How exactly is the military supposed to appeal to a greater cause when, as this author himself points out, the country itself, down to its very founding, has been thouroughly villified?
I spoke in the recent article on "A Prisoner in China" on how I was a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) twelve years ago. In most countries where the Peace Corps operates, the vast majority of PCVs were and still are young, Ivy-league (or near to it) educated youth. Promotion of American exceptionalism was part of the job and wasn't considered an issue among the volunteers when I served in China. Flash forward ten years to 2020, and a group of Persons of Color (POC) who were part of the final group of PC China Volunteers wrote an open letter to the PC stating that the first two months of in-country training did not adequately train all PCVs to examine their own racism, and that the micro-aggressions they, the POCs, faced every day from other Volunteers made their already difficult job of representing America, a country in which they "already fear for [their] lives every day", all the more difficult. That's right, according to these PCVs, their biggest challenge in serving in China - a country that actually is ethnically supremicist and systematically racist, that actually is committing genocide - was being around the young, woke, Ivy-leage White volunteers, who were simply still just so racist that they, the POC Volunteers, could barely manage to do their job of teaching in China, a job that, because it was supposed to entail promoting American ideals, was just too traumatizing for them to continue doing unless the PC committed to incorporating CRT into every facet of PC training and operations.
The brainwashing is real and it is destroying everything.
Yes. I used to laugh at those types of comments. The WSJ articles are filled these types. Sadly I can’t laugh anymore because the damage is too great now.
Well said, and unfortunately very true. I now believe the only way to save “America” is to break it up. The idea of America and its aspirations are predicated on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, not geography.
Unfortunately I've gotten to that point myself as well. When I was young, like when I was in the PC, I always laughed at conservatives who said things like "Obama hates America". After all, if you love something, surely you want to point out the flaws so they can be improved as opposed to just blindly loving an idea that isn't reflective of reality. Today, I genuinely find myself saying to my woke friends, just leave already! Honestly, if it's as bad as they say, that everything is rotten to its core, then for the love of god just go to the supposed paradise you think exists elsewhere (they'll make vague references to Europe, usually) or that they think, in all their wisdom, they can create after tearing down everything that makes America America.
Right and then they’ll say it’s because of white supremacism visa vi colonialism, so if taken to the logical conclusion there isn’t a single Western nation that shouldn’t self immolate, after which surely world wide prosperity and peace is just around the corner
I blame the other PC--political correctness. That’s where this brainwashing started, and it has grown exponentially in the last decade. The members of the Frankfurt School would be thrilled to know how thoroughly they succeeded.
I lay this problem firmly at the feet of the US hating Democrats/Marxists. Decades of them denigrating this country have indoctrinated the young into thinking the US is a tyrannical, racist morass.
A solution to the military problem is a universal draft. Everybody gets called up, no deferments. It works in Switzerland.
Yeah, but I don't think a draft would be feasible in 2023 USA.
I think there is a lot of benefits to a draft, but the problem with a policy like that is that it would have to be implementable.
Could you see a universal draft for all males (or females?) aged 18-25 getting passed in our country? Making it through both houses of congress and getting signed by Joe Biden?
If we tried to institute some kind of mandatory service there would be riots. The good news is at least some of them would go to Canada like they did during Viet Nam.
I agree with your concerns, except that it's starting to feel like it's us that are being forced to leave. Living in a fly by state where big cities have taken over the decisions heading toward woke. In their "wisdom" it's comply, you're wrong, you're outnumbered.
Geography is important. Let's say we split into two blue coasts and some larger red center. Will each have their own border walls to keep foreigners out? Will you have to fly around around the central red states to avoid violating their air space to get from NY to LA. What if New York decides to form an alliance with Illinois and infiltrate Iowa with spies? We have been protected by our geography. You want to Balkanize us! I agree with you completely that the Idea of America and its aspirations are predicated on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Fight for that--it's not as lost a cause as you think.
Thank you Murray! It’s not as lost a cause as many think. Those that think that often have closed their mind to seeking out a middle ground and solutions. There are many. They don’t seem to know enough about the rest of the world, or our own history, to know how hard times can get, and how long it takes to build a nation. We can work this out, we just have to want to. I think we’ve become a country of the self absorbed, and self indulgent...and on both sides of the isle and independents as well. Over six decades ago I was raised middle class, big family, and learned that alone I wasn’t anything that special, but a family, a community, a country...that was special. It was important in the connections amongst people. Now it seems everyone for themselves. It’s sad.
Spot on Ann. There is a shocking ignorance of history, human nature, and of what can go wrong when people give up the hard work of citizenry. We clearly need to be reminded that without personal responsibility and tolerance for other viewpoints freedom is impossible.
We leaders who think "tragically" (As Robert Kaplan just discussed on an Andrew Sullivan podcast).
Exactly what I was going to write! Yes, NY and Massachusetts would have CA for our arugula and Brussels sprouts, but without the bounty from the “flyover states” (thank you HRC, for that ultimate in divisive epithets) they’re through.
The wealth generated in the flyover states passes through the economic centers. They are likely counting profits which originate in flyover country. Oil and gas, crops, etc.
If the blue states are so great, how come their populaces are leaving these blue paradises of Calif, NY and other blues and going to Texas, Navada and Fla.?
I would give blue states a year before they leave their hellscapes, crawling back to the red states (or trying to sneak across borders) looking for food and safety.
When the metric tonnage of homo sapien meat outweighs cattle in your brave new Blue World... get ready for new FDA pyramid extolling the virtues of eating bugs and humans. If the government says it's good - who are we to argue?
Wouldn’t be difficult at all to ‘surgically remove’ them. It’s all financial services and tech. They aren’t producing actual products. So just have them do all their Zoom calls in California and make California a separate country. Easy.
And since the “GDP” you are bragging about is from the precise group that isn’t ‘paying their fair share’, California will be incredibly rich for 8-10 years until the government wastes it all.
You could also funnel all of the military-aged males and destitute illiterate people up through San Diego. And the rest of the border could stay closed.
Yes please do separate. Then Alberta and Saskatchewan can join you forming the greatest agricultural and energy country (including wind and solar) in the world!
Many in western Canada would like to separate from the east and west coast to save our energy and agriculture. We need a way to get these to world markets. Joining with red states in some sort of alliance would help us. We have energy, agriculture, potash, uranium, lithium, on and on to offer, as well as world class education and young population. The reference to wind and solar is a shot at the woke as we have that too.
Oh, so you're not even American. Doesn't matter what Canadians want.
Red States don't have the intellectual capital, resources, cutting edge technology, healthy workers, etc to be viable partners. U.S. Red States are welfare states and suck out way more in federal taxes/support than they produce/contribute.
Your scarfing hot pockets in your mom's basement. And the agricultural portions of CA that you're referring to are all conservative; but I guess that's where you're trying to be cute with "blue states or AREAs". Figures lie and liars figure. That's you.
So all of the rich producers who don’t pay their fair share are in Democrat states with Democrat supermajorities where they could easily make them pay their fair share? But for some reason they don’t?
Ridiculous statement and stupid argument. Both red and blue political people need each other for various tasks and trade. Impossible to separate.
If you could theoretically separate, it wouldn’t be by state, but by who produces what. In that case, the only things of real value would be water, food, and energy and in that order...iow: farmers and oil drillers. Everyone else is superfluous fluff (myself included 😃)
Good, decent Red Staters can live in their area and ban all the drag queens and shoot up as much Bud Light as they want. All the godless liberals can spend their time screaming at white kids all day in school about how they're oppressors and getting gay married.
Need each other? Nah. Liberals are the cause of all the problems in America. They're the reason everything is so crappy., So, it's best that a massive relocation project take place where all the blue cities, States etc. are moved to one area of the country.
Lol. Sorry, many more things of value than just food, water, energy. What do you think this is Mad Max?
Absolutely could separate by state/land. Production is irrelevant.
Yep. Blue states have plenty of food, water, energy, etc. Plus when all those wealthy blue pockets are moved, even better.
Lol. If Red States had all this amazing stuff, and were such the backbone, why are they only at 30%?....playing the long game?
"many more things of value than just food, water, energy. What do you think this is Mad Max?"
Yes
"Blue states have plenty of food, water, energy"
Yes, but its not the "Blue people" that produce it.
"Red States ...Blue States..."
Again, its not about States, its about people within the states. California where I live is a deep blue state and produces/exports an amazing amount of food; but its not the "blue" people doing that.
I know you are trolling, but it doesn't matter, yes, both political persuasions need each other for various reasons. Its a stupid argument for stupid people to consider.
California is the state that receives the most federal funding in real dollars, because it is the largest welfare state in the country. Aside from that, red states would thrive because at this moment large corporations are moving to red states, and if they had to choose—in the case of a separation—if they are not receiving special treatment from the party in power—they would choose the free market AND law and order. If you’ve been paying attention, business are leaving blue cities, as are taxpayers. I would LOVE to see a blue country with open borders, “free” everything, govt oversight of business, speech restrictions, woke to the max, no prisons, no consequences for criminal acts—just so every Democrat can have what they’ve been clamoring for.
We need a new Federalist Party. There's no need to break up, we just need to get away from the increasingly unitary government that looks like it was mostly the product of an era of post-war cultural cohesion.
How do we do that? I’m concerned that the Democrat strongholds have a permanent lock on elections—-look at California, New York and Illinois. Anywhere that the vote counting went 5 days past the election, even if the polls were in favor of another, the Democrat just made it over the finish line. Chicago, once my favorite city in the US, will continue to decline rapidly, as will LA, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. And yet, those cities completely dominate their state, giving millions ZERO voice in elections. I’m all for starting new alliances, but the truth is, we may be past the point of no return for states dominated by powerful Democrat-run cities. Did you know that California, as a state, gave Donsld Trump the most number of votes out of any other state? Over 6 million. This isn’t about Trump per se, it’s about at least 6 million with no representation in government, and as far as I can see, Democrats will always “find” the votes that keep their guy in power. The LA county registrar threw out an unprecedented 30% of signatures in the Gascon recall —usually its 3%. Rigged elections are our main problem and I don’t see a way around it. I’d love for someone to figure out a way around that—all I can see is secession.
Well...not quite. Red states are filled with women who would prefer to have a say over their own bodies which is why the Republicans lost votes after the dismantling of Roe v Wade. I'd prefer this not devolve into an abortion argument but red states are not comprised of populations aligned on every topic.
No state is a monoculture but states vote on majority rules. You can protest locally much easier than nationally. You can also move if you don't like your state. Many Californians are doing just that.
Our nation has paid a heavy price for manipulating culture abroad. I resent people from other states trying to manipulate mine. Don't tread on me.
When I hear a President say "We must fundamentally change our culture" I cringe. Culture is not the business of Federal Government. It evolves naturally and cannot be changed by force.
Hang on a minute.so you are saying that those in your state who don't agree with ypu should move to another state? But then aren't you advocating for a monoculture?
You don't want people from 'other states' 'manipulating' your state's culture but we live in the United States. That means we are a mix of cultures and can move freely between stayes so how is someone thinking and voting differently to you 'treading' on you?
I doubt anyone will move because they cannot get a convenient abortion nearby. A ridiculous notion. They may say they will but it will be just like AOC claiming she will sell her Tesla or Whoopie moving to Canada. Empty promises for dramatic effect only.
The people who promote the idea that this country is built by slaves on stolen land and governed by a white supremacist document are enemy combatants.
Laughable that 26 Russian Facebook ads about Hillary are a dire threat but a $50 billion industry training children with talking points directly from Communist China is free speech. The teachers and professors who are indoctrinating young people with this anti-American propaganda should be marched off to prison camps.
But since we aren’t going to do that they will win and the nation will collapse. Good job everyone.
I very much like this comment. I was born in the late sixties in a very rural area with very few people of color. And while I am sure a good many harbored what we might call racist views due to mainly their ignorance, some of these people were the most decent and kind people I have ever met. If you had a flat, or ran out of gas you got a ride. The idea that a neighbor would just come over and work half a day in the hot sun for no pay was common. We need to get back to that country. Let he that is without sin cast the first stone sort of thing.
E Pluribus Unum, limited government and the self-reliance of the individual! This does not mean that we "go it alone" but, rather, that we share a common vision in partnership with the rest.
Dividing us into separate groups and then claiming that said groups are "put-upon" by "the majority" is the stock in trade of current politics. No more "E Pluribus Unum", no more self-reliance, no more common vision!
No, actually it was a concept called "liberty" which does have some features like individual freedom but it links individual freedom to personal responsibility.
It is kind of like when a company sends a man to far away place to open a branch office. That man represents the corporation, but by virtue of being remote and needing to make decisions on the ground, he has more autonomy. As Mr Moore says, there is a vision of common purpose which is to maintain and improve the unity and felicity of the whole.
And, up until recently that was the reasoning behind things like the "welfare state" and other government allocated benefits -- that the unity is advanced by taking care of those who need a bit of help, and that is balanced with the ability and willingness of the fortunate to pay.
But now the unfortunate demand and the fortunate resist, and instead of arguing things out in debates and subtle legislation we just shout, dox and burn things.
Thank you. I take it as evidence that you have no response/refutation that the U.S. was founded based on individual freedom and every man, woman and child for themselves (i.e. equal oportunity, not equal results)
Okay well I guess you have a good point that we are on the other end of the spectrum with pure individualism and maybe that’s not ideal.
We should probably try at least one government program to help people. I’m willing to compromise on that. I will let you pick. What would you like America to do for its first ever government program to help people?
Have an outstanding point. Easy when you take off the rose-colored glasses and see things as they are. A brilliantly concise point that removes the fantasy and sees the reality.
If you acces/get benefits from such programs, you are, as Paul Ryan said: "a Taker."
So, yes, we clearly are *not* on the opposite end of the spectrum and we have shitloads of welfare oozing from every crevice and your assertion that we are in any way adhering to whatever ‘rugged individualism’ means was a farcical dipshit claim on your part.
I honestly blame so much of the U.S. division on things like Ancestry and other genealogy sites. Before... we were always Americans. Now we are 10% this, 12% that and other such nonsense. I really feel like it has melted away whatever common united bond we had.
The "Hyphenated-American" started way before the dawn of the Internoodle and modern genetics. In the 1970s, iirc. The road to today's identity divisiveness has been trod for decades.
Actually, that’s what I find so strange about modern DEI. Or as I like to call it, DIE. They always want to know if someone’s black or white, or Asian, Hispanic or Native American. Most people need to pick multi ethnic or multi racial. It’s simply more accurate for most Americans. We aren’t quite as single race as it sometimes appears.
My god that’s insane! Not surrounding, but insane! These people will destroy this country (as they clearly intend to.). I fight my internal urge to delight in the phyrric victory of imagining them complaining to a real dictatorship…
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Biden, AOC, et al are all useful idiots playing by the CCP playbook. Everyone is Woke ore anti-Woke but very few are awake to what’s going on.
Young people are less patriotic and less likely to join the military than previous generations due in part to woke ideology, political correctness, and isolationist pundits. Woke promotes a negative view of America, political correctness creates a climate of fear and self-censorship and isolationist pundits reduce pride in and the importance of America as a global superpower. This trend will likely reverse if the economy worsens making a military career more attractive or another 9-11 type attack leads to a renewed sense of patriotism and national unity.
But meanwhile, how depressing for a generation of young voters to be facing Biden or Trump as their next president.
Thank you for your post. I agree with you 100%. I’m my opinion, the answer for all this insanity is simple. It’s up to us as individuals to set the example and act the right way by putting others needs ahead of ours. That’s it!!! And as we do this people will realize there is actually great joy in thinking of others first and see the positive effects in our homes, schools, jobs etc.... It will take a while, but one kind act at a time will turn the tide.
I promise to do something nice for someone else today (first I have to walk my dog!). I hope y’all will join me as we turn the tide together. I’m optimistic we can.
Pemulis, the brainwashing may be real as you very aptly point out. But the level of education matters. Progressivism grows like mold in major US universities. I have doubts it permeates to the ranks of young men/women barely out of high school from small town America who might be attracted to the military either short term or long term. The Ivy Leaguers you cite in your experiences, who are probably already looking forward to huge starting salaries, hardly fit the description of a person willing to exist as a private in this man's Army in order to learn a skill, trying to find a future, working for relative peanuts.
I think diversity can be a great strength but it makes a shared set of ideals all the more important. America as the great melting pot can only work if we all agree that it is a country worth fighting for, a country to be greatful to be a part of. You take away patriotism and pride in our founding principles and you're left with division and tribalism, people fighting over the scraps.
Several decades ago the indoctrinators changed "melting pot" to "stew pot" where parts are mixed but retain their original flavor. That has brought an end to an American culture. It has benefited only the race hustlers who profit by setting groups of people against each other. I don't know if we can ever repair that damage, certainly we will not so long as the indoctrinators are in power.
The answer nowadays seems to be Toxic Femininity. Everyone gets a trophy! No bullying! It's nice to share! Nobody wants to be perceived as a discriminatory meanie who withholds trophies or tolerates bullying. Despite the fact that those have their uses and benefits for order, excellence and balance.
