I’ve got a lot of stories saved up to blog about, but like a lot of folks, have things to do besides blog. As such, I’ve got a large number of those news stories that are still worthy of comment, but not timely enough any more for full posts. So here goes with a few of those:
There’s no longer room at the inn at a Manhattan church that’s sheltering Occupy Wall Streeters after a holy vessel disappeared from the altar last week.
When the Rev. Bob Brashear prepared for Sunday services at West Park Presbyterian Church on West 86th Street, he noticed parts of the bronze baptismal font were gone.
In a fire-and-brimstone message to occupiers later that day, he thundered, “It was like pissing on the 99 percent.”
In Brooklyn, at another church housing OWS protesters, an occupier urinated on a cross, according to Rabbi Chaim Gruber, who has angrily abandoned the OWS movement.
…
The artifact vanished just three weeks after a $2,400 Apple MacBook vanished from Brashear’s office. He told the occupiers that even when the 100-year-old Upper West Side church extended help to addicts during the 1980s drug scourge, no visitors touched its $12,500 sacramental instrument.
“Not even crackheads messed with that,” he said.
Occupy Wall Street: Piss-spraying desecrating thieves that are worse than crackheads.
‘This is a very private room,’ he said. The next thing I knew, he was standing in front of me, his face inches away, his eyes staring directly into mine.
He placed both hands on my shoulders and guided me toward the edge of the bed. I landed on my elbows, frozen halfway between sitting up and lying on my back.
Slowly, he unbuttoned the top of my shirtdress and…
And if you don’t believe it, notice the video is from Stars and Stripes. And so is this story:
This week, 14 noncommissioned officers at Camp Zama took turns wearing the “pregnancy simulators” as they stretched, twisted and exercised during a three-day class that teaches them to serve as fitness instructors for pregnant soldiers and new mothers.
Army enlisted leaders all over the world are being ordered to take the Pregnancy Postpartum Physical Training Exercise Leaders Course, or PPPT, according to U.S. Army Medical Activity Japan health promotion educator Jana York.
Somewhere, there is a balance to be struck on gender issues between having a Democrat president exploit his position to overwhelm and overpower a 19 year-old girl and the PC-gone-totally-weirdo idea of strapping a “pregnancy simulator” on Army Sergeants.
–
(Yes, technically field daying the folder would mean cleaning it into nothingness, but I’m just going to use it as a term to title & tag these clean-up posts.)
If you have the time, much like the Fast and Furious hearings, it’s worth watching. It’s fascinating to see exactly what happens and is discovered versus what the media will report afterwards.
The US Navy’s chief of information, Rear Admiral Kirby, laments that there’s a “military-civilian gap”. But what he doesn’t understand is that it exists only to him and those in Ruling Class circles.
In more than 10 years of war, we in the military have gone to great expense and trouble to listen to the concerns of foreign peoples and cultures. We have learned Dari and Arabic and Pashto. We have sat cross-legged in shura and tribal councils. And yet I worry that we do not pay our fellow Americans the same courtesy.
It’s time that we do a better job understanding and relating to the people we serve.
We do not talk with them. Too often, we talk at them. We are the guest speakers, the first-pitch-throwers, the grand marshals. We show them the power of our capabilities through air shows, port visits and other demonstrations. This outreach is important, but it isn’t always a two-way street. And it doesn’t improve our understanding of the society we defend.
No, Kirby, you’re an admiral and chief of information. You talk at people, you are the guest speaker, the first-pitch-thrower, the grand marshal. You attend and orchestrate the dog-and-pony shows.
This lament comes up a lot from the left, and sometimes it comes up from those stuck inside the DC bubble.
There are two Americas. There are those who serve, those who know those who serve, who understand service to the country, and those who don’t. Leftists and mainstream media writers are constantly scribbling about this. Read enough and you’ll find it shows up all the time. They lament that that the military isn’t representative of the nation, especially since we’ve switched to a volunteer system. It’s not an uncommon thing to notice. But it’s not a disconnect between the broader US public and the military.
It’s a divide between the Country Class and the Ruling Class. The military is the Country Class, and the Ruling Class always wonders why they aren’t represented enough. They wonder why the military is societally so far away from them, the same way they don’t understand farmers, truckers, miners, etc.
I guess I should amend that. Once you’re an O-7, you’re crossing over into the Ruling Class.
Kirby is an admiral and chief of information – he’s firmly in the Ruling Class. Off the top of my head, I can name 10 coworkers who are veterans in my job. Outside of work, back in regular life, I can come up with at least two friends from circles as far back as high school who are veterans – in circles that weren’t very military-oriented. If I count family and those who’ve served, I end up with 5 off the top of my head. The military and veterans don’t talk at people the way the Chief of Information Admiral does… because they aren’t the Chief of Information Admiral.
They’re people you have conversations with. The only “talking at” comes in the form of telling people about things they have limited to no experience about – which is true of any profession.
If you end up hanging out with a gearhead and know nothing about cars, you may feel “talked at”, but that’s just because you’re getting up to speed. Even if you know about muscle cars or imports, you may find yourself getting “talked at” as you’re brought up to speed on rat rods.
If I talked to the owner/builder of that ride, I expect to get talked at, because I know very little about it – but if I’m engaged in conversation, I’m probably going to learn.
The rest of the Admiral’s piece, when seen with the understanding that he’s part of the Ruling Class, makes sense. He seems to lament a disconnect between himself and the civilian world. But it isn’t a military-civilian disconnect. It’s between himself and his DC cronies against the Country Class. He even writes about cultivating relationships with the Ruling Class, and yet somehow doesn’t understand that’s the problem.
Naturally he, as a Ruling Class professional leader who talks at people, has decided to talk at us again and tell us all how we need to live and act.
The Navy’s newest ship will be the USS Gabrielle Giffords.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus made the announcement at a Pentagon ceremony today, calling Giffords someone whose name is synonymous with courage.
Getting shot in the head by a madman and suffering through recovery is not synonymous with any kind of courage that would warrant naming a ship after a congressman from a landlocked state. This is politics. It’s doing favors for Democrat politicians and it’s been doing favors for the administration by keeping Giffords and her head wound in the spotlight. If it weren’t for her head wound, she wouldn’t be important to the Democrats at all.
