Blueprint North Carolina or, How should treason really be defined?

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Patrick Shrier

I just wanted to add this because I think everybody should read this document. I ran across a mention of it yesterday while perusing some political sites and then had to find the originally posted document and read it myself at first because I could not believe the inflammatory stuff in the piece about it. It turns out that the entire document is actually worse than I originally thought. It is literally a blueprint for how the Blueprint folks (a Dem/Progressive organization) can paralyze state government in NC and do it while blaming the Republican admin of the state for the paralysis.

After reading it there should be no questions as to why government is at a virtual standstill in America. Although this document comes from a Democrat/Progressive group I also have no doubt that there are Republican/Conservative groups engaged in the same kind of thing. The politics of poison indeed.

Blueprint NC Secret Memo by LaborUnionReport

Link to downloadable version: Blueprint-NC-Secret-Memo

Book Review: Ethical Chic by Fran Hawthorne

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Patrick Shrier

I picked up Ethical Chic: The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love by Fran Hawthorne at my local library because I figured the book would be good for a laugh. I was not wrong. I was also treated to a view inside modern liberalism that I did not expect. The whole premise of the book is an investigation to determine if some of the companies most beloved of the American left really live up to the chic, progressive image they project to the world. The companies profiled are Starbucks, American Apparel, Tom’s of Maine, Trader Joe’s, Timberland, and Apple. I will also be upfront and admit that I have never bought products from four of these companies, two of which I had never heard of. I have bought Timberland boots and Starbucks coffee before although I am not a regular of either. I actually buy a different brand of boots nowadays and have decided that I am too cheap to pay $6 for a cup of coffee.

The book is quite short at 168 pages and is separated into 7 chapters with a notes section but no index. I find the lack of an index disturbing but that is probably the latent academic in me. I found the acknowledgment of author bias in the introduction refreshing as you don’t often see that in books such as this.

The companies are evaluated based on three criteria with various sub-criteria. They are:

I. Environmental/Humane

Reduce energy use
Alternative energy
Reduce waste/recycle
No animal cruelty
Natural/organics/no PVC’s etc
Local sourcing

II. Working conditions

Unions
Pay & benefits
“Best Companies” lists
Overseas sweatshops
Sexual harassment

III. Public service

Product price
Community and public service
Customer service
Public information

From the evaluation criteria alone I got a good laugh especially the environmental piece. The most often quoted organization in the book is PETA. I will be honest and admit that to me PETA is a joke, they could be a relevant organization but instead they have decided to go down the route of caricature to the point that I almost deliberately buy products PETA recommends against out of sheer spite. I grew up on a farm, a beef ranch in particular, and thus have no problem with eating meat, using leather, or wearing fur. PETA is the antithesis of all that. The next criteria I got a laugh out of was the constant harping by the author about unions. She presents it as axiomatic that unions are a GOOD thing and we should all be sad that non-union shops exist. Never mind the fact that none of the companies she profiles are union shops or that as she says sadly again and again throughout the book that only 7% of US private-sector workers are unionized.

For me the book was a source of nonstop laughs as I read her assertions that such and such company did not recycle/use solar/unionize/give paid volunteer hours/ ad nauseaum. The author has picked every hobby horse of the American Left and beats these companies up if they don’yt meet the ideal. She does throw the caveat out there that they have to make money and tends to run down consumers who buy products based on what they afford rather than how subjectively ethical a company is.

While I can’t recommend this book as being anything serious I am sure liberals love it. It sticks it to the man and holds these companies feet to the fire of liberal responsibility. However hilarious that is. As readers of my blog probably know, I am not a liberal, far from it. I also highly doubt too many of my readers are liberals either. I just cannot imagine that many liberals would bother to read a site dedicated to military history since war is so anathema to the modern progressive/liberal set. The analysis did not pretend to be anything but subjective. Therefore I could not take any of them seriously though I can imagine some earnest young, no doubt female, college student in a liberal arts program would find the analysis compelling.

I cannot recommend this book as anything but light reading, it was worth a couple of good laughs though. I found the constant harping about unions to be especially hilarious. It sounded like someone complaining about all these newfangled cars on the road because when they were kids a horse-drawn buggy was good enough.

Women in Combat Part 2

Aside

Pentagon announces decision to lift ban on women in combat roles: How prescient I now feel given that less than a week after I posted about this the Defense Secretary announces an end to the female combat exclusion. I wish I had been wrong.

