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2008-09-05 Home Front: Culture Wars

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Posted by Mike 2008-09-05 13:02|| || Front Page|| [5 views ] Top

#1 I don't quite know how to express my thoughts on Mr. Judd. Reminds me of an English teacher that analyzes a paper for structure without any real consideration of content.

Help me out here folks.

Posted by tipover 2008-09-05 13:31|| 2008-09-05 13:31|| Front Page Top

#2 You said it perfectly, tipover. That kind of honesty communicates to the listener beyond mere performance.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-09-05 13:41|| 2008-09-05 13:41|| Front Page Top

#3 I had the same difficulty understanding NRO criticism of Governor Palin's speech. The NRO round table thought she was "sarcastic" and their analysis was obsessed with minor points of delivery while missing the emotional effect of her words, apparently because they could not emotionally grasp it themselves.

When I heard Sarah Palin speak, I thought I was finally hearing a politician tell me the truth.

Posted by Excalibur 2008-09-05 13:58|| 2008-09-05 13:58|| Front Page Top

#4 "he was able to imbue it with the requisite emotion, but not really to convey its broader meaning, its eternal lesson.

Orrin looks a little bit ridiculous explaining the point that we all got while simultaneously insisting he didn't get it.

Posted by Betty Grating2215 2008-09-05 14:02|| 2008-09-05 14:02|| Front Page Top

#5
;-) Betty
Both Judd and the NRO crowd are deeply invested in their own sense of intellectual superiority.

Posted by lotp 2008-09-05 14:19|| 2008-09-05 14:19|| Front Page Top

#6 lotp you've nailed it.

intellectuals no matter their stripe tend to be very impressed with their own intelligence and will pick apart anything. Real good at trees but not so good with forests.

This is also known as over processing and leads to paralysis by analysis. This is, to me, one of the biggest failings of Lawyers and Academics. They go round and round chasing their nits while missing reality.

On top of that they are very prone to believe that they can "think" their way through any issue without bothering to consider that other people are involved that might think differently. That's why Zero's belief that he can talk anyone into anything is so dangerous.

What's that line about no military plan surviving first contact with the enemy?

Intellectuals of this sort are like people playing chess against themselves while pretending that the alternate moves were considered independently.

Posted by AlanC 2008-09-05 14:50|| 2008-09-05 14:50|| Front Page Top

#7 Mr Judd, having never been there, nor done that, simply does not get it, neither do his effete Manhattan buddies at NRO, nor the lawyers and pundits that live in the Country Club atmosphere of the beltway.

From my viewpoint, they are elitists, snobs and urbanites that look down their noses at us "Sam's Club" types. They are part of the disease that has nearly destroyed the GOP.

Us "Sams Club" types they look down on are the ones that build things, create things, and run businesses, we secure the streets, we fight the fires, and we fight and die in war.

Blue collar types do get McCain, the middle class does as well, small town and rural people do too - they know what happens when they can't meet a mortgage, when they have to cut back the grocery budget because food has gotten more expensive, when they go without lunch to buy medicine for their children. When they live 2 paychecks from losing everything, they know what matters in a way these snobby elites never will.

We know things and do things those country club types will never get because they have never ever truly had to put it on the line.

We understand John McCain.

On a personal level, having been "broken" as part of SERE training with coercive methods (think waterboarding), I can tell you its a humbling, even shattering, experience. Just realizing that no matter how strong you are, no matter how unbreakable you thought you would be (common in the military mindset), that you can be broken is a hell of a blow. Its at a base emotional level that cannot be adequately explained by words alone.

Once you've been through it, if you are the ones to make it, it turns out to be more like tempering a sword by shocking it in cold water then heating and forging it again and again. You learn that you weren't truly broken -that you are still YOU because you learn to depend on the things nobody can take away from you, not under duress, nor in a POW camp.

There are things that abide - and allow you to endure, to spring back from when the body cannot go any further.

God, family and country. True faith and true hope. Character. Principles.

Those stay with you, they cannot be taken out of you, they are part of your fabric, they allow you to spring back, they allow you to endure.

A good summary is from the Code (that all of us had to memorize when I went through). I'll leave you with what all of us that have been there done that know:

I will never forget that I am an American, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.

John McCain, for all his faults, embodies this and lives it.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-09-05 15:12|| 2008-09-05 15:12|| Front Page Top

#8 Everybody breaks. It's expected. But when you break, you still stick to the code - give them the least you can, and make it obvious you're under duress.

