Geez, if I could have a nickel for every time a Leftist engages in an orgy of anti-Americanism, especially just before Veterans Day …
Put a man in uniform, preferably a white man, give him a gun, and Americans will worship him. It is a particularly childish trait, of a childlike culture, that insists on anointing all active military members and police officers as “heroes.” The rhetorical sloppiness and intellectual shallowness of affixing such a reverent label to everyone in the military or law enforcement betrays a frightening cultural streak of nationalism, chauvinism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism, but it also makes honest and serious conversations necessary for the maintenance and enhancement of a fragile democracy nearly impossible.
It has become impossible to go a week without reading a story about police brutality, abuse of power and misuse of authority. Michael Brown’s murder represents the tip of a body pile, and in just the past month, several videos have emerged of police assaulting people, including pregnant women, for reasons justifiable only to the insane.
It is equally challenging for anyone reasonable, and not drowning in the syrup of patriotic sentimentality, to stop saluting, and look at the servicemen of the American military with criticism and skepticism. […]
No American freedom is currently at stake in Afghanistan. It is impossible to imagine an argument to the contrary, just as the war in Iraq was clearly fought for the interests of empire, the profits of defense contractors, and the edification of neoconservative theorists. It had nothing to do with the safety or freedom of the American people. The last time the U.S. military deployed to fight for the protection of American life was in World War II – an inconvenient fact that reduces clichés about “thanking a soldier” for free speech to rubble. If a soldier deserves gratitude, so does the litigator who argued key First Amendment cases in court, the legislators who voted for the protection of free speech, and thousands of external agitators who rallied for more speech rights, less censorship and broader access to media. […]
Given the dubious and dangerous nature of American foreign policy, and the neglect and abuse veterans often suffer when returning home wounded or traumatized, Americans, especially those who oppose war, should do everything they can to discourage young, poor and working-class men and women from joining the military. Part of the campaign against enlistment requires removing the glory of the “hero” label from those who do enlist.
Such a poltroon as author David Masciotra should be treated with the contempt he has so obviously earned. For any person unsure of how to debate such genetic deadends, I recommend a good dose of The Pragmatics of Patriotism.
I must pause to brush off those parlor pacifists I mentioned earlier… for they contend that THEIR actions are on this highest moral level. They want to put a stop to war; they say so. Their purpose is to save the human race from killing itself off; they say that too. Anyone who disagrees with them must be a bloodthirsty scoundrel – and they’ll tell you that to your face. I won’t waste time trying to judge their motives; my criticism is of their mental processes: Their heads aren’t screwed on tight. They live in a world of fantasy.
Let me stipulate that, if the human race managed its affairs sensibly, we could do without war. Yes – and if pigs had wings, they could fly. I don’t know what planet those pious pacifists are talking about but it can’t be the third one out from the Sun. Anyone who has seen the Far East – or Africa – or the Middle East – knows or certainly should know that there is NO chance of abolishing war in the foreseeable future. In the past few years I have been around the world three times, traveled in most of the communist countries, visited many of the so-called emerging countries, plus many trips to Europe and to South America; I saw nothing that cheered me as to the prospects for peace. The seeds of war are everywhere; the conflicts of interest are real and deep, and will not be abolished by pious platitudes. The best we can hope for is a precarious balance of power among the nations capable of waging total war – while endless lesser wars break out here and there. I won’t belabor this. Our campuses are loaded with custard-headed pacifists but the yard of the Naval Academy is not one place where I will encounter them. We are in agreement that the United States still needs a navy, that the Republic will always have need for heroes – else you would not be here tonight and in uniform.
Patriotism – Moral behavior at the national level. Non sibi sed Patria. Nathan Hale’s last words: ‘I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.’ Torpedo Squadron Eight making its suicidal attack. Four chaplains standing fast while the water rises around them. Thomas Jefferson saying, ‘The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots” A submarine skipper giving the order ‘Take her DOWN!’ while he himself is still topside. Jonas Ingram standing on the steps of Bancroft Hall and shouting, ‘The Navy has no place for good losers! The Navy needs tough sons of bitches who can go out there and WIN!’
Patriotism – An abstract word used to describe a type of behavior as harshly practical as good brakes and good tires. It means that you place the welfare of your nation ahead of your own even if it costs you your life. Men who go down to the sea in ships have long had another way of expressing the same moral behavior tagged by the abstract expression ‘patriotism.’ Spelled out in simple Anglo-Saxon words ‘Patriotism’ reads ‘Women and children first!’
And that is the moral result of realizing a self-evident biological fact: Men are expendable; women and children are not. A tribe or a nation can lose a high percentage of its men and still pick up the pieces and go on… as long as the women and children are saved. But if you fail to save the women and children, you’ve had it, you’re done, you’re THROUGH! You join tyrannosaurus rex, one more breed that bilged its final test.