A couple of examples of the reaction in the press (I will only note in passing that most of those praising this decision have never served in the military or if they have were not Combat Arms): Women in combat: Let’s get real, Women will add combat strength: editorial, Women in combat — the controversy that wasn’t, Editors’ Roundtable: Women in combat?, Women in combat a dangerous experiment, Our View: Women in combat, Women in combat - The generals defer to political fashion in the Age of Obama, Women Have No Business in Combat.

Finally, the transcript of the SecDef’s Press Briefing where he announced the policy change.

Image credit CNN.com

Women in Combat

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Patrick Shrier

The role of women in combat has been much in the military press and civilian papers recently because of a lawsuit filed by several women who claim the military’s ban on women in combat positions is discriminatory. There are folks who argue that women belong in combat although those arguments generally boil down to it ain’t fair and it it’s sexists that women cannot be in combat. The amount of intellectual dishonesty around this debate is amazing and should stun any thinking person.

A picture is worth a thousand words or 1,158 in this case.

I will take the above pro-women in combat piece and debunk it as it is full of the kind of drivel that gets tossed around by the post-modern set when this subject comes up. I take the most umbrage with the first point as the last two are simply liberal tropes that really don’t even merit a response though I will give them a short one. His points, and he numbered them, are:

1. They can’t handle the physical strain

This one is easy to refute as it is straight physiology. I don’t think anyone is arguing that women are not mentally as capable as men. A simple look at the physical standards that currently exist show up the differences in physical ability between men and women.

A little aside about military fitness standards though. I will only cite the army minimums here as they are what I am most familiar with and represent the minimum physical abilities the army feels a soldier needs to have based on differing physiology. I will not debate whether the standards measure true fitness and will concede that they do not measure fitness very well. As a Master Fitness Trainer for ten years I will say that the Army PT Test is seriously flawed and I am not convinced the new standards and test being considered for roll out this year is any better. They are what we have though and so I will use them.

The Army physical training standards are to be found in FM 7-22 Army Physical Readiness Training. The requirements to pass the Army PT test are thoughtfully put right on the back side of the scorecard DA Form 705. The current army PT test consists of three events, all are timed and performance standards are adjusted based on age. They are 2 minutes of push-ups, two minutes of sit-ups and a timed two mile run. A minimum score of 60 points on each event is required in order to pass the test. The requirements for what constitutes a push-up or sit-up are pretty detailed and the run course must be generally flat with a slope not to exceed three percent.The relevant standards (minimum and maximum) for 17-21 year olds are below and here is the form DA 705-2 :

The Minimums (minimum equals 60 points)
- Push-up minimums male – 71 repetitions; female – 42 repetitions
- Sit-up minimums male and female – 53 repetitions
- Two mile run min. male – 15:54; female – 18:54
The Maximums (max equals 100 points)
- Push-up maximums male – 42 repetitions; female – 17 repetitions
- Sit-up maximums male and female – 78 repetitions
- Two mile run max. male – 13:00 ; female – 15:36

I find it significant, and always have that the female max for push-ups is the male minimum and the female max is so close to the male minimum in running. The sit-up standards are the same but that change is only about 5-6 years old, they used to be different as well until research said they should change.

Can anyone really argue that women are as physically capable as men? I think not, and I further think that everyone’s personal experience bears out the fact that women are in general not as strong as men. Sure, there are women who are just as strong as most men but they are tiny minority of all women.

One of the sub-arguments made in the current lawsuit is that women are already doing combat tasks as part of Female Engagements Teams (FET). This is bullshit, as anyone who knows anything about what a FET does can tell you. FETs do not engage in traditional infantry combat, they accompany infantry squads to help the all-male infantry avoid offending the cultural sensibilities of local cultures. FETs are not engaged in kicking down doors and taking hills, they are helping search women and talking to local female tribal members. Female MPs are not kicking down doors either, they are doing traditional MP tasks, which do not include ground combat except peripherally.

During my time in the army I was a Cavalry Scout and spent most of my career on M3 Bradley’s. I challenge anyone to find a female who can do the same thing. Typical tasks include moving 70 lb ammo cans in cramped quarters, pulling the 90 lb gun for maintenance, and doing just about anything maintenance wise on the vehicle from throwing around 100lb track sections to replacing 100+ lb road wheels. The tasks on a tank and the parts on a tank are even heavier. When deployed my OTV weighed roughly 60-70 lbs depending on the particular equipment mix I chose for the assigned mission. I question whether any but the most fit female could do the same things.

Another issue is hygiene, and females have more stringent hygiene requirements than males do to ensure their health. I don’t know for certain but am pretty sure that a female could not live for a week or two out of her vehicle without a shower without experiencing hygiene related health issues. When I deployed to Bosnia in January 1996 my entire platoon did not get the chance to take a real shower for 7 weeks when we finally took the opportunity to go to Tuzla and use the facilities there. Furthermore, we lived in our vehicles until May when our tent camp was finally constructed.

