Sarah Palin
When Sarah Palin was chosen to be McCain's running mate all the middle aged pilots on our segment of the imperial frontier spent 2 days googling photos of her (we don't exactly rough it on our corner of the frontier). After extensive research and much discussion we decided that Sarah Palin is hot. What else can you say can you say about good looking woman who shoots large animals with a big gun. She doesn't kowtow to the media elites either. A definite babe.
The most important thing about her rise to prominence though is that it shows all the other women in their forties that they still got a chance. This is a very important thing sociologically and it should be furthered. We should encourage the pretty, well built women who like guns and have the ability to leave "the Alaskan political landscape littered with the corpses of those who underestimated her" to go forth and conquer. It will enhance national morale and the Somali pirates will probably take the American navy more seriously. (my brother thought the "still got a chance" line was funny so I put it in.)
The most important thing about her rise to prominence though is that it shows all the other women in their forties that they still got a chance. This is a very important thing sociologically and it should be furthered. We should encourage the pretty, well built women who like guns and have the ability to leave "the Alaskan political landscape littered with the corpses of those who underestimated her" to go forth and conquer. It will enhance national morale and the Somali pirates will probably take the American navy more seriously. (my brother thought the "still got a chance" line was funny so I put it in.)
posted by Carl at 10:25 PM
137 Comments:
Clearly you are bored and looking for a salacious debate about things you know nothing about.
So, I acknowledge your lame attempt and raise you one "you can see Russia from my house!"
I like to think I "still got it".
Anonymous just doesn't understand the minds of men.
Anonymous, where do you live that you also can see Russia from your house? that is so neat.
sister: i was gonna try a witty comeback to anonymous but you killed the animal with a heart shot so why bother.
If HRC had $150,000 for pants suits, she would be the next president.
This just proves that you CAN put lipstick on a pig and people will call you mavricky.
btw, Sara Palin may speak her own brand of Alaskenglish, but " " are still used to attribute a comment to its author in the real world.
^
oh man, plagiarism buuuuuuurrrrnnn
Hey ZuluGuy,
Palin hot? If there is truth in the old saying "he's got a face for radio", she has a face for TV. Pleasant, pretty like all the other weather/sports people on local TV. In fact, that's where she belongs - local TV weatherperson. After all you wouldn't want that carefully planned education to go to waste - what with the three colleges plus two community colleges invested that journalism degree in sportscasting. Actually her experience in reading the teleprompter has paid dividends - she gives the same staff prepared speech everywhere she goes and only gets in trouble when she is interviewed with no prepared text.
Set your sights a bit higher FlyGuy. You don't have to pick the maybe leader of the free world from washed up weather/sportscasters or the community college dust bin. It's ok. You can leave Sarah in the shallow end of the pool without fear of her drowning. With that empty head, I am sure she will float.
why is it that women who are don't fight against the denigration/subservience of women in the status quo simply dismiss those who so as simply "not understanding the minds of men?"
whoops, typos!
why is it that women who don't fight against the denigration/subservience of women in the status quo simply dismiss those who do so as simply "not understanding the minds of men?"
Follow this link to YouTube. I think that Miss South Carolina "still has it" and, -- such as; is clearly more qualified to be one heart beat away.
This pretty much says it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ0xySe0uRw
ok, like, i am so not knowing, why, like, circling back, those eleventy billion media, such as, pundits,( yeah!!!) doon't appreciate American ingenuity and creationism, I mean creativity, and are so not in belief that I can really see russia from my house! hey, what do ya think about me and the california king in oh-12?? Gravee Train! If only. Hey -TF will ya coach my walk of shame? What do ya think, cherry freeze frost or hot pink palin?
Why can't she be hot and qualified? She is probably going to be the first female president of the US and certainly the first that looks good in a tight tee shirt and jeans.
Is she qualified? I think I must have missed that part.
Not only does she still have it, apparently she likes to share a peek with the staff. Very motivating.
14:56, 14:56, 14:58 ....
Well now that she and john lost the electiion- Is she going to give it a try in 2012- would not mind seeing how she has aged. Cousin Tommy
OK, let me see if I have this straight, A bunch of adolescent, middle aged guys who live on an air base surrounded by even more guys, in a country where women must by law wear tents that cover up everything that might identify them as women, and said guys still could be executed for even looking at the tent ladies think that Sarah Palin is hot. Hmmm.
i've been away for a couple of days and didn't realize this thing grew so much.
i'll do this in order
hrc could spend $5,000,000 in pants suits and still not look good. she ain't got the body for it and never had. (thank you Laura)
Reagan was a washed up sportscaster from a small school and he did pretty good. i'll bet there are a lot more community college grads fighting, and dying, on the imperial frontier than there are ivy league grads. you set too much stock on cachet education guy. we went to the moon with people from land grant schools and the flyover people have had to fix what the ivy leaguers f'ed up on the imperial frontier. setting my sights on a smart, good looking woman who isn't convince she knows better than the rest of us is good thing. but alas, she's married.
i am glad somebody is out there fighting the good fight against us nasty men. but then, isn't that a stereotype, the woman always blaming men?
don't be lazy caribou barbie, if you want to say something say it yourself.
to the anonymous who referred to cherry freeze frost, i have no idea what you are talking about.
hot and qualified, i like that. of course as to deciding if she is qualified, that is what the voting part is all about.
as for the last anon, if appreciating an attractive woman is adolescent, then a boy i be. and, in my corner of the frontier, the tent isn't mandated by law. some parts of the culture require it, some parts don't. some kill those who don't wear it; which is against the law. when they do that, our side kills them. which makes most people very happy. Nice mustache! (thank you Capt. Travis Patriquin, who died fighting for the right and who, i do not believe, graduated from an ivy league school. )
i've been away for a couple of days and didn't realize this thing grew so much.
i'll do this in order
hrc could spend $5,000,000 in pants suits and still not look good. she ain't got the body for it and never had. (thank you Laura)
Reagan was a washed up sportscaster from a small school and he did pretty good. i'll bet there are a lot more community college grads fighting, and dying, on the imperial frontier than there are ivy league grads. you set too much stock on cachet education guy. we went to the moon with people from land grant schools and the flyover people have had to fix what the ivy leaguers f'ed up on the imperial frontier. setting my sights on a smart, good looking woman who isn't convince she knows better than the rest of us is good thing. but alas, she's married.
i am glad somebody is out there fighting the good fight against us nasty men. but then, isn't that a stereotype, the woman always blaming men?
don't be lazy caribou barbie, if you want to say something say it yourself.
to the anonymous who referred to cherry freeze frost, i have no idea what you are talking about.
hot and qualified, i like that. of course as to deciding if she is qualified, that is what the voting part is all about.
as for the last anon, if appreciating an attractive woman is adolescent, then a boy i be. and, in my corner of the frontier, the tent isn't mandated by law. some parts of the culture require it, some parts don't. some kill those who don't wear it; which is against the law. when they do that, our side kills them. which makes most people very happy. Nice mustache! (thank you Capt. Travis Patriquin, who died fighting for the right and who, i do not believe, graduated from an ivy league school. )
Jane Fonda is smart and good looking but that doesn't mean I want to see her in a tent.
