The Warrior Class

I have been opposed to reinstating the draft because I felt it wasn’t necessary and didn’t provide us with the quality of troops that we needed. Others have argued for the draft for many reasons but primarily for fear that the volunteer army would not work and the military would be unable to maintain its strength. Of course that has proven to not be the case as the military has met all of its staffing goals even after raising the bar for acceptance. This is very reminiscent of the period just prior to WW II when many men out of work tried to join the military but were not accepted. Today the military is finding than many young men are out of work and are joining the military just to have a job. So the American military forces have plenty of volunteers and the draft is not necessary in order to maintain troop strength.

According to some observers the American military is perhaps the strongest and most battle harden force in the world – a force with no peer. Certainly the Israeli’s and British forces are also experienced and battle hardened but do not match the Americans in size and strength. But after more than 10 years of war the American military force is unequaled and for the first time in our history America is developing a warrior class. This might not be a problem except that the all volunteer American Military has been separated and divorced from civilian life for so long that they no longer seem to relate to civilians. They relate to each other and are dependent on each other for their very lives which separate them from the civilians at home. For many and an increasing number of them the Army has become their life and their family. We are creating an increasingly independent force separated from the civilian life they once knew.

At first glance this may not seem to be a problem and perhaps it isn’t but there are some things that must be considered. America now has an Army composed of harden professionals who know less and less about civilian life. A group of people loyal to each other, accustomed to instant obedience to their leaders, and who have little connection to the civilians they once were. While the American military are sworn to uphold the constitution and not the government there seems little danger in having such a powerful force in our midst. We have been blessed with a long history of capable generals dedicated to America and our ideals, but suppose we had a general whose view of the government leads him to believe that the government is no longer acting within the framework of the constitution or those ideals -- a government that has run amok and is no longer representing the people but has become self serving and corrupt. For some people this may seem farfetched and the product of a warped mind, but consider that already many people regard the current Congress and Administration to be functioning outside of the constitution, to be corrupt, and to be attempting to rule rather than govern. If some general decided he must act in order to restore a constitutional government who could stop him?

With a warrior class loyal to itself, divorced from the civilian life, isolated, battle hardened, and accustomed to instant and unquestioned obedience, who could prevent this general from seizing control of congress, arresting the President, and “restoring” constitutional government? While some civilians might protest many would support such a move and while not all generals and all military personnel would agree it is unlikely they would attempt to prevent it and create a civil war. While I agree this nightmare scenario is highly unlikely it does reflect the downside of a professional army with a warrior ethos.

This brings us to the question of reinstating the draft. If the draft were reinstated it would immediately raise the cost of maintaining the military but it would provide some positive things as well. First it would lower the unemployment rate and relieve some of the pressure on unemployment benefits. It would also bring discipline and structure into many of the youth today who leave high school with no plans, no job, and not much of a future. These are the “at risk” youth who turn to drugs, alcohol, and violence. But perhaps the most valuable thing would be that it would reduce the warrior class mentality by injecting people into the system that don’t intend to stay, who do not share the same military instant obedience attitude, and who will reintroduce the career military to the civilian population with whom they seem to have lost contact.

I want to emphasize that I do not think American is in any danger of experiencing a coup conducted by some general who thinks the government is no longer constitutionally justified. My point is merely to point out that without intending to we have created a warrior class composed of highly disciplined, trained, hardened, and experienced soldiers who seem to have lost contact with the civilian population from which they sprang. Although I have been strongly opposed to restoring the draft, I am beginning to see that it may offer some benefits for America as well as the American military.

Are Liberals Unfair and Unbalanced?

Recently we were treated to a Liberal Spectacle that caused me to seriously question whether the Liberal Elite was capable of thinking or did they simply react to a stimulus much like Pavlov’s dogs. It seems the University of Illinois Dental School discovered the 46 of their students were caught cheating. In an incredible display of liberal logic the Dean of the Dental School excused the students conduct with this statement “What can you expect from students when the President of the United States lies about WMD’s?” This came from the DEAN of the dental school – a person one would think who was educated and capable of even an elementary level of reason, but alas – apparently not. Presumably he remains Dean and life goes on as his liberal colleagues nod their heads in agreement like little bobble heads. Does anyone in the Liberal Community THINK? Can these people REASON or do they simply react to trigger words like Rove, Coulter, Bush, Cheney? Once any one of these words is put into a sentence the Liberal is rendered unconscious and incapable of assimilating or understanding what was said. Hence the Liberal Community is convinced that President George Bush knew about the 9/11 attack but failed to prevent it so his oil buddies could gain control of the Iraqi oil fields. These people do not seem to have even the reasoning ability of a cockroach.

