I know that every one of you readers are patriots who love this nation and understand the sacrifices that help make it great.
Here at the No One house, we remember all the fallen on Memorial Day. Yet, there is one we remember and miss every day. I keep the really personal stuff under wraps most of the time, but Robert was an extraordinary fellow and worth sharing. We were so blessed to have him in our lives for a time.
The Marine Corps was his true calling; above all else he wanted to serve his country. A few years before 9/11 (back when we were young and gonna live forever), he introduced both my husband:
Short Timer has been kind enough to elaborate on the issue, and it’s worth sharing. Beyond the basic question of “is she physically strong enough,” he details a few other reasons why women-as-combatants are problematic even if the answer is yes, she is physically strong enough:
Chivalry is an innate male behavior which cannot be entirely eradicated, and it will interfere with mission accomplishment.
Mixing young and healthy men and women together in will inevitably cause, um, distractions, and interfere with mission accomplishment (I discussed this issue regarding Navy ships here).
Accommodating the personal, private, and hygienic needs of men and women in a confined and dangerous space is logistically difficult, and makes mission accomplishment more difficult.
Even more important than all of that, Short Timer says that the Marines will use something called “gender neutral” tests, and that quotas will be imposed. In other words, the Marines will simply lower the standards for both men and women, and require the Infantry School to pass at least “x” number of women.
“. . . there is a plan to evaluate male and female Marines against new physical fitness standards that are being developed.”
New physical fitness standards for both men and women are being developed. Tricky.
Important, too, are the quotas Short Timer mentioned. My own quick Google search does not unearth anything about quotas, i.e., requiring a military school to pass a certain number of females.
However. I specifically remember an old friend complaining about “the quota” when he was an instructor at Officer Candidate School. The requirement that at least 7% of the graduating class be female was a real source of frustration. It was hard to find that many female candidates worth their salt. (I think he said it was 7%. Wish I could ask him now.)
So, thanks for the additional info, Short Timer. And thanks for your service in God’s own Corps.
I’m adding another fellow to my hero list. You may have run into this video, in which a Wall Street Occupier explains how great things are in North Korea. I thought it had gone more viral, but it’s only at 38-thousand-and-change as of today.
Thanks to Judge Napolitano, we learn that the videographer is Vladimir Jaffe: Russian-born American, small businessman, and Tea Partier. The combination of a Russian accent with the swift exposure of his subjects’ ignorance gives Jaffe’s videos an amusing Borat vibe.
Mr. Jaffe has been steadily uploading new clips for several months, and I have enjoyed following him on his journey to educate the lost leftists of New York City. Some clips are on the long side, so I’ve culled and annotated a few of my favorites for your expedited viewing pleasure.
Skip right to 2:00 in the next video. Two young leftists inform Mr. Jaffe that Cuba has the highest standard of living for all the nations in the Caribbean. “That I’ve heard,” the young lady adds as a bit of an escape clause.
Then, at 3:00, the young lady declares with a straight face that a doctor should not necessarily be paid more than a street sweeper if that doctor’s education was free (I have to assume she means free to him–somebody has to pay for that education). A person’s hard work, time, dedication, brains and talent mean nothing, apparently.
At about 9:20, the young lady says well, I don’t defend the system that existed in the USSR, so Jaffe asks, then why is the hammer and sickle on this table then?
On to the next clip. Start about :50, when an old commie guy defends Trotsky. Then at 2:05 he claims that Lenin’s revolution was bloodless. (Note to all you Occupiers out there: don’t try to school a Russian on Russian history, it makes you look really dumb.)
He tries to blame first Stalin, and then the isolation of Russia for the failings of that particular glorious revolution. Then, at 4:25 he is forced to fold: “Alright, well, you are welcome to read through the books that we have . . . .” Just leave me alone, you horrible man with your facts and your logic.
Mr. Jaffe presses: “You are promoting all of this. It’s my country you want to change.” At 5:34, he asks Old Commie Guy for an example of a successful socialist country.
Cuba.
Old Commie admits that he couldn’t set up a table and promote capitalism if he were in Cuba. Yet, he refuses to back down. Having revealed his totalitarian core, he walks away. What more is there to say?
A pattern emerges in these video clips: through language or imagery the subjects associate themselves with the likes of Stalin, Lenin, Che, Castro, until they are called out by an actual victim of one such regime. Then, they distance themselves. They claim that “wasn’t really communism/socialism.” They insist that they are in the vanguard of a new system.
