Friday, February 5, 2010

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Think Things Through
















During the so-called McCarthy Era, Frank Chodorov -- an
Old Right individualist of the Jeffersonian school -- offered a simple and effective solution to the problem presented by Communist infiltration of various federal agencies: "The only thing to do, if you want to rid the bureaucracy of Communists, is to abolish the bureaucracy."



Despite -- or perhaps because of -- the fact that this prescription would have worked perfectly, it has been resisted by most conservatives, from that era until the present, who have seen nothing wrong with expanding the power and reach of government agencies as long as they were in the "right" hands.


Statist conservatives rarely if ever advocate "the dismantling of the public trough at which these [Communist-aligned] bureaucrats feed," Chodorov pointed out, because "[t]hey too worship Power."




Like the properly despised Communists, the conservatives described by Chodorov subscribe to Lenin's dictum that the central political question is "who does what to whom." This is why Chodorov referred to the various counter-subversion investigations as "heresy trials" in which the question "Are you or were you a member of the Communist Party?" actually "turns out to mean, have you aligned yourself with the Moscow branch of the church?"




Chodorov's insights come irresistibly to mind as I read and listen to conservative jeremiads over the impending end of the Pentagon's "Don't Ask - Don't Tell" policy regarding military service by homosexuals.


Since the constitutional confederacy we supposedly inherited is not supposed to be burdened with a standing army, why are we even discussing the question of whether homosexuals should be permitted to serve in the same?



The kernel of Chodorov's insight, it seems to me, is this: Conservatives tend to bemoan what is being done
to various federal agencies when they should focus instead on whether they should exist in the first place. It's for this reason that conservatives are scandalized over what the Gay Lobby wants to do to the military, when the real outrage is what is being done with it -- or whether that immense, costly, and destructive federal bureaucracy should exist, at least in its current form.


Typical of the misguided approach taken by statist conservatives are the following
exceptionally wrong-headed comments offered by a reliably foolish commentator:



"Would a parent possessing fundamental morals and religious values stand by and allow a son or daughter to enlist in today’s military? The answer is no and, because of the situation that already exists [meaning, presumably, the acceptance of homosexual enlistees under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"], the military is being denied a source of the type recruit that all services want and that have always regularly been filled in the past."



A more cogent formulation would be the following:


Given that the U.S. military -- an instrument of mass destruction controlled by the imperial clique ruling our country -- has become a greater force for evil than the Red Army was in its prime, what parent possessing a scintilla of common sense and even a particle of moral wisdom would permit his child to enlist?


Would the lives of children brought up in homes defined by "fundamental morals and religious values" somehow be incomplete if they were deprived of the opportunity to kill and tyrannize the hapless residents of countries that have done ours no harm?


Like many other conservative pundits, the fellow quoted above suggests that integrating open homosexuals into the military would defile an otherwise morally upright -- nay, sanctified -- institution. Since that gentleman served in the Marines, he's aware of the fact that the military is not composed of people who have taken vows of celibacy and otherwise committed themselves to lives of pristine self-abnegation. That's one a reason why practitioners of the world's oldest profession are often known as "camp followers."



There are much worthier pursuits for capable, idealistic children brought up in Christian homes. Serving people abroad as a missionary on behalf of the Gospel (as distinct from promoting the interests of various ecclesio-Leninist corporations called "churches") is an option that offers considerable opportunities for adventure untainted by bloodguilt.



Furthermore, capable young men who choose to become missionaries rather than armed enforcers in the employ of the Power Elite don't run the risk of being required to do terrible things -- only to find themselves being prosecuted by the war criminals who cut their orders. (By way of an infuriating example of how this works, I cite the case of Evan Vela Carnahan, the step-son of a good friend of mine from High School.)



People in the business of killing, we're told, are permitted to "blow off some steam" by indulging in behaviors that might seem a little off-putting to people who espouse "fundamental morals and religious values."


In his 1975 book Twilight of Authority, The late Robert Nisbet, an authentic conservative of the non-statist variety, wrote that there is "a good deal in common psychologically" between the kind of soldier who earns various battlefield commendations "and the kind of individual we label psychopath in civil life." Through the practice of "licensed violence" the military transmutes criminal behavior into "heroism."


"But there is a different kind of licensed immorality that comes with war, and that has still wider appeal inasmuch as it exists on the home front as well as in garrison and on the battlefield," continued Nisbet. "I refer to the whole area of sexual conduct.... It was under the steady impact of the Roman Republic's wars, first foreign, then civil as well as foreign, that the destruction of the Roman family system gradually began.... The great wave of immorality that hit Roman society in the first century B.C., so well attested to by contemporary essayists, and that the Emperor Augustus strove valiantly to terminate through laws and decrees, had its origins in war."


"What is in the first instance licensed, as it were, by war stays on to develop into forms which have their own momentum," he concludes.



He's an authentic conservative, which means that he's a critic of the military: Dr. Allan Carlson, president of the Howard Center on the Family.


Rather than encouraging their children to enlist in the military, parents concerned about preserving traditional morality should do everything they can to minimize their children's exposure to the institution.


As Dr. Allan Carlson of the Howard Center points out, the United States military could be considered the single greatest source of cultural subversion in American society. It is, in his phrase, "an engine of social change," including radical alterations of conventional mores and the structure of the traditional family.


Dr. Carlson observes that between 1941 and 1972, "over half of all American males served in the active-duty armed forces" -- an unprecedented state of affairs. During that same period, the state grew immeasurably in terms of both size and intrusiveness, and the "fundamental morals and religious values" of American society came under relentless attack. Carlson makes a compelling case that these developments are intimately related.



"When one examines the military's role in stimulating government action or innovations that later become institutionalized, the effect of war in driving social revolution grows evident," maintains Dr. Carlson. U.S. involvement in World Wars I and II did a great deal to foment the Sexual Revolution. Writing in 1993, Carlson described "Don't Ask -- Don't Tell" -- "Bill Clinton's contemporary efforts to use [the military] for a new kind of experimentation" -- as merely the latest manifestation of ongoing institutional efforts by the military to undermine the conventional family structure.



It is the military's usefulness as an engine of compelled cultural change that has long made it an attractive target for those who follow Antonio Gramsci's design for social revolution.



Since he died long before Gramsci was born, James Madison wasn't familiar with that revolutionary theorist's concept of the "war of position" and the use Gramsci's disciples would make of a large, lavishly funded standing military. Had he been given foresight to anticipate this particular use of the military, Madison most likely would have added it to his justly famous indictment of the warfare state as the most fearful enemy of liberty.


In addition to undermining the corporate morality of an entity charitably described as amoral, homosexual integration of the military would promote
"the acceptance of other fundamental departures from military discipline and the proper function of the military," complains the conservative commentator cited above. "Moral relativism, a feature of homosexuality, spawns the attitude that all military orders and practices are relative and not to be acted upon swiftly or carried out without question." (Emphasis added.)


Does he really mean to suggest that "all military orders" are "to be acted upon swiftly [and] carried out without question"?


Is it his opinion that permitting homosexuals to serve openly in the military would undermine the institutional discipline needed to continue fighting undeclared, illegal wars of aggression abroad?


Would homosexuals infect the military with a virulent strain of "moral relativism" that would make it less effective as an instrument of domestic regimentation if and when outright martial law descends upon our country?


