What Has Changed in 30 Years

All Is Lost

  With the recent outcome of the election, I have been left shaking my head in disbelief. Having a week or so to reflect, I have decided that common sense is officially dead.  In reconstructing the crime scene, the evidence shows that political correctness and entitlement slowly and methodically smothered common sense in it's bedroom with a pillow over the last 20 years.

     In coming to this realization, I have decided to stop laboring in vain to carry small buckets of water from the recesses of the titanic in faint hopes that I might somehow prevent it's sinking.  No, I have now resolved myself to the fact that the ship is going down.  Additionally, I have decided that the best place to be is topside with the violin players and the clueless partiers.  Therefore, I have created this new blog, which I shall post the unbelievable news stories from around the nation, as well as my daily encounters, which support the premise that, "ALL IS LOST!!"

Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts on any of the daily postings and we can all have a good time as the mighty boat slowly sinks into it's watery grave.  The new blog is at:

www.allisnowlost.blogspot.com

Great Article On The Chick-Fil-A Uproar

Elizabeth Scalia has written a wonderful article on the Chick-Fil-A uproar that I just had to repost.  It is amazing how one side of these arguments is always hurling the "intolerant" accusation at the other side, and yet, their actions consistently show them to be the intolerant ones.  I have copied the article below and linked to Ms. Scalia's blog:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2012/07/24/chick-fil-a-if-youre-not-sure-this-is-how-fascism-works/

Chick-fil-A: if you’re not sure, this is how fascism works

July 24, 2012 By Elizabeth Scalia 49 Comments

Over at Facebook, I noticed a picture of Kermit and Miss Piggy marrying, with a caption about Chick-fil-A*. I can’t seem to find it, now — perhaps the person who posted it deleted it.

I confess, haven’t been following this story at all. But after the Muppets picture, I saw someone ranting about Chick-fil-A being denied business licenses because they were “against gay marriage.”

At that point, I posted to Facebook,

“Whether these Chick-fil-A people support gay marriage or not, are people no longer entitled to their own opinions? I mean, denying them business licenses? Really? Is this what we’ve come to:”Either fall in line or you will pay; we will destroy you…” for having a different opinion?

Whatever happened to “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”

If this is true, if this bullying is true, then this is not my father’s liberalism, that’s for sure. It’s something very, very different.

Well, a lively conversation ensued in which it was pretty much agreed upon that if a business willfully inserts itself into a political issue, that’s “one thing” but if a business is forced to declare its political beliefs — and if that declaration can mean the difference between getting a license or not, that’s “something else.”

It’s fascism, actually.

But this Chick-fil-A story is something beyond a demand to declare oneself and face consequences — it’s even worse than that. Apparently the mainstream media has taken it upon itself (perhaps because the owners are Christian?) to define Chick-fil-A’s positions for it.

Get Religion’s Terry Mattingly tells the miserable tale of media malfeasance:

So, did you hear about that wild quote that the president of Chick-fil-A didn’t say the other day?

Here’s a piece of a CNN report that is typical of the mainstream press coverage of this latest cyber-skirmish in America’s battles over homosexuality, commerce and free speech (sort of).

(CNN) — The fact that Chick-fil-A is a company that espouses Christian values is no secret. The fact that its 1,600 fast-food chicken restaurants across the country are closed on Sundays has long been testament to that. But the comments of company President Dan Cathy about gay marriage to Baptist Press on Monday have ignited a social media wildfire.

“Guilty as charged,”, Cathy said when asked about his company’s support of the traditional family unit as opposed to gay marriage.

Now, one would assume — after reading a reference to the “comments of company President Dan Cathy about gay marriage” — that this interview . . . actually included direct quotes from Cathy in which he talks about, well, gay marriage.

In this case, one cannot assume that.

While the story contains tons of material defending traditional Christian teachings on sexuality, the controversial entrepreneur never talks about gay rights or gay marriage. Why? Because he wasn’t asked about those issues in the interview.

Read Mattingly’s whole piece, wherein he addresses the whole “well, they may not havesaid it but it’s what they meant, so what’s the big deal?” angle.