I have to applaud Mr. Jaffe for his patience. Unlike Borat, he never descends into simple mockery. He is actually reaching out to these maddeningly misinformed malcontents. The folks above remain unmoved, undeterred. In other clips, however, he may actually be making a lasting impression. Watch as this poor fellow runs out of talking points. Skip to 4:00 for the best part:
The awkwardness is palpable as the interviewed fellow admits “he doesn’t know which companies we invest in.” Mr. Jaffe points out, well, since you are sitting at this table as a representative, I assume you are familiar. He presses the young man on the question of what is so wrong with coal, and the man folds completely. He lamely refers Mr. Jaffe to the “research department” in a brochure and gives up on the conversation.
The next video clip is the longest, because the subject interviewed is actually willing to listen. Skip to 7:50, where the young man makes an outlandish claim about Israel. Mr. Jaffe then leads him by the proverbial hand down a path of logic and history. Watching his discomfort as he tries to wiggle off this path is both comical and gratifying. Because he can’t. He can’t escape the logic.
“I think there’s a lot of sh** behind that, that we have no idea about,” he mutters lamely at 12:09, but Mr. Jaffe rolls his eyes. “Why are you rolling your eyes at me?” he says reproachfully. Look, Mr. Jaffe says, these are simple facts. If you don’t believe the facts, then I don’t know what to else to say.
The last clip is short and sweet. A representative of the Freedom Socialist Party dives into a helpful explanation of socialism, until Mr. Jaffe asks her whether Che was a socialist.
Immediately uncomfortable, she refuses to answer. At 1:50 he asks, how are you going to make socialism different now? “Russia and the movements in the past also lacked international support,” she offers. Jaffe runs through a long list of countries with which Russia had relations, both the friendly and the forced, and asked her to help him understand why socialism didn’t work in those places, but will work here.
“I’m sorry, are you filming this? I would prefer that you didn’t.”
Yep.
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed these videos. Aside from the amusement factor, they serve as an important lesson for me: go ahead. Call them out. It feels like a waste of time, but it isn’t.
What would happen if we all got out and pressed the loudest propagators of Leftist Lunacy? As Mr. Jaffe demonstrates, they quickly run out of words. If leftists were confronted by an Army of Jaffes and Breitbarts and other assorted Davids every time they stood up to bleat something stupid, how many of them would finally, and at long last, shut up?
Hmm. I think I’m off to Facebook to see if I can pick a fight.
Some pretty shameless self-aggrandizement in that ad, huh?
Now. To cleanse your palate, I want to share an example of a real hero. His name is Bob Baird:
“[Baird's] description of the Dust Off pilot’s job and when he was wounded was matter-of-fact.
However, it was anything but, said Cheryl Fries . . . .
During Baird’s first tour, he was part of an extraordinary mission that saved almost 1 million lives . . . . As a Dust Off pilot, Baird flew unarmed medical-rescue helicopters into the bullets, through the night, and in all kinds of weather to save lives. He and his fellow Dust Off veterans put their own lives at risk every day to save others, including American troops, civilians and even, at times, the enemy, she said.
From May 1962 to March 1973, 496,573 Dust Off missions were flown and 900,000 casualties were airlifted. If not for the use of MEDEVAC helicopters, historians believe that U.S. killed-in-action rates in Vietnam might have exceeded those of World War II . . .
‘Bob, like most Dust Off veterans, is both humble about and reluctant to share his war experience. To a man, they are quick to tell you that the Vietnam War heroes’ names are engraved on The Wall in Washington, D.C. And yet, the heroes of Dust Off — those killed in action — and those who survived are heroes by every definition of the word. Their intrepid courage and unhesitating commitment to face death in order that another might live not only saved thousands of people, but revolutionized battlefield medicine and came home to transform domestic trauma care,’ Fries said.”
I love you, Bob. Thank you for your service, your sacrifices, and your bravery. You’ve earned that spot in the Ohio Military Hall of Fame, and I am truly blessed to have you in my life, and in the lives of my boys.
UPDATE: Here’s the write up of the conduct that earned Bob Baird his Distinguished Flying Cross. An excerpt:
“Braving murderous fire, Mister Baird flew into the compound and landed. Bullets struck all around his ship, and the intensity of the fire increased. Ignoring his welfare, he remained on the ground until his ship was loaded to capacity. Then, skillfully operating the controls, he took off amid a furious enemy barrage and flew the patients to safety. Twice more during the day, he returned through the insurgent’s fusillade to evacuate casualties . . . .”
Vicarious grief is not my thing. Grief is very personal, and reserved for those you knew, loved, and lost.
And I didn’t know Andrew Breitbart.