The contrast is very sharp when you note that then-HM1 Holly Crabtree was shot in the head by a sniper while on patrol – and the courage it takes to go on patrols in hostile territory, risking her own life just by being there – and then surviving a headshot – is the kind of courage that might well warrant naming a ship after her… a sailor wounded in combat.
Of course, Secnav Mabus was more interested in scoring Democrat and anti-gun political points by keeping Giffords in the spotlight:
Mabus said the notion occurred to him that this would be a “fitting tribute” not only to Giffords but to Navy families because she was a Navy spouse. Her husband, Mark Kelly, was until recently an astronaut and Navy pilot.
Really, it’s a fitting tribute because she married a guy who drove boats?
In the navy, pilots drive boats. Aviators fly planes. One could probably safely assume it’s a typo, but either way, it shows that the ship is being named for no reason other than politics.
Giffords is a political prop for gun control and undermining the Constitution, and has been used as willing a political tool since she was shot. She was also used to blame Sarah Palin, too. The left exists only for politics.
By contrast, again from the Crabtree story:
After being wounded, Crabtree was attached to James A Haley Veterans Affairs Hospital in Tampa, Fla. While there, besides receiving therapy, she “inspired and motivated several critically wounded soldiers and instilled a positive, can-do spirit.” For that, she received her fourth Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal on Friday.
Somewhere there’s a bitter combat arms guy who’d joke about the way NAMs are handed out like candy for making people feel good, but I’d say Crabtree is the exception, not the rule. In 2005 the GySgt in my platoon got a NAM for getting some ice out into the field when it was hot. HM1 Crabtree is out getting people to push through serious injuries – she’s probably earned hers.
Crabtree, 32, grudgingly accepted medical retirement.
“I can still move my hand. I can still walk a little bit. I’m still good. I can do something,” she said of wanting to continue her career. Finally, she gave in.
She’s a 14 year veteran and she’s only 32 years old. She was 18 when she joined, and spent 14 years of her life in naval service. Reread her statement again until it sinks in. Crabtree is worthy of a ship.
“I can still move my hand. I can still walk a little bit. I’m still good. I can do something.“
After the accidental burning last year of Qurans by U.S. troops in Afghanistan sparked deadly rioting, an Air National Guard chaplain from Springfield stepped in and potentially saved countless American lives.
For his effort, Lt. Col. Jon Trainer received the prestigious Bronze Star — a medal given for heroic or meritorious achievement in connection with operations against an armed enemy.
The blue, red and white Distinguished Warfare Medal will be given to servicemembers that demonstrate “extraordinary achievement” related to a military operation after 9/11. But unlike every other combat award, it does not require the recipient to risk her or her life…
An official speaking on condition of anonymity prior to the announcement from the Pentagon has indicated that the award will be higher ranking than a Bronze Star, but lower than the Silver Star — the nation’s third-highest award, the Army Times reports.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – With tensions in the Middle East rising over Iran’s nuclear program and the Syrian civil war, the United States and NATO began their largest annual joint-exercise this week, Operation Enduring Freedom. …
“In an uncertain world, we believe that Enduring Freedom shows that the NATO alliance is still a relevant force,” said International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman Colonel Nick Page.
United States Marines are being told to preserve ammunition and gasoline as a deal softening the impact of automatic spending cuts continues to elude leaders in Washington.
Marine Corps Commandant James Amos urged personnel in a video posted online Friday to “save every round, every gallon of gas,” and to “take every single aspect or opportunity in training to get the most bang for the buck,” a reminder of the cuts’ immediate effect on the U.S. military.
Former Texas State Representative and Luby’s Massacre survivor Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp said these words that are allow instant understanding of almost every political figure:
How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual… as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.
Generals are ultimately politicians, and retired General McChrystal gave his opinion the other day on how citizens shouldn’t own effective guns. It’s also worth noting he’s lived on military bases where everyone is disarmed except for the military police. His interactions as a younger officer are often dealing with discipline problems among troops. I have little doubt this has colored many of his views about what people should be allowed to do and what they shouldn’t be allowed to do.
I personally believe that national service is important for the nation, and that’s having all young people serve a term of national service. Certainly not all military. But I believe those things do have two effects. One, those things that bind people to their nation are important, and another thing is that we’re also a nation that doesn’t get to know each other too well. Someone from one part of an inner city never meets another person from an upper class neighborhood. We need some things that pull people together in shared experience. We need to be ten years after the fact when they are meeting somewhere, ‘Where did you serve?’ begins a connection that allows them to move on because we are getting too fragmented in my view.
No.
We don’t need a peacetime draft. During wartime, if it’s necessary, it’s one of the burdens placed upon members of a society. During peacetime, it’s an expansion of standing armies that we don’t need.
McChrystal is pushing for a draft (or alternate service) as some kind of a “shared experience” and cultural social program. He wants to bring people together by herding them into military camps so they can have “experiences”.
The reason for the slow, ongoing Balkanization of the US is that there are politicians who benefit from the Curley Effect (Democrats) and encourage it. The reason someone from one part of an inner city never meets another person from an upper class neighborhood is because the limousine liberal has made the inner city dude his pet cause – someone he taxes the suburban joe to subsidize – while all the while hating both; and driving wedges between Americans. Look at the tax fight for the last few months wherein Democrats fought the government to a standstill so they could begin to liquidate the Kulaks.
There isn’t a lack of connection because of lack of military service – there’s a lack of connection because social engineer politicians have developed their constiutencies that way. Instituting another social engineering program – that of a peacetime draft for “service” is just as bad.
The reason we honor military men and women is because they provide the peace that we enjoy. They fight so we don’t have to – that’s why they’re given respect. I fought so others wouldn’t have to. It’s a volunteer military for a reason.
America is supposed to be a society without classes and castes. In many places, it still is. Ranchers who own 20,000 acre spreads still talk to their ranchhands, and while one’s the employer and the other the employee, that’s all there is. They aren’t from different classes, just different income levels. In cities where half the people or more live off handouts extracted from the other half at gunpoint by a sliver of a redistributor class, there is a divide – and it’s a divide that didn’t used to exist.