When I was in the service during the Vuetnam War, ir was regularly emphasized that we all were one color; green; and that we all bled red. The meaning of E Pluribus Unun, From Nany One; was also explained to us . Sadly, those days appear to be gone forever.
As someone who is currently on recruiting duty for a branch of the Armed Forces, I agree with the author. The sales pitch is increasingly based on tangible benefits. But even the money, bonuses, etc are not enough to entice a lot of young people.
The historical “bread and butter” of recruits (young, conservative, patriotic) has dried up because they increasingly see the military as a politicized institution that falls to the whims of the current party in power. The military is used as a political pawn, a place to institute policies and hold it up as an example to the rest of the nation that your politics work.
These people aren’t idiots, and they see the shameful things we did to those who refused the COVID vaccine. We were extremely aggressive and sought Other Than Honorable discharges in the beginning and gave them RE-4 enlistment codes (not eligible for reenlistment). We softened up a little bit later, but the damage had already been done. And when politicians finally forced the reversal of this policy, and allowed those forcibly separated to come back in, they didn’t offer anything other than the removal of negative paperwork. No back pay after being forcibly removed from your livelihood over something that we are now admitting never made sense in the first place. These people have families to feed and we showed a complete disregard for them.
We offered “religious exemptions” to those who did not want the vaccine on moral grounds, but the responses were rubber stamped “No” without any real consideration. It required a General Officer’s approval or disapproval, and in all of my experience, I’ve never seen a General Officer sign anything in less than 48 hours. But very automatically and swiftly the responses came back without any real consideration. Everyone knew it was just a convenient way to give the appearance of fairness, even though they had already concluded in their mind was the conclusion was going to be.
People see the lack of interest in having an honest debate about current or prospective service members with gender dysphoria and whether a condition that is highly correlative with other mental health conditions like anxiety, suicidality, and depression is truly suitable for military service in a war zone. It requires constant and routine medication in order to maintain. We take a hard stance on all other mental health conditions and any recent medication use for ADHD, depression, anxiety is immediately disqualifying. I sincerely want people with gender dysphoria to get better, but a lot of people can’t square a condition like that with military service and our leaders show zero interest in having that conversation without the Democrat/Republican hyperbole.
I also remember the SECDEF mandated “extremist training” that softly accused service members of being extremists and white supremacists after January 6th. The implication was that an extremist could be among us, lurking around any corner, and we had to report suspicious behavior.
I find myself often wondering if the military is still the place for me in today’s climate. I’ve dedicated the last 10 years of my life to it, but the military I joined is no longer the same. I just want to defend my country if called upon, but I’m not interested in being someone’s political prop or pawn in the culture war.
Thank you for sharing this real-world experience. I’m particularly struck by the section on why people with gender dysphoria might be unfit to serve in the military. Since everything in our world has been reduced to tweet-length sound bytes and instagram captions, complex issue analysis has been drowned out by the collective tedious puerile whine: “it’s NOT FAIR!” The fact is that not every little girl who loves to dance will be good enough to join a professional corps de ballet. Kids who are bad at math won’t grow up to actuaries. And how many eager freshmen wash out of the pre-med major after their first encounter with a rigorous hard science? Learning to accept this fact of life used to be called growing up, but in the madness that has overtaken our culture, we have handed the national keys to the five-year-olds who want to drive the family car. Maturity, complexity, and civility lie dead on the side of the road as a result.
It's because when in theater one might not have access to medications that have to be taken regularly. It's the logistics, not the person. I'm a retired veteran so I'm not up on all current personnel policy and don't know if this is exactly true, but I've been told that the military now routinely offers Lasik surgery to all personnel. Thus no worries about poor eyesight or broken glasses in theater. Same idea.
If someone isn't medically qualified to be "in theater" someone else has to take their place. And yet everyone is supposed to be all part of the same team, except when the going gets tough they get to bail? How do you get any espirt de corps??
Gender dysphoria was addressed by the policy that personnel remain the sex that was listed at the time of induction for as long as one served. This was a neat and tight solution until Trump tweeted (2017) that no transgenders were allowed in the military and suddenly a rational solution was challenged. The current policy is not to discriminate against anyone transgender.
The Long March took longer in our military, because few young Leftists were willing to subject themselves to military discipline and an atmosphere of patriotism for the sake of the cause. But it is now clear that enough of them were able to stick it out and reach positions of power.
Now that young conservatives have realized that the military--like every other institution in our society--has been taken over by the Left, they no longer want to join.
That was an excellent and nuanced comment... Why do you think the military was prone to falling into the trap of the progressive ideology instead of standing up for its more conservative values? I would have thought that if there was one institution which could resist it would be the military, but it doesn't seem to have worked out that way.
Maybe because the top brass and those who aspire to that position are skilled only at ass kissing and personal aggrandizement and don't care a bit about patriotism, unit effectiveness and the United States of America?
I don't know about you, but the fact that the article is a thinly veiled attempt to discredit Teixeira really got under my skin.These people are supposed to be journalists, not those tasked with covering the perfidy of the US government.
I think that was the obligatory hat tip to left leaning readership. You know, you should read this to understand the evil Texeira even though my assessment is that Texeira likely views himself as old school military.
Traditional values were deemphasized in the Obana Administration and collaborators like Milley et al. were promoted to general/flag officer rank, while officers committed to the military's traditional values of service and sacrifice were passed over for promotion and voluntarily or involuntarily retired. Most 3-stars and 4-stars serving today received their first star from Obana and are collaborators with the woke agenda. Trump was only able to appoint a small number of generak/flag officers, and most of their careers have been intentionally dead-ended. It will take at least 8 years of a pro-Anerican Administration to solve that problem. We haven't had such a situation since the Reagan Administration. Bush 41 and Bush 43 weee wirthless ciphers and the Deep State got rid of Trump as expeditiously as ut could
I remember during the Obama administration the Pentagon sent a team of investigators looking for "extremists" who were supposedly a threat to minorities in the ranks. At every base, they were told there were no problems with white nationalists, but there had been some conflicts in the barracks between Black service members affiiated with rival gangs. That wasn't what they wanted to hear, the investigators went home and their report was never heard about again.
He talked a good game when he was first running. But I couldn't vote for him for in 2008 one very specific reason: he rose through the Chicago Machine. An inexperienced young man, "selected" by the bosses of the most corrupt political cabal in the country? No, I couldn't do it.
The military follows orders. Things would change with a president who wanted a rough and ready, hard-charging force. But with the changes in public attitudes, that would be a small force.
Thank you for speaking up. Conservative patriotic folks, young and old, have been taken for granted for far too long. I think a factor you failed to mention among young, conservative, patriotic folks is things like the Afghanistan debaucle, the equivocal response to China, the all but abandonment of Israel while cozying up to Iran, and countless other foreign policy missteps. Not only have we devalued those bread and butter folks, we have devalued our ling-tome allies. To your gender dysphoria point, when I was in undergrad near a large Air Force base I had classes with many active duty airmen. They were of the breed you and Mr. Henderson say is now lost. In a discussion of women in combat I was parroting the talking points that women-could-do-anything-men-could-do so of course they should be in combat. One of those men said, very calmly, if he was in a foxhole with me his first priority would be my safety. That that was the way he was wired. I would never want to put someone in that position to satisfy my ego. It was a sobering moment for me and forever deterred me from looking at things from a warped, egocentric, point of view. Which I think is a good thing.
I joined this in 2004 and after deploying got out in 2008. I was proud of my service and my country if not a little disillusioned with the motives. I would never join now. I don’t stand for what the government has become. I feel less patriotic than I ever have. I blame that largely on what you described and I’m not entirely convinced of the authors pointing to the new generation. This is rampant in all generations. All my friends who I served with would take no pride in their children serving todays military.
Thanks for writing your experience! In other USG jobs folks are having similar problems, including the forced shots problem. As for me, I am not all that concerned about small amounts of weight if everything else looks good, including mental health. Maybe correct weights should only be required for certain kinds of jobs? I live in a military community and there was much concern about the way the Afghan withdrawal was carried out.
Thank you for your dedication. Young people aren’t interested in the bonuses because many young people don’t have to work to survive. The government has made it too easy to live without working and parents coddle their kids and take care of them way longer than necessary. Those who do love the country see what is happening to it. I ‘m way past the age of enlisting but I can tell you that with what this country has become, I am more likely to end up fighting my government than defending it.
While I complied with it personally, I am split on the military COVID vaccine mandate. On the one hand, we take all sorts of shots including the anthrax vaccine which allegedly has a worse cost/benefit profile, and following legal orders isn't optional. On the other hand, most servicemembers aren't at great risk from COVID, and I wonder if much thought was given to the net effect on readiness that mandating the shot would have, i.e. how many people we'll lose to illness vs how many will be kicked out. I suspect the DoD may have had the same singular focus on getting shots into arms that led other parts of the government to do things like pretend natural immunity didn't exist.
One thing that struck me about the extremism training was that the central part was us reaffirming our oaths, and how that seemed oddly similar to what the Oath Keepers claimed was their ethos, basically 'we take our oaths seriously and won't do anything to break them.' Although I don't support them, and their actions on January 6th sure proved their critics right, I thought it was strange how what had been a mark of extremism was now part of an action against it.
We are going to need more robots, more mercenaries and more non-citizens serving to try to earn citizenship. The Roman army also got to a point where they had to fill the ranks with non-Romans, and that was the beginning of the Fall. Not the only sign pointing to the doom of the United States, but it is high on the list.
Your fucking Commander in Chief is also a cretin... not to mention the assholes who rise to the top of the military. My son is trying to gain entry to the Service Academies. I continually try to warn him that soldiers are increasingly bound to the service of morons, neither worthy of respect, nor service.
The military is in competition with the rest of America's employers - thus the various sales pitches for the last fifty years. With all the back and forth in the comments here so far as I can tell, I haven't seen something mentioned that might be worth looking at - the reinstitution of the draft. And I say that as someone more liberal than most here. Of course it would be politically unpopular (probably poison..) but it would certainly enlarge the base the military needs in these uncertain times. Plus through the (arduous) screening process unsuitable draftees can be weeded out very early.
National service. Could be the unifier this country needs. Anyway, just putting it out there.
The Russian problem is terrible training and leadership. Not manpower. If Israel can do it so can we. If people are saying we have terrible soldiers now, how does a selective draft make it worse?
We don’t need a draft. If the country is attacked, people will step up to defend it. The problem is most of us don’t agree with having American troops on the ground in the Ukraine – – especially since Congress has not even declared war. This is unconstitutional. Which is why it’s not being covered in the MSM.
My last tour was my toughest. It was 1980 to 1984. I was a Navy rural Recruiter in Texas and later a Zone Supervisor over 14 Recruiters. It was during the oil boom so there was no problem for a young man to find a good paying job with a lot of adventure. But, we certainly didn't have the restrictions you are having to deal with. We could sell the Navy as a real adventure. We had very few potential recruits that had experimented with hard drugs. I can't imagine the difficulties you are dealing with today. I retired in 84 when the Navy was making wholesale changes with very little input from Senior NCOs that truly cared about the direction the Navy was starting to head toward. You have done 10 years and I know it hasn't been easy. I have met many folks that did their 10 then got out. No retirement with only 10 years and they truly regret their decision. If you do get out I sincerely hope you will stay in the Reserves so that you will at least have a retirement at age 60.
I am 77 now and my wife and I have really enjoyed retirement. The pension along with S/S makes it a lot easier especially if you also have a civilian retirement. Tricare is also a real plus. Hang in there and good luck.
What a mixed up hash of a polemic. The author comically conflates the establishment's intentional lowering of standards and combat readiness of our military, a campaign that is akin to treason, with the outing of the lies of that same government by a low level reservist who never should have had access to those secrets in the first place. At least not in a minimally competent organization. Do we want to protect whistleblowers or not? Do we value an even minimally honest government?
Let's be clear. People such as Carlson and Greenwald merely sounded the alarm that our government has been lying about what our troops are doing in Ukraine, the state of the Ukrainian military and its war chances. Americans deserve to know that truth. If our establishment press lionized Daniel Ellsberg, why vilify Teixeira? If our military is getting too feminized, too fat and to few to fight, isn't that part and parcel of the intentional destruction of America's power in the world by the Biden cabal and its worshippers? We need a reset and we need it fast. Especially now that our laughably senile, imbecilic fool has announced his re-election campaign. If you're too deluded or stupid or willfully blind to see the dangers that this holds for our nation, I pity you. But do not consider you fit for a role in our national dialogue.
Ukraine has all the hallmarks of a WWI slog-fest right down to the trenches being built by the Russians. The high casuality rate of a ground war fought house to house will probably result in Ukraine being divided into two sections while politicians take victory laps over the graves of the dead.
Why did he scuttle the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine? You can be manipulated into waving your little Ukrainian flags and shrieking that they're "fighting for our democracy" but ask yourself how dead Ukrainians and a wrecked infrastructure are in the interest of the average Ukrainian. And don't get me started on how Biden's harridan, Nuland, created this mess in the first place.
I’ve listened to two military intel guys says that way too much info is “classified” and that what this kid leaked wasn’t all that consequential. And Americans deserve to know whether we actually have military personnel on the ground. Haven’t we been lied to about that? So I gotta wonder what the real story is. Funny how the NYT and WaPo had a hand in identifying him.
As to military readiness, the South stands armed and ready to defend America.
I’ve been saying for more than a year that US Military personnel are on the ground in Ukraine. Because The NY Times insists otherwise, no one listens.
As for the military, my youngest son thought he wanted to be a lifer. Once he got in and watched the destruction in real time he decided he wanted no part of the destruction of the institution every male in his lineage has served in one way or another.
As he was wrapping up his departure paperwork he was told by many people he should declare “disability” to get more money from the VA. Seriously, declare disability for aching knees.
Slightly off-topic, but since you brought up disability, I have to say the number of veterans that I know who are “disabled” is unbelievable. But yet all of them seem to hold down jobs and are still getting a disability check from the government.
There's actually a "processing out" checklist that lists the documents you need to be deemed, at least, partially disabled. Along with a checklist of applying to government jobs so they can scoot over a chair and receive a lifetime job with benefits that private workers only dream of.
I had a relative who was a Marine Corps officer about ten years ago. He claimed (only partly in jest) that if it weren't for Texas, there wouldn't be a Marine Corps.
Grow up. Expand your brain. Start thinking. Yes there is a need for military secrecy. No there is not a need for duping the American people. IMO decades of doing so are what is creating the military recruitment problem. There are young, fit, patriotic Americans who could serve. They just have no interest so the military branches are willing to accept inferior recruits.
Nati, with all due respect, and I mean that genuinely and sincerely, from your commentary, including this one, I think there is a lot you do not understand.
Bidet’s the worst figurehead Obama could have had for his third term. African Americans did not come out to vote for HRC because she wouldn’t have burnished Obama’s legacy she would have cemented Clinton Inc’s place in history, instead.
Same for Bernie and Faux-cahontas - Democrats learned their lessons a long time ago with Stevenson and Dukakis about putting up academic snobs for the Presidency. Biden was a panic move that would have been doomed to failure, too, if Trump wasn’t such an a$$.
You made the point I tried to make better. As pissed as I was, I slid into ad hominem mode with my comment. Thanks for being the better person. The author of this piece completely missed the mark.
You write that 'If our military is getting too feminized, too fat and too few to fight, isn't that part and parcel of the intentional destruction of America's power in the world by the Biden cabal and its worshippers?'
But then you cite that American troops are on the ground in Ukraine (of which I agree..) which to me means, in combination with the hundreds of billions of $ of high tech weaponry we've sent to them for their defence, an illustration of a projection of American power.
Close but not cigar. One has to differentiate between the (still) competent but shrinking numbers of war fighters we have and the rank and file tubbies and tumescent trannies.
People were getting too fat to fight LONG before Biden was in office. It's not like we were a country of waifs that suddenly puffed up three years ago.
Obesity is only one component of it. But even under the treacherous Obama, there wasn't such a concerted effort to purge our military of its conservative fighting elements particularly in the special operations groups and high skill combat effective teams. This is a horse of an entirely different color.
Maybe you know more about the situation than I do, but it seems to me there wasn't much whistle-blowing involved. The guy posted classified information on line to impress his friends with stuff he knew. More like gossip. I don't think he's a hero.
I don't think any of us know very much. Point is, if he was exposing that our government is lying to us about the situation in Ukraine then he is performing a very valuable service.
A subsidiary but also important issue is, if these were vital secrets, how was a low ranking guardsman able to access them? This stinks like a rotten fish. As does the entire Biden cabal.
I’ve been saying this for awhile. Even the short time I’ve been in (2015-2019 active and currently in the reserves), I’ve noticed pretty big cultural changes; none for the better.
The military’s reaction to Covid, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the vaccine mandate killed morale.
If our military ever does recover from the damage it did to itself, it’ll take years.