Still, though, I have fought tears all day. He was one of my heroes. I don’t have many. I’m late to this whole conservative blogosphere party, but I understand and appreciate the fact that this “party” would not exist without certain key outliers. Rush Limbaugh, Neil Boortz, Matt Drudge, Glenn Reynolds, and Andrew Breitbart are prime examples.
I dunno if you’ve noticed, but my tagline is “just one voice from the rabble.”
This tagline is meant to emphasize the smallness of my voice. Insignificant. No one of any import.
Well. As a typical average nobody, can I just say? It’s awesome when a bigger voice speaks for you. And that’s what Andrew Breitbart did. When nobody-ol’-me attended the Code Red anti-Obamacare rally, and promptly got accused of terrible racism, what good would my little tiny voice have done?
Andrew Breitbart helped us to feel comfortable with calling out the lie. Most of us have a hard time even believing that folks want to lie about our beliefs and motives. Many of us want to help “The Left” to understand us. We want to assume the best from people. Maybe they misheard. Maybe they misunderstood.
Andrew Breitbart helped us to remember that many people don’t mishear or misunderstand. They hate us. They do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. They do not deserve respect.
So yeah. Go ahead and point out the fact that Andrew Breitbart disrespected the memory of Ted Kennedy. Cry me a river. But don’t expect me to swim in it. Ted Kennedy was a bad actor, and the best one can say is that he was reckless, not premeditated in the death of Mary Jo.
Does Andrew Breitbart have a Chappaquiddick in his past? Duh, no.
He does, however, leave a grieving widow and four children behind. I pray that they find comfort and healing in the upcoming days, months, and years of grieving.
A common theme heard in the No One household, as you can imagine, is how unbelievably, mind-bogglingly and stupendously spoiled some of “The 99%” sound when compared to the 1% who serve in the military.
The folks at that website, www.rangerup.com, included an anonymous essay that will knock your socks off. I hope they don’t mind if I paste a large chunk here:
“I remember the day I found out I got into West Point.
My mom actually showed up in the hallway of my high school and waited for me to get out of class. She was bawling her eyes out and apologizing that she had opened up my admission letter. She wasn’t crying because it had been her dream for me to go there. She was crying because she knew how hard I’d worked to get in, how much I wanted to attend, and how much I wanted to be an infantry officer. I was going to get that opportunity.
That same day two of my teachers took me aside and essentially told me the following: ‘Nick, you’re a smart guy. You don’t have to join the military. You should go to college, instead.’
I could easily write a tome defending West Pont and the military as I did that day, explaining that USMA is an elite institution, that separate from that it is actually statistically much harder to enlist in the military than it is to get admitted to college, that serving the nation is a challenge that all able-bodied men should at least consider for a host of reasons, but I won’t.
What I will say is that when a 16 year-old kid is being told that attending West Point is going to be bad for his future then there is a dangerous disconnect in America, and entirely too many Americans have no idea what kind of burdens our military is bearing.”
The essay continues at length, so go read it. And buy a shirt! Looks like your ol’ blog bud Linda has just figured out half your Christmas shopping for you.
You’re welcome.
Oh, and read about the three guys behind Ranger Up–pretty awesome. Internet searches did not reveal a prior source for the .45% essay. Perhaps one of the three guys is the ‘Nick’ featured in it.
Oh, the internet searches did reveal that at least three other bloggers beat me to the punch, and they deserve a visit too, if’n you’ve got the time:
A Soldier’s Perspective, where blogger CJ speaks truth to power: “You know, I get fed up with the Occupy Wall Street idiots. I’ve been going around and around with some of them on Twitter and am convinced that this has nothing to do with corporate greed and everything to do with individual greed.”
CJ is kindly and patiently suffering a fool in the comment section. Anybody up for a game of whack-a-troll?
Eric at Threedonia will be proudly annoying liberal coworkers with this t-shirt on casual Fridays. Ha.
Via The Conservative Pup, I’d like to introduce you to Ms. Homeless and Conservative, the blogger On The Outside Looking In. She is employed and seeking better employment, so she is understandably anonymous.
We all know, of course, that a blogger may not be what he or she seems. Shoot, if my posts have given the impression that I’m a pleasant person, well there’s some serious misrepresentation right there. I’m a major pain in the you-know-what, and I can be more disagreeable than a plague of locusts riding in on a half-mile-wide tornado.
So, you know, a grain of salt and all that, since I’ve never actually met this person.
Just A Conservative Girl has met her, though, and that’s where the story gets interesting. You see, Ms. Homeless and Conservative only posted six times in April and May, and her experiences were becoming too depressing to keep blogging about them. Then, in late June, Just A Conservative Girl just happened to see Ms. HAC outside the Lincoln Memorial, holding a “homeless please help” sign.
