For All Sad Words Of Tongue And Pen, The Saddest Are These, “The ONT's In”.

Welcome to the last Thursday ONT of June. Here's a helpful tip: Don't tell this guy any secrets.

Wars And Rumors Of War

Our Military Needs to Be Rebuilt From Scratch or America Is Finished

According to a report from Fox News, the Pentagon's second-highest-ranking official, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, emphasized a commitment to policies supporting "nonbinary" service members and mandating critical race theory training. She insisted that these policies are essential to national security. 

Like hell they are.

Speaking at multiple Pride events this month, including one on June 5, Hicks highlighted the need for cultural change in the military. At a DoD Pride event for the Association of LGBTQI+ Service Members, she linked the Pentagon's LGBTQ priorities to military "readiness," which involves deterring adversaries, defending national interests, and ensuring the armed forces can fulfill their missions.

Honest question: Does anyone think that our military, as it currently stands, is capable of winning a major conflict? Do Admiral Skirt or Colonel Doghead intimidate the Chinese?

It's Not The Cause, It's The Grift

The March of Dimes Syndrome

I later learned that a term exists for this phenomenon—the March of Dimes syndrome—and that the tendency affects many other movements, too. Why, last year, did the Human Rights Campaign declare a “national state of emergency” for LGBT people? Why was the election of the first black American president followed by the Black Lives Matter movement? Why have reports of “hate groups” risen during the same decades that racial prejudice has been plummeting? Why, during a long and steep decline in the incidence of sexual violence in America, did academics, federal officials, and the #MeToo movement discover a new “epidemic of sexual assault”?

These supposed crises are all examples of the March of Dimes syndrome, named after the organization founded in the 1930s to combat polio. The March helped fund the vaccines that eventually ended the polio epidemics—but not the organization, which, after polio’s eradication, changed its mission to preventing birth defects. Its leaders kept their group going by finding a new cause, just as antiwar activists did after achieving their goal of ending the Vietnam War. The Three Mile Island accident offered new fund-raising opportunities and a new platform for veterans of the antiwar movement such as Jane Fonda and her husband Tom Hayden, who both addressed the crowd at that first antinuke rally.

For career activists, success is a threat. They can never declare mission accomplished.

It's the same with government. If any of those high-minded government programs ever “solved” whatever “crisis” they are supposed to address, they'd have no reason to exist.

From The River To The Sea

There Are No Civilians in Gaza

There are no civilians in Gaza. The vast majority of the population supports Hamas or some Islamic terrorist movement. Only a tiny minority opposes Islamic terrorism and wants peace. The distinction is not between soldiers, terrorists and civilians, but enemies and non-combatants. Israel and Western nations should stop thinking about civilians, a concept that does not apply in a battlespace where terrorists wear street clothes and entire neighborhoods are controlled by clans that hide hostages in plain sight, and think about enemies and neutrals.

An enemy is anyone, regardless of clothing or sex, who is aligned with Islamic terrorists.

Every poll continues to show that the vast majority of those in Gaza are aligned with the enemy. And if that were not the case, the war would have long since ended once locals informed the authorities of where the hostages are and where the remaining Hamas terrorists are set up.

Israel is not just at war with an organization, but with an enemy culture. As is most of the world whether it chooses to admit it or not. The war is not defined by what they wear, but what they think. As long as human shields, female suicide bombers and child soldiers abound, the war cannot be fought by treating civilians as noncombatants while hunting elusive terrorists.

Another plain-as-the-nose-on-my-face fact that our “elites” either refuse to see or won't admit.

This Is Awesome

Attack On Morality

The Left demonized Harrison Butker because they hate devout Christians

Recently, NFL Super Bowl Champion and Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker delivered a commencement address to Benedictine College, a Catholic university located in Kansas. In a testament to his Christian and socially conservative values, he credited the graduates for their hard work and wished them well in their post-collegiate careers and lives. He also shared insights on how both men and women from the college in the audience could succeed in their professional and personal lives. Butker, staying true to his beliefs, expressed his disagreement with several American societal issues, such as feminist roles, decline in masculinity, abortion, LGBTQ+ promotion, and DEI (diversity, equality, and inclusion) in the workforce. 

Of course, the cultural Marxist left and the mainstream media had an absolute field day, twisting the words of Butker to paint him not only as a misogynist but as a bigoted anti-Semite who wanted to force women to stay at home instead of be in the workplace. Of course, that is not at all what Butker said. He mainly gave credit to his wife as a mother and life partner, saying that neither he nor his family would be able to accomplish the things they had if it were not for her stepping up for him and his household. Butker stated, "I'm on the stage today and able to be the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation...and embraces one of the most important titles of all: homemaker." 

It's interesting to note that the 2 best kickers in the NFL, Butker and the Ravens' Justin Tucker, are both upstanding, devout, Christian family men. When you're putting up a long field goal maybe prayers DO help.

Feel Good Story

Acting with honor

Remember this Kenyan runner Abel Mutai who was just a few feet from the finish line, but became confused with the signage and stopped, thinking he had completed the race. A Spanish runner, Ivan Fernandez, was right behind him and, realizing what was happening, started shouting at the Kenyan to continue running. Mutai didn't know Spanish and didn't understand. Realizing what was taking place, Fernandez pushed Mutai to victory. A journalist asked Ivan, "Why did you do that?" Ivan replied, "My dream is that someday we can have a kind of community life where we push and help each other to win."

I like Fernandez's answer to the question about winning.

Debate Prep

Reasons To Move South

Argentina’s ‘Milei Miracle’ is exposing its failing socialist neighbors

South America is doing the world a favor at the moment, but you have to tune in to reap the benefits.

Just as South and North Korea and West and East Germany became perfect Cold War laboratory experiments contrasting the blessings of democracy and capitalism with the destructive drudgery of communism, the reformist government in Argentina and the Marxist-led ones in Colombia and Brazil are inviting us to compare and contrast.

Hint: You won’t have to do much research to see which system is still the best.

Argentina’s new free-market President Javier Milei is lapping Colombia’s Gustavo Petro and Brazil’s Inacio Lula da Silva in terms of economic achievement and the ability of people to live in freedom.

Argentina had an economy on par with the US in 1900, but a century of Marxism fixed that. I wonder if they'll make the same statement in 100 years, but with the two countries reversed?

Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by rescues:

posted by WeirdDave at 11:00 PM

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