06-15-2007, 10:46
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#1
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Free Pineland
Posts: 24,816
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America's Warrior Spirit is Fading
Excellent, if long-winded articlde by Kaplan on American society and how it relates to the US military (or not).
http://www.the-american-interest.com...?Id=289&MId=14
This was something that struck me when I read Gates of Fire. We, as Americans, are almost totally unfamiliar with the brutality of war, violence, and evil, or the thin red line that defends this country from a descent into that Hell man is capable of. Abu Graib was a fraternity hazing, and reading the enemy interrogation and torture manual will quickly reveal that to those who will open their minds.
Our wake up call may be coming. I fear for what our children may soon face.
TR
__________________
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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The Reaper is offline
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06-15-2007, 11:05
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#2
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Consigliere
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Free Pineland (at last)
Posts: 8,836
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Interesting article, TR.
I believe that the greatest threat to our country does not come from abroad, but from within. It is a philosophy that has many names -- "multiculturalism," "diversity," "tolerance," etc. Ultimately, this philosophy is German in origin -- it comes from Heidegger, Marx and Nietzsche, but it purports to be an extension of the Lockean natural rights theory upon which our Constitution is based. It goes WAY beyond ordinary civil rights concepts, and breaks down the ability to criticize anyone for anything. Essentially, it challenges the ability to claim right and wrong. So who can criticize the Hitlers and bin Ladens of the world? After all, they have their own culture and who are we to criticize them? This is a major reason why people don't support military action anymore -- they just don't believe our system of government is better than anyone else's, because who are we to tell others how to live? (There are other reasons too, like being too comfortable, but I think this is secondary.)
These views now completely dominate our universities and the media. As a result, they are now beginning to dominate lower-level schools, certain groups of professionals and even the mainstream in certain states. While our soldiers do amazing work fighting our enemies abroad, increasing numbers of people at home don't support that effort because they don't believe we should tell others what to do, no matter how evil they are.
So I believe we have terribly important battles to fight at home: in the schools, in the universities and in the media. And if we don't fight those battles, we are doomed.
Boy, I need a drink! 
Last edited by Roguish Lawyer; 06-15-2007 at 11:07.
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Roguish Lawyer is offline
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06-15-2007, 12:07
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#3
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Guerrilla
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Kansas
Posts: 249
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The Pussification of America
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Originally Posted by The Reaper
Our wake up call may be coming. I fear for what our children may soon face.
TR
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May face? .... Will face!
We're moving out of probabilities into certainties. The pussification of America is almost complete.
There's good news and bad news...
- We may not get hit with WMD for a few years, maybe not for many years - that's the good news. The bad news is that if we don't wake up soon with a cold slap in the face or with a hard kick in the lucky-charms the pussification of America will be complete. And, when pu**y America gets slammed in our distant future the whole nation comes apart at its pu**y seams.
Then there's bad news and good news...
- We get kicked in the lucky-charms with something terrble soon - something really awful and something very soon - that's bad; but here's the good news - We get hurt real bad and real soon and America comes to its Warrior senses and what masculinity that is left in our national soul is revived and the pussification of America is stopped dead in its tracks. America's Warrior ethos is saved.
Three Soldier Dad....
Chuck
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__________________
I never let school get in the way of my education
- Mark Twain
Last edited by 3SoldierDad; 06-16-2007 at 15:16.
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3SoldierDad is offline
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06-15-2007, 12:14
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#4
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Consigliere
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Free Pineland (at last)
Posts: 8,836
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"Pussification"! Good word, Chuck! Much more concise than the way I put it. LOL
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Roguish Lawyer is offline
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06-15-2007, 12:26
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#5
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Guerrilla
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Kansas
Posts: 249
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Pussification is upon us...
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Originally Posted by Roguish Lawyer
"Pussification"! Good word, Chuck! Much more concise than the way I put it. LOL
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I'm 48 on Sunday - Back in the 60s and early 70s the WORSE thing you could call a kid was a pu**y... The fastest way to a fight was to call another guy a pu**y...nothing worse...Some of you guys know exactly what I mean.
America is so full of fat pu**ies - darn it, skinny pu**ies, too. Honestly, I have a lot of anger about what is happening to us.
Sorry, I need to take a break and go PT myself...
Three Soldier Dad...Chuck
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__________________
I never let school get in the way of my education
- Mark Twain
Last edited by 3SoldierDad; 06-18-2007 at 15:13.
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3SoldierDad is offline
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06-15-2007, 12:37
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#6
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Asset
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 12
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Roguish Lawyer
Ultimately, this philosophy is German in origin -- it comes from Heidegger, Marx and Nietzsche, but it purports to be an extension of the Lockean natural rights theory upon which our Constitution is based.
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Very true RL- the irony being that what is happening in America and TO America is precisely the domination of the strong by the weak that Nietzsche talked about :
The denigration of the sheepdog by the sheep he protects because of his (perceived) similarities to the wolves, and (more centrally) his indirect indictment, by his mere existence, of the sheep's courage- or lack thereof.
The desire to rewrite history to favor those considered to be the "weak" or "underdog", regardless of the actual MORALITY involved.
The sprawling Anti-Americanism and Antisemitism that runs wild through the world, which seeks to turn every bastion of American culture and success into a vicious abuse of some "other."
