From Soft Liberalism to Iron-Fisted Leftism in Today’s U.S. Military
BY Herschel Smith
3 years ago
Newsweek (from a Marine Corps officer).
How did we get here? The truth is that today’s military is running on the fumes of our vastly superior forefathers and the ever-shrinking proportion of each branch that still does truly heroic work and accomplishes truly extraordinary feats. The rest is a bloated military-industrial complex given over to Fortune 500-style corporate progressivism.
And if it’s bad in the Marine Corps, imagine how much worse it is in the other services.
America’s enemies are laughing at us. Frankly, we deserve it. But it doesn’t need to be this way. To get back on top, our military must reject “extremism” training, reverse all the progressive policies enacted over the past several years, return to a true meritocracy and focus exclusively on the only thing that matters: winning wars.
The entire commentary is worth a read. The most interesting aspect of the commentary is the comments. Here’s a sample below.
Did Newsweek seriously publish this? If an author is so lacking in honorable integrity regarding facts that he fails to understand what the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys are, then he has no business opining on extremism. If he thinks that discriminating against gay people is acceptable, he might want to be reminded of the officers from previous generations who said that integrating black people was also ‘correctness run amok’. If he feel offended by facts? The Marines are better off without him. Oh, Army Ranger and combat veteran here, and I can’t recall defeating an enemy I was too obstinate to even acknowledge existing. This was deeply irresponsible.
God help the people of Texas if this article was written by a senior official in charge of justice. Sounds like he really believes it, God help the USMC Reserve. Beliefs like this are reasons why the military should stand down.
More right wing extremist nazi (sic) propaganda. What do you want to bet that this rube supported little Donny’s attemped (sic) coup d’etat and attempt to convert our constitutional democracy into a fascist dictatorship!
And on the comments go.
You see, nearly half of America has now bought into the progressive agenda, hates God, hates the family, hates differences between the genders and tries to eradicate them, and hates America.
I know this can seem a sad commentary on the state of the nation, and indeed it is. But this is all good. This is a necessary fall the nation is taking. The diminishing of the trusted and core elements of the society is good.
It’s necessary because people need to have that trust stripped away – America needs to repent. Americans need to feel threatened. America needs to see lost wars, and no, not to rag-headed goat herders in fourth world countries who live in the fifth century A.D. America needs to see lost wars to near-peer states.
The wicked will continue in their direction until the consequences make it so uncomfortable it forces them to ask, “How did we get here?”
This is all part of the road to recovery – or the road to the end of the American experiment. Either way, the development is a good and necessary thing.
On March 21, 2021 at 10:32 pm, Fred said:
Concur. Good and necessary. The first step to any recovery is admitting the existence of a problem. So, the more glaring the problem, the more likely the admission. There’s scriptural support for this when under the judgement of God. See Judges, the entire book more or less.
On March 21, 2021 at 10:48 pm, Wayne said:
The fool says in his heart “There is no God.”
On March 21, 2021 at 11:34 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
The culture war is over – and the political right lost. Which is to say that traditional Americans, conservatives, whatever you wish to term them, lost. Batten down the hatches, folks – because things are likely to get worse before they get better, perhaps much worse.
The dilemma is that culture is upstream from so much else in society – the economy, the government, the armed forces, and all the rest. Which means that if the culture is corrupt and the people within it immoral, weak and vile – then those same qualities are going to manifest themselves in soceity as a whole and its institutions. Our institutions are only as good as the people who make them up; the reverse applies with equal force, which is partly how we find ourselves in the present predicament.
Two quotations come to mind…
John Adams, Founding Father and Second President of the United States, is famous for saying,
“Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”
That is not actually the whole quote; here is the complete version,
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”
Alexis de Tocqueville, the French writer, philosopher, historian and diplomat, is famous for his trenchant observations about the United States of America and her people, which he published in the two-volume “Democracy in America” (1835-1840). He is most-often credited with saying,
“America is great because America is good. If America ceases to be good, she will cease to be great…”
But here is the complete version of the passage from which it comes. Note the difference in tone and emphasis…
“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her fertile fields and boundless forests, and it was not there. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her public school system and her institutions of learning, and it was not there. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”
When Americans were a God-fearing people, a virtuous people, fortune smiled upon their endeavors. This is what the Founders believed, and what most of their fellow Americans believed. If we live virtuous lives and fear God, i.e., live the lives of good Christians, then we and our republic will not only survive, but flourish. That was the world-view, the mind-set of those people.
