Now the military gets political. Seven Days in May?

Well, this is turning into a real shit-show in a hurry.  Now the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff has stepped into politics to re-assure everyone that they are not National Socialists (did anyone say they were?).  According to media reports, our nation's military leaders "broke precedent" (yeah, you think?) to make a "foray into domestic politics" and place themselves in apparent opposition to their sitting civilian commander-in-chief.

Being modern or rather post-modern, they "tweeted" and, we hate to have to tell you, that at least one of them lied.  General Mark Milley, chief of staff of the Army, tweeted Wednesday:

 “The Army doesn't tolerate racism, extremism, or hatred in our ranks."  "It's against our Values and everything we've stood for since 1775.”

Well... not actually since 1775.  See, this is what happens when you attempt to erase history and fail to acknowledge the past.  In fact, the military was explicitly racialist until July 26, 1948, when President Harry Truman (a Democrat) issued an executive order that desegregated the military. 

It was an earlier President, Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey (also a Democrat), who had done so much to undo the work of Republicans to loosen the restrictions on race in the military.  As for extremism and hatred... you train people to kill for God's sake.  The military is extremism incarnate.  As it should be.

What should concern everyone interested in the preservation of the Republic is the fact that these military officers have been permitted to step into a political matter.  It is bad enough that they lobby unceasingly for increased spending that is often redundant or wasteful or grossly over-priced.  Now they are getting involved directly in politics -- just like they did in Germany and do in places like Venezuela. 

Remember crazy General Curtis LeMay?  You might remember him as George Corley Wallace's running mate in 1968 (yeah, no racism there, right?).  Imagine if he had pulled the same stunt over Cuba that these turkeys just pulled?  General LeMay argued mightily with President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  LeMay wanted to start a nuclear war.  Imagine if he had "tweeted" his thoughts?

http://www.history.com/speeches/lemay-and-kennedy-argue-over-cuban-missile-crisis

Now we have something real and genuine that should concern everyone -- every Democrat, every Republican, every Independent -- and it's not the statues of generals but the real ones that should concern us.  Generals and politics do not mix.  That's why the founders of our Republic -- for the most part, soldiers themselves -- wrote our Constitution to explicitly exclude them from politics.  If you want to keep your democracy, keep generals out of politics.

Lyon supporter claims Reagan "destroyed" the GOP

Those of a certain age (GOP primary voters?) may remember the movie "Wild in the Streets."  The soundtrack from the 1968 cult classic included "Shape of Things to Come" and other hits.

The movie covers the events leading up to and after the election of a 25-years-old Republican as President of the United States.  He embarks on a campaign of intergenerational warfare that transforms America into "the most truly hedonistic society the world has ever known."

"Wild in the Streets" came to mind after reading an opinion piece by yet another Morris County YR.  This one has turned his personal Facebook page into a homage to Freeholder Hank Lyon, a candidate for Assembly in legislative district 26. 

The title of the young man's column was:  " Why Reagan Destroyed the Republican Party."  Yep, you read that right.  We kid you not.

First of all, for anyone with sensory perception, the Republican Party is not "destroyed."  It controls the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.  There are 33 Republican Governors to 16 Democrats and one Independent.  As for State Legislatures, the map below illustrates how tilted to the GOP that is:

Destroyed???  Is this strange perception due to this young man coming from a state like New Jersey?

Perhaps.  But we believe that what is at work here has more to do with age.  The young man who wrote this did not live in that time before Reagan, when the Democrat congressional softball team was called "The Permanent Majority."  After Reagan, that boast would never be heard again.

And thanks to President Ronald Reagan, that young man was born into a world in which the Soviet Union was a memory, not a menace.  That's not the case for most Republican primary voters.  For them, the Soviet Union was a very real psychological disturbance, always in the background, hovering, waiting.  The civil defense drills and the threat of nuclear war, was something to be absorbed and then compartmentalized, away from daily life but always someplace there.

The 1950's...

The 1960's...

The 1970's...

The 1980's...

Today's young Republicans never experienced any of that, because Ronald Reagan beat the Soviet Union, destroying their economy along with their ideology, and doing it so thoroughly that even "Red" China went capitalist.  Reagan's greatness is assured because he kept his most important promise -- to leave Marxism/Leninism on the "ash heap of history" -- and he did so without it costing a million American lives.

The young Hank Lyon supporter's indictment against Ronald Reagan is that the President did not sufficiently rein in spending.  Lyon's supporter appears to forget what President Reagan was spending that money on:  The largest peacetime military buildup in history, whose goal it was to overtax the Soviet economy into oblivion.  With the alternative a nuclear exchange, it was money well spent.

To write a critique of Ronald Reagan's presidency without mentioning the Cold War or the Soviet Union, is like writing about Abraham Lincoln and leaving out slavery and the Civil War.  It's a non-starter.

The Lyon supporter who so cavalierly trashed the memory of President Ronald Reagan can do so because he has never held any form of public responsibility at all.  Once he holds public office of some kind, and we sincerely hope he does, he will gain some humility.  He will learn that in a representative democracy, perfection is unachievable.  That there are always trade-offs and muddle-throughs.  The young writer will learn this from life as well.  He will learn that no marriage goes exactly as wished for, or children, or career.  He will learn that the expectation of perfection is the enemy of happiness. 

Time and that river, life, will work away his stoney sharpness and his certainties.  And he will be a better human for it.