Nobody expects superman.

Posted by mojo">mojo 2008-09-05 15:37|| 2008-09-05 15:37|| Front Page Top

#9 IIRC, up until the Korean War the US had always dealt with more or less honorable opponents. (The Japanese would torture POWs, work them to death or just outright kill them, but they didn't try to convert them. During the Korean War, many of the POWs were submitted to brainwashing (and torture). They broke, and at first they were looked down on as being weak. Later, we realized that, as several have said here, anyone can be broken. The best you can hope for is to resist as long as you can (the R in SERE), and give as little as you can when you do break. That is why pilots and others are given SERE training - to give them skills and tools to deal with what they might face if captured.
BTW, I have not been to SERE school. I had a friend in the Naval Reserve who said he wanted to go to SERE for his annual training. When I mentioned this to a mutual acquaintance, an active duty Navy pilot, he said that he swore he would give up his wings rather than go through SERE again. He thought my friend was nuts. Which my friend was, but in a good way.

Posted by Rambler in California 2008-09-05 16:35|| 2008-09-05 16:35|| Front Page Top

#10 I despise Mr. Judd. I have discovered that if one makes a congent and powerful argument against his position in his comments, he deletes them. I caught him in the act modifying a comment while I was commenting on it, having quoted it at length. I then posted a comment chastizing him for modifying it, and he deleted all of them. I've caught him tryng to play the race card so blatanly that many of his visitors at that time called him on it. He deleted the entire thread.

In a call to have OPEN BORDERS, he claimed you couldn't get americans to cut grass or clean houses. I cited my black gardener and white maid, and he deleted the comment.

He cannot bear to hear the truth if it opposes him.

Posted by Ptah">Ptah 2008-09-05 17:21|| http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org]">[http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org] 2008-09-05 17:21|| Front Page Top

#11 "He cannot bear to hear the truth if it opposes him."

So he's a Democrat, Ptah?

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2008-09-05 18:27|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/] 2008-09-05 18:27|| Front Page Top

#12 Can we go back to last night and replace Tom Ridge (who I like, BTW) and replace his speaking slot with what Old Spook just said?

I didn't here what McCain said after "They broke me" because I was sqirming in my seat trying to not let onto my daughter that I was choking up.

Posted by Capsu 78 2008-09-05 19:02|| 2008-09-05 19:02|| Front Page Top

#13 And since I didn't want to trivialize my prior post, I felt "broken" during Hell Week in my fraternity in the 70's.
I am way non PC here, but I argue that hazing and Hell Week for me taught me exactly how far I could last under stress, without sleep... and it ain't very far. Watching others go through it as a brother also provided me with lasting lessons. I saw the meanest bad ass city kid who obviously had the bully gene in him cry like a little girl, while a wirey haired, geeky son of an astro physicist who was picked on even after he was brotherized never came close to breaking down.
Yes, hazing gets out of control if it turns into "lord of the flies" but my experiences lead me a credo I have always used since... I never ask people to do things or take risks that I wouldn't do myself.
OS, please don't misunderstand me . I am not begining to equivicate fraternity hazing with SERE... One of my little bros went on to naval flight training, and set me straight over beers on what professional military "hazing" is like.

Posted by Capsu 78 2008-09-05 19:15|| 2008-09-05 19:15|| Front Page Top

#14 Capsu, no biggie.

Sigma Chi (Mainly for Derby Day, chicks and beer)

Posted by OldSpook 2008-09-05 22:40|| 2008-09-05 22:40|| Front Page Top

#15 heh: Sigma Alpha Epsilon, San Diego State, Spring 79, and we satisfied your unsatisfied dates

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2008-09-05 22:56|| 2008-09-05 22:56|| Front Page Top

#16 Pi Kappa Alpha owns you all...

Posted by Beavis 2008-09-05 23:24|| 2008-09-05 23:24|| Front Page Top

23:58 OldSpook
23:42 Frank G
23:41 Frank G
23:37 EHLTB
23:24 Beavis
23:12 OldSpook
23:10 Whavish Untervehr4912
23:06 Whavish Untervehr4912
23:05 European Conservative
23:02 OldSpook
22:56 Frank G
22:42 Steve White
22:40 OldSpook
22:26 Mike
22:23 no mo uro
22:17 no mo uro
22:07 3dc
21:59 g(r)omgoru
21:57 g(r)omgoru
21:27 ed
21:27 MarkZ
21:26 Adriane
21:23 bruce
21:22 Frank G