Well-said. That's the biggest elephant in the room, especially the jab mandate and the irrational reaction to Covid in general. Those certainly killed morale big time. As for Afghanistan, it was not the withdrawal per se, but the chaotic and humiliating manner in which it was done (no doubt set into motion by Trump, who effectively sandbagged Biden in that regard). The problem wasn't that we pulled out too soon, but rather 19 years too late. It was basically another Vietnam, but at least with the Vietnam withdrawal, we achieved nearly two years of relative "peace with honor" (i.e. temporarily saving face) before the North ultimately reneged on the deal and took over the South. Not so with the Taliban, who rapidly took over without delay before the withdrawal was even complete.
I’m with you up until you say that Trump “sandbagged” Biden concerning the withdrawal.
What other policy (foreign or domestic) has the Biden administration felt compelled to follow through on from the Trump administration?
That being said, the disaster in Afghanistan goes beyond any one administration. I think one of the real travesties is that the men leading the military now made their careers fighting over there in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Shouldn’t any of them have known better? Have any of them been held accountable?
No. Instead they’re too busy giving each other medals and praising it as a “heroic evacuation”.
I think our incompetent morons in charge oversaw the collapse of Afghanistan and then decided to "make a stand" by sending a bunch of money and guns to Ukraine.
Nothing is worse than half-measures in a conflict, and that's exactly what we're doing in Ukraine.
Nation building is and always was a patently idiotic notion. We conducted a brilliant campaign in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban. Instead of leaving we spent a fortune in precious American blood and treasure. Bush was a fool.
Both “exercises” should have been six months. Iraq and Afghanistan. Then they should have been used as “teaching moments” for the rest of the rogues gallery.
So true. Go in. Break their toys. And leave. If they act up again, wash, rinse, repeat. Nation building was for chumps. Bush was one of our worst presidents. in recent memory. His only saving grace was that he loved his country, even if his policies were to the contrary.
Neither one should have been done in the first place IMHO. Especially Iraq. And if Bush were smart, he could have gotten Bin Laden and many of his henchmen without forcing a full blown regime change via a full blown invasion.
Seriously???? You blame Trump for Biden's incompetence? Biden didn't have to withdraw. He overturned how many executive orders immediately after inauguration, but Afghanistan withdrawal was a bridge too far? Biden was forced to withdraw by Trump? That is a ridiculous assertion.
Lest we forget, Trump made the deal with the Taliban before he left office. A deal which was presumed to be irreversible. Biden inherited that. In fact, Biden actually delayed the pullout by a few months after the originally agreed upon date. But of course Trump would rather memory hole all of that, for obvious reasons.
In any case, it was a war America lost before the war began. That said, there were many earlier times during which we could have withdrawn more deliberately and less disastrously, before the Taliban regained strength. Instead of just ghosting the Afghan government and people long ago, every single president from Bush through Trump kept on benching and breadcrumbing them for two decades. Then Biden slow-faded them after Trump set the slow fade in motion.
Thus ended a disastrous 20 year situationship writ large, albeit 19+ years too late.
And Slow Joe was powerless? Again my impression is that Bagram was a very bad decision and Trump had nothing to do with that. Nor with abandoning all of that intact materielle.
I admit that was a major blunder to abandon Bagram. Scratch that, it was so monumental a blunder that there are literally memes about it, and Trump had nothing to do with that. Granted. But in the aggregate, Trump still set the stage overall.
"If people no longer believe in the country, then its future is finished." This is really the most succinct observation as everything traces back to this principle. If 40% of youths believe (thanks to progressive education and politics) that the Founding Fathers are villains rather than wise men who created a government to protect the natural rights of men, then what does it bode for America's future? And even the same rights that made America so distinct?
The Pat Tillman saga is a case study of how our military has fallen. They covered up his friendly fire death, lied to his family, and used him as propaganda. Why would anyone fight for a military that does that to its heroes while paying DIE commissars more than front line troops? https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/pat-tillman-coverup
I'm not going to disagree with the premise, BUT the US very effectively fought the GWOT after learning a few lessons. I was in 2/75 in the early 90's and the only vehicles we routinely used were "RSOV's" (ranger strategic operations vehicle) and those were primarily just for blocking positions during an airfield seizure (at the time, one of the three core missions in addition to raids and ambushes). I never understood how the 75th went from the light infantry core skill of pace count and dismounted patrol, to thinking they could do what was really a mech infantry role of patrolling in vehicles. In my mind, it was untested tactics and a battle space that we (they) had not been adequately prepared for. That's just my opinion based on my experience and what I've read about the specifics.
I am the parent of an 18 year old and the uncle of another. I wouldn’t encourage either one of them to sign up. What, to be sent to Ukraine so Hunter Biden can make a bit more money off his business connections there? To bomb some innocent country so Lloyd Austin can go back to Raytheon with an even bigger salary and bonus?
Good question. I don’t know. Both the Biden Administration and the legacy media have been lying to us about this war and our involvement in it. Wasn’t Putin supposed to have been brought to his knees by now?
There is only one comment to this essay. The war against America its culture, its history and meaning by those antagonists who have desired to remake America is lost. They have won. The haters of America and its ideals, have embedded themselves in our schools and colleges and universities have made the fundamental changes to America they desired. Our own citizens no longer care. The self loathing is obvious. When you no longer celebrate merit, what is left to celebrate. When you call our dead white males who imagined then fought for Americas freedom evil racists with no context, how are our young supposed to feel? Ashamed? We enslaved not only people of color we conquered the natives that were living here and rounded them up in American Gulags. How could you love our history? The assaults on our country from within are successful. What do Progressive America haters want now? Who will defend them? Perhaps they feel they’d be better with Chinese leadership? The assaults on every level continue today. It would be hard to say that the assaults on family, fatherhood, motherhood are not leading to a generational slow down in the birth rate. I mean when the Progressive wordsmiths feel “birthing person” is a better description of motherhood how much more could you make it impersonal? Denigrate patriotism, and love of ones own country doesn’t make sense to me. We have our premier newspaper pushing the 1619 narrative, a flawed history to further their goal. What is that goal? That America is a flawed nation and shouldn’t be allowed to exist? I simply cannot fathom the hatred that many with the power to culturally change America feel. Do they really want to end up with a generation(s) that dislikes its own country. To what end?
Maybe, maybe not. But I do think that a counter-reaction to the madness is percolating and, when it comes, it will come with a ferocity that will take one's breath away.
You have hope, I have none. The capture of institutions that are responsible for promoting American values and cultured have been completely captured by those who wish to tear it down and remake it. Each side now vilifies each other as enemies. We have a produced a generation that is incapable of valuing America......their ambivalence is palpable. They are not marrying and many are not having children. We have lost the thread of what makes us Americans. Citizens that are not proud of their country. I’ not sure how to bring that back with so many intent on the continued tearing down of our culture and history.
The counter reaction is what Tucker Carlson has been doing and now look. He had guests on his show no one thought of having. He attracted democrats whether they loved him or hated him. Hannity and Ingram don’t hold a candle to Tucker. I’m done with Fox and I have no interest in newsmax. Fox will sink like Budweiser.
I’ve been saying that for a while. It has to get worse to get better, and the getting better part might be pretty messy. But it will get better and within our lifetimes.
The battle may be lost but the war is not. You and others on here are Exhibit A. Exhibit B is the widespread failure of the replacement policies. Exhibit C is the weakness, literally, of their proponents. It is very hard to wage a war from a safe space. As soon as it moves from the internet to the streets they are done.
The slowdown in birth rate is because it's too expensive for large numbers of young people to raise children. The days of one parent working and one raising kids are long gone. The days of two parents working and raising kids are fading fast. Now, you need to be upper middle class just to afford what used to be a working class home, let alone have any money left over to raise kids.
It is a failure on many levels, but young kids today don’t even go thru the process. Young men want to only hook up. Nobody thinks much about a family. Sad
Recent statistics suggest that only some young men are hooking up, and even fewer young women, with a memorable if crude analogy being that those few are “being banged more often than a screen door.”
Having planned at the age of 13 to make a career of the military, I followed through and served 28 years. The military gave me exposure to people and places I would have never had the opportunity to experience. Sure there was Vietnam and other places, but I considered it my role to serve the country and flag, not a politician. It provided a path to get three degrees and rise from enlisted to retire as a Major. The joy of completing basic training and doing things the average person would never do was my motivation and made me want to be that person who was different. Always something new and exciting, the job was always changing as my location. Never did I have a day I did not enjoy getting up and putting on the uniform.
Today going on my local base it is hard to even understand how far the military has moved to kiss everyone's ass and be something it is not designed to be. Now contract maintenance for everything and no real technical skills being taught to the military members. No extra duty and no cleaning of the grounds or even picking up trash and making sure the base looks sharp. Military with their butts expanding the uniform looking like a couple of raccoons fighting in a sack. More days off than the average person ever gets and more political correct training than war fighting skills.
The military use to be the biggest, baddest gang around. Now I am just not sure. It seems the hope in any conflict will be Special Ops, Marines, and fighter / bomber pilots. I continue to hope the military will move back towards being a job that is not easy and does require you give for the greater good. When you have that as the mission, race, religion, and other issues quickly take a back seat. But when the elected leaders are more worried about themselves and playing stupid word games and pandering to the 1-2% of the population, then it becomes a crap shoot. How many woke liberals would even serve if the country needed? Not many is my guess and then you develop the mental theory; better alive on my knees then dying on my feet as a free person.
My greatest fear is that they are purging the very people we need to fight and win wars. I hope I am wrong but fear I am not. Our leaders look more and more like traitors every day.
I fear more that they are grooming ideologues who will happily turn the military on civilians because they no longer care about the constitution or the military role. They already did it with the intelligence agencies.
When presidents served whether as enlisted or an officer and regardless of which war, they knew what they were demanding and who they were commanding. It set a tone of respect that is not currently expressed by recent presidents without any military service.
I thought the Navy had a pretty good recruiting slogan with ads that said, "If someone someday writes the story of you life, would anyone want to read it?"
Yes, all poor behavior, including criminal behavior, is now being excused. Students can shout down anyone who disagrees with them, and the local DEI hack validates their feelings of feeling "unsafe." "Unsafe" from hearing ideas? We are lost....
I have a very bright and accomplished son who is considering the academies ---and I have to admit very mixed feelings about it that I would not have had 10 years ago. I am still immensely grateful for what this country has meant to my Italian immigrant/ peasant family. I am in awe of where my parents started in life and where I and my siblings are today. Only in America. So when I look backwards it is easy to be patriotic. It’s the present and future that drain it. I fear my son becoming a cog in a perpetual war machine. I resent his future participation in a “Battle of Taiwan” over microchips, and the dependence on them that the greed of our elites enabled. I also see a country that , more and more, sees its own citizens as its biggest threat, and i want my son to have nothing to do with defending that version of the US, which feels the need to censor and repress its own people. In the end I will support him but he will hear from me on everything I see.
Sees its citizens as its own biggest threats, exactly... We're asking your son to fight for a country that apparently hates its own population. It's a very big ask.
Vividly remember the mother at a West Point meeting asking if her very talented and bright son would be exempt from combat. The speaker's jaw hit the floor and the room after a pause erupted into laughter. Our children are bright, talented in sports, and believe in serving their country rather than seeing their ability as an entitlement to be excused from the "icky" part of the military.
My child served as a cog in an eternal war machine. What do you think the military is?! Every drill instructors' job is to make the person, officer or enlisted a cog so that the military machine runs. He serves a dream of America framed by the Constitution and hopes that his tiny cog of service can fulfill this dream. If this is not what inspires and motivates your child, there are many other avenues to pursue.
I guess my point Joanne is I don’t like the way our leaders have used the military lately. Of course I expect him to see combat , I would just hope and pray ir would be in defense of the USA and our true interests ---not 20 year wars built around nation building pipe dreams, or unnecessary adventures. It was a criticism of our political leaders, not the rank and file military that I have tremendous respect for.
Have more mixed feelings than I would have had not that long ago. Never meant to kick you in the teeth. You should be proud of your son and I can only imagine the burden a parent of a child in todays military carries.
My point is that if your child is so "bright and accomplished" and can only act as an individual then they had better stay out of the military. There are a lot of problems in the military and the American foreign policy is ridiculous, but it is such a kick in the teeth to hear and read about children to damn clever to serve their country.
As a parent, there is no country, president, or cause worth any harm coming to my child. My bright and accomplished along with gifted athlete son is a cog in a large machine that insures that others can be too smart to serve their country.
Never said he was too smart to serve. Quite the contrary, Just saying I think he has the chops to get in if he wants it. And if he does, after much thought and discussion, I will support --but will
Good luck whatever decision he makes. Be prepared for the cutting remarks if he goes military because they will happen but know that good cogs influence how a machine runs.
I'm Desert Storm vet and I have worked with the federal government for 30 yrs with about 15 or so with the military. Indeed, I work with the military now.
Let me be clear. The entire federal government is a middle class jobs program and where it is not it is set up to be a path to the upper middle class or great wealth. This includes the military.
Your government is owned by lobbyists and is populated by people who want the security of a GS or military job. Where it is not populated by those it is populated by private contractors. I know as I am one of them.
If you take a GS position, regardless of where it is, there is almost no chance you will ever lose it, even if your current job is no longer needed. You will get steady promotions to at least GS13 with any reasonably intelligent person hitting GS14 or GS15. Nobody is going to force you out or fire you. I have seen people who are essentially retired in place, they are too incompetent for anyone to trust to do anything but the effort to get rid of them is more effort than the bosses want to put in and they do not want a fight with the union. Congress will put out steady raises, particularly in election years because they want the union support and because they know that the GS's really run the government. Congress only knows what the GS folks tell em, the GS folks have access to all kinds of personal data, such as at the IRS, which can be leaked and kill a political career. Just screw with the CIA or FBI and see what happens. Now, the smart ones stay long enough to get an pension and then go work for a federal contractor. So, they get great retirement benefits and then go work for the companies that they used to hire to support the government for very very nice salaries. These companies hire them for their inside knowledge of budgets and planning, organizational decision making, and contacts to help win more contracts.
The military is no different. A whole lot of senior enlisted and officers stay for the pension and retirement benefits such as free medical care for life and access to tax free shopping on bases, then the go work for a contractor when they retire. A friend of mine retired as a full bird Col., O6 at 47. His last posting was leading budgeting and planning for Army facilities world wide. His pension is $87,000 a year, he gets free medical for the rest of his life, shops on post, to include buying cars, and then walked into a contracting job paying him $170,000 a year. The military paid for his MBA and he used the GI bill to get a Law Degree. Most of the senior enlisted that I have known, particularly in the Air Force, have some form of advanced degree that the military paid for and they too walk out with their pensions in their early to mid 40's and start a whole other career. Now go look at the number of former deputy secretaries, retired generals and full birds that sit on corporate boards or who own small federal contracting companies. There is a BOAT LOAD of money to be made. Just take a look at the prices of homes around the Pentagon, in Northern VA, or around most of the major military bases. San Antonio is only what it is because of the military spending. Same for VA generally.
Now this is also true for former congress critters, congressional staffers, and political appointees. They do similar things but also go to think tanks or to private sector companies that they would have overseen. If you were involved with oversight of Big Pharma, got work for Pfizer. If you were a staffer on the Transportation Committee then go work for a railroad or airline. If you were a political appointee at USDA, then go work for one of the major ag firms or be a lobbyist for one of their trade organizations. Come out of the SEC then go work for Goldman Sachs.
Contractors make up a HUGE portion of the federal labor pool. I'm not talking about just companies like Raytheon that sell missiles or Electric Boat that sells submarines, I am talking about companies that do everything from providing security at federal buildings to janitorial services to IT work to maintaining military bases to providing bulldozers for forest fire fighting. Go drive through Reston or Herndon VA and look at the number of major corporations that have HQs there that are dedicated to selling into the federal government. Microsoft, Oracle, CGI, Booze Allen, Accenture, the list goes on and on. Lots of million dollar homes paid for by tax dollars via government contracts.
I have a friend who has spent his adult life repairing computers on Navy vessels AS A CONTRACTOR. It has always baffled me that the Navy didn't train sailors to do that job.
Ya know, it kinda started when I was in back in the 80's and early 90's.
First they got rid of the cooks and replaced them with contractors.
Then, they stopped having us do things like mow lawns and hired landscapers.
Even weapons maintenance and repair is now done largely by contractors.
Then they stopped providing military housing and started pushing E4 and above to move off base with allowances for housing.
They have outsourced so much of the military that it could not function without contractors.
Next time you hear about an attack overseas pay attention to how many soldiers/marines were killed or wounded and how many contractors were killed or wounded.
I did not like writing it. I did not like learning it over the last 30 years. I was SO naive about how the government works when I started this career. Its gotten to be kind of depressing and if I were not so close to retirement I would probably go do something else.
The more I learn, the more I see, and given my seniority and where I sit I see a lot, the more I want to go live off the grid and never attract the attention of the government ever again.
There are a whole lot of people with serious vested interests, personal interests, in how our government operates and who have the power or influence to make your life unpleasant that it is truly frightening.
Everything you say is 100% the truth. Another common characteristics of the the GS class is that they endlessly complain. And now they don't even want to get dressed to come into the office. It's a gold-plated gravy train.
I'm less interested in their getting dressed and going to an office, particularly in a place like DC where the cost to live near the office is astronomical or you commute 90 minutes to 2 hrs into and out of work.