JAGC didn’t just see her and glance away awkwardly. She saw her. She noticed the girl was reading Atlas Shrugged. She noticed the girl looked familiar. She recognized her from Tea Party functions, even though they had never previously spoken. So, she walked right up to meet her.
Both women blogged about this meeting, and reading each side’s separate account is nothing short of amazing.
JACG: “When she saw someone coming with children . . . she moved her sign. I went and asked her why she did that and she told me that she realized that children don’t always understand the very real reasons why adults are hesitant to give money to strangers. . . . I asked if drugs were the reason she was here. She explained it was simply a recession issue for her. She lost her job three years ago . . .”
Ms. HAC: “I have been gone a while now. I was feeling very depressed and basically useless. . . . the last thing I wanted to do was write about it. But, I got myself out of the funk . . . . I do have a job interview later this week. . . . I am trying to prepare myself for that and stay positive.
Also I met this lady yesterday. She said that she has seen me before from some of the meetings I have been going to lately. I didn’t really know who she was . . . . Apparently she is really politically active. She doesn’t seem to be afraid of much either. She came right up to me and introduced herself. She had a kid with her and it totally freaked me out. I try to stay away from people with kids . . . parents feel bad about being weary.”
JAGC: “I asked her what her most immediate need was . . . she told me she needed to do laundry. . . . I went with her and picked up her laundry. I brought it back clean a few hours later . . . . I also stopped and got her a hot meal from Whole Foods.”
Ms. HAC: “She helped find me a temp job, gave me some food, washed my clothes, and brought me a hot meal. . . . I have not had a meal like that in a really long time. She found me again today and brought her pastor . . . . They told me that I could work at their church for three weeks . . . . I will have to take time off from my other job, but . . . I will still be able to work on the weekends which is when most of the sales happen anyway.
This has gone a long way to help keep me positive. There are moments I feel like I am drowning and can no longer see land.”
“But, tell me how I am not supposed to be discouraged when only 18,000 jobs were created across the entire country?
. . . Does this stupid man not think that the people who notice [me] asleep in my car don’t ask themselves if this could happen to them if they lost their job tomorrow? It isn’t just about the 9.1% of the unemployed (and we all know that number is higher) . . .
People can’t afford to go on vacation. When the vacation spots are not filled up the people who depend on the income become closer to being me. When people don’t go out to eat as often, the waitstaff become closer to being me. When people don’t go to the movie theatre, fewer people have a part time job opportunity to help them put something in the bank for a rainy day.
If this president and his staff don’t think that this number matters, then they certainly don’t deserve to be re-elected.”
Clearly, she absorbed the lessons of Atlas Shrugged.
If you want to learn more about Ms. HAC’s circumstances, this post provides background. Amazingly, this homeless gal owns a small condo. If you’ve been out of work for three years, how can you keep up the mortgage payments? By renting it out, and living out of your car.
Sheesh. This fact says a whole lot about Ms. HAC’s character, in my humble opinion. She’s planning to climb out of this hole. She’s willing to suffer homelessness in the short-term, rather than lose her only valuable asset by selling upside-down in a terrible market. Lady, you are hardcore.
JAGC has follow-up posts worth reading, too.
Here: “One of my neighbors read about her on my blog (who knew she read it, she is one of those dreaded democrats). She had yard work . . . . She hired her to get it accomplished. She showed up on time and did the work, and did a fine job I may add. I believe my instincts about this young woman are correct. She is down and out, not some lazy person looking for someone else to pick up the tab.”
And this post is infuriating: “One of my neighbors . . . really didn’t want to talk so much as to lecture me. I was told what a great disservice I am doing this ‘poor little waif’ by not encouraging her to get help from the people who can really help her; the government.”
Read the whole thing, and leave a comment because apparently that neighbor reads JAGC’s blog. The most infuriating part is how the neighbor appears willing to lecture when she does not have all the facts. I have a better understanding of the situation, and I’ve met none of them. (Ah, but I read all their posts. Reading is educational!)
JAGC boldly inserts herself into a stranger’s life in order to help, and the neighbor lectures? Unbelievable.
As usual, I am not the first to stumble onto this story. Zilla, Quite Rightly, Pundette, and The Conservative Pup are already followers. I sure hope the best for Ms. HAC, and will add her to my prayers.
She has the same Paypal Donate button that most bloggers do, if you are able and inclined . . .
Maher: “What do you think the right-wing would do if he [Obama] grew that ‘fro again?”
Breitbart: “Would you be willing to do a poll, where you put the Herman Cain/Allen West candidacy, and poll it to America, and especially the Tea Party. They would go nuts for that. So the idea that somehow you are framing Tea Party or Republicans as racist is outrageous.”
