And here we go again with the draft talk…

Restarting the military draft after more than four decades of an ­all-volunteer force would be complicated.

But it could be done.

One plan calls for young conscripts to have a choice: two years on active duty or six years in the reserves.

Either way, they’d first have to ­undergo basic training and job training.

If draftees want to go to college first, they must participate in a Reserve Officer Training Corps program and then serve.

If they fail or quit ROTC, they must then enlist.

Whichever option they choose, their obligation is fulfilled with a single combat deployment.

Those are some of the details ­proposed by retired Army Maj. Gen. Dennis Laich, one of the nation’s most aggressive advocates of abandoning the all-volunteer force in favor of a return to the draft.

…

He and others believe that current wars have stretched the military to its breaking point. More than a decade’s worth of bonuses and expanding benefits has brought personnel funding to its limits. Civilians are more disconnected from the military than at any time in history.

— Bringing back the draft By: Todd South  

And so it goes again

draft nonsense and a smear about military benefits.

Some “f-you I got mine” retired officer moans about civility and somehow a draft will make the military ready and “give the young civic duty[TM]”.

“Social responsibility above the level of family, or at most of tribe, requires imagination– devotion, loyalty, all the higher virtues — which a man must develop himself; if he has them forced down him, he will vomit them out.”

― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

As this article points out, it’s getting harder to find young men who are fit and legally able to serve.

Here are the thoughts of real active duty soldiers, the takeaway from this reddit thread? Old farts disconnected from reality should stick to the early bird special.

Society has moved on.

History has moved on.

And the bad idea of the Century Award goes to….

Instapundit links

Chris Hughes, the owner of The New Republic, said on Friday that he had sold the magazine to Win McCormack, a publisher and editor based in New York and Portland, Ore., who founded the literary quarterly Tin House.

Mr. McCormack will appoint Hamilton Fish, the publisher of The Washington Spectator and a former publisher of The Nation, to be publisher and editorial director, The New Republic said.

— The New Republic Is Sold, RAVI SOMAIYAFEB. 26, 2016, NYT.COM

This was the magazine the published Scott Thomas’ fake articles and faker Stephen Glass and sockpuppeter Lee Siegel.

And someone bought this crap?

A fool and other people’s money I guess.

Poetic justice give the damage this rag did, I’m just sorry it’s taking good money instead of going under.

And the band played on….

Shot:

Yet as troubling as that may be, the sixties were in many ways the Boomers’ finest moment. It was at least a fad then to pretend to care about racial justice at home and war abroad, to speak out against pollution and prejudice. But it was mostly just talk. As they came of age, and as idealism might have required some real sacrifice, idealism suddenly became unfashionable.
— The Worst Generation, Or, how I learned to stop worrying and hate the Boomers
By Paul Begala

Chaser:

TO some, millennials — those urban-dwelling, ride-sharing indefatigable social networkers — are engaged, upbeat and open to change. To others, they are narcissistic, lazy and self-centered.

I’m in the first camp, but regardless of your opinion, be fretful over their economic well-being and fearful — oh so fearful — for their prospects. The most educated generation in history is on track to becoming less prosperous, at least financially, than its predecessors.

They are faced with a slow economy, high unemployment, stagnant wages and student loans that constrict their ability both to maintain a reasonable lifestyle and to save for the future.

Longer term, rising federal debt payments and increased spending on Social Security and Medicare will inflict a tremendous financial burden on them, threatening their own prospect of receiving promised retirement benefits.

To a considerable extent, that’s the fault of my generation, the baby boomers. We were the children of the Greatest Generation, but we may also be the most irresponsible generation.

—We’re to blame for the millennials being such a bunch of jerks, Steven Rattner, NYT.com.

As ye sow, so shall ye reap….

Margaret Sanger and the KKK

Wikipeida:

Margaret Higgins Sanger (September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966) was an American birth control activist, sex educator, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term birth control, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established organizations that evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Sanger’s efforts contributed to several judicial cases that helped legalize contraception in the United States. Sanger is a frequent target of criticism by opponents of birth control and has also been criticized for supporting eugenics, but remains an iconic figure in the American reproductive rights movement

And now:

As liberals excoriate Republican Congressman Steve Scalise for speaking to a group with a reported connection to David Duke, former KKK member, I’m reminded today—on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade—of a moment that liberals will never dare acknowledge: a 1926 speech to the KKK by one of their most revered ideological darlings, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger.
—Reflections on Roe: When Margaret Sanger Spoke to the KKK

And here is the Wikiquote:

Always to me any aroused group was a good group, and therefore I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan at Silver Lake, New Jersey, one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing. […] Never before had I looked into a sea of faces like these. I was sure that if I uttered one word, such as abortion, outside the usual vocabulary of these women they would go off into hysteria. And so my address that night had to be in the most elementary terms, as though I were trying to make children understand.