What bothers me is the incentive structure and lack of accountability.
I'm talking about people with classified jobs who "worked" from home for a year and a half over Covid, now don't want to get off the gravy train. And if you can't afford where you live, MOVE. No one is forcing anyone to work in Wash D.C.
Well, we can agree to disagree. I supervise 60 ppl, the vast majority of whom work remotely in classified jobs. Have I had issues? Yes. But as contractors I can fire them and I have. But, in general, I have gotten more productivity out of my staff since they went fully remote.
I would flip your argument as to where they live. If employers want to have good, qualified staff, and have them work full days, then they need to pay them enough to live within a reasonable distance of the offices they have. It is foolish to think that you are going to be able to put offices in places that are only convenient to your executives and think that you are going to to be able to hire good people at low to modest salaries that are willing to work for you. You either pay them enough to do it or you let them be remote. The alternatives are to either raise your prices to your customers to cover the cost, which is almost impossible with the government, or you hire unqualified people at low salaries because the fact is that they very best people will always have the choice to go where they want and somebody is gonna be willing to pay them to work remotely. I know, I have dealt with this for years. The minute we try to make the office mandatory my best talent leave. They go independent on 1099s or they take a position with another company that is willing to let them continue remote.
Managing remote workers requires a different managerial approach. You have to look at your staff as FFP contracts. You pay them for a given level of output at a given level of quality. If they meet that then we are all good. The old days of how long someone was in an office as a measure of performance are over and they were never really very good. It is perfectly possible to sit in an office all day and do nothing. It is a lot harder to hide the fact that you produced nothing of value over the last week or month when you are remote. I do not care if you get it done in 50 hrs or you get it done in 20 hrs, I only care that I get the productivity I paid for. I do not care if you do it at 0900 in a suit or you do it at 0200 in a pair of underwear with a 6 pack of Pepsi, all I care about is the quality of your output. If I am paying you $125k a year for X output at Y quality and you get that done in 20 hrs a week and want to take on a second job part time, I really do not care, I am getting what I paid for. Granted, that does not work for all jobs at all times. It will not work for a call center or a help desk. It will not work for positions where physical presence is a prerequisite to do the work, but for most jobs, project based work, it is fine.
"I supervise 60 ppl, the vast majority of whom work remotely in classified jobs."
How does that work? I worked in a SCIF with three terminals, did you set up home SCIFs for your employees? How much did that cost?
"If employers want to have good, qualified staff, and have them work full days, then they need to pay them enough to live within a reasonable distance of the offices they have."
Remember when the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Economic Research Service was moved to Kansas City and half the staff quit? People everywhere figure out where they want to live and what they can afford. Just because you're part of the government laptop class doesn't mean you can live and work wherever you please with no trade-offs.
"If I am paying you $125k a year for X output at Y quality and you get that done in 20 hrs a week and want to take on a second job part time, I really do not care."
It sounds like you are a government contractor, and YOU are not paying them jack, the taxpayers are. Ask someone in Des Moines IA if they're ok with paying someone $125K a year for 20 hours a week.
Work can be classified without requiring that it be on a SIPR network. Sure, the higher end stuff is done that way but there is still a lot that of classified contract work that can be done on NIPR.
I am just going to disagree with you on the on paying staff enough to live where the offices are or letting them work remote. First, the best people, the ones that really are talented, are always going to have choices of employment. They will pick up and go to the next job if the current one does not meet their needs financially or in terms of their lifestyle. Second, you have very different economic conditions and labor force makeup than you did 30 yrs ago. The majority of our new hires are women in their mid 20's to mid 30's. They have children. That means being able to take care of the kids, whether that is dropping them off and picking them up from school or just being home when the kids get there or taking them to a doctors appointment or going to a teacher meeting. These women will, and do, leave the workforce when we force them too choose, and we cannot afford that. Young dads too.
I spent the first 10 years of my career in the commercial space delivering enterprise applications to clients all over the country for a large consultancy. That is where I learned to manage remote teams. My teams consisted of people who lived all over the country and in India and Europe. Often, we would have simultaneous engagements in different places. My team would be working multiple projects and going different places and were matrixed to other teams. There was no way to watch them in the traditional sense, particularly when these resources, such as those in India or Europe were on vastly different time. I realized I needed a different way to look at how I measured their performance. What I realized is that my objective was to deliver the right software at the right cost and do it on time with a happy client, thats it. How it got done was not nearly as important as the fact that it got done. SO, what I realized is that what I cared about was their timely output, not how or when they did the work. Sure, we had daily standups or standing meetings I expected them to attend, but other than that, I really just did not care as long as my projects needs were met. And honestly, that is all the clients cared about. So, I stopped measuring performance based on time and started looking at who actually delivered.
I realized a few other things, after having actually worked in offices for a software company in Boston for a few years. First, there are a lot of people who are good at the office politics thing, produce little, but are promoted and given raises because they know how to work the system. They show up early, dress perfectly professionally, stay a little late, try to look busy, schmooze the boss, but produce little tangible value. Then, office politics creates conflict, wastes time, and is a major distraction from actually getting work done. The same could be said for office chit chat. Being in the office breeds wasteful meetings, just wasted time.
Over the last 30 years I have learned that in every organization there are just key people who are constantly in demand and who, were they to leave, would throw a massive monkey wrench into getting a project done or whose loss would hurt the company and its ability to deliver in a big way. These people know it and they know that they could leave tomorrow and have another job that day. For that reason, we, the bosses, go out of our way to make sure they do not get burned out and are happy in their jobs. If that means remote work, then remote work it is. In the federal space, there are additional pressures. With teams as lean as they are, with little redundancy, every person on a team has their importance magnified. This is made worse by security requirements, LCAT requirements, the time to onboard staff and competition with commercial companies and their salaries. I have lost key staff to companies like Oracle or Amazon because they pay 20 to 30 percent more, sometimes more than that. Try replacing a key Oracle APEX developer with a TS clearance and all the certs the government demands for an LCAT. It will take you a month or two to find a good candidate, time for them to give their notice, and maybe another month to get them onboarded with a CAC and GFE. At one point it was taking 3 months to onboard someone at DHS. Then, the new person needs time to learn the job, get oriented before the are productive. So, if your are running a very lean team and are on a deadline or have a COR on a T&M contract that is yelling about staffing, having an open slot or an unproductive one waiting to onboard for 4 months is high risk. Never mind that you can never be sure that a new hire will work out. Then you have to consider the cost to recruit which, on average, is about $10k. Never mind the stress that it puts on the rest of the team. Point is, turnover or a lack of staffing is a major problem and so keeping people happy in their jobs is important.
I also realized how useless an office really is in the modern context. I was at USDA for 4 yrs overseeing the revamping of their acquisition systems. All my stakeholders were spread out over the country. My systems locations were in 4 different places hundreds of miles away. My development resources were matrixed and were also hundreds of miles away from me and from each other. I found myself going to the office and being the only member of the team that was actually in the building. Even my COR was out for months due to pregnancy complications. I realized that everything was being managed via conference call and email. Even when we had meetings onsite with local people they were often in other buildings or other floors or were multitasking and they would dial in rather than attend in person or, often, they would have back to back meetings and could not get from one place to the next and make it. Most of the time I sat by myself in a cube on the phone or on my computer. A lot of people who were there had no idea who I was or why I was there. Two things became apparent to me. First, we got the job done remotely. Second, my driving in 90 minutes and home 90 minutes and paying for parking added ZERO value. My corporate office had no space for me. So, my boss told me to work from home. Same thing happened at FCC when I was there for 3 years. My team was in CA, the UK, and PA. The government needed my cube and had no space to give me another and my company did not have offices in DC. In both these cases, the programs were a big success. One received an an award for innovation, the other brought in 29 Billion dollars for the government and my guy in CA won a Nobel prize for our work. Further, a lot of the work at FCC was done by high end consultants who had other clients, they were working other jobs but delivered what we paid them for.
To your last point, I disagree. Let's say that we have two Java developers. One is young and needs a lot of mentorship. He produces his tasks but it takes him 50 hours or 60 hours to get the work done. He is on salary, so I am not paying him for that additional time it takes for him to produce his work. He may have to work on Saturday or late at night but I am not paying him for that. Now, I have another developer with 25 yrs experience who is a rock star. He knocks out that same level of work but does it in 30 hrs. Sure, I pay the second guy a bit more but I am constrained by how much due to labor rates on the contract, so, in fact, I am probably underpaying him by about 15 percent. He is key to the program being successful. Do I really care if he takes a 1099 gig part time to support an old client so he can pay for his kids tuition? The answer is NO. So long as there is no conflict of interest then God bless him. I have a very senior cyber expert working for me right now. He also teaches nights as an associate professor. Should that be an issue? He is also asked by former clients at NSA to come teach the CISSP to their staff, something he has done for years. If he takes PTO to go do that on a 1099, and his obligations to me and his client are met, should I raise a stink? BTW....I could easily lose this guy to another company or to the private sector because I pay him about $60k less than he is really worth. I could not afford to pay him what he really deserves. SO, am I better off making a stink or supporting him in it?
Then, let's be clear, the taxpayer is paying for a service or product, just as any private company pays for a service or product. The government issues a contract for something. If it receives what it paid for then that is all that matters. Private companies provide those services and pay their employees to do so. Doing web development for the treasury is no different than doing it for GM. How we deliver that service, how we manage our workforce, is of no matter to the taxpayer so long as they receive what they paid for in conformance with the contract. Hence the reason for FFP and performance based contracts. And that is my exact attitude toward employees today. So long as I get the output I am paying for then I have no gripes but if I do not then it will get corrected or the employee gets terminated. How they get it done, where they get it done, is just not of that much interest to me.
The young people who would typically be joining the military have been taught to hate America in government schools. Why on earth would they defend it?
Given that fact then I think an invasion of the US is necessary. It will clear the nation of most Democrats, leaving those who will undoubtedly fight and win to inherit the land for themselves. Perhaps we must hasten the mass exodus of all Democrats...
The young people who love America know the military has gone woke and even before that was a puppet of globalist technocratic elites. Theres of course many young people who hate america, but they could never be physically, mentally, or cooperatively capable of forming an army or militia. Even if the majority of Gen Z is leftists with full support of the fed govt they would be smacked by the red white and blue blooded patriots scattered across the land
There is no single reason or explanation but I tend to start with the lack of patriotism that starts in both many homes and schools. It is a big ask to expect someone to put their life on the line for someone or something they have been taught to despise from early on. Increasingly our kids view themselves primarily as global citizens. And now our military academies and leaders are all aboard the DEI train. One day soon we will learn that Uncle Sam has transitioned and now goes by Auntie Samantha.
Strange, no mention of Milley or Austin, the two weak and self-serving leaders that gave us the Afghanistan debacle. The fish rots from the top down. Can you imagine any of our great generals calling foreign leaders re the president?
The lack of patriotism and commitment cited in this article is the result of two things: parents abdication of their responsibility to inculcate patriotism in their children as previous generations of parents did and the leftist progressive takeover ok K-12 education, even in supposedly Red states.
This year is the 160th anniversary of the battke of Gettysburg, and the days of the battle fall on a weekend. My sons and I are taking my eldest grandson to the battlefield for that weekend as part of his birthday. Together, we will stand on the ground in the Peach Orchard and on Cemetery Ridge where his great-great-great-grandfather fought and was wounded. There; we will explain to him that the United States is worth fighting for and that; when the time came, our family always answered the call
Parental rights are under assault and have been for decades. The 2nd Amendment encroachment pales in comparison. The odious HRC proudly proclaimed that it takes a village to raise a child. The Teacher's Union saw that as an opportunity for a power grab and took it. Some parents saw it as an excuse to abdicate their responsibilities and let the village handle it. Now even if you are a good, ethical parent who honors your parental responsibilities you damn well better know the village is watching.
How exactly is the military supposed to appeal to a greater cause when, as this author himself points out, the country itself, down to its very founding, has been thouroughly villified?
I spoke in the recent article on "A Prisoner in China" on how I was a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) twelve years ago. In most countries where the Peace Corps operates, the vast majority of PCVs were and still are young, Ivy-league (or near to it) educated youth. Promotion of American exceptionalism was part of the job and wasn't considered an issue among the volunteers when I served in China. Flash forward ten years to 2020, and a group of Persons of Color (POC) who were part of the final group of PC China Volunteers wrote an open letter to the PC stating that the first two months of in-country training did not adequately train all PCVs to examine their own racism, and that the micro-aggressions they, the POCs, faced every day from other Volunteers made their already difficult job of representing America, a country in which they "already fear for [their] lives every day", all the more difficult. That's right, according to these PCVs, their biggest challenge in serving in China - a country that actually is ethnically supremicist and systematically racist, that actually is committing genocide - was being around the young, woke, Ivy-leage White volunteers, who were simply still just so racist that they, the POC Volunteers, could barely manage to do their job of teaching in China, a job that, because it was supposed to entail promoting American ideals, was just too traumatizing for them to continue doing unless the PC committed to incorporating CRT into every facet of PC training and operations.
The brainwashing is real and it is destroying everything.
You better believe the brainwashing is real. It’s started very early in the schools and continues deep into college and is pushed by the media.
And you can tell from Compost2.0's replies that the brainwashing is real and has lasting, idiotic effects.
Yes. I used to laugh at those types of comments. The WSJ articles are filled these types. Sadly I can’t laugh anymore because the damage is too great now.
Well said, and unfortunately very true. I now believe the only way to save “America” is to break it up. The idea of America and its aspirations are predicated on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, not geography.
Unfortunately I've gotten to that point myself as well. When I was young, like when I was in the PC, I always laughed at conservatives who said things like "Obama hates America". After all, if you love something, surely you want to point out the flaws so they can be improved as opposed to just blindly loving an idea that isn't reflective of reality. Today, I genuinely find myself saying to my woke friends, just leave already! Honestly, if it's as bad as they say, that everything is rotten to its core, then for the love of god just go to the supposed paradise you think exists elsewhere (they'll make vague references to Europe, usually) or that they think, in all their wisdom, they can create after tearing down everything that makes America America.
What I find interesting is that their “supposed paradises” are almost all majority white countries.
Right and then they’ll say it’s because of white supremacism visa vi colonialism, so if taken to the logical conclusion there isn’t a single Western nation that shouldn’t self immolate, after which surely world wide prosperity and peace is just around the corner
I always tell these left wingnuts, if the US is such a brutal racist police state, go to the workers' paradise like Cuba CCP or North Korea.
Diversity is our strength tho.
🙄 😂
I blame the other PC--political correctness. That’s where this brainwashing started, and it has grown exponentially in the last decade. The members of the Frankfurt School would be thrilled to know how thoroughly they succeeded.
Rush Limbaugh was saying Obama and his ilk hated America WAY before it was socially acceptable to do so.
I lay this problem firmly at the feet of the US hating Democrats/Marxists. Decades of them denigrating this country have indoctrinated the young into thinking the US is a tyrannical, racist morass.
A solution to the military problem is a universal draft. Everybody gets called up, no deferments. It works in Switzerland.
Yeah, but I don't think a draft would be feasible in 2023 USA.
I think there is a lot of benefits to a draft, but the problem with a policy like that is that it would have to be implementable.
Could you see a universal draft for all males (or females?) aged 18-25 getting passed in our country? Making it through both houses of congress and getting signed by Joe Biden?
It would never pass but it would solve our recruitment problem.
If we tried to institute some kind of mandatory service there would be riots. The good news is at least some of them would go to Canada like they did during Viet Nam.
I agree with your concerns, except that it's starting to feel like it's us that are being forced to leave. Living in a fly by state where big cities have taken over the decisions heading toward woke. In their "wisdom" it's comply, you're wrong, you're outnumbered.
Geography is important. Let's say we split into two blue coasts and some larger red center. Will each have their own border walls to keep foreigners out? Will you have to fly around around the central red states to avoid violating their air space to get from NY to LA. What if New York decides to form an alliance with Illinois and infiltrate Iowa with spies? We have been protected by our geography. You want to Balkanize us! I agree with you completely that the Idea of America and its aspirations are predicated on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Fight for that--it's not as lost a cause as you think.
Thank you Murray! It’s not as lost a cause as many think. Those that think that often have closed their mind to seeking out a middle ground and solutions. There are many. They don’t seem to know enough about the rest of the world, or our own history, to know how hard times can get, and how long it takes to build a nation. We can work this out, we just have to want to. I think we’ve become a country of the self absorbed, and self indulgent...and on both sides of the isle and independents as well. Over six decades ago I was raised middle class, big family, and learned that alone I wasn’t anything that special, but a family, a community, a country...that was special. It was important in the connections amongst people. Now it seems everyone for themselves. It’s sad.
Spot on Ann. There is a shocking ignorance of history, human nature, and of what can go wrong when people give up the hard work of citizenry. We clearly need to be reminded that without personal responsibility and tolerance for other viewpoints freedom is impossible.
We leaders who think "tragically" (As Robert Kaplan just discussed on an Andrew Sullivan podcast).
