Tuesday, June 19, 2007

“The Emergence of a Separate American Warrior Caste”

Matt Sanchez is embedded with the troops in Iraq. Via Pajama Media, he observes:

As a media embed in the United States military, a big part of my job is to observe, but as I watched the members of the 96th Transportation Company out of San Antonio, Texas, work tirelessly in preparation for their mission, I got to thinking that something was missing. Something was definitely different between wartime Americans deployed overseas and peacetime Americans hunkered down in the United States. And then it struck me, like the game show contestant who beats his opponents to the buzzer, what was missing from the time I left the United States, only a week before, was the sense of despair, frustration and self-centered complaining.

Someone tell me when the American public went from being the can-doers to the will-whiners?

Well…Westhawk happened to visit this question from another direction when he reviewed an essay by Robert Kaplan in The American Interest. Kaplan calls his essay “Forgetting the Obvious” and it’s one of those analyses that makes you smack your head and wonder why you haven’t been able to articulate these ideas, even though they were there, a kind of “unthought known” as Gagdad Bob would say.

Mr. Kaplan lays out his case for America’s inability to fight what I would call “manly wars.” We castrate our military and then send them out to die...for what, precisely? Here’s Mr. Kaplan’s observation, which explains the whining that Matt Sanchez sees:

Some truths are so obvious that to mention them in polite company seems either pointless or rude. What is left unstated, however, can with time be forgotten. Both of these observations apply today to the American way of war. It is obvious that a military can only fight well on behalf of a society in which it believes, and that a society which believes little is worth fighting for cannot, in the end, field an effective military. Obvious as this is, we seem to have forgotten it.

Then, Mr. Kaplan proposes a way to remember that will make us more effective:

1. It will permit us to see that the problems with our struggle against radical Islam is a problem in morale.
2. It will allow some understanding of a festering problem we refuse to acknowledge, much less debate, and that is the poor state of relations between civilians and military in America, which in turn
3. It will demonstrate why the kinds of war we engage in have become inherently impossible to win (note — he says “difficult” but I think we are long past that stage).

First, of course you start with history, and he brings out Sun Tzu and Clausewitz (to which I would add Colonel John Boyle, USAF). What he notices about them is their presuppositions:

Both Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz believe-in their states, their sovereigns, their homelands. Because they believe, they are willing to fight. This is so clear that they never need to state it, and they never do.

What is obvious, however, is left unstated not because it is insignificant, but because it is too significant: War is a fact of the human social condition neither man wishes were so. Sun-Tzu, concerned with war on the highest strategic level, affirms that the greatest warrior is one who calculates so well that he never needs to fight. Clausewitz, interested more in the operational level, allows that war takes precedence only after other forms of politics have failed. Both oppose militarism, but accept the reality of war, and from that acceptance reason that any policy lacking martial vigor- any policy that fails to communicate a warrior spirit-only makes war more likely. [Emphasis added]

Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz could rise to the level of theory only because they had absorbed practice. So I could only grasp their meaning after living beside junior officers and senior NCOs whose logic, like theirs, flowed from patriotism and personal commitment. Now, patriotism, we have heard, is the last refuge of the scoundrel. It can be that when patriotism is misappropriated by those who have little loyalty to place, and who therefore lack any accountability for their words or their views. It is easy, after all, to be in favor of this or that cause, or against some other ones, if one has no real stake in the outcome. But while some patriots are scoundrels, the vast majority are more trustworthy than those who are not, precisely because they do accept a stake in outcomes. And they do so most often because patriotism overlaps with what, for lack of a better phrase, is a kind of moral hardiness, by which I mean an attitude of serious engagement concerning right and wrong behavior. I saw this in one American soldier, marine, sailor and airman after another.
Iraqi artist Kalat was so grateful when Iraq was liberated that he made a memorial statue dedicated to the American soldier and his fallen comrades. To the left of the kneeling soldier is a small Iraqi girl giving the soldier comfort as he mourns the loss of fellow soldiers.  The statue will eventually be shipped and displayed at Fort Hood, Texas. Photo courtesy PSCM Robert A. Schultz, USCGRMeanwhile back at home, the sneering continues unabated, the fifth column that aids and abets those who would destroy us. The jihadists have created the perfect weapon out of America’s lack of will and the jihadists über will: a machine of destruction made of human body parts, including many brains that are willing, even eager, to annihilate themselves in order to bring about our destruction. That’s some asymmetrical weapon they have created out of all-too-mortal flesh. How do we respond to it without losing our deepest selves in the process?
- - - - - - - - - -
It used to be that our military was expected to hold that place for us, while we at home held their places here intact. But that world is gone, destroyed mainly by the machinations of the elite and the press in the Vietnam slide to dishonor and despair. Dishonor on the part of civilians who failed to hold the places for those men engaged in a long and bitter war, and despair on the part of the military who watched helplessly as the elites turned victory into sour defeat — in the process leaving million of South Vietnamese to their horrific fate.