Are we to fear that the end of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" would hinder military efforts to confiscate civilian firearms here, employing methods that have been used (with varying levels of success) during occupations of Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and other countries?


Should we strive to make sure that the ranks of military torturers are kept free of homosexuals, lest their valuable work become morally suspect?


This second objection focuses, once again, on what is done to, rather than by, the military. But this one is even more pernicious in that it is rooted in defense of an indefensible moral assumption -- a variant on the discredited "Nuremberg Defense."


Were he with us today (and his absence is keenly felt) Frank Chodorov might point out that militarist conservatives and their leftist counterparts champion a monolithic military establishment because they all worship power. A military that acts in strict obedience to constituted authority is more susceptible to top-down subversion.


It is precisely the tendency of military personnel to act on orders swiftly and without question that makes the military so attractive to those who wish to reconfigure American society. And as Nisbet pointed out, it's hardly a coincidence that the cultural onslaught against conventional morality has escalated dramatically since U.S. involvement in the two world wars and the creation of the National Security State in 1947.


Traditionalists are understandably concerned about the damage that results when the military becomes a tool of radical social engineering. But they are so bewitched by appeals to nationalist and jingoist impulses that they fail to see the central role of the military establishment in fomenting the social changes they deplore. This isn't a problem we would be dealing with if we didn't have an immense standing military with a global license to meddle and an increasingly visible role in domestic policing.


Given all of this, we really should apply the Chodorov Principle: Rather than trying to sanitize an armed bureaucracy that really shouldn't exist, why don't we abolish it?






















Dum spiro, pugno!

53 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would Robert Welch approve of the current jbs ideology

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Mr. Grigg,
This is one of the rare occasions on which I disagree with your proposed solution to a problem which we all know exists.

Abolishing our military would not be a wise move, because there are other militaristic countries which would immediately take advantage of a defenseless USA to project their own military power outside their borders.

For example, there is a looming critical problem in Asia: The Himalayan glaciers are melting away. These glaciers provide summer river flow to the rivers of Pakistan, India, Bangla Desh, Vietnam, and Southern China. Some two billion people depend on these rivers, fed by Himalayan glaciers, for their food and their survival. If the glaciers disappear, one-third of the world's population will begin to starve.

These countries are well aware of this impending catastrophe, and China for one has plans to take over Burma. The chief of the Indian Army said last week that India expects to have to go to war with both China and Pakistan. If there is to be a nuclear war in our time, it will be between India and Pakistan. Or India and China. Only the mediation of a powerful USA has prevented this from happening, at least twice already.

Without US military power to restrain it, China would long ago have taken over Taiwan, which produces about 80% of the motherboards, memory chips, hard drives, keyboards, and monitors for the world market. What would happen if China had the power to control the world computer hardware market? The Chinese are highly ambitious, aggressive, and expansionist. Only US military power restrains them.

The world is no longer as simple as it was in 1789.

The solution is not complete abolition of the US military, but restraining the profit-driven military-industrial complex, and the growing military-contractor industry, from purchasing the Congress and Adminstration (now that the Supreme Court has said they can spend as much as they please doing so) and dragging us into one illegal and unnecessary war after another.

Conclusion: I agree we have a serious problem with a rampant military-industrial complex waging wars wherever they see a profit to be made, but abolishing the military is not the solution. I do not know what IS the solution - perhaps other readers can suggest how the greed and immorality of our corporate and political slave-masters can be curbed.

Perhaps national bankruptcy will do it. Or revolution. Or class-driven civil war, like the British Civil War of the mid-1600's. Oliver Cromwell did end up chopping off the head of King Charles I, as well as several other rich aristocrats. Could that ever happen here?

Lemuel Gulliver.

William N. Grigg said...

Lemuel, thanks for your typically detailed and thoughtful comments.

I should clarify a couple of key points:

I'm not interested in defending the USA,because I think it shouldn't exist in its present configuration. We really should see several Americans spun out of the current corporatist monstrosity, each of which would be responsible for its own defense.

Why should Americans depend on Taiwan for computer motherboards and similar hardware (or South Korea for sophisticated memory chips)? This is a result of what I suspect are deliberate distortions in the international marketplace, not a reflection of a natural division of labor.

There are many ways of addressing that problem that don't involve implicit or explicit military guarantees that could drag Americans into avoidable Asian wars (or, in the case of Korea, re-igniting a dormant but still-simmering conflict).

Despite being burdened with a vicious ruling oligarchy, China spends a relative pittance on its military, which remains confined to its homeland and near abroad (meaning, primarily, long-suffering Tibet).

The power wielded by "Communist" Beijing reflects its economic potency, not the implicit threat of military aggression or (what's much the same thing) political subversion; the latter approach, ironically, is favored by "Capitalist" Washington.

You're probably correct in suggesting that this problem will solve itself with the advent of national bankruptcy -- but as far as I can tell that projection implicitly assumes the end of Leviathan's mega-military.

William N. Grigg said...

Anonymous, whatever else one can say about him, Robert Welch was a consistent critic of militarism. While his views weren't identical to those of Chodorov, Rothbard, or Nisbet, Mr. Welch wasn't afraid to criticize the warfare/national security state.

One example: Welch gave a fascinating commencement address in 1952 (I think it's republished in the book "The New Americanism") in which he described how the ruling cliques in Washington and Moscow manipulated their respective populations into an entirely artificial and perfectly useless conflict with each other.

Here's another: Welch was an early and emphatic opponent of the Vietnam War.

Here's yet another: In an October 13, 1979 speech -- delivered at a time when most conservatives were focusing on Moscow -- Welch decried "the rapidly increasing involvement of the United States in all of the wars, insurrections, oppressive horrors, and sociological turmoil that the Communists and their bosses could create anywhere on earth at any time. This [is done] partly in order that [the United States], which once had been the most cordially admired nation on earth for so successfully minding its own business, should eventually become the most hated nation on earth for such universal practice of imperialism by the dollar, as its substitute for the sword."

I've heard audiotapes of speeches Welch gave during the same period ('79-'81, or thereabouts) in which he spoke with great urgency about the dangers of a major war between the U.S. and Soviet Russia, and how the "Insiders" used war and the threat of war to consolidate power and plunder the helpless.

Robert Welch was passionate anti-Communist -- what decent person isn't? -- but more importantly he believed in individual liberty, which is why he was just as passionately opposed to militarism.

The silly little boys running what remains of Welch's organization, by way of contrast, are cynically pandering to neo-con-inspired efforts to blame Russia (and China) for every eruption of "terrorism" that happens anywhere on the face of the planet.

Their pitch could be summarized thus: "It's foolish to hate terrorists 'cause they're Muslims; we should hate 'em 'cause they're COMMIES! It's stupid to be fighting a 'war' against al-Qaeda; we should be taking the war to Moscow!"

Lane said...

I really wanted to share this column through Facebook, but the bit.ly link displays the first comment instead of the beginning of your column.

You also have a homosexual ad displaying at the bottom.

William N. Grigg said...

*Sigh* The people at AdSense are a lot of fun, aren't they?

kirk said...

Randolph Bourne, in an article in the early 20th century, astutely noted why we have the military we have had, have now and will always have if the powers that be remain in the positions they have occupied.

The title of Bourne's article annotated says it all: simple wording, true to the point and a warning for all. The title:

WAR IS THE HEALTH OF THE STATE.

Robert Ivy said...

Mr. Grigg,

I just stopped by this blog because a thoughtful person recommended it and I must admit that I found this post offensive.

