Millennials, Communism and freedom

First, from the WashingtonTimes.com:

Millennials would rather live in socialist or communist nation than under capitalism: Poll

by Bradford Richardson

‘This troubling turn highlights widespread historical illiteracy in American society’

The majority of millennials would prefer to live in a socialist, communist or fascist nation rather than a capitalistic one, according to a new poll.

In the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s “Annual Report on U.S. Attitudes Toward Socialism,” 58 percent of the up-and-coming generation opted for one of the three systems, compared to 42 percent who said they were in favor of capitalism.

The most popular socioeconomic order was socialism, with 44 percent support. Communism and fascism received 7 percent support each.

Marion Smith, executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, said the report shows millennials are “increasingly turning away from capitalism and toward socialism and even communism as a viable alternative.”

Thank you very much, American “educators” (I bandy that term quite very loosely), Leftists, Demorats and, naturally, the American Media Maggots for doing such a spectacular job of disseminating your staggeringly-slanted, agendized bias. Your lies are working on the mush-minds of our youth.

“This troubling turn highlights widespread historical illiteracy in American society regarding socialism and the systemic failure of our education system to teach students about the genocide, destruction, and misery caused by communism since the Bolshevik Revolution one hundred years ago,” Mr. Smith said in a statement.

This very interesting point:

Millennials were the only age group more likely to say America’s economic system “works against me” rather than “works for me.” Gen Z had the most positive impression of the economy, with 66 percent saying it “works for me,” although many of them have yet to enter the workforce.

On that note, we recently noted 100 years of Communism. From WSJ.com:

100 Years of Communism—and 100 Million Dead

by David Satter

The Bolshevik plague that began in Russia was the greatest catastrophe in human history.

Armed Bolsheviks seized the Winter Palace in Petrograd—now St. Petersburg—100 years ago this week and arrested ministers of Russia’s provisional government. They set in motion a chain of events that would kill millions and inflict a near-fatal wound on Western civilization.

The revolutionaries’ capture of train stations, post offices and telegraphs took place as the city slept and resembled a changing of the guard. But when residents of the Russian capital awoke, they found they were living in a different universe.

And then all the buttery political fun began.

Although the Bolsheviks called for the abolition of private property, their real goal was spiritual: to translate Marxist- Lenin ist ideology into reality. For the first time, a state was created that was based explicitly on atheism and claimed infallibility. This was totally incompatible with Western civilization, which presumes the existence of a higher power over and above society and the state.

Now you begin to see the clouds parting, yes? Western civilization, i.e. more and more citizens in the United States, eschew the existence of a higher power like some tin idol named “godd” or “Bill” or “Berford.” As far as they are concerned, all good things come from The State in terms of our government with one major, vitally-important exception: those damned pesky papers called our “foundational documents” like the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

They are, like, so totally uncool, dude.

The Bolshevik coup had two consequences. In countries where communism came to hold sway, it hollowed out society’s moral core, degrading the individual and turning him into a cog in the machinery of the state. Communists committed murder on such a scale as to all but eliminate the value of life and to destroy the individual conscience in survivors.

Note this:

In a 1920 speech to the Komsomol, Lenin said that communists subordinate morality to the class struggle. Good was anything that destroyed “the old exploiting society” and helped to build a “new communist society.”

Starting to sound a bit familiar?

This approach separated guilt from responsibility. Martyn Latsis, an official of the Cheka, Lenin’s secret police, in a 1918 instruction to interrogators, wrote: “We are not waging war against individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. . . . Do not look for evidence that the accused acted in word or deed against Soviet power. The first question should be to what class does he belong. . . . It is this that should determine his fate.”

Then there’s this disturbing part that today’s educators and students miss entirely — perhaps the most disturbing.

Such convictions set the stage for decades of murder on an industrial scale. In total, no fewer than 20 million Soviet citizens were put to death by the regime or died as a direct result of its repressive policies. This does not include the millions who died in the wars, epidemics and famines that were predictable consequences of Bolshevik policies, if not directly caused by them.

The victims include 200,000 killed during the Red Terror (1918-22); 11 million dead from famine and dekulakization; 700,000 executed during the Great Terror (1937-38); 400,000 more executed between 1929 and 1953; 1.6 million dead during forced population transfers; and a minimum 2.7 million dead in the Gulag, labor colonies and special settlements.