Just because someone is from the Ivy League doesn't mean that they will mess up the country. If they are conservative and also Ivy League, then you can guarantee it. The Ivy Leaguers who messed up our Imperial Frontier were the conservative ones: Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz graduated from Princeton and Cornell, and God help me if they aren't history's all-time worst architects of war, regardless of whether or not the reasons for war were right. William Perry graduated from Stanford (which I suppose some people lump in there with the Ivy League) and he was elemental in keeping the world safe after the collapse of the USSR.
liberal or conservative is of no import. the prime point is the elite political class, the mandarinate, a class most typified by ivy league grads, are leading us to ruination. the latest foul up on the imperial frontier would have occurred, in one form or another, under either party, as they are now constituted. the pres of the 90's helped set the stage for the current situation.
the last paragraph of pete mansoor's book (a good one ) Baghdad at Sunrise, speaks of him attending a cocktail party on manhattan's upper east side. he encounter a young fellow who likes military affairs and suggests he apply to west point. the young fellow's mother rushes up, put her arm around her son and states "oh no, he has more important things planned for his life. but we're glad we have people like you to protect us." that is one of the fundamental attitudes of the mandarinate, entitlement to power without the concomitant duty to serve and sacrifice.
our political culture is fast becoming, if it has not already become, structurally corrupt. and i don't mean building inspectors on the take. i mean gerrymandered "iron districts" and incumbents who mostly can't be beat. districts that look like a protozoa mating with an amoeba. the same old name showing up decade after decade. a tax code that is really a vehicle for extortion and coercion. worst of all, is the promotion of the idea that you really don't have take the consequences of your actions. all that has developed under the mandarinate (which by the way also does its best to wreck the business world.)
the flyover people keep pulling most of us back from the edge of the pit. but for some reason we've roped ourselves to the mandarinate who flung themselves over the edge and aren't inclined to climb out on their own. we'll keep getting near that edge until we cut the rope.
oh, by the way. i forgot to mention. in history's competition for the worst all time architects of war, the current crew doesn't even come close. to limit the scope of review, we'll mention just two examples from American history, the fellows who directed our efforts in Vietnam and that noble group who formed and led the Confederate States of America. Saddam wasn't very good at it either.
Wow! such a serious twist. I was having fun pondering five time mom Sarah Palin in a bathing suit. Jane Fonda sounded interesting as well. HRC and Madeline Albright should stay in the tents however.
Given your most current thoughts, I have to assume that you are excited by the audacity of hope expressd by our president elect.
Came from nothing but somehow managed to conquer the Ivy league landscape only to shun its abundant albeit closed circle of opportunity to work with people who have nothing
Married someone who came from nothing ...
Broke most of the rules you outline about "gerrymandered "iron districts" and incumbents who mostly can't be beat" and ended up President elect of the United States of America.
This profound moment in history reminds me of two interesting footnotes:
When he asked why he changed parties, one time Democrat and conservative icon, Ronald Regan responded "I didn't change, they did."
His nemesis turned bff Mikhail Gorbachev recently suggested that Barak Obama would bring Perestroika to the US.
I wonder if Ronald Regan is considering switching parties again?
cherry freeze frost is a`lipstick color, i think it might refer to lipstick on a pig reference. maybe not.
caribou barbie:
that was the hallmark of the mandarins. they passed a test in the classics and then ruled the empire. go to the ivy league and rule ours. neither has much to do with the real world and they exclude the talents of the multitudes who don't go to the ivy leagues. scott turow wrote once that some of the smartest guys around are cops who, for whatever reason, didn't go to college. i found from personal observation that to be true and our current system would exclude them from high political office.
obama is as conventional a politician as there is. he went to the right schools, took the right courses, did the law review, worked for the right law firms, ingratiated himself with the right bigwigs in chicago etc.
married another ivy league lawyer who works for the right kind of organization
audacity of hope. what kind of pipe smoking freshman phrase is that. sounds profound and means nothing. in one of his campaign commercials he said he was against big banks and big oil ripping off the consumer. that was the kind of line dennis kucinich use decades ago to get elected mayor of cleveland which he then proceeded to screw up. for obama to use a line like that he is either stupid or a cynical panderer and he ain't stupid.
in the civil war they used a phrase called "seen the elephant". it meant you saw combat but it can also mean you've seen the real hard side of life, really seen it. obama ain't never seen the elephant. he doesn't even know it exists. if he had been a da who had to make a decision about the woman i wrote about once, the one who was confronted with homelessness on one hand and her children being abused on the other, the he could say he's seen the elephant. but he has been too busy dazzling his audiences and building his resume.
everyone thinks this is a big moment because a "black man" (why ain't he a "white man"? since when did the old slaveholder single drop of blood belief gain validity?) is elected president. i see another in the line of ivy league lawyers gonna tell me how to live my life cause they so much smarter than me.
lol at your adoption of ebonics for ironic effect.
thank god Richard Nixon wasn't an Ivy Leaguer. Imagine what could have been if he was.
A couple things:
1. West Point and Annapolis are just as much part of the "Mandarinate" as any Ivy League school. They churn out just as many privileged REMFs who muck up the country as any other school.
2. I'm interested to see which presidents you think have been good presidents who haven't been associated with an Ivy League school or some other school within the "Mandarinate".
3. What more do you want from the Obama's? They've made it from next to nothing to becoming two of the world's most important people. The fact that they are Ivy League educated means nothing more than that they took advantage of the opportunities they worked for and put their gifts to their full use. Are you saying that someone should throw away their educational opportunities simply because they might involve an Ivy League school?
I have to say that I really don't understand the root of your problem with the Ivy League. True, some who go to (or have gone to) Ivy League schools have grown up with privilege and connections, and consequently some of these people have not had to work as hard as others. But to attribute this characterization blindly to all individuals with an Ivy League education seems to employ a blanket stereotype. And yet, you use this stereotype to argue against the stereotype of unintelligence so often attributed to those without education beyond high school. Also, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by saying that an Ivy League education has nothing to do with the real world. I'm not sure what would be taught if this were the case.
my ironic adoption of ebonics was a typo. i wish i was that clever.
i don't deny that people should take advantage of opportunities offered. i decry that we've somehow created a system where only a certain small percentage of the educated are presumed, entitled to lead the rest of us.
like hell the academies are part of the mandarinate. the mandarins expect to acquire and exercise power without putting their lives on the line for their country, without getting into the line of fire leading the guys who didn't go to the big name schools. if you graduate from the USMA or are a Marine grad from the USNA you are going into the barren hills where that grand education can be vitiated by Kipling's cheap bullet. How many ivy league grads are leading infantry platoons?
let's try Reagan, Ike, Truman and Lincoln to start.
when ivy league grad die in the same proportions and grads from kent state, texas a&m, the local comm. college and the high schools in the south and midwest, then i won't have a problem with the mandarinate. when power comes to mean the responsibility to take your place in line and take your chances, then i won't complain.
don't put words in my mouth fellow. what is taught in those schools has something to do with the real world. of course it does. but it is not the unique pre-requisite for high accomplishment.
as you can tell, i am dead serious about this. there will be trouble in 100 years if this trend continues.
