The Spectacle Blog
In comments:
"Radley's point" was that
this is an excellent model for waging and winning wars, but not a
great model to impose on the rest of society.
The quote was taken completely out of context from a longer post.
That post was critical of journalist Robert Wright, who is fond of the liberal values of egalitarianism, economic equality, and free health care he sees in the military, and wrote in a recent NY Times column that it's too bad the rest of America can't be more like the Army.
My point was that we have those things in the Army for a specific reason (to win wars), and at a cost (the rights enlistees forfeit when they sign up), and that it's silly to hold the Army as a model of liberal values for the rest of society without discussing those costs.
The post was actually a rather pro-military criticism of a liberal journalist.
But you wouldn't have gotten that from the excerpt posted here.
The quote was taken completely out of context from a longer post.
That post was critical of journalist Robert Wright, who is fond of the liberal values of egalitarianism, economic equality, and free health care he sees in the military, and wrote in a recent NY Times column that it's too bad the rest of America can't be more like the Army.
My point was that we have those things in the Army for a specific reason (to win wars), and at a cost (the rights enlistees forfeit when they sign up), and that it's silly to hold the Army as a model of liberal values for the rest of society without discussing those costs.
The post was actually a rather pro-military criticism of a liberal journalist.
But you wouldn't have gotten that from the excerpt posted here.
Leave a comment
Leave a Comment
Related Blog Posts
More Blog Posts by Philip Klein
http://spectator.org/blog/2007/04/06/radley-responds
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
Current Issue
- In Midst of Poverty, an Educational Oasis
- The Road to Heaven
- I Take the Secret Service Scandal Personally
SPONSORED LINKS
Special Feature
Better that we become a nation of choosers rather than beggars. Our symposium on choice from the May, 2012 issue:
FLASHBACK TO: 1984
-
The Fairness Delusion
The speech our President should make.
-
Media Smears: One Man’s Experiences
A noted economist fires back.
-
Chuck Colson vs. The Fundamentalists
How political can you get?
-
The Reagan Doctrine
You might have missed it, but it was boomed in January.
-
The Woman Problem
Farcical feminism is a decades-old phenomenon, as George Will's essay from 1970 reminds us.
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
