LEATHERNECKM31

Heels and heartbeats…

While scanning recently published books this morning, I noticed an interesting title from one David Brooks, who is billed as a “conservative” on the NYT payroll.

Hardly… Brooks is nothing more than an inside-the-beltway liberal when it comes to his politics, but he is also a keen observer of the human condition and writes very well.

Brooks’ The Social Animal–-described as “a book about the human need for connection, friendship, love—what Brooks identifies as ‘limerence’ or the desire to articulate a universal feeling: that all of us are caught up in what he calls “the loneliness loop.”

“We yearn for ‘community’; when two people are having an intense conversation, their breathing synchronizes; laughing together creates a feeling of joy; soldiers drilling in unison experience a surge of power.

“What drives us, ultimately, is the need to be understood by others.”

Naturally, it was the “soldiers drilling in unison” observation that  caught my attention. 

It rang true because of a singularly emotional experience I had in Marine boot camp.  

Late November, MCRD-San Diego; the winter coastal fog enveloped “the grinder”… an enormous expanse of pavement which has felt the boots of of generations of raw recruits who entered the Marine Corps—as Billy Joel so accurately observed:

We met as soul mates on Parris Island
We left as inmates from an asylum
And we were sharp, as sharp as knives
And we were so gung ho to lay down our lives

Parris Island is the sister facility for training East coast would-be jarheads.

The 75 of us—Platoon 2084—were near graduation and through the magic of the Marine Corps Drill Instructor had become a fine platoon. We were en route to being named series honor platoon, by winning initial drill, rifle range, final drill, and PFT (physical fitness training).

Drill (marching) is the key element in transitioning the civilian into someone worthy of becoming a Marine. Brooks is spot on as using this as an example of “experiencing a surge of power”.

Late that November Sunday night we had earned a movie at the base theater and were headed back to our barracks.

Because it was after lights out and “taps” our drill instructors, cutting the volume down by 80 percent, called us to attention and we started out on his low, sing-song cadence unique to the Corps’ DIs.     

Once underway he simply said “listen to your boots, your own cadence… march yourselves.”

For the next two minutes there was no sound save for the muffled chuff… chuff… chuff of our heel strikes.The sound of 150 boot boots on the tarmac, precisely in micro-second synchronization, raised a heartbeat that brought the hair on my forearms and neck to attention. As first squad leader, I had the heightened experience of leading my very first unit.

The sound was literally behind me, pushing me on, instilling in me the knowledge that no matter what the future held, I would never let down anyone who marched with me. 

At that moment the entire purpose of training revealed itself. Being a Marine is not the robotic following of orders, it is the deeply embedded feeling that you have been transformed from an individual entity to one part of a remarkable moving organism.

And if each and every component functions as it should with great “followership” as well as leadership… it (we) is capable of doing anything.

Marine Corps history has made good of that promise thousands of times over the last 235 years.

And it all begins with listening for the heartbeat of the Marines who surround you, and finding comfort and trust in the knowledge that they do.

Semper Fi.

de Tocqueville... prescient

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835).

Perhaps the first early political scientists, de Tocqueville was right then and now even moreso; though I'd imagine that he never would have predicted it this early in our history.

After traveling extensively in the new country, he accurately concluded that the roots of the fledgling nation could be readily found in the search for religious freedom... it was and still is as simple as that.

But at this time in history the domestic enemies of Real America have been successful in turning history and the Constitution upside down, and now proclaim the government has to be protected from religion--not visa versa.

A few of de Tocqueville's major points (which I think are most relevant right now):

• "Nowhere have the Americans established any central direction over their thinking, any more than they have established any central direction over affairs of state."-- near-total decentralized government; democracy at the grass roots, small and limited (by the Constitution) federal government.
•  "Americans are taught from birth that they must overcome life's woes and impediments on their own. This first becomes apparent in the schools, where children play by their own rules and punish infractions they define themselves." --that was then, this is now. That burgeoning sense of "fairness" and self-policing, if you will, by even those of tender years has been near-bred out of our youth by the socialist indoctrination of (increasingly federalized) government schools.

de Tocqueville continues:

• 
• "Here, the people do not look to the government for light, for instruction, but the government looks to the people. The people give the law to the government. To entrust, then, the government with the power of determining the education which our children shall receive is entrusting our servant with the power to be our master."  -- Has not this exact warning come to be?