There is simply no basis for comparing the US Army to, "the Red Army in its prime," or saying that the US Army, "kill[s] and tyrannize[s] the hapless residents of countries."

The Red Army was a force for absolute and unadulterated evil and was not governed by any moral calculus. No matter how much you despise the US or disagree with its foreign policy, you can't say that the Army is being used to enforce the starvation of large populations or to annex independent countries through reigns of terror (whatever is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is not annexation and is not done through indiscriminate killing).

Furthermore, any soldier that kills or tyrannizes a hapless (I read: defenseless) resident of any location is liable to court martial and imprisonment - if he intentionally killed a civilian, then he is liable to the death penalty.

I disagree with your thought to abolish the military on other grounds that are of a more logical and debatable nature, but I cannot leave your baseless charges against our servicemen and women left unanswered.

You can be assured that I will not return to a blog whose author cannot tell the difference between a military that seeks to avoid civilian casualties as far as possible and punishes perceived excess use of force and a military that heartily endorsed the use of rape and murder against civilians to gain victory. Such indiscriminateness shows little concept of justice or understanding of history or current realities.

Sincerely,
Robert Ivy
Ex-serviceman who never killed or tyrannized an innocent person.

William N. Grigg said...

Mr. Ivy, I appreciate your comments and wish to address a few of them.


No matter how much you despise the US or disagree with its foreign policy, you can't say that the Army is being used to enforce the starvation of large populations[...]

While the U.S. government hasn't carried out a Ukrainian-style enforced terror famine -- well, not yet, anyway -- the military did enforce a murderous decade-long embargo of Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of people. By any reckoning that is a "large population" of innocent victims.

[The U.S. military is not being used] to annex independent countries through reigns of terror (whatever is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is not annexation and is not done through indiscriminate killing).

I doubt that many Iraqis and Afghans whose homes and families have been destroyed as a result of Washington's armed "benevolence" would take much comfort from the distinction you're drawing here.

The military historically has been used for annexation of independent lands: Manifest Destiny had its messy aspects, recall, and the conquest of the Philippines involved bloodshed on a scale the Soviets would have found impressive.

It's also worth recalling that the United State(s), like the USSR, was brought together and held together through military force. That's what Lincoln's war to reconquer the independent South was all about -- and why Lincoln's example is routinely invoked by collectivist tyrants to justify the suppression of independence movements.

That the means used to subdue Iraq and Afghanistan have been more discriminating than those often employed by the Red Army really misses the point, which is that those are illegal wars of conquest.

Sure, Washington has been somewhat more genteel than Moscow, but is it really a form of moral progress when a cannibal uses a knife and fork?

It would be worthwhile for you to read Eric Margolis's comparisons of the respective "liberation" campaigns waged in Afghanistan by the Red Army and the US military. The parallels are quite striking.

The Red Army, murderous as it was, never garrisoned troops in 130 countries. The "Brezhnev Doctrine," under which Moscow claimed the right to intervene wherever socialism was threatened, was actually a more restrictive license for intervention than the "Bush Doctrine" of exporting democracy world-wide at bayonet point.

Many honorable people have served in the U.S. military. There were honorable people who served in the Red Army and the Wehrmacht as well. That fact does not confer moral legitimacy on the missions they were required to carry out.

The military arm of the Washington-based Leviathan state has nothing at all to do with the defense of the rights, persons, and property of Americans. Why do we seek to preserve it in its current form, rather than constructing a different system actually focused on defense?

Anonymous said...

Excellent post, as usual, Mr. Grigg. No country can take over America. Logistically, it's impossible. Yet we go about with our military, who are trained to break things, in a clumsy attempt to make the world safe for Democracy. It's akin to asking a prize fighter with boxing gloves do perform surgery for humanitarian reasons.

So why does the US help other countries with military involvement? Why did we help the decadent UK in two world wars, when they represented everything we despised when we revolted against them in 1776? Today, the UK has become a such Orwellian nightmare, that we should list it along with North Korea for human oppression.

General Smedley Bulter knew why. the title of his book, "War is a Racket", pretty much sums it up.
Protect someones business overseas
that is making a killing off at the expense of the local natives. When those natives get resentful being ripped off, send in the Marines.

Then you have those making money making uniforms, equipment, and bombs for the military. And goodness knows, just like last year's fashions designs are passe, so is there a demand for new weapon systems. And wars must be started so as to justify the inventory.

whitebuffalo said...

Lemuel Gulliver said..."there is a looming critical problem in Asia: The Himalayan glaciers are melting away."

Not to be rude to Mr. Gulliver but the Himalayan glaciers are not melting. It is one of the most ridicules lies of the greatest hoax ever perpetrated known as "global warming".

Mr. Grigg your arguments are, as usual, spot on. The Standing Army that is our current imperialistic military needs to be disbanded. And that includes the Domestic Standing Army of militarized police.

Bob said...

The comments Robert Ivy made are representative of what we are up against. Mr Ivy seems like an intelligent man yet has a hard time calling a spade a spade. This statement is an example:

"Furthermore, any soldier that kills or tyrannizes a hapless (I read: defenseless) resident of any location is liable to court martial and imprisonment - if he intentionally killed a civilian, then he is liable to the death penalty."

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people have died (some say over a million), are we to assume all of these deaths were in self defense against combatants? Given the obvious answer to my question where are the court marshalls Mr. Ivy speaks of that are warranted?

This kind of thinking is like saying that because there is a 2nd amendment the government doesn't infringe on gun ownership. My point is the government always selectively enforces its own laws, that should be obvious.

Anonymous said...

I think Robert Ivy has some tender sensibilities and deep delusions about our armed forces.
Maybe he should read your previous blog entry. That should really rub his tenderness raw and red.
No offense Robert, since I have never met you, but, man up and stick around--you just might learn something from Will and the host of bright and thoughtful people who post comments here.

Bob said...

Hey Will I don't know if you have seen this video but it is a great rebuke to those who say the only people who should have guns are cops. In this video a cop is before a class teaching the above maxim while showing his guns off and he shoots himself in the leg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJjLKH5Eegk

Sans Authoritas said...

Excellent post as usual, Mr. Grigg.

Any group of people who cannot ensure their defense without resorting to conscription [slavery] or by taking money from non-violent people by threat of force is a group of people that has absolutely no right to continue in existence.

Americans are armed to the teeth. They could be better armed if it weren't for the disgustingly wasteful command economy military.

There's no defense that Americans couldn't accomplish through voluntary means, if 50% of their incomes weren't preemptively sucked down the insatiable leech gullet of the United State.

I am tired of the idea that truly necessary services, upon which 90% of everyone in a geographical area agree, can only be provided at gunpoint.

The end does not justify the means. If something needs to be done, it can be done without aggressive violence. If it can't be done without aggressive violence, it may not be done.

People who believe in the morality of the State are nothing less than utilitarians with a bad case of denial.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

White Buffalo,

This from National Geographic Magazine, which I do not think is a partisan political organ:

"Everywhere on Earth ice is changing. The famed snows of Kilimanjaro have melted more than 80 percent since 1912. Glaciers in the Garhwal Himalaya in India are retreating so fast that researchers believe that most central and eastern Himalayan glaciers could virtually disappear by 2035."

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0409/feature2/fulltext.html

I have seen this with my own eyes. I saw Kilimanjaro 40 years ago, when I spent 6 months in Kenya, and it was a magnificent sight, which today's tourists will never know.

