Deadly Virtue

According to the old post-Vietnam-era political
correctness, the armed services had been a refuge
for louts and mediocrities who probably couldn't
make it in the real world. By the turn of the
twenty-first century a different view had taken
hold. Now the United States military was "a place
where everyone tried their hardest. A place where
everybody… looked out for each other. A place
where people -- intelligent, talented people --
said honestly that money wasn't what drove them.
A place where people spoke openly about their
feelings." Soldiers, it turned out, were not only
more virtuous than the rest of us, but also more
sensitive and even happier. Contemplating the GIs
advancing on Baghdad in March 2003, the
classicist and military historian Victor Davis
Hanson saw something more than soldiers in
battle. He ascertained "transcendence at work."
According to Hanson, the armed services had
"somehow distilled from the rest of us an elite
cohort" in which virtues cherished by earlier
generations of Americans continued to flourish.

Virtues cherised by the pioneers were exemplified
by carving a spot to live in a hostile environment,
not whacking imaginary enemies living in far off
lands.

We've come a long way, baby.

In the wrong direction.

And money isn't what drives 'em. Yea, that's what
the man said above. Are ya happy, money haters?

Death drives 'em now, "where everybody looks out
for each other", and no one needs their own mind...
sacrificing for the group, God and country.

How nicely socialist!

Have you noticed how the granfalloon is everywhere
here? Growing like weeds, they are.

What does the final act of a play written about
death look like?

"To deal with men by force is as impractical as
to deal with nature by persuasion." --Ayn Rand

Just another sad story.