RUTHFULLY YOURS

 On Memorial Day we honor our troops-the ultimate defense of our sovereignty, our freedom and our democracy. General MacArthur was a lifetime soldier, graduating from West Point with perfect scores in discipline and academics. His farewell speech to West Point, which he wrote himself exemplifies the valor and merit of those who will bear arms and die for Duty, Honor and Country.

As Hannah Senesh, the martyred heroine of World War Two wrote:

“Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor’s sake.”  rsk 

Duty, Honor, Country

Gen. Douglas Mac Arthur’s ‘s speech to the Corps of Cadets
at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., May 12, 1962.

As I was leaving the hotel this morning, a doorman asked me, “Where are you bound for, General?” and when I replied, “West Point,” he remarked, “Beautiful place: have you ever been there before?”

No human being could fail to be deeply moved by such a tribute as this, coming from a profession I have served so long and a people I have loved so well. It fills me with an emotion I cannot express. But this award is not intended primarily to honor a personality, but to symbolize a great moral code — the code of conduct and chivalry of those who guard this beloved land of culture and ancient descent. That is the animation of this medallion. For all eyes and for all time, it is an expression of the ethics of the American soldier. That I should be integrated in this way with so noble an ideal, arouses a sense of pride and yet of humility which will be with me always.

“Duty, Honor, Country” — those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean.

The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and, I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.

But these are some of the things they do.º They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation’s defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid.

They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for action; not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm, but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future, yet never neglect the past; to be serious, yet never take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.

They give you a temper of the will,º a quality of theº imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, an appetite for adventure over love of ease.

They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.

And what sort of soldiers are those you are to lead? Are they reliable? Are they brave? Are they capable of victory?

Their story is known to all of you. It is the story of the American man at arms. My estimate of him was formed on the battlefieldº many, many years ago, and has never changed. I regarded him then, as I regard him now, as one of the world’s noblest figures; not only as one of the finest military characters, but also as one of the most stainless.

His name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen. In his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give. He needs no eulogy from me, or from any other man. He has written his own history and written it in red on his enemy’s breast.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/a-lack-of-morality-and-courage/

With shock and dismay, I read this statement that General Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs, made on May 23:

Many countries in the world depend on Ukrainian grain. As for what we’re doing about it, we don’t have any naval assets on the Black Sea. We don’t intend to. . . . It’s a no-go for commercial shipping.

Note the use of the pronoun “we.” Milley is the top military adviser to the president. So it is reasonable to assume that the “we” refers to both General Milley and President Biden.

There is a moral component to Milley’s words. Both the president and the chairman profess to be devout in their religion. Tens of thousands of the world’s poor will starve to death because, as Milley put it, “we don’t intend to place naval assets in the Black Sea.” Thus were morality and compassion dismissed.

More important, the president and the chairman are charged with defending our beloved nation. Putting morality aside, we expect courage from those whose job is to protect us. By fleeing from the Black Sea when Putin sailed in, they jointly abandoned the bedrock principle of freedom of the seas. No commercial shipping, General Milley declared, not with Putin glowering. And so they have established the precedent for Xi to push us out of the South China Sea or the Taiwan Straits.

Both morality (feeding the poor) and courage (standing up for the principles of our nation) have been abandoned in the Black Sea. President Biden and General Milley’s peremptory decision to give up is discouraging. The least they could have done was organize a humanitarian convoy, including the United States and many other nations, to escort out the grain ships.

Why haven’t they done it? Do they believe that Putin would go to war against dozens of countries in order to starve the poor? Sadly, our president and the chairman of the joint chiefs took counsel of their fears. It is past time to put aside fear and do the right thing.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/29/politics/paul-pelosi-arrested-dui/index.html

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was arrested and charged with driving under the influence after being involved in a collision Saturday night, law enforcement officials said.

Paul Pelosi, 82, was arrested at 11:44 p.m. PT and charged with driving under the influence and driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.08% or higher, according to the Napa County Criminal Justice Network’s public booking report. Both charges are misdemeanors.
TMZ was the first to report the arrest.
Pelosi was attempting to cross SR-29 when his 2021 Porsche was hit by a 2014 Jeep traveling northbound on the road, according to a collision report from the California Highway Patrol, which doesn’t identify either driver as being at fault in the crash. Troopers were called to the scene just before 10:30 p.m., the report said.

There were no injuries reported in the crash and the Jeep’s driver was not arrested, the report said.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/05/will_senate_bill_1331_limit_itself_to_stopping_drunk_drivers.html

Is Senate Bill 1331 the path to virtually unlimited power for the Biden Department of Transportation headed by arch-leftist Pete Buttigieg? The bill, entitled “Reduce Impaired Driving for Everyone Act of 2021” (i.e., the RIDE Act of 1921) was ostensibly introduced to allow the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to improve vehicle safety standards and prevent drunk or otherwise impaired driving. However, its broad language doesn’t stop there.

The Bill’s stated purpose is

To require the Secretary of Transportation, acting through the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, to prescribe a Federal motor vehicle safety standard for advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology, and for other purposes. (Emphasis added.)

With the usual good intentions of curbing DUIs and enhancing crime controls, if passed, starting in 2026, SB-1331 will require that all new cars come equipped with tamper-proof software and factory “kill-switch” components. The bureaucrats hiding behind the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Department of Human Services (HHS), are claiming that a new-and-improved “kill-switch” mandate will save us (from ourselves) reduce freeway carnage and prevent high-speed chases.

As our instincts tell us, “kill-switches” intended for intoxicated drivers may start having expanded uses. They might stop post-game auto accidents, including illegal drag racing; drinking and road rage (or ecstatic celebration), which often follow a nationally televised major sporting event. Even worse, imagine a terrified woman in her car, swerving away from a dangerous situation, only to have the government bring her car to a dead—and we mean “dead”—stop.

Moreover, you can readily imagine that this law is a gateway law to ever more government micromanagement, leading to a horde of collateral regulations. Perhaps we will see Federal Fat Laws, intended to prevent at-risk individuals from purchasing bacon, banana crème pies, chocolate-chip pancakes, or milkshakes.

During times of inflation, a Federal Investment Authority could easily be spawned from SB-1331, requiring government approval before inept (senior) citizens are allowed to spend more than $500 from their retirement or bank accounts. With millions of new skin cancers annually, who would object to a Federal Sunburn Law?