CSotD: Coffee Break’s Over – Back on your heads
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I agree with Kelley so rarely that it’s only fair to let him start off this post-Thanksgiving edition.
He’s right. If Democrats said to do those things, it wouldn’t give you permission, though if you wanted to import 400 tons of cocaine into the US, the president might pardon you as a good guy. But if you were ordered to kill suspected drug runners whom you could easily have intercepted and brought to trial, that would require a little thought on your part.
And if you blew up their boat and saw survivors clinging to the wreckage, you’d really have to think hard about either killing them or even just letting them drown. Even the Graf Spee picked up survivors of its WWII shipping raids,
and, when the Bismarck went down, the British rescued survivors. It’s common decency, but it’s also a matter of international law:
After each engagement, Parties to the conflict shall, without delay, take all possible measures to search for and collect the shipwrecked, wounded and sick, to protect them against pillage and ill-treatment, to ensure their adequate care, and to search for the dead and prevent their being despoiled.
UPDATE: Charlie Sykes offers a considerably more detailed explanation of the war crimes.
Meanwhile, if you were ordered to arrest a certain number of brown people and to ignore whether they had legal status in this country, you should probably consult a JAG, if you can find one who hasn’t been fired or co-opted.
BTW, as a civilian, don’t assume proper identification will protect you against outlaws with quotas to fill.
And if you’ve loaded people on an airplane to send them to an overseas gulag and a federal judge orders you to turn the plane around, you should either do that or else be prepared to face having illegally ignored a lawful order.
So Kelley is right: No matter who gives you an illegal order, it’s illegal to carry it out, and justice demands that you obey the law.
And don’t let a bully tell you anything different, no matter how outranked you may feel you are.
Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. — Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, 2:2
Speaking of which, and whom:
Juxtaposition of the Day
Let us not forget that Jeff Danziger served as an intelligence officer in Vietnam during that war, so he’s not speaking without some standing, though I’m sure he wouldn’t measure himself next to Mark Kelly, whom Bagley properly proportions next to his hair-gelled accuser.
Granted, Hegseth also saw service, but he noted the other day that he served during a period when boot camp was easy to get through and nobody did much to screen out the goldbricks, goof-offs and loudmouths. (He didn’t exactly phrase it that way.)
In any case, while Danziger’s more legalistic approach may be more applicable in Kelly’s defense, I think Bagley does a fine job of summing up how this ridiculous attempt to silence a critic is going over with the public. There are far too many poseurs who think beating your chest and bellowing is the mark of manliness, but I think they are louder than they are numerous.
I believe people in general respect a man who flies combat sorties, then travels into space and later enters politics when some deranged gunman tries to murder his wife.
I’m also hoping the bulk of people see through the game of name-calling and attempted bullying of those who stand with Kelly, a group of three men and three women, none of whom had anyone forge medical papers to excuse them from serving their nation.
Auchter specifically salutes Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a rising star from his own state, so I’ll tip my hat to Rep. Maggie Goodlander, my congressional rep, who has already had a bomb threat because she stood up for the law and for the oath she took.
I suspect a lot of Hegseth’s hostility to women in the military is based on a greater hostility to women in general, and he’d better steer clear of Tammy Duckworth, too.
In the words of James Thurber, “It is not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be.”
Thurber said that back in 1939. More recently, a woman on Facebook asked why none of the men in that press gaggle had done anything when Trump said “Quiet, piggy,” to Wall Street reporter Catherine Lucey.
My response was, and remains, “That Walter Raleigh s*** went out two generations ago.”
Maybe I’ve just gotten into the habit of hanging out with a more resilient, less dependent sort of woman who could stand up for herself.
They’ve never been hard to find, if you bothered to look.
Now let’s talk about airplanes:
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
Moudakis asks a reasonable question, though it’s somewhat theoretical, since Dear Leader has only expressed hostility towards Canada and threatened it with punitive tariffs. His talk of a 51st state has remained one of his senile fantasies, for the most part.
But Ramirez poses a more interesting topic, given that we’re selling advanced aircraft to the folks whose citizens crashed into the World Trade Center and whose government not only condoned but carried out the brutal murder of an American journalist. And these planes have some Chinese components.
Here’s the point: If you are still running your old Photoshop program instead of renting a new version from Adobe, they can reach into your computer and shut it down. And John Deere can activate a kill switch to remotely disable your tractor.
So, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk? How safe would you feel flying a fighter jet that could conceivably be shut down whenever anybody — seller or supplier — decides it shouldn’t be operable?
Better hope there’s a manual override on the ejector mechanism.
Even if you don’t live in cut-your-own country, the Christmas trees in the local lot are probably American, and, if they’re imported, they were likely cut too long ago, so they’re not only subject tariffs but to fire. Shop local.
You can save even more by being Jewish or Muslim or Hindu, unless you’re putting a tree in your window to keep the Gestapo away.
Keep the faith(s), baby.
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