The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

A Few Points On #OccupyResoluteDesk And The Military

Posted on | January 27, 2012 | 16 Comments

by Smitty

Protein Wisdom links Jonah Golberg quoting BHO, emphasis mine:

He said of the military: “At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They’re not consumed with personal ambition. They don’t obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together. Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example. Think about the America within our reach.”

  • Let me just say that the military is no more consumed with personal ambition than any other segment, and leave it at that.
  • Given that the DoD is facing some rather steep layoffs, this may have been a tacit plea to the military not to do something unspeakable. The fact that military members are rather brainwashed Constitution-mongers makes it unlikely that a Bonus Army incident could recur; then again, #OccupyDC is a sad precedent.
  • ‘Following [the military] example’ would entail civilians accepting curtailment of Constitutional rights. The Commander-in-Chief would be well-advised to recall that people (e.g. me) have curtailed those rights for a specific time in order to protect them in general; not so that some hypothetical cranial rectalitis-afflicted President can steal rights from me in the name of some vauge, shiny notion of unity.

I would that BHO had had the sack to serve in the military, so that he could grasp the depth of contempt with which men view him.

Update: more at Daily Pundit.

Category: Barack Obama

Comments

16 Responses to “A Few Points On #OccupyResoluteDesk And The Military”

  1. Steve in TN
    January 27th, 2012 @ 8:26 pm

    One does not need to have had regular military service to have a grasp, or indeed harbor, that contempt.

  2. smitty
    January 27th, 2012 @ 8:28 pm

    True, but those who’ve served have just an extra twist.

  3. Anonymous
    January 27th, 2012 @ 9:18 pm

    “I would that BHO had had the sack to serve in the military”

    I hope that his last act as POTUS is to sign an executive order allowing himself to discuss, in memoirs and such, the nature and extent of his likely service in the Directorate of Operations.

  4. ThePaganTemple
    January 27th, 2012 @ 9:18 pm

    I have a stern, hard rule of thumb. Any time the subject of joining the military comes up with any younger people in my family, or any others that I know, my advice is pretty simple. Don’t do it. Avoid it like the plague. That will be my advice to them for as long as we have Democrats with any power in Washington, or for that matter any with any power higher than county magistrate. It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with patriotism. It is simply the fact that Democrats are fucking traitors who will send you to war if its politically convenient, but then they’ll do their damndest to make sure you fight with one arm tied behind your back, and prosecute you for war crimes at that. Fuck them, and fuck any government that gives in to them. Even if they weren’t like that, they are turning this country into something that is not worth fighting for, damn sure not worth dying for. Get rid of the fucking Democrats, and maybe my attitude will change. Matter of fact, Ron Paul is starting to look better and better every day, his bullshit booger-eating notwithstanding.

  5. West
    January 27th, 2012 @ 9:23 pm

    BHO likes the Military in that he just can’t screw over civilians as easily.

  6. Pathfinder's wife
    January 27th, 2012 @ 10:13 pm

    Military service should not be hinge upon who or which party is in office — it should be quite beyond politics altogether.

    Is what you say true?  Yeah, to a certain extent (although the Republicans haven’t exactly had the best track record either as of late imho).  But the military does not serve a party or a person.

    But yes, contempt is  just one of the words I think could be used for how most military members view the government (however, this would go for both parties — they have quite beclowned themselves, again only mho).
    Speaking of beclownment, this pandering by the president is way too obvious and way too obnoxious in light of the way in which the military has been treated (only a small minority of our presidents could actually have gotten away with saying something like this and not looked like a shameless pimp).

  7. DaveO
    January 27th, 2012 @ 10:20 pm

    Obama required a good night’s sleep in order to decide whether or not to get Bin Laden. The decision was a no-brainer, but it took Obama 8 hours to arrive at that conclusion.

