From "Why are so few Americans willing to defend their country?" (by Lionel Shriver at the Spectator, dated March 19, 2022):
For many of us war voyeurs watching the news with a glass of sherry, admiration of the little-engine-that-could Ukrainian fighters is underwritten by unease. As families escape to safety, plenty of feisty Ukrainians are remaining behind to battle a far more powerful aggressor, and they’re not all men, either. The question nags, then: in the same circumstances, would we stick around to defend our homelands, or would we cut our losses and get out?
Earlier this month, that’s precisely what a Quinnipiac poll asked Americans. Some 7 per cent answered ‘Don’t know’. But an astonishing 52 per cent of Democrats predicted that they’d skedaddle. Among Republicans, a full quarter would carpool with the hightailing ‘to hell with this!’ Democrats, while 68 per cent would stand their ground – or think they would. Among all respondents, 55 per cent would stay and fight, while 38 per cent would flee. Scaled up, that would be 125 million Yanks storming from the Land of the No Longer Free and the Home of the Not Especially Brave....
Read the rest HERE — after you have, as honestly as possible, answered these questions...
1) Why did so many Americans polled choose to flee our country?
2) Would you be among those who stand and fight, or would you be among those who flee? And why would you make that choice?
I'm going to break the quiz with perhaps a very dissatisfying answer:
ReplyDeleteIt can't happen here.
Even our own Revolutionary War proved a foreign power just wouldn't have the logistical support to invade from the sea and get very far from the coasts and inland before they encountered people who equate marksmanship with eating regularly. That was 200+ years ago before we had a navy that would and could stop such a planned invasion in their own ports. There is no foreign military that could cross oceans to invade and hold US soil. Russia's bumbling into Ukraine and they have railroads running right up to a shared border. Granted the Nazis in World War 2 bombed the Russian rail systems to smithereens and Russia *still* hasn't rebuilt those, but they still have email transit at least up to Ukraine's border.
My point is, in terms of scale, nobody is going to make the entirety of America feel the pain Ukraine is feeling from Russia's artillery and rocket attacks.
So, the dissatisfactory answer to why so many people polled would choose to flee perhaps lies in our history. Just as nobody kills Europeans better than Europeans and nobody kills Africans better than Africans, our Civil War and all the various wars fought on US soil (proper, annexed or acquired) against native Americans yields that nobody kills Americans like Americans. Shelling of American cities hasn't happened since the Civil War, and we did that to ourselves. If some power today swept aside the US military so as to make a Russia vs. Ukraine analog here, yeah, running is a viable option. There is no sign that aliens from outer space or a zombie apocalypse are in the queue though, so we're back to speculating a "what if the improbable happened."
So, improbable happens... question #2... yes, I would stand and fight. I'm a third generation "gun nut" / prepper. My guns and thousands upon thousands of rounds of ammo aren't for looks. But even I know they'd more likely be deployed against a different faction of Americans, rather than a foreign invader.
TC,
Deletethe dissatisfactory answer to why so many people polled would choose to flee perhaps lies in our history.
1) I doubt that the poll's respondents thought that much.
2) I also doubt that the poll's respondents have much knowledge of history under their belts.
There is no foreign military that could cross oceans to invade and hold US soil.
9/11 was unimaginable -- until it happened.
But when airports reopened and flights resumes, it didn't happen again. Now Flight 93 is metaphorically hijacked to imagine doomsday can be put off with a vote.
DeleteMaybe I broke the quiz by overthinking it. Three generations back, my grandfather was in the Battle of the Bulge. Five generations back, my great great grandfather was at Gettysburg. Roll back maybe a half a dozen or so generations before that and my ancestors were fighting on both sides of landowner vs. indentured servant conflicts at Jamestown Colony. Fighting - for somethings and whatevers - is hardwired into my family history as as well as American history.
I've seen firsthand communities come together to fight the aftermaths of floods, tornadoes, wildfires, and hurricanes. We're not a broken people, overall. Only the people sitting at home doing nothing hear the criticisms of those that are doing something.
TC,
DeleteBut when airports reopened and flights resumes, it didn't happen again.
At the cost of our loss of enjoying flights. I've hated flying ever since 9-11. For whatever "reason," I almost always get nabbed by the TSA for a comprehensive search. And travelers have to get to the airport so far in advance of taking a flight.
My point earlier is that Islamic terrorists will, at some point, execute another terrorist plan that we won't have earlier imagined.