Again, from Wikipedia:

"In the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan 28 of 30 glaciers examined retreated significantly during the 1976-2003 period, the average retreat was 11 meters per year (Haritashya). One of these glaciers the Zemestan Glacier has retreated 460 m during this period, not quite 10% of its 5.2 km length.(Pelto7) In examining 612 glaciers in China between 1950 and 1970, 53% of the glaciers studied were retreating. After 1990, 95% of these glaciers were measured to be retreating, indicating that retreat of these glaciers was becoming more widespread.(Rai, Guring, et alia) Glaciers in the Mount Everest region of the Himalayas are all in a state of retreat. The Rongbuk Glacier, draining the north side of Mount Everest into Tibet, has been retreating 20 m (66 ft) per year. In the Khumbu region of Nepal along the front of the main Himalaya of 15 glaciers examined from 1976-2007 all retreated significantly, average retreat was 28 m per year (Bajracjarya). The most famous of these Khumbu Glacier retreated at a rate of 18 m per year from 1976-2007(Bajracjarya). In India the Gangotri Glacier, retreated 34 m (110 ft) per year between 1970 and 1996, and has averaged a loss of 30 m (98 ft) per year since 2000. However, the glacier is still over 30 km (19 mi) long. In 2005 the Tehri Dam was finished on the Bhagirathi River, it is a 2400 mw facility that began producing hydropower in 2006. The headwaters of the Bhagirathi River is the Gangotri and Khatling Glacier, Garhwal Himalaya. Gangotri Glacier has retreated 1 km in the last 30 years, and with an area of 286 km2 provides up to 190 m3/second (Singh et. al., 2006). For the Indian Himalaya retreat ranged from -19 meters per year for 17 glaciers all retreating (Haritashya2). In Sikkim all 21 glaciers examined were retreating at an average rate of 20 m per year (Raina). For the 51 glaciers in the main Himalayan Range of India, Nepal and Sikkim all 51 are retreating, at an average rate of 23 m per year."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_glaciers_since_1850

Please go to the Wiki article and look at the NASA photos of the Himalayas.

(Continued...)

Lemuel Gulliver said...

To White Buffalo Continued....

You are probably referring to the recent news which, for example, was headlined in The Telegraph, (UK) under the header: "UN climate panel admits 'mistake' over Himalayan glacier melting,"

to wit:

"[G]laciologists find such figures inherently ludicrous, pointing out that most Himalayan glaciers are hundreds of feet thick and could not melt fast enough to vanish by 2035 unless there was a huge global temperature rise. The maximum rate of decline in thickness seen in glaciers at the moment is two to three feet a year and most are far lower."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7031403/UN-climate-panel-admits-mistake-over-Himalayan-glacier-melting.html

"Two feet a year or less" does not square with the truly vast amount of specific data in the Wikipedia article. "Two feet or less" is a far cry from 20 meters or 34 meters a year. In fact, ask yourself this: Would "two feet or less a year" of retreat even be measurable in such an immense thing as a glacier? Which is constantly moving? THAT claim strains my credulity to the limit and beyond.

It is good for us to keep searching for alternative information, always testing it against the question, "Does this informant have anything to gain?" This will help us to maintain a healthy skepticism, as against a delusional one. The Telegraph is part of world media, 96% of which is controlled by only SIX corporations. I distrust its motives.

Your faith is admirable. But when all of my baby teeth had fallen out, I discovered my faith in the Tooth Fairy was misplaced. After I reached 8 or 9, the same happened with the Easter Bunny, who stopped bringing me chocolate eggs. Today, a sadder and a wiser man, when Corporate Media brings me news, I reach for the salt shaker.

Regards,
Lemuel Gulliver.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Mr. Grigg,

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate all your logic. However, re.China: You will find in the next several years, (three to ten) that China will "do a Tibet" on Burma also. Especially when Chinese people start to go hungry. Whether we here should worry about it, well, that's debatable.

Your point about computer hardware is well taken. Why can we not make it here? In fact, as an example of the stupidity of the people who pay themselves to rule us via our involuntary donations, the Obama Administration is building a wind energy farm in Texas, at a cost of $1.5 billion taxpayer dollars. (Part of Obama's AltEnergy initiatives.) However, since the wind turbines will be made in China, this will create 300 jobs in America and 2,000 jobs in China.

Great, huh? Change we can believe in. Yes we can.

And this folly goes on and on. We American slave classes spend more on our military than the entire rest of the world combined. Military R&D and military manufacturing is about the only thing we actually *DO* any more in America, apart from dog grooming, hair styling, life coaching, and cooking imitation Mexican food.

BTW, I LIKE the pink tank. For camouflage purposes, this could be combined with a tasteful shade of pastel lavender in random patterns. And I propose a crystal vase attached to the front of the tank to hold a delicate bouquet of fresh flowers. (I am partial to gladiolus myself, with a few sprigs of fern for greenery.) This would send a message to the rest of the world that yes indeed, under Obama, America HAS changed for the better.

(The US is the only NATO country, except Turkey, which does not allow gays in its military. I'm sure our allies will welcome our kinder, gentler troops.)

Yours in sexual and other liberty,
Lemuel Gulliver.

MoT said...

I guess being killed by someone who can now come out of the closet means I'm really being "liberated". Nothing like a kinder, gentler finger on the trigger to make the world all rosy. Or would that be from the blood in my eyes?

MoT said...

Oh, by the way, since I'm a former "vet" I wouldn't want my own children to ever enter that twisted institution. Think about this for a moment... I'm 47 and to this day I still get asked on employment forms whether I signed up for "Selective Service"... Yeah, that's a good one. Even when you haven't anything to do with the bastards they keep asking you over and over and over. Oh, and it gets better, they constantly pigeon-hole you whether you were in combat, in Vietnam, or some other "action", wounded, disabled by 0-100%, etc. etc. etc. blah blah blah, so that you can roll ahead of all the other applicants. Like I said, I'm a vet and I hate this stuff. What makes YOU so "special"? Were the military to finally, and mercifully, be demobilized and shut down tomorrow, I wouldn't miss it. Maybe people could put their energies to better use than finding new ways to kill someone and then call it "defense".

WorthNoting said...

Several folks in the grocery store line were chatting about the "5 or 6 corporations" that own the bulk of businesses.
Does anyone here have a link(s)that tells the names of these and what they own?
The comment here was referring to media, but is there anything showing a total list of ownership of these large corporations?

zach said...

I think we should abolish the army and marines, and maintain a navy/air force/coast guard contingent- making a law that this navy can never go into another nation's waters or airspace. For "Homeland Security" and major law enforcement action, we should have voluntary,local citizen militias, trained in marksmanship similar to what the Swiss have today. I think the most cogent writer on this subject of the right to bear arms and the citizen militia is Dr. Edwin Vieira. He explains how the state militias were to provide for homeland security in a way diametrically opposed to the top down police state methods we have now. It is important that the right to arms be couched primarily in this martial context (resisting domestic tyranny or foreign invasion) rather than keeping a firearm for common criminals or sporting uses, as the NRA would have us do.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

WorthNoting,

This link shows that 96% of world MEDIA is owned by only 6 corporations, and those are all controlled by Jews:

http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-controlledpress-6-jewish-companies-96-percent-of-all-media.html

As regards the rest of the non-media corporate structure, there has been since Reagan a mania of M&A, (mergers and acquisitions) such that there are now M&A specialists in academia and business. It is an entire discipline unto itself.