If CA tries to leave, half the state will stay. Central Valley isn't going to stick with Sacramento.
Love your Sprit Murray!
Sorry it is a lost cause.
Well, considering blue states/areas produce 70% of U.S. GDP, I'd be for that too, if the blue areas, could be surgically removed from Red States.
Under what kind of economy and what system of governance did those states produce such staggering wealth?
Exactly what I was going to write! Yes, NY and Massachusetts would have CA for our arugula and Brussels sprouts, but without the bounty from the “flyover states” (thank you HRC, for that ultimate in divisive epithets) they’re through.
The wealth generated in the flyover states passes through the economic centers. They are likely counting profits which originate in flyover country. Oil and gas, crops, etc.
How much wheat and grain do the blue states produce? How much oil? Texas is the third largest citrus producer and the largest oil and gas producer.
If the blue states are so great, how come their populaces are leaving these blue paradises of Calif, NY and other blues and going to Texas, Navada and Fla.?
Blue states have 70% of the nation's slackers, too.
Exactly what I was thinking!
I would give blue states a year before they leave their hellscapes, crawling back to the red states (or trying to sneak across borders) looking for food and safety.
Already happening. Check the inflows into Florida, Texas, etc.
Yea but then the idiots that move to prosperous red states start voting for the same policies and politicians they ran from.
Enjoy your Soylent Green burgers.
And your intermittent power!
Really? Burgers are being made of people now? Is that a woke thing?
When the metric tonnage of homo sapien meat outweighs cattle in your brave new Blue World... get ready for new FDA pyramid extolling the virtues of eating bugs and humans. If the government says it's good - who are we to argue?
Lol. If it weren't for CA, you'd be starving.
I have doubts about that statistic.
Wouldn’t be difficult at all to ‘surgically remove’ them. It’s all financial services and tech. They aren’t producing actual products. So just have them do all their Zoom calls in California and make California a separate country. Easy.
And since the “GDP” you are bragging about is from the precise group that isn’t ‘paying their fair share’, California will be incredibly rich for 8-10 years until the government wastes it all.
You could also funnel all of the military-aged males and destitute illiterate people up through San Diego. And the rest of the border could stay closed.
Yes please do separate. Then Alberta and Saskatchewan can join you forming the greatest agricultural and energy country (including wind and solar) in the world!
Lol. What does Canada have to do with this? Are you assuming Canada would be interested only in trade, development, etc. with Red States?
Wind and solar is "woke."
Many in western Canada would like to separate from the east and west coast to save our energy and agriculture. We need a way to get these to world markets. Joining with red states in some sort of alliance would help us. We have energy, agriculture, potash, uranium, lithium, on and on to offer, as well as world class education and young population. The reference to wind and solar is a shot at the woke as we have that too.
Oh, so you're not even American. Doesn't matter what Canadians want.
Red States don't have the intellectual capital, resources, cutting edge technology, healthy workers, etc to be viable partners. U.S. Red States are welfare states and suck out way more in federal taxes/support than they produce/contribute.
And those same blue areas produce less than 25% of their food and energy. You needed to go on a diet and get more exercise anyway....
Lol. Extrenely fit. If it weren't for CA, you'd be starving. So, try again.
I get it. If I were in your shoes, I'd probably be resentful, too.
Your scarfing hot pockets in your mom's basement. And the agricultural portions of CA that you're referring to are all conservative; but I guess that's where you're trying to be cute with "blue states or AREAs". Figures lie and liars figure. That's you.
No. Don't like hot pockets. Own my own home as well as property in Costa Rica and Panama.
So all of the rich producers who don’t pay their fair share are in Democrat states with Democrat supermajorities where they could easily make them pay their fair share? But for some reason they don’t?
Interesting. Jackass.
No. You're wrong again. See we've reached the "fling sh-t at the wall" portion of your discourse.
Your Red State is a welfare state. Suck out way more in federal tax suport than contribute.
Jackass.
Blue states/areas also produce 70% of the pervs and degens.
Lol. Well, there is no data confirming that. Unfortunately, there is data confirming the other.
Ridiculous statement and stupid argument. Both red and blue political people need each other for various tasks and trade. Impossible to separate.
If you could theoretically separate, it wouldn’t be by state, but by who produces what. In that case, the only things of real value would be water, food, and energy and in that order...iow: farmers and oil drillers. Everyone else is superfluous fluff (myself included 😃)
Brilliant statement/proposition.
Good, decent Red Staters can live in their area and ban all the drag queens and shoot up as much Bud Light as they want. All the godless liberals can spend their time screaming at white kids all day in school about how they're oppressors and getting gay married.
Need each other? Nah. Liberals are the cause of all the problems in America. They're the reason everything is so crappy., So, it's best that a massive relocation project take place where all the blue cities, States etc. are moved to one area of the country.
Lol. Sorry, many more things of value than just food, water, energy. What do you think this is Mad Max?
Absolutely could separate by state/land. Production is irrelevant.
Yep. Blue states have plenty of food, water, energy, etc. Plus when all those wealthy blue pockets are moved, even better.
Lol. If Red States had all this amazing stuff, and were such the backbone, why are they only at 30%?....playing the long game?
"many more things of value than just food, water, energy. What do you think this is Mad Max?"
Yes
"Blue states have plenty of food, water, energy"
Yes, but its not the "Blue people" that produce it.
"Red States ...Blue States..."
Again, its not about States, its about people within the states. California where I live is a deep blue state and produces/exports an amazing amount of food; but its not the "blue" people doing that.
I know you are trolling, but it doesn't matter, yes, both political persuasions need each other for various reasons. Its a stupid argument for stupid people to consider.
OK, I have run out of troll food...be gone
You're right. It's undocumented immigrants. Lol.
Blue people farm, too ;)
Actually, federal funding is what boosts their GDP.
Actually, no. Red States are the welfare states that dependent on federal dollars.
Lol... yeah 70% GDP comes from federal funding.
California is the state that receives the most federal funding in real dollars, because it is the largest welfare state in the country. Aside from that, red states would thrive because at this moment large corporations are moving to red states, and if they had to choose—in the case of a separation—if they are not receiving special treatment from the party in power—they would choose the free market AND law and order. If you’ve been paying attention, business are leaving blue cities, as are taxpayers. I would LOVE to see a blue country with open borders, “free” everything, govt oversight of business, speech restrictions, woke to the max, no prisons, no consequences for criminal acts—just so every Democrat can have what they’ve been clamoring for.
Red States are welfare states. 30% of GDP. Deal with it.
Yeah....Sam Brownback/Kansas....Red State dream....worked out real well, didn't it?
Yeah, no mass exodus to Red States. It'll be fine ;)
When are you packing up your U-Haul "LA Conservative?"
Eh tu, Brute’?
We need a new Federalist Party. There's no need to break up, we just need to get away from the increasingly unitary government that looks like it was mostly the product of an era of post-war cultural cohesion.
How do we do that? I’m concerned that the Democrat strongholds have a permanent lock on elections—-look at California, New York and Illinois. Anywhere that the vote counting went 5 days past the election, even if the polls were in favor of another, the Democrat just made it over the finish line. Chicago, once my favorite city in the US, will continue to decline rapidly, as will LA, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. And yet, those cities completely dominate their state, giving millions ZERO voice in elections. I’m all for starting new alliances, but the truth is, we may be past the point of no return for states dominated by powerful Democrat-run cities. Did you know that California, as a state, gave Donsld Trump the most number of votes out of any other state? Over 6 million. This isn’t about Trump per se, it’s about at least 6 million with no representation in government, and as far as I can see, Democrats will always “find” the votes that keep their guy in power. The LA county registrar threw out an unprecedented 30% of signatures in the Gascon recall —usually its 3%. Rigged elections are our main problem and I don’t see a way around it. I’d love for someone to figure out a way around that—all I can see is secession.
Ah. Jefferson Davis’ ghost still stalks the land. Sad.
No, blue states should not be pushing other states to adopt a national monoculture.
Government is for basic infrastructure and law enforcement, not cultural manipulation.
I am fine with California having abortions. They are not fine with states which abhor it and don't want it. Meddlers.
Well...not quite. Red states are filled with women who would prefer to have a say over their own bodies which is why the Republicans lost votes after the dismantling of Roe v Wade. I'd prefer this not devolve into an abortion argument but red states are not comprised of populations aligned on every topic.
No state is a monoculture but states vote on majority rules. You can protest locally much easier than nationally. You can also move if you don't like your state. Many Californians are doing just that.
Our nation has paid a heavy price for manipulating culture abroad. I resent people from other states trying to manipulate mine. Don't tread on me.
When I hear a President say "We must fundamentally change our culture" I cringe. Culture is not the business of Federal Government. It evolves naturally and cannot be changed by force.
Hang on a minute.so you are saying that those in your state who don't agree with ypu should move to another state? But then aren't you advocating for a monoculture?
You don't want people from 'other states' 'manipulating' your state's culture but we live in the United States. That means we are a mix of cultures and can move freely between stayes so how is someone thinking and voting differently to you 'treading' on you?
I doubt anyone will move because they cannot get a convenient abortion nearby. A ridiculous notion. They may say they will but it will be just like AOC claiming she will sell her Tesla or Whoopie moving to Canada. Empty promises for dramatic effect only.
Thank you Mr. Davis.
The people who promote the idea that this country is built by slaves on stolen land and governed by a white supremacist document are enemy combatants.
Laughable that 26 Russian Facebook ads about Hillary are a dire threat but a $50 billion industry training children with talking points directly from Communist China is free speech. The teachers and professors who are indoctrinating young people with this anti-American propaganda should be marched off to prison camps.
But since we aren’t going to do that they will win and the nation will collapse. Good job everyone.
I very much like this comment. I was born in the late sixties in a very rural area with very few people of color. And while I am sure a good many harbored what we might call racist views due to mainly their ignorance, some of these people were the most decent and kind people I have ever met. If you had a flat, or ran out of gas you got a ride. The idea that a neighbor would just come over and work half a day in the hot sun for no pay was common. We need to get back to that country. Let he that is without sin cast the first stone sort of thing.
This country is founded on "every man for himself," Sink or swim on your own, rabid individualism, don't tread on me, etc....
Can we get a "dislike" button to show our disdain for idiocy?
You mean disdain for comprof? In that case, I'm all for it though i think he would take that as just further fuel for his troll fire
I'm sorry. Isn't the U.S. founded on individual freedom, etc.
Or did I miss a meeting?
E Pluribus Unum, limited government and the self-reliance of the individual! This does not mean that we "go it alone" but, rather, that we share a common vision in partnership with the rest.
Dividing us into separate groups and then claiming that said groups are "put-upon" by "the majority" is the stock in trade of current politics. No more "E Pluribus Unum", no more self-reliance, no more common vision!
Nah. You go it alone. Get help from family, etc. - if you're poor it's your fault because you are immoral and are lazy.
America has always been divided and has set polices of "us" vs. "them" abd rhe separation into groups.
No, actually it was a concept called "liberty" which does have some features like individual freedom but it links individual freedom to personal responsibility.
less Timothy Leary, more Jordan Peterson
Lol."Liberty" vs. "Freedom"
Yes, quite the tangential opposites.
It is kind of like when a company sends a man to far away place to open a branch office. That man represents the corporation, but by virtue of being remote and needing to make decisions on the ground, he has more autonomy. As Mr Moore says, there is a vision of common purpose which is to maintain and improve the unity and felicity of the whole.
And, up until recently that was the reasoning behind things like the "welfare state" and other government allocated benefits -- that the unity is advanced by taking care of those who need a bit of help, and that is balanced with the ability and willingness of the fortunate to pay.
But now the unfortunate demand and the fortunate resist, and instead of arguing things out in debates and subtle legislation we just shout, dox and burn things.
Another intellectually stimulating comment from Comprof!
It was. Perfectly defined/encapsulated the issue in a sentence.
Truly, you are an intellectual luminary!
Thank you. I take it as evidence that you have no response/refutation that the U.S. was founded based on individual freedom and every man, woman and child for themselves (i.e. equal oportunity, not equal results)
Yes, Comprof, you win again!
It’s “rugged individualism” and you need to read up on the Gadsden flag.
Hope you know more about computers than you do US history, which, based on this comment, is a collection of cliches and stereotypes.
North Korea rejects individualism.
Is your newsletter really $79.99/month?
LMAO no that’s a joke but I’ve probably cost myself many readers by calling it that.
I'll check it out. You're right, I wouldn't even take a look for $79.99/month.
Yes. Brilliant ovsetvation.
On one end of the spectrum: N. Korea.
On the other end of the spectrum: America.
Fascinating how you fugured that out.
Okay well I guess you have a good point that we are on the other end of the spectrum with pure individualism and maybe that’s not ideal.
We should probably try at least one government program to help people. I’m willing to compromise on that. I will let you pick. What would you like America to do for its first ever government program to help people?
Have an outstanding point. Easy when you take off the rose-colored glasses and see things as they are. A brilliantly concise point that removes the fantasy and sees the reality.
If you acces/get benefits from such programs, you are, as Paul Ryan said: "a Taker."
You really want to keep going with this?
Wow you rapidly capitulated.
So, yes, we clearly are *not* on the opposite end of the spectrum and we have shitloads of welfare oozing from every crevice and your assertion that we are in any way adhering to whatever ‘rugged individualism’ means was a farcical dipshit claim on your part.
That was easy.
I honestly blame so much of the U.S. division on things like Ancestry and other genealogy sites. Before... we were always Americans. Now we are 10% this, 12% that and other such nonsense. I really feel like it has melted away whatever common united bond we had.
The "Hyphenated-American" started way before the dawn of the Internoodle and modern genetics. In the 1970s, iirc. The road to today's identity divisiveness has been trod for decades.
Actually, that’s what I find so strange about modern DEI. Or as I like to call it, DIE. They always want to know if someone’s black or white, or Asian, Hispanic or Native American. Most people need to pick multi ethnic or multi racial. It’s simply more accurate for most Americans. We aren’t quite as single race as it sometimes appears.
My god that’s insane! Not surrounding, but insane! These people will destroy this country (as they clearly intend to.). I fight my internal urge to delight in the phyrric victory of imagining them complaining to a real dictatorship…
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Biden, AOC, et al are all useful idiots playing by the CCP playbook. Everyone is Woke ore anti-Woke but very few are awake to what’s going on.
Think the people are awake to the woke that is going on, the problem is we are paralyzed by fear to do anything about it.
How do you wrestle an octopus with a million tentacles? Maybe that's why people are just pulling their kids from public schools.
Screaming at each other through the walls of our echo chamber apartments doesn’t work.
Good God, that is a horrifying story. Race essentialism has done so much damage to our country.
Young people are less patriotic and less likely to join the military than previous generations due in part to woke ideology, political correctness, and isolationist pundits. Woke promotes a negative view of America, political correctness creates a climate of fear and self-censorship and isolationist pundits reduce pride in and the importance of America as a global superpower. This trend will likely reverse if the economy worsens making a military career more attractive or another 9-11 type attack leads to a renewed sense of patriotism and national unity.
But meanwhile, how depressing for a generation of young voters to be facing Biden or Trump as their next president.
Hello.......that’s the Idea!
What is Herbert Marcuse writing about .
Thank you for your post. I agree with you 100%. I’m my opinion, the answer for all this insanity is simple. It’s up to us as individuals to set the example and act the right way by putting others needs ahead of ours. That’s it!!! And as we do this people will realize there is actually great joy in thinking of others first and see the positive effects in our homes, schools, jobs etc.... It will take a while, but one kind act at a time will turn the tide.
I promise to do something nice for someone else today (first I have to walk my dog!). I hope y’all will join me as we turn the tide together. I’m optimistic we can.
Pemulis, the brainwashing may be real as you very aptly point out. But the level of education matters. Progressivism grows like mold in major US universities. I have doubts it permeates to the ranks of young men/women barely out of high school from small town America who might be attracted to the military either short term or long term. The Ivy Leaguers you cite in your experiences, who are probably already looking forward to huge starting salaries, hardly fit the description of a person willing to exist as a private in this man's Army in order to learn a skill, trying to find a future, working for relative peanuts.
I think diversity can be a great strength but it makes a shared set of ideals all the more important. America as the great melting pot can only work if we all agree that it is a country worth fighting for, a country to be greatful to be a part of. You take away patriotism and pride in our founding principles and you're left with division and tribalism, people fighting over the scraps.
"A Republic, if you can keep it"
It is the melting part that is essential.
Several decades ago the indoctrinators changed "melting pot" to "stew pot" where parts are mixed but retain their original flavor. That has brought an end to an American culture. It has benefited only the race hustlers who profit by setting groups of people against each other. I don't know if we can ever repair that damage, certainly we will not so long as the indoctrinators are in power.
Well therein lies the problem. A melting pot is used to combine metals , with their individual strengths and weaknesses, into a stronger alloy.
I've heard "melting pot" referred to as a tossed salad.
You could not be more wrong. America is a nation. Our culture and history is unique.
But there are powerful forces trying to accomplish what you claim. And you are a sad example of their success.
But he is making Points!.