As for the traditions of my ancestors, on my mother's side (Appalachia) my family is populated by never-surrender fighters for hearth and home -- even to the point of feuding to the death with each other. Dad's family, typically excused because they belonged to a pacifist church, is more reasonable, but they still stood and fought whoever threatened hearth and home.
DeleteBrave Sir Robin ran away.
ReplyDelete("No!")
Bravely ran away away.
("I didn't!")
When danger reared it's ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
("I never!")
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
("You're lying!")
Swiftly taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat.
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin!
Jez,
DeleteFull disclosure: I've never seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Don't. It is a silly film.
DeleteIt is a silly film.
DeleteHeresy!
Polls based on hypothetical questions regarding exhibiting courage in the face of death....are garbage. Most people are going to answer in terms of what they like to think they would do in that situation....whereas in reality, most of the "come and take them" crowd will soil themselves and become good little Quislings.
ReplyDeleteSadly, like TC, I fully expect that my preps would be far likelier used against fellow Americans before a foreign invader.
"Most people are going to answer in terms of what they like to think they would do in that situation"
DeleteYup, and that's what makes the results so shocking, how many people didn't even put up a bravado front.
SF,
DeleteIs even a bravado front another casualty of the "America last" and "hate the West" crowd?
I first became aware of the latter when my neighbor's son came home for Thanksgiving break in 1988, when he was a freshman at Davis & Elkins College, a small college in West Virginia. I can still hear what he spouted at the dinner table: "Western civilization is the root cause of all the problems in the world." Sheesh. Even now this man, now age 52, spouts off about "all the evils of capitalism." Sheesh again.
I'd actually lean toward the notion that perhaps, just perhaps....more respondents were more honest than not, in this poll.
DeleteAs long as the rioters and raiders don't scalp anyone we should be fine ;)
DeleteIn actually answering the questions specifically:
ReplyDelete#1 - Most Americans, hell....most humans are utterly transactional. They care less for allegiance to their nation, their principles....even a better future for their children, than they do the convenient and on-demand items and 'safeties' that offer fleeting leisure and gratification. They're sheep who allow themselves to be herded by forces both mundane and grave. Those who would stand and answer the call, are very likely few in number, but will have the hearts of lions.
#2 - I don't lie, steal from, assault another or seek to restrict the Liberties of any law-abiding Citizen......nor do I tolerate those who do. Those who do, and do by means of force.....should rightly meet the pointy end of a fast moving projectile; their bodies left for carrion and their names never spoken again.
What's left of the Republic the Founder's envisioned, in reality, is mostly intangible now....but it's still worth defending, were enemies foreign or domestic to attempt to usurp it.
CI,
DeleteDo you believe that your #1 response was always true for most people down through the halls of time?
In my view, centuries ago many people were too afraid of the unknown to fight or to go elsewhere, if they even could go elsewhere, to make a new life for themselves.
In general, yes. I believe though, that it's even far more pronounced today. In centuries past, most people had a daily stake in providing for their own survival 'hierarchy of needs'. Thus, we have plenty of examples of mass migration in the face of invasion. They either assimilated as best they could or formed new communities....but they had the skills to do so [rudimentary though they may have been].
DeleteIn today's era.....where would people flee to....the nearest Whole Foods outside of their community borders?
Many Americans don't have the stomach for a fight, even to defend their own community/nation. And there's an entire psychology behind that, that I won't belabor in this comment.
Most others don't have the skills to feed, house and clothe themselves and their families. (my personal assessment of course, YMMV)
Where would I go?
ReplyDeleteFJ,
DeleteGood question?
That's the first thing that popped into my mind when I first read the article.
Me too, actually. If America were overwhelmed to the point guerilla warfare was a reality, I don't they the rest of the world would be much better.
DeleteThis is space aliens and zombies territory.
new zealand.
DeleteIs New Zealand even really a real place?
DeleteI have a friend from New Zealand. Interesting story.
DeleteVery Socialist country. The government even owns the railway and puts strictures on truckers to keep them from competing with the railway -to no avail-. It's actually two islands separated by the "Cook Straight" -about 25 mi-.
Bruce, my friend, let me read some of his NZ trucking magazines. As a present, I found him a source for Vegemite (YUCK!) But what else can you do with what you scrape from the bottom of a beer vat? LOL
The West is a gigantic fantasy bubble. People here have no idea that society is a thin veneer. They have an intellectual conception that there are unfortunates out there beyond our walls scraping out a Hobbesean existence, but few have witnessed it and even fewer have lived it, or even lived among it for even a short time (vacays don't count).
ReplyDeleteWe enjoy a luxurious lifestyle behind a veil of ignorance, and this luxurious life we live is exceptional on many levels and is not mankind's natural state.