The proper reply to such psychotics is to deny them what they want, for this very reason: that they want it. For they are at war with all that is human.
Penis envy, Mr. Masciotra?
ot nice rino rant
Bush’s Mediocrity Brigade
– It just keeps getting better and better. I hope all the f*****s end up dead or in jail. (and then dead.)
– In other news….
Nixon bugged the offices of some moron Democrats and was forced to resign…..Bumblef**ks incompetence or political maneuvering, whichever, ends up in directly causing/allowing the murder of 4 Americans and bupkus happens to him. One of these days as the truth all comes out, something serious is going to happen and the media will suddenly hide under the table.
So does that mean Obama is under the bus with the left? Or does this mean that Ms. Masciotra a pre-mature anti-
fascistimperialist?Look, I think you can make the case that “hero” and “heroism” are overused to the point of abuse. You may even be able to make the case that it’s the right that’s especially at fault here.
Just like the Left with “sacrifice” and particularly when “sacrifice” comes pre-modified by “shared.”
pre-mature anti-imperialist
– Obama is probably under the bus, or being nudged that way, even in some media quarters that are decidedly Leftwing, but even more telling is its obvious that the Democrats are convinced without amnesty they will lose a large portion of the Hispanic vote, particularly the illegal voters in that demographic, so they are adament that jug ears act while he still can. If they lose the WH in ’16 and give the GOP the chance to pass a “soft amnesty” by stealth they could be out for decades, so this is going to be all out political war and the Dems are in the hard position. The GOP leadership probably believes that outright amnesty by O acting alone would be political suicide so they are probably actually goading Obama to act impulsively.
Objection: Facts not in evidence.
To whit, the fact that anybody in the GOP leadership posesses an iota of cunning.
the demonrats are the ” old white peeps party”
from 3/2014 nyt
>On the national level, the Democratic bench is weaker, or more overshadowed, than at any time in the past several decades. There are several reasons. The election disaster in 2010 wiped out many possibilities, especially at the gubernatorial level. More important, with two heavyweight camps — President Obama and the Clintons — there is no political oxygen for anyone else.<
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/us/politics/who-else-besides-hillary-clinton-in-2016.html?_r=0
the sinking ship baracky
>the fact that anybody in the GOP leadership posesses an iota of cunning<
at the top sure. but down the ladder the donkey get's its ass kicked
– I typed that Ernst with that very caveat lurking heavily in my mind, but as nr notes, some of the second tier people like Cruz seem to get it.
– Well O can’t run and I’m convinced Hildebeast will never be able to capture the youth vote, like the Marxist (anti-daddy) in the WH did. The problem isn’t oxygen, the problem is the Progs invested so much in Bumblehead and had to concentrate all of its resources and energies in propping him up and trying to deal with all the scandals and policy disasters that there was no time or attention available for next candidate grooming. Besides, jug ears would have objected, resisted, and even spoken out publicly to undermine such efforts, just as he did with this election. H eknows the party’s over and he’s not going quietly.
The “Yoot Vote” wants Elizabeth Warren. If we’re really lucky, they’ll get it – good and hard…
Democratic congressional aides said the president wasn’t cutting off Mr. Biden, who was making a rhetorical point that Republicans refused to commit to bringing an immigration bill to the floor by a specific time.
– Riiiiight, of course, uh huh. Jug ears is in renegade mode at this point. Another reason to believe he’s being nudged under the bus.
– You’ve probably seen this little “episode” from the WH meeting the other day, but if not here it is again.
– At best he’s at odds with his own advisers, at worst he’s out of control. When you are dumber than Biden you’re toast.
Careful what you wish for.
The “yoot vote” doesn’t win elections for Team D — it’s the cross-demographic LIV bloc that does that, and the un-pale portion thereof will not turn out for a white Fauxcahontas.
Team D is scrood.
Not even when Michelle Obama tells ’em to vote D or die?
On a serious note, the D advantage in the electoral college is what I have in mind.
nov-dec shut down notice
>“The single most important, must-pass bill for the lame-duck Congress to finish is a spending bill for the federal government,” says Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
That bill could either be a continuing resolution that funds government for a while longer—the current C.R., as it’s known, expires at the end of the day on December 11—or it could fund the government through September 2015.
Binder thinks it will be the latter.
“My sense is that Republican leaders in particular, and I think Democratic leaders, really want to put the omnibus bill—wrapping up all these spending bills—they really want to put it to rest in December, so that they can start from a clean slate come January,” says Binder. <
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/lame-duck-congress-still-has-plenty-do
eff these losers
Bears-Packers recap:
**** Team D is scrood. ****
Ditto team O.
h/t mg
Jay Cutler !
#6 t- shirt:
“Almost an anagram for Jeff George”
I didn’t see anything in Mr. Masciotra’s biography that indicated that he’s ever set foot outside of the US.