Apart from this, rich people who sit on corporate boards sit also on other corporate boards, so that there are always one or two people who sit on both boards of any two corporations. Thus there are only two or three degrees of separation of interest between ANY two publicly traded corporations in the world.

Also, there are no longer American or Japanese or European corporations. Almost all of them have facilities in other countries. Among the largest corporations in the USA are European companies such as Siemens and Unilever, and among the largest corporations in Europe are American companies such as Ford and Microsoft. The Chinese are latecomers to this globalization game, but no doubt they will soon begin to buy whatever assets they can with their trillions of dollars in reserves.

The world is mostly run by corporations for the benefit of corporations, (including the big multinational banks,) not by governments for their citizens. Corporate control of the media ensures that very few people even know it. THAT fact is how they get away with it and perpetuate it.

For instance: Where is Bernie Madoff's $68 billion? He was paying his investors only 6%-9%, which is not exceptional. It was NOT a Ponzi scheme. The person who called his scam a Ponzi was Bernie Madoff himself, and the media all took up the cry. This is because they want the public to quickly forget about it, and to not ask too many questions. Answer: His money is in Israeli banks, whence it will never be seen again and is NOT coming back to those it was stolen from. The SEC was called off, the Bushes and Clintons were paid off, the SWIFT and CHIPS clearing houses who tell the US Treasury every time even $1,000 is transferred abroad kept quiet, everyone got their little piece of the money pie. And the public, once again, got screwed.

Happens a hundred times a day, somewhere.

Hope this answers your question.
Lemuel Gulliver.

Anonymous said...

"GREENDALE - A police detective tased a man in Southridge Mall Saturday. The 20-year-old man fell to the floor and unresponsive."
http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/83737037.html

Anonymous said...

The government has your baby's DNA
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/04/baby.dna.government/index.html?hpt=C2

Anonymous said...

The vast majority ( over 90%) of serial killers are/were homosexual. These types will fit in well in our new army of one.
I agree the only solution is to abolish the military - plain and simple.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Anonymous @ 7:15 am,

Do you have any studies or references for that 90% figure of serial killers being queers? It's a very interesting claim, since it is also claimed that 90% of all people are heterosexuals. This means the serial-killer proclivities are more prevalent in homosexuals by a ratio of about 80 to 1. My God, who knew we were in such danger?

Since the Israeli military allows homosexuals to "serve," perhaps this explains the IDF behaviors towards Palestinians.

Anyone else able to corroborate the 90% figure? Any suggestions what can be done to make our world a safer place for the normal majority?

And where will we buy flowers for our wives anymore? Do we need to go armed any time we enter a florist's shop? We'll have to abolish the ballet too, but probably only lusting homosexuals go to watch it anyway.

Yours in alarm and fear,
Lemuel Gulliver.

Anonymous said...

The Jews are stealing the glaciers of the world, Lemuel.
But, which Jews are they? Are they real Jews or fake Jews? The ones with big noses or the ones with brown skin that look just like Arabs?

Defining what a Jew is is nearly impossible, but what Jews are not is a homogeneous, monolithic group working together to enslave the rest of humanity.
So what's the solution?

I don't know, but I'm starting to resent your use of Will's blog comment section to hammer at this point over and over.
Perhaps you should start your own blog.

apollonian said...

Ethics: Science Of Means And Ends
(Apollonian, 8 Feb 10)

Indeed yes, I liked this particular blog of Grigg's which blog gives a pretty extensive and thorough-going discussion of problem of US military and its proper relation with things. Grigg covered a lot of significant pt.s and well answered numerous objections brought up by his alert fans and readers.

But at same time, I object to the one element of Grigg's discussion regarding "morality"--something, I submit, which is hugely over-blown, mystified, and made into a veritable false-God by Grigg--rather typical, I note, for all Grigg's work and material, this fixation for "moralism" which I characterize as crass Pharisaism.

And note then the basic principle, beginning in metaphysics, regards that dichotomy btwn absolute, determinist cause-effect and hubristic, pretended perfect "free" will of the poor, sinful human who is hopeless--without God's grace. "Free" will will never overcome sin--ever.

All humans can do is their best in reason, this supplemented then by inspiration fm that great aesthetic given in Christian New Testament (NT). And "faith" merely means LOYALTY--it is NOT a substitute or alternative to that God-given reason, EVER. So take ur mysticism and flush it down toilet where it belongs.

And remember also, for sake of perspective and over-all context, we're dealing w. most simple problem, the large CYCLIC "Decline of the West," by Oswald Spengler. And truly this great struggle entails at bottom Christian TRUTH (as Gosp. JOHN) vs. lies and conspiracy, as of those who murdered Christ and, to this very day, claim they're proud they killed Christ for heresy and blasphemy.

So don't forget what's happened: human population, beginning w. all-time, epochal TRIUMPH of St. Constantine the Great, just eventually became over-populated, now fatally hubristic, ZOG-Mammon empire-of-lies presently liquidating the excess over-population, people fatally over-come by lies, pretending they're God, capable of creating reality--esp. in form of "good-evil" Pelagian heresy founded upon afore-mentioned fallacy/delusion of perfect, "free" human will.

And there's no solution to this problem of deluded Mammonists/hedonists pretending they can be "good," pathetically obsessed homosexuals the very worst, most weak-minded of the victims.

[------see below for part two to above entry--------A.]

apollonian said...

[------here's part two to above entry---------A.]

* * * * *


Thus the great forest-fire of this horrendous cultural HUBRIS must now be consumed in burning itself out, the weak falling by proverbial "way-side." For note again, it's determinist, CYCLIC problem--wise, virtuous, scientific humans can hereby only calculate the progress and process thereof, hoping they make right moves at right times.

For note at bottom, ethics is simply science/art of means and ends, necessary logic requiring there be no conflicts. "Un-ethical" merely means there's illogic and conflict, that's all--it's NOT matter of "good-evil" which is for children and dogs.

Ethics and its problems arise as human is creature of will (though not perfect) and must CHOOSE means to attaining ends--which ends themselves must be chosen and properly understood (thus necessitating foregoing science/art of metaphysics, as I note).

Hence then foremost ethical virtue is HONESTY in accord with foremost value, TRUTH (Gosp. JOHN 14:6), Christ being truth, only way thereto being honesty.

Hence then here's the simplest, most accurate, most virtuous analysis of things ethical: as fundamental battle is btwn truth and lies, note u and we must simply (militarily) EXTERMINATE the liars, foremost monument to such lies being the Talmud (see RevisionistHistory.org, TruthTellers.org, and Come-and-hear.com for best Talmudic expo).

Topmost masterminds of this great conspiracy of lies and liars then are the Talmudistic COUNTERFEITERS at control of US Federal Reserve Bank (Fed)--see RealityZone.com and TheMoneyMasters.com for expo/ref.--who thus CONTROL EVERYTHING ELSE regarding ZOG-Mammon and its far-flung networks.

And proper, hence most efficient and most "ethical," way to dealing w. these topmost counterfeit conspirators is to eliminate their enablers, the liars who insist and pretend to "good-evil" fallacy/delusion, most prominent and significant of whom are "Judeo-Christian" (JC--see Whtt.org and TruthTellers.org for expo/ref.) hereticalists among gentiles who say, for example, Christ was Jew (hence Talmudist).