To this list should be added nearly a million Gulag prisoners released during World War II into Red Army penal battalions, where they faced almost certain death; the partisans and civilians killed in the postwar revolts against Soviet rule in Ukraine and the Baltics; and dying Gulag inmates freed so that their deaths would not count in official statistics.

If we add to this list the deaths caused by communist regimes that the Soviet Union created and supported—including those in Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia—the total number of victims is closer to 100 million.

Then this fact — not a suggestion, but a fact:

That makes communism the greatest catastrophe in human history.

Yay Communism.

What is it I’ve said for years? “Everybody always thinks they can do Socialism/Communism better than the last guy.” Except: it never works.

Also this, ripped from today’s screaming headlines about the opinions regarding “freedom” (hok-putui, such a nasty word) on today’s university campuses, from of all places the WashingtonPost.com:

A chilling study shows how hostile college students are toward free speech

by Catherine Rampell

Here’s the problem with suggesting that upsetting speech warrants “safe spaces,” or otherwise conflating mere words with physical assault: If speech is violence, then violence becomes a justifiable response to speech.

Just ask college students. A fifth of undergrads now say it’s acceptable to use physical force to silence a speaker who makes “offensive and hurtful statements.”

That’s one finding from a disturbing new survey of students conducted by John Villasenor, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and University of California at Los Angeles professor.

We already know about speech being the “same” as violence according to Leftists.

In August, motivated by concerns about the “narrowing window of permissible topics” for discussion on campuses, Villasenor conducted a nationwide survey of 1,500 undergraduate students at four-year colleges. Financial support for the survey was provided by the Charles Koch Foundation, which Villasenor said had no involvement in designing, administering or analyzing the questionnaire; as of this writing, the foundation had also not seen his results.

Many of Villasenor’s questions were designed to gauge students’ understanding of the First Amendment. Colleges, after all, pay a lot of lip service to “freedom of speech,” despite high-profile examples of civil-liberty-squelching on campus. The survey suggests that this might not be due to hypocrisy so much as a misunderstanding of what the First Amendment actually entails.

The most shocking?

For example, when students were asked whether the First Amendment protects “hate speech,” 4 in 10 said no. This is, of course, incorrect. Speech promoting hatred — or at least, speech perceived as promoting hatred — may be abhorrent, but it is nonetheless constitutionally protected.

Freedom of speech “important”? Nah.

Since were on the subject of polls, another poll no one else will reveal to you, from my blog post via JihadWatch.org:

51% of U.S. Muslims want Sharia; 60% of young Muslims more loyal to Islam than to U.S.

by Robert Spencer

Really, what did you expect? A considerable portion of U.S. domestic and foreign policy is based on the assumption that Islam in the U.S. will be different: that Muslims here believe differently from those elsewhere, and do not accept the doctrines of violence against and subjugation of unbelievers that have characterized Islam throughout its history. But on what is that assumption based? Nothing but wishful thinking. And future generations of non-Muslims will pay the price.

51% of Muslims living in the U.S. just this June (2015) told Polling Co. they preferred having “the choice of being governed according to Shariah,” or Islamic law. Or the 60% of Muslim-Americans under 30 who told Pew Research they’re more loyal to Islam than America.

These are all clues. These are all indicators of America in the desperate grip of those who wish to tear this country apart from within. Presently there is an active attempt to install mob rule in the United States utilizing not just overt violence, but a highly-funded, organized and systematic undermining, overtaking, eliminating and rewriting of our fundamental founding documents, our history in written form, in oral form, in photographic form and in physical form.

Universities, once admirable towers of higher learning and critical thought now tolerate none of it. The past two generations are shockingly willing to relinquish almost every freedom they possess — to have the government, when it deigns so, to sell those freedoms back. More and more the government is disinterested in such a sale. It simply wants to acquire and keep the power and control.

Is it for this that 500,000 Americans died in the Civil War — so we can become slaves of the government? Do the 1.5 million American deaths during service in war time mean nothing? Must we do it all over again? Historical Alzheimers? Must we go out of our way to prove George Santayana correct anew?

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Communism and Socialism have been tried numerous times in numerous — dozens — of countries in the past two centuries. It always fails. And every new dictator thinks that, in the past, it simply wasn’t “done right.” As I wrote, they believe they are the ones who can “do it right” this time. Then they fail and kill hundreds if not thousands if not millions of their own countrymen.