But what of a people and a nation who stray from the path of righteousness? What did the Founders think about that? The Framers were worldly-well-educated and well-read men, well-versed in the classics not only of western civilization, but those of the ancients and the antiquity, too, especially the most-vital works of Greco-Roman civilization. They had seen and knew from the history of the Fall of Ancient Rome and dozens upon dozens of other human empires, what happens to human societies when they turn away from virtue and righteousness. And most were practicing Christians and scholars of the Bible.
Benjamin Franklin summed it up thus,
“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
On March 22, 2021 at 7:47 am, Pat H. Bowman said:
Excellent observations, Georgiaboy. Very well said. Thanks for including the entirety of the Adams and de Tocqueville quotes. I now recall reading the full de Tocqueville quote some time ago; it’s good to be reminded.
We had some of that fire from the pulpit in our church yesterday. But as someone who works with dozens of churches every year, I can lament that such fire is a rare occurrence in the modern progressive church.
Yesterday Pastor said, “America is in the state it is in because the Church is in the state it is in.” And a sad state it is. When the American Church decided it wanted to become popular instead of Holy, the path for judgement was set.
On March 22, 2021 at 7:55 am, Ohio Guy said:
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgement of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” ROMANS 1:28-32
On March 22, 2021 at 8:48 am, JoeFour said:
@Georgiaboy61
” I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her public school system and her institutions of learning, and it was not there.”
Weren’t public schools a post-Civil War educational innovation? I’m guessing the entire quote, as appealing as its expressed sentiments are, must be, unfortunately, a fabrication.
On March 22, 2021 at 9:35 am, ragman said:
None of this matters anymore. Our borders are wide open and the demographic invasion is progressing unimpeded. Border officials aren’t even assigning the illegals a court date. Elimination of the filibuster will enable HB1 to pass in the senate which will allow anyone to vote, probably as often as they want. It’s over, sports fans. The are the good old days, fer sure.
On March 22, 2021 at 10:52 am, Colonel Kilgore Trout said:
Setting us up to be conquered. The snowflakes will be met with hot lead when they start whining and crying about oppression as the PLA marches down the street.
It isn’t incompetence but malice all of this failing as the burn it all down better plan shifts into high gear under the third term of fundamental transformation.
In order to hide all of their crimes and avoid the gallows they must destroy the republic once and for all.
The globalist controllers are happy to use this to bring about the new worldwide soviet.
On March 22, 2021 at 1:57 pm, scott s. said:
JoeFour: no. I think Mass had public schools from early on, but the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 made a general commitment to public education. This was extended after ratification of the Constitution where territories / states were given 2 sections in each township as a funding source for the common schools and additional sections for higher education. You may be thinking of the civil war era land grant college act, where additional land was given to the existing states and territories for creating a college of mechanical and agricultural arts, including military instruction in each.
On March 22, 2021 at 4:18 pm, The Dark Lord said:
better than a 50/50 chance that commenter never stepped foot in a combat zone under live fire …
On March 22, 2021 at 5:08 pm, JB said:
Once the American Military falls to the communist order only the sub population of American Patriots remains to fight the communist tyranny. And that remains hopeful at best. I suspect after total civilian disarmament and the FEMA reeducation camps are filled to capacity only then will a civil insurrection against the communists take hold and not before. Some may resist now, but not enough. We, the population of Boomers, born to the last generation of freedom fighters bear responsibility for this communist takeover of America. We could have stopped it, but didnt.
On March 22, 2021 at 7:08 pm, JoeFour said:
@ Scott S.
Thanks for that history refresher … but you give me too much credit! I think I was simply confusing the beginnings of public schooling with the rise, and near universal passage and application, of compulsory school attendance laws in the later half of the 1800s.
P.S. Note to self — Commenting off the top of my head is not a good idea!