Western and Eastern Europe is a great example.
Western Europeans are in the fantasy bubble, happily sucking Vlad's gas pipe while talking crap about Russia and dealing with Russia and other dangerous powers on a basis of fantasy and pie-in-the-sky aspirational basis.
Eastern Europeans on the other hand, have a very reality-based view of Russia and the larger world, having only 30 years between today and vassal state status.
Well said. What's worse, is that western, industrialized society has become voluntarily, self insulating. We literally hold in our hands, the compiled knowledge of humanity....and we collectively refuse to be smarter on basic sustainability, instead reaching for lofty heights predominantly in a make-believe, virtual existence.
DeleteI know, this is a frequent soapbox of mine. I've attached wheels for ease in always having it with me.
SF,
DeletePoints well taken!
CI,
DeleteHere we are in the Information Age, and yet the majority seem to be dumber than a box of rocks. They won't even look up salient information!
CI's comment should go into the AOW Hall of Fame. " Compiled knowledge " is a brilliantly concise description. Reset upon so much knowledge, but what have we really learned?
DeleteI want to emphasize that I am not criticizing our society, and I don't think CI is either. We are at the pinnacle of human existence from a material and knowledge standpoint, but unfortunately it is human nature for children who have inherited so much from their forebears, to take it all for granted.
"Western Europeans are in the fantasy bubble, happily sucking Vlad's gas pipe..."
Deleteit's worse than that, the amount of money being laundered through London and funding a certain political party is a national disgrace. We should be jailing MPs for it.
Jez, I don't know what's going on in Breton, but our international banking system is all money laundering all the time. Prostitution, human trafficking, arms trafficking, drug trafficking...
DeleteAll of these illegal activities need a financial system to move the money around, and the international banking system does that. Meanwhile, I want to legally move $2,000 to a foreign country, and they are up my ass.
London has been pimped out to the oligarchs wholesale. Property prices (about the same as San Fran, much more expensive than Paris) don't make sense without that factor. Boris Johnson has been actively turning a blind eye to it since he was Mayor, while raising a significant fraction of his funding from Russian sources. He's dirtier than the language in a Tarantino movie about sailors with tourettes.
DeleteJez, Is this a problem just with Johnson's party, the entire political system, or is it something larger?
DeleteJez, I ask because I think our nation's problems are above our partisan political system, and to the extent our politicians are to blame, its across the board.
DeleteSure, one party or the other gets in and rearranges some furniture and does some minor redecorating, but the much larger root causes remain untouched.
I grant that could be different in Britain, which is why I ask. You already know my position. Like Farmer, I take a dark view of globalism and I think the global corporations and global banking is running everything, with national governments subordinate to them.
DeleteThe money laundering goes back to the 90s, including the Blair/Brown New Labour years. I'm not aware of oligarch money directly funding the Labour party in the same way, though. Johnson becoming PM brought with it a step-change in the level of corruption (not just re Russia, in general), but they weren't angels prior to his selection, so there's a partisan (personal, really) element to it.
DeleteBut the British economy, overwhelmingly dominated by London and financial services, is systemically vulnerable to this sort of thing, and that's a state of affairs that goes back to the 80s.
:cough: George Soros :cough: Bank of England :cough:
DeleteThe reality is, we will not be invaded. Attacks from the enemy will come via the internet. So much of our infrastructure is networked and vulnerable to manipulation and attack.
ReplyDeleteWhen the lights have been out on the east coast for a week, we'll see how glib everybody there is about sacrificing a little for you Ukraine.
"Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
ReplyDeleteT. S. Eliot
“We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.”
Delete― Jean Baudrillard
“Everywhere one seeks to produce meaning, to make the world signify, to render it visible. We are not, however, in danger of lacking meaning; quite the contrary, we are gorged with meaning and it is killing us.”
Delete― Jean Baudrillard
"We can express our feelings regarding the world around us either by poetic or by descriptive means... I prefer to express myself metaphorically. Let me stress: metaphorically, not symbolically. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning, certain intellectual formula, while metaphor is an image. An image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world it represents. An image — as opposed to a symbol — is indefinite in meaning. One cannot speak of the infinite world by applying tools that are definite and finite. We can analyse the formula that constitutes a symbol, while metaphor is a being-within-itself, it’s a monomial. It falls apart at any attempt of touching it."
Delete- Andrei Tarkovsky
Excellent quotes, and so apt.