I simply think that females are physically incapable of performing most combat tasks of the combat arms soldier. If, as rumor suggest, gender-neutral standards are being developed, I wonder what the price in reduced combat capability we will suffer in direct ground combat units.

2. Men can’t handle fighting alongside women:

Bullshit, this is typical feminist/liberal/post-modern garbage they spout to try and shame the segment of society unable or unwilling to engage in critical thought. More need not be said.

3. Women don’t really want to be in combat, really:

This may or may not be true. To my knowledge no comprehensive study has been done on this issue. I suspect that it is a true assertion but absent a real study or poll I hesitate to approve or condemn it.

The push to allow women into combat units has less to do with combat ability, the currency of war, than an effort to once again inflict some social engineering goal on our military. I have confidence that the military will adapt as we always have, I just worry what the combat and death toll consequences of such a development will be when we have to fight a conventional opponent and are not just chasing insurgents around in the mountains or deserts. Women may be able to handle the physical stresses of continuous combat. I doubt it, and do not want to see, our soldiers, male or female, pay the price for the imposition of the post-modern agenda on our military. The argument may also be that other countries are doing it. Every time I hear that I hear my mother in the back of head asking me “if all my friends stuck their head in an oven would I do it too.” Because somebody else is being stupid is not a very good justification for me doing the same.

I would love to hear any comments in agreement or disagreement from my readers.

Who Are We Fighting?– Public & Military Perception Of Islam, Radical Islam, and The War On Terrorism

Posted on July 28, 2012 by Yvonne Fischer

This is a guest post

Since the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked by radical Islamic terrorists in 2001, a sense of enmity, fear, and distrust has grown between the West and the Islamic world. While the stated official policy of the United States has always been that the nation is fighting specific groups of militants and terrorists rather than Islam itself, all too often, civilians as well as members of the armed forces and law enforcement agencies show that they do not truly make any distinction. Spokesmen from military and public policy research centers, point out that all too often, ordinary Americans assume that all Muslims in the world, roughly 1.5 billion of them, are the avowed enemies of the United States and other Western powers.

In May of 2012, the Seattle Times reported an event in which a Lieutenant Colonel of the U.S. Army was forced to stop teaching a military officer course at the Joint Forces Staff College because of the implications that the course made about Islam. The Lieutenant Colonel taught his students that Islam as a whole has already declared war on the United States, and that the United States must respond by regarding the entire Islamic world as an enemy and confronting it accordingly. He even outlined plans to mount nuclear attacks on the Islamic holy cities of Medina and Mecca. The course was halted only after it had been taught repeatedly for several years. In doing so, Pentagon officials identified the class as being contrary to official perspectives and academically unsound.

The feeling that there is an insurmountable ideological divide between Islam and the West is not isolated to this one instance at the Joint Forces Staff College. It can be seen among various media figures, politicians, and religious leaders who call for war against Islam in general, burn the Qur’an in public, and even advocate extreme measures of attack against the Islamic world. For instance, political and social philosopher Leonard Peikoff responded to the 2001 attacks by advocating general attacks on entire Islamic populations with weapons of mass destruction.

Al-Qaeda – the Islamic terrorist group responsible for the attacks on September 11, 2001 – is known worldwide. Other extremist and terrorist groups such as al-Shabaab and the Taliban have significant influence in their respective spheres of influence. However, even taking all of these into consideration, the percentage of Muslims in the world who are actually associated with radical Islam is actually quite small. What critics of Islam must understand is that, by labeling all Muslims as enemies, terrorists, and supporters of terrorists, they force the majority of Muslims to choose between supporting a foreign power and supporting their religion. Those who cannot be coerced into radicalism by other Muslims for the sake of ideology, may then be forced into radicalism by non-Muslims for the sake of self preservation. Thus, instead of fighting an enemy force numbering in the tens of thousands, the Western powers must fight an enemy numbering more than 1.5 billion.

Critics of Islam and Islamic extremists both claim that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim, they say that extreme Islam is the only true Islam, and they get away with these statements because such polarization suits their respective agendas. However, the plain truth of the matter is that most Muslims are not radicals or extremists, and the Western powers should be glad of this. It makes no sense to alienate the vast majority of Muslims around the world, who simply wish to adhere to their own beliefs and practice their own religion, by branding Muslims everywhere as deranged terrorists. It is provably false and a dangerous position for a nation which prides itself upon freedom.