On June 28, 1914, Gavril Princip had participated in a failed attempt to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. A co-conspirator had thrown a bomb at the Archduke’s motorcade but failed to hit his target. The motorcade got away from the planned route. However, not long thereafter, the Archduke’s driver took a wrong turn and, as he was backing up, the car stalled. As it happened, the car stalled in front of where Princip was standing. Taking his chance, Princip pulled out his pistol and shot the Archduke and his wife.

Princip was part of a Serbian separatist group that wanted parts of the Austro-Hungarian empire to split off and become part of a new Yugoslavia. The archduke was the heir apparent to the throne of the empire, so the Austro-Hungarian Empire was enraged and issued an ultimatum to Serbia – with a number of demands that Serbia simply couldn’t be expected to accept. After partially rejecting the ultimatum, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Serbia turned to Russia which regarded itself as “protector of the Slavs.” Austria-Hungary turned to Germany with which it had an alliance against Russia. Russia, in turn, had an alliance with France against Germany.

Germany’s plans for war with Russia (Schlieffen Plan) was premised on the notion that it would have to fight France in any conflict with Russia. Being situated between Russia and France, and believing it would take Russia some time to mobilize, the war plan for such a conflict required Germany to move swiftly into France, neutralize the forces there, and then swing back east to deal with Russia. The longer it entertained diplomatic solutions, the less likely the plan was to work. Additionally, the German plan took it through neutral Belgium to get to France more quickly. England was allied with Belgium against violations of its neutrality and was drawn into the war when Germany invaded.

There are a lot more details and nuances involved in the beginnings of World War I, but that’s the thumbnail sketch. The details get hopelessly complicated pretty quickly. But, at that point, Europe was like a forest full of dry dead wood and undergrowth. The relatively small spark of Princip’s assassination of Franz Ferdinand was all it took to set the whole thing off. The Great War was really a bridge into modern times. The early parts of the war feature guys on horses with plumed uniforms and whatnot facing off against industrial weaponry. The conflagration would turn into an absolute meat grinder, particularly after it settled into the trench warfare for which it became famous. It was a war of attrition on a scale not previously seen. And, for the most part, it seems that the combatants were fighting out of a combination of pride and accident.

It tends to be a forgotten war – overshadowed locally by the “good” wars like World War II, the Civil War, and the Revolutionary War, where the United States can be discussed in heroic terms and the narrative of the war and what it accomplished can be stated more simply. But, I think we ignore the lessons of World War I at our peril: that pride and lack of foresight can cause enormous losses; that there is nothing inherently noble about war; that individual bravery can be meaningless.

I suspect I’ll have more to say about the Great War in the near future. Among other things, I was a history major in undergrad and Great Britain’s involvement in World War I was the subject of my senior seminar. I don’t pretend to be any kind of an expert, but it’s an area of interest for me.

Coming up on the centennial of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, triggering The Great War, Christopher Doyle has a good column entitled, “World War I: A war too easy to forget.”

In contrast to America’s favorite wars (Revolutionary, Civil, and World War II), it’s a war that lends itself to hard questions:

From a Socratic perspective, World War I offers perfect material for asking hard questions. How, for instance, could a relatively inconsequential act of terrorism committed by a teenage extremist from the margins of Europe drag the great powers into conflict? Why did trenches and a pointless war of attrition develop and persist for more than four years on the Western front? How did the bombing of cities, mass conscription, modern propaganda techniques, poison gas and the starvation of civilians by blockade come to be seen as acceptable, even essential, behavior? Were troop mutinies and pacifist activities justified? Were peace advocates heroes? How about official measures to stop them: Were they ethical? Were any higher principles at stake? Did good prevail? And, of course, how did the botched peace result in the rise of the Nazis?

I’ve mentioned it before, but Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History has some good podcasts up on World War I in his “Blueprint for Armageddon.”

The ambiguity of World War I is, in my mind, more representative of the nature of war than are America’s greatest hits – particularly the mythologized versions of those wars.

Since I’m obviously doing a slacker’s job of keeping up with this blog so far this summer, anything of note on your mind? I just got a charcoal chimney that has been making me pretty happy during this grilling season. I guess it’s hard for me to focus on law and politics outside of work when there is beer, cooked meats, and the great out doors to enjoy.

Open thread.

Barb Berggoetz, writing for the Indy Star, has a report on the Assembly formerly known as the “Mount Vernon Assembly”. Apparently people who are part of legislatures in various states are congregating for the purpose of setting up a framework to have a Constitutional Convention to propose amendments of some sort to amend the Constitution.

State legislators from 33 states began a two-day session Thursday to develop policies and rules for holding that convention in the future. They hope to amend the U.S. Constitution in a process that bypasses Congress.

See also this earlier report where

Indiana Senate President Pro Tempore David Long, a key leader in the movement, says the nation’s growing fiscal crisis is the reason he is pursuing this approach. He believes Washington politics are so broken that solutions won’t likely come from the federal government.

