A bit of anger toward our government...

Yes, I'm rather upset about our government right now. Big shocker, huh? Anyhow, this is my latest bitch with these United States, and it involves the use of our National Guard.

I just read an article today that infuriated me. Since long before my lifetime, the US military has been known as the most bad-ass armed force in the known world. For decades, our government has offered specialized training to members of the armed forces of our political allies so that they may help to further our foreign policy directives militarily.

One of these nations was Mexico. We have trained several members of their army, with the official story being that it was so they could properly help us fight a war against a bumper-sticker idea known as drug trafficking. After we trained these people, they went back to Mexico and used what they learned to train others in the Mexican military.

As if you weren't having your rights eroded away fast enough, the current administration has consistently been looking for a way to not only reinstate the "Assault Weapons Ban" (that piece of legislation that would effectively make it illegal to purchase the majority of the firearms in my home) because 90% of the "traceable" guns used in Mexican drug cartel crime are traced back to American buyers, but they also want to make it PERMANENT. In effort to further this, our beloved Secretary of Statism Hillary R. Clinton has signed a UN treaty aimed at stopping "illicit small-arms traffic".

What they aren't telling you (but I have, in my previous postings on this very blog!) is the fact that their "90%" figure is total crap. That's the number of "traceable" weapons confiscated by Mexican officials...traceable by the US government. It does not include the following:
A) Weapons without serial numbers.
B) Weapons never registered in this nation.
C) Weapons sold to the Mexican government by the US government.
The overwhelming majority of weapons used by drug cartels are NOT your standard "gun show" or "sporting goods store" rifles purchased over-the-counter in America. They are full-auto firearms imported from the governments of Venezuela, China, and the United States. You cannot buy an M16 at a gun show, period, because doing so requires hundreds of dollars worth of tax stamps and government paperwork. You cannot own a grenade, period. However, my hunting rifles are somehow contributing to the violence associated with the Mexican drug cartels.

Anyhow, I digress. The real reason I am nine kinds of pissed off right now concerning Mexico is the fact that our government is absolutely REFUSING to do a damned thing about the drug cartel violence spilling over into America. The United States has four different branches of its military available for use during foreign conflicts, and three branches available for use in domestic operations.

In this discussion, the applicable branch would be our National Guard. In Arizona, the US government has essentially allowed an invasion of Mexican drug cartels to take over three border-area counties. Not simply Mexican immigrants coming to America to work or do whatever they do, but armed gangs of drug smugglers.

If this is not a justifiable reason to have troops on the ground right here in America, I'm not absolutely certain what is. Unfortunately, Obama&Co have surrendered these areas of Arizona...all the while, National Guard units are still being shot at in another desert on the other side of the world, for the sake of "staying the course" in another war against another bumpersticker slogan called "Terror".

Many would like to blame this on American citizens providing a profit motive for the cartels by continuing to smoke/snort/inject meth/coke/smack, but I cannot justifiably lend any credence to this explanation. I cannot rightfully blame this situation on people exercising their God-given right to lead their own lives as they see fit, simply because the government has decided that it is illegal...especially when our government's prohibition is the only thing providing a profit motive large enough to engage in this kind of violence. History has shown that a market free from excessive regulation will allow entrepreneurs to set up shop peacefully, just as they did with drugs prior to prohibition of drugs. History has also shown, during alcohol prohibition, that government prohibition will not stop the trade; rather, it will only stop the PEACEFUL trade while simultaneously providing organized criminal organizations the opportunity to make a profit and protect this profit with violence. When you outlaw the sale of dope, only outlaws will sell dope...but it will still be sold!

So, you can blame this mess in Arizona on "crackheads and wetbacks", but only if you refuse to open your eyes and take a long hard look at reality. The hard reality of the situation is the fact that a large chunk of our country has been essentially taken over by Mexican drug cartels, and the following reasons are directly responsible:
A) America still engages in domestic policies requiring the outright prohibition of cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin.
B) America still engages in foreign policies requiring the branches of our military directly responsible for guarding our nation (I.E. the "National Guard"...you'd think the name would give it away?) being in far-off corners of the world.

As I've said before, you could have a military outpost for every 20 miles of our international borders. That's "borders", plural, with an "S". You could have this, if our government would simply close down half of our completely unneeded overseas military bases. Let's do the math and see what happens when you put only 200 people at each installation...

There are 672 hours in every 28 day (four week) period. Divided into twelve hour shifts (just like process operators at Dow Chemical), you now have 56 shifts every 28 days. If you have a man working seven days on and seven days off, you need four men to make this run around the clock. It will require 80 men to secure our borders, per outpost, to put one man per mile on our border if we have an outpost every 20 miles...leaving the other 120 people to work as support staff (administration, motor pool, medical, et cetera). And, keep in mind, this is with only 200 men per outpost. Imagine if we had as many people as our foreign outposts currently have? Now, think about the logistical ease we would have, having our outposts spread out every 20 miles, as opposed to spread across the world. That's a whole lot of money!

Now, keep in mind, this would require closing only HALF of America's overseas bases...