What is the individual's responsibility to the state?

Simple question so don't blow it up with triviality, frivolity and stupidity.

What is the individual's responsibility to the state?

I asked a question yesterday and the responses were...interesting.  I heard people say that they were born with certain rights.  I heard responses that said that service in the military (or some other public service sector) should not be required.

I'll bite.

I ask again.  What is the individual's responsibility?

Looking at this from a US perspective (perhaps jaded but I still believe we're the greatest nation on this planet) I hear much about what the govt owes its citizens.  I hear much about the states (meaning nation state) responsibility is to the citizen but never the reverse!

Some have said taxes are their contribution.  To that I say bullshit.  Taxes in the classic meaning are transactional.  The citizen pays those taxes with the belief that it will fund things that are for the common good.  More to this discussion the expectation is that if they ever need those services they will be provided poste haste.

The best example of this is police service.  If you get mugged you expect the police to arrive promptly and hopefully arrest the perpetrator!  Same goes with fire and EMT services if you should happen to need them.

So no.  Taxes aren't good enough.

But you say I live in the US and I'm just getting by.  I don't owe this nation a fucking thing.  To that I say false.  Go anywhere else on the planet and you can see real poverty if you land in the right country.  I don't care if you're living in the ghetto, in the Appalachian mountains, or on the backside of a bayou, deep in a swamp or hid away in the backwoods with poor cable service you're still better off than many "middle class" people I've seen in other countries.

So the question remains.  What the fuck DO YOU owe the nation?  Or is it a case of "forget that bullshit" the state owes me?

10 Worse French Aircraft via HushKit Blog.

Cue the Gallic outrage in 3, 2, 1....story here...go there and fuss at him!

But yeah.  HushKit pissed on the Tigre Attack Helicopter and a couple of other planes that I thought were pretty damn cool.  Like I said.  Fuss at him!

Police easily startled signs go up after Justine Diamond shooting.

via StarTribune.

Joe Morino brought an incredulous friend to see the orange street sign he just spotted in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis.

The official-looking metal sign read: “WARNING: TWIN CITIES POLICE EASILY STARTLED.” It featured a graphic silhouette of a police officer, a gun in each raised hand, shooting in both directions.

“There’s a side of truth to the sign,” Morino said after snapping a picture of it. “That tells you there is something wrong with the system.”

The sign, which was still up at 8 p.m. Sunday, was one of at least two seen in the Twin Cities Sunday.

A photo of the same sign, reportedly near the corner of Snelling and University avenues in St. Paul, circulated Sunday on social media. A Facebook post said that sign later was removed.

Each was screwed into upright metal posts in the same fashion as conventional street signs.

The signs reference the killing of Justine Damond just over a week ago by Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor. Noor’s partner, Matthew Harrity, told the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension that he heard a loud sound right before Noor fired his gun, hitting Damond.

Story here. 

I continue to marvel at the reaction from the govt, police supporters, anti-police shooting groups and even normal citizens to this incident.

The reaction from the dept was immediate.  The Chief said that Diamond did not need to die.  Even though the Chief said the right thing the Mayor still demanded "retirement" as penance for what crime I still can't figure. Police supporters have remained silent.  Anti-police shooting groups have done the same.

Amazing but enlightening.

It's like others have said.  People are tired and fussing doesn't change things. What will?  If taxation could cause a revolution early in our nation's history then how does that compare to govt surveillance,  unfair taxation, unwanted regulation on all levels of human activity, a burdensome social atmosphere that forces abstract and unbelievable fantasy of certain individuals onto the rest of us and a continuous war footing designed not to protect our nation but the interests of monied individuals (not to mention a whole lot more)?

The silence is what's worrisome.  No one is bitching anymore.  I wonder why?

China blames India for border standoff

via South China Morning Post.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has blamed India for sparking a border standoff in the Himalayas by deploying its troops in Chinese territory and called on them to withdraw.

Wang is the most senior Chinese government official to comment on the tensions on the border near Bhutan as the stand-off enters its second month.
Wang said there was little dispute over the facts about what had happened on the border, weighing in on the worst border row between China and India in decades.

“The rights and wrongs are crystal clear and even senior Indian officials have openly stated that Chinese troops did not enter into the Indian boundary, which is to say, India has admitted it crossed into the Chinese territory,” Wang was quoted as saying in a foreign ministry statement published on Tuesday.

Story here. 

Yeah.  Nothing to see here.  Just that the Chinese and Indians are squaring off about a mile up and no one is noticing.  I mean what could go wrong?  You have a couple of battalions of troops on both sides bored stiff, spoiling for a fight and indoctrinated with the belief that they should destroy their enemies? They were both raised on stories of the last skirmish and want to get their licks in?

No way two patrols could collide and a whole shit storm kicks off right?

