Where's your messiah now...

Make no mistake, I admire and respect our new Commander-in-Chief. I disagree with many of his social policies and am shocked at his inability to rein in a wanton Congress. But he clearly has a grasp of international necessities. So far, his actions seem to be aligned with the continuing ideology of the United States as the sole super power with a moral obligation to act decisively in support of international freedoms and rights.

Most recently, President Obama dispatched United States Navy warships to the South China Sea to escort the unarmed USNS IMPECCABLE. That ship is being harassed while conducting legitimate surveillance near the main Chinese ballistic missile submarine base. The United States has always been a staunch supported of the law of the sea and spends a great deal of time and energy protecting its use an avenue for commerce and trade.

The latest moves by China are classic cold war brinksmanship. This national bravado, much like the launch of the “peaceful” satellite by North Korea, is par for the course for opponents to US policy. Anyone who fails to see the North Korean effort for what it is, a test launch of an ICBM, is likely living in a vegan commune in Oregon. This is now, ironically, in range of North Korean weapons systems.

President Obama has found that the harsh realities of the post Cold War world are complex, extremely volatile and can not be handled with verbal diplomacy alone. Iranian drones have been shot down by US aircraft over Iraq. Detainees released from Guantanamo have shown up in Afghan battlefields, Russian forces are illegally consolidating their holdings in South Ossetia and Haiti continues to be fertile ground for backyard instability. And this is simply the open source list of possible threats to global and US security.

This picture paints a precarious one for the United States and the world. As the present economic uncertainty continues, the globe is more vulnerable to shocks from natural and manmade calamities. A capable organization or nation which seeks to further destabilize the world would have any number of choice options to act. It is imperative that free world forces are deployed to counter these threats and that the United States takes the lead in action against individuals, groups and nations that seek to undermine law and order.

President Obama has continued the necessary work. I am optimistic that my new boss will maintain a healthy pragmatism when deciding on national security issues. He certainly has abandoned that in the financial realm.

The line...

At what point does society intervene in the practices of individuals? It is well understood that people who seek to harm others will be dealt with by society. Even animals display this behavior, although humans have evolved to refrain from isolating the sick (where possible).

Today it was reported that Texas authorities removed 52 girls from a fundamentalist Mormon ranch (enclave). The cause was reported child abuse. Some would argue that this is interference in the freedom of religious practice. Others would argue that society (the state) has an obligation to the common welfare.

I am not a person of faith. I am a person of fact. I appreciate and respect the need of people to have faith and I recognize my own potential for being completely wrong. And yet we are faced with a world where irrationality has intruded into the critical world of fact.

Where is the line?

Holy retrospective...

Well it’s here. The baby boomer generation is indulging in its favorite pastime of navel gazing. The New York Times advertising section reports that advertisers are now increasingly tying their products to some whimsical representation of the 1960s. There is hardly anything wrong with categorizing any period as the good old days. As humans, we have a unique ability to emphasize any aspect of an experience over another.

Let’s just recapture the essence of the sixties. Political assassination was routine, even in the United States was common. Our armed forces were a last vestige of institutionalized slavery due to conscription. Many cities were reeling from racial violence and wide spread abandonment by middle class citizens. The threat of actual, all-out nuclear war was nearly made real with the Cuban missile crisis. The environment was NOT a top consideration of any mainstream party.

Some good aspects. The space race meant something. Civil rights were evolving for the good. Government control over the economy was waning. But the sixties were marked by chaos. The unpredictable result of decades of social unrest and overturning of the old order. There are a thousand different ways this period could have transpired. It could have happened with less violence, less pain and more insight.

But it didn’t. It happened the way it happened due to the actions and reactions of humanity. We will likely look back on this first decade of the 21^st century and make similar comparisons. I think I would vote for Obama if only to move the nation away from the false memory of the 1960s.

I was born in the middle of that decade. My memories are locked squarely in the midst of the 1970s. Those days, naturally, seem magical to me. I was growing up and forming my worldview. The Soviets were bad. Hijackings didn’t end with plunges into cities. The economy was in tatters and we were retreating from our initial push into space.

There were no good old days.

The only good old day is now.

Do your part to make it the best one possible.

By the way, I know some folks who are – Capt Jack Harkness and Sonic Frog are boldly entrenched in making sure the youth of the planet have a touchstone of sanity in an otherwise anything goes society.

Rock on.

How it is...

I like Gary Trudeau. I think his Doonesbury hits home in many ways. I rarely agree with his left of center views, but his observations are often a great source of insight and reflection for me. This Sunday's strip may be the most pertinent for me ever. The character of BD, surrounded by well meaning loved ones stands for all the service members of our all volunteer armed forces.

His statement of "most people are completely baffled why anyone would serve" is a concise summary of our present society's attitude. Ponder on this a bit.

Why we serve is a frequent headline for many internal armed forces publications. Most times the member only scratches the surface of this issue. Bill Whittle of ejecte!eject!eject! wrote a nice piece about this topic called Tribes.

Check it out.

PS - All my regular readers, both of you, congrats to Captain Jack for making the leap across the pond and taking on the challenge of a colonial educating the mother country's youth!

