Carry the Rest of the Country

{link » The Good—Part III}

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“In other words, there are millions of impressive Americans, who get up in the morning at 5AM, go to bed at 10PM, avoid the bars, the drugs, the crime — and carry the rest of the country on their backs. My only worry is that those in Washington misunderstand this rare cohort, and so demonize them as the “wealthy,” as if they bundled subprime mortgages on Wall Street and took $10 million annual bonuses. What President Obama should be doing is allotting a mini-second timeout from all the Chicago demagogic rhetoric about the “rich and powerful”, the noble needy and victimized, instead to praise those who paid their mortgages without a hitch, aren’t late on their rarely used credit cards, pay their bills when they arrive, and thereby allowing by their code others to default without ruining the country.

He needs to thank this invisible nation for paying most of the taxes, for creating the wealth to pay for community organizers and politicians, for not costing the government billions for self-induced health problems, crime, parole, counseling, drug rehab, and all the other pathologies that instead garner our attention. We are lucky to have these brilliant Americans of the old school; in toto they comprise a nation larger than France or Britain, and more or less ensure that the world abroad does not completely look like Libya, Venezuela, North Korea or Iran.

We are protected by the most competent, judicious — and lethal — military in the history of civilization. The great tragedy of Iraq is that no one really credits our soldiers for doing the near impossible: they went into the heart of the ancient caliphate, took out a genocidal monster, stayed on to foster consensual government, endured often poisonous attacks from critics at home (Cf. Harry Reid’s the war is “lost”, the slurs from Durbin, Kennedy, Kerry, and Murtha that our boys were terrorists or analogous to Baathists, Pol Pot, Stalin, etc.), and triumphed at a cost less than during a major campaign in World War II (e.g., far less than say Iwo Jima, the Bulge, Okinawa, etc).

Today Obama was boasting that he could redirect soldiers to Afghanistan now that Iraq was quiet — as if in his mere 70 days he had anything to do with the bravery and skill that brought Iraq to its improving state, as if we’ve forgotten that he wanted all troops gone by March 2008, declared the surge a failure, and voted to cut off funding for the war. Iraq was won despite the politicians, contrary to the conventional wisdom, and largely due to the ingenuity of our soldiers.”
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“There is an officer corps whose members are, to be frank, relics of an American past. They are ossified in amber as it were, and really do believe in passé things like honor, duty, country, God, sacrifice, and the continuation of the American experiment. Meet a Marine colonel, an Army major, an Air Force one-star, or a Navy captain and it is often as if you are talking to a younger version of your grandfather, as if we packed thousands of our best in ice around 1945, and then thawed them out in the 21st century. These odd men and women of the old breed will do almost anything as outlined in the Constitution to ensure that their country — you and I — is safe and continues on in perpetuity.

Our enlisted men have a rambunctious, upbeat attitude, if you will. This generation of youth seems unafraid, reckless even, and — despite the demonization in popular culture of the military, the male, physicality, etc. — seems to pride in being on the cutting edge of danger. They are superb fighters. Few would wish to test the US Marines; the Marines or Rangers I had met in two visits to Iraq seemed to me far scarier than a masked al-Qaeda terrorist rambling on videos waving his scimitar. Indeed, they were scarier. Talking to a 20-year old Marine in Ramadi with bulging biceps, loaded down with 70 pounds of gear and weaponry, smiling as he lets on that he’s been up for 30 straight hours is a surreal experience.”
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[emphasis added]
 — Victor Davis Hanson

As usual, Victor Hanson produces a heart-felt and intelligent insight to the unheralded greatness of America. There are more gems in his complete article than I could excerpt without jeopardizing the slight attention span of a typical blog reader. Nevertheless, if you are sick of the overwhelming load of bullshit emanating from the White House, Congress, the MSM, and Holyshitwood I urge you to read Hanson.

Post #694 Carry the Rest of the Country