In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered. The conversation went on and on, and when we were finally through it was too late to return to New York.

Chapter 29, “While the Doctors Consult”, p. 366. Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography (1938)

And this is the woman who founded Planned Parenthood. She was a racist and a vile human being. Yet she’s lauded by the wackos in the left and the media who believe that the Earth is in a “population crisis”. Like the KKK, she targets the handicapped and minorities.

And yet Planned Parenthood gets taxpayer money.

And Salon Jumps the Shark

A WTF from Salon.com as they exceed their own parody:

Put a man in uniform, preferably a white man, give him a gun, and Americans will worship him. It is a particularly childish trait, of a childlike culture, that insists on anointing all active military members and police officers as “heroes.” The rhetorical sloppiness and intellectual shallowness of affixing such a reverent label to everyone in the military or law enforcement betrays a frightening cultural streak of nationalism, chauvinism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism, but it also makes honest and serious conversations necessary for the maintenance and enhancement of a fragile democracy nearly impossible.
— David Masciotra, quotes at This Ain’t Hell.

Yeah, douchenugget, it’s not the uniform that makes folks worthy of respect and a measure of adulation, it’s what the uniform says about the person wearing it and their commitment to the ideals that they are defending. Anyone can buy a uniform and put it on – our Stolen Valor page is chocked full of people who do that. Those spazwads do it because the uniformed services are the last government institutions which accomplish that for which they were created.
— Jonn Lilyea’s response.

Of course the left hates the military. After Vietnam, many leftists seethed. They almost got what they wanted. From the 70’s to the early 90’s the psycho veteran and military conspiracy was a stock trope of Hollywood movies. Phrases like “permanent war economy” and “military industrial complex” were twisted into knots until the men and women of the armed forces were seen as villains.

But there was always a group of people who did the right thing. From Welcome Home parties for Vietnam vets, service organizations that helped military families and those who say “thank you for your service.”

On my blog I have many former soldiers leaving comments about their time in the Army. They don’t talk about the garbage David Masciotra spews. Their comments are fond memories of their time in green.

David Masciotra, I don’t see your panty waist helping military families who’ve lost a loved one. No leftie has ever said “welcome home” nor have they tired to offer job placement for returning vets. Ditto their never helping police families or crime victims.

Nope, they love the stolen valor losers, posers and pot smoking hippies rail about the poor and imperialism. They praise murderers, dictators, criminals and hold signs that support terrorism.

David Masciotra does not support or help anyone but himself. Better men and women have died to protect his right to be a jerkass, for that at least he should be thankful.

A look at the left and it’s efforts to criminalize dissent…

Remember when  dissent was patriotic?  Good times:

The Ohio Inquisition, and the Minnesota Inquisition, and Harry Reid’s war on the First Amendment are hardly isolated episodes. Consider that the same Texas prosecutor that has indicted Governor Rick Perry on two felony counts for the so-called crime of exercising his constitutional authority to veto a bill — a bill providing funds to that prosecutor’s office — is now preparing to indict University of Texas regent and whistleblower Wallace Hall, on charges of . . . hmm.
— Democrats’ Push to Criminalize Dissent NRO.com

“For the past half decade, those cliques focused on “social justice” have been insulting, smearing and misrepresenting individuals or groups they decided represent “the other”. Because they received little or no push-back, they wrongly believed they represented the majority opinion on a given issue.”
—#GamerGate–the free ride is over,littletinyfrogs.com

I LOVE THE SPREAD OF THE TERM “SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR” TO DESCRIBE THE NEVER-SATISFIED LEFTY ACTIVISTS WHO TRY TO TAKE OVER EVERYTHING, Instapundit.

And so it came to past that the left has jumed the shark. The same tired old rhetoric and memes ain’t selling anymore. Zoe Quinn (a.k.a. Chelsea Van Valkenburg) slept her way to the top, tried to cover it up and then had her white knight dorkpire attempt to talk about her “harassment”.

R.S. McCain has more at his blog. And how sadly most Gaming websites all fell in lockstep, censoring discussion of their ading and abetting a fame whore in the name of “feminism”. All while Miss Van Valkenburg is trying to get her nude pr0n work censored away because of reasons.