This seems like such a Rube Goldberg approach. Draft the substantive language you want in the Constitution. Ask federal legislators to pass it in the traditional manner via the Congress. If that doesn’t work, and you still think it’s a good idea, then try going the State route.

The way they’re doing it, it feels like they are trying to get some momentum going before offering something unpalatable.

Jerad and Amanda (nee Woodruff) Miller are accused of killing police officers in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sunday. It appears they had moved from Lafayette, Indiana to Las Vegas this past January.

According to this write up, Jerad noted the presence of two police officers eating lunch in a pizza place, left the store then returned shortly thereafter with Amanda. Jerad shot one of the officers in the back of the head. As the other officer started to react, both opened fire on him. They apparently pinned the Gadsden Flag on the corpses of their victims. After that, they went to the Walmart next door. Jerad fired a shot and ordered everybody out saying, “this was the revolution.” One armed patron went to confront Jerad but overlooked Amanda, and she shot him in the ribs. Eventually they were in a gun battle with other police officers when Amanda apparently shot Jerad police officers appear to have shot Jerad and Amanda appears to have shot herself.

Several weeks ago, Jerad also turned up in news coverage of the Bundy Ranch standoff saying that he didn’t want violence but that if federal agents were violent, they’d be violent back. Jerad’s Facebook page is a litany of conspiracy minded, anti-government rhetoric with the last one being, “The dawn of a new day. May all of our coming sacrifices be worth it.” Some of his more recent posts had to do with Benghazi, global warming skepticism, a post that echoes the “redemption” idiocy I posted about a few years ago, and a whole lot about being anti-gun control. On May 2, he posted:

There is no greater cause to die for than liberty. To die for that cause is easy, to live for it is another matter. I will willingly die for liberty. Death, in a sense is freedom from tyranny. Death, is the easy way out. Most notably is the “suicide by cop” routine. Yes, standing before despots is dangerous and most likely does not end well for you. I know this, my wife knows this. Soon they will come for us, because they don’t like what we think, and what we say. They don’t like the fact that we, simply will not submit to fascist rule. We don’t have much, but we are willing to sacrifice everything…….for you, for your freedoms. Even if you wouldn’t let us have ours. We know who we are and what we stand for, do you?

And, on March 25:

I have compromised enough. Either you stand with freedom, or you side with tyranny. There is no middle ground. We have deluded ourselves into such a notion. There is no grey area. Now, I know that some peoples definition of freedom has been compromised. Mine has not and I will not be dismissed and ridiculed because my definition of freedom may seem extreme to those who’s definition has been deluded. I stand firm in my convictions and stand prepared to die for them. Those that have been misled, are you prepared to die for yours? Or will you send hired goons to do your bidding for you? Send those impoverished by your greed to silence me? Giving them table scraps as you have no blood on your hands, yet force them to wash away thiers for the rest of their lives? The day of your judgment will come, not from my hand, for you will make me a martyr. Your judgment will come from those that will bite the hand that feeds them. Grow paranoid, and distrustful of those that protect you. They will wake up to your monarchy, they will rise in our name, those who died fighting the oppression. Those you chose to silence, like me. Come for me, free me from your slavery. Give me the death a hero deserves. Help wake the masses to your corruption and treason. I fucking dare you!

There were also a few posts favoring drug legalization. That stands to reason as he had something of a record for drug offenses in Tippecanoe County. In 79D04-1012-FD-185, he was convicted of dealing marijuana and possession of a controlled substance on April 12, 2011. He was found guilty of violating the terms of his probation on May 23, 2013. That seems to have prompted his Youtube video to Amanda when he was about to serve his time.

He complains about Community Corrections and the financing of house arrest here. (Bonus – he shows the Tippecanoe County Courthouse and calls it a “monument to authoritarianism.”)

Amanda’s Facebook page has a lot less vitriol — in fact it seems to be a more run of the mill Facebook page with a lot of cat pictures and notes about day-to-day life. Though there are a few anti-gun control posts scattered here and there. (As a father, I was especially struck by a post on her father’s Facebook page from June 5 with Amanda as a cute, smiling little girl. On June 6, she protested playfully, “why dad, why, lol?” And her father responded, “Will always think of you around this age. I think most parents try to remember their children at a favorite age.” Then a couple of days later, she’s making the national news because of a horrific murder.)

Also, they seemed to be comic book and video game fans (there were pictures from more than one occasion where he’s dressed up as The Joker and she’s dressed as Harley Quinn). From her Facebook page, we find that they moved from Lafayette to Las Vegas in January or thereabouts. She seems to have worked for Hobby Lobby and to have been a graduate of Lafayette Jefferson high school. Court records suggest that she was 23 years old and he was older, about 31, and that they were married in the fall of 2012. They posted a video outside the Tippecanoe County Courthouse participating in something called the “Million Mask March,” protesting authoritarianism.

