I am posting this here for all my friends who are former and current members of the military. I have had many a conversation with them over “learned helplessness” through the moron parades that constitute their chain of commands. I hope they can read these links and not cringe too deeply over the similarities contained within.
Electrocuting the dog: Learned Helplessness in the military (Part 1).
Electrocuting the dog: Learned Helplessness in the military (Part 2).
I am hoping that our president is just making another flub but some of them are becoming quite concerning. I mean the media never gave Bush a single pass on any dumb ass thing he said, but any dumb ass thing that the glorious one makes is ignored, hidden, or forgotten about. And now that I have criticized him I am a racist monster, more likely to commit an Emmett Till style lynching than engage in rational discourse, but that is the price you pay for expressing political thought that doesn’t agree with the man. However, we must examine these flubs, of which I am talking about the speech he gave on Syria the other day when he said, I’ve got “my military” looking at it.
I’m sorry, when did this become your military? I’ve now heard you say the problem with America is that you’re the President and not the emperor, and now the military that protects the people of the United States is yours? No sir. The military belongs to the people, the country, not any one man. I suppose if the military was privately paid for it could be his for a tidy sum, but wait, the taxpayers are all over that one, not you pres.
Do the men and women of the military swear allegiance to you? Not a chance, the enlisted promise to faithfully carry out your orders according to the regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the officers swear allegiance to the Constitution. Neither of those make the military yours. Maybe it is yours to command with the expressed approval of Congress, but that is a far cry from what you said, “my military.”
So maybe the president should swallow his narcissism fix his freudian slip and start actually governing instead of knee jerking to every event that happens. You’re the president of the free world, act like it!
FEARTACO!
Want to try and make a difference? Contact your representation in Congress and give them a piece of your mind.
I’ve told you about the sequestration. I’ve told you that the money in fact isn’t being cut from anywhere at all, instead it is a 2% reduction in the growth of the budget. The 85 Billion dollars sequestration takes from the budget this year still leaves the budget larger than the year before. America saw a two percent reduction in their budget on January 1st when the social security tax holiday ended and the tax went up, oh my gosh, two percent. Imagine that, you’ve survived haven’t you, did you make drastic cuts in your budget? I didn’t think so. There was no real threat to the economy, the Budget Control Act and the super committee failed and now it was time to spend a tiny bit less, but that wasn’t good enough for some high up in the government. No, if this sequestration went off without a bang, and no one was hurt by the “economic losses” then Americans might think, hey maybe the government can do with a little less.
But smaller government isn’t on the agenda; nanny states aren’t born out of small, well-managed governments. Some libtards have made the statement they want the cuts to be high-profile and to make them hurt so America is outraged and feels the pain. In fact the Washington Times reported on an email to an APHIS official said in part, “…So it is our opinion that however you manage that reduction, you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be.” Sounds like a contrived situation to me. Well America feels the pain, and the military is now taking the brunt, again.
Last week, “in an effort to curb spending” so the buzz words go, the Army and the Marines cut tuition assistance to their members, on Monday the Air Force and the Coast Guard followed suit, cutting all tuition assistance for the remainder of the fiscal year. If you check news stories someone has been trying to kill tuition assistance for the last four years, now they’ve finally succeeded and chances are it won’t return easily.
Tuition assistance in the military was never an entitlement, but it was a benefit that is used as a recruiting and a retention tool. Additionally, the military benefited from its own TA programs because the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who took advantage of the TA became smarter for the most part, and expanded their academic horizons. This in turn led to better informed decisions and the construction of real leaders, which the military has been struggling to develop from scratch. Now the military has effectively told their people they are no better than day laborers, they don’t want educated personnel, or not too educated anyway, and to just suck it up.
These are people who put their lives on the line for the good of the country and they can’t even get the same considerations that illegal aliens get? States like Colorado, California, and Massachusetts are lowering tuition for illegal immigrants and hoisting the bill on taxpayers, but our military is losing their tuition assistance, wow. So now we know what the government thinks of the people who defend it…worthless. The military won’t be given the same opportunity as a day laborer picked up on a street corner to do menial labor will be given for an education.
