This is the most insulting, idiotic thing anyone's ever been paid to write.

The idea of her article is not that bad or even that new, though it is as you correctly pointed out incautious in a sentence or two,and certainly should be suppllmented with more thinking. As she says she isn't providing any details (or unfortuanately not much thinking). She excludes sociopaths and killers etc.

The article just doesn't rise to the worst piece ever paid for in history.


Using freed criminals for the military has been tried for virtually ever. The French Foreign Legion, etc. The movie the "Dirty Dozen" is a fictionalized treatment of this.

With the all volunteer army and the downsizing of the number of people in the armed services with personnel being replaced with more technology and weapons, it is difficult if not impossible for anyone with even a felony pot case to be in the military.

Approximately half the persons imprisoned for felonies are for drugs, and as we know very few of them are the drug pins, much more likely to be "mules" driving cars between cities for a few hundred bucks or standing on the corners selling some drugs. Are you saying that is utterly inconceivable and a totally unpatriotic sentiment to even wonder if any of them should ever be let out to be in the military?

 

If you start letting felons join the army, what's to stop a person from saying, "Hmmmmm, I think I'll rob this bank, if I get caught, I'll go join the army." Or, "what's the harm in doing/dealing drugs, there's always the military to fall back on"? Mark me down as one who is against ever letting a felon out of jail to join the military.

 

That was pretty snappy. Why not just answer his question?

 

You know, I don't particularly agree with much the article had to say.

But I'm also getting a bit tired of the glorification of soldiers, policemen, and firemen.

Let's put it this way: these generally aren' the most qualified people in the world.

I have a great deal of respect for graduates of West Point, the Naval Academy, and the Air Force Academy. I thought briefly about attending West Point myself. There's a decent tradition of people in my family attending the Naval Academy.

But most of the enlisted soldiers? My step-sister and her husband are two of these people. They're decent, generally likeable, guys that you like having around you at Thanksgiving. But they're not saints. They're not particularly noble. My step-sister, like millions of others, signed up because she couldn't really afford college on her own.

That's probably why MOST people enter the military. Can't afford college, can't get a scholarship... aren't quite qualified... need some direction, whatever. Probably 80% of the people I knew from high school that entered the military did so for these reasons.

Now, some do because they really feel a patriotic zeal and love for country. But I don't think that's the majority of them.

I don't mind it when people praise them for fighting for the rest of us. I'm damned happy someone's doing it. But to pretend that members of the miliary are some special breed of individual somehow enraptured with all of these noble emotions is just naive.

So I guess I fall somewhere between Kagy and hte author of said article. Much better than criminals, but most of them aren't Bastions of Greatness and Integrity.

 

BrianKagy:

Melodrama never does justice to human dignity. It merely degrades the person speaking.

I don't undervalue sacrifice but rather artificial glorification. If you read my post, you'll note I specifically make that distinction.

 

<b>So was the internment of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps. Luckily we're typically smart enough to learn from our mistakes.</b>

I guess we'll have to wait and see just how long innocent Arab Americans are detained in US jail cells to make that determination.

<b>She's no Michelle Malkin, that's for sure.</b>

I'd like to see Malkin and this woman put in a room together to duke it out. C-c-c-catfight.

Note: I, personally, find Michelle Malkin to be as stomach-turning and offensive as you do this woman so I'd be pulling for...hell, I still would pull for either of them.

 

I agree with the article. And I served. I have no problem using consenting felons in combat. I am also on the record for supporting medical experimentation on death row inmates. People should play by the rules we have in place. And the statmenets she made about the caliber of enlisted soldier were on the mark. I became friends with some of the most ignorant street thugs on earth. They entered the military system as thugs. They adapted to military life. Some excelled and thrived. Others got Chapter 13'd out. The ones that did well inherited the spirit of a sosldier. I believe that some felons would be well served to, well, serve. They could come rise to the challenge and have the opportunity to come back a hero. That would probably help on the parole board. Or they could continue to buck the system in which case they would be cannon fodder.

Either way.

Chance

 

I don't find Michelle Malkin stomach-turning so much as petty and superficial. Her articles consistently are rip-job on someone (usually a Democrat) whose ideaology she disagrees with. During the 9/11 crisis, did she praise one of the many who had done a good job. Nope, she wasted her column on ridiculing Hillary Clinton for the faces made during a Bush speech. Like nobody noticed that already and like Hillary didn't get her comeuppance later (when the firemen booed her at benefit concert). Hell, even Charles Krauthammer (who, as a paraplegic, has good reason to be pissed off all the time) occasionally writes an article praising someone. Michelle just b****es all the time.

