Reason in the Age of the Flail-Ex

I once heard a quote attributed to Aristotle that says; "The Law is Reason, Free from Passion". While this may be the theoretical desired handling of legal matters, it is never-the-less apparent that only a percentage of any given legal and political population actually practices this.

What we have been witnessing is an era in which the sitting political party has displayed Compassion, Free from Reason. In their effort to "solve" some of the more troubling issues present in all cultures, those of our left-listing brothers and sisters have chosen, rather to adopt a stance known as the "flail-ex".

The Flail-Ex (flailing exercise) is defined as the natural response by some to the recognition of a condition, problem or symptom of a general breakdown in what they consider the natural order. It is characterized by a simple wringing of hands to the more flamboyant flailing of arms and legs accompanied by verbal outbursts of hysteric utterances generally exclaiming; "Oh God, Oh God, what are we to do?"

What typically follows are emotional remonstrances leading to not very well thought out edicts, legislation and restrictions which always come with a heavy price tag and almost never solve the actual problem.  The Affordable Care Act aka ACA, aka Obamacare is nothing more than the most recent example of this.  The ACA is the spasmodic attempt to rectify a perceived shortcoming in health insurance among the poor which the flailer defines as a lack of health care.

The left is always trying to solve the problem of poverty and while that desire is commendable, what is not is their insistence that if you disagree with their proposals, you are simply dispassionate and hateful.  It is also curious that they insist on oversimplifying the issue by determining poverty exists because of a disproportionate distribution of "wealth" as though it is a natural resource mined from a finite source within the earth.

But the most relevant reason they seem intent to tear down our entire society and reconstruct it, is because their perception of poverty is diametrically opposed to those thinking with the other side of the brain.

Poverty for the conservative minded individual is a temporary condition which may require reconsideration of how you conduct your business to improve your lot in life while the liberal sees poverty as an incurable disease, like cancer, which also requires an eternal injection of money into each individual case.

The result of the enactment of the several programs flinched into existence to reactively "treat" poverty is several generations of people who have come to believe their condition is in fact incurable and that it is someone else's responsibility to simply carry them - not help them. The sitting party has done a remarkable job convincing the ever burgeoning, left-listing voting block to keep them in power simply by promising to give them that continual infusion of money and trinkets as an answer to their "incurable" condition.

This same inexplicably corrupted vision of both the human and cultural condition affects every vestige of thought and vision as the liberal mind looks around the globe. It has certainly affected our foreign policy and especially as it affects conduct on these current battlefields.

Within 6 months of the World Trade Center attack, the flailers were already mounting arguments that the culprits were not in fact Al Qaida agents but the US government which detonated pre-staged explosives at least in building 7. That particular theory never fully explained how the aircraft which hit the towers managed to be on site precisely at the moment the government determined to detonate their treasonous load but that was hardly important. What was important was insuring that a spark of doubt was placed within the minds of those voters most likely to buy into the theory and do one of two things; sit out elections or vote for the other party. While the momentum of anger toward our Islamic brethren fueled the conservative voting block in the short run, by the end of George Bush's second term, the conservatives were prepared to sit one out while the flail-ex crowd, was energized.

At about the same time complaints began emitting from various segments of society decrying the unreasonable and hate filled speech toward the Ummah. As time has marched on, those complaints have found a home in all of the suspect acronym bearing "human rights" organizations which have since worked overtime to correct any actual or perceived injustices done to the Ummah by out of control Americans seeking justice. These complaints also found a willing ear in a new President in November of 2008 and the damage that combination has yielded has bled out a generation both figuratively and literally.

Recently concerns have been raised that Muslim G-Grade Officers were being assigned positions within the Pentagon; the concern being that a Muslim Officer, could incongruously affect policy that will affect future strategy and ROE decisions for our War Fighters in future engagements. What these concerns fail to consider is that it had already happened during President Obama's first year in Office.

The flail-ex created by the perceived irrational national distrust of Islam and its adherents found its way into the DOD and compromised the proper decision making ability of the then Deputy Secretary of Defense who inserted himself into an assessment process designed to reconsider our posture in Afghanistan. The result was a "cleansed" assessment which produced a highly controversial strategy, Counter Insurgency which always yields a lethal ROE. The number of tragedies associated with the introduction of COIN and its natural child, a rigid ROE are too numerous to name and I have written about them in previous entries spanning the past nearly five years.

Another example of Passion without Reason is General Amos reacting out of irrational anger and trying to influence the actions of the JAG Officers responsible for investigating and eventually trying the USMC Snipers accused of urinating on the corpses of the demonically inspired enemy they had killed in an earlier engagement.

Would any Marine Corps Officer lash out irresponsibly and unprofessionally at men in his command for a perceived breach in ethics like this under normal circumstances? Unlikely, but add the tension introduced into the situation by the wailing and flailing crowd who hold the bodies of a gaggle of dead, non-uniformed dirt bags over that of the well-being of American Marines facing the inhuman acts of these 7th century heathens and you have the recipe for yet one more example of passion running amok, dictating political and legal action to the detriment of those these very institutions should naturally hope to defend.

Frankly I couldn't care less how the health care debacle turns out in the short run. The fact is, the present model is as unsustainable as the present application of Social Security funding and both will fall into disarray if our current crop of DC Miscreants doesn't get their several parts wired straight.

But I do care about the unhinged meanderings of the flail-ex crowd because without Reason, there is little hope that either their hysteria or their reactive legislation will produce anything of lasting value. In the case of decisions being made within the Pentagon based on veiled whispers emanating from the White House and their appointees, the end result has been and will continue to be devastating for the several Services and those who serve.

Semper Fidelis;

John Bernard