Regarding Texas HB 1147

 Take 11 minutes and watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_Px833tzfs

Here's my commentary, what I commented on the video:

As soon as I heard the "approved for use by the United States Military" I immediately knew what you meant. I was trained to use those tourniquets, and as much as they are useful for a full grown adult, you're right, if they're not generation 7 or later, they're not actually going to work on a child's limb, not as well as you'd need it to. They weren't made for children. They weren't made for domestic use at all; they were made to very slightly reduce the attrition rate we faced from IEDs and small arms fire.

As someone who volunteered to join the military during time of war, to say I find drafting third graders into a war we never should have had to fight in the first place abhorrent is such a massive understatement that I lack the words necessary to correct that error. And that's what this is. Conscription, without consent. And as the old man said:

“I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say: Let the damned thing go down the drain!”

If conscription of adults is a cost too high, which I believe it is, conscription of kids is several degrees of magnitude worse. Screw the Texas Legislature, screw the GOP, screw the NRA. They wanna turn out schools into war zones, I say we treat them the same as any soldier who was so derelict in their duty that children needlessly died. And I will gladly volunteer to join the squad necessary to carry that treatment out.

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I shouldn't need to explain why this bothers me. I shouldn't need to explain why the concept that any government in the USA would consider or allow this before considering obvious alternatives is horrifying. I shouldn't need to point out that this is not even the first war that the GOP in Texas has drafted kids into on our own soil.

But for some reason I do.

If you care about anything outside of yourself, do something to push back against all of this madness, please. 

Thanks for reading. God Bless if you'll let Him, and have an otherwise nice day.