The answer nowadays seems to be Toxic Femininity. Everyone gets a trophy! No bullying! It's nice to share! Nobody wants to be perceived as a discriminatory meanie who withholds trophies or tolerates bullying. Despite the fact that those have their uses and benefits for order, excellence and balance.
We are in complete agreement on that score. I stand by Theodore Roosevelt's statement on what it means to be an American. I stands the test of time.
When I was in the service during the Vuetnam War, ir was regularly emphasized that we all were one color; green; and that we all bled red. The meaning of E Pluribus Unun, From Nany One; was also explained to us . Sadly, those days appear to be gone forever.
As someone who is currently on recruiting duty for a branch of the Armed Forces, I agree with the author. The sales pitch is increasingly based on tangible benefits. But even the money, bonuses, etc are not enough to entice a lot of young people.
The historical “bread and butter” of recruits (young, conservative, patriotic) has dried up because they increasingly see the military as a politicized institution that falls to the whims of the current party in power. The military is used as a political pawn, a place to institute policies and hold it up as an example to the rest of the nation that your politics work.
These people aren’t idiots, and they see the shameful things we did to those who refused the COVID vaccine. We were extremely aggressive and sought Other Than Honorable discharges in the beginning and gave them RE-4 enlistment codes (not eligible for reenlistment). We softened up a little bit later, but the damage had already been done. And when politicians finally forced the reversal of this policy, and allowed those forcibly separated to come back in, they didn’t offer anything other than the removal of negative paperwork. No back pay after being forcibly removed from your livelihood over something that we are now admitting never made sense in the first place. These people have families to feed and we showed a complete disregard for them.
We offered “religious exemptions” to those who did not want the vaccine on moral grounds, but the responses were rubber stamped “No” without any real consideration. It required a General Officer’s approval or disapproval, and in all of my experience, I’ve never seen a General Officer sign anything in less than 48 hours. But very automatically and swiftly the responses came back without any real consideration. Everyone knew it was just a convenient way to give the appearance of fairness, even though they had already concluded in their mind was the conclusion was going to be.
People see the lack of interest in having an honest debate about current or prospective service members with gender dysphoria and whether a condition that is highly correlative with other mental health conditions like anxiety, suicidality, and depression is truly suitable for military service in a war zone. It requires constant and routine medication in order to maintain. We take a hard stance on all other mental health conditions and any recent medication use for ADHD, depression, anxiety is immediately disqualifying. I sincerely want people with gender dysphoria to get better, but a lot of people can’t square a condition like that with military service and our leaders show zero interest in having that conversation without the Democrat/Republican hyperbole.
I also remember the SECDEF mandated “extremist training” that softly accused service members of being extremists and white supremacists after January 6th. The implication was that an extremist could be among us, lurking around any corner, and we had to report suspicious behavior.
I find myself often wondering if the military is still the place for me in today’s climate. I’ve dedicated the last 10 years of my life to it, but the military I joined is no longer the same. I just want to defend my country if called upon, but I’m not interested in being someone’s political prop or pawn in the culture war.
Thank you for sharing this real-world experience. I’m particularly struck by the section on why people with gender dysphoria might be unfit to serve in the military. Since everything in our world has been reduced to tweet-length sound bytes and instagram captions, complex issue analysis has been drowned out by the collective tedious puerile whine: “it’s NOT FAIR!” The fact is that not every little girl who loves to dance will be good enough to join a professional corps de ballet. Kids who are bad at math won’t grow up to actuaries. And how many eager freshmen wash out of the pre-med major after their first encounter with a rigorous hard science? Learning to accept this fact of life used to be called growing up, but in the madness that has overtaken our culture, we have handed the national keys to the five-year-olds who want to drive the family car. Maturity, complexity, and civility lie dead on the side of the road as a result.
It's because when in theater one might not have access to medications that have to be taken regularly. It's the logistics, not the person. I'm a retired veteran so I'm not up on all current personnel policy and don't know if this is exactly true, but I've been told that the military now routinely offers Lasik surgery to all personnel. Thus no worries about poor eyesight or broken glasses in theater. Same idea.
If someone isn't medically qualified to be "in theater" someone else has to take their place. And yet everyone is supposed to be all part of the same team, except when the going gets tough they get to bail? How do you get any espirt de corps??
You should see the mess “surprise” pregnancy causes.
Gender dysphoria was addressed by the policy that personnel remain the sex that was listed at the time of induction for as long as one served. This was a neat and tight solution until Trump tweeted (2017) that no transgenders were allowed in the military and suddenly a rational solution was challenged. The current policy is not to discriminate against anyone transgender.
The Long March took longer in our military, because few young Leftists were willing to subject themselves to military discipline and an atmosphere of patriotism for the sake of the cause. But it is now clear that enough of them were able to stick it out and reach positions of power.
Now that young conservatives have realized that the military--like every other institution in our society--has been taken over by the Left, they no longer want to join.
That was an excellent and nuanced comment... Why do you think the military was prone to falling into the trap of the progressive ideology instead of standing up for its more conservative values? I would have thought that if there was one institution which could resist it would be the military, but it doesn't seem to have worked out that way.
Maybe because the top brass and those who aspire to that position are skilled only at ass kissing and personal aggrandizement and don't care a bit about patriotism, unit effectiveness and the United States of America?
you are on a roll today.
Don't know why this essay set me off but it did. Maybe up before six and too much caffeine?
I don't know about you, but the fact that the article is a thinly veiled attempt to discredit Teixeira really got under my skin.These people are supposed to be journalists, not those tasked with covering the perfidy of the US government.
Discredit!?!? If the guy is convicted I will be happy to see him do 20 years. Or send him to the cold parts of Russia to live with Snowden.
You can't complain we have no unity and then hold up as example a guy who sells out his country.
I think that was the obligatory hat tip to left leaning readership. You know, you should read this to understand the evil Texeira even though my assessment is that Texeira likely views himself as old school military.
Traditional values were deemphasized in the Obana Administration and collaborators like Milley et al. were promoted to general/flag officer rank, while officers committed to the military's traditional values of service and sacrifice were passed over for promotion and voluntarily or involuntarily retired. Most 3-stars and 4-stars serving today received their first star from Obana and are collaborators with the woke agenda. Trump was only able to appoint a small number of generak/flag officers, and most of their careers have been intentionally dead-ended. It will take at least 8 years of a pro-Anerican Administration to solve that problem. We haven't had such a situation since the Reagan Administration. Bush 41 and Bush 43 weee wirthless ciphers and the Deep State got rid of Trump as expeditiously as ut could
I remember during the Obama administration the Pentagon sent a team of investigators looking for "extremists" who were supposedly a threat to minorities in the ranks. At every base, they were told there were no problems with white nationalists, but there had been some conflicts in the barracks between Black service members affiiated with rival gangs. That wasn't what they wanted to hear, the investigators went home and their report was never heard about again.
Speaking of those bases, we have to rename those. Can't have military installations named after racist, slave-owning Confederates, after all.
I'm glad the DoD has a sense of priorities.
Bush 43 and the Patriot Act were like steroids for the deep state.
Yikes! I was not aware of the role Obama played in this.
Amazingly effective destructive President. First President that was anti-American.
He talked a good game when he was first running. But I couldn't vote for him for in 2008 one very specific reason: he rose through the Chicago Machine. An inexperienced young man, "selected" by the bosses of the most corrupt political cabal in the country? No, I couldn't do it.
Like every other institution, it experienced the Long March. It took longer to show up, because the U.S. military is a tough haul for young Leftists.
The military follows orders. Things would change with a president who wanted a rough and ready, hard-charging force. But with the changes in public attitudes, that would be a small force.
Thank you for speaking up. Conservative patriotic folks, young and old, have been taken for granted for far too long. I think a factor you failed to mention among young, conservative, patriotic folks is things like the Afghanistan debaucle, the equivocal response to China, the all but abandonment of Israel while cozying up to Iran, and countless other foreign policy missteps. Not only have we devalued those bread and butter folks, we have devalued our ling-tome allies. To your gender dysphoria point, when I was in undergrad near a large Air Force base I had classes with many active duty airmen. They were of the breed you and Mr. Henderson say is now lost. In a discussion of women in combat I was parroting the talking points that women-could-do-anything-men-could-do so of course they should be in combat. One of those men said, very calmly, if he was in a foxhole with me his first priority would be my safety. That that was the way he was wired. I would never want to put someone in that position to satisfy my ego. It was a sobering moment for me and forever deterred me from looking at things from a warped, egocentric, point of view. Which I think is a good thing.
Seriously, we didn’t want women in the field because they have periods, but now people who need constant medication are ok?!?
Interesting. Sometimes we just miss the practicalities of being at war on the ground. Thanks for the comment.
I joined this in 2004 and after deploying got out in 2008. I was proud of my service and my country if not a little disillusioned with the motives. I would never join now. I don’t stand for what the government has become. I feel less patriotic than I ever have. I blame that largely on what you described and I’m not entirely convinced of the authors pointing to the new generation. This is rampant in all generations. All my friends who I served with would take no pride in their children serving todays military.
Thanks for writing your experience! In other USG jobs folks are having similar problems, including the forced shots problem. As for me, I am not all that concerned about small amounts of weight if everything else looks good, including mental health. Maybe correct weights should only be required for certain kinds of jobs? I live in a military community and there was much concern about the way the Afghan withdrawal was carried out.
Thank you for your dedication. Young people aren’t interested in the bonuses because many young people don’t have to work to survive. The government has made it too easy to live without working and parents coddle their kids and take care of them way longer than necessary. Those who do love the country see what is happening to it. I ‘m way past the age of enlisting but I can tell you that with what this country has become, I am more likely to end up fighting my government than defending it.
I feel you, man.
I’ve seen the exact same thing.
While I complied with it personally, I am split on the military COVID vaccine mandate. On the one hand, we take all sorts of shots including the anthrax vaccine which allegedly has a worse cost/benefit profile, and following legal orders isn't optional. On the other hand, most servicemembers aren't at great risk from COVID, and I wonder if much thought was given to the net effect on readiness that mandating the shot would have, i.e. how many people we'll lose to illness vs how many will be kicked out. I suspect the DoD may have had the same singular focus on getting shots into arms that led other parts of the government to do things like pretend natural immunity didn't exist.
One thing that struck me about the extremism training was that the central part was us reaffirming our oaths, and how that seemed oddly similar to what the Oath Keepers claimed was their ethos, basically 'we take our oaths seriously and won't do anything to break them.' Although I don't support them, and their actions on January 6th sure proved their critics right, I thought it was strange how what had been a mark of extremism was now part of an action against it.
Thank you for your service.
We are going to need more robots, more mercenaries and more non-citizens serving to try to earn citizenship. The Roman army also got to a point where they had to fill the ranks with non-Romans, and that was the beginning of the Fall. Not the only sign pointing to the doom of the United States, but it is high on the list.
Your fucking Commander in Chief is also a cretin... not to mention the assholes who rise to the top of the military. My son is trying to gain entry to the Service Academies. I continually try to warn him that soldiers are increasingly bound to the service of morons, neither worthy of respect, nor service.
Your perspective is interesting, KB. Thank you.
The military is in competition with the rest of America's employers - thus the various sales pitches for the last fifty years. With all the back and forth in the comments here so far as I can tell, I haven't seen something mentioned that might be worth looking at - the reinstitution of the draft. And I say that as someone more liberal than most here. Of course it would be politically unpopular (probably poison..) but it would certainly enlarge the base the military needs in these uncertain times. Plus through the (arduous) screening process unsuitable draftees can be weeded out very early.
National service. Could be the unifier this country needs. Anyway, just putting it out there.
The draft is a terrible idea. People who aren’t intrinsically motivated to be in the military make terrible soldiers. Just look at the Russians.
A draft would further erode the quality of the military.
The Russian problem is terrible training and leadership. Not manpower. If Israel can do it so can we. If people are saying we have terrible soldiers now, how does a selective draft make it worse?
We don’t need a draft. If the country is attacked, people will step up to defend it. The problem is most of us don’t agree with having American troops on the ground in the Ukraine – – especially since Congress has not even declared war. This is unconstitutional. Which is why it’s not being covered in the MSM.
My last tour was my toughest. It was 1980 to 1984. I was a Navy rural Recruiter in Texas and later a Zone Supervisor over 14 Recruiters. It was during the oil boom so there was no problem for a young man to find a good paying job with a lot of adventure. But, we certainly didn't have the restrictions you are having to deal with. We could sell the Navy as a real adventure. We had very few potential recruits that had experimented with hard drugs. I can't imagine the difficulties you are dealing with today. I retired in 84 when the Navy was making wholesale changes with very little input from Senior NCOs that truly cared about the direction the Navy was starting to head toward. You have done 10 years and I know it hasn't been easy. I have met many folks that did their 10 then got out. No retirement with only 10 years and they truly regret their decision. If you do get out I sincerely hope you will stay in the Reserves so that you will at least have a retirement at age 60.
I am 77 now and my wife and I have really enjoyed retirement. The pension along with S/S makes it a lot easier especially if you also have a civilian retirement. Tricare is also a real plus. Hang in there and good luck.
KB, thank-you for your service. Your comment is excellent and thought provoking.
What a mixed up hash of a polemic. The author comically conflates the establishment's intentional lowering of standards and combat readiness of our military, a campaign that is akin to treason, with the outing of the lies of that same government by a low level reservist who never should have had access to those secrets in the first place. At least not in a minimally competent organization. Do we want to protect whistleblowers or not? Do we value an even minimally honest government?
Let's be clear. People such as Carlson and Greenwald merely sounded the alarm that our government has been lying about what our troops are doing in Ukraine, the state of the Ukrainian military and its war chances. Americans deserve to know that truth. If our establishment press lionized Daniel Ellsberg, why vilify Teixeira? If our military is getting too feminized, too fat and to few to fight, isn't that part and parcel of the intentional destruction of America's power in the world by the Biden cabal and its worshippers? We need a reset and we need it fast. Especially now that our laughably senile, imbecilic fool has announced his re-election campaign. If you're too deluded or stupid or willfully blind to see the dangers that this holds for our nation, I pity you. But do not consider you fit for a role in our national dialogue.
Ukraine was one of the top money-laundering countries for corrupt US politicians.
Nailed it
It’s because people are brainwashed by the media. It’s as simple and pure as that.
Ukraine has all the hallmarks of a WWI slog-fest right down to the trenches being built by the Russians. The high casuality rate of a ground war fought house to house will probably result in Ukraine being divided into two sections while politicians take victory laps over the graves of the dead.
Biden will fight to the last Ukrainian.
Why did he scuttle the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine? You can be manipulated into waving your little Ukrainian flags and shrieking that they're "fighting for our democracy" but ask yourself how dead Ukrainians and a wrecked infrastructure are in the interest of the average Ukrainian. And don't get me started on how Biden's harridan, Nuland, created this mess in the first place.
We're not currently fighting a war. We are supplying Ukrainians who are fighting.
Did you read the leaked papers? You might be surprised at what's really going on there.
The role of the advisors for and in Ukraine may mirror a similar Vietnam expansion into a war and with the same "victory."
Is troops are on the ground in the Ukraine. And somehow the problem is that the American people are now aware of it?
I’ve listened to two military intel guys says that way too much info is “classified” and that what this kid leaked wasn’t all that consequential. And Americans deserve to know whether we actually have military personnel on the ground. Haven’t we been lied to about that? So I gotta wonder what the real story is. Funny how the NYT and WaPo had a hand in identifying him.
As to military readiness, the South stands armed and ready to defend America.
I’ve been saying for more than a year that US Military personnel are on the ground in Ukraine. Because The NY Times insists otherwise, no one listens.
As for the military, my youngest son thought he wanted to be a lifer. Once he got in and watched the destruction in real time he decided he wanted no part of the destruction of the institution every male in his lineage has served in one way or another.
As he was wrapping up his departure paperwork he was told by many people he should declare “disability” to get more money from the VA. Seriously, declare disability for aching knees.
It’s all downhill from here.
Starting to feel like Vietnam.
Slightly off-topic, but since you brought up disability, I have to say the number of veterans that I know who are “disabled” is unbelievable. But yet all of them seem to hold down jobs and are still getting a disability check from the government.
Claiming “disability” is actively encouraged. Unfathomable but true.
There's actually a "processing out" checklist that lists the documents you need to be deemed, at least, partially disabled. Along with a checklist of applying to government jobs so they can scoot over a chair and receive a lifetime job with benefits that private workers only dream of.
It’s just pathetic.
Credit where due: my son scoffed at and ridiculed those who insisted he “needed” to claim disability.
Plus he knew he had to face Mom and Dad, and such a baseless claim would not go over well.
I had a relative who was a Marine Corps officer about ten years ago. He claimed (only partly in jest) that if it weren't for Texas, there wouldn't be a Marine Corps.
Them and Ohioans.
Armies lie all the time to achieve goals (persuade, confuse enemy etc). This is annoying, yes. But essential
Grow up. Expand your brain. Start thinking. Yes there is a need for military secrecy. No there is not a need for duping the American people. IMO decades of doing so are what is creating the military recruitment problem. There are young, fit, patriotic Americans who could serve. They just have no interest so the military branches are willing to accept inferior recruits.
