Life, Liberty, Politics and Policy in the Land of Enchantment!
Tom Mullins -- Landmines on the (U.S.--Mexican) Border
Posted to Facebook —
Here he attempts to clarify this a bit — Mullins clarifies land mines comment
Now he said in the KOB interview that he's not advocating this himself, but was suggested by someone he met on the campaign trail.
Still, if you go to the archived audio clip, it does sound at first as though Mullins himself is advocating this very sort of thing —
Am I supposed to believe that some future Administration won't fall back upon the land-mine idea as just the sort of low-cost, low-tech solution? After all, back in 1996, we saw an 18-year-old boy (Esequiel Hernandez) who was herding goats, shot dead by a Marine Corps counter-drug patrol because of the .22-LR rifle that he carried. Between that, the whitewash and coverup investigation of the Waco Massacres of 28 February and 19 April 1993, and plenty of other incidents along those lines, why should anyone trust a Republican of the Lincoln-Roosevelt mold?
We saw just how well the Republican-majority U.S. House members exercised their oversight duties in 1998 looking into the Waco debacle, didn't we? They didn't dig too deeply simply because they knew that they would need the Democrats to return the favor and go easy on their Administrations' . . . indiscretions of using federal power. We saw some of those indiscretions from 2001 through 2009, first at Rainbow Farm, then Afghanistan, then Iraq, the USA-PATRIOT Act of 2001, etc., etc.
What really stymies me is that the clown clique behind Mullins [1] keeps pushing the idea that things will improve "when our people take the reins of power."
The fact remains that they had those reins of power in the Congress from 1995 until 2007, and in the White House from 2001 until 2009. How much did they actually shrink the reach and intrusiveness of Washington DC? How much did they lessen the costs of Washington DC upon us?
NOTES
Way to go, Tom Mullins!Landmines on the border, to stop immigrants?
GOP House Candidate Tom Mullins: Consider Land Mines on Border with...
Here he attempts to clarify this a bit — Mullins clarifies land mines comment
Now he said in the KOB interview that he's not advocating this himself, but was suggested by someone he met on the campaign trail.
Still, if you go to the archived audio clip, it does sound at first as though Mullins himself is advocating this very sort of thing —
I think well they need to enforce the law. I actually have a couple of ideas and I received these ideas. We talk about a border fence, and really what we get down to is, it's very difficult to have a fence and have that work. But we have some low-cost, low-tech solutions, and I know it sounds crazy, but we used to have land mines. I know it sounds like a crazy thing, but if we wanted to stop, if we have an attack on the United States, if we have a nuclear attack and we find that they carried the nuclear weapon and the people that harmed us came across the border and we say we have got to secure the border, we could put land mines along the border. I know it sounds crazy, we could put up signs in 23 different languages if necessary . . . .Now, later on in that clip, he does say that he doesn't actually want to use land mines, and that the National Labs can cook up another low-tech, low-cost means to secure the border, but come on now, how many millions will they spend on developing it?
Am I supposed to believe that some future Administration won't fall back upon the land-mine idea as just the sort of low-cost, low-tech solution? After all, back in 1996, we saw an 18-year-old boy (Esequiel Hernandez) who was herding goats, shot dead by a Marine Corps counter-drug patrol because of the .22-LR rifle that he carried. Between that, the whitewash and coverup investigation of the Waco Massacres of 28 February and 19 April 1993, and plenty of other incidents along those lines, why should anyone trust a Republican of the Lincoln-Roosevelt mold?
We saw just how well the Republican-majority U.S. House members exercised their oversight duties in 1998 looking into the Waco debacle, didn't we? They didn't dig too deeply simply because they knew that they would need the Democrats to return the favor and go easy on their Administrations' . . . indiscretions of using federal power. We saw some of those indiscretions from 2001 through 2009, first at Rainbow Farm, then Afghanistan, then Iraq, the USA-PATRIOT Act of 2001, etc., etc.
What really stymies me is that the clown clique behind Mullins [1] keeps pushing the idea that things will improve "when our people take the reins of power."
The fact remains that they had those reins of power in the Congress from 1995 until 2007, and in the White House from 2001 until 2009. How much did they actually shrink the reach and intrusiveness of Washington DC? How much did they lessen the costs of Washington DC upon us?