If there is one lesson the communist century should have taught, it is that the independent authority of universal moral principles cannot be an afterthought, since it is the conviction on which all of civilization depends.

Is the US condemned?

BZ

 

BZ’s Berserk Bobcat Saloon, Tuesday, November 14th, 2017, with guest Dave Milner

Featuring Right thinking from a left brain, doing the job the American Media Maggots won’t, embracing ubiquitous, sagacious perspicacity and broadcasting behind enemy lines in Occupied Fornicalia from the veritable Belly of the Beast, the Bill Mill in Sacramento, Fornicalia, I continue to proffer my thanks to the SHR Media Network for allowing me to utilize their studio and hijack their air twice weekly, Tuesdays and Thursdays, thanks to my shameless contract, as well as appear on the Sack Heads Radio Show each Wednesday evening.

Sadly, Dan Butcher could not make it tonight. Instead, due to a promise I made to Dave Milner, he and I spoke tonight about his new series “The Way Back.”

Tonight in the Saloon:

  • Happy Stories and Good Times: what are the “happiest cities on the planet”?
  • My position on Judge Roy Moore;
  • Dave Milner, The Unpleasant Blind Guy, talks about “The Way Back;”
  • Will there be a special counsel/prosecutor appointed by AG Jeff Sessions for issues involving Uranium One, the “dossier,” Hillary, Comey, the Clinton Foundation, Lynch, Obama et al?

If you care to listen to the show in Spreaker, please click on the yellow start button at the upper left.

Listen to “BZ’s Berserk Bobcat Saloon Radio Show, Tuesday, November 14th, 2017” on Spreaker.

If you care to watch the show on YouTube, please click on the red start button.

Please join me, the Bloviating Zeppelin (on Twitter @BZep, Facebook as the Bloviating Zeppelin and on Gab.ai @BZep), every Tuesday and Thursday night on the SHR Media Network from 11 PM to 1 AM Eastern and 8 PM to 10 PM Pacific, at the Berserk Bobcat Saloon — where the speech is free but the drinks are not.

As ever, thank you so kindly for listening, commenting, and interacting in the chat room or listening later via podcast.

  • Want to listen to all the Berserk Bobcat Saloon archives in podcast? Go here.
  • Want to watch the past shows on YouTube? Please visit the SHR Media Network YouTube channel here.
  • Want to watch the show live on Facebook? Go to the SHR Media page on Facebook here.
  • Want to watch the show on High Plains TV? Go here.

Thank you one and all for listening, watching and supporting the SHR Media Network: “Conservative Media Done Right.”

BZ

 

Special prosecutor for Hillary Clinton, et al?

People mock “Hillary Clinton’s bathroom home server.” This is a photograph of Hillary Clinton’s bathroom home server. This is true and accurate. That’s an actual toilet. Why was its existence ignored completely by the American Media Maggots?

And that is an idea whose time has more than come. It is long past due.

First, from FoxNews.com, the article written by Representatives Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Reps. Jordan and Gaetz: Special counsel needed as questions mount on Clinton, Comey, Russian Dossier and more

Mr. Attorney General, it’s time to do your job.

Why in 2016 did FBI Director James Comey call the Clinton Investigation a “matter,” not an investigation? After all, Mr. Comey wasn’t Director of the Federal Bureau of Matters.

Why in 2016 did FBI Director Comey begin drafting an exoneration letter for Secretary Clinton, whom he called “grossly negligent” in an early draft of the letter, before completing the investigation?  Before interviewing several witnesses? And before interviewing Secretary Clinton?

Why in 2016 did James Comey and the Justice Department give Cheryl Mills, Secretary Clinton’s Chief of Staff, an immunity agreement for turning over her laptop computer? Typically, the Department would issue a subpoena or get a warrant and seize it. Why in this case did the FBI agree to destroy the laptop?

Why in 2016—one day before the Benghazi report was released and five days before Secretary Clinton was interviewed by the FBI—did Attorney General Lynch meet with former President Clinton on the tarmac in Phoenix?

All excellent questions deserving of answers but obviously ignored by the American Media Maggots and all-but-ignored by EstabliHack Republicans. Why?

Why in the days following the meeting, and when emailing with the public relations staff at the Justice Department, did Loretta Lynch use the pseudonym “Elizabeth Carlisle?” If your conversation with the former President was only about golf and grandchildren, then why not use your real name?

Why was the decision on whether to charge Secretary Clinton made by FBI Director Comey and not the Attorney General?