I don't think you understand how secrets work.
Given your past posts, my money is on Lynne and on a bet that your were steeped in leftist education.
Nati, with all due respect, and I mean that genuinely and sincerely, from your commentary, including this one, I think there is a lot you do not understand.
Bidet’s the worst figurehead Obama could have had for his third term. African Americans did not come out to vote for HRC because she wouldn’t have burnished Obama’s legacy she would have cemented Clinton Inc’s place in history, instead.
Same for Bernie and Faux-cahontas - Democrats learned their lessons a long time ago with Stevenson and Dukakis about putting up academic snobs for the Presidency. Biden was a panic move that would have been doomed to failure, too, if Trump wasn’t such an a$$.
I meant to write “Biden” at the beginning of my note but, for once, autocorrect improved my writing! 😂
Susan Rice announced yesterday she is leaving the Bidet Administration in May.
She has high hopes of being Kamala's Valerie Jarrett, no doubt...
She has a net worth of $40 million. Lots of oil investments. She is also married to an ABC News producer.
You made the point I tried to make better. As pissed as I was, I slid into ad hominem mode with my comment. Thanks for being the better person. The author of this piece completely missed the mark.
Seriously? "Patriotism" is an issue? GMAB.
Me? A better person? Now that's funny.
But thanks.
This
I don’t see a parallel between Ellsberg’s actions and Texeira’s--he posted documents for the delectation of fellow gamers.
Hi Bruce.
You write that 'If our military is getting too feminized, too fat and too few to fight, isn't that part and parcel of the intentional destruction of America's power in the world by the Biden cabal and its worshippers?'
But then you cite that American troops are on the ground in Ukraine (of which I agree..) which to me means, in combination with the hundreds of billions of $ of high tech weaponry we've sent to them for their defence, an illustration of a projection of American power.
Hard to square those two assertions..
Close but not cigar. One has to differentiate between the (still) competent but shrinking numbers of war fighters we have and the rank and file tubbies and tumescent trannies.
How do we know those trannies and tubbies aren't overseas and advising, fighting or guiding drones as we speak?
We don't.
My point remains: You say it's intentional that Biden is destroying America's power. How? By deploying it?
People were getting too fat to fight LONG before Biden was in office. It's not like we were a country of waifs that suddenly puffed up three years ago.
Obesity is only one component of it. But even under the treacherous Obama, there wasn't such a concerted effort to purge our military of its conservative fighting elements particularly in the special operations groups and high skill combat effective teams. This is a horse of an entirely different color.
Maybe you know more about the situation than I do, but it seems to me there wasn't much whistle-blowing involved. The guy posted classified information on line to impress his friends with stuff he knew. More like gossip. I don't think he's a hero.
I don't think any of us know very much. Point is, if he was exposing that our government is lying to us about the situation in Ukraine then he is performing a very valuable service.
A subsidiary but also important issue is, if these were vital secrets, how was a low ranking guardsman able to access them? This stinks like a rotten fish. As does the entire Biden cabal.
Spot on, man.
I’ve been saying this for awhile. Even the short time I’ve been in (2015-2019 active and currently in the reserves), I’ve noticed pretty big cultural changes; none for the better.
The military’s reaction to Covid, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the vaccine mandate killed morale.
If our military ever does recover from the damage it did to itself, it’ll take years.
Well-said. That's the biggest elephant in the room, especially the jab mandate and the irrational reaction to Covid in general. Those certainly killed morale big time. As for Afghanistan, it was not the withdrawal per se, but the chaotic and humiliating manner in which it was done (no doubt set into motion by Trump, who effectively sandbagged Biden in that regard). The problem wasn't that we pulled out too soon, but rather 19 years too late. It was basically another Vietnam, but at least with the Vietnam withdrawal, we achieved nearly two years of relative "peace with honor" (i.e. temporarily saving face) before the North ultimately reneged on the deal and took over the South. Not so with the Taliban, who rapidly took over without delay before the withdrawal was even complete.
I’m with you up until you say that Trump “sandbagged” Biden concerning the withdrawal.
What other policy (foreign or domestic) has the Biden administration felt compelled to follow through on from the Trump administration?
That being said, the disaster in Afghanistan goes beyond any one administration. I think one of the real travesties is that the men leading the military now made their careers fighting over there in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Shouldn’t any of them have known better? Have any of them been held accountable?
No. Instead they’re too busy giving each other medals and praising it as a “heroic evacuation”.
My suspicion is that the precipitous Afghan withdrawal was to free up resources for Ukraine.
I think it's worse than that.
I think our incompetent morons in charge oversaw the collapse of Afghanistan and then decided to "make a stand" by sending a bunch of money and guns to Ukraine.
Nothing is worse than half-measures in a conflict, and that's exactly what we're doing in Ukraine.
I agree.
Nation building is and always was a patently idiotic notion. We conducted a brilliant campaign in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban. Instead of leaving we spent a fortune in precious American blood and treasure. Bush was a fool.
BINGO. So true indeed. Nation building is a fool's errand, and Bush was clearly a fool.
Both “exercises” should have been six months. Iraq and Afghanistan. Then they should have been used as “teaching moments” for the rest of the rogues gallery.
So true. Go in. Break their toys. And leave. If they act up again, wash, rinse, repeat. Nation building was for chumps. Bush was one of our worst presidents. in recent memory. His only saving grace was that he loved his country, even if his policies were to the contrary.
Neither one should have been done in the first place IMHO. Especially Iraq. And if Bush were smart, he could have gotten Bin Laden and many of his henchmen without forcing a full blown regime change via a full blown invasion.
You deployed to Afghanistan when?
Seriously???? You blame Trump for Biden's incompetence? Biden didn't have to withdraw. He overturned how many executive orders immediately after inauguration, but Afghanistan withdrawal was a bridge too far? Biden was forced to withdraw by Trump? That is a ridiculous assertion.
Lest we forget, Trump made the deal with the Taliban before he left office. A deal which was presumed to be irreversible. Biden inherited that. In fact, Biden actually delayed the pullout by a few months after the originally agreed upon date. But of course Trump would rather memory hole all of that, for obvious reasons.
In any case, it was a war America lost before the war began. That said, there were many earlier times during which we could have withdrawn more deliberately and less disastrously, before the Taliban regained strength. Instead of just ghosting the Afghan government and people long ago, every single president from Bush through Trump kept on benching and breadcrumbing them for two decades. Then Biden slow-faded them after Trump set the slow fade in motion.
Thus ended a disastrous 20 year situationship writ large, albeit 19+ years too late.
(Mic drop)
Such original thinking - Blame Trump!
Wait, Trump said forget Bagram? I missed that.
Trump set the stage for all that followed.
And Slow Joe was powerless? Again my impression is that Bagram was a very bad decision and Trump had nothing to do with that. Nor with abandoning all of that intact materielle.
I admit that was a major blunder to abandon Bagram. Scratch that, it was so monumental a blunder that there are literally memes about it, and Trump had nothing to do with that. Granted. But in the aggregate, Trump still set the stage overall.
"If people no longer believe in the country, then its future is finished." This is really the most succinct observation as everything traces back to this principle. If 40% of youths believe (thanks to progressive education and politics) that the Founding Fathers are villains rather than wise men who created a government to protect the natural rights of men, then what does it bode for America's future? And even the same rights that made America so distinct?
The Pat Tillman saga is a case study of how our military has fallen. They covered up his friendly fire death, lied to his family, and used him as propaganda. Why would anyone fight for a military that does that to its heroes while paying DIE commissars more than front line troops? https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/pat-tillman-coverup
I'm not going to disagree with the premise, BUT the US very effectively fought the GWOT after learning a few lessons. I was in 2/75 in the early 90's and the only vehicles we routinely used were "RSOV's" (ranger strategic operations vehicle) and those were primarily just for blocking positions during an airfield seizure (at the time, one of the three core missions in addition to raids and ambushes). I never understood how the 75th went from the light infantry core skill of pace count and dismounted patrol, to thinking they could do what was really a mech infantry role of patrolling in vehicles. In my mind, it was untested tactics and a battle space that we (they) had not been adequately prepared for. That's just my opinion based on my experience and what I've read about the specifics.
I am the parent of an 18 year old and the uncle of another. I wouldn’t encourage either one of them to sign up. What, to be sent to Ukraine so Hunter Biden can make a bit more money off his business connections there? To bomb some innocent country so Lloyd Austin can go back to Raytheon with an even bigger salary and bonus?
Agree.
A buddy of mine and I from the Marines both agreed that if we were both 18 again, we wouldn’t want to join the military.
Sad, man.
How many US Service Members are in Ukraine? How many have been killed, to date?
Good question. Why won't the Administration tell us? The truth.
Would love to know the answer to that question. For sure, it's more than we are being told, as usual.
Good question. I don’t know. Both the Biden Administration and the legacy media have been lying to us about this war and our involvement in it. Wasn’t Putin supposed to have been brought to his knees by now?
Well, Russia is sending T-54/55’s, so, Russia isn’t doing “great.”
Who knows? We def got SF dudes there now. I wouldn't doubt that we've had secret-squirrel DoS guys running around the whole time.
There is only one comment to this essay. The war against America its culture, its history and meaning by those antagonists who have desired to remake America is lost. They have won. The haters of America and its ideals, have embedded themselves in our schools and colleges and universities have made the fundamental changes to America they desired. Our own citizens no longer care. The self loathing is obvious. When you no longer celebrate merit, what is left to celebrate. When you call our dead white males who imagined then fought for Americas freedom evil racists with no context, how are our young supposed to feel? Ashamed? We enslaved not only people of color we conquered the natives that were living here and rounded them up in American Gulags. How could you love our history? The assaults on our country from within are successful. What do Progressive America haters want now? Who will defend them? Perhaps they feel they’d be better with Chinese leadership? The assaults on every level continue today. It would be hard to say that the assaults on family, fatherhood, motherhood are not leading to a generational slow down in the birth rate. I mean when the Progressive wordsmiths feel “birthing person” is a better description of motherhood how much more could you make it impersonal? Denigrate patriotism, and love of ones own country doesn’t make sense to me. We have our premier newspaper pushing the 1619 narrative, a flawed history to further their goal. What is that goal? That America is a flawed nation and shouldn’t be allowed to exist? I simply cannot fathom the hatred that many with the power to culturally change America feel. Do they really want to end up with a generation(s) that dislikes its own country. To what end?
Maybe, maybe not. But I do think that a counter-reaction to the madness is percolating and, when it comes, it will come with a ferocity that will take one's breath away.
You have hope, I have none. The capture of institutions that are responsible for promoting American values and cultured have been completely captured by those who wish to tear it down and remake it. Each side now vilifies each other as enemies. We have a produced a generation that is incapable of valuing America......their ambivalence is palpable. They are not marrying and many are not having children. We have lost the thread of what makes us Americans. Citizens that are not proud of their country. I’ not sure how to bring that back with so many intent on the continued tearing down of our culture and history.
The counter reaction is what Tucker Carlson has been doing and now look. He had guests on his show no one thought of having. He attracted democrats whether they loved him or hated him. Hannity and Ingram don’t hold a candle to Tucker. I’m done with Fox and I have no interest in newsmax. Fox will sink like Budweiser.
I’ve been saying that for a while. It has to get worse to get better, and the getting better part might be pretty messy. But it will get better and within our lifetimes.
From your lips to Gods ear.
Yes. This is Weimar, complete with polymorphic perversity. We know what comes next.
The battle may be lost but the war is not. You and others on here are Exhibit A. Exhibit B is the widespread failure of the replacement policies. Exhibit C is the weakness, literally, of their proponents. It is very hard to wage a war from a safe space. As soon as it moves from the internet to the streets they are done.
The slowdown in birth rate is because it's too expensive for large numbers of young people to raise children. The days of one parent working and one raising kids are long gone. The days of two parents working and raising kids are fading fast. Now, you need to be upper middle class just to afford what used to be a working class home, let alone have any money left over to raise kids.
It is a failure on many levels, but young kids today don’t even go thru the process. Young men want to only hook up. Nobody thinks much about a family. Sad
Recent statistics suggest that only some young men are hooking up, and even fewer young women, with a memorable if crude analogy being that those few are “being banged more often than a screen door.”
Absolutely were I single would clean on these boys today. They don’t have the gift of conversation and chatting up a girl. Depressing a bit.
I cannot come to any conclusion other than we are terminally fucked.
Having planned at the age of 13 to make a career of the military, I followed through and served 28 years. The military gave me exposure to people and places I would have never had the opportunity to experience. Sure there was Vietnam and other places, but I considered it my role to serve the country and flag, not a politician. It provided a path to get three degrees and rise from enlisted to retire as a Major. The joy of completing basic training and doing things the average person would never do was my motivation and made me want to be that person who was different. Always something new and exciting, the job was always changing as my location. Never did I have a day I did not enjoy getting up and putting on the uniform.
Today going on my local base it is hard to even understand how far the military has moved to kiss everyone's ass and be something it is not designed to be. Now contract maintenance for everything and no real technical skills being taught to the military members. No extra duty and no cleaning of the grounds or even picking up trash and making sure the base looks sharp. Military with their butts expanding the uniform looking like a couple of raccoons fighting in a sack. More days off than the average person ever gets and more political correct training than war fighting skills.
The military use to be the biggest, baddest gang around. Now I am just not sure. It seems the hope in any conflict will be Special Ops, Marines, and fighter / bomber pilots. I continue to hope the military will move back towards being a job that is not easy and does require you give for the greater good. When you have that as the mission, race, religion, and other issues quickly take a back seat. But when the elected leaders are more worried about themselves and playing stupid word games and pandering to the 1-2% of the population, then it becomes a crap shoot. How many woke liberals would even serve if the country needed? Not many is my guess and then you develop the mental theory; better alive on my knees then dying on my feet as a free person.
My greatest fear is that they are purging the very people we need to fight and win wars. I hope I am wrong but fear I am not. Our leaders look more and more like traitors every day.
Walks like a duck. Quacks like a duck...
I fear more that they are grooming ideologues who will happily turn the military on civilians because they no longer care about the constitution or the military role. They already did it with the intelligence agencies.
You mean the ones who think there are things worse than dying and things worth dying for?
When presidents served whether as enlisted or an officer and regardless of which war, they knew what they were demanding and who they were commanding. It set a tone of respect that is not currently expressed by recent presidents without any military service.
Thank you for your service.
I thought the Navy had a pretty good recruiting slogan with ads that said, "If someone someday writes the story of you life, would anyone want to read it?"
This change in focus from values to self is not just the military. It infects all of American life.
Yes, all poor behavior, including criminal behavior, is now being excused. Students can shout down anyone who disagrees with them, and the local DEI hack validates their feelings of feeling "unsafe." "Unsafe" from hearing ideas? We are lost....
I have a very bright and accomplished son who is considering the academies ---and I have to admit very mixed feelings about it that I would not have had 10 years ago. I am still immensely grateful for what this country has meant to my Italian immigrant/ peasant family. I am in awe of where my parents started in life and where I and my siblings are today. Only in America. So when I look backwards it is easy to be patriotic. It’s the present and future that drain it. I fear my son becoming a cog in a perpetual war machine. I resent his future participation in a “Battle of Taiwan” over microchips, and the dependence on them that the greed of our elites enabled. I also see a country that , more and more, sees its own citizens as its biggest threat, and i want my son to have nothing to do with defending that version of the US, which feels the need to censor and repress its own people. In the end I will support him but he will hear from me on everything I see.
Sees its citizens as its own biggest threats, exactly... We're asking your son to fight for a country that apparently hates its own population. It's a very big ask.
I feel the same gratitude as an immigrant towards America. 🇺🇸 And the same feelings of loss when it comes to my US-born kids.
Vividly remember the mother at a West Point meeting asking if her very talented and bright son would be exempt from combat. The speaker's jaw hit the floor and the room after a pause erupted into laughter. Our children are bright, talented in sports, and believe in serving their country rather than seeing their ability as an entitlement to be excused from the "icky" part of the military.
My child served as a cog in an eternal war machine. What do you think the military is?! Every drill instructors' job is to make the person, officer or enlisted a cog so that the military machine runs. He serves a dream of America framed by the Constitution and hopes that his tiny cog of service can fulfill this dream. If this is not what inspires and motivates your child, there are many other avenues to pursue.
I guess my point Joanne is I don’t like the way our leaders have used the military lately. Of course I expect him to see combat , I would just hope and pray ir would be in defense of the USA and our true interests ---not 20 year wars built around nation building pipe dreams, or unnecessary adventures. It was a criticism of our political leaders, not the rank and file military that I have tremendous respect for.
Have more mixed feelings than I would have had not that long ago. Never meant to kick you in the teeth. You should be proud of your son and I can only imagine the burden a parent of a child in todays military carries.
My point is that if your child is so "bright and accomplished" and can only act as an individual then they had better stay out of the military. There are a lot of problems in the military and the American foreign policy is ridiculous, but it is such a kick in the teeth to hear and read about children to damn clever to serve their country.