Bolsheviki and homosexuals are relatively insignificant compared to these "evangelical"-types (though not all evangelicals are actually JCs--only about half, I understand) who far out-number bolshies and homos.

CONCLUSION: Otherwise, Grigg and Chodorov are absolutely correct: ZOG-Mammon empire-of-lies must be de-activated in spirit of states-rights, "nullification," and secession--and they need to get in gear before serious, catastrophic currency-crisis looming in matter of months now. Honest elections and death to the Fed. Apollonian

Anonymous said...

The Bible says that homosexuality is an "abomination". That's good enough for me. Remember that little town called Sodom?

Anonymous said...

Lemeulle,
I am anon @ 715:
Truthfully I happen to know and have had some very good friends who have been gay. All were very kind, thoughtful, intelligent people. However truth be told it is a very sad ,very deviant lifestyle where some people with very dark hearts tend to gravitate. My observation ( for what its worth) of the those in a gay relationship is that there is one who loves and has the power and then there is one who is the subservient type. Naturally those who desire power and simultaneously have dark twisted fantasies both ( hetero and homo) will gravitate to jobs where they can have lots of power to kill and torture( i.e the military)

Anonymous said...

Lemuel,

Unfortunately, up until the time I was 18 (am now 21), I thought that the world was going to end quite soon because of Global Warming. The ice was melting, animals were dying, oh save us Algore! I believed this solely because of National Geographic. They would never lie to us! or so I thought. Even though i knew the true nature of the US gov't and its parent corporations, I never believed that NGC or magazine would perpetuate the hoax of global warming. I'm a sucker for animals, and they kept telling me the animals would die!

Anyway I have since come to realize that NGC is controlled by the same people that control everything else. Quite honestly, this realization is "where the world turned for me." Now I just laugh while I watch NGC, DSC, and Animal Planet when they spew their global warming propaganda. I'm just greatful that I live in TX and not some place like Washington D.C. which is infected with evil and covered in snow.

Josh P.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Mr. Grigg,
You knew you were starting something here, talking about homosexuality, religion and the military. Please let me know if you want me to respond here, or drop it now. The whole subject of the laws in Leviticus is tiresome and I've had enough in my life of quoting them to True Believers with terminal earwax problems. In short, eating in Red Lobster restaurants is an abomination. McDonald's cheeseburgers are an abomination. Adultery is an abomination and all adulterers should be stoned to death, starting with Newt Gingrich, continuing with 50% of the men in the world and ending with Bill Clinton. You as a descendant of slaves should apply to my back door to become my slave. Jews are sly and greedy and not to be trusted (yes, the Bible says so.) Your wife is not allowed in church when she has her menstrual period. Rude children should be put to death. Shall I continue with Biblical laws? You want chapter and verse on them? I have provided these so many times, but it does no good. All I get is people whose ministers have pounded their pulpits with some selected nonsense "from the Bible" to encourage them to dig deep when the collection plate is passed. Tell me if you want this discussion to go off on this tangent (which will end about 9,000 words later in name-calling and recriminations,) or shall we drop it now?
Thanks,
Gulliver.

William N. Grigg said...

Actually, Lemuel, my subject was the compelling need to dismantle the imperial military apparatus, with the furor over ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" cited as an example of the unnecessary trouble it has caused for us.

Sure, I knew that addressing this question in any way would lead to a flame (pardon the expression) war of some kind. I'm not aversive to conflicts of that sort. Ere long I'll be posting another essay and hopefully a new discussion will result.

whitebuffalo said...

Lemuel Gulliver - really???!!! You're citing wikipedia???!!! As for the "informant" for the UK Telegraph, who is the "informant" first source making the claim that the Himalayan glaciers are melting? Look that up (outside of wiki) and you'll find that it is one man making a claim without any peer reviewed scientific facts. Are there changes going on at the Himalayan mountains? Sure there are. It's called nature. And as I learned in Geography 101, nature is ALWAYS in a state of flux. Always has been, always will be. Please tell me you are not a cult member of the Holy Church of Man-made Global Warming Inc.?

MoT said...

"I knew that addressing this question in any way would lead to a flame." - WG

LOL! You KNEW that was going to happen because the simple act of publishing it before the world brings out all sorts of responses. Regardless its a good thing that you do talk about it because iron sharpens iron and most certainly sparks do fly as a result. We need more discourse but I always find it humorous to see how a topic can "morph" over a short span of time. You might have been talking about Shetland ponies and before you know it its all about three headed giraffes!

Lemuel Gulliver said...

It is the same in every religion. I have been having a discussion with a Muslim who says all Christians and Jews and Hindus (whom they hate worse than anyone) should be put to death if they do not convert to Islam. I said to him, Mohammed had, among his 13 wives, one Christian woman and one Jewess that we know of, and HE did not put them to death. Was Mohammed then disobeying his own Koran? Still waiting for his answer on that one.

I ask Christians, where in the New Testament can you find even one word from the mouth of Jesus on the subject of homosexuality? There is not one. But people who call themselves Christians quote Leviticus. That is a Jewish scripture. The only reason it is in the Christian Bible is because Christianity was originally a Jewish heretic sect. Are you people Christians, or Jews? Do you follow Jesus, or Moses? Make up your freaking minds already.

And don't bother quoting "Saint" Paul. He was just a Jew, Saul, who never laid eyes on Jesus, never heard Him speak, but Saul had an epileptic seizure on the road to Damascus and decided it was his mission to atone for his terminal viciousness by bringing HIS version of the teachings of Jesus to the whole Roman world. Along with all his irrational prejudices against women, homosexuals, Jews, and practically any class of human being that was not exactly like him.

The bottom line is that the founders of all these religions were men of love and forgiveness, but politicians and priests have realized that the easiest way to control pathetic morons and get them to dig deep in their pockets is to stir up their insane hatreds and bigotries. Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Brien, as well as Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse-Tung, and Josef Stalin are the essence of this breed. They all got and are still getting immensely rich, while their cretinous dupes throw money in the pot and go around killing each other.

Well, Darwin was right. Assholes kill each other off, while the clever prosper. Survival of the fittest. Servants of Satan, the Prince of This World. All of them.

It is all too easy to incite people of small mind and cruel disposition to hate others who are different from themselves in some way, be it religious belief, skin color, language, sexual orientation, or whatever. Jackasses. Let them fight each other. Maybe one day the Muslims will detonate a few nuclear bombs in this supposed Christian country and we will plaster their asses from Morocco to Indonesia with 5,000 nuclear warheads.

Good. Too many goddamn assholes in the world anyway. A few billion less of us, and for sure the plants and animals would breathe a sigh of relief.

The Bible. Hah. Put together by a pagan Roman Emperor, Constantine, because his Mama had converted to Christianity. Has about as much to do with the man Jesus as the Talmud.

The Koran. Hah. Put together by Abu Bakr and Caliph Omar AFTER Mohammed was dead (just like the New Testament, written 50-100 years after Jesus) and putting words in Mohammed's mouth that he could not refute.

The Talmud. Hah. A book oozing with hatred and viciousness towards anyone who is not a Jew, put together by a succession of rabbis resentful of the fact that Diaspora Jews were treated as third-class citizens wherever they went. Nothing whatever to do with Moses, or Ezekiel, or Daniel, or any of their prophets.