Non-partisan watchdogs have uncovered over $67 Billion in wasted spending that could be used to take care of 80% of the sequester but the government isn’t having it. Instead they are spending 1.5 million to research why lesbians are fat, have sent $250 million in aid to a hostile Egyptian government, will waste $36 B in military equipment in Afghanistan, and etc. This isn’t about cutting funds to save money, this is about cutting funds in the most public way to drive outrage and hurt the morale of the country.
Here is some food for thought to end on. With shrinking benefits, limited education opportunities, shifting health care, and an increased amount of danger and bodily harm how are you going to convince people to make a career in the military, how are you going to convince people to enlist in the first place. Very few people join the military out of a sense of altruism, most of them join for an exchange; pay, medical, education, and the like. What will you do when no one wants to serve anymore because your country offers nothing but scorn and insults while putting on a brave support the troops face.
The government has effectively told the military to get bent, how long before they just tell the country where to shove it and get out?
A senior cadet by the name of Blake Page has quit the military academy at West Point this month, just six months short of graduation citing that he could no longer be part of a military engaged in the unconstitutional pandering of religion, promoting prayers and religious activities. What he fails to mention in his own blog post for some left-wing blogger is that it was apparently determined he could not become an officer for bouts of clinical depression. Well, that changes his protest a bit.
The military has found you unfit to wear the uniform of an officer or lead men and women of that service and suddenly you now have a problem with the religious aspects of the military. Oh Gasp, you’ve hit a gusher there Bob Woodward, or you would if you weren’t hip deep in your own hypocrisy. But that doesn’t stop him from railing against the apparent establishment of religion in the military, in fact he goes on to write, “countless officers here and throughout the military are guilty of blatantly violating the oaths they swore to defend the Constitution. These men and women are criminals, complicit in light of day defiance of the Uniform Code of Military Justice”
REALLY? I’m guessing that constitutional law and Christianity aren’t taught at West Point at this time otherwise he would have read in the Constitution that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” right there in the first amendment. The Establishment clause being the first half of that statement. But yet, no where in the document would you find the words separation of Church and State, why because it doesn’t exist. Well sure it appeared in the 1802 letter that Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists, but that is a private letter explaining the Government would not interfere with how they exercised their religion. In fact, it would only be cited by the SCOTUS in 1947, Everson v. Board of Education when Hugo Black wrote -“The ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between Church and State.'” 330 U.S. 1, 15-16.
Seems clear-cut enough, but wait, we haven’t got to the military, where people voluntarily serve and then request access to religion. How does the state deal with that. hmmm. Well there are only really two cases that deal with that, Marsh v. Chambers (1983) that held federal funding for chaplains is consitutional because of the unique heritage of the United States, and Katcoff v. Marsh (1985). Now that second case is not a SCOTUS case but was decided by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In Katcoff, the 2nd Circuit upheld the U.S. Army’s chaplaincy on the ground that service members have a constitutional right under the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause to engage in religious worship, a right that the Army would unduly burden if it did not provide chaplains.
So under the “separation of church and state” no one can be punished for professing religious beliefs and no one in the military can be denied access to religion because it would hinder the constitutional rights of those seeking the comfort of religion. So I forget, what is this ass hat whining about. Oh, yeah, he is bitter he isn’t fit to lead, then went out a proved it with a tirade against the religious aspects of the military. A tirade so dense that even his fellow secular humanist classmates (he was president of the group) disagree with his portrayal of the military. “I think it’s true that the majority of West Point cadets are of a very conservative, Christian orientation,” said senior cadet Andrew Houchin. “I don’t think that’s unique to West Point. But more broadly, I’ve never had that even be a problem with those of us who are secular.”
So really, he isn’t quitting West Point over religion, it is just the smoke screen he is using as a secular humanist to cover his own failings and inadequacies when it comes to military service, which not everyone is cut out for. Maybe with some time to look back and reflect he will understand that without all the trumped-up indignation.
Oh look, a modern bayonet. Who’d have thought it?