McChrystal is one of those who believes Americans to be a crowd that needs to be lorded over and controlled, supervised and taken care of. The whole reason we have the class problems we do now is precisely because of social engineer progressive politicians like him. Instituting one more policy will only exacerbate the harm as it brings people into the military who don’t want to be there. Try telling the 47% that get handouts that they owe someone else something and are being drafted. That’s going to lead to a schism within the military and a breakdown of good order and discipline all around. People whose lives consist of “gimme gimme gimme” are not going to be exemplars of civic virtue and rectitude.
Leftists often lament the fact that the military is becoming more rural and Southern, but that was going on well before they started noticing it. That all started happening because their own institutions and beliefs demonized the military. Those in deep blue states often don’t have much interest in the military because it often stands counter to ideas they’ve been taught.
The idea of self-sacrifice by choice in order to preserve the liberties of their land is alien to people in a world where the government disarms them, won’t let them drink a 16 0z soda or have a cigarette. Their liberties have been taken by their masters, they have nothing to stand up for.
That whole cultural divide has been built with a lot of effort by devotees of Cloward and Piven and the Curley Effect. If you want to change it, you don’t change a victim of 12 years of state-sponsored indoctrination and expect it to wear off in 2-3 months of training. You get rid of the 12 years of indoctrination.
Now, if the retired general was advocating something like Starship Troopers, wherein completion of voluntary service risking one’s life was required to vote, I could see the logic to that. He’s trying the reverse. He’s trying to make everyone serve in order to instill virtue and understanding that cannot be instilled. If he was saying “hey, if you aren’t willing to put your butt on the line and ‘some skin in the game’, then you don’t get a voice when it comes to government”, he’d find some sympathy for that – but he’s also find that 47% of handout voters would be vehemently against it because they’ve been trained by their political leaders to vote themselves largesse. This is also why McChrystal’s draft will never pass, and why even if he wished it into existence, it would never work – he’d be drafting people with this mentality:
All you’ll do with someone of that mentality is waste the military’s time and add to the 10% of shitbirds already there who join up anyway. Drafting them in peacetime will be a failure in every way.
Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Tuesday, Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said some weapons should be carried only by soldiers, not civilians.
The entire purpose of the Second Amendment was to put the citizen at parity with the government to prevent tyranny. McChrystal is an idiot and doesn’t understand his own oath.
“I spent a career carrying typically either an M16, and later an M4 carbine,” he said. “And an M4 carbine fires a .223 caliber round, which is 5.56 millimeters, at about 3,000 feet per second. When it hits a human body, the effects are devastating. It’s designed to do that. And that’s what our soldiers ought to carry.”
He’s a general. Generals have men to carry rifles for them.
The .25-06 is a pretty common deer rifle where I live (deer are usually kinda small around here). The .25-06 puts out a .257 caliber round, which is 6.5 millimeters, at about 3230 feet per second. When it hits any body, the effects are devastating. And that’s why our soldiers carry something weaker. Those traditionalists who still like the .30-06, a cartridge designed over 100 years ago, is .308 caliber, about 7.8 mm, and moves at about 2910 feet per second. When it hits a human body, it’s a much heavier, more devasatating bullet that does much more damage. All firearms propel projectiles, that’s what they do. Saying the semi-auto M4 clones that citizens can own are dangerous due to some numbers is just a precursor to banning everything else – because so many other firearms are more effective.
Photo by Oleg Volk.
That they are effective is the point. It establishes parity in order to preserve liberty against tyrants, whether governmental or individual.
McChrystal is an idiot, but he is a politician. Saying “guns are bad, m’kay”, sounds good when he’s playing politics to people who hate guns.
In the real world, the reason McChrystal isn’t Generalissimo McChrystal the Exalted Great Leader is because we, Joe and Jane and Jamal and Jesus citizen, have the Second Amendment and have rifles that are comparable in order to maintain the security of the free state that our Constitution was intended to create. We maintain a republic by virtue of those tools.
The general added, “I personally don’t think there’s any need for that kind of weaponry on the streets and particularly around the schools in America. I believe that we’ve got to take a serious look. I understand everybody’s desire to have whatever they want, but we’ve got to protect our children, we’ve got to protect our police, we’ve got to protect our population. And I think we have to take a very mature look at that.”
He’s a general. He’s used to being a control freak. He says “jump”, people say “how high” on the way up.
“Desire to have whatever they want” is the reason we formed the nation he chose to serve. We protect our children by maintaining a free society. The job of police is to enforce laws. We do not crush the freedoms of millions (and by extension set up a nation for tyranny) because Officer Barbrady wants his job made easier. If we want to do that, let’s throw out the 4th, 5th, and 8th Amendments, take kids from their parents, and just make a police state right now.
Oh, wait, there is no doing that. Because of this:
When military units do exercises, somebody has to be the good guy, somebody has to be the bad guy. The bad guys are the opposition force, or OPFOR. A Red Cell functions much the same, acting as a dedicated enemy element for purposes of exercises. Going up from the tactical level to the strategic, you have Red Teams. Basically, people who come up with scenarios for enemy forces.
Unfortunately, sometimes you have ignorant leftist political ignoramuses put in a position to do some of that Red Team work.
I’m not sure there is a strategic facepalm yet.
Sipsey Street Irregulars has a long, very informative piece here, about the scenario some idiots came up with, proving once again that military intelligence is quite often an oxymoron. Here’s the crux of the scenario, from some idiots (Retired Col. Kevin Benson and Associate Professor Jennifer Weber) at the Small Wars Journal:
The Scenario (2016)
The Great Recession of the early twenty-first century lasts far longer than anyone anticipated. After a change in control of the White House and Congress in 2012, the governing party cuts off all funding that had been dedicated to boosting the economy or toward relief. The United States economy has flatlined, much like Japan’s in the 1990s, for the better part of a decade. By 2016, the economy shows signs of reawakening, but the middle and lower-middle classes have yet to experience much in the way of job growth or pay raises. Unemployment continues to hover perilously close to double digits, small businesses cannot meet bankers’ terms to borrow money, and taxes on the middle class remain relatively high. A high-profile and vocal minority has directed the public’s fear and frustration at nonwhites and immigrants. After almost ten years of race-baiting and immigrant-bashing by right-wing demagogues, nearly one in five Americans reports being vehemently opposed to immigration, legal or illegal, and even U.S.-born nonwhites have become occasional targets for mobs of angry whites.