    Obama involved us in the fighting in Libya. His signal accomplishment was destroying the WPA.  The cost of this campaign, in the first order of effects, was to destroy the debt ceiling twice (aka negative budgets). The second and third order of effects are still be assessed, but we have no friends on either the north or south shores of the Med. In terms of rescuing Israel, or keeping the Suez open, we’ve got to navigate a very long gauntlet.

    Obama has never done the right thing when it comes our military. His membership in the Communist New Party, anti-nuke demostrations, and lack of sack doesn’t just make him contemptible – but he meets all the requirements we used to use to define an Enemy.

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  9. Adjoran
    January 28th, 2012 @ 12:45 am

    I don’t disagree at all, but am eternally grateful for those who are willing to serve anyway.

  10. Adjoran
    January 28th, 2012 @ 1:12 am

    One leaked report said Obama was sequestered with Valerie Jarrett over two days while Panetta pushed for the bin Laden raid.  The assumption was she was trying to talk him out of it.  Once he gave the okay, Panetta didn’t inform him it was a “GO” until the strike team was too far into Pakistan to be recalled, which is why he was playing golf when called back to the White House – they were afraid he would change his mind.

    Puts a different perspective on all his bragging afterward.

  11. ThePaganTemple
    January 28th, 2012 @ 8:39 am

    No, what I say is not true “to a certain extent”. It’s true, period. And I didn’t even venture into the social engineering schemes and political correctness the Democrats have infested our military with, to say nothing of the leftist apparatchiks like Wesley Clark, to name just one example. The military should be separate from all the bullshit, and if that means making it a separate but co-equal branch of government with the power to run its own internal affairs and policies, then that’s the way it should be. I think there should be a constitutional amendment to that effect, frankly. But the way things stand now, there’s no way I’m going to encourage any young person I know to be used as a Democrat, PC pawn by people who not only don’t want to sufficiently protect them, but will go out of their way to persecute them at the drop of a hat. And that’s quadruply and more true of my own family members. It will probably always be that way, because a change in opinion from me would probably have to involve about two or three thousand, at the very least, Democrat office-holders and bureaucrats hanged for treason, and I doubt that’s going to happen in my lifetime.

  12. ThePaganTemple
    January 28th, 2012 @ 8:41 am

    So am I. That’s why a young person thinking of making that move deserve to be told the harsh, unvarnished truth as to what they might be getting themselves into. And I have barely scratched the surface.

  13. Pathfinder's wife
    January 28th, 2012 @ 9:04 am

    Making the military a co-equal branch?  No, that’s a bad idea, a very bad idea, tempting as though it may sound.

    As for telling the kids the hard truth: well, a person should — but it has little to do with politics.  The military is not an easy life and not for everyone.  It’s going to be that way no matter who is in charge though.

    Suffice to say I don’t believe a person should serve or not serve depending upon who is in charge.   

  14. ThePaganTemple
    January 28th, 2012 @ 9:49 am

    What’s wrong with making them a separate and co-equal branch of government? They would still be under the jurisdiction of the right of Congress to declare war. The President would still be commander-in-chief. Just like the President appoints Supreme Court Justices, and the Congress confirms them. That much wouldn’t change. The only thing that would change is the other branches of government wouldn’t be able to tell them how to run their own internal policies, tell them who they can or can not promote, and wouldn’t be able to force them to be guinea pigs for their abominable social experiments.

  15. Pathfinder's wife
    January 28th, 2012 @ 9:57 am

    Because the military is there to serve and protect the Constitution (and the Republic) and that only (which is one of the reasons why this household has been increasingly disenchanted lately, but I digress).
    If you make them a branch of government, then you open the door for them no longer doing their original jobs…we have already gone far enough along that dangerous path.

    The military are servants to the Constitution and protectors of the constitutional republic, not a branch of government, and they never should be.

    If  one cares about the military so much, then vote people in who honor the military’s purpose (and who don’t use their servants so awfully)…that’s what the American public should do (but they have not, and I have my own theories as to why).

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