Kaplan says it boils down to a lack of faith which has resulted in a bitter divide — a chasm — between military and civilians here at home. The warrior class, which still exists like some anachronistic samurai guild, seldom “interfaces” with the elites in their various transnational guises. Military families stick together; they know too well the pain of disengagement that civilians begin to set in motion as soon as they become uncomfortable about the facts of death, destruction, and uncomfortable truths about war’s grim necessities:

Never-say-die faith, accompanied by old-fashioned nationalism, is alive in America. It is a match for the most fanatical suicide bombers anywhere, but with few exceptions, that faith is confined to our finest combat infantry units-and to specific sections of the country and socio-economic strata from which these “warriors” (as they like to call themselves) hail. They are not characteristic of a country in many ways hurtling rapidly in the opposite direction. This is not the 1950s, when Americans felt a certain relief in possessing “the bomb.” Fifty years later, most Americans feel a certain relief in never having to even hear about “the bomb.”

Faith is about struggle, about having confidence precisely when the odds are the worst. Faith is the capacity to believe in what is simultaneously necessary but improbable. That kind of faith is receding in America among a social and economic class increasingly motivated by universal values: caring, for example, about the suffering of famine victims abroad as much as for hurricane victims at home. Universal values are a good in and of themselves, and they are not the opposite of faith. But they should never be confused with it. You may care to the point of tears about suffering humankind without having the will to actually fight (let alone inconvenience yourself) for those concerns. Thus, universal values may pose an existential challenge to national security when accompanied by a loss of faith in one’s own political values and projects.

The loss of a warrior mentality and the rise of universal values seem to be features of all stable, Western-style middle-class democracies. Witness our situation. The Army Reserve is desperate for officers, yet there is little urge among American elites to volunteer.

I would venture that the warrior class in this country is diverted somewhat into the police force and fire brigades. These are jobs requiring valor and extremes of courage. But their numbers are not enough to sustain us against our aggressors. Where are the officers to come from? Many elite schools don’t even permit ROTC components on their campuses, though they are more than glad to take federal monies. In a real world, schools which banned the military should not be eligible for federal aid. But then again, except for a few outstanding examples, our Imperial Congress is made up of people who definitely do not belong to Mr. Kaplan’s warrior class. Far from it: even those charged with military affairs are rude and demanding when they call officers from the Pentagon to appear before their courts to be admonished, blamed, and sarcastically ridiculed.

I grew up in a warrior town during the period of national service. It was simply expected: at some point in your late teens or early twenties, you gave two years to your country and then you went home. The warrior class then was distributive and many men remembered their service if not with fondness, at least with a wry understanding of how much they’d learned and grown in those years. It is seldom I have run across men of that generation who complained about the burden. For the most part, they were glad to have done it — to have it behind them.

That world is gone. Now our warrior class must be drawn from a shrinking population of those who believe in this country and share a common faith that it is worth defending. Those who do not share that faith also often don’t respect the motives or character of those who remain proud of their service to their country.

Mr. Kaplan is right: that is the unbridgeable gap. I do not see a way to build a bridge across this chasm, but unless we do, unless we make welcome room for our returning warriors and give them the respect their faithful service deserves, we will be at the mercy of those countries with plenty of young men to spare — plenteous because they have killed off the girl babies of this cohort who would have become their wives. As Tibet was over run, so will be Taiwan. There will be millions of soldiers to choose military special forces from. And the men will be glad to go, to be able to escape otherwise empty lives, sans wife or children.