NOTES
- I know that Mullins says that he's not part of the GOP Machine, but is the gear in your wind-up alarm clock cognizant of the other gears in the clock, and the other parts that make the hands go around, the alarm go off, and such?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Thomas Molitor on -
Mike,
When I was campaigning for myself I met Tom Mullins and Adam Kokesh on the primary R circuit many times. I liked them both as people. But ideologically, personality - as different as eggplant to a banana. Mullins waxed Kokesh 70% to 30%. Why do you think Kokesh didn't take as a candidate? Is it because he tried to be who he is within the New Mexico Republican party?
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Permalink Reply by Allen Cogbill on -
Thomas,
I think it's because modern Republicans are devoted to war. Adam Kokesh is viewed (probably correctly) as principally an anti-war candidate, and as such really turns off Republicans, who on the whole love war. Mullins was a war advocate, hence Republicans were drawn to him.
I think the situation is very sad.
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Permalink Reply by Thomas Molitor on
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I agree. If you look to the stalwarts of Libertarianism - Mises, Rothbard, Garrett, Paul - they are all opposed to "international interventionism." To them, globalism is the same thing as collectivism here at home. It's one of the issues in which I have taken on with the Tea Party. It speaks of limited government and too much taxes, yet never mentions how we spend those taxes. Last year, we spent a trillion dollars on playing the role of world cop. The Tea Party wants less taxes, balanced budget, but doesn't want to tackle the money spent on the military industrial complex. I asked Adam, 'why have you backed off on your anti-war message'? To which he replied, for two reasons: (1) Republicans in NM are not willing to accept the 'ex-vet against the war' positioning (see John Kerry), and (2) NM is very dependent on the federal dollar spent in this state on military. Kirkland, after all, is the state's number one employer. Regrettably, this blog and the RGF doesn't go near the war as an issue and as a waste of taxpayers' dollars. At the very least, an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars. What do you think? Why is the military complex and our occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan never mentioned on this blog?
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Permalink Reply by Mike Blessing on -
Why is the military complex and our occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan never mentioned on this blog?
I think you answered your own question in the preceding sentences (not that I disagree at all) —
(1) Republicans in NM are not willing to accept the 'ex-vet against the war' positioning (see John Kerry)
(2) NM is very dependent on the federal dollar spent in this state on military. Kirkland, after all, is the state's number one employer.
On your point (1), I think that the big-government hawks of the GOP let Larry Bailey and Co. conduct a Swift Boat-type smear campaign against Adam. Since Mullins gave every appearance (to me, at least) of being quite eager to jump on board the smear campaign, while he says he's not part of the GOP Machine, he's doing its bidding, and thus deserves the title of Coggie (see above).
Thus Mullins seems (again, to me) to be quite content to be an unwitting Coggie, and I cannot in good conscience extend the slightest increment of support to the Mullins Campaign.
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Permalink Reply by Thomas Molitor on
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So let’s look at imperial overstretch. The most obvious factor that pops out at you is that last year’s Federal Discretionary Budget, 56 percent of our discretionary spending went to the military. Six percent went to healthcare; eight percent went to all educational training and social services.
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Permalink Reply by Mike Blessing on
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While the armed forces comprise 56 percent of discretionary spending, they only make up about 25 percent of the total budget —
I agree that American forces are overly used abroad — Iraq and the "AfPak" theater are just the biggest examples. The predominate doctrine in "defense" circles these days revolves around the "power projection" concept —
the capacity of a state to conduct expeditionary warfare, i.e. to intimidate other nations and implement policy by means of force, or the threat thereof, in an area distant from its own territory.
The Pentagon has had its collective head up its power-projecting posterior since the end of WWII. I don't (realistically) see an end to this idiocy any time soon.
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Permalink Reply by Thomas Molitor on
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Nice chart, thanks. Have you ever read The Best and the Brightest, by David Halberstam? It's about Kennedy and Johnson and their team of technocrats headed by Robert McNamara running the Vietnam War. You will never believe another press release from the Pentagon again.
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Permalink Reply by Mike Blessing on
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I'll look it up.
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