Obviously the story is developing, but as I see it now, I don’t know that there was anything particular about Las Vegas that prompted them to start murdering innocent people out there instead of here in Lafayette. Maybe the Bundy Ranch experience elevated them a notch or two above where they were while they were in my back yard. Most people can consume the paranoid rhetoric that Jared in particular was quoting and re-posting without murdering someone. But, I suppose there is a personality type for whom being a martyr against an unmitigated evil — even an imagined one — is a better fate than living in a state of mediocrity, constantly stressed by the more ambiguous sorts of challenges most of us face in our lives.

Tom LoBianco, writing for the Associated Press, has a story on the lobbying within the state Republican Party on the subject of marriage equality in advance of the party convention. Some want to include a plank that prefers heterosexual marriage. Others want to leave that plank out.

At question is whether the party’s platform, its official statement of party values, should oppose gay marriage. The fight to win over the roughly 1,700 Republican delegates to the convention has been waged with the trappings of a professional campaign: Postcards and fliers have been hitting mailboxes, and volunteers have been calling delegates for close to two weeks now.

The ever-present Jim Bopp is confident that the marriage clause will make it into the platform. Megan Robertson, who led the campaign for Freedom Indiana opposing SJR 3/6, is working to keep the language out of the platform.

Cheryl Musgrave, a delegate out of Vanderburgh County (and former head of the Department of Local Government Finance) is quoted as saying:

“Our party platform should have broad-based support and concentrate on issues involving lower taxes and smaller government. I don’t believe the marriage debate is an appropriate thing for a party platform to be discussing.”

The convention is this weekend, so I guess we’ll see how that shakes out.

If I was in the habit of dumping my trash in the neighbor’s lawn rather than paying to have it removed from my house, I would have a rational motivation for resisting passage of anti-dumping laws. I’d still be kind of a jerk, but I’d have my reasons.

That’s kind of how I think of Indiana officials when I read that they plan on resisting anti-emission rules by the EPA designed to reduce pollution.

“Indiana ranked seventh among the states in coal production in 2012, and coal-fired electric power plants provided about 84% of Indiana’s net electricity generation in 2013,” according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration website.

. . .

So when the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule Monday for reducing carbon emissions by as much as 30 percent, Hoosier officials lashed back.

“Indiana will oppose these regulations using every means available,” Gov. Mike Pence said in a statement.

“The EPA’s proposed rules amount to a backdoor energy tax that will damage Indiana’s economy and hike electric bills for all Hoosiers,” Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., said in a statement.

I sympathize with the pain this sort of thing might cause, but when your business model relies on dumping your trash on someone else, it’s not a good business model. Externalizing your costs means you are imposing them on someone else who isn’t necessarily a party to your transaction — this distorts the price of your product, artificially lowering it because of the involuntary subsidy being provided by the third party (in this case, all the people breathing the air and paying for the environmental consequences of the emissions.) And, because the price is distorted, it sends bad signals to the marketplace, creating incentives for suboptimal economic activity.

Rather than bellyaching, Indiana’s lawmakers should figure out ways to help Indiana’s energy and other businesses shift to a more sustainable business model.

I came in touch with Chris primarily through his work with the Hoosier Beer Geek a fine website that, near as I can figure, I first mentioned on my blog in early 2007. The rise of Indiana brewing and Indiana blogs seemed to coincide, and Chris was involved with both. I was sad to hear of Chris’s passing. After a struggle with cancer, Chris died at the age of 37. Jim has posted a moving remembrance at the HBG site. My condolences to his friends and family.

(H/t Ben and Derrick). About eleven miles north of Richmond, near Bethel, tower the commanding heights of Hoosier Hill. At 1,257 feet, the hill stands an imposing 30 feet or so above the surrounding country side.

But this proud land feature is in danger of being usurped.

Atlas Obscura reports:

Hoosier Hill was also the final state high point visited by A.H. Marshall, the first person to ascend all 50. However with the land being as flat as it is in Eastern Indiana, there was been some controversy in recent years as a landfill in neighboring Randolph County has requested permission to stack its garbage above Hoosier Hill’s elevation, thus potentially making the highest point a peak of refuse. It is unknown whether the garbage pile has bested Indiana’s natural peak, but it certainly is not as well cared for.

I’ve been listening to Dan Carlin’s podcast on World War I off and on over the past several months. With that war on my mind, this Memorial Day, it occurs to me that probably most soldiers who die in battle represent a failing on one level or another. We failed to avoid the conflict in the first place and there was a failure of imagination to solve the conflict in a way that did not cost the soldier his or her life.

As Isaac Asimov’s fictional Salvor Hardin said, “violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” Or, if Sun Tzu is more your style, “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

There are times where the value gained or preserved through war exceeds the costs of war itself. And there are times where the gain or preservation can only be accomplished with the loss of life. But, in retrospect, it appears that more often the gain or preservation did not match the cost. And that the loss of life could have been eliminated or lessened through better diplomacy or better strategy.

Today is a day to remember and honor the individuals who died serving our country. But I believe our debt is even greater to those who died because of our failings, the failings of the public, and the failings of our leadership and their leadership.