The visceral anger aimed at President Bush has reached a point of such psychological disorder that serious therapy is needed to bring these people back to even a minimum level of rational conduct. If you doubt this consider some of the statements made by these pea brains. Harry Belafonte – a noted singer but not intellectually gifted – called President Bush “the greatest tyrant in the world”. A tyrant is an absolute ruler – a despot – who rules brutally, so Mr Belafonte considers President Bush to be equivalent if not worse than Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, and any number of African Leaders who merrily go about slaughtering their citizens. Is this a fair assessment of the President? Is he a cruel depot who has absolute power or is Mr. Belafonte unbalanced

However, this irrationality of the Liberal mind isn’t limited to the President, it focuses on almost any person, cause, or entity which they perceive to deviate from their ideology, and one of these is Fox News. Mention Fox News to any Liberal and they immediately get the vapors and lose their grip on reality. One would think that Fox News is not just the evil empire but an active threat to the country, whose sole objective is to destroy Liberalism and to install a fascist state. The Liberal establishment controls ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, PBS, NPR, Time Magazine, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and in fact the Liberals have a virtual monopoly on the information being meted out to the American Public. Of course the operative word here is “virtual” because that wee small voice of Fox News dares to deviate from the revealed truth of the Liberal Elite.

The irony here is that out of 300 million people only about 2 million watch Fox News on any given night – that is less than 1% and that number doesn’t seem to include any of the Liberals, because if you ask one if they watch Fox, they are dumbstruck. “Of Course not” is the reply. They know that Fox News is evil incarnate because all of their fellow liberals tell them so, so it isn’t necessary to actually watch it. They know that Fox is run by Roger Ailes who used to work for Ronald Reagan so there is no need to go any further – it is a conservative propaganda machine – case closed. The real irony is that if they were to actually watch Fox they would find a lot of liberal voices on Fox and many of these are extreme. Frequently you will see Susan Estrich, Juan Williams, Lanny Davis, and other liberals and even Michael Moore -- that leading light of liberal lunacy has been seen on Fox. However, the liberal network monopoly would never provide a platform for the likes of Ann Coulter, Michele Malkin, or Rush Limbaugh – that would betray their dedication to the truth – or least as the revealed truth of liberalism.

The one thing about Fox that drives the liberal establishment into orbit is the Fox slogan of “Fair and Balanced”. Mention this slogan to the average liberal and they begin to froth at the mouth and yell how it isn’t FAIR and it certainly isn’t BALANCED, because they present BOTH sides of an issue. Of course the operative word here is “fair” because it isn’t fair for anyone to present a counter argument or an alternative view to any liberal belief. And “belief” is the right word because Liberalism is at its core a faith based belief system where empirical data isn’t required.

A recent and excellent example of “faith based” liberalism is “Global Warming”, That intellectual beacon Al Gore, has sounded the alarm (and founded his own business on this belief) that the planet is warming and we are all in imminent danger of being incinerated, unless we immediately rape American Industry, pour billions of dollars into Africa (to line the pockets of dictators no doubt), sign the Kyoto Treaty, and stop driving SUV’s. To support this claim a whole gaggle of liberal scientists have lined up to acknowledge the reality as described by Gore. These scientists run the gamut from Astronomers to Zoologists but alas – endorsements from Climatologists seem to be sadly lacking. It seems that Climatologists acknowledge that the planet is going through a warming cycle but they don’t know why and they certainly aren’t ready to attribute it to human activity. However, liberals don’t need any proof that global warming is being driven by American’s; they believe it is and THAT is all of the proof they need. Yet this group has the temerity to view themselves as “intellectuals” when Goofy displays more sense than they do, and he is a talking dog.

And this brings me to San Francisco – the only city in the United States with a foreign policy but no defense budget. This city prides itself on being “tolerant” but then I guess so were the Nazi’s and Saddam Hussein as long as you agreed with them. San Francisco is actually one of the most intolerant cities in the country. This is a city that has banned military recruiters from the high schools without even considering that might be a violation of “Freedom of Speech”. To the average liberal San Franciscan “Freedom of Speech” cannot be applied to any situation in which they don’t believe and they certainly don’t believe in the military. To carry this insanity even further they had a city wide referendum on the war in Iraq. The “withdraw the troops immediately” won hands down – establishing their own foreign policy. In case of attack I suppose they would greet the invading Islamofascists with flowers, placards, and gay pride advocates dressed in sequined Tutu’s. Certainly they wouldn’t want to call on the American Military for help – after all they have been banned from the city by the anti-war liberals.

It seems to me that the term American Liberal is actually an oxymoron because you cannot be American and a liberal at the same time. Liberals do not believe in America, they think that we are a fascist power led by the “greatest tyrant in the world” and are bent on world domination. These people are neither fair nor balanced and one wonders if they are even capable of thought much less critical thinking.