Terms like the "Audacity of Hope" and "The Fierce Urgency of Now" are not technically eubonistic but rather reflections of a class of people who in spirit share your frustration. I think that the Reverend Martin Luther King (from the pre-Ebonics era) would agree with your sentiments expressed in this thread. See -“I have a Dream.”
Education has always been nothing more than a prerequisite to entry and after that, a tie breaker. I agree that there are many uneducated “ivy leaguers” running around Washington but in most instances (where family or personal networks are the tie breaker) education is simply a way to distinguish between two otherwise equally qualified candidates.
Don’t hide behind exclusionary education in a country where anyone that is motivated can:
Get an education - I believe Dennis Kucinich is a Cleveland State University graduate.
Or
Be successful without one - (Bill Gates, Karl Rove, and Sarah Palin to offer a very abbreviated list).
I agree with anonymous, in many circles, West Point and Annapolis are viewed on equal par with the “Ivy League”. I just bet that if you were to thoroughly vet your premise, you would find that many US Military Academy grads never get close to a bullet.
Military service in this country has always been driven by a promise of a better life shrouded in a cloak of patriotism. I am sure that you recall the justification for land grants and compensation to the continental army.
All societies develop a social/economic stratum whether people want it or not. If Barack Obama had been born in any number of African nations (the ones without a mandarinate) he would not even warrant a footnote in history. The same goes if he had been born in the Middle East, Pan Asia and Latin America. In those places, the rule is if you come from nothing, you will always be nothing, that is just the way it is. To assume something different is noble but historically unrealistic. I think the literary work “The Lord of the Flies” covers this topic better than I can.
The difference with our country is that it remains an undeniable fact that anyone who is skilled and motivated can succeed here. President Elect Obama is the embodiment of this fact. You may not like his politics; you may even envy his success. But only in the United States of America can someone who starts with nothing become President.
i will restate my fundamental point. the national political elite in this country is dominated by a small class of highly educated people who went to exclusive schools, typified by the ivy league grad. matriculating from these schools is somehow perceived as demonstrating that one is innately superior to a graduate of say... the university of wyoming or memphis state. that opinion is nonsense but that is the way it is. fair enough, life isn't.
people of small means, if they are very talented and very lucky can go to the elite schools. again fair enough. they get to be perceived as smarter than the texas a&m. that's life.
this elite class get the power and the privilege that comes with political accomplishment. again that's life. what isn't right, what isn't acceptable, is that they don't put themselves in harms way like the other do. to put it bluntly, they won't die for their country, but the reserve the right to tell others to go forth and die. they let the other guy do their fighting for them. that is despicable.
that is my main point.
how much have you hung around serving or ex-soldiers? i would guess not much if you think guys are in it for the money. "shrouded by patriotism" that's offensive. like these guys are gaming their countrymen for a buck. people don't get into machine gun fights at 10 foot ranges, smother grenades with their bodies or sit in the back of an open truck and drive into a kill zone to rescue their comrades for the cash. they do it because they are loyal to their comrades and the join with their comrades in the first place because the want to serve their country, genuinely serve their country (being young men they like the action too). that spirit really and actually exists in people. it is not just a rationalization to cover up acquisitiveness. don't you question the sincerity of their motivations when their broken and dead bodies are proof of what they believe.
every single one of the academy grads is liable to combat service, every one. and they all know when they sign up. not one of the anointed leaders of tomorrow from harvard, yale, princeton etc is unless they choose to be liable; and damn few of them do. when the combined classes of all the ivy league schools of whatever years you choose to pick suffer the same number of dead and wounded as the same west point class, then you can lump them together.
This comment has been removed by the author.
So what you are saying is that Sarah Palin will not be qualified to be President until she signs on the line and goes into harms way?
Does heading up the Alaska National Guard count? She took a trip to Iraq -- no wait, she stopped at the Kuwait border.
as you perhaps noted, my primary point does not deal with individuals, it deals with an entire socio-political class; a class, with individual exceptions, that is not doing its duty.
you may have further noticed that ms. palin is not a member of this class, confirmed by the loathing with which she is viewed by the members of that class and and the mainstream media.
as for her qualifications, you will have to determine that for yourself. do some research. ask some people. maybe you can ask her son when he gets back from serving on the imperial frontier with a combat unit.
So Joe Biden is definitely qualified to be President, right?
Loathed by the media, University of Delaware, undergrad. Syracuse Law. Got a deferment while in school, was ultimately classified unfit because of asthma. But, like Sarah Palin, has kids in Iraq.
That is a ticket I would like to see: Palin/Biden 2012 -- Vote for us because our kids enlisted –
But seriously, how can you vilify and entire class of people because they didn’t run out and join the military in an era of relative peace and an all volunteer military. Sure, we have multiple conflicts today but mostly because of poor decision making by the class you decry.
And if you through those bums out won’t that class be replaced by one just as bad – a military running class perhaps?
Thank you, but I think I’ll stay on the train. So far, this great experiment has produced a superior outcome.
Did I miss something? When did Osama Bin Laden start sending his own family members to blow themselves up? Sadam Husain? Don’t all leaders send minions to fight and die for them?
Tammy Duckworth is a name on the horizon that I like. She could be president.
Did anyone else besides me notice that the Obama/Biden signs looked an awful lot like they said Osama Bin Laden?
I've been doing some interesting research. According to what I've found, about 1100 West Point Grads died in WW2. Conversely, about 335 Harvard Grads died in WW2. If that trend is continuous for the Ivies, then about 2400 Ivy League graduates died in WW2. Now I'm not trying to spark conflict here or anything, just thought these were some interesting numbers. Apparently the casualty rate of west point grads is about 6 times higher in the Iraq war than in WW2.
Well there you have it. No wonder the country is such a mess. All the good leaders get killed in wars leaving us with the dregs to run the show.
Can we please go back to talking about Sarah Palin in a bikini. It is not much, but throw in the desert heat and a bunch of walking tents and she starts to look pretty good on the horizon. Sort of like Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter - only better.
Publius: there is a story mark halprin (i think i spelled that name right) tells. when he was younger he avoided military service in the US. but he was an adventurous sort so he signed on with a British merchant ship. he used to discuss the relative merits of the USN and the RN with one of his shipmates, each taking the side of their navy. one day his fellow crewman asked why he hadn't joined the USN or one of the US services. he went through a long fashionable political explanation about the "immorality etc" of the American services. at the end of his explication the British merchant sailor just looked at him and said:
"Yea but their your mates."
you ought to be able to figure out the gist of my argument from that story and if you can't i'll not bother with you.
caribou barbie: if you want our leadership to aspire to the level of saddam or osama, things are worse than i thought. we have done better. one of teddy r's boys got killed in ww I and the other served with great honor in ww II. and tr himself had rather a fine record. the kennedy brothers served and one got killed and other almost did. there are other examples but that is all i can think of for the moment.
anonymous (why doesn't anybody have a name? all these anonimii are confusing me.): richard gabriel did that research about 30 years ago and wrote a book about it. his found what you found. he also found that things changed drastically after WW II. maybe starting in korea but definitely by vietnam, the mandarinate was not serving in their fair share anymore.
