Jacob Siegal; welcome to the socialist paradise
TSO sends a link to the Daily Beast written by Jacob Siegal, a veteran, he says, of OEF/OIF. He also says that the military is a socialist paradise;
Every day before dawn, brave men and women of different races and backgrounds rise as one, united by a common cause. They march together in formation, kept in step by their voices joined in song. These workers leave their communal housing arrangements and go toil together “in the field.” While they are out doing their day’s labor, their young are cared for in subsidized childcare programs. If they hurt themselves on the job, they can count on universal health care. Right under your nose, on the fenced-in bases you drive past on your way to work or see on the TV news, a successful experiment in collectivization has been going on for years.
While I’ll admit that there have been social “experiments” inside the military, I’d point out to young Jacob that everything he described as proof of “collectivization” has been going on since 1775, more or less. Maybe the Revolutionary soldiers didn’t have child care, but the rest did exist. Yes, I know the lock-step marching and counting cadence elicits a vision of The New Soviet Man videos, but, you know it started at Valley Forge when General Pulaski Steuben began drilling the troops for battle formations. I’m pretty sure they had single payer healthcare there, too.
The U.S. military is a socialist paradise. Imagine a testing ground where every signature liberal program of the past century has been applied, from racial integration to single-payer health care—then add personal honor, strict hierarchy, and more guns. Like all socialist paradises, the military has been responsible for its share of bloodshed, but it has developed one of the only working models of collective living and social welfare that this country has ever known.
Like I said, it’s been the test bed for social programs, but, no it’s not mindless socialism. Every soldier is encouraged to think for himself when attacking the countless problems that lay before him, either as a cook, a clerk or an infantryman. Their officers come from the liberal arts schools, not from rigid military academies. They’re educated in public and private schools around the country, again not strictly in military secondary schools. They revel in their individuality, especially when their duties are done for the day.
The folks who leave the military are more distrustful of the government because they’ve seen bureaucracy at it’s worst and at it’s best and there’s not much difference between the two. In fact, they know that they win wars despite the bureaucracy not because of the bureaucracy.
The military is an enormous jobs program. There are more than 2 million active duty and reserve members of the armed forces spread out between bases in more than 150 countries.
Yeah, a jobs program that only accepts the best and brightest, many are turned away before the selection process and many more during and after. So it’s really more than just a jobs program. There are a lot of opportunities, but only for the most qualified. It’s more than just a place to employ mindless drones.
And there are, of course, innumerable and essential ways in which the military isn’t socialist at all. It’s a volunteer force that works as well as it does because the organization fulfills its obligations to the people who sign up. Most people sign up because they’re looking to better themselves and get more opportunities than they had back home. They stay if they believe that the rules are applied fairly and they can get ahead on their merits.
Of course. Then, why did you even mention it, Jake? Then you admit that it’s not really socialist all? So what was your point exactly?
Category: Military issues
Steuben, not Pulaski.
The military may have socialist societal attributes but it is far from a socialist economy. It the author’s thesis is “socialism is OK, just look at how well the military works”, his argument falls flat because the military doesn’t produce anything. It doesn’t grow it’s own food, produce it’s own material or pay it’s “citizens” with returns from such production.
Minor details. Off to the re-education camps with you, comrade.
This is it exactly. As socialist as the army is, its propped up by our capitalist economy and isn’t self-sufficient. Especially these days, where a lot of work goes to contractors, because its cheaper to hire them in bulk than it is to employ soldiers for those “menial tasks”.
Could the Army (and military in general) be more self-sufficient than it currently is? Yes, but then you start to get into Carter’s “failed army” territory, which is someplace I hope we never go back to.
In trying to prove his point, he actually makes ours for us: socialism works great as long as somebody else pays for it!
Socialism fails because the political leadership eventually runs out of other people’s money.
If he’s making a point…it was lost on me.
“The military is an enormous jobs program.”
So is welfare, just no pesky jobs to be involved with going to. If he wants to see socialism at its best, why is he not looking at the years since the “Great Society” started.
That’s why the military has such terrible attrition rates as well.
Living in socialist squalor with everything micro managed equating to basically insufferable existent while others not working nearly as hard as you reap the benefits of freedom and prosperity you provide eventually gets to you.
I’ve had similar thoughts about the military and socialism before–flawed as such thoughts are.
Most of the negatives of socialism exist in the military too. Lack of personal freedoms, work/government intrusion into private life, unequal distribution of resources/tasking. I don’t think many join up because they want to live in some kind of commune or think that everybody should. Everybody just puts up with it because a fighting force needs a high degree of order.
Really, what loss of personal freedoms do you refer to?