As a parent, there is no country, president, or cause worth any harm coming to my child. My bright and accomplished along with gifted athlete son is a cog in a large machine that insures that others can be too smart to serve their country.
Never said he was too smart to serve. Quite the contrary, Just saying I think he has the chops to get in if he wants it. And if he does, after much thought and discussion, I will support --but will
Good luck whatever decision he makes. Be prepared for the cutting remarks if he goes military because they will happen but know that good cogs influence how a machine runs.
I'm Desert Storm vet and I have worked with the federal government for 30 yrs with about 15 or so with the military. Indeed, I work with the military now.
Let me be clear. The entire federal government is a middle class jobs program and where it is not it is set up to be a path to the upper middle class or great wealth. This includes the military.
Your government is owned by lobbyists and is populated by people who want the security of a GS or military job. Where it is not populated by those it is populated by private contractors. I know as I am one of them.
If you take a GS position, regardless of where it is, there is almost no chance you will ever lose it, even if your current job is no longer needed. You will get steady promotions to at least GS13 with any reasonably intelligent person hitting GS14 or GS15. Nobody is going to force you out or fire you. I have seen people who are essentially retired in place, they are too incompetent for anyone to trust to do anything but the effort to get rid of them is more effort than the bosses want to put in and they do not want a fight with the union. Congress will put out steady raises, particularly in election years because they want the union support and because they know that the GS's really run the government. Congress only knows what the GS folks tell em, the GS folks have access to all kinds of personal data, such as at the IRS, which can be leaked and kill a political career. Just screw with the CIA or FBI and see what happens. Now, the smart ones stay long enough to get an pension and then go work for a federal contractor. So, they get great retirement benefits and then go work for the companies that they used to hire to support the government for very very nice salaries. These companies hire them for their inside knowledge of budgets and planning, organizational decision making, and contacts to help win more contracts.
The military is no different. A whole lot of senior enlisted and officers stay for the pension and retirement benefits such as free medical care for life and access to tax free shopping on bases, then the go work for a contractor when they retire. A friend of mine retired as a full bird Col., O6 at 47. His last posting was leading budgeting and planning for Army facilities world wide. His pension is $87,000 a year, he gets free medical for the rest of his life, shops on post, to include buying cars, and then walked into a contracting job paying him $170,000 a year. The military paid for his MBA and he used the GI bill to get a Law Degree. Most of the senior enlisted that I have known, particularly in the Air Force, have some form of advanced degree that the military paid for and they too walk out with their pensions in their early to mid 40's and start a whole other career. Now go look at the number of former deputy secretaries, retired generals and full birds that sit on corporate boards or who own small federal contracting companies. There is a BOAT LOAD of money to be made. Just take a look at the prices of homes around the Pentagon, in Northern VA, or around most of the major military bases. San Antonio is only what it is because of the military spending. Same for VA generally.
Now this is also true for former congress critters, congressional staffers, and political appointees. They do similar things but also go to think tanks or to private sector companies that they would have overseen. If you were involved with oversight of Big Pharma, got work for Pfizer. If you were a staffer on the Transportation Committee then go work for a railroad or airline. If you were a political appointee at USDA, then go work for one of the major ag firms or be a lobbyist for one of their trade organizations. Come out of the SEC then go work for Goldman Sachs.
Contractors make up a HUGE portion of the federal labor pool. I'm not talking about just companies like Raytheon that sell missiles or Electric Boat that sells submarines, I am talking about companies that do everything from providing security at federal buildings to janitorial services to IT work to maintaining military bases to providing bulldozers for forest fire fighting. Go drive through Reston or Herndon VA and look at the number of major corporations that have HQs there that are dedicated to selling into the federal government. Microsoft, Oracle, CGI, Booze Allen, Accenture, the list goes on and on. Lots of million dollar homes paid for by tax dollars via government contracts.
I have a friend who has spent his adult life repairing computers on Navy vessels AS A CONTRACTOR. It has always baffled me that the Navy didn't train sailors to do that job.
Ya know, it kinda started when I was in back in the 80's and early 90's.
First they got rid of the cooks and replaced them with contractors.
Then, they stopped having us do things like mow lawns and hired landscapers.
Even weapons maintenance and repair is now done largely by contractors.
Then they stopped providing military housing and started pushing E4 and above to move off base with allowances for housing.
They have outsourced so much of the military that it could not function without contractors.
Next time you hear about an attack overseas pay attention to how many soldiers/marines were killed or wounded and how many contractors were killed or wounded.
It started in VN with air traffic controllers, as well as others.
I didn’t like hearing that, but needed to all the same. We’re Rome ~250AD.
I did not like writing it. I did not like learning it over the last 30 years. I was SO naive about how the government works when I started this career. Its gotten to be kind of depressing and if I were not so close to retirement I would probably go do something else.
The more I learn, the more I see, and given my seniority and where I sit I see a lot, the more I want to go live off the grid and never attract the attention of the government ever again.
There are a whole lot of people with serious vested interests, personal interests, in how our government operates and who have the power or influence to make your life unpleasant that it is truly frightening.
Yeah, keep low and under the radar.
Everything you say is 100% the truth. Another common characteristics of the the GS class is that they endlessly complain. And now they don't even want to get dressed to come into the office. It's a gold-plated gravy train.
I'm less interested in their getting dressed and going to an office, particularly in a place like DC where the cost to live near the office is astronomical or you commute 90 minutes to 2 hrs into and out of work.
What bothers me is the incentive structure and lack of accountability.
I'm talking about people with classified jobs who "worked" from home for a year and a half over Covid, now don't want to get off the gravy train. And if you can't afford where you live, MOVE. No one is forcing anyone to work in Wash D.C.
Well, we can agree to disagree. I supervise 60 ppl, the vast majority of whom work remotely in classified jobs. Have I had issues? Yes. But as contractors I can fire them and I have. But, in general, I have gotten more productivity out of my staff since they went fully remote.
I would flip your argument as to where they live. If employers want to have good, qualified staff, and have them work full days, then they need to pay them enough to live within a reasonable distance of the offices they have. It is foolish to think that you are going to be able to put offices in places that are only convenient to your executives and think that you are going to to be able to hire good people at low to modest salaries that are willing to work for you. You either pay them enough to do it or you let them be remote. The alternatives are to either raise your prices to your customers to cover the cost, which is almost impossible with the government, or you hire unqualified people at low salaries because the fact is that they very best people will always have the choice to go where they want and somebody is gonna be willing to pay them to work remotely. I know, I have dealt with this for years. The minute we try to make the office mandatory my best talent leave. They go independent on 1099s or they take a position with another company that is willing to let them continue remote.
Managing remote workers requires a different managerial approach. You have to look at your staff as FFP contracts. You pay them for a given level of output at a given level of quality. If they meet that then we are all good. The old days of how long someone was in an office as a measure of performance are over and they were never really very good. It is perfectly possible to sit in an office all day and do nothing. It is a lot harder to hide the fact that you produced nothing of value over the last week or month when you are remote. I do not care if you get it done in 50 hrs or you get it done in 20 hrs, I only care that I get the productivity I paid for. I do not care if you do it at 0900 in a suit or you do it at 0200 in a pair of underwear with a 6 pack of Pepsi, all I care about is the quality of your output. If I am paying you $125k a year for X output at Y quality and you get that done in 20 hrs a week and want to take on a second job part time, I really do not care, I am getting what I paid for. Granted, that does not work for all jobs at all times. It will not work for a call center or a help desk. It will not work for positions where physical presence is a prerequisite to do the work, but for most jobs, project based work, it is fine.
"I supervise 60 ppl, the vast majority of whom work remotely in classified jobs."
How does that work? I worked in a SCIF with three terminals, did you set up home SCIFs for your employees? How much did that cost?
"If employers want to have good, qualified staff, and have them work full days, then they need to pay them enough to live within a reasonable distance of the offices they have."
Remember when the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Economic Research Service was moved to Kansas City and half the staff quit? People everywhere figure out where they want to live and what they can afford. Just because you're part of the government laptop class doesn't mean you can live and work wherever you please with no trade-offs.
"If I am paying you $125k a year for X output at Y quality and you get that done in 20 hrs a week and want to take on a second job part time, I really do not care."
It sounds like you are a government contractor, and YOU are not paying them jack, the taxpayers are. Ask someone in Des Moines IA if they're ok with paying someone $125K a year for 20 hours a week.
Work can be classified without requiring that it be on a SIPR network. Sure, the higher end stuff is done that way but there is still a lot that of classified contract work that can be done on NIPR.
I am just going to disagree with you on the on paying staff enough to live where the offices are or letting them work remote. First, the best people, the ones that really are talented, are always going to have choices of employment. They will pick up and go to the next job if the current one does not meet their needs financially or in terms of their lifestyle. Second, you have very different economic conditions and labor force makeup than you did 30 yrs ago. The majority of our new hires are women in their mid 20's to mid 30's. They have children. That means being able to take care of the kids, whether that is dropping them off and picking them up from school or just being home when the kids get there or taking them to a doctors appointment or going to a teacher meeting. These women will, and do, leave the workforce when we force them too choose, and we cannot afford that. Young dads too.
I spent the first 10 years of my career in the commercial space delivering enterprise applications to clients all over the country for a large consultancy. That is where I learned to manage remote teams. My teams consisted of people who lived all over the country and in India and Europe. Often, we would have simultaneous engagements in different places. My team would be working multiple projects and going different places and were matrixed to other teams. There was no way to watch them in the traditional sense, particularly when these resources, such as those in India or Europe were on vastly different time. I realized I needed a different way to look at how I measured their performance. What I realized is that my objective was to deliver the right software at the right cost and do it on time with a happy client, thats it. How it got done was not nearly as important as the fact that it got done. SO, what I realized is that what I cared about was their timely output, not how or when they did the work. Sure, we had daily standups or standing meetings I expected them to attend, but other than that, I really just did not care as long as my projects needs were met. And honestly, that is all the clients cared about. So, I stopped measuring performance based on time and started looking at who actually delivered.
I realized a few other things, after having actually worked in offices for a software company in Boston for a few years. First, there are a lot of people who are good at the office politics thing, produce little, but are promoted and given raises because they know how to work the system. They show up early, dress perfectly professionally, stay a little late, try to look busy, schmooze the boss, but produce little tangible value. Then, office politics creates conflict, wastes time, and is a major distraction from actually getting work done. The same could be said for office chit chat. Being in the office breeds wasteful meetings, just wasted time.
Over the last 30 years I have learned that in every organization there are just key people who are constantly in demand and who, were they to leave, would throw a massive monkey wrench into getting a project done or whose loss would hurt the company and its ability to deliver in a big way. These people know it and they know that they could leave tomorrow and have another job that day. For that reason, we, the bosses, go out of our way to make sure they do not get burned out and are happy in their jobs. If that means remote work, then remote work it is. In the federal space, there are additional pressures. With teams as lean as they are, with little redundancy, every person on a team has their importance magnified. This is made worse by security requirements, LCAT requirements, the time to onboard staff and competition with commercial companies and their salaries. I have lost key staff to companies like Oracle or Amazon because they pay 20 to 30 percent more, sometimes more than that. Try replacing a key Oracle APEX developer with a TS clearance and all the certs the government demands for an LCAT. It will take you a month or two to find a good candidate, time for them to give their notice, and maybe another month to get them onboarded with a CAC and GFE. At one point it was taking 3 months to onboard someone at DHS. Then, the new person needs time to learn the job, get oriented before the are productive. So, if your are running a very lean team and are on a deadline or have a COR on a T&M contract that is yelling about staffing, having an open slot or an unproductive one waiting to onboard for 4 months is high risk. Never mind that you can never be sure that a new hire will work out. Then you have to consider the cost to recruit which, on average, is about $10k. Never mind the stress that it puts on the rest of the team. Point is, turnover or a lack of staffing is a major problem and so keeping people happy in their jobs is important.
I also realized how useless an office really is in the modern context. I was at USDA for 4 yrs overseeing the revamping of their acquisition systems. All my stakeholders were spread out over the country. My systems locations were in 4 different places hundreds of miles away. My development resources were matrixed and were also hundreds of miles away from me and from each other. I found myself going to the office and being the only member of the team that was actually in the building. Even my COR was out for months due to pregnancy complications. I realized that everything was being managed via conference call and email. Even when we had meetings onsite with local people they were often in other buildings or other floors or were multitasking and they would dial in rather than attend in person or, often, they would have back to back meetings and could not get from one place to the next and make it. Most of the time I sat by myself in a cube on the phone or on my computer. A lot of people who were there had no idea who I was or why I was there. Two things became apparent to me. First, we got the job done remotely. Second, my driving in 90 minutes and home 90 minutes and paying for parking added ZERO value. My corporate office had no space for me. So, my boss told me to work from home. Same thing happened at FCC when I was there for 3 years. My team was in CA, the UK, and PA. The government needed my cube and had no space to give me another and my company did not have offices in DC. In both these cases, the programs were a big success. One received an an award for innovation, the other brought in 29 Billion dollars for the government and my guy in CA won a Nobel prize for our work. Further, a lot of the work at FCC was done by high end consultants who had other clients, they were working other jobs but delivered what we paid them for.
To your last point, I disagree. Let's say that we have two Java developers. One is young and needs a lot of mentorship. He produces his tasks but it takes him 50 hours or 60 hours to get the work done. He is on salary, so I am not paying him for that additional time it takes for him to produce his work. He may have to work on Saturday or late at night but I am not paying him for that. Now, I have another developer with 25 yrs experience who is a rock star. He knocks out that same level of work but does it in 30 hrs. Sure, I pay the second guy a bit more but I am constrained by how much due to labor rates on the contract, so, in fact, I am probably underpaying him by about 15 percent. He is key to the program being successful. Do I really care if he takes a 1099 gig part time to support an old client so he can pay for his kids tuition? The answer is NO. So long as there is no conflict of interest then God bless him. I have a very senior cyber expert working for me right now. He also teaches nights as an associate professor. Should that be an issue? He is also asked by former clients at NSA to come teach the CISSP to their staff, something he has done for years. If he takes PTO to go do that on a 1099, and his obligations to me and his client are met, should I raise a stink? BTW....I could easily lose this guy to another company or to the private sector because I pay him about $60k less than he is really worth. I could not afford to pay him what he really deserves. SO, am I better off making a stink or supporting him in it?
Then, let's be clear, the taxpayer is paying for a service or product, just as any private company pays for a service or product. The government issues a contract for something. If it receives what it paid for then that is all that matters. Private companies provide those services and pay their employees to do so. Doing web development for the treasury is no different than doing it for GM. How we deliver that service, how we manage our workforce, is of no matter to the taxpayer so long as they receive what they paid for in conformance with the contract. Hence the reason for FFP and performance based contracts. And that is my exact attitude toward employees today. So long as I get the output I am paying for then I have no gripes but if I do not then it will get corrected or the employee gets terminated. How they get it done, where they get it done, is just not of that much interest to me.
The young people who would typically be joining the military have been taught to hate America in government schools. Why on earth would they defend it?
Most Democrats would flee instead of fight if the U.S. was invaded.
Good riddance. They would just be in the way.
Given that fact then I think an invasion of the US is necessary. It will clear the nation of most Democrats, leaving those who will undoubtedly fight and win to inherit the land for themselves. Perhaps we must hasten the mass exodus of all Democrats...
The young people who love America know the military has gone woke and even before that was a puppet of globalist technocratic elites. Theres of course many young people who hate america, but they could never be physically, mentally, or cooperatively capable of forming an army or militia. Even if the majority of Gen Z is leftists with full support of the fed govt they would be smacked by the red white and blue blooded patriots scattered across the land
There is no single reason or explanation but I tend to start with the lack of patriotism that starts in both many homes and schools. It is a big ask to expect someone to put their life on the line for someone or something they have been taught to despise from early on. Increasingly our kids view themselves primarily as global citizens. And now our military academies and leaders are all aboard the DEI train. One day soon we will learn that Uncle Sam has transitioned and now goes by Auntie Samantha.
Strange, no mention of Milley or Austin, the two weak and self-serving leaders that gave us the Afghanistan debacle. The fish rots from the top down. Can you imagine any of our great generals calling foreign leaders re the president?
That was treason
The lack of patriotism and commitment cited in this article is the result of two things: parents abdication of their responsibility to inculcate patriotism in their children as previous generations of parents did and the leftist progressive takeover ok K-12 education, even in supposedly Red states.
This year is the 160th anniversary of the battke of Gettysburg, and the days of the battle fall on a weekend. My sons and I are taking my eldest grandson to the battlefield for that weekend as part of his birthday. Together, we will stand on the ground in the Peach Orchard and on Cemetery Ridge where his great-great-great-grandfather fought and was wounded. There; we will explain to him that the United States is worth fighting for and that; when the time came, our family always answered the call
Parental rights are under assault and have been for decades. The 2nd Amendment encroachment pales in comparison. The odious HRC proudly proclaimed that it takes a village to raise a child. The Teacher's Union saw that as an opportunity for a power grab and took it. Some parents saw it as an excuse to abdicate their responsibilities and let the village handle it. Now even if you are a good, ethical parent who honors your parental responsibilities you damn well better know the village is watching.