DeleteMeaning is what one makes of it. Too many people, instead of finding it themselves, ingest the pre-packaged versions of it, determined by the taste makers
Funny how one "symbol"... i.e. - a NAZI flag at the Canadian Trucker protest... was "transformed"/ "re-interpretted" by the media and Trudeau himself into a racist/white supremacist gathering. And the guy who brought the NAZI flag said that the flag represented what Canada was in danger of becoming...
DeleteMass gatherings and riots are generally "metaphors" for discontent. They seldom have pre-determined meanings or the symbolism required to express their discontent. Understanding can only come from hind-sight.
...and even though on Jan 6, 2021 in DC the so-called gallows that was going to be used to "hang Mike Pence" had a sign on it that said "This is Art". I guess Nancy Pelosi can't read.
Delete...or more likely she can, but doesn't want to hear the messenger's intended meaning. She'd rather drown it out with her own.
DeleteThe Jowett introduction to Plato's "Meno"
DeleteLet Meno take the examples of figure and colour, and try to define them.' Meno confesses his inability, and after a process of interrogation, in which Socrates explains to him the nature of a 'simile in multis,' Socrates himself defines figure as 'the accompaniment of colour.' But some one may object that he does not know the meaning of the word 'colour;' and if he is a candid friend, and not a mere disputant, Socrates is willing to furnish him with a simpler and more philosophical definition, into which no disputed word is allowed to intrude: 'Figure is the limit of form.' Meno imperiously insists that he must still have a definition of colour. Some raillery follows; and at length Socrates is induced to reply, 'that colour is the effluence of form, sensible, and in due proportion to the sight.' This definition is exactly suited to the taste of Meno, who welcomes the familiar language of Gorgias and Empedocles. Socrates is of opinion that the more abstract or dialectical definition of figure is far better.
In so doing, Pelosi reveals herself "not a candid friend", bur a "mere disputant".
Delete...and the farther we get from "candid friendship"... the more difficult and unreliable all symbolic forms of communication become.
DeleteIt's why wars get started. Acta supercedes verba, good will be damned.
Delete...and 'Caritas' be banished.
Deletea common language and symbols/ signs indicate a certain shared 'amity'. A different language, a blocking out/ censorship/ rejection.
DeleteWanta "heal the world"? Learn Esperanto.
Kiel vi fartas!
Delete...or in American "farts come out of my keester".
DeleteNow meet your new elites and learn the "pc way" to "speak elite" metaphorsymbolically...
Delete...and how to combat it "the Laibach way"
Deleteala "beamishness"
Delete:P
DeleteWhy are so few Americans willing to defend their country?
ReplyDeleteHmmm.
Would this be the country that continually involves itself in other people’s affairs, who cannot seem to drop enough bombs on the heads of innocent societies, who are guilty of no more than living within the border of a country ruled by an idiot? A country that after sending their young men and women off to war then prosecutes them as war criminals for doing what they were trained to do: locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire, maneuver, and close combat? And would this be a country who conspires against their combat veterans to deny them adequate medical care by manufacturing stories about how their TBI is actually a pre-service personality disorder? Would this be the same country that, having sent young men and women into harm’s way, afterward classifies its veterans as “domestic terrorists” and tries to deny them their rights under the Second Amendment? And is this the same country who implements social engineering programs within the military so that it cannot possibly win battles against highly motivated enemies? Is that the country we’re talking about?
I have to agree with CI that these hypothetical polls are silly exercises. The hesitance of people to “defend” their country is probably no different today than it was in either world war ... people did dodge the draft back then, and went to jail for it (or went to Canada) ...
In any case, let’s stop pretending that going to war in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or in Ukraine — or sixty years ago, in Vietnam — or seventy years ago, Korea, was in anyway “defending” America. No North Vietnamese army attempted to invade California; most people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria don’t even know where America is much less attack it. I daresay that most Americans do not agree with their government about “defending American interests.” We the people simply don’t see half the stuff Washington nitwits come up with as being in America’s interests.
In any case, what was the question, again? :-)
The response that we cannot be invaded begs the question, which is would you stand and fight if we were? The question equates to, "which life do you consider more important, yours or your nation's?"
ReplyDeleteSince I have served my nation at sea, subsurface, within three or four miles of the northern border of what was then the Soviet Union, I have answered the question.
Which America should I defend. The one that minds its own business of the Continental dollar, or the one that pushes its' allies into wars with former superpowers?
ReplyDeleteCuz I'll defend the former to my last breath, the latter, not so much.
Defend what country? I don't even recognize what I thought was the United States. You should have posed this question before the Supreme nominee hearing... talk about "in you face."
