I often write posts for ideas on my blackboard in preparation for a later post. Usually I post them. Sometimes I later decide they don’t make the cut for a full post. Then I don’t erase them and they linger. Sometimes I erase them. Today I’m going to write a few ideas that I decided against making full posts of.
Also, following up yesterday’s post that nearly two weeks with little clear skies and the battery’s miscalibration, I’m trying to make this post quick to avoid running out of energy in my batteries.
Impressment: Reading about the Revolution, especially the book Tyrants and Rogues, which I just finished and recorded a podcast episode with the author Robert Parkinson, put impressment on my mind. Impressment was a practice where a navy would send “press gangs” to kidnap people and bring them onto navy ships, where they had to work and fight. In cases where the British impressed Americans, they forced them to fight against their own countrymen.
Since it forced people to kill or be killed, it seems in some ways (not all) worse than most practices of slavery. As far as I know, only young men were impressed and I think mostly white men. I don’t know how many overall were impressed, but people today don’t seem to consider it when talking about other forms of oppression.
Compassion toward animals: People seem to treat their pets, especially dogs, with compassion beyond what they give to other people affected by their actions outside their social class. I hear voices for more kind treatment of dogs. I think of the horror of human families being torn apart historically by practices like slavery and today from families made refugees from pollution and depletion. Yet even those promoting treating dogs compassionately seem not to have problems with buying puppies, tearing dog families apart. I don’t consider dogs like people, but they’re mammals. They evolved to care for their young and presumably feel emotional pain when they lose them.
Relaxation: Yesterday I posted The benefits of nearly two weeks of overcast skies: destressing. I wrote about physical relaxation arising from not writing so much. Taking days off from writing relaxes the mind too, not just the body.
To clarify, as much as I dislike the stress to my body from holding a position so long, I love writing. The recent relaxation prompts me to pace myself more, but I’m still going to keep writing. Guitarists get calluses on their fingers too. It’s part of the craft.
Imperialist fears: One of the most common legitimizing myths about enforcing the Constitution, meaning stopping unconstitutional pollution and unconstitutional depletion is the threat of invasion from China, Russia, etc. When you see that pollution and depletion violate the Constitution, you see that they decrease our liberty, freedom, equality, democracy, national security, and unity. My point: the way to protect from tyranny is not by sacrificing our values and violating our Constitution, the greatest defense against tyranny I know of.
Environmentalists or Exxon: If I tell you a group cares about a goal that causes pollution and depletion, so pollutes and depletes to achieve that goal, in fact pollutes and depletes more than most people do, am I talking about environmentalists or Exxon?
Both, actually.