In May 2016 an extremist militia motivated by the goals of the “tea party” movement takes over the government of Darlington, South Carolina, occupying City Hall, disbanding the city council, and placing the mayor under house arrest. Activists remove the chief of police and either disarm local police and county sheriff departments or discourage them from interfering. In truth, this is hardly necessary. Many law enforcement officials already are sympathetic to the tea party’s agenda, know many of the people involved, and have made clear they will not challenge the takeover. The militia members are organized and have a relatively well thought-out plan of action.
With Darlington under their control, militia members quickly move beyond the city limits to establish “check points” – in reality, something more like choke points — on major transportation lines. Traffic on I-95, the East Coast’s main north-south artery; I-20; and commercial and passenger rail lines are stopped and searched, allegedly for “illegal aliens.” Citizens who complain are immediately detained. Activists also collect “tolls” from drivers, ostensibly to maintain public schools and various city and county programs, but evidence suggests the money is actually going toward quickly increasing stores of heavy weapons and ammunition. They also take over the town web site and use social media sites to get their message out unrestricted.
When the leaders of the group hold a press conference to announce their goals, they invoke the Declaration of Independence and argue that the current form of the federal government is not deriving its “just powers from the consent of the governed” but is actually “destructive to these ends.” Therefore, they say, the people can alter or abolish the existing government and replace it with another that, in the words of the Declaration, “shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” While mainstream politicians and citizens react with alarm, the “tea party” insurrectionists in South Carolina enjoy a groundswell of support from other tea party groups, militias, racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, anti-immigrant associations such as the Minutemen, and other right-wing groups. At the press conference the masked militia members’ uniforms sport a unit seal with a man wearing a tricorn hat and carrying a musket over the motto “Today’s Minutemen.” When a reporter asked the leaders who are the “red coats” the spokesman answered, “I don’t know who the redcoats are…it could be federal troops.” Experts warn that while these groups heretofore have been considered weak and marginal, the rapid coalescence among them poses a genuine national threat.
The mayor of Darlington calls the governor and his congressman. He cannot act to counter the efforts of the local tea party because he is confined to his home and under guard. The governor, who ran on a platform that professed sympathy with tea party goals, is reluctant to confront the militia directly. He refuses to call out the National Guard. He has the State Police monitor the roadblocks and checkpoints on the interstate and state roads but does not order the authorities to take further action. In public the governor calls for calm and proposes talks with the local tea party to resolve issues. Privately, he sends word through aides asking the federal government to act to restore order. Due to his previous stance and the appearance of being “pro” tea party goals the governor has little political room to maneuver.
Yup. That’s what they came up with. Tea Party are terrorists. Anyone quoting the Constitution must be destroyed, because the regime and order must reign, and the Constitution is just a piece of paper. When they quote it, it’s because they’re terrorists.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
Mike at Sipsey Street notes that the comments are almost all in stark contrast to the article. The responses, from the kind of intelligent thinkers who read things like the Small Wars Journal, are by a great majority articulate, eloquent, and offended.
One of the sharpest is this one, by “Obvious Moniker” that criticizes the failed methodology of the scenario. He starts off by pointing out that not only is it as offensive to Constitutionalist Tea Party folks as it seems, it also fails from the start as a utility to develop strategies.
by Obvious Moniker| August 5, 2012 – 11:48am
I’ll admit to being one of the many offended by the choice of parameters; however, for the sake of discussion, I’ll try to minimize repeating what previous commenters have said.
First, it has been claimed that any group could be substituted for the Tea Party types in the scenario. While this claim is undoubtably true on its face, from the detail in the scenario given and the current political climate, I cannot help but wonder if said claim has not been made disengenuously. Several other commenters have wondered how many axes are being ground with the setup used, and I must echo that feeling.
Having been stationed at a 3-star level staff command for 5 years, there’s a reason why our J5/J7 guys had all the local powers in each scenario represented by Pineland, Treeland, et.al. That methodology avoids accusations that the setup may be politically tainted or skewed along ideological lines that would otherwise be unnecessarily detract from the training and potentially make sharing said scenario with our allies unwise.
One untrained in military planning might get the impression from the universal application of said naming obfuscation by such a wide variety of planners whose scenarios truly did not depend on taking place in a location that such a principle was something those planners were taught in their training. In that light, I hope you can understand my skepticism of your claim to being unbiased, as it seems so woefully poor form as to stretch credibility with such denials. (ST: Much more to this comment, worth reading through them at the link.)
For those who don’t follow the Moniker’s jive, he’s saying you train for scenarios, not for specific enemies. You can’t share your playbook if you have one place you’re planning on fighting; and you can’t reapply the scenario when it’s too specific. If you get it in your head that you’re going to fight X and you end up fighting Y, then you’ve set yourself up for failure.
Another:
by Antylyzyk| August 6, 2012 – 7:44am
This is a chilling article—it has shocked me to the core.
The Army has been perfecting its counter-insurgency for decades in foreign lands. Terrorism has now become the function of the Department of Homeland Security—only Europeans had this type of machinery, we have always relied on being a people numerous and armed. Our police forces have become para-military forces in a perpetual War on Drugs. Recently, General Ralph E Eberhart expressed the view “that Posse Comitatus will constantly be under review as we mature this command, as we do our exercises, as we interact with FEMA, F.B.I., and those lead federal agencies out there”. Now Col Benson and Ms Weber posture the “Tea Party”, a movement that has never advocated violence, as the culprits in a future insurrection? Connecting the dots leads to a coordinated intelligence, police, and military system directed at controlling American citizens.
It is little wonder our Founding Fathers feared a standing Army. If this is the line of thinking that is emanating from Leavenworth and our generals, then the inevitable result will be the dissolution of the Republic and the establishment of a military dictatorship.
