Free To Be Ungrateful
A pause is in order. A brief one, but a pause nonetheless to thank Colman McCarthy for removing the veneer of opposition to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," as the primary reason behind the left's animus to the presence of ROTC organizations on college campuses. We wondered if the repeal of that policy would prompt liberals to welcome the guarantors of their freedom in their midst. We now have our answer.
Writing in the Washington Post, McCarthy argues that, "ROTC and its warrior ethic taint the intellectual purity of a school, if by purity we mean trying to rise above the foul idea that nations can kill and destroy their way to peace." Lest the reader sense that Mr. McCarthy has examined the individual warrior who defends this nation and found him wanting, he quickly points out that, "I admire those who join armies, whether America's or the Taliban's: for their discipline, for their loyalty to their buddies and their principles, for their sacrifices to be away from home." Well, I'm glad we got that cleared up. It's reminiscent of Bill Buckley's demonstration of a moral vacuity that would label a gentleman who pushes a little old lady out of the path of an oncoming bus and a scoundrel who pushes a little old lady into the path of an oncoming bus as simply two guys who go around pushing little old ladies. To draw no meaningful distinction between members of the Taliban and American service members is to expose a depravity of principled discernment worthy of tenure at an ivy league university.
The rebuttals are obvious, of course. May we conclude from his revulsion at the "foul idea" that nations reserve the right to use violence in their own defense that he would disarm the campus police who also reserve the right to use violence to insure the peace, if not coherence, of his classroom? If an armed thug should ever imperil the McCarthy family, would he most devoutly desire the assistance of a US Marine or Jimmy Carter? Come to think of it, would anything as crude or foul as physical barriers or armed police somehow "taint the intellectual purity" of the McCarthy household?
Last night I had the privilege of meeting and talking with a retired Sergeant Major who spent 26 years on active duty, including three tours in Vietnam. He knows a thing or two about the warrior ethos, and he knows volumes about what the enemies of freedom are capable of doing. He bears the physical and emotional scars of battle, scars received defending the right of people such as Colman McCarthy to exhibit chronic nescience about the price and value of their own freedom.
Ironically, as an American, McCarthy is the heir and beneficiary of the Founders who indeed went to war to secure this nation. Intellectually, he is the heir of men like Neville Chamberlain, who through their weakness and timidity actually embolden evil men and endanger the innocent. Men who "kill and destroy their way to peace," have secured the peace against totalitarianism throughout our history, and this fact is evidently a source of great distress to Mr. McCarthy. I wonder if he is similarly distressed at a government that uses crude threats of force to routinely take the earnings of Americans and redistribute them to others?
Ah well, he has performed a service, and for that we may be thankful. He has placed a magnifying glass over an intellectual malformation that simultaneously enjoys and disdains its own safety, and invited us to have a gander. We stare at it in disbelief, but are reminded of Mark Twain's observation that if you care for and feed a starving dog he will not bite you, and that this is the principle difference between dogs and men. And if you keep safe the Director of the Center for Teaching Peace, you are not welcome on his campus. As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.
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Jun '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
Well said, Dave, but you miss one crucial point. It's the Colman McCarthy's of the world who are the first to sell out to the tyrants to guarantee their own safety and stature. And if that means sacrificing millions of innocents, so be it. There's a word for this: cowardice. In a nutshell, from me to you, to God's ears.
Jul '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
Colman McCarthy is a local writer, and in his 40+ years I have rarely bothered to complete his columns. His trite and puerile product has the same paucity of reflection and integrity today as in his high school English class. I see he has burrowed deep into the mutually congratulatory bunkers of the surrender studies crowd and cheer that he will finish out his days self-segregated from the intellectual life of this republic.
Jun '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
He sounds like one of those "violence never solves anything" types. You know the kind, never read history. He talks of "admiring those who join armies," unaware or simply not caring that his comment itself demonstrates his ignorance of what service entails. He just knows he's too smart to be involved with such low occupations.
I've dealt with his type, their sense of superiority is a reek so bad it's hard to be in the same room with them.
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
I heard Colman McCarthy years ago on a talk radio show. The host was presenting one of those pacifist conundrums: there's a man in a schoolyard, shooting children. Are you not obligated to stop him by violence, if that's the only option? McCarthy refused to admit that was the only option. Why, there was always another option.
But what if a child dies while you work through the kumbaya procedures? He was adamant: shooting the shooter would just add to the sum total of violence in the world. Because that's what matters most: the quantity of violence, the existence of violence, not the moral application of violence to stop evil. The facile calculation of a holy fool.
(BTW, the interviewer who drilled & grilled and called his calculations contemptible was Dennis Prager.)
Nov '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
I hate the Left for many reasons, but their mindless infatuation with moral equivocation as an argument positively infuriates me.
Moral equivocation is a vile and disgusting lie — a willful perversion of the Truth. Anyone who resorts to it instantly brands himself as a morally bankrupt pseudo-intellectual who is incapable of real thought and impervious to rational argument. As soon as a liberal opens his mouth and I hear the words: "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," I start looking for a handy blunt instrument. As my Granny used to say: "I just wanna fill a sock with — and beat him over the head with it."
You can read the full wretched article here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/29/AR2010122903033.html
It is enough to gag a maggot.