Hi Carl,
I was wondering if (and why) you say that military service is the litmus test for whether someone is serving their country well, upholding morals, and if nothing else, helping out the man/woman next to them. What about the great numbers of MIT/Stanford/Ivy League grads who go on to work for the Treasury Department in order to target terrorist assets, or go to work at defense companies like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, BAE, etc., or work for the CIA as analysts? Isn't their work absolutely vital to the success of the mission and the survivability of our forces? (Of course there is no substitute for manpower, but manpower alone is certainly insufficient). Or are their contributions negated by virtue of the fact that they are graduates of schools controlled by the mandarinate?
it is not a litmus test for individuals. that would be silly.
it is a litmus test for a class, especially a class the is over represented the high echelons of national politics; and a class, it seems to me, that feels these high echelons are an entitlement.
the types of service you mention are all important, but ultimately they are not as important as service in a combat unit. figure this, if you were to pare away every component of a county's military power, what would the last thing left be? the last thing left would be a infantry soldier with a rifle. and who has the most dangerous job? the infantry soldier with a rifle. depending on the nature of the conflict you can add helo pilot, tanker, submariner, even fighter pilot to the list (in 1944 or 45 a Luftwaffe fighter pilot had less of a chance than a landser on the eastern front).
one of the things those in high echelons do is ask people in combat units to go out and fight, and die. they must ask them to do that or the country eventually gets overrun by the latest crop of barbarians. one of the precepts of leadership is you don't ask a man to do something that you won't do yourself. so what we have now is an elite political class asking others to go and do something they haven't done themselves since the second world war; and something they show no inclination to do now.
if the ivy league boys served in the same proportion as the guys from texas a&m or someplace i would have no complaint.
if Mr. Obama were to make a speech at the next yale, harvard, princeton, stanford (that one counts too) graduation, and say to the graduates "we want you to join the Army and Marines. you are some of the best we have and we need the best we have leading the men over those cold hills. your country needs you to answer the call", if he were to make that speech and make that call; that would be change.
(did you know Mr. Obama is the holder of the office of president elect? i saw the placard on his podium. is that office in the Constitution? i don't remember.)
Perhaps there was more equity in the distribution of death across classes in WWII because it was an actual war, against an identifiable enemy with a definitive declaration of war that identified that enemy and justified that declaration as a response to direct aggression against the United States and/or in response to requests for assistance from an overwhelming majority of the free world.
I am sure you will disagree with me on this fact but without actually researching the specific language lets explore a few military events since WWII:
Korea – a police action intended to stop the red menace from extending their reach.
Vietnam – same
Panama – the troops are rusty and we really need to combat test our new technology so let’s invade a teeny country with no real military
Bosnia – a civil war, but we should get involved or they might go back to being red.
Gulf War 1 – OIL but at least there was international resolve and GHB had the good sense to simply put things back the way they were and stop at the border. The real goal here was to send a message, it was sent and the country was 100% behind that action.
Afghanistan – had the potential to fit the criteria above but that was never the real objective so GWB, and his dim witted cronies simply swatted the fly that they neither properly identified or understood so they could go back to IRAQ because of OIL.
ORAQ – OIL, we never had firm resolve from the rest of the world, Bush and Cheney are both oil guys and after 8 years western oil companies finally have regained a foothold in the country. The only problem is that we have bankrupted the country to gain a tenuous hold on oil that is worth less than what we have spent to sort of secure it.
Where in the constitution does it say any of this should be allowed to happen?
It is curious that you ignore facts presented in this thread that don’t suit your argument (like the mandarinate).
I like Tammy Duckworth as well. She may not be as pretty as Sarah Palin but she did and continues to stand up for her mates.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Publius: they're still your mates buddy, even if you are above all that.
What exactly does it mean that "they're still your mates"? It seems to me that this is essentially a claim of nationalism. But what really underlies nationalism? Is it where you are born? Where you live? And when does nationalism turn into jingoism? (I'm not making any implications by asking these questions, but rather, simply presenting them.)
I'm not sure Publius is completely off base with the argument that there was something definitive and conclusive about the nature of WWII that has been lacking in subsequent military ventures.
don't be cute. you know exactly what "they're still your mates" means.
i wonder if the armed forces are breathlessly awaiting a conflict that meets Publius's criteria. he might deign to help out then and victory would be assured.
Oh, ok. It's good to know that possible objections can be dismissed on account of cuteness.
I wonder what we could do with the public school system for $10 billion a month?
I an not trying to cause trouble, only agreeing with you that going to war is serious business and that those doing the sending as well as those doing the fighting would benefit from understanding the difference between defending what is ours and exporting myriad versions of Americanism as is convenient to the mandarinate.
BTW - If you come into my house and mess with my friends and family, my bite is worse than my bark. But if the guy down the street doesn't like that his neighbors leaves blew into his yard, I would prefer to let them work it out and I doubt that I would sell rakes to both sides just because I could.
Finally, I am certain the military could care less about my position. As I understand it, many generals acquiesce their right to vote so that they don't have a political conflict with the commander and chief they swear to follow. Morals have nothing to do with war.
Interesting debate, Carl. I think the political truth is that it is not so much what privileges you have as how you use them. Sarah Palin was privileged with beauty and a sort of pleasing personality. McCain is richer than Solomon and does not even comprehend the meaning of poverty. Maybe Obama will help the poor and middle class to survive or even thrive.
It is not just the rich who support your missions throughout Africa, and it is not just the military. It is also middle class women like me.
I am glad you are safely at home at the moment. Enjoy a little of our crazy politics. It kind of seems meaningless when I see the horror going on in DRC and other places where you fly. I voted for Obama and I am grateful for people like you. I tried to become a pilot, but didn't have a talent. My skills were better used as an advocate for justice for people who could not afford it.
first anon: i should have left aside the cute crack. gets us nowhere. however, you do indeed know exactly what the phrase in question means. the point in question is well defined. "what does this really mean?" "what does that really mean?" are just distractions, intentional or otherwise. they have nothing to do with the main point.
publius: same thing goes for you. "what if" questions and the "bigger" issues are something you use in dorm room bull sessions. "morals have nothing to do with war." really. time for another story.
on the first day of the battle of the bulge an American i&r platoon was attacked by a very large group of German paratroopers. they held the Germans off for hours and inflicted hundreds of casualties. finally the Germans got smart and instead of attacking frontally, they flanked our guys and took the position fairly easily. only one or two of our guys were killed when the position was taken. the Germans led the Americans down the hill past all those dead bodies, friends and comrades of the German paratroopers. and except for one German who pointed a weapon at one of our guys and pulled the trigger only to have the gun misfire, no one tried to hurt our guys. one of our soldiers, who rather expected to be shot, asked one of the the Germans why he didn't shoot him. the German replied "I am a soldier."
that is the ideal of the western soldier. maximum violence when the fight is on, and maximum effort to reduce the dying when fight is over. it has taken hundreds of years to get to that position and exemplary characters to sustain it. so don't you tell me morals have nothing to do with war.
last anon: my point is about honor and duty. detailed political positions are beside it.
i suspect you have the talent to be a pilot. it is mostly a matter of persisting. what you probably didn't have was a good instructor. there is a license now called the sport pilot license. it eliminates a lot of the radio work, night work and other things that don't add much to the fun part. you should look into it.
why don't all you anons, give yourselves numbers or letters, anon 1, anon A etc. sort it out among yourselves. it will make it easier for me.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Very nice story but again you selectively rebut to suite your perspective. Again, I will try to address your whole point.