All the same. No difference. They hang homosexuals from construction cranes in Iran. They crush them to death in Afghanistan. They chop their heads off in Saudi Arabia. The only reason they do not do this here is because this country, THANK THE ALMIGHTY GOD, is not a theocracy. Give Christians political power and they will be chopping off hands, feet, and heads like Saudi Arabia, and burning people at the stake for owning a black cat or being Mongoloid retards like Sarah Palin's brat.

May you people all kill yourselves off by the billions. One and all. I only hope I survive to see it and rejoice.

Yours in whatever deity you choose,
Lemuel Gulliver.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

White Buffalo,

No, I'm certainly not one of those Kumbaya people. The climate IS changing (once again - it has done so many times before,) and nobody - repeat, nobody - knows why.

I do NOT believe CO2 emissions are the "only" cause, although they might be having a minor effect. There are many other possible causes: Fluctuations in the earth's magnetic field causing the loss of that shielding effect against the solar wind, (yes, those fluctuations are occurring,) disruptions in the normal sunspot cycle (yes, that is occurring too,) the precession of the earth's elliptical rotation due to the Milankovich cycles (we are just past halfway between two major ice ages, and if the pattern of annual climate change is a guide, i.e. the hottest month being August and not June, we should now be at the hottest point of the interglacial period,) and finally, the albedo effect: I learned in school fifty years ago that a dark body does not only absorb heat more readily, but it also radiates heat more readily. So, when we lose the white polar icecaps, the dark earth and ocean absorb more heat in the summer, but also lose more heat in the winter. Result: Hotter summers and colder winters. Also, it takes 1 calorie to raise 1 gram of water one degree, but it takes 73 calories (or thereabouts, maybe it is 72) to turn one gram of ice at 32 degrees into one gram of water at 32 degrees. And vice versa - 73 calories are absorbed when 1 gram of water turns to ice.

Consequently, the loss of the polar icecaps, for whatever reason - neither I nor anyone in the world knows why this is happening - is causing the loss of a vast heat-sink and heat-releasing moderating feature of our planet. We can expect the climate to get more and more unstable. And then what? Nobody knows. This instability could suddenly plunge us, within 5 years or less, into a new Ice Age, just like the Little Ice Age which suddenly happened between 1306 and 1308, and lasted 400 years. Nobody yet can explain that one. Before 1306, Greenland was green, wine grapes grew in Northern England, and suddenly BAM! Deep freeze. For 400 years.

So no, I think we are in agreement. The current hysteria about CO2 is bullshit. But yet, the climate IS changing. Getting warmer at present, but could just as easily go the other way, within the space of a few years. Nobody can say what will happen, or why.

Lemuel Gulliver.

PS: BTW, the Wikipedia article did not cite only one man. Look closely and you will see that many studies by many different researchers are cited. And yes, Wikipedia does have very good articles, when the topic is non-political. They are, after all, written by thousands of contributors, not all of whom are trying to obscure the truth.

GunRights4US said...

My views on a variety of issues have changed over the years. But probably nothing has changed more than my view of the US military. Nothing constitutes better proof of my attitudinal change than how I view the idea of either one of my sons enlisting into the service. There was a time in the not too distant past that I would have been thrilled at the prospect of either of my boys following in their old man’s footsteps and donning a Marine uniform. Today I actively discourage either son from making such a decision.

What’s changed? Is it just the man in the White House?

I will admit that is small part of it. But the far larger part is the stark realization that my government is thoroughly rotten and corrupt, and I can trust NOTHING they tell me on ANY subject! If any politician of either party were to tell me that it was daylight outside – I would feel compelled to go to the nearest window and check! How then can I view the armed forces, the power projection arm of an evil regime, as pure and untainted by that same evil? Of course – I can not. And even further: How can I ask my sons to potentially lay down their lives on the orders of men in whose faces I would cheerfully spit if the opportunity presented itself!

The day I first was called a Marine was a day of deep and overwhelming pride for me. My association with the Marine Corps remains an intrinsic part of my makeup, and anyone speaking ill of the Corps in my presence runs the real chance of taking a fist in the mouth. That being said – my real loyalty is not to a military organization, nor is it to some body of elected officials. My loyalty is to the nation. In other words, the US government is not America, and the US Marines (no matter how much I love them) are not America.

It pains me deeply to read what Mr. Griggs has penned in many instances, and many’s the time I’ve wished I had the mental horsepower and literary skill to successfully rebut him. But I am finally forced to admit that America’s armed forces (AND it’s police forces) are the standing army that the founder’s feared. It has been used to project power for the purposes of furthering the interests of powerful special interests exactly as old Gimlet Eye (Smedly Butler) once pointed out!

There is one point I would still debate Mr. Griggs upon: I have known truly heroic men – and they did NOT possess the psyche of the textbook psychopath. I haven’t read Nisbet’s book, but on that count I believe he was full of crap!

But misled and ignorant conservatives, in knee-jerk support of “the troops”, have done just as much damage as have misled and ignorant liberals. Of this truth - I am finally convinced.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

GunRights4Us,

You are the salt of the earth. Thank you for your service to the rest of us. You are also very eloquent in your honesty. Thank you again. Now, I wish intensely that some military historian would do a study of the correspondence and statements of military commanders from say, 1700 through today, to see if their attitudes have changed. I bet they have, and this is how I suspect they have changed:

I suspect that in 1700, commanders viewed their troops as expendable cannon fodder to be used to further wars for financial profit, and I suspect this is because commanders were drawn from the upper classes which had a financial stake in the loot and profit of war. The troops were drawn from the lower classes whose only interest was mere survival and avoidance of starvation.

As a consequence, military commanders went actively looking for war, and the framers of our Constitution in 1789 took the power to wage war away from military commanders and vested it in the civilian Congress, farmers, shipowners and shopkeepers who wanted to avoid war and its destructiveness at all costs. (War then being waged purely on land and sea, rolling at random over the farms and cities and ships of the civilian Government.) This is one side of the equation.

The other side of the equation is that today, military commanders are ordinary lower-class or middle-class people who have worked their way up in the ranks, have seen war at first hand, love their troops as brothers, as individuals and as people, and have the greatest reluctance to see their lives and limbs expended in war.

Today's civilian Government, on the other hand, are upper-class people with large fortunes, ranging from a few millions to hundreds of millions, but in no case (except perhaps Ron Paul) regular middle-class folks. They have never seen firsthand, or like Dick Cheney and George Bush have exerted themselves to avoid, the blood and pain of war, and they are all too ready to sacrifice our troops - their bodies, limbs and sanity - in any frivolous enterprise of war that promises a nice fat monetary profit for themselves.

I have no proof of this thesis, and wish SOMEONE would investigate it. But I believe it to be a plausible theory.

We should now, today, take the waging of war away from the oligarchs in civilian Government and return it into the hands of the military commanders. I would lay a bet that there would be a lot less war and death in the world as a result. Since the oligarchs would not control war any longer, I would also bet that they would vote much less of our extorted taxes to fund a military over which they had no control. The present bloated military would shrink naturally through lack of funds.

Mr. Grigg, rather than abolishing the military entirely, do you think this would solve the problems we find ourselves facing? I would love to have a short reply from you, yes or no.

Yours sincerely,
Lemuel Gulliver.

Anonymous said...

One disagreement I had with Robert Welch was over his solution to end the Vietnam War. Mr. Welch, a veritable genius, believed the united State of America should quickly win the war through a massive military incursion into North Vietnam.