Edited on Dec 31, 2010 at 8:45amNov '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
James Lileks: I heard Colman McCarthy years ago on a talk radio show. The host was presenting one of those pacifist conundrums: there's a man in a schoolyard, shooting children. Are you not obligated to stop him by violence, if that's the only option? McCarthy refused to admit that was the only option. Why, there was always another option.
But what if a child dies while you work through the kumbaya procedures? He was adamant: shooting the shooter would just add to the sum total of violence in the world. Because that's what matters most: the quantity of violence, the existence of violence, not the moral application of violence to stop evil. The facile calculation of a holy fool.
(BTW, the interviewer who drilled & grilled and called his calculations contemptible was Dennis Prager.)
It is always easy to sacrifice someone else's life for your principles. Sometimes I think liberals actually take a perverse delight in doing just that — or merely thinking about it.
Edited on Dec 31, 2010 at 5:48amJun '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
Q: What do you do to pass the time, while waiting (patiently for decades) to be your own country's Vidkun Quisling? A: You write leftwing columns for the Washington Post and lecture at local universities about nonviolence.
May '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
I don't see why the federal government continues to fund schools that don't allow ROTC on campus. The government pays for the school, so I think they should be allowed to send their recruiters on campus.
May '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
I didn't know of Coleman before this -- clearly a loathesome person (one can only imagine what he'd have done if he'd been Prime Minister of England when Hitler came calling).
I will defend the Left in general, though, by saying I know of a number of Left-leaning people on podcasts and such who express what I believe is sincere support for our troops and whom I don't think would have an issue with ROTC on campus.
I don't think it's fair to tar the entire Left with Coleman's extreme attitude, but this will indeed be a good test case to see who is sincere.
Jun '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
James Lileks:
He was adamant: shooting the shooter would just add to the sum total of violence in the world. Because that's what matters most: the quantity of violence, the existence of violence, not the moral application of violence to stop evil. · Dec 30 at 9:51pm
But even using the quantity of violence as the measure, he's still wrong. One dead shooter is less total violence than a yard full of dead children.
Jul '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
When I was in high school in DC, McCarthy was invited to address our class. I can assure you that in person he is even more arrogant, dismissive, and snide than he comes across in print.
That he singled me and a friend of mine out for his contempt when we argued with him is one of my proudest academic achievements.
May '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
Just another in an increasingly long line of "smarter than us"liberals who have all the answers. You know the appease Hitler and if we only talk to the terrorists crowd that will solve all of our problems if we only listen to them. I'm with Lady K on what we need to do with the moral equivalency crowd.
Nov '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
From George Orwell:
"Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other."
"The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States."
Orwell was extremely perceptive, but I do not think he ever imagined that those "younger intellectual pacifists" would eventually become an elderly clique of smug, self-righteous pseudo-intellectuals who dominate Western academia. And they are no longer a minority.
Aug '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
Max Boot at Commentary called the article " The Most Odious Column of the Month,maybe the Year" .
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/boot/385366
This guy is so stuck in the 60s, makes you wonder if he still reads Penthouse Forum for advice. You couldn't rely on this guy to help your grandma across a street ( cars have rights too !).
Edited on Dec 31, 2010 at 7:00amNov '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
Joseph Stanko
But even using the quantity of violence as the measure, he's still wrong. One dead shooter is less total violence than a yard full of dead children.
This is the Last Word on the subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyJTfuau3hw
York set his pacificism aside in order to save his buddies. That sort of quiet, selfless heroism is simply beyond the ken of loathsome pedants like Colman McCarthy.
May '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
As Jonah Goldberg titled his thoughts on this, McCarthy's pablum is the "Moral Mush of Pacifism". Another must read is Victor Davis Hanson's breakdown of the oped's narcissistic underpinnings, saying the "leftist trope...should be taught in schools as an example of the methodology of much of contemporary liberal argumentation."
I was particularly amused by the accusation that "ROTC and its warrior ethic taint the intellectual purity of a school", especially those bastions of intellect in the Ivy League. Is McCarthy not aware that even without ROTC the Ivy League is already 'infiltrated' by the military and their "foul ideas"?
For many years the military's top leaders have been attending graduate & executive leadership programs at their campuses. Lets look at the two prominent military leaders today:
Admiral Mike Mullen, CJCS - US Naval Academy, Naval Postgraduate School, Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program.
General David Petraeus - US Military Academy, M.P.A. & Ph.D. at Princeton, fellowship at Georgetown.
What lightweights! So much for the idea that the warrior ethos could taint intellectual purity....as for ROTC, I guess there is nothing Harvard could learn about leadership development, problem solving, strategic planning, and professional ethics...
Edited on Dec 31, 2010 at 10:04amNov '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
That is a marvelously low blow. I love it.
May '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
Dave Carter: To draw no meaningful distinction between members of the Taliban and American service members is to expose a depravity of principled discernment worthy of tenure at an ivy league university.
That's harsh...but fully deserved.
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
Paul, I agree. It was harsh. And there are exceptions. The problem is, ...they are the exceptions.
May '10
Re: Free To Be Ungrateful
Dave Carter: Paul, I agree. It was harsh. And there are exceptions. The problem is, ...they are the exceptions.
Yes, sad to say. And one of those fine exceptions is a Ricochet contributor. I keep thinking that Victor Davis Hanson would be a wonderful neighbor, although admiring neighbors might be the last thing that a busy scholar and academic needs. :-)