He’s entitled to his opinion, but you’d think that someone would be more worldly in order to claim that the rest of the world is no threat.
I guess that Mr. Masciotra has a low opinion of South Koreans, unless the Korean War falls within his short list of acceptable wars.
The Salon x wrote: Michael Brown’s murder represents the tip of a body pile….
No…it represents the tip of the iceberg of your mental depravity.
Ah…the ‘x’ was supposed to read ‘simpleton’.
Duh, Bob.
-Of course, I need to keep in mind that Salon is nothing but a Click-Bait factory these days.
-Thanks for the Heinlein passage, Darleen. I may reprint the whole thing for my Veteran’s Day post [profusely thank you, of course].
#FU #SALON
Y’ask me, the Left is just extra-cranky that it’s been 40 years since the military could (with any justification whatsoever) be called ‘baby-killers’.
Then there’s also the little matter that, given their choice in TX Gubernator candidates and their party platform in general, ‘baby killer’ is probably a phrase that they’re in no rush to bandy about in public these days.
Perhaps they could accuse the modern military of being excessively pro-choice. “Sure, we’re pro-choice and all, but those knuckle-dragging killbots are taking it too far!”
Obligatory for this clown.
“Well everybody knows that”…..
“Yeah, well did you know Obama is actually from Mars?”
Well, BBH, the fictional character known as ‘Barack Hussein Obama’ [played by Barry Soetoro] and the whole of The Jarrett Junto are aliens – they do not owe allegiance to your America, are strangers to America, and find our ways foreign.
That’s why I use the term ‘the Left In America’ to describe them. They don’t belong here. They don’t understand us. They are a foreign presence.
– The annual meeting of Marxists and Plagiarists in Commiewood.
Just to make this entertaining we might wonder why the author wasn’t willing to go just a bit farther and join crazy uncle Paul in wondering if there were any American interests at stake in WWII. Why is Mr. Masciotra so bloodthirsty, so brainwashed by the machine?
Where Mr. Masciotra joins Nor Luap in these matters is in their dusty, insulated ideology.
But, bh, you ask, isn’t the retort given in the post phrased in terms of pragmatics and isn’t that bad because we’ve used pragmatic as an insult here so often?
Of course not. What a thinking man (rather than a reflexive man) sees in principle (like in pragmatic principles for instance) is principle grounded in reality, in what some might call nature and what others might call truth without ever once disagreeing in essence. Only a fool would propose a principle at odds with the state of man as found or created. But that’s what they do. So they are indeed principled. But their principles are worth not a damn.
So, too, with pragmatism. There is nothing to scorn in pragmatism. Paying your rent on time is pragmatism. Slowing down on an icy road is pragmatism. Pretending that you’ll beat Marxists with compromise is not. Pretending that John McCain is a vessel of conservative victory is not.
I write this too long of a comment to better define terms as I use them.
Well, if the Nazis had *not* declared war upon the US, we really would not have had any skin in that fight. Other than maybe selling arms to both sides.
The Japanese, however, *did* attack us and deserved a violent response.
I’ve been playing the game Twilight Struggle as the US and it has really been difficult for me to give a fuck about Europe falling to the Soviets given how those assholes have behaved since. And I was there (Erlangen) in the early 1980s to help prevent that from happening.
quibble alert
>Paying your rent on time is pragmatic
sm.<And perhaps I mean to say that I’d rather create a more lasting right-ish coalition with those fellows with stronger social stances than myself founded on rather concrete principles rather than joining in with the ideologues who believe not a lick in tradition, who think nothing of borders, or who view nearly all military action as obscene.
Quibble accepted.
I tend to view it more as a matter of joining the inevitable fight on better ground by joining in earlier.
Better to fight fascists before they take over too much of the board.
As you might guess, I also feel that same way about the communists later on.
Did you SIGINT by any chance? I ask this entirely out of the blue because I know one other person who worked Erlangen and he wore the headphones.
Same time period.
Army.
>And perhaps I mean to say that I’d rather create a more lasting right-ish coalition with those fellows with stronger social stances than myself founded on rather concrete principles rather than joining in with the ideologues who believe not a lick in tradition,<
you might find this of interest
How nearly 5 years of unbelievable pain changed everything you knew about Glenn Beck
Reporting for Duty.
>Reporting for Duty.<
wait and see – cynic
Nope. Tanker. I changed branches to Signal later. Ferris Barracks is gone now, which is kinda sad but really for the best.
Here is a great piece on veterans and all the foo fa rah about heroism and such…. http://greenieboard.blogspot.com/2014/11/history-hubris-and-home-depot.html
That Salon writer is a complete dick, but a eunuch at best.
Another asshole that needs to be punched in the nuts.
I just checked. My asshole doesn’t have its own set of nuts.
He needs to check his privilege.