Why did James Comey publicize the Clinton Investigation?

Why in 2016 did the FBI pay for the Russian Dossier? It’s been reported that in addition to the Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee paying FusionGPS for the dossier, the FBI also “reimbursed” Christopher Steele, author of the dossier.

Why was FusionGPS co-founder Glenn Simpson meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya both before and after her meeting with Donald Trump, Jr.? 

Why is the FBI so reluctant to tell Congress and the American people if the dossier was the basis for a FISA court order permitting the government to spy on Americans associated with President Trump’s campaign? If the dossier was a legitimate intelligence document relied on by the court, then why not just tell the country?

Why on January 6, 2017 did James Comey brief President-Elect Trump on the dossier? Again, if the dossier was a legitimate intelligence document, then why wait two months after the election to inform the President-Elect?

Oh my gosh, so please keep the questions coming. All necessary questions.

Why did the Obama Administration leak to CNN that Mr. Comey had briefed President-Elect Trump on the dossier? Several media outlets had the dossier prior to the briefing, yet no one would print it because most of the document could not be substantiated. In his Congressional testimony, Mr. Comey himself called the dossier “salacious and unverified.” As pointed out in The Federalist, did the fact that the FBI Director had briefed the President-Elect on the dossier give it the “legitimacy” the press needed to go ahead and print something they knew was not accurate?

Why did the intelligence community in the final months of the Obama Administration unmask names at a record rate

Why, after Mr. Comey was fired on May 9, 2017, was it so critical for a Special Counsel be named to examine possible Trump/Russia collusion? So critical that James Comey leaked a government document about his conversations with President Trump through a friend to the New York Times.

Why is the Special Counsel Robert Mueller? According to The Hill and Circa News, in 2009 and 2010, the FBI through an informant learned Russian companies seeking to do business in the United States were involved in kickbacks and bribes. Yet, FBI Director Robert Mueller did not inform Congress and did not inform the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the entity responsible for the decision on whether to approve the Uranium One deal.

Why did Robert Mueller not inform CFIUS? And why did the Justice Department put a gag order on the informant?

But most importantly:

Finally, why won’t Attorney General Jeff Sessions—the person with the visibility and responsibility to answer these questions—do his job?

On July 27, 2017, twenty House Republican members of the Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the Attorney General calling for a Special Counsel to get answers to the above questions.

On September 28, 2017, five House Republican members of the Judiciary committee met with the Attorney General and Justice Department staff to inquire about the July letter.

The Justice Department’s response? Silence.

It’s time for Jeff Sessions to name a Special Counsel and get answers for the American people. If not, he should step down.

Indeed. It is past time for same.

Following that article there was something of a dam break. Did it require Jordan and Gaetz to weigh in with pressure, was it a chink in the Clinton armor, or a bit of freedom perceived by Jeff Sessions? I’m not sure we’ll know.

Because, after all, we are skirting the fringe of BZ’s DC Axiom here:

“It’s an institutional culture in government. We don’t want to go after our predecessors because we don’t want our successors to come after us.”

From the WashingtonPost.com:

Sessions considering second special counsel to investigate Republican concerns, letter shows

by Matt Zapotosky

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is entertaining the idea of appointing a second special counsel to investigate a host of Republican concerns — including alleged wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation and the controversial sale of a uranium company to Russia — and has directed senior federal prosecutors to explore at least some of the matters and report back to him and his top deputy, according to a letter obtained by The Washington Post.

The revelation came in a response by the Justice Department to an inquiry from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who in July and again in September called for Sessions to appoint a second special counsel to investigate concerns he had related to the 2016 election and its aftermath.

Really? No pressure from Jordan and Gaetz factored?

The list of matters he wanted probed was wide ranging but included the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, various dealings of the Clinton Foundation and several matters connected to the purchase of the Canadian mining company Uranium One by Russia’s nuclear energy agency. Goodlatte took particular aim at former FBI director James B. Comey, asking for the second special counsel to evaluate the leaks he directed about his conversations with President Trump, among other things.

In response, Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd wrote that Sessions had “directed senior federal prosecutors to evaluate certain issues raised in your letters,” and that those prosecutors would “report directly to the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, as appropriate, and will make recommendations as to whether any matters not currently under investigation should be opened, whether any matters currently under investigation require further resources, or whether any matters merit the appointment of a Special Counsel.”