Another:
by RobJohnson| August 7, 2012 – 1:57am
Interesting choice of descriptors by the authors of this article. The Tea Party has proven to be one of the most peaceful and civilized of any political party in the country, proclaiming only a desire to unify the country around the Constitution and the rule of law. Why did they authors choose an actual, existing party to use in their “Wargames” article? Have they been to a Tea Party meeting? Where most of the members are middle class, middle aged working people? Did they really wish to spit in the face of tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of their fellow citizens? Their neighbors, friends, countrymen? Are they that full of hatred, ready to slap the face of fellow Americans they disagree politically with? Is this how Goebbels and Saddams and Stalins are created? What breath taking arrogance on the part of the authors. Have they been sitting too long behind their desks? If the “Tea Party”, made up of their fellow citizens, deserve to be mass murdered by American troops, what does that say about the authors state of mind? Are they so naive of history? Are they so ignorant and arrogant they think such an event will be a fun little bloody cake walk? Do they look forward to hearing about the hundreds, perhaps thousands killed in the streets, in front of their own homes? Why the Tea Party? Why not about a Marxist stealth coup by a Manchurian candidate president and the military coup to retake the republic? They are so sure of their own rightness? What if the US Army crushes the revolt in the little town but then finds out that it faces not one town but 150,000 across the country? What will they do when they, like the Redcoats marching for Lexington, find themselves surrounded on all sides, their supplies cut off, water cut off, electricity cut off, sabotage every where, even by their own troops and officers, who refuse to fire on their own people, even as many Chinese soldiers did during Tianamen Square? The average rural, heavily wooded county in America has tens of thousands of hunters of all ages. Hunters. Men with scoped rifles, camo gear, who know how to disappear into the forests and hunt things down. Imagine that multiplied across the entire United States. An irregular guerrilla force of millions of snipers. Millions. Blood would run in rivers. Is this what these Armchair Army officers want? Is this how they spend tax payer money? To sit at their computers and type out hate screeds against peaceful citizens? Despicable. Sickening. Twisted.
Another:
by MAJ_John_Pitcairn| August 5, 2012 – 6:04pm
A solid plan for unrivaled Success! However, if the rebels are to be suppressed sufficiently, I have it on good word that to their powder and rifle stores at Lexington and Concord you must go. Rest assured! Vigorous measures at present would soon put an end to this paltry rebellion. The deluded subjects are made to believe that they are invincible. When this glorious Fifth Army is ordered to act against them, they will soon be convinced that they are very insignificant indeed when opposed to regular troops. Once these rebels have been dealt a smart blow, they will fall to their knees and submit. Once disarmament is complete, effective resistance to the Crown will cease and policies of reestablishing order will proceed. God save his excellency King George.
Another:
by nfzgrld| August 5, 2012 – 5:17pm
This article is based almost entirely on false premises. The idea that the tea party would do what is described in the way and for the reasons described is laughable. If the American people act on behalf of their own constitutionally protected freedom then they are within their right. For the military to act in opposition to any effort to protect, defend or restore the veracity and force of the constitution would be, by definition, treason.
In addition, the idea that The Klu Klus Klan and other racist and Democratic party developed organizations would side with the tea party, or that the tea party would even associate with them, indicates either a complete lack of understanding of who and what the tea party is, or is purposeful disinformation disseminated in an effort to further deflect the left’s own goal to the right. Progressives, Marxists, fascists, and other government centered and racist organizations and ideologies are all LEFT. This is America, not Europe. Left and right mean something different here. Left is govt, right is freedom. The more you have of one, the less you will have of the other.
This is OUR country. It is OUR constitution. The govt, including the military, works for US. Aside from the LIMITED powers given the federal government in article one section eight of the constitution, We The People, and the States, have and are the authority. The authors of this article are fomenting an environment of discord and distrust between the people and our military. That needs to stop right now, because WE are the military. I don’t think it’s going to work the way they think it will.
Another:
by Carlos Perera| August 5, 2012 – 2:11pm
I must join the many other commenters who have taken exception to this article’s depiction of the Tea Party as a sort of neo-Klan, a band of lilly-white racists who can barely wait to wrap their ax handles around the heads of people of color. I myself–and, yes, I post under my real name–am a Hispanic Tea Partier, one of many in my area (Jacksonville, Florida). I have _never_ been made to feel unwelcome at any Tea Party event, nor have I ever heard the use of racist/xenophobic invective or seen any literature of that ilk at any Tea Party meeting or demonstration (except in signs wielded by outside _agents provocateurs_ trying to discredit the organization: they are quickly surrounded by Tea Partiers holding signs saying, “not with us). Do many Tea Partiers object to the near non-enforcement of U. S. immigration laws? Yes–I do!–but we simply ask that the federal government enforce those laws (as it is Constitutionally obligated to do), and seek electoral, not insurrectional, solutions to the problem on non-enforcement.
As other have already noted, Tea Party demonstrations are models of civil, orderly behavior. Not only do we not indulge in violence–though on some occasions counter-demonstrators have physically attacked Tea Partiers–we usually leave the public areas we use cleaner than before we arrived. Compare and contrast with left-wing groups’ violence, vandalism, and utter disregard for the public order when they demonstrate: think OWS!
In using the Tea Party as the fictional bad guys of their scenario, the authors of this article have truly–and unjustifiably–derogated a model group of citizen-activists, using their Constitutionally protected right of free assembly, by innuendo. Isn’t there a Commandment against bearing false witness against your neighbor?
I’d add some more commentary, but these folks have pretty much nailed it.
While all of the questions in this survey should have stimulated concern, the survey’s final question has generated an enormous amount of attention:
The U.S. government declares a ban on the possession, sale, transportation, and transfer of all non-sporting firearms. A thirty (30) day amnesty period is permitted for these firearms to be turned over to the local authorities. At the end of this period, a number of citizen groups refuse to turn over their firearms. Consider the following statement: I would fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or resist confiscation of firearms banned by the U.S. government.
The survey results: 42.3 percent strongly disagreed with this statement; 19.3 percent disagreed; 18.6 percent agreed; 7.6 percent strongly agreed; and 12.0 percent had no opinion. In one of the footnotes appearing in his thesis, Cunningham quotes comments placed by some of the Marines next to their answers to this question: “What about the damn Second Amendment? … I feel this is a first in communism! … Read the book None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Gary Allen.” “I would not even consider it. The reason we have guns is so that the people can overthrow the gov’t when or if the people think the gov’t is too powerful.” “Freedom to bear arms is our Second Amendment. If you take our Amendments away then you can take this job and stick it where the sun don’t shine! … It is a right to own firearms for defense (2nd Amendment); I would fight for that right!”