This has been like those glasses in”They Live“: Accuse the accuser, pick a target and personalize it. Call people names and throw bombs. Lie, cheat and change the topic of discussion. Remember Bill Clinton? He gutting the military, missed Bin Laden and lied under oath. But to hear the lefties, it was all about the oval sex in the oral office. -_-

The left never changes. Will the twenty-somethings of today wake up?

High on Koch…

“If the goal is to “stir up the base” with a targeted message to a narrow, liberal audience in order to bring in fundraising dollars, that’s one thing. But Reid’s speech on the Senate floor suggests a broader Democratic strategy to run on a message focused on the Koch brothers, two wealthy men most whom voters have never heard of and probably could care less about.”
—The Democrats’ Dumb Koch Strategy, The Daily Beast.com

---

“Of course it is a dumb strategy, but you underestimate how dumb the democrat constituency is. They’ll regurgitate anything the DNC puts out. Bunch of mindless drones.”
—Murphy9 on March 6, 2014 at 7:23 PM, comment at HotAir.com

It’s an Alinsky rule: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

So the left picked two billionare brothers (creepy twins in their thinking) so that they can turn out the crazies, the stoners, the college kids, the puppet heads and the MSNBC pundits.

The Koch brothers bought the government!

They spend, spend spend!

In reality the big labor unions and silicon valley spend much, much more.

But stay classy lefites! I’m sure the unemployed and those with out health insurance will care about two brothers most haven’t heard about.

The Bigger the Government…

..the smaller the people.

Armies

“This isn’t 1940. Moreover, as an instrument of coercion, that smaller army would be more lethal than the much larger one that helped defeat Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. Given a choice between a few hundred of today’s Abrams tanks and a few thousand vintage Shermans, Gen. George Patton would not hesitate to choose the former.”
—

Do we really need a large Army?By Andrew J. Bacevich, Washington Post.

This is the same paper that whitewashes the drone strikes. George Bush would never have been given an article titled “5 myths of the Iraq war”.

And yet the “argument” for cutting the military persists.
This Ain’t Hell skewers Tom Rick’s argument for “going to a cadre-like military, with only two Army divisions kept at high readiness”.

The left believes that troops are stupid. Just draft the bodies you need, buy the tanks, trucks and planes and then send them off to war. Lefties won’t go of course, the draft dogers of the 60’s became to leaders of today.

No they want to cut to the bone and keep cutting. there is talk of a new round of BRAC. Closing MORE bases, gutting civilian towns, eroding the defense industrial base. All for more spending on “domestic programs”.

Once the troops leave, their expertise is gone forever. You can’t draft leadership, tribal knowledge or hours in the cockpit.

“In the meantime, the world, from East Asia to the Middle East, is “unsettled” and becoming ever more so. Does anyone doubt that the decision in Washington to slash its defenses has been fully noted in Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Tehran, and North Waziristan? Like Jeremiah, we say judgment is inevitable. Unless the present course is reversed, the wages of weakness will be paid in increased instability, crises, and ultimately conflicts that might well have been avoided.”
—
“Deeply Unsettling“, Gary Schmitt and Thomas Donnelly, WeeklyStandard.com

It’s 1938 all over again.

UPDATE: Told you so…

College isn’t for everyone

Instapundit and now the Daily Princetonian say:

It’s time for a large number of Americans to hear what might seem like a harsh message: A degree from a four-year university might not be for you. Popular culture would cast this frank assessment as elitist. But that’s a toxic myth that needs to vanish because the stakes are too high. A new study by Young Invincibles, a think tank geared toward issues facing young Americans, estimates that high youth unemployment costs the government about $25 billion in lost tax revenue. All the while, there are three million jobs that employers can’t fill because too many workers lack the requisite skills.

Others have made this observation. Tuition rises because more are going to college. Student loans are given to young people to study “humanities”. Mostly fluff courses and liberal b.s.

All together the US produces many people with worthless degrees. Many jobs can’t be filled because Moma’s special little snowflake won’t take a vocational job. Mike Rowe was first to notice this and is now “uncool”. Wal-mart, Target, other local shops that cater to the middle class and the poor are pilloried in the media.

Income “inequality” is the left’s answer. Like global warming, it’s just Marxism with a fresh coat of paint. The Occupy “movement” didn’t succeed because it was all envy and hate not answers.

We need jobs not class warfare.

Expect the left to whine and cry as their recruitment dries up.