“Why did the intelligence community in the final months of the Obama Administration unmask names at a record rate?”

Laura Ingraham on her show discussed the issue on Monday with both Representatives Jordan and Gaetz. Please listen closely.

Things may be changing — on many fronts. This all, I should remind everyone, stems from the incessant bleat of Demorats, Leftists and the American Media Maggots of “Trump-Russia, Trump-Russia, Trump-Russia!”

Leftists, Dems and the AMM are getting what they want now — investigations. The problem is that these investigations are pointing most back to the Demorats and not the Republicans. Schadenfreude, heavy drinking, back-slapping all around.

In conclusion, there is this from TheAtlantic.com, indicating the reign of Bill & Hill may be over, perhaps to even include indictments on a criminal level.

Bill Clinton: A Reckoning

by Caitlin Flanagan

Feminists saved the 42nd president of the United States in the 1990s. They were on the wrong side of history; is it finally time to make things right?

The most remarkable thing about the current tide of sexual assault and harassment accusations is not their number. If every woman in America started talking about the things that happen during the course of an ordinary female life, it would never end. Nor is it the power of the men involved; history instructs us that for countless men, the ability to possess women sexually is not a spoil of power; it’s the point of power. What’s remarkable is that these women are being believed.

But then Bubba came along and blew up the tracks.

How vitiated Bill Clinton seemed at the last Democratic convention. Some of his appetites, at least, had waned; his wandering, “Norwegian Wood” speech about his wife struck the nostalgic notes of a husband’s fiftieth anniversary toast, and the crowd—for the most part—indulged it in that spirit. Clearly, he was no longer thinking about tomorrow. With a pencil neck and a sagging jacket he clambered gamely onto the stage after Hillary’s acceptance speech and played happily with the red balloons that fell from the ceiling.

Yet let us not forget the sex crimes of which the younger, stronger Bill Clinton was very credibly accused in the 1990s. Juanita Broaddrick reported that when she was a volunteer on one of his gubernatorial campaigns, she had arranged to meet him in a hotel coffee shop. At the last minute, he had changed the location to her room in the hotel, where she says he very violently raped her. She said she fought against Clinton throughout a rape that left her bloodied. At a different Arkansas hotel, he caught sight of a minor state employee named Paula Jones, and, Jones says, he sent a couple of state troopers to invite her to his suite, where he exposed his penis to her and told her to kiss it. Kathleen Willey said that she met him in the Oval Office for personal and professional advice and that he groped her, rubbed his erect penis on her, and pushed her hand to his crotch.

There is much more in the article for you to read.

This is, obviously, heretical writing — much less thinking — on the part of any Leftist.

When a standard Leftist organ turns, like The Atlantic, you know things aren’t playing well for you.

BZ

 

US Army wants to accept recruits with mental issues?

Apparently we have learned little if anything from the Texas church shooting?

USAToday writes:

Army lifts ban on waivers for recruits with history of some mental health issues

by Tom Vanden Brook

WASHINGTON – People with a history of “self-mutilation,” bipolar disorder, depression and drug and alcohol abuse can now seek waivers to join the Army under an unannounced policy enacted in August, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY.

The decision to open Army recruiting to those with mental health conditions comes as the service faces the challenging goal of recruiting 80,000 new soldiers through September 2018. To meet last year’s goal of 69,000, the Army accepted more recruits who fared poorly on aptitude tests, increased the number of waivers granted for marijuana use and offered hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses.

Stop right there. You needn’t go any farther. I am well versed in these conditions because I witnessed them myself whilst attached to numerous training venues in my law enforcement department and law enforcement in general in the 1990s. And beyond.

Because, for example, that is how we got Rampart in the LAPD. Poor and/or lax backgrounding due to administrative pressure to throw more recruits into various academies. The laughable axiomatic joke bandied about by recruiters then was “and instead of asking them (potential recruits) if they’ve done dope at all, we ask them ‘how much dope did you do before you got here today?’ ”

“Predictable is preventable.”

And the US Army’s results from this act are simultaneously predictable and preventable. In other words, as Gordon Graham illustrates here, “high risk, low frequency” incidents for emergency responders, police and fire personnel — applicable also to our military.

Can we not see that this new US Army policy is fraught with unintended yet terribly predictable consequences if we but examine past incidents closely?

Lax hiring in order to fill orders for more recruits from an uninterested or damaged gene pool. That never proffers excellent or even languid results.