But here? Mr. Kaplan notes:

Without a draft or a revitalized Reserve and National Guard that ties the military closer to civilian society, in the decades ahead American troops may become less soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen, and more…in essence a guild in which the profession of combat-arms is passed down from father to son. It is striking how many troops I know whose parents and other relatives had also been in the service, especially among the units whose members face the highest level of personal risk. Contrast this with the fact that, at the 2006 Stanford commencement ceremony, Maj. General Lehnert, whose son was the lone graduating student from a military family, was struck by how many of the other parents had never even met a member of the military before he introduced himself.

The future Baron hung out with the ROTCs at college. He enjoyed their company and it was the only place he could get military history courses. But even his school graduated only a handful this year.

Like orders of nuns and priests, the old military order may be passing. The idea of service to something larger than oneself has certainly passed, and we are the poorer for it. In fact, it may be the death of us.

22 comments:

Wally Ballou said...

Great post, D - looks like you've cleared the cobwebs from your noggin.

It is a damned tragedy how our larger society has become divorced from the military culture. The left routinely says that our society has become "militarized", but that is of a piece with their belief that we have been "Christianized". I remember how many people were disturbed when the Reagan administration started requiring more administrative military people to wear their uniforms. Suddenly, half the people waiting at those DC area bus stops were revealed to be "one of them".

Thank God for our military, and the fact that they continue to honor and defend a country that increasingly does not honor them. The ancient Greek warrior (and to a great extent the Norse warrior) was motivated by what the Greeks called kleos. The Greek heroes didn't believe in a happy afterlife, but they believed that the people they protected and died to serve would honor them in poetry and song. Now, our protectors can only believe that their fellow military will honor them so.

I know the last thing the military wants is a general draft. Imagine thinning their ranks with a bunch of whiny slackers.

Scott Lanter said...

I wanted to thank Mr. Sanchez for his comments. I read his article and I don't think enough appreciations is given to the military, especially the unsung heroes who stay up all night to keep the wheels of our forces in motion. I don't think I'll complain about the price of gas again.

xlbrl said...

The left-wing culture must marginalize the military exactly as it does true volunteer organizations. Each show personal committment and courage. Each live lives that witness the true product of constant failure and success. It is a lifestyle that does not support narcissism and illlusion.
The comparison is innerving; the solution is disrespect.

mikej said...

Kaplan writes some interesting stuff occasionally, but I think he's off base here. There's a much simpler explanation for America's lack of support for the so-called War on Terror: the policies of the idiots running our government make no sense.

For example, fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 highjackers were Saudis. All belonged to an organization called al-Quaeda, led by Osama Bin Laden, a Saudi. According to our Congress, Saudi Arabia was the principal source of al-Quaeda's funding. So naturally, after being attacked by Saudi Arabia, we invaded Iraq.

The primary reason that Muslims wish to blow us up in the first place is that our government supports Israel economically, militarily, politically (in the UN), and always unconditionally. Despite its determination to make enemies of the world's Muslims, our government has decided to play Russian roulette by allowing millions of Muslims to run loose in our country, and continually admitting more. To my knowledge, Muslims are still admitted to our flight schools. Somehow, invading Iraq is expected to discourage them from repeating the 9/11 attacks. Isn't that just brilliant?

In other words, thinking Americans don't support the war against militant Islam because there is no such war to support. If you want to have a "manly war," then let's bloody well have one. Let's boot all of the Muslims out of the United States. Let's seize Iraq's oilfields and use whatever force might be necessary against any Iraqi who opposes us. Then let's do the same to Saudi Arabia. These measures certainly would crush militant Islam and put an end to Islamic terrorism, but you know that our government isn't going to do any of those things. It's hard to fight a manly war when your leaders are a bunch of brain-dead pantywaists.

George Bruce said...

"Sun-Tzu, concerned with war on the highest strategic level, affirms that the greatest warrior is one who calculates so well that he never needs to fight"

I have often had a similar thought. The islamists are objectively weak. If we had the will to do it, we would only have to say "NO" to them, provided we said it with unity and wholehearted conviction. So long as they understood the seriousness of our intentions and our will, no action would be necessary.

In a related thought, I think we should refer to "peace activists" by their true name, "war advocates."

Dymphna said...

Thanks, Wally. The cobwebs are gone to some extent. Better drugs. But then I wrote that at 4:00 am so the downside is not enough sleep.

__________

Gringo m:

He's not off base at all. You have chosen a different base from which to pitch your particular ball, but it's the same game.

Which is not to say I disagree wit you. The political elite are part and parcel of a larger elite of, as you saY, "idiots." But they are just one part.