You heard a line during the Monday night debate about the plight of a shrinking United States military and the example that we had the fewest ships in the inventory since the advent of WWII. Then we heard the now famous quip “You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916,” Obama said. “Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go under water, nuclear submarines. So the question is not a game of battleship where we’re counting ships…”
Which is funny because on a military installation I once visited they had two golf courses, one named Black Horse, and the other Bayonet. Go figure the army would have an interest in legacy items they still seem to use. Yes, the military still uses bayonets, they are a vital part of close in fighting, what else are you going to attach to the end of a gun, I suppose not some gadget that makes you more politically correct. All marines learn to use bayonets during their basic martial arts training. Some of this training takes place on the Bayonet assault Course. Guess what, in 2003 they purchased 120,000 bayonets to give each marine a newer, longer, sharper bayonet for poking the enemy to see if he was dead. Strangely enough the Army still issues a bayonet as well, wonder why that is.
As for horses, um we still have plenty, mostly for show and parades and funerals…we’ve had plenty of those the last four years haven’t we. We also have been conducting some ground operations with horses in the rugged mountain terrain of Afghanistan, which leads me to believe we might have more horses now than we did a decade ago.
However, the question isn’t whether we have more or less ships due to technological advancement, but how far we are trying to stretch those assets to cover a more volatile globe. How do you intend to rule the oceans, or police them, or watch out for our interests, stop piracy, interdict, project force all around the world, when there aren’t enough ships to be everywhere at once. Are we some travelling flotilla that will go from conflict to conflict only arriving late or just in the nick of time. Is that what all are fancy technology has reduced the last major super power to…becoming a reactionary force, unable to predict and move to strike without opening massive holes in our protectionist coverage? Wow, technology has served us well hasn’t it.
The world is expanding at an exponential rate, more people want to kill their neighbors, rape their women, and steal their country than ever before and the United States has always been the nation others have turned to in times of extreme crisis. Our compassion and sense of right has been our guiding hand these last several hundred years. Are we suddenly going to say, not our problem, plus we don’t have anyone to send, the Army went to a training exercise, the Navy is on the other side of the world, the Air Force has broken planes, and the Marine is on leave this week. Try again later.
We’re poised to cut $487 billion in defense in the next decade and along with it slashing 80,000 Army troops and upwards of 20,000 Marines, 5,000 Air Force and an unspecified number of Naval personnel. They plan to purchase fewer jets and either retire or build more slowly 14 Naval vessels. Is all of this something we can afford to do?
The number one goal of the government is the protection of the country and the people. How is that going to be accomplished by gutting the services? I guess maybe because they are cheaper we may need more horses and bayonets.
According to many the balance of voters in the military break largely for the Republican candidates or just towards a more conservative ideal when they vote. It has been in my experience that while this is true, the balance is closer to less than a 60/40 split than it was the 80/20 or 90/10 the pundits would have you believe it is. However that being said, the fact that troops favor a more conservative line of American government is fairly important come election time.
In the day of razor-thin election margins and squads of lawyers waiting to pounce on any inconsistency, the weight of the military voter carries a little more heft than in the past. In fact, all absentee voting carries more weight than it has before. There are those that know and understand this, which is why there have been numerous lawsuits over the absentee voter this year.
The FVAP (Federal Voters Assistance Program) for Wisconsin had the wrong date listed for the return of absentee ballots, not by a day but by a week. Had those returned late, they would not be counted. The democratic party in Ohio just went through a federal lawsuit to keep absentee voting from military members in that state. And now this. The government has been complicit in failing to comply with the Military and overseas Empowerment (MOVE) Act, which addresses the difficulties caused by time and distance for deployed personnel. The act stipulates each military branch must have an installation voting assistance office (IVAO) for every base outside and immediate combat zone.
Less than half the IVAO’s mandated to be created have been. Why? Apparently lack of funding was the answer. It was estimated to cost $15-20 million a year total for all these installations, which in terms of government spending amounts to pocket lint, yet we can’t seem to get the job done. QE3 is kicking out $40 Bil a month, we wasted $530 million on Solyndra, $34 million of the Dept of education to teach Americans to be better shoppers, $19.6 million for the International Fund for Ireland for projects like a golf video and a pony trekking center. Really? All of this crap is more important than voting? Seems to me if you really wanted the troops to vote you’d get this crap done. I mean it’s not like it is a law or anything. Oh wait, it is.