Nazi soldiers were known to be well trained and very disciplined, your isolated story clearly illustrates this point. I wonder how the story would have turned out if the gun had not misfired.
It is worth noting that you use an example from WWII. I believe we have established that this was a different and perhaps more noble time period not completely transferable for examining military conflicts of a more modern era. Nonetheless, I would be remiss if I did not offer another un-researched and clearly partial list from memory – Nazi death camps; Bataan, My Lai, and what exactly is the indigenous civilian tally in Iraq?
Regarding “What if” scenarios, I believe it is a universal truth that “what if” is how civilized societies prioritize: What if we let the red menace gain a foot hold in Latin America, what if we drop a nuclear bomb on Japan to shorten the war, what if we educate our youth, what if the world is not flat?
What if you/we opened our minds to alternate points of view from across the globe?
Here is a quick recap of the debate so far: C = Carl, R = other comments unless specifically noted:
C – Sarah Palin is hot
R – and stupid
R – I would rather by hot and stupid than old
C - Good one, smirk
R – HRC will never be hot and Sarah Palin is still stupid
R – Good, one, smirk
R – Carl, don’t settle for hot and stupid when you can have hot, smart and sexy
R – Women, unite! Don’t objectify yourselves.
Caribou Barbie – Seriously, Sarah Palin is a really dim bulb.
R – Good one, smirk
R – Whatever, she looks good in tight clothes
R – Her 15 min is almost up
R – To bad, I want to see how she ages
R – Doesn’t anyone have anything better to talk about?
C – Cool, lots of dialog to comment on: HRC is ugly, I like Ronald Regan and Sarah Palin looks like Ronald Regan, don’t blame men for being men, Caribou Barbie – you ignorant slut, it would be nice if Sarah Palin was hot and qualified but I’ll settle for hot, of course I am an adolescent, aren’t all men, lay off the tent dresses, the women wearing them have moustaches.
C - Parenthetical tangent honoring a fallen hero and impugning Ivy League slackers
R – What?
C – Anybody who hasn’t served in the military but wants to be in politics is an Ivy Leaguer and they are all bad.
C – And they are not just Americans either; all elitists throughout history could be called Ivy Leaguers.
R – I thought we were talking about hot women? Sarah Palin, plausible, Jane Fonda, interesting, HRC and Madeline, Albright - yikes, what a nightmare!
R - If you don’t like elitists, them you must be excited about our new president?
C – The new president is a politician and an ivy leaguer, therefore, he is bad
R – What’s wrong with the Ivy League? Are the Military Academies Ivy League, What’s wrong with the Obamas?
C – Ivy League is bad, Ivy League politicians are really bad (unless they were in the military), the academies are better than Ivy League because you have to serve when you graduate.
C – This is serious, if we don’t change a millennium of history, we are in trouble.
R – Ebonics is a racist term, education is important and the United States is a great country.
C – Yes but politicians are bad and people who start out good but get educated and become politicians are bad unless they serve in the military first.
C - %&$!@#!!!!!, oops, I better delete this
R – So Sarah Palin is not qualified?
C – All politicians are bad, especially if they went to an Ivy League school. Sarah gets a pass because she is hot and loathed by the media,
R – Joe Biden is stupid and loathed by the media, do you like him?
C – He is not hot, besides he is a democrat.
R – Carl is right, all leaders are bad, even the evil ones
R – Obama/Osama, hmmm, very suspicious.
R – Death is equitable in just wars
R – I thought we were talking about bikini’s
C – Here is a story to prove that I am right, don’t compare our bad leaders to the evil bad leaders on the other side
R – Why is military service a pre-requisite for a political career?
C – Because politicians are bad, especially Ivy League politicians (except the ones who served in the military).
C – If Barak Obama said things that I liked, I would be more inclined to like him back but he went to an Ivy League school and is a politician
R – Maybe more people would enlist if they believed in the military conflict of the day. Why do you keep ignoring the name Tammy Duckworth?
C - ^%$#@*^!!! Oops, I better delete that.
C – Publius – I think you are a coward.
R – Be nice, it is a valid point.
C – I think Publis is a coward
Publius – I am not a coward just because I don’t agree with you.
Anonymous – Don’t be so serious Carl, we love you and we respect you. Enjoy your time at home and enjoy the spirit of a debate that can only take place in America. And remember that we all love and respect you.
C – I am sorry, Publius, you are not a coward, just an idiot. Here is a story to prove my point. It is getting really difficult to keep all of these points from running together. Please identify yourselves.
C - #$%$*&*. Oops, I better delete that.
Publius – nice story but I still disagree with you. I hope we can still be mates?
…we’ll be back for the second half of this exciting debate on free speech right after a word from our sponsors….
publius: my point always had to do with the behavior of the mandarinate. since you keep bringing up the justice of American foreign policy, or the lack thereoff, war crimes by western and non-western armies and implied war crimes, i will assume you have conceded the validity of my point.
make sure you read the story of hugh thompson, an army helo pilot in vietnam. if you don't, you are not allowed to comment again. i will delete you.
all my children: boy did you do a lot of work on that! the things i deleted were duplicate entries. i don't work the machine that well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson,_Jr.
An awesome, unforgettable, heart warming and disturbing story. Again, I wonder how the story would have turned out if Hugh C. Thompson, Jr. had not been present at My Lai. Would there even be a story?
I have been conceding some your point from the beginning. I just don’t think that everything is black or white (no pun intended). I do believe that true leadership is as rare as a genius IQ or Michael Phelps type athletic ability. While that innate skill can be enhanced by military experience, it is not a definitive prerequisite
It is easier to change the system from the inside. Which means, that one must become part of the problem in order to create the solution. Mikhail Gorbachev was the evil empire until he changed the world. That’s why Time magazine listed him as the most important person of the 20th century.
So what do you think of Tammy Duckworth? She seems to fit your criteria for leadership.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammy_Duckworth
here's another interesting story similar to tammy duckworth. It seems these days that being a veteran is only patriotic if you support guns for everyone, staying the course in iraq (no matter what the course is), kicking all the mexicans out, and gung-ho capitalism. Oh, and you probably have to hate gay people too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Cleland
and this guy is a real asshole... and he isn't even an ivy leaguer!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxby_Chambliss
Publius: fair enough. i think we're kind of close. i concede that on an individual basis, military experience is neither here nor there. i continue to maintain that on a class basis, it is critically important.
i also agree about leadership. some people say you can teach leadership. i think you can identify and enhance what is already there but you can't make something from nothing.
if you read the Peers report, they say wonderful things about Army helo pilots from Viet Nam. Mr. Thompson was representative of a group.
now to check up on tammy duckworth,
to the latest anon: watch your tone or i will use the tantalus device on you.
Tammy Duckworth
now there is an admirable woman. i probably wouldn't vote for her but she is an admirable woman.