The big deal is simply this: the press put aside context and decided to paint this company as some radically-religious-gay-hating-entity and then let the forces of anger, hate and spite have their way with it. The truth is, one can be a Christian and still be sympathetic to some parts of the so-called “gay agenda” without signing on in toto. One can disagree on the issue of gay marriage — based on scripture, or thousands of years of tradition, or on natural law — without actually hating anyone. But the right to principled opposition is being erased, quickly, and the press is doing all it can to help erase it. We are losing the right to say, “I don’t think the same way you do; my opinions are different.” That matters, a lot.

This is our mainstream press — the people charged with the public trust — and it has moved beyond advocacy and into “search and destroy” mode.

This is not about being “right” or “wrong” on an issue. This is about menacing and bullying people into conforming or paying the price. It’s about the bastardization of the word “tolerace” in our society, to the point where the word no longer means “live and let live” or “let people be who they are”; the word has become distorted in a very unhealthy way. Someone’s a bigot? Let him be a bigot; like it or not, a man is entitled to his damn bigotry. Someone’s a curmudgeon? Let him be a curmudgeon. Someone’s a misogynist (or, conversely, a male-hater?) let them be! People are entitled to be who they are — just as a church is entitled to be what it is — free of government compulsion to be what they are not. We cannot “make” people be more loving. We cannot “legislate” kindness. A bigot, or a hater (of any sort) will eventually find himself standing alone, will have to figure things out for himself. Or, not.

If people are no longer entitled to their own opinions, or to think what they think, then we are not free people, at all. Period. Full stop. That’s a fundamental as it gets.

Moreover, where does the “punishment” spiral stop? The press declares Chick-fil-A “homophobic” (a dishonest word) and then the local governments start penalizing them for it; Jim Henson’s outfit stomps off. What next? Will people against gay marriage start boycotting Muppet stuff? Pyres of Elmo in support of Chick-fil-A’s right to be itself?

Hey, anyone has a right to boycott or protest anything, but is it right — is it just — to effect a boycott at the behest of a press so overt, so obvious in its intent to identify-and-harass the boogeymen of their passionate loathings?

Shall honest people consent to such manipulation? Further, can justice-minded people be comfortable with a government interfering with a business on the basis of its opinions?

This reeks of fascism. And frankly, these are acts born out of insecurity, not security, in one’s own position. It is bringing a sledgehammer to a fight, because you cannot trust your own argument.

I came across Mattingly’s story right after reading this piece at The Catholic Thing

But distinctions do matter. We were once allowed to be what we held. Catholics were Catholics. Jews were Jews. It was all right. We now have an overarching “law” that tells us that we cannot be what we are. The university, once a place that respected distinctions and diversity of ways of life, is now an engine that allows nothing but its own definition of diversity. And diversity means that nothing can be diverse.

Quite right, and quite timely. Read the whole thing.

(*I don’t know when I have hated a business name more)

UPDATE: Former CBS News writer Deacon Greg must be getting weary of writing “what were you thinking” to one MSM news group after another.

Afghanistan Diary Part 13- Moving Day- 5 November, 2011

     A few days ago we convoyed up to what is to be the Super Bowl of our missions. Whitehouse, as the Patrol Base is named, is where we are to build two HLZ's from scratch. Moving even further north has seemed to up the potential for enemy contact. We are up with 3^rd reconnaissance battalion and 1^st battalion, 6^th Marine regiment, so we are in the area of the frontlines, if you can even call them that in today's unconventional warfare. 

     Building a new camp again each time we move is somewhat of a pain. Packing things up just to unpack them again and rebuilding everything is annoying, but everyone works together and in no time our camp has been set up. Day two and our engineers went quickly to work to create all the needed amenities. They built two of our very own wooden thrones to sit on and fill wag-bags, complete with blanket covered hesco fences surrounding them for privacy. Two PVC pipes were dug into the ground, protruding a few feet for our urinary purposes, aptly named, “piss tubes,” and a couple other Marines, including the Doc built a pullup bar for our physical fitness purposes. Day three will bring a resupply convoy with many necessary items, the most important of which will be my cigar resupply.