The idiots in charge are not responsible for the disdain and contempt the elites have for the warrior class -- those knuckle draggers who would get another job if they qualified for anything else, right?

The problem is hydra-headed, but those in power simply don't have *enough* power to prevent the academy from barring the door to ROTC. In what sense is that the fault of say, President Bush, and not the fault of Yale, his alma mater.

Perhaps he ought to send in the Natl Guard to make them allow military recruiters on campus?

The idiots in Washington are not responsible for the spitters in the blue states. They manufacture their own contempt. See Wally Ballou re donning the uniform...

El Jefe Maximo said...

"Both Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz believe-in their states, their sovereigns, their homelands. Because they believe, they are willing to fight."

There's your problem right there. Clausewitz put all he had and was at the service of his king and of Prussia. That was a normal and expected attitude for members of his class. That attitude and expectation existed here once, too.

But we don't have that today -- "right thinking people" view military service as either a cruel necessity or the refuge of suckers. Somehow the idea has gotten about that we'll be rich and safe forever, without the necessity of fighting. Until we figure out a way to change that attitude, we have a real problem.

mikej said...

D,

My point was that, if you want people to support a war, then they need to perceive that the war is necessary to national survival or at least serves some important national interest. Americans have tired of the "War on Terror" for the same reason that Americans tired of the war in Vietnam. Life in America went on as before after the loss of Vietnam, as we all knew it would. It's plain that the Vietnam war was not necessary to national survival and did not serve any important national interest. The present war has no clear objective, will not prevent further Islamic terrorism, and does nothing to avenge the 9/11 attacks. Neoconservatives (who do perceive that the war serves their interests) try to conflate support for the silly war with support for our soldiers, but the two issues are separate.

Vol-in-Law said...

Gringo Malo is basically right, except that Islam's renewed strategic offensive against the West is not caused by US support for Israel but by internal dynamics within the Muslim world; notably demographic growth, Saudi oil wealth, and the inherent aggressive nature of Islam; combined with western demographic and cultural weakness.

OMMAG said...

When you realize the fact that you have an enemy the only logical step is to isolate and diminish that enemy in every possible way. Do it without hesitation or remorse and do it completely!
The weak minded among us are just as big a threat as the antagonists who seek to harm us!

Unknown said...

Gringo Malo: I could agree wirh your analysis of "why they hate us" if, and only if, you can expand your analysis to include why (a) buddhists are being decapitated, shot and blown up in Thailand (b) teachers and schools in Indonesia which teach women (shock horror!) are being killed and blown up (c) barbers and CD shops in Pakistan are destroyed by bombs (d) out of the 12,000 or so people stopped by the Iranian "thought police" for being "improperly dressed" over 10,000 of them were women (gender profiling anyone?)

I could go on - but you get my point. Pushing the blame onto the USA for "occupation" of "Moslem lands" and "support for Israel" does not explain anything that is going on and also detracts from discussions about the real causes of the current conflicts.

Dymphna said...

JC supercop:

You often appear to be finding Christians under the bed whenever anyone talks about having an over-arching meaning.

Whatever is one's ultimate concern -- and it could be for many people simply that they want the future of this country to be a secure one, which has nothing to do with religion. I plant oak trees that I will never see to maturity. But spaced strategically they will provide the future owners of my house shade in the summer, and an aesthetic pleasure.


Justice based on reason alone, without the other faculties and without a modicum of mercy, is a poor justice indeed. No, reason alone is not enough and never will be. Rand and her super-rationality have certainly shown us where that well-intentioned road leads.

Your hyper-sensitivity to any higher meaning is as compulsive as the medieval Christers who find meaning in everything.

Give it a break.

Anonymous said...

I have nothing clever to add. But I still would like to say; Great article and comments.

Anonymous said...

Upps.

Dymphnas last comment came in just while I was writing.

JC supercop is, as far as I can tell, a National Conservative in the european mening of the words. That must be a pretty rare animal in the US, where the conservatives are so tight with religion.

This is why I allways agree with JC supercop :-), he is conservative in Eurostyle.

JC supercop you should come here on a pilgrimage and meet people who thinks like you. Ill set you up. It would be an honor to meet you.

mikej said...

Vol-in-Law and James make good points. Perhaps one can't blame Muslim animosity toward the U.S. entirely on our support for Israel. Muslims always have been, and always will be, intolerant and violent. Still, our government's support for Israel buys us nothing and does tend to focus Muslims' hatred upon us.