Carl,
The fact that you say you wouldn't vote for Tammy Duckworth (over Peter Roskam) obviates your arguments for class/not being in the mandarinate/military service being the most important selection criteria for political office. Despite the fact that Tammy Duckworth has shown exemplary leadership experience and the utmost concern for the personnel of the US military, her social and political positions nevertheless trump that in your mind. By saying you wouldn't vote for her, you instead acquiesce to the victory of Peter Roskam: a man who was already established in the mandarinate before the election (as an assistant to Tom Delay and Henry Hyde), as well as a trial lawyer who earned $600,000 per year, and who graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which is no joke of a school. In doing this, you have clearly shown, in spite of all of your previous arguments, that you would rather support the mandarinate rather than an upstanding candidate, with military experience and values, who does not share your social and political views.
how many times i gotta tell you guys, my point deals with a class, not with individuals. probably a lot more since you misstated my argument and created an entire world from a simple comment.
but what the hell, i don't want to rob you of your victory. so here i stand (sit actually but stand sounds much more dramatic), shamed in the eyes of the world, finally exposed as the poltroon i am. i squirmed and dodged and double backed on my tracks but you found me out in the end. whatever shall i do now.
It takes a big man to admit that he is just a man, even if someone had to beat it out of you. I salute you.
BTW the whole point of my essay bonanza oh so many years ago was to assure the masses that we would not become a class society. I remain naively optimistic.
i would like to believe the same thing and for a long time i resisted the idea. but i fear we are heading in that direction and it saddens me.
well shouldn't obama's election give you some hope that we're not headed in that direction, even if you might not agree with his politics?
haven't you been reading what this thing is all about?
obama's being a proto-typical representative of a political (and business) class that is leading us to ruination; heavens no. look beyond the guys skin color.
Forgive me for not saying this in my own words.
http://www.heritage.org/research/nationalsecurity/cda08-05.cfm
looks like the mandarinate might be pulling ( at least part of) its own weight after all
very interesting. thank you for providing that link.
hurray for Montana and Maine.
i would like to see the service stats for the grads of the "i gotta get my kid in there" schools. the part that pull their weight is too little.
You could always run for public office and become part of the solution. Just remember the famous words of the philosopher Pogo: We have seen the enemy and it is us.
The pro’s and con’s of your argument:
Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
i'm glad somebody else remembers Pogo.
i don't know if the pros and cons are those of my argument but they are interesting.
the last one though, is wrong. war is entirely useful for some purposes. at times nothing else will do. the north vietnamese communist party wanted to to rule all of vietnam. war was the only way they could do it and they succeeded completely. the russian communist party gained power through war and hung onto it for many years. there was probably no other way to keep the confederate states in the union (please don't use that comment to start up a civil war debate). the only thing that stopped the Rwandan genocide was the rpa winning. the only thing that will put a stop to the problems in east congo is the destruction of the fdlr (i think that's the acronym), which will require something akin to war.
one of the tragedies of humanity is until we stop organizing and working in groups, and until we no longer have conflicts with out neighbors for whatever reason, war will be. that it is economically hugely unproductive is a small point. war is hell but losing one is a lot worse.
i'm glad somebody else remembers Pogo.
i don't know if the pros and cons are those of my argument but they are interesting.
the last one though, is wrong. war is entirely useful for some purposes. at times nothing else will do. the north vietnamese communist party wanted to to rule all of vietnam. war was the only way they could do it and they succeeded completely. the russian communist party gained power through war and hung onto it for many years. there was probably no other way to keep the confederate states in the union (please don't use that comment to start up a civil war debate). the only thing that stopped the Rwandan genocide was the rpa winning. the only thing that will put a stop to the problems in east congo is the destruction of the fdlr (i think that's the acronym), which will require something akin to war.
one of the tragedies of humanity is until we stop organizing and working in groups, and until we no longer have conflicts with out neighbors for whatever reason, war will be. that it is economically hugely unproductive is a small point. war is hell but losing one is a lot worse.
Both the pros and cons are not my words but those of that other famous philosopher, Thomas Jefferson.
I like Ron Paul. Probably looks really bad in a bikini but has good ideas nonetheless.
Are you going to run for office or are you more of a windmill type?
i figured it was somebody like that. hate to disagree with one of the founding fathers. i wonder what he would have said if he knew about modern primate research.
not the windmill type, more of a dreamer.
I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
Thomas Jefferson
oops, wrong primates.
If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.
Thomas Jefferson
It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.
Thomas Jefferson
wait, what?? can't talk about a class unless you talk about individs. a class is not an entity without the individs who make up the class. two individuals don't make a class. sweeping generalizations do??
Most American Marines exhibit courage in combat. Some do not. The behavior of these individuals does not invalidate the the first statement. And if you plan to fight the Marines, you had better count on it.
Most Ivy League graduates do not go in to politics. Some do. The behavior of these individuals does not invalidate the first statement. And if you plan on saying that the Ivy League is responsible for the mandarinate, you had better count on it.
i suppose a mirror image statement is clever in some circumstances, i use it myself. you have to be careful though. if you try too hard to follow the original form, you end up being less than clear, muddled even.
what are you trying to say exactly?
R: I know that you already admitted that you were wrong, but I want to grind on the issue. How can you say that the Ivy League has no class?
C: Because the Marines are a class with class
R: My dad thinks your dad is ... and, Well, my mom thinks that your mom ...
YOU THINK THAT YOU ARE SOOO BIG.
What's unclear about anonymous' statement, other than the fact that they managed to turn your argument? Sorry, but it's sound.
well it may be sound to you but it mystificates me.
so professor, how 'bout explaining it to one of the slow kids. you can use big words if you want, i gots a dictionary.
all my children: the basic idea is good, but this time around the execution is flawed. keep swinging though.
ok. let's start with a basic schematization.
P1. There are eight Ivy League Universities.
P2. The approximate undergraduate class at an Ivy is between 1,500 and 2,000 students.
P3. Of all of the Ivy league graduates, a few pursue politics vocationally.
P4. Most Ivy League graduates pursue vocational fields unrelated to politics.
P5. That some individuals in a class display certain characteristics does not mean that the class as a whole displays such characteristics.
P6. While there are some individuals in the class that are power-hungry politicians, this description does not accurately typify the class.
C. The statement that the Ivy League is a class of the power-hungry elite is to identify a small cross section of individuals as representative of an entire class, thus making a generalization.
Here is a link to GWB's cabinet.
While the evidence is purely anecdotal, it does seem that the ones who are butt heads are IVY League grads with no military experience. Except for GWB who is a butt head with military experience (sort of).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_Cabinet
acrimonius,
sure, that is true, and there are definitely a lot of buttheads that graduate from the ivy league. Of course, there are a ton of buttheads who don't come from the ivy league too.
The whole point, though, is that a few Ivy league buttheads in the white house doesn't make every Ivy League graduate a butthead.
