FROM THE ARCHIVES
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The Military
[Caleb Stegall 03/15 05:35 PM]A former military guy emails this: Our military (and other forces for domestic order) depends on hardy urban and rural folk, or simply people who have or have had some regular, formative consciousness of a real risk to life and limb in the course of their daily pursuits. This tends to mean being in or near places where law and order are not assured by paid proxies and where what order there is is gained by the wit, strength, and virtue of private individuals.
What one learns in the more "natural" and "tribal" country and city environments is pure and direct: real limitations, real consequences, and a disinclination to see creatures and creation with a sick instrumentalism, "as flies to wanton boys." The rest of the population may be—it seems some in the NRO staff environs are—a bunch of helpless, atrophied, decadent free-riders. Get too many of these, and a society falls apart.Conservatives who care about the military and about the strength of our national character ought to be concerned with the decadence inherent in much that Rod critiques. Sure, they won’t give a hoot about sandals and organic chicken, but they should care in a violent world about where we will find the kinds of men needed to honorably defend our country. From the suburban landscape of instant gratification, fear, and spoiled denizens of personal desire? Seems doubtful.
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