me to ask where my mother was born. I had no idea.

What was interesting is that I carried along a bias against the Irish. There was nothing particularly overt about my feelings, but I never felt comfortable referencing my Irish roots and went our of my way not to identify with Irish events, e.g., I never wore green on St. Patrick's Day.

After my mother died and her two nearby sisters and her brother died (all relatively close in time, even though not all for the same medical condition), I had no source to address my questions, if I had thought to ask them. 

Even when we moved to California and was able to talk with my mother's only living sister in the United States, I found out little information. My aunt answered my questions that now were surfacing with the minimum of words. However, I did find out the name of my mother's town in County Cork (now forgotten).

When we were planning our 25th wedding anniversary, we decided to visit Ireland. Amazingly enough, the visit ignited positive feelings of being connected to this nation and its peoples. Everyone was so friendly and the scenery was spectacular. 

The highlight, however, was the visit to my mother's roots. My aunt by marriage (only person living from the large family of 13 (??) children) took us to my mother's house, now long time sold to the Irish government for a place to grow trees. Even though the farm was located in a rather remote village on top of a "mountain" (more like a very high hill), we were told that the property was sold to the Catholics because it was unable to sustain farm animals that required "two hays" per year. It was bad soil. We then visited nearby cousins whose life-style was more consistent with ancient history than modern times. By the time we left Ireland, I was once again "Irish" with a sense of pride and gratitude. 

Returning home, I was becoming intrigued with knowing more about my lineage. I read with amazement "Great Shame", a very detailed history of the Irish Famine. One could not feel unaffected by the horrendous treatment of the Irish by the British.  However revealing were the details of the terror inflicted on the Irish, one section was personally quite relevant.

My father's father was not referenced much by my father.  Compared to his love for his mother, his few words about his father were extremely negative. He essentially feared his father and had feelings of hatred for him. I had no personal knowledge of him since he died when I was two years old. My father quoted how often his father was proud of his being born in England (of Irish parents). He apparently dissociated himself from being Irish. 

However crazily related to my father's relationship to his father was the fact that my father pointedly and repeatedly disdained anyone who was left-handed. I could never understand this bias (or his other ethnic biases). It was so bewildering to see this bias emerge when my daughter was born and was clearly left handed. I recall his saying, "Edward, why are you letting her use her left hand?" as though I could do something about it. With time, I found out that my grandfather was left-handed. 

How the "Great Shame" was relevant to my father's bias against his father, who was considered "mean" and "tough", was the section about the places the Irish emigrated to survive the effects of the famine. The author described the horrendous conditions in England that the Irish were forced to live in. 

It then occurred to me that my grandfather could well have lived under the conditions of abominable   conditions and, as a consequence, grew up with very strong behavior patterns formed in an environment where only the strong survived.

The other relevant source of information was the documentary film, "Out of Ireland", which discussed the fact that the Irish language had no word for emigration. The word that was used to reference the leaving of their motherland was "exile", denoting the fact that emigration was a forced decision to survive. At the time, unless you were the first-born son or married a first-born son, you would never be able to own property and without property, there was no way to survive economically. All those not the first-born son were forced to leave against their will.

And I speculated that the reason why my mother (and siblings) said so little about Ireland is that any discussion would only make them sad and angry that they were forced to leave their family. It surely gave a perspective that made sense to me.

At this point in my life, this history no longer carries many feelings. However, for family members, it may serve a function if anyone became interested in their "roots".