The government rails about the unfairness of voter identity laws in the states and fights in federal court to reject anything that might hinder the tide of undocumented voters for certain politicians, but nary a peep over the fact that in 2008 less than 20% of military voters were able to successfully vote by absentee ballot. In 2010, it was 5%. The law says servicemen must have their ballots 45 days before the election so as to not disenfranchise military voters, the department of Justice can actually file suit to ensure this happens. In 2010, they gave waivers to states who failed to deliver the ballots. This resulted in the disenfranchisement of 1/3 of all deployed troops in 2010 according to testimony at a House committee hearing this February.
Why oh why would the government ever want to disenfranchise anyone? They are so vocal about making sure the poor, who wouldn’t have access to an ID, gets to vote, or that the dead should have their say until someone brings it up, or felons really aren’t felons until someone spots them on the rolls. But the military? We would prefer if the troops did not vote.
They say the military is there to protect democracy, not practice it. That is fine and dandy for a military structure, but when you start disenfranchising them because it inconveniences you or you’re not sure you like how they might vote you start down a slippery slope that leads to totalitarianism. How long before you start disenfranchising others?
Police and National guardsmen flushing the sewer system in Watts neighborhood, August 1965.
I doubt that many of you remember the Watts Riots in 1965. To refresh your memory Watts was a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Ca and in 1965 in mid-August a six-day riot kicked off after a white police officer attempting to arrest a black man just moments from his home for drinking and driving. During those six days supposedly resulted in 34 deaths, 1,032 injuries, 3,438 arrests, and over $40 million in property damage, supposedly. This was one neighborhood in Los Angeles and yet the National Guard was called in to quell the rioting among the residents. What the official reports won’t tell you is some of the things that actually occurred. You need an impartial eyewitness account.
My father was attending Northrop Aeronautical University in 1965 and living in an apartment building in Watts because it was a low rent area. He was sharing an apartment with classmates and when the rioting started they blocked the entrance to their building and holed up for the duration. He recalled watching a National Guard Jeep with mounted M-60 machine gun destroy the front of a building across from them. He watched troops shoot people in the street. Basically, he watched a localized uprising get put down like it was a full on insurrection. And now we’re planning to do it on a nationwide scale if you read some papers written by high-ranking officers.
A retired colonel teaching at the Army’s University Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, and a Civil War expert from the University of Kansas have written and published a paper entitled “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future.” They postulate an extremist group based on the goals of the tea party, sounds like liberal rhetoric and vitriol to me considering that not one member of the tea party has even been fined for littering much less arrested for disturbance of the peace at any tea party function or gathering, taking over a small town and “occupying” the town’s city hall, taking over government, searching for illegals, and setting curfews.
Honestly, this kind of behavior seems more normal coming out of the occupy crowd rather than the ranks of the tea party, but the occupy movement cannot be vilified by the liberal bastions of academia since they are wholly in agreement with their goals. However, these same academics have not problem making the tea party out to be extremists of the worst sort. They go on to make a legal case for taking action against the seditious actions of the tea party and apply military force using the Army’s Operating Concept for 2016-2028 and writing that, “Americans will expect the military to execute without pause and as professionally as if it were acting overseas. The Army cannot disappoint the American people, especially in such a moment.”
What they fail to mention or bring up at all is any possible blow back from the American people when the military starts to kill civilians, even armed civilians. Deadly force will not only bring political backlash against whatever party is holding the political reins, it will also erode confidence and legitimacy in a government that is already stretched thin by the actions of current and previous administrations.
What we have to remember, is that we are all Americans. We should not consider, unless there is no course of action left, military action against our own friends, brothers, and neighbors. Once you start a civil war of that nature, America ends, plain and simple. We would cease to exist as a country. Let us hope it never comes to that.
afbevil
FearTaco
gonzoligarchy