Afghanistan Diary Part 12- Duty...Or Is It Doodie?

     Today the wind is blowing in just the right direction to present me with the lovely aroma of burning excrement. Yes, out here away from the lovely invention of plumbing and septic systems lies the land of burning pits of poo. This is our way of continuing our “doodies” without creating disease and plague. Some may not find this topic particularly tasteful, but I shall tell it nonetheless, as I have been tasked to give you an idea of what it is like out here, and I would be robbing you of a large portion of our environment if I were not to write about it. 

     Yes, out here the closest you'll get to a toilet is the seat, if you're lucky. A toilet seat sitting atop a wooden box of some sort with a cut-out hole. Need to call a meeting with Mother Nature? You go get yourself a “wag-bag” which is made by a variety of companies. I am partial to the “Dispose-a-John” myself, but to each his own. Each is made a bit differently, but all utilize the basic concept of a plastic bag which fits over the toilet seat and hangs down through the hole. I will trust that I need not describe the rest of the process as I am sure you get the idea. When finished you close up your wag-bag by whatever means the individual creator provided you, and you take it to the burn pit, which is a large dugout pit for burning garbage and wag-bags. There is nothing like carrying around a bag of your own poo. Everyone should experience this. It is very humbling.

Deployment Diary Continues Tomorrow

I have had a busy Spring with the trip to Ireland, along with 3 1/2 weeks of much required maintenance on my home in Missouri, but I am now back and will continue posting entries from my Afghanistan Diary tomorrow.

A Much Needed Irish Getaway

A much needed vacation is in order and I am jetting off to Ireland for a week.  Surprisingly enough, the Marine Corps now makes it three times more difficult to vacation in Ireland as they do to spend seven months in Afghanistan.  Below is an example of what the Marine Corps required a 40 year old man to do in order to be approved to take a week vacation to the Emerald Isle:

Registration on APACS (Aircraft and Personnel Automated Clearing System)
Anti-Terrorism Force Protection Level 1 Certificate of Completion
SERE Level B Certificate of Completion
Country Threat Brief by Intel
Information Assurance Course Certificate of Completion
Copy of Birth Certificate
Copy of Passport
Commanding Officers Authorization Letter
Isoprep Confirmation Letter
Trip Registration with U.S. State Department
Copy of Flight Itinerary
Operational Risk Management Matrix

Retirement cannot come quick enough from an organization which requires this much red tape and paperwork for almost any activity one would participate in during their off-time.  There is no tolerance for anyone that might go out and make a mistake during their liberty time, and higher headquarters now blames the entire chain of command below them down to the troubled Marine's first line supervisor, so this is the result of everyone trying to CYA.  Once upon a time we held the individual Marine (grown adult, mind you) accountable for his actions, now the Corps expects the Marine's NCO, SNCO, and OIC all to answer for their Marine's lack of discipline and/or judgment.  It is an insane amount of wasted time that is hard to even accurately describe to those on the outside not experiencing it.  To any who are currently in the Marine Corps you know exactly what I am talking about.  It has gotten to the point that we cannot release our Marines for the weekend without first conducting a safety brief, having each of them fill out a "HARP" form (Holiday Accident Reduction Program) and conducting a vehicle inspection on their modes of transportation.  It is truly unbelievable and lacks any shred of common sense.  If an individual is a (pardon my French) dumbass then he is going to be a dumbass regardless of all the paperwork and inspections we make him fill out prior to sending him on his liberty.  All the safety briefs, vehicle inspections, and other stupid documents we are forced to waste our time having them fill out will not phase them, as they are the 10% that are destined to be screw-ups.  Contrary to the Corps new philosophy, they will not create some mistake-free  utopia with these methods, they will only create frustrated Marines at every rank and level who cannot wait to free themselves from the administrative chains they are shackled to.

I'm off to Ireland to unwind from all this madness...stay classy, Marine Corps.