Young People Should Find Ways to Serve, not Just at McDonalds...

Peter Pace, the ejected former CJCS, has an opinion about national service.  While I agree in principal, I think the prospect is at odds with the founding basis of our nation.  We must be a nation which freely gives.  Service should come from an inner desire, not an outward compulsion.  This topic seems to be a recurring theme in the blogosphere and in philosophical circles.  Where do our obligations as citizens begin and end?  What are we abrogating by not engaging within our society? 

 

Is the "service" rendered by a staunch anti-war activist any less important than that of a soldier in combat?  It would be easy for me to say that that person picketing safely at home is not doing their nation any service - and I would offer just that assessment when their tactics exceed the bounds of our society's laws.  But our nation is built upon freedom, tenets which I strongly support.  These allow individuals to make choices about how they will "serve" their nation.  If our nation, as a whole, decides not to protect their individual and sovereign rights, then we must live with our decision.

 

Every person must do an equation in their head.  What have I received and what shall I give?  To each their talents and measure for the same.  We live in an amazing time.  It is a rare period of civilization where self-sacrifice is not a requirement for survival in the industrialized world.  One can live quite comfortably on the margins of society (the slacker / working poor) lifestyle and not suffer appreciably (compared to prior centuries).  In short, we can "tune in and drop out" and not suffer any real consequences.

 

---

Young People Should Find Ways to Serve, Pace Says
Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:34:00 -0500

Young People Should Find Ways to Serve, Pace Says By Jim Garamone American Forces Press Service YONGSAN, South Korea, Aug. 16, 2007 - Whether it's through military service or another means, young Americans should find some way to serve their country, the U.S. military's top officer said here today. "I do believe that each of us who has had the blessing of the accident of birth of being born in a free country ought to find some way to repay our country," Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a town hall meeting at Collier Field House here. "If we have a system that allowed people to join the Peace Corps or allowed people to do good work inside the United States where it's needed, or join the military," it would help the country. Young people should give a year or two of their lives to making society better, and U.S. leaders should take such a commitment seriously, Pace said. "We would be a much stronger society, and we would be giving back to the world what we should be giving back," he said. The general also put to rest rumors about a possible U.S. military draft. "Nobody in any leadership position is having any serious discussion about a draft," he said.

Biographies: Gen. Peter Pace, USMC Related Articles: Pace Receives Korean Award, Thanks U.S. Servicemembers All-Volunteer Force Meets Nation's Needs, Official Says

---

Update your subscriptions, modify your password or e-mail address, or stop subscriptions at any time on your User Profile Page. You will need to use your e-mail address to log in. If you have questions or problems with the subscription service, please e-mail support@govdelivery.com. Have another inquiry? Visit the online FAQ for up-to-date information.

This service is provided to you at no charge by U.S. Department of Defense. Visit us on the web at http://www.defenselink.mil/.

GovDelivery, Inc. sending on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense · 380 Jackson Street, Suite 550 · St. Paul, MN 55101 · 1-800-439-1420

Faith redefined...

The Major made a comment on the Great Divide post about the uneducated and uninformed being undesirable voters. To a point, I would agree with him. However, it is not simply at the ballot box where the U2s ,aka their impact felt. They exist all over the world and influence policy, marketing and society in ways which range from the inconsequential to the severe. In the most horrendous examples, we have genocidal events as we did in Europe, Russia, China, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur and other places.

To my mind the epitome of the modern example is what I call the headline philosopher. This is an individual who reads a "headline" and accepts it as it is for gospel. No effort is made to understand the information or determine the veracity of the statements made. All manner of people fall into this category (including myself on occasion). We hear what we want to hear and discard any contravening data. Worse, we may take a single point in time and consider that as static. The individuals who harp on "ill-equipped" troops in Iraq (for example) have not kept up with the progress made in this area.

How do you engage an individual who takes this position and understand their view while challenging their belief? In the realm of New Wage Hustledorks (a phrase coined by the VERY funny Connie Schmidt of Cosmic Connie there is actually a webpage which will search other web sites for phrases which help classify a site as using questionable thinking. A pity we do not have a sufficient BS detector to apply to all the information we encounter. Sometimes our instinct serves us well;

1) Lindsay Lohan has a chemical dependency problem

2) Michael Vick had been involved in dog fighting for a long time

3) No one cares what's on network TV

The web is a pretty good substitute and improving in this regard, but as the YouTube debate showed us, there are still gatekeepers and obfuscators.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.

Travel blog...

Traveling is always an adventure. I am sitting in Atlanta Hartsfield airport awaiting the departure of Delta 546 to PBI. Even at this early hour (6am) the airport is humming. A family is asleep on the ground in the access tunnel, A host of footwear parades before me as travelers of every stripe march resolutely to and from their gates. While in line an overlarge gentleman wearing a shirt emblazoned with the cartoon image of Fat Albert's head began cursing the TSA screener for confiscating his toothpaste. While trying to avoid his anti-faustian tirade, I am reminded how well things work in modern airports. Everyone seems to agree on the rules, regardless of background. Perhaps this is the model for our global society? If in doubt, behave as you would in an airport.