Life, after all, is nothing if not cyclical. Every time something like this happens, Gordon Graham winces and shivers in response.

Then he makes more cash in retrospect when people begin to ask: “have we seen anything like this before?”

This is the Gordon Graham Risk Assessment Chart.

Because, in hard budgetary times for law enforcement, what is the first, the absolute first venue to be cut in any and every department? Training. Period. Training. And that includes money spent for academies. And backgrounds. And recruitment.

Seen it, done it, lived it, for over four decades. What are the greatest areas of potential exposure for emergency response agencies?

  • Negligence in hiring
  • Negligence in training;
  • Negligence in retention.

The Rand Corporation published a very expensive study. It proffered an assload of multisyllabic words. What was said, essentially, was this: you’re no better than your gene pool. Which would account for LAPD’s leaving SoCal and actively poaching and soliciting recruits in Northern California. Precisely because they “weren’t” SoCal.

Imagine that.

Expanding the waivers for mental health is possible in part because the Army now has access to more medical information about each potential recruit, Lt. Col. Randy Taylor, an Army spokesman, said in a statement. The Army issued the ban on waivers in 2009 amid an epidemic of suicides among troops. 

“The decision was primarily due to the increased availability of medical records and other data which is now more readily available,” Taylor’s statement to USA TODAY said. “These records allow Army officials to better document applicant medical histories.”

So now you have access to records which only confirm that your potential recruits are troubled and slagged with drugs. What positive affirmation is that?

What the hell am I missing here?

Perhaps it’s time to allow Captain Obvious into the room.

But accepting recruits with those mental health conditions in their past carries risks, according to Elspeth Ritchie, a psychiatrist who retired from the Army as a colonel in 2010 and is an expert on waivers for military service. People with a history of mental health problems are more likely to have those issues resurface than those who do not, she said.

Wowzer. Could anyone else besides me have possibly anticipated a response akin to that?

While bipolar disorder can be kept under control with medication, self-mutilation — where people slashing their skin with sharp instruments — may signal deeper mental health issues, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders, which is published by the American Psychiatric Association. 

Oh please. What’s the problem with “self mutilation”? Let’s get real here.

But wait. Consider this:

If self-mutilation occurs in a military setting, Ritchie said, it could be disruptive for a unit. A soldier slashing his or her own skin could result in blood on the floor, the assumption of a suicide attempt and the potential need for medical evacuation from a war zone or other austere place.

Could result in blood on the floor.”

Carlos is in a foxhole with Tashay. Tashay whips out a razor blade and starts slashing her/its wrists. Artillery shells are cascading all around. Carlos does what?

  • Watches;
  • Approves;
  • Writes a letter of objection;
  • Pees his pants;
  • Fires back at the enemy;

The worst response is, of course, the last. And so it goes.

Please stand by for the most critical sentence in the entire article.

Accepting recruits with poor qualifications can cause problems.

How could anyone possibly have seen that coming?

The Army did not respond to a question of how many waivers, if any, have been issued since the policy was changed.

I term that a clue.

Damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

How are the armed services supposed to react?

They will be excoriated by mental health advocates who say that people with mental challenges should be provided with opportunities like any other individual.

They will be excoriated by persons who point out that mental health issues and problems weren’t recognized and dealt with appropriately, certainly in the First Baptist Church shooting in Sutherland Springs.

I say two things in response:

  • It’s time for the armed services to cease being test beds for social engineering, stop with the political correctness and get back to protecting the nation and the world;
  • It’s also time for the armed services to do their jobs and input required information regarding discharges and crimes committed by their charges.

But of course, this is me allowing facts, history, logic, rationality, proportion and common sense get in the way of a good fucked-up Leftist decision.

UPDATE:

The Army has, in its infinite wisdom, decided to backtrack a bit. From USAToday.com:

Army says USA TODAY story forced it to drop plans for waivers for high-risk recruits

by Tom Vanden Brook

WASHINGTON — Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said Wednesday the Army has rescinded a September memo stating that people with certain mental health issues, including self-mutilation, would be eligible for waivers to join the service. 

Milley, appearing before reporters, said the Army rescinded the memo because of an article published Sunday by USA TODAY. 

He maintained that the policy on considering such waivers had not changed but had been delegated to a lower level for approval. 

Milley said the Army had done a “terrible” job explaining the policy. He credited USA TODAY for bringing the issue to his attention. 