Maher: “Okay. Okay. That’s what I do. I’m outrageous. Lemme go on to a different subject . . .”
Yep, move it right along Officer Barbrady:
Folks like Maher know the racism charge is a lie.
Sadly, many everyday folks believe the lies they are fed. I’ve seen in first hand, at protests and at a “Coffee Party” meeting.
Initially, I felt a pure, seething, white-hot outrage at being called “racist.” Such a nasty insult. After awhile, though, the insult lost its sting. It became silly, so I almost forget it was a primary motivation for this blog.
It makes me sad, to revisit this subject. Having to disprove an unsubstantiated charge is most unjust. Probably pointless, too. Here’s the video if you got time to kill:
“the economy’s not a class you can master in college
to think otherwise is the pretense of knowledge.”
Word.
Brings me back to undergrad. I earned my business degree with an emphasis in economics. By the time I reached senior level courses, none of it made any sense. My professors would rattle off premises and formulas and act as though it all made perfect sense, but it sounded more like the chanting of magic spells.
I memorized what I had to, regurgitated it and promptly forgot everything but the accent with which the Cambodian professor said, “International zeh-Bahnk,” by which she meant the IMF.
Funny to look back on it now. I chose economics because of my freshman level macro-economics class, which was taught by a nice young non-Keynesian who I would never see again. The introduction of that simple supply and demand chart made a profound impression. The idea that price served a function, that it was not arbitrarily set–revelation! That macro-econ class thrilled me somehow (yes that’s why I’m a nerd), and I didn’t find that kind of thrill again until I read The Road to Serfdom almost twenty years later, on Instapundit’s recommendation.
The realization that I have this econ degree and yet had never even heard of Hayek–well that was a revelation too, just not a good one. Still angers me to think about what a complete waste of time all those classes were. Oh well, at least I didn’t major in Women’s Studies.
Rush Limbaugh introduced me to politics at roughly the same time as my econ 101 class. 1990? (I’m really bad with dates, just ask hubs about the date inscribed in his wedding band). I worked at a sporting goods store, and the fellow in charge of inventory would listen to Rush in the warehouse. Next thing I know, I’m lingering in the back to listen when I should be helping the customers out front.
At the time I didn’t even realize economics and politics were related. I also didn’t realize the philosophical influence of my favorite Heinlein books.
It just takes awhile for a thick girl like me to put the pieces together, that’s all.
Sometimes I wonder, though, what it’s like to have been a “liberal” in the past and then convert to conservatism. Perhaps my lack of conversion is the reason it’s hard for me to accept the fact that so many people embrace the irrationality, lunacy, and evil of Collectivist Thought.
Whew, enough rambling. I’ve strayed far from the reason of my post, to share the latest Keynes v. Hayek rap:
The EconStories website is here, via Instapundit of course.
For any of you who actually missed the first one:
And if you are a nerd like me, maybe that’s not enough. Hear from the creators of this unlikely rap duo here:
Well, I guess he was always John Hayward. I first got to know him as Doctor Zero, though. I probably stumbled on his posts via Instapundit. I’m not sure anymore. All I know is, he is one talented writer.
“It’s not surprising that command economies are weak. Business is a thing to be pursued and won. Control is a thing to be feared and avoided. A pile of stimulus dollars, dangled on the end of a string, is not a revenue stream. . . . Prosperity is about careers, not paychecks. It flows from the development of opportunities, not the collection of rewards. What few opportunities the government can truly create depend on the continued exercise of power to maintain. Redistribution is inherently destructive, for it relies on the use of compulsive force… and that force itself consumes a sizable chunk of the wealth it redistributes. All those bureaucrats have got to be paid, and these days, they are paid very well indeed.
Economic strength comes from innovation, which is produced by intense pressure. Businesses seek creative ways to increase their revenue, and transcend the burden of their expenses. The super-State feels no such pressures, so it does not innovate. It believes it can siphon limitless revenue from its subjects, and defer the cost of its failures forever… so it spends extravagantly, and continues wasteful programs until the voters force it to stop, by holding sharpened ballots to its throat. Only rarely can the voters muster that level of pressure.”
It looks like he’s moving up in the blogosphere. He is now writing at Human Events, alongside some very big names indeed. Hello, Thomas Sowell, Newt Gingrich, and Ann Coulter.
Good for him! I’ve modified my Big Dog list accordingly.
me somehow (yes that’s why I’m a nerd), and I didn’t find that kind of thrill again until I read The Road to Serfdom almost twenty years later, on Instapundit’s recommendation.
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