Based on the disagreement expressed by 61 percent of the Marines, Cunningham concluded that “a complete unit breakdown would occur in a unit tasked to execute this mission.”
…humans evolved to crave sugar, store it and then use it. For millions of years, our cravings and digestive systems were exquisitely balanced because sugar was rare. Apart from honey, most of the foods our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate were no sweeter than a carrot. The invention of farming made starchy foods more abundant, but it wasn’t until very recently that technology made pure sugar bountiful.
Unsurprisingly, a Harvard professor is ignorant of the outside world, and ignores that there are fruits and melons and berries and even vegetables of the squash family that are quite sweet. There are many that have been more refined and developed through agriculture, but there were plenty of them around in nature beforehand.
The food industry has made a fortune because we retain Stone Age bodies that crave sugar but live in a Space Age world in which sugar is cheap and plentiful. Sip by sip and nibble by nibble, more of us gain weight because we can’t control normal, deeply rooted urges for a valuable, tasty and once limited resource.
The constant cry that there is an evil villain out to ruin The People, the constant drum beat that The People are weak, unable to control their urges, and must be controlled are all present. This is going to be very predictable.
What should we do? One option is to do nothing, while hoping that scientists find better cures for obesity-related diseases like heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. I’m not holding my breath for such cures, and the costs of inaction, already staggering, would continue to mushroom.
Mr. Lieberman opens his piece by saying that criticisms “most worthy of attention” are the libertarian arguments that this is bad. That’s Lieberman’s way of ignoring them. His questions are based on false premises. His question of “what should we do?” is really – “what should the government do to The People?” He, being an elite Harvard professor, is clearly a ruler of men, an intellectual powerhouse whose huge brain means that he is of course exempt from being lumped in with The People – but the “we” he speaks of is that of the Ruling Class.
The “do nothing” argument is flawed. If the government does nothing, individual citizens will make their own decisions. Off the top of my head, I can think of two writers here who’ve lost double-digit weight in the last year because they got sick of being heavy. Nature solves its own problems. Nobody wants to be at an unhealthy weight. Modern individuals, with modern, sedentary jobs balance the costs of health issues against those of other pressing matters in their daily life. If they have families they need to spend time with, that time at the gym may become less important. If to maintain their standard of living, they need to work more in a sedentary job and there’s a health cost, that’s a decision they make. If they recognize that their weight (whether that be too big or too small) is effecting their quality of life, then they work to change it.
The relative availability of modern foodstuffs is not an issue in their weight. Their decision to eat and drink the amounts that they do is. This goes to Lieberman’s second flawed point. Everyone knows what makes you fat. Everyone.
A more popular option is to enhance public education to help us make better decisions about what to eat and how to be active. This is crucial but has so far yielded only modest improvements.
A team led by obesity expert Prof Fredrik Karpe made the discovery by asking volunteers to eat fatty foods containing traceable carbon isotopes.
They tracked the fat’s path from the gut, which they assumed would be taken around the body by the blood to be ‘burned off’ by the muscles, with the excess slowly adding to our girth over time.
Instead, they found the first fat from a meal entered the bloodstream about an hour after it was eaten by the volunteers.
‘By the time three to four hours have passed, most of it has been incorporated into our adipose tissue, mostly in the shorter term fat stores around our waists,’ Prof Karpe said. Fat around the waist is used only for short-term storage, and can be burned off when people need energy.
Your body tells you you’re fat. You feel it. Education isn’t that difficult. Calories in > calories out, you get fat. Calories out > calories in, you lose weight. Calories in = calories out, you stay at your present weight. You intake calories with food, burn them with activity. Millions of pages have been written about this, but ultimately, it’s not that complicated. Most of those millions of pages are spent trying to balance lifestyle and eating habits and the best ways for each individual, which government cannot do anyway.
The final option that Lieberman comes up with is, as usual, that of all other final answers to problems that the state has deemed worth destroying. Of course the “final option” is the one he states that he laments by listing last. He then notes that the paternalistic state is really a good thing, and by introducing coercion to mimic the “nasty, brutish, and short” existence of primitive man, we will finally have the best solution to fighting obesity.
The final option is to collectively restore our diets to a more natural state through regulations. Until recently, all humans had no choice but to eat a healthy diet with modest portions of food that were low in sugar, saturated fat and salt, but high in fiber. They also had no choice but to walk and sometimes run an average of 5 to 10 miles a day. Mr. Bloomberg’s paternalistic plan is not an aberrant form of coercion but a very small step toward restoring a natural part of our environment.
For all the academic twisting here, no, the government’s function is not to reduce us to animals. Lieberman’s graphic represents what they think of the public – mindless apes:
And the solution is sitting in the ad bar, but I’ll get to that in a moment.
Lieberman continues, justifying his desire for control of The People’s bodies:
Though his big-soda ban would apply to all New Yorkers, I think we should focus paternalistic laws on children. Youngsters can’t make rational, informed decisions about their bodies, and our society agrees that parents don’t have the right to make disastrous decisions on their behalf. Accordingly, we require parents to enroll their children in school, have them immunized and make them wear seat belts. We require physical education in school, and we don’t let children buy alcohol or cigarettes. If these are acceptable forms of coercion, how is restricting unhealthy doses of sugary drinks that slowly contribute to disease any different?
Paternalistic laws have only propagated in the last few decades because the state has sought to replace the parent. Youngsters don’t have to make rational, informed decisions because that’s their parent’s jobs. Society doesn’t agree at all with Lieberman. Government bureaucrats and the Ruling Class have decided to instituted controls regardless of what society thinks. Paternalistic laws now try to change adults into children, all of whom “need” controlling by the state.
Lieberman’s arguments are founded on a basis of overreach that has never been part of the American tradition – those aren’t acceptable, either. Taking parental authority from the parent and placing it in the hands of the state is part of Lieberman’s academic ruling class society – it is not part of greater American society. Mandatory education laws often force children into crappy schools run by governmental bureaucrats – in comparison, home-schooled children often do better because their parents have a personal vested interest in the well-being of their own child. The parent of a child will almost invariably be more interested in the well-being of their child moreso than the most enlightened, wonderful schoolteacher attempting to teach a hundred in a day.