Yes, you do have restrictions placed on you during your time in service, but none of those restrictions violate the US Constitution and it’s Bill of Rights.
‘Really, what loss of personal freedoms do you refer to?’
No private bathrooms or phone lines.
Freedom of speech goes right out the window, even when I’m out of uniform I have to closely guard what I say and how I say it to make sure that I’m speaking as a citizen and not a soldier.
Freedom of worship is gone as well. While the Army will make an effort to let me worship as I please, more often than not I’m given the choice of “Catholic” or “Protestant”.
The second amendment is on the scrap heap as well. Just try and deploy with a personal weapon.
The fourth amendment doesn’t apply. Health and Welfare for the WIN!
Grand Juries? Yeah, I don’t think a 15-6 is what the Founders had in mind when they wrote the fifth amendment.
The seventh…ha, trial by jury?
SGT Kane – you sound a little bitter. Let’s compare notes:
Freedom of speech – talk shit about your civilian job on a social media site and you’re gone.
Freedom of worship – the Army alone has a Chaplain Corps that represents over 100 different religious organizations. There may not be every particular type at every single Army location, but you still do have a choice.
Second amendment – go ahead and bring that gun to your job at McDonald’s and see what happens.
Fourth amendment – see above; plus in your civlian job I guarantee that management has the right to search anything that is company owned or provided to you (desk, office, work truck etc).
Grand juries – the AR 15-6 process is probably a better system than the civilain system, but most of us here haven’t had the opportunity to experience either one.
Seventh amendment – gives you the right to trial by jury for certain crimes. Nothing changed there. How many times have you been to a jury trial for a speeding ticket? You can request it though, just like you can request a Court Martial for an Article 15 offense.
Perhaps some of the “rights” of us were tightened up when we were serving, but the military isn’t a scout camp or a country club. Sometimes we had to have the Borg mentality to complete the mission.
There’s no bitterness here at all. Maybe a little fatigue, but at least I’m not moving the goalposts here.
The question was asked, what rights we give up as members of the military. The premise was that none of the restrictions placed upon soldiers violate the the US Constitution or the Bill of Rights. I merely listed those that clearly do so. There was no qualifier that said “compared to civilian life”, or anything of the sort.
When it comes down to it, if restrictions upon me, made by civilian employers become too burden some, I am free to seek employment elsewhere. That right doesn’t extend to the military.
And yes, knowing that I gave up those rights, and that I gave up the right to walk away (well cleanly anyway), I not only enlisted, but re-enlisted, extended, and am in the process of re-enlisting for another six. There’s no bitterness about it, just acceptance of what it is.
And what it is, is that we give up a lot of rights, personal freedoms, and other things that people take for granted, so they can continue to take them for granted.
Glad I didn’t piss you off – wasn’t really trying to, just get tired of the civilain world sometimes and really miss the “dress-right-dress” of the old days. Was it or is it perfect? Hell no. But we’re not the Nazi-Youth that some folks seem to think we are nor do we really give up any more rights than most folks in the civlian workforce. Point is, there aren’t that many folks in the civilian workforce – more sponges than workers and they think that they deserve and are entitled to many more rights than most. One thing we had/have in the military that the civvies don’t have is the right and obligation to police ourselves. An NCO is a mighty powerful person in the military, but try the same stuff out here in the world and see what happens. (Need more body armor)
He should be bitter.
The military sacrifices, wealth, opportunity, health, and basic freedoms so others can enjoy them.
All while getting shit on for it routinely whether it’s being micromanaged like a child every day or by an ungrateful society.
My right to vote was denied to me while in the military. Nobody gave two flipping shits and thought it was cute to send out ballots while stationed in the United States weeks after the election was over with. It wasn’t just me it was the whole God damned unit.
But some illegal shithead can vote without ID or vote multiple times in the proclamation of social justice.
Give me a fucking break.
The military should get mad.
Sounds a bit bitter. Let’s compare notes:
Freedom of speech – out in the civvy world, see what happens when you talk smack about your employer on social media or other public ways.
Freedom of worship – the Army Chaplian Corps covers over 100 different different religious organizations (didn’t know there were that many myself). There may not be a chaplain for every religion on every post, but neither is that the case out here in the world.
Second amendment – try bringing your gun to work at McDonald’s and see what happens.
Fourth amendment – almost every organization out in the “world” has policies stating that management can search anything that belongs to the company (desks, offices, computers, work trucks, etc). They don’t need a search warrant.
Grand jury – Not that I’ve had experience in either one, but I’ll take an AR 15-6 investigation any day over an overworked, “I don’t care” civilian grand jury.
