Radical leftist writer David Masciotra waxes somewhat less than eloquently that Americans who think all soldiers and police are heroes are childish, and betray “a frightening cultural streak of nationalism, chauvinism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism” in a piece published Sunday on Salon.com.
But what is childish is Masciotra’s rant; it begins, “Put a man in uniform, preferably a white man, give him a gun, and Americans will worship him.” You just know that Michael Brown’s death will be found somewhere in the polemic. Sure enough, Masciotra later writes, “Michael Brown’s murder represents the tip of a body pile.” Forget the information pointing to Brown’s possible assault on the police officer who shot him.
Fulminating with impotent rage (another reason to hate real men), Masciotra writes, “It is equally challenging for anyone reasonable, and not drowning in the syrup of patriotic sentimentality, to stop saluting, and look at the servicemen of the American military with criticism and skepticism.” And while we’re on the subject of real men, Masciotra references Chelsea (nee Bradley) Manning on the horrors of the military.
Wait, we’re just getting started:
Acknowledging the spread of sadism across the ranks of military also does not mean that the U.S. government should neglect veterans, as they often do, by cutting their healthcare options, delaying or denying treatment, and reducing psychiatric services. On the contrary, if American politicians and pundits genuinely believed that American military members are “heroes,” they would not settle for sloganeering, and garish tributes… imposing a juvenile and dictatorial rule over speech in which anything less than absolute and awed adulation for all things military is treasonous.
Treason? Like his hero (excuse me, heroine) Chelsea violating the Espionage Act?
But it’s America that Masciotra really hates:
Physical strength and courage is only useful and laudable when invested in a cause that is noble and moral. The causes of American foreign policy, especially at the present, rarely qualify for either compliment.
That’s right; we only saved Europe twice, tried to save Korea, tried to save Vietnam and only lost it after the war was won because of leftists like Masciotra undermining the war effort, leaving 1 million Cambodians to die, overthrew a brutal dictator in Iraq only to have Barack Obama, in typical leftist fashion, pull out, leaving a vacuum for ISIS; that’s correct: we’re not a noble or moral country.
Of course, Masciotra is in touch with the deepest feelings of servicemen: “Far from being the heroes of recent wars, American troops are among their victims. No rational person can blame the soldier, the Marine, the airman, or the Navy man for the stupid and destructive foreign policy of the U.S. government…”
Who are the true heroes, according to this Diogenes? “A more helpful and productive act of citizenship, and sign of solidarity with the military, is the enlistment in an antiwar movement that would prevent the government from using its volunteer Army as a plaything for the financial advancement and political cover of the state-corporate nexus and the military-industrial complex of Dwight Eishenhower’s nightmares.”
So what does Masciotra see as the magic bullet for the morally diseased military? “Americans, especially those who oppose war, should do everything they can to discourage young, poor and working-class men and women from joining the military.”
Don’t forget the police: “Calling all cops heroes too often leads to pathetic deference to authority, even when the results are fatal, and insisting all members of the military are heroes too often reinforces the American values of militarism and exceptionalism.”
Masciotra has the nerve to quote Stanley Hauerwas, from Duke University, who “suggested that, given the radical pacifism of Jesus Christ, American churches should do all they can to discourage its young congregants from joining the military.” Yet Masciotra, who called Phil Robertson the knuckle dragger of Duck Dynasty, has also written:
The real conflict, intellectually, is not between those who believe the tax-paying, law-abiding, responsible, and generous gay couple poses no threat to their neighbors or society, and those who believe they are morally depraved spawns of Satan dedicated to destroying the sanctity of marriage. It’s between those who believe that the Bible is the “word of the Lord”—infallible and inalterable—and those who see it for what it is, a collection of mythology, genealogical history, poetry, and philosophy, that, despite occasional flashes and phrases of brilliance, reflects the ignorance of the men who wrote it, and the age of its publication.
Hate the Bible, hate America, hate the military, hate the police, hate white people; now that the left took a beating in the last election, their feline claws are coming out with a vengeance.
There’s only one problem; real men (and heroes) are on the other side of the fence.
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