Those that cannot, turn their inability and unwillingness into a virtue, while turning the strength, ingenuity, and domineering mentality of those that DO, into a vice. I never liked Nietzsche- because he always made me the most depressed to read, and yet he always seemed to make the most sense.
T
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"Eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man..." -Thomas Jefferson
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tf999 is offline
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06-15-2007, 12:51
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#7
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Asset
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: MI
Posts: 34
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"...We get hurt real bad and real soon and America comes to its Warrior senses and what masculinity that is left in our national soul is revived and the pussification of America is stopped dead in its tracks. America's Warrior ethos is saved."
I stay to the sidelines and learn from what you guys write most of the time, but, I just have to interject a little here.
After 9/11, I saw this happen in my community, and almost everywhere I looked in the country(for the most part), but, other than those that had to deal with it or looking to becoming part of it, it was short lived. I've met too many people who've forgotten why our military is Afghanistan and Iraq....
Someone once told me that America's memory is too short....that we - a young country compared to the rest of the world - act as a child does. We get slapped, we cry, we react, then we resume play as usual.
"Sheeple" is a word I have learned on these boards. Who shall become the sheperds? Sometimes it seems that it is those in Hollywood steering the flock.
Sorry for the small venting.....resuming PT.
__________________
"ONE! ONE! You get one chance and if you fook it up, we kill you and bury your worthless body in the grease pit behind the messhall. If you have a puppy, we kill it too.
Now go do PT." - NousDefionsDoc
" Thank God for my bunny. He was a good friend for a while. We kept each other warm. Then I killed him and ate him. " ~ magician
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Dirt Gallo is offline
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06-15-2007, 13:15
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#8
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BANNED USER
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Alabama
Posts: 156
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Reminds me of a quote:
"Our Country won't go on forever, if we stay soft as we are now. There won't be any AMERICA because some foreign soldier will invade us and take our women and breed a hardier race!" -LT Gen Chesty Puller
I think the premise of the article is correct in intention, but I think that most Americans (perhaps not those in power), are still red blooded, and when pushed, they push back.
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the squid is offline
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06-15-2007, 13:52
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#9
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Guerrilla Chief
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Philadelphia
Posts: 704
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Very Briefly:
This is the ONE possible negative of a volunteer military. US forces are obviously all voluteer (not including stop loss  .) Time goes on and slowly two classes develop: The warrior class and the civilian class. The Warrior begins to resent he whom he protects and the protected begins to resent, marginalize and deem irrelevant the warrior. The warrior class see's and feels the pain it takes to earn and maintain freedom and begins to resent the civilian because the civilian has no concept of the total physical and mental effort it takes to be a warrior. The warrior views the civilian as a hedonistic loafer interested in nothing other than serving his own selfish needs. The people that were drafted , even the ones that hated it (for the most part) have at least some modicum of respect for what the warrior is and what he is asked accomplish. I am not advocating a draft but perhaps conscription for ALL American males of 18yrs of age...does not have to be the military the Air Force is OK too. This would introduce Americans to reality and hopefully slow or stop the downward spiral of the Warrior Spirit.
Last edited by Five-O; 06-15-2007 at 15:24.
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Five-O is offline
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06-15-2007, 14:26
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#10
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: LA
Posts: 1,653
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You think having a Warrior class is a negative?
__________________
Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.
Still want to quit?
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NousDefionsDoc is offline
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06-15-2007, 14:35
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#11
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: LA
Posts: 1,653
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That's a really good article, thanks for sharing Boss.
__________________
Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.
Still want to quit?
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NousDefionsDoc is offline
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06-15-2007, 14:39
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#12
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Guerrilla Chief
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Philadelphia
Posts: 704
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by NousDefionsDoc
You think having a Warrior class is a negative?
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To the contrary...member of that class myself.
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Five-O is offline
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06-15-2007, 15:22
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#13
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Free Pineland
Posts: 24,816
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I would vote for a Heinleinian "Starship Troopers" type of society, with mandatory national service to earn full citizenship rights. Most people in this country value neither their voting rights, their national service, nor their military protectors, so I am not sure that most would even notice.
A weak POTUS, like Hillary and Obama, and a Dem Congress, who are unwilling to face the threats to our society with a full range of options could end this country as we know it in less than four years. I will not describe the actions it would take, but I believe that I could plan it out and if I can figure it out, our foes certainly can.
That would assume that the ever increasing wave of people who live off of entitlement programs and the illegal immigrants who are swamping the same lifeboat do not bankrupt the nation from within first.
TR
__________________
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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The Reaper is offline
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06-15-2007, 16:46
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#14
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Asset
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Missouri
Posts: 21
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Interesting Quote
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
- John Stuart Mill
It would appear they had to deal with pussification 150 years ago also.
__________________
Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.
Psalm 144:1
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Black Knight is offline
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06-15-2007, 16:56
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#15
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Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Tennessee
Posts: 1,477
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by The Reaper
I would vote for a Heinleinian "Starship Troopers" type of society, with mandatory national service to earn full citizenship rights.
TR
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Crossed Fingers 
Some Times I wish for a Chance Contact with Aliens....
Something tells me they wont be so nice. That would realy make us get our head's out of our 4th point of contact...
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7624U is offline
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