ReplyDeleteFrom an actuarial table standpoint, my life is a little over half over. I would not run, I would kill as many as I could, but I would do it smartly. Lots of ex-military here where I live.
ReplyDeleteOne of the first rules of prepping [or however you want to term it]....after ammo, ammo, ammo....is know who your allies are, and know their skills.
DeleteSame. I was never military, but you can't throw a rock around here without hitting a veteran.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of people I know who have never been in the military who I would eagerly team up with when the spam hit the fan
DeleteThank you everyone for ignoring the bots. All the petty tittle-tattle that amuses the pinheads in other parts of Blogistan remind me of the old unattributed saying:
ReplyDeleteGreat people talk about ideas; ordinary people talk about things; small minded people talk about other people.
I think the Ukrainians just proved military occupation is over. With cheap ordinance a small group of people can stop armored collume.
ReplyDeleteEveryone who opposed the hard left is a Nazi. Meanwhile the most obsessed people on the planet with Jews are the hard left. Lost in all the nuttiness about Illhan Omar is her ties to communist Witness for peace.
We have a generation of imbeciles produced in our colleges. The Squad epitomizes hypocrisy and general stupidity. At the head of this special ed class is Cori Bush.
Her comments set the bar lower each week
Respect for people who are transgender is different than turning everything including language upside down for 1/ of the population. A transgendered female isnt a woman. I respect a persons right to live differently. I am not using artificial pronouns and made up words like latinx. I will do so if and when I can place the X in
Front of Progressives xamerican. John Gomer Kerry is xamerican.
AOW/ Warren/ sf et al. What do you make of this? Asymmetric info warfare or sincere concerns? Dugin is "Putin's brain".
ReplyDelete...an <a href='https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/22/alexander-dugin-author-putin-deady-playbook/">opposing view</a>.
DeleteEmbrace the power of "and".
DeleteDuplicity is a way of life for the politically connected. That's not saying he isn't sincere.
-I wish I were a typist. It takes an inordinate amount of time for me to put my thoughts into written word.-
I agree with him that, globalist ambitions are the greatest threat to our nation. I don't agree with how we got there.
Semantics, raises its ugly head and we can no longer put the correct label on a give concept or group. -Is it Liberal or Progressive?- Maybe they are interchangeable. I know the progressives only progress toward their own goals. I know that, Liberal ideas are anything but liberal and the "Liberals", have stolen the name of a truly enlightened political movement.
I know that Communism is a utopian pipe dream because human beings aren't ants or bees. Socialism is a way of bankruptcy that requires that the innovative and hard working to give up their ambition, goals and dreams to placate the throngs of the undeserving and the privileged and that Feudalism is little different, as is Monarchy. Democracy is rule of the majority -two wolfs and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner-.
Religion is used by the State for placating the masses or justifying the unjustifiable, or has been historically, by fits and starts. In Christianity this can be seen in Constantine and then the subjugation of the Western World under the Holy Roman Empire and it's successor, the of power the RC Church and the setting Pope. -which has declined to a mere figure of its former self in these matters-
Community, commonality? I'm not much of a person for community and never have been. Every thug with pretensions of grandeur, appeals to their followers under the aegis of community and commonality. All this trans BS? I think it's a mental illness but I don't give a damn what they do to themselves as long as they don't cry about how discriminated against they are and leave me alone -but they won't-. They wish to destroy common norms for the sake of their own validation.
Such is the way of a "Global Elite", they wish to destroy societal norms and replace them with a new God and new norms, the God "is/as" the State.
I agree with him that, globalist ambitions are the greatest threat to our nation. I don't agree with how we got there.
DeleteI agree, too... and I think I see how he got there, but like you, I'm not quite sure it was "individualism" unless carried to its' absolute end.
...and yes, semantics is also a problem here
I think he says that communism, fascism and racism were all flops, and that he's looking for a 4th way of maintaining group cohesion against this group nihilism that derives itself from "radical individuality", but I'm not sure that we're all striving for the post-humanist future of cyborgs and cybernetic enhancements (genetic engineering is more likely) that he hints at as the coming danger.
He's definitely a "traditionalist"... which is probably closer to the Enlightenment thinkers that liberalism is today.
He certainly does have Hillary Clinton's number (the problem with the global elites).
All in all, I think he was trying to be sincere, and in many ways this explains the great fears of the IC of DJT. They don't see themselves in the mirror that Dugin held up for them to see themselves. It's a shame. They have no self-awareness.
I do need to study his ideas more closely.
Delete..an opposing view.
ReplyDelete