I believe the best solution was to simply get out. Why get more thousands killed over a conflict instigated by Washington over a false flag "attack" upon the U.S.S. Turner Joy, the phoney Tonkin Gulf "incident"? Stop all operations, end it immediately and get out.

Anonymous said...

Bob,
Love your posts! But you're killing me. it's 'martial', not 'marshall'.

Anonymous said...

Edwin Vieira has done well with the organized state militia topic, but beware of his other so-called
constitutional views as he advocates Lincoln's view that the sovereign states which created the federal government via a coup d' etat has no right to secede! Oh, yeah?! Then what was the War of Independence all about if not secession?!

Anonymous said...

Ethics: Science of an Apollonian Mind(?)

Hubristic, btwn deterministic, CYCLIC incoherent yammering followed by non sequitur, mystic, moralistic moralism to counter another moral system of first principles by first principles of non-principles, to moralize about the morals which do not exist, (see crazyasshole.com for expo/ref.) dichotomy of oneness in nonsense, fallacy/delusion btwn absolute madness, lunatic ravings nihilistic metaphysics despair/incoherency of most simple problem=Apollonian; yet baseless, depraved mind thereof, to another idiot savant who, yes, bloviates endlessly about ZOG/none other than LG and his metaphysics of mammonists/hedonists based upon pantheist monism, non-moral system of morality therein lies crux of all ills whenceforth are JEWS under all beds and in all closets wherein illogic of Talmudic proportions deviates the minds of these nutbars (see Iiznutz.com for expo/ref.)

Anonymous said...

Lemuel the Limey,
95% of the entire New Testament was quoted word by word by the early church fathers before Constantine was even born. You should cool your jets, old man, before pulling ignorant comments out from your theologically uneducated, pagan arse.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Anonymous @ 7:36 am,
You should get a proctologist to check out that hole under your nose.
LG.

Anonymous said...

LG,
You should have your gynecologist clean out that crusty, dried up old semen; it may give you colon cancer.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Anonymous,
One dark night yo' alcoholic pappy got yo mama's holes mixed up, and you are the unfortunate result that she birthed a few days later.
-LG

Anonymous said...

LG,
Your weak chin, weak mind, bad teeth, wretched cum breath and exceptionally wide effeminate hips are the unfortunate characteristics of the English male due to the age-old English custom of consanguinity, thereby causing irreparable damage to an already deficient gene pool (This is why it's usually not a good idea to live all cooped up on the same tiny island century after century); so, in order to alleviate said condition, you should put your money where your mouth is by implementing your own philosophy of eugenics and depopulation by hanging yourself from the nearest lamp post; after all, you are quite close to death anyway, being 60+ years in age. You're a "swinger", right?. You know you want to do it. To honor the ocassion, I'll even eat a bagel with cream cheese just for you.

P.S. What English whore would name her bastard son, 'Lemuel' anyway? 'Glory Hole' Gulliver sounds much better for ya, little fella.

Yours in Gaia,
Brahma or whatever discombobulated Eastern belief system happens to float your boat at any given moment.

William N. Grigg said...

Although we're not about to run out of either bandwidth or insults, is this something we want to pursue much further?

I present that question by way of oblique suggestion.

apollonian said...

INDUCTION Evermore Works Against Jews--Truth, A Stubborn Thing, Indeed
(Apollonian, 12 Feb 10)

"Anon" at 7:13 am: u pretend to parodize Apollonian dialectic, logic, references, and evidence, but u fail to address genuine argument made, then the conclusion against Jews, conspiratorial leaders and masterminds of world organized crime beginning with their COUNTERFEIT conspiracy of fractional-reserve money and banking at the top.

Practical COUNTERFEIT conspiracy (see RealityZone.com and TheMoneyMasters.com for expo/ref.) underlying all world organized crime then is only predicated in abstract by Talmudic subjectivism and hubris, founding Jew lies (vs. Christian TRUTH of Gosp. JOHN) and moralism-Pharisaism founded upon fallacious and hubristic perfect "free" will delusion/fallacy/heresy.

Jews are Talmudic, collectivist masters of lies, thus necessarily conspiratorial masterminds among the vast crowd of criminal gentiles who tend to be anti-social, narcissistic, and socio-pathic, hence isolated and relatively easy to dominate--despite fact that yes, otherwise the criminal population is overwhelmingly gentile. But like communist party, Jews are always the leaders, masterminds, controlling the organization thereto.

And note that mighty Apollonian method is simply obligatory scientific INDUCTION: (a) review of all the facts, (b) concluding upon the most likely suspects who are always Jews and closest gentile collaborators (gentiles, always isolated fm fellow gentiles, always taking instructions fm Jews), (c) these most likely (Jews) then required to explain how they're NOT to be indicted and convicted (d) which they NEVER can do but to invoking "moralism"-Pharisaism and Pelagian heresy, telling us it's "anti-semitic" to suspect them, and we're therefore not allowed to suspect Jews--(e) which then actually just CONFIRMS the case against Jews.

And again, note the inductive evidence is actually OVER-WHELMING against Jews, Jews the money-masters, Jews making up astounding percentage of top billionaires, any associated gentiles ALWAYS closely cooperating w. Jews. Observe the simple fact the world's dominant monetary system is the FRAUDULENT fractional-reserve system which then necessarily is run by topmost criminals, hence Talmudists.

Observe further, sources of funding for establishment Democrats is 65% Jew, likewise at least 35% for Republicans, according to James Petras. All the homosexual (psychotically obsessed hedonists and sensualists) organizations are led by Jews. Again and again, note the OVERWHELMING INDUCTIVE EVIDENCE for necessary anti-semitic conclusion--which Jews cannot gainsay, only invoking moralism-Pharisaism.

CONCLUSION: Thus u, "anon," are left with ur desperate, but empty nonetheless, parody for a pretended argument defending Jews. And again, ur empty argument is simply MORE inductive evidence which merely FURTHER works to indict the Jews all the more heavily and intensively. Honest elections and death to the Fed. Apollonian

JOR said...

Among other things, McManus apparently has not a damned clue at all what moral relativism is.

Moral relativism is not a feature of homosexuality, or approval of homosexuality, or "the homosexual lifestyle", whatever that's imagined to be. Saying, "homosexuality is not immoral" does not imply moral relativism by any stretch of the imagination, whatever else is true of that statement. "Moral relativism" is not "whatever disagrees with my (Biblical/Christian/patriarchal/traditional/republican/conservative*) moral beliefs". Moral relativism is the belief that all facts about the morality of an action reduce to approval or disapproval by the agent, or by the observer, or by society, or (I would argue) by a deity.

For that matter, just what would it mean for homosexual soldiers or whatever to believe that military orders are "relative"? Certainly it doesn't mean that whether one received some particular order to do some particular thing is subjective. I guess the precise way to express the idea that McManus is rather pathetically failing to frame is that military orders might be seen as not (necessarily) morally binding, or something like that. But again, that's not moral relativism, or anything like moral relativism.

*This grouping is not intended to be polemical. The moral belief paradigms listed are all distinct, sometimes overlapping and sometimes deeply mutually hostile, sets of moral beliefs and cultural traditions. One of their unfortunate overlaps is in the production of inane commentators who think that rejecting some taboo or moral goal that they think (correctly or incorrectly) is right and important constitutes "moral relativism".