 

• "The sovereign, after taking individuals one by one in his powerful hands and kneading them to his liking, reaches out to embrace society as a whole. Over it he spreads a fine mesh of uniform, minute, and complex rules, through which not even the most original minds and most vigorous souls can poke their heads above the crowd." Do not these two simple sentences accurately describe what has happened to this nation over the last 40-50 years?
• In "Democracy in America" he correctly saw America's Achilles' Heel... that if we stepped away from "that virile candor, that manly independence of thought, that often distinguished Americans in earlier times..." we "... would move quickly to despotism without tarrying for long in monarchy." It is what he called "soft despotism." 

"Yes we can." "Yes we can."

Closer to our birth and not so very long ago, de Tocqueville found evidence of the republic in every settlement, village and town... in the churches and schools.

If a school or town hall was needed, no one wrote a letter to Washington D.C. where it would have been proper ignored and tossed aside. The community pitched and built it.

"One riot, one Ranger" is a legendary quotation in Texas when talking about the Texas Rangers, but that only works in the recruiting posters.

When a significant problem arose on the frontier, the lone law enforcement officer, a constable or sheriff or marshal, called for a posse and the communities' men left their fields and cattle and stores, grabbed a Winchester or a shotgun and the law was summarily enforced, the community protected.

The local judge held the trial, and a jury of peers either acquitted or found guilty the defendant. Recognizing that "justice delayed is justice denied" for both the community and the defendant, the sentence was usually handed down the same day and the next found the perpetrator hanged or jailed.

Local government, the best government.

Need I summarize what happens now... now that we have lost virtually all control not only of the federal and state government but of our local government as well?

• Do parents and the school teachers collaborate on how and what your children are taught?
• Nowadays when you're the victim of a crime... really, practically, who has more "rights" -- you or the waste of skin who attacked, robbed or raped you?
• Can your 14-year-old daughter get birth control pills or an abortion without your knowledge?
• Do you give 30-50 percent of your wages to the various levels of government?

We used to be directly involved in our own self-determination and liberty, now we are but docile serfs, and the servant has most assuredly become the master.

Weekend this and that...

Al Qaeda confirms WMD expert Abu Khabab killed in US air strike; $5 million bounty

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."

 

Splitting hairs

Apparently the raghead-within-ragheads struggle that features stoning women and raping men because God tells them to, now includes one sect shaving the mustaches off another.

Hamas has resumed its policy of shaving the mustaches of rival Fatah members to humiliate them as a form of punishment, The Jerusalem Post reports.

We'll never lose to these gender-confused, 14th century mental defectives, especially after we start using our C-130 gunships during    Ramadan, Ramada, whatever....

And since LM31 is your source of all Edwards Baby Daddy news:

Deceiver.com reports "Lee Stranahan, who posted the first (only?) serious, thoughtful analysis of the whole mess at the Huffington Post, has been banned from the Daily Kos for daring to talk about it there.

As the always deadly Ann Coulter observed: "... there really are 'two Americas.' There's one where men cheat on their cancer-stricken wives and one where men do not cheat on their cancer-stricken wives."

Frankly, the fact that the far left dem hypocrites are trying to cover up for another Bubba Clinton, Jesse Jackson, etc., etc. is hardly a surprise.

But what does concern me the the left's attempt to stifle the free speech of those who would point out the leftist emperor has no clothes.. especially if they are leftists.

Chief among them are San Fran Gram Nan Pelosi whose just-out book hit bottom even worst than the democrat congress. "Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters" (gag--would you want your daughter taking advice from this bitch?) is currently ranked #1,287 on Amazon. If her book was an accident victim, they'd pull the plug.

Congressional job approval had dropped to 9% which is far too high... but it recently bumped all the way to 14%. Perhaps that was due solely to the GOP senators staying on the House floor after Pelosi The Witch turned off TV cams, lights and microphones.

I know you been waiting to hear Paris Hilton's mom's take on the McCain ad that used Paris' imagine to ridicule His Obom-oneness as a similar, empty-suit celebrity.

So here 'tis: "... It is a complete waste of the money John McCain's contributors have donated to his campaign. It is a complete waste of the country's time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs. And it is a completely frivolous way to choose the next President of the United States."

Hilarious... not one word of defense for her empty-headed daughter having became synonymous with being famous only for being famous.

'Parrently, in the family it's a given.