Seventh amendment – right to a jury trial for certain crimes. Most folks don’t take a speeding ticket to a jury trial – some states won’t let you. But you can take an Article 15 (Cpt’s Mast, etc) offense to a Court Martial if you desire. Jury trial for being late to formation – bring it.
Yeah – we gave up few “rights” while serving – they were replaced with other rights which ensure that the organization can perform it’s function. Do we sometimes appear to operate under a Borg mentality? Perhaps, but I’ll put our military leadership (at least unit level thru Division level) and lifestyle up against any other country’s military any day.
Ooops – the puter kicked back the first post, so I redid it. Looks like I’ll get to piss folks off twice as much….. sorry gang.
“The military is an enormous jobs program.” Idiot.
Like I told my soldiers many times, the Army is not a job, it’s a way of life.
“they can get ahead on their own merits”, which contradicts his best socialist paradise available bull shit!!!
The Navy used to run ads that ‘it isn’t just a job, it’s an adventure’.
Hell, it wasn’t an adventure. It was just a job.
And, now the Navy doesn’t fight wars, or shoot guns or bomb shit, its “a global force for good”. Kinda brings unicorns and Skittles to mind.
railgun delivered skittles and unicorns even.
One question, are the unicorns muzzle loaded or breech loaded?
Here’s what Merriam-Webster says. This can apply to almost every civilain job out there with just the right “twist”:
so·cial·ism
noun \ˈsō-shə-ˌli-zəm\
: a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies
Full Definition of SOCIALISM
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
I’d agree that the military has been used as a “test-bed” of sorts, but it’s hardly socialist. Like someone said above, it doesn’t produce anything, could never sustain itself on its own, and that’s evidence enough to prove that trying to use it as some kind of parallel is as idiotic as it sounds.
The excerpts read like a high school term paper–and a lousy one at that. I’m guessing that Jacob had the idea to liken the military to socialism but that it didn’t pan out when he started putting words to paper, which forced him to think. Rather than chuck his errant hypothesis, he tried to push forward (FORWARD, COMRADES!) and ended up finding more evidence discrediting his zany notion than supporting it. The US military is not a socialist organization. Neither is it theistic, communistic or democratic, in any form.
I don’t know what Army life is like today. But, back when I was a dashing young trooper in my United States Army, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, we were involved in a very unpopular and controversial war in an exotic, distant foreign land, further exacerbated by domestic American civilian hostility directed at American soldiers, plus the omnipresent overt indulgence in illegal recreational (?) substance abuse, plus violent anti-White racial hostility, plus imposition of unwritten double standards in military discipline due to racial polarization, plus universally low troop morale, plus living every day of our lives dreading the constantly looming threat of hair-trigger global thermonuclear holocaust, plus – – – , plus – – – , Still, after the nightmarish horror-filled years of personal terror, mental anguish, physical torture, and utter deprivation I’d already endured prior to getting drafted (which I volunteered for), I absolutely LOVED wearing that AG-44 dress green uniform, and my M-14 rifle, with a bed to sleep in, THREE (03)hot meals EVERY day (!), AND being PAID (!) sixty-eight dollars ($68.00) each month!!! Plus, as the years rolled by, I took college courses and additional specialized military training, and if you can believe this – – – , I actually got a couple of promotions! I could not BELIEVE the United States Army gave me a MEDAL – – – , and I didn’t even do anything to get it! To tell the truth, it’s rather embarrassing, because not being a genuine hero, I don’t have a good war story to go with the medal. I studied Tae Kwon Do (but wasn’t any good at it – – – too physically uncoordinated – – – although I could actually break two by fours and cement blocks with my bare fist!), learned to strum simple chords on a guitar to accompany myself singing, visited several foreign countries – – – including the land of Israel (!), learned how to drive a car, graduated from III Corps NCO Academy (claiming the school record of having the most demerits while still able to graduate),… Read more »
WAY, WAY OFF TOPIC, BUT – – – ;
Tomorrow is TUESDAY, and Tuesday is “SOYLENT GREEN” day!
Be sure and get your ration of soylent green before the shops run out, and the food riots start, because when the cops respond to the food riots, they call in those scoop trucks.
Jim Webb (brilliant for all his faults) called the military a “Socialist Meritocracy”, which is pretty accurate.
That differentiates it from other socialist systems that have been tried. Of course, if you fail to adapt, you get the boot, which isn’t the case with the country at large-though Pol Pot tried with his socialist paradise.
Also, you don’t have a 1SG in everyday life to come and yell at you if you don’t do the right thing, oh and there’s the whole you have to be willing to give your life thing.
Anyway, yeah this guy is a doofus.
Not ever having read the “Daily Beast” (too many other great blogs to read, so do not have the time). are we sure this was not intended as satire. This sounds like something “The Duffle Bag” could use.