“Does liberalism embody the military virtues? Is martial virtue the highest stage of progressivism?”
Those are questions that Bill Kristol asks at the Weekly Standard:
Well, let’s think about an America that looked more like the military. That America would have a culture that’s at times tough and even harsh. It would have a mode of organization that’s strictly hierarchical and at times unforgiving. It would feature a regimen that weeds out those not up to the task and subordinate individual comfort to the achievement of a difficult mission. But that isn’t the America Obama wants to bring within reach. That isn’t the kind of America Obama’s policies seek to produce. Obama’s America is soft, understanding, forgiving, and entitled. But that America doesn’t work so well, or sell so well, anymore. So now Obama pretends his America is the troops’ America.
Near the end of his speech, the president claimed that “Those of us who’ve been sent here to serve can learn from the service of our troops.” What can we learn? That ”when you put on that uniform, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white; Asian or Latino; conservative or liberal; rich or poor; gay or straight. When you’re marching into battle, you look out for the person next to you, or the mission fails.” What Obama doesn’t say is this: It’s not just that you look out for the person next to you, or the mission fails. It’s also that you endure tough and demanding training, or the mission fails. You subordinate your own wishes, or the mission fails. You wash out many of those who wish to serve, or the mission fails. You insist on fitness and discipline and good character, or the mission fails. You do away with any sense of entitlement, or the mission fails. But Obama isn’t interested in the truth about why a mission succeeds or fails. He’s interested in using the prestige of the military to justify the nanny state.
Our liberal president claims to want to help us all “get each other’s backs,” just as military missions only succeed if “you know that there’s someone behind you, watching your back.” But welfare state liberalism is all about scratching each other’s backs; nanny state liberalism is all about rubbing each other’s backs; and entitlement state liberalism is all about stroking each other’s backs. None is about protecting each other’s backs—let alone driving away our enemies and turning around to bravely face the future. The fact is that if the military is in some respects an example for us, it’s not an example that speaks in favor of contemporary liberalism.
But it does speak to the origins of an earlier form of liberalism, and it’s the latest reminder that Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism was meant as a warning, not a how-to guide. As Jonah noted in several places in his book, and reiterated to Salon magazine four years ago (in an article titled, “We’re all fascists now,” foreshadowing a similar headline from a rival leftwing publication a year later):
What appealed to the Progressives about militarism was what William James [called in 1906] this moral equivalent of war. It was that war brought out the best in society, as James put it, that it was the best tool then known for mobilization … That is what is fascistic about militarism, its utility as a mechanism for galvanizing society to join together, to drop their partisan differences, to move beyond ideology and get with the program. And liberalism today is, strictly speaking, pretty pacifistic. They’re not the ones who want to go to war all that much. But they’re still deeply enamored with this concept of the moral equivalent of war, that we should unite around common purposes. Listen to the rhetoric of Barack Obama, it’s all about unity, unity, unity, that we have to move beyond our particular differences and unite around common things, all of that kind of stuff. That remains at the heart of American liberalism, and that’s what I’m getting at.
And this is far from the first time Obama has proven himself to be a remarkably antediluvian thinker. Not to mention echoing sentiments uttered a generation earlier by Jimmy Carter.
I’d have a soft spot for “You show up for the mission (especially if you’re the CO), or the mission fails.” The troops in this context might not care for Commander Tee Time.
I find this more than ironic coming from the draft dodger party. I’ve seen it before, they get old, then suddenly everything is militaristic. Well, boys, here’s the deal, if you like playing Army, you had your opportunity to be a real soldier in a real war. But now that you’re old you want to be generals. Doesn’t work that way, you earn your stripes.
Oh, and you might want to keep in mind, in the military, you don’t work, you don’t eat.
Let’s be very clear about Obama’s “mission” and his view of the world. Start with his racially charged books about himself and take that to 20 years in United Trinity’s Church whose massive disdain for white people is on record with 8,000 cheering congregationalists rising and clapping every word that makes whites look evil and blacks look like innocents wanting to leave Egypt.
Obama and the entirety of the black elite firmly believe blacks don’t achieve due to white racism and not the endemic failure of their own value system. The idea of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps and a meritocracy is invalidated because black people in America are still oppressed under the New Jim Crow, the continued existence of such bizarre themes as white privilege, Racism 2.0 and The New Confederacy.
To Obama, you CAN in fact keep a good man down and those black folks are not devoid of a value system as much as opportunity to show what they’re made of. Forget about discipline, Obama says whites rob blacks of their innate discipline. If Obama had more direct control of the military standards would be lowered not raised and that is his goal in America because his view of the world through the lens of race has everything ass-backwards.
America IS looking more like the military!
It’s having its budget slashed and its funds raided to pay for even more Obama programs, all the while hemmed in with even more layers and even more arbitrary Rules of Engagement and social tinkering that hobble whatever effectiveness it may retain.
Obama’s understanding of the military, or lack thereof, stems completely from his own head and whatever TV show he last watched that had “soldiers” in it.
Or, perhaps he thinks because he’s CiC, that it somehow equates to his ability to “speak their language”. Well, in reality, in a Hummer with a bunch of 20-somethings and some MRE’s and water bottles, wearing full gear, or on the flight-deck of a carrier in the rain, launching the early go, he’d be the one bitching, pissing and moaning the loudest and playing the victim of it all. He’d be at sick call every morning, trying to get out of duty. “I have a earache” to coin Cheech & Chong.
For the members of the military to see the CiC as a leader, they have to acknowledge that he’s worthy of the task; That he is, in fact a leader and not just a guy who’s got the job. Respect can be enforced but true respect always has to be earned. He knows he doesn’t have it and some lame-ass attempt at kissing their asses while actually insulting them sends a direct message to the military members about how contemptuous he is of them.
JKB is probably the most accurate in his evaluation of the Democratic Party nowadays. As a VN veteran, I really haven’t seen anyone from that party that has the mettle to defend their country except with hollow words.