Requiring immunizations has taken place as part of disease-reduction initiatives, but you can catch mumps or rubella. You don’t walk by a fat person and suddenly gain 40 pounds. There are also plenty of arguments against mandatory vaccinations, some of which come from Hollywood kooks, and some of which come from folks who really don’t like that medical industries can simply force people to buy their products through government mandates. If there were benefits to it, people would choose to do it. Flu vaccinations are pushed, but not mandatory, and people volunteer for them.
Children drinking and smoking were stopped by their parents, not by the state. The push for control over drinking is what begat Prohibition, wherein the moral busybodies in the Temperance Movement declared that people were too drunk and stupid to be trusted with their freedoms. That resulted in the entire nation rebelling against it. It also resulted in the state murdering its citizens for their own good.
As for seat belts:
Seat belt laws are part of the same problem. They assume that individuals can’t make good decisions, and that people must be forced into those decisions. For years, there were no seat belts in automobiles. Individual manufacturers came up with ways to make cars safer, some of them being far ahead of the curve, and as individuals saw safety features, they chose to buy them. Notably, Volvo owes much of its reputation in the US to numerous safety features. With the exception of seat belts where a person could become a projectile and impact another person, seat belt laws do infringe on personal freedom.
The children in the truck bed above are not going to be violently flung out of the truck. The driver, knowing he has a load of precious cargo, is going to drive safely and slowly. If he does, the children won’t ride with him again – their parents won’t let them. Or, even without seatbelt laws, a law enforcement officer could stop the truck and deal with the driver as necessary for endangering his passengers.
Back to Lieberman:
Along these lines, we should ban all unhealthy food in school — soda, pizza, French fries — and insist that schools provide adequate daily physical education, which many fail to do.
The state is not the parent. If parents tell the schools to stop serving foods they deem unhealthy, then the school – which is employed by the parent-taxpayers, must respond. To do otherwise is a failure of the school to live up to the contract is has with the parents. Of course, in Lieberman’s world, the school, as a function of the state, is superior to the parent. As such, the school can dictate how they will raise children.
The assumption that rich foods are a cause of childhood obesity is also contingent on portions served. 100 calories of pizza, with bread crust, a layer of cheese, a pretend piece of meat, is the same as 100 calories of sandwich, with a slice of cheese, a bread crust, and a pretend piece of meat. The decisions to eliminate soda, pizza, and french fries are based on Lieberman’s Ruling Class notion of “what is good for you”, not on what actually is. As noted in his own article, these rich foods are incredibly good for you if you’re in a state of constant activity. So their elimination not only restricts the freedom of individuals to choose their own foods, but also assumes that children aren’t engaged in any activities, and penalizes the active for the sake of the inactive.
I note that it restricts individuals freedoms, and not just those of children, because parents who send their children to school have already had lunches confiscated. The parents’ authority to feed their own children is stomped on by the state. This isn’t some case of child abuse or neglect (aside from in the minds of fascistic nanny-staters), this is a case of the state dictating how you shall live.
Adults need help, too, and we should do more to regulate companies that exploit our deeply rooted appetites for sugar and other unhealthy foods. The mayor was right to ban trans fats, but we should also make the food industry honest about portion sizes. Like cigarettes, mass-marketed junk food should come with prominent health warning labels. It should be illegal to advertise highly fattening food as “fat free.” People have the right to be unhealthy, but we should make that choice more onerous and expensive by imposing taxes on soda and junk food.
And here we get to the “nudging”. Make choices so onerous and difficult that people will be forced into what the dictator desires. The iron fist of an authoritarian state is wearing a velvet glove.
Adults who face the consequences of their own decisions will make choices. No one wants to be a bloated fatass. The mayor was wrong to tell people what they can and can’t put in their bodies, but he’s a tyrant across the board, and his only redeeming quality is that he’s a wonderful example of one.
The food industry doesn’t need to be more honest about portion sizes. Individuals need to be responsible for their own actions. Saying “people have the right to be unhealthy, but…” is another excuse justifying dictatorial control. These taxes and impositions aren’t about health, they’re about control. Individuals who eat foods in moderation can eat what they like and have no issues. Those individuals are being denied choice foods by their own government because other individuals make poor decisions. None of this is the province of government.
Individuals then don’t have the right, with onerous taxes and impositions, they might have the priviledge of being unhealthy. It will be restricted to those who can afford it. The wealthy and powerful will be able to afford one lifestyle, while those who are relatively poorer will no longer be able to enjoy the fruits of their own labor. The reason the term “fat cat” came about is because previous to the last few decades, the only people whose labor had ceased to be vigorous manual labor and who could afford enough food to be fat were the very wealthy. Today, thanks to advances in technology and agriculture, everyone can afford the bounties of those foods. Lieberman is desirous of price controls and taxes to socially return us to a time where only the wealthy and privileged could enjoy dining as they see fit.
This would hardly be progress, and does not improve the life of the individual.
Additionally, labeling doesn’t work. A study I’ll link to as soon as I can find it again brought up that people who guess calorie amounts of foods usually get them fairly close, or overestimate. If you’re looking at this breakfast:
You know there are a LOT of calories in it. You don’t need a chart to see that it will make you full, it will keep you powered for most of your day, and you can eat a light lunch, because you had a massive breakfast.
With regards to Lieberman’s absurd statement that food makers shouldn’t be allowed to say “fat free” if a food can make you fat, that’s just stupid. Fat is a substance. If the substance is in the food, it’s has fat, it has lipids. If it doesn’t have fat, it’s fat free. Anything eaten in excess can make a person fat.
Finally, Lieberman sums up with this cry for tyranny:
We humans did not evolve to eat healthily and go to the gym; until recently, we didn’t have to make such choices. But we did evolve to cooperate to help one another survive and thrive. Circumstances have changed, but we still need one another’s help as much as we ever did. For this reason, we need government on our side, not on the side of those who wish to make money by stoking our cravings and profiting from them. We have evolved to need coercion.
We did evolve to eat healthily. We evolved to eat what our bodies need. We didn’t evolve to go to the gym, we evolved to live at the gym. Modern workplaces and modern conveniences mean we’re enjoying a sedentary life. The key word there is that we are ENJOYING. Millenia of our ancestors as poor dirt farmers working their way up from misery have allowed us modern luxuries. It’s up to us as individuals to do something with them.
