An American Rant

Major Mike

The seeds of this rant, which will likely be unfocused, and likely harsh on my targets, were sown on a call I made to the Hugh Hewitt (now at TownHall) show last week, following Hugh’s coverage of the Supreme Court Hamdam ruling. My on air comments were something like…

“It is getting awful lonely out on the end of the spear,” and “With only the President and the military committed to fighting the GWOT, there is no shaft on the spear,” or words to that effect.

My thoughts were further fomented with the onset of the Fourth of July holiday…a celebration of our forefathers’ courage and commitment to the forming a new kind of government. A government that fosters equality and opportunity. A government that serves the majority, but whose structure protects the minority. A government that can only be sustained through responsible participation, meaningful debate, compromise, moderation, and a commitment to, and a belief in, our founding principles, our frontier heritage, and our unique American persona.

We have been shedding our uniquely American persona since the Sixties. We focused inward on our individualism. We began to shun our military heritage, and indeed, all things patriotic. We started to wallow in empathy and sympathy, rather than encouraging a rugged individual responsibility when times got tough. In short, we were softening as a nation. And now our institutions and governmental entities are abandoning our efforts in the GWOT and ultimately our country.

First I look to the courts. I am no believer in the omnipotent wisdom of the courts. In fact, it is easy to argue that Dred Scott and other cases, show the human, and political, and fallibility of our courts. The courts have moved, on their own, away from the founding principles of the Constitution. The Constitution provides a flexible enough framework to meet the challenges of our nation over time, but it is not meant to be flexible enough to be manipulated by politically motivated judges who desire to overstep their judicial bounds.

Justice Kennedy’s reference to the Geneva Convention in Hamdam, and earlier talk of “international standards” are not subjects to be heard in our court decisions. The foundation for all Constitutional adjudications should always be the Constitution, not some moving target of international or political whim. The battering the Ninth Circuit takes in the Supreme Court is evidence enough of a destructive activism that undercuts Congressional authority, and creates a destructive schism and mistrust between all branches of the government.

The courts also need to recognize that they are crucial in balancing the defense and longevity of the nation against a continually expanding interpretation of “individual rights,” many of which are nowhere to be found in the Constitution. Rulings like Hamdam indicate that the Court is beginning to lose sight of the fact that their rulings are, and have been, critical to the defense of this country. Fundamentally, their decisions must reflect the best interests of the country, and empower those fighting the GWOT, not to hamstring them, and leave them exposed in the field.

For the Press. Sanctimonious. Elitist. Out of touch. Going out of business. Irrelevant. Biased. Ignorant. In denial of their lack of objectivity. Hypocritical. And on and on.

My latest complaint…the NYT exposure of the SWIFT program. They continue to deny that their irresponsible behavior was harmful, but they know the opposite is true, and they are unrepentant. They got the scoop. They sold papers. They are awaiting the awarding of their next, treasonously inspired Pulitzer. Which, they will richly not deserve.

They are hypocrites in two ways. First, they purport to support the troops, however for every SWIFT program or surveillance program they expose, they drive up the need for troops in the field. If we deny Al Qaeda recruiting dollars, that means less Islamofascists in the field. If we deny Al Qaeda access to business partners, that means less IEDs in the field injuring our troops. If we are able to legally track Al Qaeda via international phone records, and dissect their Command and Control system, we diminish their effectiveness on the battlefield, and improve the chances of our soldiers in the field. And ultimately...we could have less, not more troops in the field, exposed to the hazards of battle.

So their “expose” of a legal program, greatly endangers our troops in the field. They can deny this because the know, that no Marine will come back with a piece of shrapnel in his ass with New York Times printed on it, but it might as well be, they help put it their.

Secondly, their uneven and biased reporting is specifically targeting the efforts of the President, and since the military is now the only other American entity, besides the Executive Branch, engaged in the GWOT, they are directly fighting against the efforts of our troops in the field. Hampering the efforts of those that protect the freedoms of your profession is about as hypocritical as it gets.

Congress can climb on board the hypocrite train. Their votes on Iraq don’t align with their public statements. They slice and nuance every issue to woo their constituents. Their doublespeak on Iraq is, literally, un-interpretable. So while they claim to support the troops we have deployed to fight the GWOT, they have publicly projected only an unintelligible babble that our troops can readily discern.

They recognize that Congress is not serious about winning teh GWOT, but only about winning in their next elections. They know that they will be abandoned in the field if the political winds blow the other way. They recognize Congressional members as the opportunists they are, and expect little more. They also recognize that Congress is yet, one more, American institution incapable of acting American, when the times so call for it.

They recognize bullshit when they see and hear it, for they have the soldier’s nose for it…as all who have soldiered do.

Our educational system is also abandoning all things American. Our curricula are deeply apologetic about our frontier activities, and all but ignore the good we have done in this country and around the world.

They have fought against recruiters in our High Schools and Universities and negatively impacted our ability to find and recruit intelligent and dedicated men and women to serve in our Armed Forces. By the time our recruiters are allowed to communicate with high school students, they have been brainwashed about our evil role in the world, and ahve been pointedly focused to all things liberal.

And lastly, our people are losing their American identity. We are forgetting we ARE a rough and tumble nation with unrefined edges. That we ARE tough, and have the fortitude to persevere and overcome. That we can believe in patriotism and righteousness, and not be scorned for it. That this nation is worth defending, and that I am not stupid for having done so if I die in the process. That I am a dedicated patriot to the greatest nation on earth. And that I am so without apology, and without the need to seek international approval.

We ARE different because we were made different. The day we seek to be more French or more European, is the first day of the end of this country, for although many of us come from there, we are an entirely different race of people than those that live there now. When we begin to value our wines and cheeses over our liberties, we are doomed to become the slaves of a more dominate master.

The way we preserve our freedoms is to fight for them as a nation, not to be a cross-purposes with ourselves, and the GWOT is the next obstacle in our path. Our institutions must work together in order for this nation to survive the GWOT, for if we don’t, we will have only squandered the lives of our soldiers on the battlefield.

At that point the press, Congress, the courts, our educational system, and an increasingly liberal population, all contributors to the condition, will be pointing fingers at, and blaming the only two entities left in this country doing anything to protect us from further deadly attacks…the President and the military.

Culpability lies with the culpable…failure in the GWOT will never rest with Bush or the military…it will lie with those elements of our society who have forgotten their role in this country’s survival, and who have squandered a truly good and great nation for their short-sighted and selfish purposes.

God Bless America, and may God help us re-discover our American heritage…we need to find it desperately.