I still maintain that Muslims could never have attacked us here in America if idiots in Washington hadn't decided to let them in. I further maintain that, if we're going to fight a war against Islam, then our objectives should be to remove Muslims from America for the safety of our families and to deprive Muslims of their Middle Eastern oil reserves. Against Islam, the half measures we're taking are worse than useless.

Whiskey said...

Malo - your assertion that Muslims main beef with the US is our support of Israel is the usual assertion of the feminized, pacifist Left. One that proposes to throw Israel to Iran the way Spain and Czechoslavakia were thrown to the Nazis for "peace in our time." How did that work out again?

Meanwhile Thailand suffers a Muslim terror campaign, Osama, Zawahari, Nasrallah, Khomeni, Khameni, Khatami, Ahmadinejad have all stated that America can only escape fighting by dying or submitting to Islam and their rule. Since we have no desire to live a slave, we will fight.

Islam DEMANDS: no cartoons in newspapers (or they will kill us). No Salman Rushdie (they've killed his translators) or they will kill us (as they will kill him). No films by Van Gogh or they will kill us as they killed him. Rape campaigns as in Sweden. Sharia Law (or they will kill us) in the West. No guide dogs or booze on taxis (or they will kill us). No "insulting" Mohammed with his picture on South Park (or they will kill us). No "insulting" Islam by "disrespecting Korans" or they will kill us. No "Jews" there.

They demand our submission and you propose groveling. A more perfect picture of a deeply feminized, pacifist, unable to act in a violent world set of people could not be drawn. Particularly obnoxious is the search for "Jews" to punish which characterizes the Left and it's demand for ideological purity in protection of class interests. If anything support for Israel forms the first line of US defense. In deterrence, power-projection, shared intelligence, and the like. A positive good even an avowed anti-Semite like Nixon understood.

[Muslims MUST destroy the US, Qutb knew that when he visited Colorado in the 1950's. Polygamy, tribal superstition, obscurantism, cousin-marriage, absolute enslavement to Allah, all are profoundly threatened by the US promotion of individuality and freedom, even in such otherwise innocuous things such as Spider-Man. My god, the message in that film. "With great power comes great responsibility." AS AN INDIVIDUAL. A more complete and stunning smackdown of Islam and submission could not be imagined. And that's just one film.]

OF COURSE the Joe Wilsons, the Valerie Plames, the Michael Moores, the Sandy Burglars oppose all military action and HATE HATE HATE the military. Because in a war, where men who want to kill us (Muslims) or enslave us (Muslims) must be opposed by violence, what can they offer? How to behave in the cubicle or Georgetown salon?

This problem won't change until we dump our elites in a Jacksonian uprising and hammer them into corners that don't matter: obscure think tanks and the like. Otherwise the Dinner Party circuit and aspiring cube dwellers will always seek to thwart the military class. Because military action always allows for men to rise. And we can't have that now can we if women like Plame and men like Wilson are to retain their leadership can we?

And yes of course Muslims would have attacked us on 9/11. They'd been waging war against us since Arafat gave the order to kill Diplomats Noel and company.

mikej said...

whiskey_199,

You haven't read my prior posts. Frankly, our country derives no benefit from the so-called alliance with Israel. I really don't care who governs the eastern shore of the Mediterranean.

I have advocated the prevention of future domestic terrorism by expelling Muslims from the United States. I have further advocated seizing Middle Eastern oil reserves to defang Islam. Deprived of oil money, Islamic terror campaigns can be expected to fizzle out. If we're going to fight a war, let's make it a worthwhile war. Our present strategy, for lack of a better word, is idiotic.

Don Miguel said...

"But then again, except for a few outstanding examples, our Imperial Congress is made up of people who definitely do not belong to Mr. Kaplan’s warrior class."

And include a few -- the most notable being John Murtha -- who have gone from being members of that class to being traitors to the class. There's a reason why there is a very rare breed known as an ex-Marine, but Murtha has managed to land in that exclusive class along side of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Anonymous said...

The idea that the state should be used to press down moral issues down on people who might not share those seems widespread in the US. I know this is not the original topic here, but as a conservative I feel partly responsible for my fellow conservatives on the other side.

