Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post
Carl,

Your inconsistency is humorous. On the one hand, you want the military to reflect fighting "values" - on the other, you want the military to respect your [civilian] values. These are not necessarily the same thing. The problem, as I have pointed out repeatedly, is that as society changes, so does its values. And as those values change, so will society's expectations of the military. The internal view that the military has become a "5th column of socialists" or a social experiment in "equality and diversity" is in fact a minority view and is at odds with society's perceptions of the armed forces. The very problem that you are ascribing to wm is a result of your own insistence that the military maintains a strict, insulated, and privaleged culture carved out and standing apart from the rest of society.
Like I said before, if you can't follow what I say, don't reply because it is tiresome to refute arguments I didn't make. But tiresome is an occasional hallmark of the quotidian (yea! I got to use that word in a sentence) life so here goes.

First off I assume you are referring to post #240, my reply to Wm.

My primary point in that post was the military is subject to civilian command. The military must obey civilian leaders. That is a Constitutional or a chain of command matter. It has nothing to do with lack of martial values. There is no conflict with having and exemplifying classic martial virtues and recognizing the primacy of civilian command as dictated by the Constitution. In fact in our system it is a martial virtue to recognize the primacy of civilian command.

That is a matter of whose orders must be obeyed, it is not a matter of whose values must be adopted, especially if those values radically vary. The martial values must remain to the forefront in the military because the ultimate purpose of the military is to kill people and break things. In order to do that in a controlled way, as we strive to, a certain set of values must be held high in the military despite all. The reason for that is what the citizen/civilians expect and want from the military, to win wars. That is the prime expectation the citizen/civilian has of the military, to win and to do it without getting too many young relatives killed in the process. That may not be the prime expectation of the chattering classes and would be social engineers during peace time, but it is the primary expectation of us flyover people at all times. And I suspect that those chattering social engineers would suddenly expect the same of the military when they actually see the bloody face of war staring at them hungrily one day, as they inevitably will.

My "own insistence that the military maintains a strict, insulated, and privaleged culture carved out and standing apart from the rest of society."? Well refuting arguments I didn't make is a burden I said I would undertake this morning. Strict? Hell yes, as far martial virtues and values are concerned. Insulated? I don't understand where that one came from so I'm a little flummoxed on how to respond. Let's say that given soldiers are citizens and will again one day be civilians, many of the civilian citizens have been or will be soldiers and we are all under the Constitution (not to mention base housing can't hold everybody) that is a moot point.

Privileged culture? Again provenance unknown, but I will say this. When I was a policeman, I never figured I had any perqs or privileges beyond anybody else. What I had were responsibilities and duties beyond everybody else, duties and responsibilities that I was honor bound to fulfill.