It might make the dean of admissions a butthead though.
acrimonious: my point exactly! of course i contend that this is regardless of party affiliation, but even if you don't, you're still halfway there. arrogance crosses party lines.
now let's see where did Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama go to school?
dif anon: way back in the thicket i said, you can look it up, the prototypical member of the mandariniate was an ivy league lawyer or grad. there are a whole lot of other "i gotta get my kid in there" schools that produce mandarins, stanford, georgetown, columbia, berkley etc.
it is true that most of these don't go into politics. however, we would most likely see (i would be pleased if i was wrong) that very very few of them put themselves in harms way over in those dusty cities and on the rocky hills, at least as compared to the less exalted schools. and we would most likely see that proportionally more of them end up in positions of wealth, influence and power, at least as compared to the grads of the less exalted schools. if that is not true then those desperate parents are wasting their money.
i would say the class as a whole displays this pattern of behavior.
now i did not say ivy league grads are power hungry members of the elite. i said they are members of an elite dominating the higher strata of national politics. i said further that this mandarinate isn't pulling its weight when it comes to exposing themselves to Kipling's cheap bullet. which they ain't.
how's that?
i like the comment about the deans of admissions. i read that one of them said if scholarships were given strictly on the basis of academic performance, those schools would be filled mostly with asians and poor white kids. but fear not, the deans of admissions are there to bar the way.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Just a question. Including the President elect, there have only been 44 presidents, how many of the 44 are butt heads with an Ivy League pedigree?
#30 Coolidge - Amherst College - No Military
#31 Hoover - Stanford - No Military
#32 FDR - Harvard - No military
#33 Truman - No degree - Natl Guard
#34 Eisenhower - West Point
#35 JFK - Multiple Ivy League - Navy
#36 LBJ SW Texas Teachers Coll. - Navy Reserve
#37 Nixon - Duke Law - Navy
#38 Ford - Yale Law - Navy
#39 Carter - Naval Academy
#40 Reagan - Eureka Collage - Enlisted Army
#41 GHWB - Yale - Navy
#42 Clinton Yale Law - No Military
#42 GWB - Yale, HBS - Air Natl Guard
#44 Obama - Columbia, Harvard Law - No Military
Seems to be a very high correlation between Ivy League and military service among presidents in the last 90 years.
But what exactly determines butt head status?
in the last 90 years, yes. how about those who graduated in the last 45 or so, say from Vietnam on. if you will look back in the archives (i should consider an index), you will see one of the things noted was, the mandarinate USED to do its bit. it stopped some decades ago. if it decides to resume, great. i'll not put any plans on hold waiting for this to happen.
did you know a lot of guys went into the NG during Vietnam to dodge the draft (the chance of combat)? that doesn't work anymore.
By the way, Truman was a stud. part of his NG service was being a captain of artillery in WW I, in France, with Germans shooting at him.
the list is very interesting. some of the best, little colleges or no college; as with one of worst. same with the hoi poloi (sic).
Of the 10 presidents in the last 48years:
6 were Ivy League.
2 were military academy
2 did not serve in the military.
Are you sure your problem is not specifically with # 42 and #44 rather than the Ivy League or the mandarinate?
nope. bush 1 and 2 weren't no great shakes either. it's the mandarinate.
the graduation dates of the fellows would be more germane, not when they were in office.
to me, we've only had one really good one since Ike, but he was so good, he made amends for the dross preceding and we've been coasting along on the legacy since.
didn't both of those fellas serve in the military? that kinda blows your argument -- again, doesn't it.
I assume you were referring to Reagan as the good one. Don't forget he started out as a Democrat.
Does making movies count as getting in harms way?
if my argument was that military service makes it certain a person will be a good president, it would. but it isn't. it's your assumption of what my argument was.
if you are going to point-counterpoint yourself this is going to become very tiresome; for us. you of course will continue to take delight in saying "gotcha" when there wasn't anything there.
please pay attention to what is going on, not what you want to be going on. take written notes if you have to.
Ron did start out as a donkey. he grew out of it.
Seems to me that you have expended a tremendous amount of energy defining the problem.
What is the solution?
Do you want to reinstate the draft?
nope, don't want to bring back the draft.
the problem is an attitude that exists amongst a class of people within the country. how do you change attitudes of those who have more power and influence than you do? lord knows, i don't.
right now they are not being penalized in any way for this. how do they get penalized? maybe by somehow, someway shaming them. how do you do that when they have more power and influence that you do? i don't know. maybe the first thing to do is stop thinking the elite schools produce elite people. these people haven't exactly produced elite results.
there is no easy statutory way out of this. this is a matter of culture.
so you want to change the culture? Isn't that the platform Obama ran on?
curses foiled again. i was hoping somebody wouldn't point out that all cultural changes are exactly the same in object and intent, but you caught me.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Henry J. Tillman
There is always a well-known solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong.
H. L. Mencken, Prejudices: Second Series, 1920
US editor (1880 - 1956)
guilty on all counts.
hmmm. beware those who have a problem with a class of people
psuedo profundities are always good for picking up chicks in bars.
but to to further increase your wariness i'll add some other classes i have problems with
media people who profess objectivity but vote 98% for one party. they can vote how they please just don't play me for a fool.
north korean communists
the fdlr
big firm plaintiffs lawyer, the kind who file class (that word again) action suits that reap them millions and millions.
admissions deans at big name colleges who worship at the altar of diversity just as long as everybody comes from the correct socio-economic strata (i avoided using the word that time.)
big time business people who are all on one anothers board and always find a reason to approve that gigundus pay package.
pointy haired bosses.
big league sports team owners who aren't ashamed of asking that the poor and average people be taxed to build them things they the poor and average won't own.
politicians who tax the poor and average for the benefit of the rich sports team owners.
people who don't mind that somebody else goes off to do their fighting for them.
you should be very wary of me.
Yo, Carl. So your beef is that people from the Ivy Leagues (and Stanford and Georgetown etc.) don't put themselves in harm's way. Right?
Ok. But let's look at the amount of vet school grads and laws school grads who have (or should I say haven't) gone into military service (regardless of what school they went to). For that matter, what about the number of high school dropouts, stay at home moms, college professors, engineers, and grocery store clerks who also haven't enlisted. If only about 10% (from what I found) of the US population serves in the military, then there certainly have to be other classes of people who aren't "pulling their weight" as a whole.
yea, maybe; but none so high and mighty, none so privileged, none who dominate that list of prez's.
stay at home moms?!
Ok, so I think I finally have it. Your problem is with any class or individual who commits one or more of the 7 deadly sins and any addendum to that list which may be arbitrarily determined in the future?
It is not you that I fear. You, in fact I respect (except that I think you can do better than a Sarah Palin fantasy).
It is any entire class of ewes if/and when the right class of individual messiah comes along and organizes all of you that I fear.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Cotton Mather would be proud of you.
Unfortunatly, Orc seems to be a fitting definition.