I am personally very much against the idea of abortion, and I feel a great sadness about it when it happens. I do feel that it is justified in case of rape. I also feel a great sadness about unfaithfulness. It ruins lives and creates an almost unbearable pain.

But when Us conservatives wants laws against abortions. They are asking for a very personal thing to be controlled by the state. As if it wasn't bad enough already.

A law against something is violence. Don't think that it isn't.

If we let the state use violence against tragic beings we are no better then totalitarians. This is where US and Euro conservatives differ.

In Europe conservatives understand that laws and morals are two different things. We don't want to make laws to mirror how we would like the world to be, but rather we make laws to prevent things that would harm how people are able to live.

Laws should be made to preserve the order and peace of the nation. I fail to see, how preventing people from abortion can do that. All I see is someone who wants their moral to be pressed down on others.

I do share those morals. I just don't want it to be controlled by a state. Its a totalitarian idea and its making the rightwing in America look very bad in the rest of the world. This is the main reason that leftwingers here in Europe get away with comparing the Cristian in the US with the Taliban. And they have a point, sorry to say.

American conservatives needs to figure out the difference between morals and laws.

Whiskey said...

Gringo --

We certainly DO derive unique and irreplaceable benefits from allying to Israel:

*Shared intelligence on threats that is superior and unavailable from other sources, particularly Iran, AQ, and related groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, etc.

*Ability to us Israel as a proxy against forces we would rather not confront directly.

*Show of force to deter attacks, i.e. the strong horse Osama talks about.

Expelling all Muslims from the US is a pipe dream. It will never happen short of several cities being nuked by shadowy Muslim groups and probably not even then if the government has half a clue. Your suggestion is not even serious given political realities.

So too is seizing the oil fields. It will never happen because too many domestic political opponents would oppose it and they have both the media and politics behind them.

Both proposals would in a Platonic Republic ruled by an absolute ruler work well, but we live in the world of the possible not enlightened dictators.

Yes the War on Terror is idiotic, but that is because the nation is divided into two separate castes and one giant populace divided between them. The warrior caste sees America worth fighting for and the opportunities to rise in leadership defending it. The priest-elite caste sees America as not worth defending, as evil in and of itself, and profound threats to it's position by fighting for America (not the least of which is the sidelining of the priest and his hereditary sinecures by the warriors). The people are fearful, poorly led, and un-informed due to the control of the media by the priests.

Thus an fairly do-nothing policy that in as much as it has any action at all is preferable to abject surrender.

But short killing about a billion Muslims this war of Islam against America will go on. Muslims object to our very existence and desire to control us completely. Down to the foods we eat, booze we drink, women's clothing, and what we say or are allowed to say. That Muslims were able to censor South Park cartoons says it all.

Given that we will be fighting Muslims for hundreds of years (we started fighting them during Thomas Jefferson's campaign to stamp out the Barbary Pirates) we ought to keep such allies that are generally reliable since we won't get any more.

Particularly since we are constrained by politics in what we can and cannot do.

Anonymous said...

There is a very important point to be understood here--the lack of military service by a large proportion of our male populace leads to disdain for its value. I have no wish to institute a draft, that would be very counter-productive to both freedom and to the optimum functioning of the military.

That being said, I consider the elitist attempts to remove ROTC from college campuses to be based primarily on fear--the fear that the military values will prove more convincing than the sterile bilge they produce. What compounds the felony is the complicity of the government to not enforce the withdrawal of funds from campuses that do not allow ROTC. It is the making of a choice without the consequences for a bad choice. What is worse, they won't realize their own culpability when they are dead or dhimmi.

From watching this and my brother-in-law, there is nothing stupider than an intellectual. [Notice I didn't say anything about intelligence. The two are not synonymous.]

Profitsbeard said...

Insulation from the physical struggle for survival, for too long, for too many, atrophies the flesh and spirit, and ultimately lets those next door, who are still at the existential level of blood and tissue and instinct, dominate.

Keep a hand in the material tensions of the world, whether baiting a worm on a hook or giving blood, to refresh the primal connection with the instinctual life.

Self defense shrivels when the sense of the biological self fades.

The enemy of Western Civilization is cutting the throats of sheep at every "religious' festival, and hardening themselves for the struggle ahead, unconsciously.

Nothing so crude is needed on our part, but we do need to know the same sense of brute reality, first hand.

To stand against its bloody practitioners (if nothing else) when they arrive to challenge our right to live free.