“There wasn’t a change in policy,” Milley said. “There cannot be a change in policy by someone who doesn’t have the authority to change policy. I know it sounds circular.”

The memo from Sept. 7 said that people with a history of “self-mutilation,” bipolar disorder, depression and drug and alcohol abuse would be eligible to obtain waivers to join the Army. The change, which was not announced publicly, was made in August, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY.

Common sense public pressure.

Sometimes it works.

BZ

 

Amtrak cut off my legs for the hell of it (and not because I was drunk) Pt. XLV

Therefore Amtrak needs to pay pay pay.

Hello, “Earth to Consequences, come in?” Sorry, not receiving. “Ask again later.”

From the Leftist Central Sacramento Bee

He fell onto the railroad tracks, and woke up without legs

by Sam Stanton

Joe Nevis doesn’t remember much about the early morning hours of last Christmas Eve, when a train rolling through Marysville sliced off both his legs as he lay on the railroad tracks where he had fallen near a park.

“I don’t remember the incident at all,” Nevis, 29, said in an interview this week. “I remember waking up in the pitch black feeling like my legs were numb, like I’ve been walking through snow all day. I couldn’t see my legs… I felt down and felt my shinbone, so I knew something bad had happened.”

There, in the pitch dark, Nevis said, he yelled for help until it became apparent no one could hear him.

“Eventually, I realized nobody was coming to help me, so I fell asleep on this object that I found, and it turned out to be my left leg I slept on that night,” he said.

Wait. How does one not feel one’s legs cut off? And how does one fall asleep on one’s severed leg in the first place?

Right. Because one is laboring under alcohol, drugs or a massive combination of the two that most mortals couldn’t remotely withstand.

Today, Nevis is still recovering from the incident, and has filed a federal negligence lawsuit against Amtrak, Union Pacific Railroad Co. and Marysville’s Rideout Memorial Hospital seeking damages for injuries that will affect him for the rest of his life.

Wait. Did Amtrak place him on the tracks? Did Union Pacific place him on the tracks? Did Marysville’s Rideout Hospital place him on the tracks?

I seem to somehow conveniently forget those parts.

Nevis says he has no memory of how he ended up on the tracks or the hours preceding that, but the lawsuit cites medical and other records – including a video recording of the incident taken by a camera on the train’s lead locomotive – to describe how he went from a healthy young construction worker to a legless man trying to rebuild his life.

Hello? Earth to John Barleycorn?

“What happened next is unknown by Mr. Nevis; what is known is that at some point he consumed alcohol,” the lawsuit says.

Nevis says he can’t recall what happened after that.

For those of us in tune with the rest of the planet, that is labeled a “clue.”  C L U E .

According to the lawsuit, Nevis was picked up by local law enforcement officers, who decided he was “too drunk for jail” and took him to Rideout Memorial Hospital, where he was deposited at 1:26 a.m.

He was discharged at 1:56 a.m. without anyone calling to have someone pick him up or have police come get him, the lawsuit says.

Foreshadowing. Just wait.

He wandered into a park, then to a “clearly visible pedestrian path” that the lawsuit says belongs to either Union Pacific or Amtrak.

“At the end of the pedestrian path are a set of mainline railroad tracks,” the lawsuit says. “Mr. Nevis walked across the train tracks to where pedestrian paths enter the park area.

“Mr. Nevis tripped over the tracks and ended up on the back side of the tracks near the park area.”

Then, the train came through.

Is that “pedestrian path” official or unofficial? Is it paved or is it comprised of dirt? Was it maintained or abandoned? A difference it makes.

The train came through.

Gosh. What trains usually do. On tracks. They come through.

The lawsuit says the northbound Amtrak train – which Amtrak schedules indicate would have been the Coast Starlight train to Seattle – passed through at about 2:50 a.m. traveling 25 mph.

Really? What usually occurs at 2:50 AM? Oh, right. Darkness. And lots of it.

“The forward-facing video camera on the passenger train’s lead locomotive shows that Mr. Nevis was clearly visible to anyone inside the locomotive keeping a proper lookout, i.e., being alert and attentive,” the lawsuit says.

The train operators took no action to sound the locomotive’s horn or try to brake, the suit says, and “ran over Mr. Nevis, amputating his left leg above the knee and his right leg below the knee.”

Stop there for just a moment.