Can we end this with something more positive? Perhaps a nice game of chess ...
oooohhhkay. all of us orcs are just setting here waiting for Saruman to show up. then watch out. we're gonna win this time.
so this is not a response to your orc comment, carl (a lord of the rings allusion? really? although, what does it say about me that i picked up on it?), but the one preceding.
we keep going back and forth. first, you say that you have a problem with the ivy league for the reason that, as a class, they don't enlist. ok, so the response was that we can identify myriad other classes that also don't enlist. if you vilify one, you should probably plan on vilifying those other classes. but then the argument returns to the fact that ivy league grads have dominated the presidency in the past however many years. ok, so the response to this is that the majority of ivy league grads don't go into politics. if you want to say that those controlling washington should be willing to fight for the country, fine. but you have to apply that to all of washington, not just the ivy league grads.
and the identification of the ivy league as high and mighty and privileged (all thoughts of military service aside) is not only a stereotype, but an antiquated one. there was a connotation associated with "ivy" back in the day, but step on any ivy league campus today and you'll see that it no longer holds.
this is out of sequence. but...
no chess for me. us orcs prefer archery.
aside from an ivy league campus not being a bastion of privilege (i wonder what the median net worth of those families is?)...
please pay attention.
i keep referring to the mandarinate, of which the ivy leaguers are only a component. i point the finger at this class because they, for good or ill, seem to dominate the leadership. it is a leaders duty not to ask another guy to do what they won't do themselves (how many times i gotta say this). this class doesn't seem to be doing this.
leadership and privilege doesn't mean more perqs, it means greater responsibility. they aren't fulfilling their responsibility.
the last comment deleted was my orc reference. i had to pull it and redo it cause there were typos. i have to keep note of this stuff or i'll forget.
ok, so if your problem is with the madarinate leadership as a whole, then fine. if that's the case, then shouldn't your beef just be with the culture of washington? i don't see why which school these leaders graduated from is of any relevance (since, again, most ivy league grads don't go into politics).
remember this link that showed that high-income families are over-represented in the military?
http://www.heritage.org/research/nationalsecurity/cda08-05.cfm
Perhaps you can post a profile of your ideal leader.
Please include: vital stats, education, socio economic background, political ideals, religious ideals, moral flaws, sexual preference, several generations of family history on both sides and a demonstrated capacity to learn from past mistakes.
And a recent photo.
I am going to run outside and gather some stones.
okay. i'm getting tired of you guys not listening. listen up and get it. now.
my beef is with the mandarinate and with the inside the beltway crowd. the ivy league types (as i've stated before) are a component of the mandarinate; one component but one that seems quite over represented at the top. the mandarinate ain't doing its bit. the ivy league grads ain't doing their bit. show me some stats that show that the ivy league types are doing there bit and the grads of the "i gotta get my kid in there" schools are doing their bit and i won't have a complaint coming.
i do not include service academies amongst the "i gotta get my kid in there" schools. if you look closely at the stats in the heritage study, you will notice they cut off the family income at $100,000, no breakdown above that figure, just $100,000 and up. that skews the demographic i think. you are lumping those families in with the families of the students in the "i gotta...there" schools, whose average family makes a whole lot more than that.
face facts buddy. the ivy league types don't do their bit either. take your money and go. don't ask for my respect along with it.
leaders. lets try Abe Lincoln, George Washington, Nathaneal Greene, Winston Churchill, Bill Slim, Ron Reagan, Harry Truman, Ike, Herb Kellegher, Hub Zemke, Hugh Thompson, Gen. Creech, Ray Ordierno, Robert Gates, Gary Johnson, Quintin McShan, B.O. Davis and, in his early days, Woody Hayes.
Interesting list. Gates stands out for sevaral reasons:
He is an outstanding career servant but hasn't run for office. Ergo - he is destined to work for the mandarinate.
He is the only one on your list still living.
I wonder where his children went to school?
again, i don't understand why you can't just say that the mandarinate isn't doing their bit, and stop there. if it is true that the elite schools are over-represented in the demographics of the mandarinate, then there's no need to make any further statement regarding the schools themselves.
and this is pretty cool.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/education/20080513-9999-1n13fees.html
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7043
Iterestng link to a cogent discussion on the subject. Unfortunately, it is written by a manradian and therefore requires a paid subscription to access.
"The meritocratic mandarinate and its humanist culture cushioned mass democracy from the excesses feared by 19th-century liberals. Now the mandarins are in retreat will the nightmare of mobocracy come true?"
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2005/in_defence_of_mandarins
Here is the same article in an american mandarianate journal ... for free!
Buddy: ( i have to give you guys names. why can't you pick out your own?) Gates doesn't work for the mandarinate, he is part of it.
i can just see the gleam in your eye now as you say "aha! i got him! Gates has done his bit, he is part of the mandarinate, therefore the entire mandarinate is off the hook." nope doesn't work that way. so slow those typing fingers down.
anon a: i am going to continue to take the name of the ivy league in vain for reasons already explained. get used to it.
if there are worries about cost, an ROTC scholarship or the Marine PLC can always be tried.
anon b: i interpret that quote thusly: our betters have managed to save us from ourselves for hundreds of years. now, after these centuries of selfless service, they are getting tired and may not much longer be able to rescue us from ourselves. as the anointed ones fade away, the dark time may be upon us.
you are a snob.
anon c: where in that mass of articles is it?
anon a: the GI bill is very generous now too.
the quote os from the snobbish article about snobs who hate other snobs because they are snobs.
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2005/in_defence_of_mandarins
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2005/in_defence_of_mandarins
the blog keeps dropping the article reference. it should read: aricles/2005/in underscore defense underscore of underscore mandarians
anon b & c: i apologize if i misunderstood you're intent. think longer, write slower should i.
I accept your apology. And I am impressed by your admission that you think about speaking before you listen.
The first step of recovery is to admit you have a problem.
Best of luck on your journey
anonomi:
i'll need it.
your comment made me laugh. and just so we can be clear, since i often tanglefoot myself, it made me laugh cause it was funny.
Don't be discouraged by backsliding. It is very common. I believe in you. Be strong.
Check out this book. It looks interesting. Just released. Based on extensive research and will either agree with you or give you reason to grind your teeth.
Outliers: The Story of Success (Hardcover)
by Malcolm Gladwell (Author)
i read various reviews on-line and i don't think i'll read it. not because i don't agree with the premise, but because it doesn't seem to be that good a book.
sort of related. i thought once Vietnam should be the most successful country on earth. after all, the Vietnamese here do very very well and in Vietnam, there are tens of millions of Vietnamese. the place is crawling with them.
but, Vietnam is not one of the most successful countries on earth. so from that i concluded that you have to have other things besides talented people.
I thought that one of the conclusions of the book was that success is contextual and to loosely interpret, driven by who you know and in what context you know them. In other words, the mandarinate is self perpetuating so it is better to become one of them then to try to be an outlier (of which there are by definition very few).
Additionally, it takes approx 10,000 hours to reach a personal level of mastery (i.e. to reach your own potential rather than to be the best) and as such, it is again better to be a successful part of the system rather than go it alone.
So really what I am saying is that this book will prove your Ivy League manradinate argument is logically and statistically flawed
here's an interesting article written by a veteran of Iraq and afghanistan.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200810u/afghanistan-soldier/2
also, interestingly enough, if it weren't for Harvard, Tim O'Brien may never have written books like If I Die in a Combat Zone... or The Things They Carried
Also, Bing West, the author of your favorite book, is an Ivy Leaguer.
first anon: the idea that the in-group can help you to become part of the in-group has nothing to do with the in-group not pulling its weight.
your comment puzzled me. i wondered if you were pulling my leg.
2nd anon: at least some of those ivy league types are coming through.
I dont think, anon is joking. In fact, they have a valid point in that 98% of the population will fall within three standard deviations of the population mean for military service regardless of if they are IVY League.
Yo, how about writing another post!?
Post a Comment
<< Home