We didn’t evolve to cooperate, we cooperated to survive. The individual’s survival first, and the enhancement to individual survival that a group provides is why we got together in groups. Here Lieberman’s thinking is exposed in such a short sentence. He shows a collectivist mindset, that there is “the people” and not the individual. We banded together to aid each other, not to coerce each other. We as individuals found that survival strategies worked better when we formed voluntary bonds. The government, as it was intended, is a voluntary cooperative that exists as a construct of the Constitution. It follows the orders of We The People – each individual – it is there to provide for our security and defense that we as individuals might live freer lives. We established our government to provide for our rights to live free of the rule of a king or dictator, that we might exercise our inalienable rights as bestowed by our Creator.
Lieberman’s cry for the government to crush the free market is that of a Marxist useful idiot. “Those who wish to make money by stoking our cravings and profiting from them” are the usual class-enemy capitalists, and his desired government is one that will crush capitalism. His desire is for tyranny. He makes a plea for coercion, and through his warped world-view, demands that the state protect us from ourselves. The people are stupid, unreasoning, mindless apes who are still trapped by their weak bodies and weak minds, fooled by the decadent capitalist exploiter! Thus we need the government to beat us, to crush our freedoms, he reasons. He demands a government that will coerce us in order to free us from our exploiters, trading in someone who offers you what you want for someone who tells you what you are allowed.
This is the very heart of tyranny.
And it’s complete bullshit.
Circumstances have changed, and we have one another’s help. Lieberman views us as unreasoning apes, and it’s not much surprise that his apes are black, seeing as how demeaning races tends to be a theme for Harvard academics. The very page that Lieberman posted his desperate cry for government to oppress and crush the freedoms of individuals refutes his own idiotic claims.
Look to the right of his misanthropic screed and you’ll see the solution.
We have one another’s help in voluntary cooperation. It’s called freedom.
In the form of the free market, CocoaVia there is introducing a product that fulfills that desire for sweet foods. Interestingly CocoaVia links to Mars Botanical, which links to Mars, as in M&M Mars, who make all kinds of candies and food products, for humans and our animal friends.
The very same “those who wish to make money by stoking our cravings and profiting from them”, as though profit, money, and desires of free individuals are all dirty things, are here to provide us with options we want. If our sedentary lifestyles result in us getting fat, we’ll change to diet soda. If we still want candy, but we as individuals know that a king size Snickers is going to be a lot of calories, then we swich and try something like “CocoaVia” and enjoy the taste without the calories.
Stoking our cravings and profiting from them is why we aren’t Lieberman’s ideal of a caveman. Our cravings for food, water, shelter, sex, and the rest of Maslow’s Hierarchy has driven us to the point where we can communicate these ideas through the digital realm instantly across the entire planet, and for some ideas, even beam them around the planet and off into space. Our desires are what drives us. To squelch these desires, to have them crushed beneath the boot of a tyrannical government that knows what’s best, is the dream of a power-hungry fool. Lieberman is an idiot of the most educated, highest caliber. Lieberman views us as the sum only of our nature, and not of our minds. He sees the people as a mass of idiot cavemen who must be controlled and coerced – forced by government into doing what he has decided they should. If he includes himself among the cavemen, it is only in a self-flagellating gesture of his own misery; but he still views himself as more intelligent than the foolish fat cavemen around him, viewing them as Cass Sunstein’s ideal of the average American as Homer Simpson, an idiot roaming through life who needs government to control him.
Freedom itself refutes the needs that ostensibly cause demand for tyranny. Freedom itself, as shown above, has generated a response to the demand for healthier alternatives. People don’t want to be bloated fatasses. People want to be thin – and there are plenty of people who want, through voluntary cooperation, to help their fellow man. There are a myriad of programs available, and there have been for years. There have been people selling or giving away fitness advice for years from Jack LaLanne to Richard Simmons to Billy Blanks to Jillian Michaels to Suzanne Somers to Zuzana:
There have been groups of free individuals who voluntarily cooperate in order to help themselves, and others, be healthy. The luxuries afforded by millenia of slow standard of living improvements have made it so.
To demand that a ruthless government oppressor force people into being healthy is at best a pathetic indictment of the character of the person demanding it, and at worst a sniveling plea to allow the egghead arguing for it to become a greater power in the dictatorial Ruling Class.
While doing research for this piece, I stumbled over some supporters of these measures. Most fall in line with Cass Sunstein’s idea that people, as opposed to individuals, are dumb Homer Simpsons, too stupid to live, and need to be controlled. A few even indict themselves for the same traits, as here:
What is going on here?
I know you think I’m going to come down on the “food police” banning cupcakes in schools. But as an adult constantly struggling with my weight who was a fat kid, I have to say that schools being forced to serve healthier food could literally be a lifesaver.
There are a few who want to be treated like Private Pyle because they can’t take care of themselves. You want to eat how you like, you pay the price in your own life. You want to budget some fat into your life because you enjoy chow? That’s the prerogative of the invidividual.
Lieberman and the “Serious Eats” fatbody, however, want everyone to be treated like the platoon because a few people are fat. They want everyone to pay for one individual’s decisions. Notably, the world of the military exists through voluntary cooperation, through voluntarily subordinating the will of a free man to that of a state forged on a Constitution made by free men to protect the rights of men to be free. The US military swears an oath to a piece of paper that protects the right of the individual to eat those jelly donuts, while they themselves go without. There is actually a purpose for it there. In free society, there is not.
Lieberman and the “Serious Eats” no-self-control fatbody begin to fall into a subset of that leftist mindset of the “Moral Equivalent of War”, wherein they believe the state should use force against its citizens – for their own good. These fools believe it is moral to hurt one’s own people; it is moral for the state, which exists at the behest of the individuals, to oppress the people, because it’s what they’d really want. They want free men outside the realm of that squad bay to be treated like recruits becuase it’s “for the people’s own good”.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
- CS Lewis
Lieberman, you are demanding force be used against free individuals, free men. You view us as rapacious, mindless black apes; you dismiss the individual’s will and wish to control men as a collective. Yesterday was the anniversary of D-Day, where we fought against your kind of ideas. You want us all to suffer and couch it in your pseudo-science belief that people are in biological need of control.
ShortTimer
JBH