If there’s one thing I know it’s the numerous locomotive engineers I’ve contacted during my interest in local railroads in the high Sierra Nevada Mountains. I’ve made friends not only with original Southern Pacific locomotive engineers and conductors, but early Union Pacific locomotive engineers and conductors.

And none of the engineers, having more than a few years of service under their belts, have killed less than one person standing on the tracks in front of them. Some were accidents, and many were suicides. Those times embed themselves into the minds of railroad engineers. That is a terrible price to pay for such a job. Those are terrible wounds to inflict on locomotive cab personnel.

You feel bad for those killed? You should truly feel bad for the engineers who have those mental images embedded upon their brains now and forever.

The train continued on its route and no one reported the incident, the suit says, “either because no one noticed they had run over a human being, or the operators of the train did not believe it was necessary to stop or notify anyone.”

Are you kidding me? These engineers know precisely of what their jobs consist. Their training regimens address that specific issue and many more.

Do you possibly think that any engineer or conductor enjoys injuring or killing people, much less the resulting hours detained by local law enforcement — and the NTSB and the internal investigations conducted by the applicable railroad? In the slightest? Thinking that they can merely “get away” with ignoring the whole affair knowing full well that in-cab cameras are directly in front of their faces?

Engineers on UP tracks, whether they are UP freight or Amtrak passenger trains, are well aware of the speed limits. They are in their timetables and they are posted adjacent the tracks.

You can see the static view of an Amtrak cab whilst stopped in Dutch Flat. Now imagine this times 25 mph. Now imagine this at night. What is it that you could truly observe? Can you see the crossing ahead in the dark? Can you see something dark obstructing the tracks? Easily seen here. What about at night, at speed?

Let’s also apply some physics.

One Amtrak GE P42 DC locomotive weighs about 150 tons. The average Amtrak passenger car weights about 65 tons. A train consisting of, let’s say, 10 cars weighs 650 tons plus a minimum of two locomotives. That’s 300 + 650 tons. In general.

“An 8-car passenger train moving at 80 miles an hour needs about a mile to stop.”

An Amtrak train running at roughly 25 mph needs about 1,200 feet to stop without throwing every passenger out of their seats, across aisles, into each other and assorted pieces of equipment and sharp objects inside the cars. Stopping distance for, say, a 2017 Dodge Charger traveling 70 mph is 171 feet. Slight difference.

Let us also remember that the contact patch for each wheel to the rail on a locomotive or a train car is the size of a dime. That’s all you have for traction or adhesion.

Look at the photo above. See the left curve far ahead. That’s about 1,000 feet. At night, at 25 mph, you’d need to start applying your brakes where the locomotive is currently located in order to stop appropriately. That’s if the view is unoccluded and, frankly, I have no insight into the specific spot mentioned in the story. Are there trees and brush nearby? Another curve? Tangent track? Overhead lines? Lights, distractions? I have no idea. But I cannot merely assume that track conditions were perfect. And how do you know what’s debris on the track and what’s human? Should trains be running at 5 mph all the time “in case” someone is on the track, laboring under drugs and/or alcohol?

I suppose non-reality Leftists would say “yes, if we only save one person’s life.”

The lawsuit says Nevis lay on the tracks for six hours, until he was discovered at about 8 a.m. by a motorcycle dirt rider who called 911.

That is a terrible situation but if you’re in an area seldom frequented by anything but trains on the track, it’s understandable. It’s not Amtrak’s job or Union Pacific’s job to check tracks every few hours for obstacles. They are in the business of running trains and moving freight or passengers. Nevis is lucky. He was discovered before he died. Or perhaps before he was possibly struck again by a 10,000-ton UP freight train.

The moment you hear the hiss of air is when the engineer has thrown the passenger train into “emergency” and, even then, it takes over 2,000 feet to stop. This occurred in daylight under ideal conditions and on tangent, unobstructed track.

We live in a litigious society. Granted. But to remove the obvious massive factors that Nevis purposely inserted into the scenario himself is galling at minimum and egregious at best.

Bottom line?

Just like our kids these days, we are no longer expected to perform or act in responsible ways. Our behavior is less and less a factor in terms of determining judgment. It is always someone else’s fault because, well, that’s how we were raised and how we are supported in today’s schools and college campuses.

We can thank helicopter parents for that as well as today’s juries who think: ‘hey, if that was me, wouldn’t I want the cash? Hell yeah, I would.”

You want to see rationality return to civil suits?

Two words:

“Loser pays.”

BZ