 

I agree with BK on principle... but the details suggest to me that it's not such a bad idea. Oftentimes the difference between a felon and a free citizen, is the fact that the felon was caught. Most people on this website have smoked pot... most people in the US have smoked pot. Since most people in the US are not in prison, I'd have to say that we're primarily a bunch of lucky ****s.

For those that weren't so lucky, I don't know of anything better than indoctrinating someone into your 'plan', i.e. faith and allegiance to the social contract, than making that person fight for those ideals (when I was a kid I was a delinquent, when I developed a vested interest in my well being as well as the well being of my peers... I turned into the nice guy before you ). Nationalism does wonders to shore up the psyche.....

besides, prisoners could prolong my draft date just past the age limit.

 

Mmmmmmmmm, interesting debate.

On the one hand, we have an utterly incoherent representaion by an author who obviously does not have any real knowledge or reasonable idea how military objectivism works. And on the other hand, we have a popular premise (using society's felons for some society benefit), expanded and brought from historical discourse to our "modern" discussion table.

I say we send in the Oakland Chapter of the Hell's Angels, with Sonny Barger screaming at the vanguard, as he and his outlaw bikers proposed in 1968 after the Tet Offensive.


BTW Department

The Dirty Dozen was fictionalized only to the point of characterization. The plot and premise were accurate. William Stephenson (code name: "Intrepid" and a masterspy who largely controlled Allied intelligence & counterintelligence in WWII), and Royal Navy Commander Ian Fleming (famous author of "James Bond" novels post WWII) developed the original scenario where military "bad-brig-rats" (high crime felons) were given the option to be in-depth trained and outfitted for "special operations" behind the enemy lines. Reduced time for good behavior and time served were the rewards. Risks were usually very high, with a mortality/survivability frequently lopsided to the ratio of 80/20. The operations had mixed reviews. i.e. The real operation not the movie.

They did serve a purpose however .... they allowed for high risk - high return operations with minimal troop casualty. The fact that the "bad-brig-rats" were expendable either by their own volition or by a prevailing sentence, would have been icing on the cake. A general staff officer's dream.

Given the opportunity - I would have voted for the initial operation. My deciding factors would have been: The respondents were preselected for attributes and skills prior to the offer, including motives of cooperation. They were 100% completely willing volunteers. They were already in the armed forces and as such had already accepted the highest risk that could be dealt to them.


Achebe: " ... I turned into the nice guy before you ..."

Obviously, his night classes in spy school .... especially social camoflage and subterfuge have paid off. Even fooled himself.

 

Achebe,

Last I heard they don't put you in prison for smoking a bit of weed.Catching a buzz is a far cry from commiting a felony.

 

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/MISC/ct/possession.html

http://virlib.ncjrs.org/DrugsAndCrime.asp

Some links to information.

Indeed, you can be incarcerated for substantial periods of time for lighting up a doobie.

I once calculated up my possible offences (relatively few) and figured out I've committed like 125 years of infractions. Keep in mind, I'm completely clean now. I don't drink and drive. I don't even smoke pot.

But I could be in prison until I'm 44 (25 years from the last time I was around more than 4 oz of pot) for... an extracurricular activity that never harmed me nor anybody else.

 

I think rockHead (TX01050023443321) would love to know where you live.

LOL.

 

But you're capable of doing so? That's a remarkably hypocritical statement.

I don't need to read minds. I can look at the composition of our military. Then I can look at what's being said about them. Then I can tell it's either:

a. artificial

or

b. sheer stupidity.

 

Personally, I admire the job that the folks in the military do, either in peace time or war time. If they entered the military in order to get a college education, good for them. It's better that they do that than work in a menial job with no real chance for advancement or try and mooch off the government. Believe it or not, my feelings are genuine, and I am not stupid. I personally know two young men who I coached in soccer. Both joined the military because they did not have the means to attend college. I was proud of them that they took that route. I know their parents are proud of them as well. None of that pride is artificial or stupid. I imagine there are a number of young folks whose parents, friends and family feel the same way. If those folks are as well respected as the 2 I know, then I am quite confident that our military is in fine hands.

I especially admire them because they did volunteer and weren't drafted. While there wasn't a war going on at the time, they were aware that situations like the Gulf War could arise at any time and were prepared to deal with it. I have received a couple of emails from one of the boys I know and he is upbeat, confident and highly motivated by patriotism. Sorry, but my respect for him and others like him is genuine, and if you consider my feelings 'sheer stupidity', so what.