That's because the Supremes finally got past the post-Civil War keep guns from blacks and other official undesirables (like your non-Anglo-Saxon immigrant parents, although that burst of gun control was back around the turn of the previous century vs. none I know of post-WWII till the '60s), took the 2nd Amendment seriously (e.g. 9-0 an individual right), and then applied the 14th Amendment to it. And then a 7th Circuit Court panel led by a judge who dislikes the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, but who's honest, enforced shall issue on the whole state.
Same thing's happening right now in California (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peruta_v._San_Diego), and San Diego and Orange Counties have surrendered. No doubt San Francisco and other counties will engage in Massive Resistance, but the Supremes seem to be supremely disinterested in the subject, or at least they've denied cert in 2 of the 4 possible Circuits that went the other way, with the New Jersey and Massachusetts cases still in progress. We'll see.
"There will be no meaningful change until collapse and/or insurrection break the current system. At best we might swerve at the brink."
I'm certainly hoping for the latter, but in the meanwhile, we're getting really well armed for the former two, as you note not mutually exclusive, options. Hard to see how things won't get ugly when the Feds can no longer borrow money at negative real interest rates or thereabouts or debase the dollar so much it doesn't matter.
Don't underestimate the possibility, and the horror, of just muddling through. The US is in an oil boom, which would feel like an actual boom if it wasn't propping up an economy that was really very badly damaged by the 2008 bust. That means we can pay down the wars without learning that we're on track to get dragged down by a bloated security state. Heck, we managed to spend ten years in the Graveyard of Empires and all we learned were some cheesy anecdotes in a fraudulent book about tea drinking. And that generals shouldn't date their hagiographers.
"Don't underestimate the possibility, and the horror, of just muddling through."
Indeed, and I don't, for that's the worst case I'm likely to survive for medical reasons. I label it "Argentina".
I do think you obsess a bit too much on the costs of our 21st Century foreign adventures. To take FY 2007 as an example,simply because Wikipedia provides some details and the Iraq war was hot, that was famously the year of the "surge": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_federal_bud..., the total Defense and Iraq and Iran war costs were less than Social Security + Medicare ... which can't get "turned off" like these, and which are going to rise dramatically as the Baby Boomers continue to retire.
Near the end of that fiscal year the CBO "estimated that "war-related defense activities" in 2007 were "roughly $115 billion." (Or call it 230 Solyndras.) You have more than a passing familiarly with WWII and the Cold War, and their costs. We aren't talking about Maximum Efforts like the former where, I just randomly looked up yesterday, we peaked at building a B-24 Liberator heavy bomber every hour, 650 per month (curiously close the total number of all airplanes Imperial Japan could make in a month), and 18,482 total units ("it still holds the distinction as the most-produced American military aircraft.")
The "surge" itself wasn't that big in historical terms (although this is more expensive volunteer army), 18,400 troops in 5 Army brigades, 4,000 Marines had their stays extended, etc., evidently 28,000 "additional troops" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_troop_surge_of_2007#O...).
Unless the CBO was smoking something powerful, this wasn't a budget buster; not a small cost, but I can't see how you can reasonably claim it's a proportionally bankrupting cost, unless everything I've heard from secondary or worse sources is wrong, plus what I just looked up.
Mostly agree ... but in your native Illinois, they just mailed the first 5,000 shall issue concealed carry licenses: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-illino...
That's because the Supremes finally got past the post-Civil War keep guns from blacks and other official undesirables (like your non-Anglo-Saxon immigrant parents, although that burst of gun control was back around the turn of the previous century vs. none I know of post-WWII till the '60s), took the 2nd Amendment seriously (e.g. 9-0 an individual right), and then applied the 14th Amendment to it. And then a 7th Circuit Court panel led by a judge who dislikes the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, but who's honest, enforced shall issue on the whole state.
Same thing's happening right now in California (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peruta_v._San_Diego), and San Diego and Orange Counties have surrendered. No doubt San Francisco and other counties will engage in Massive Resistance, but the Supremes seem to be supremely disinterested in the subject, or at least they've denied cert in 2 of the 4 possible Circuits that went the other way, with the New Jersey and Massachusetts cases still in progress. We'll see.
"There will be no meaningful change until collapse and/or insurrection break the current system. At best we might swerve at the brink."
I'm certainly hoping for the latter, but in the meanwhile, we're getting really well armed for the former two, as you note not mutually exclusive, options. Hard to see how things won't get ugly when the Feds can no longer borrow money at negative real interest rates or thereabouts or debase the dollar so much it doesn't matter.