Upclose view of China's PL-10 "anti-stealth" missile!

Thanks to HELP for the pic!

Hmm.  Help said this is the "optical seeker" version but to be honest I have no idea what that means.  What I do know is that Thai Military and Asia Region Blog (here) has a decent overview of the missile.

Breaking! TRUMP won't allow transgenders to serve in the military!

HOLY SHIT!

Trump went there!

More to fucking come but expect the SHIT TO HIT THE FAN!

Korean war drums are still beating...

Yeah guys, the hits keep coming.  This is going as I predicted.  The news is becoming more and more focused on N. Korea and the possibility of war.  It's really a classic psyops campaign being run against the American people.

First you expose the problem to those that haven't been paying attention.  Second you saturate the news that you're doing everything possible to solve the issue peacefully.  Third you tell the people that those efforts have failed and that it might take "more forceful" means to ensure a safe world.  Last, you tell the American people that their safety is threatened by this activity and that it is essential that this threat be removed from the board.

We've seen it play out the same way in every war type situation we've been faced with since Desert Storm.  For a short time they played up protecting women and children of other nations but that has played out and the American people aren't buying it.  So they modified it to make threats on the other side of the planet seem like threats to our mainland.

But I digress.  Check out these articles.  via Daily Beast.

Several media outlets have reported that Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said over the weekend that war with North Korea was not “unimaginable.” What has gone unreported is that he also suggested the administration is giving diplomacy only “a few more months.”
Dunford’s comments, sure to be heard in Beijing and Pyongyang, come as the Trump administration is hinting, with various degrees of subtlety, that it is willing to kill Kim Jong Un, the North Korean despot.

Story here. 

Then this via New York Times.

North Korea will be able to field a reliable, nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile as early as next year, U.S. officials have concluded in a confidential assessment that dramatically shrinks the timeline for when Pyongyang could strike North American cities with atomic weapons.

The new assessment by the ­Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which shaves a full two years off the consensus forecast for North Korea’s ICBM program, was prompted by recent missile tests showing surprising technical advances by the country’s weapons scientists, at a pace beyond what many analysts believed was possible for the isolated communist regime.

Story here. 

Finally this last story isn't exactly about a possible Korean War but an indication (at least to me) that they believe it will be a bloody affair and that we might need to entirely reconstitute our Army and Marine Corps.  via Military Times.

Restarting the military draft after more than four decades of an ­all-volunteer force would be complicated.

But it could be done.

One plan calls for young conscripts to have a choice: two years on active duty or six years in the reserves.

Either way, they’d first have to ­undergo basic training and job training.

If draftees want to go to college first, they must participate in a Reserve Officer Training Corps program and then serve.

If they fail or quit ROTC, they must then enlist.

Whichever option they choose, their obligation is fulfilled with a single combat deployment.
Those are some of the details ­proposed by retired Army Maj. Gen. Dennis Laich, one of the nation’s most aggressive advocates of abandoning the all-volunteer force in favor of a return to the draft.

Story here. 

I'm just the messenger but I really believe that the drums of war are beating hard on the Korean Peninsula.  You decide whether or not you agree but I believe I'm puzzling together separate articles that point to what many refuse to see.  It might not happen but the Pentagon is prepping for war.

Talisman Sabre 2017 Pics (part 2)

Talisman Sabre 2017 Pics (part 1)

Talisman Sabre is over, but here are a few pics that you might not have seen!

Aussies are REALLY trying to make the Bushmaster work in the conventional role.  I wonder how long they keep trying?  The Brits have given up and so have other European countries...we'll see.

Utility Terrain Vehicle (UTV) onto CH-53E load practice...pics by Staff Sgt. David Proffitt

Open Comment Post. July 26, 2017

Should service guarantee citizenship? Do we need to reinvigorate responsibility vs rights?

Thanks to Will for the idea!

Anyone that has served in the military has thought it.  Civilians talk about rights and those rights seem to always expand.  Rights have no cost to the person that gets them.

What civilians forget is that there comes RESPONSIBILITY to the nation that comes with those rights.

Demanding military service for every able bodied adult is a way to ensure that the citizen pays for the rights that the nation gives them.  If they choose not to serve (and they're capable) then that's ok.  No jail time, no fine, no public harassment.

They made a choice.

But that choice should come with consequences.  If you choose not to serve then you don't get the rights of citizenship.  No more birthright citizens!  You must contribute to the nation.  If you don't serve then you don't get the right to vote at any level of the community.  If you don't serve then you pay a special "excise" tax (assuming you were capable) to pay for the upkeep of the nation that you enjoy the benefits of but are too good to actually contribute your time and if necessary your life.

It may sound harsh but Heinlein was right.

No I'm not talking about an armed takeover of the govt by veterans, retirees etc....I'm talking about reconnecting rights of citizenship with the responsibilities that come with it.