Comments on: Veterans Day

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 18:36:27 +0000

Smock Puppet: I have not yet read that article, but I have long thought that that premise (WWI being the watershed where the West lost faith in itself) is absolutely correct. I wrote a little bit about it here.

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 17:36:32 +0000

A hearty thanks to all our veterans. And here’s hoping we do right by all of those who recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan. Americans have a tendency to honor their veterans so long as the latter are at a distance. When they’re “up close” and in need of jobs and other things….not so much. How many homeless have I seen in NYC just this month?

We can do better and should do better. Our vets deserve nothing but the best!

By: Artfldgr

Artfldgr — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 16:58:19 +0000

Enemies of the new republic?

By: Wolla Dalbo

Wolla Dalbo — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 15:48:05 +0000

I’ve just read “What We Lost in the Great War” and I highly recommend it as well.

By: Geoffrey Britain

Geoffrey Britain — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 15:34:57 +0000

"Think about the recent wars that have ended through armistice: WWI, which segued almost inexorably into WWII; the 1948 war following the partition of Palestine; the Korean War; and the Gulf War. All of these conflicts exploded again into violence–or have continually threatened to ever since." For an insightful lesson in why an armistice is invariably an unsatisfactory 'resolution', that virtually guarantees future conflict read, A difficult lesson Major lessons in life are really quite simple but the consequences of failure to learn them are quite extensive and brutal.

By: Arnold F. Williams

Arnold F. Williams — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 15:21:39 +0000

WWI disbanded the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire, setting the stage for the WWII, the Cold War, and the current one. It’s a bigger influence on history than you’d think, but as a pointer to peace, it’s a failure, Kellogg-Briand Pact or no.

By: Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master

Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 12:46:20 +0000

I’m deadly serious, btw — if you read nothing else this week, read that article.

By: Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master

Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 12:26:58 +0000

P.S., I VERY strongly recommend What We Lost In The Great War Seventy-five years ago this spring a very different America waded into the seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century. World War I did more than kill millions of people; it destroyed the West’s faith in the very institutions that had made it the hope and envy of the world. It's 20 years old and even more significant now than it was then. Long but well worth the read. I believe in the "Great War" one finds the seeds of The West's own destruction, as Classical Liberalism morphed into the cancerous, self-destructive form of PostModern Liberalism. The Classical Liberals, so arrogant, so proud of The West and its accomplishments, saw the horror of what mankind was capable of doing with the fruits of their inheritance of Greek Thought and Christian Ideals and turned on themselves, on their society, with a self-hatred and a loathing vehemence that has been working to destroy us all for more than 90 years now. It is the most pernicious and destructive force in the world right now, even worse than its ally, Islamofascism, which it is enabling just as it enabled the Soviets and the Nazis 70+ years and more ago. Islam, a wretched, unimaginative, dull and childish meme would be helpless before the West without its endless aid and support. To beat your enemy, you generally must know your enemy. Here's a place to start.

By: Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master

Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 12:14:50 +0000

The hope that some day war will not be necessary is a laudable one–and those who fight wars hold it, too. But that day has not yet arrived–and, realistically but sadly, perhaps it never will.

We live in a universe where entropy is the primal force against which life struggles. All life necessarily exists by feeding off the destruction/disorganization of other things. So to expect there to be no war is to seek the end of all life.

“If Man wants to be top dog – or even a respected neighbor – he’ll have to fight for it. Beat the plowshares back into swords; the other was a maiden aunt’s fancy.”

– R. A. Heinlein –

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 06:58:34 +0000

My mother only had vague memories of her father who died young after surviving the gas in WW1. My dad made that little walk through the lagoon at Tarawa. I was on a landing craft four minutes behind the first wave at Chu Lai, a landing not near as exciting as dad’s. The fighting came later.

None of my sons enlisted, they came of age after the draft and between wars, my oldest had no interest and I told the younger ones to stay out during Clinton. By the end of Clinton’s term they were married, with kids.

It’s strange. My family has been in every one of our wars since the Civil War, we came to “Bleeding Kansas” around 1850, fresh off the boat with only a few words of English. The folks in Boston, where the boat landed gave my family land, land they weren’t allowed to own in the old country. And a few surplus muskets.

We’ve fought in all the wars up to the one we’re in now. No wonder the country isn’t winning this one.