Aaron,

Once again you have shown that you REALLY don't understand how politics works these days. It is NEVER partisan when the Democrats attack the Republicans, ONLY when Republicans attack Democrats.

This is why Governor Palin is guilty of corruption because she questioned the employment of a man who used a taser gun on his ten year old boy, but B.H. Obama has no problems when he gets a special loan from a man who is going to prison for corruption!

Trust me, you will far less frustrated and sleep much better at night when you understand these rules!

John

PS: This is also why it was not a problem for veteran Charlie Brown to show up in uniform at a rally where a Marine was hung in effigy! Charlie is a Democrat so he can do this and still tell folks he puts patriotism ahead of partisanship and the press believes him!

OOOOOH - You militant Christian Reconstructionist, you...

THIS COMMENT HAS BEEN EDITED

John,

I don't believe you told us - why didn't you enlist when you were younger so that you could fight the Communists and show us all what a real patriot you are? You were free to do so--you didn't need to wait for a summons.

I enlisted in the Navy and then earned a commission. I was in a confrontation at sea and saw Soviet Naval Officers on the bridge of a ship that was trying to ram my submarine in shallow waters between Scotland and Ireland. This was just after the Evil Empire speech.

My job on that sub was to push the last button in the nuclear chain of command, if so ordered, which would have sent the Soviet Union back to the beginning of time. We were absolutely ready to do that at a moment's notice.

What were you doing as a youth?

Bob

Bob & Lee:

You have both asked several times why I did not enter the military. I missed the draft so I would have served voluntarily. As many millions do, I simply did not see a military career as right for me. I certainly do appreciate those who have and do serve, but I don't think that not entering the military should exclude me or others from discussion of national interest. Do you?

John

PS: I had severe bronchial asthma as a child so I may not have made the cut even if I had wanted to serve!

PSS: I did defend our troops in Vietnam when I was in school which was not popular at the time: How about you two?

John Stoos said:

Since you are posting without your name, how can we be sure that you are not a draft-dodging hippie who still has his or her "Make love not War" bumper sticker on that volkswagon van?

John
May 5, 2008 4:38 PM

John Stoos said recently that he had decided he would take a pass on serving his country. He also said that the two preceding generations of his family did serve our country as if that had some relevance. He was saved by his draft number not coming up or something like that.

No, he didn’t exactly dodge the draft, but he didn’t exactly love America enough to volunteer, either.

___________________________________________________________________

John

You say:

"I simply did not see a military career as right for me."

Well, I didn't see a military career as right for me, either. But I loved my country enough to give two years of service when JFK made the call to arms during the Berlin War Crisis of 1961.

At that time approximately 1500 persons a month were being drafted, just enough to "keep the draft machinery going". JFK's call to arms asked for an expansion from 14-16 combat divisions, and support units for rapid deployment to meet the Soviet challenge to western Europe.

I was 21. I was not in the best of physical fitness. I got the summons to report for a draft physical at the St. Louis Induction Center. At that time, one reported for the physical and then went back home to await notification months later to report for induction if one passed the physical.

I decided it was time for me to go right in, and not Mickey Mouse around with the draft physical, maybe come back later dance.

I flunked the physical by passing out minutes after a blood draw. I awakened laying flat on my back on a long sitting bench in a locker room. They were ready to send me home. I pleaded for a second chance. They put me up over night and coached me on what to have for breakfast. I passed and was sworn in right then and there.

That way I could look my son in the eye years later and say I served my country...

He got the point...

Lee,

Great story and again your service is appreciated.

BUT are you saying that ONLY those who serve in the military have served their country? How about your mother who raised a fine son to have this type of dedication to his country?

John

Lee - get a message to "Bob".

There is a rule about anon commenting - we banned someone from this blog because they used the name "Julie Doolittle".

"Bob" has used "Aaron F. Park" for his last four comments. I will have Jeff Flint ban his IP addresses if necessary.

We have given Bob a ton of latitude - including letting him swear at me, write libel and the like. Please note - my issue with "Bob" is not about that he can write FU AH all he wants.

Apparently, he thinks I am resorting to using his "name" to make anon comments - he is dead wrong. I have never blogged anonymously - you have known me in cyberspace for four years Lee. Apparently, "Bob" has never dealt with real opposition in politics.

I am asking you to help reign him in so that we do not have to ban his IP address.

As to you Lee, the standing offer still exists - you have my contact info. If there is a blog comment leveled at you that you want edited or deleted... let me know.

If you read this "Bob" consider yourself warned - cut the crap and get back to commenting under your assumed name and insulting me that way. It is the accepted medium on this blog.

--- now, back to our regularly scheduled thrashings of Liberals.

Lee,

PLEASE get through to Bob! IF we lose Bob on this it won't be nearly as much fun.

John

John

"Service to one's country" has become so dumbed down in certain circles, one POTUS hopeful said:

"The good news is that we have a volunteer Army and that's the way we're going to keep it," Romney told some 200 people gathered in an abbey near the Mississippi River that had been converted into a hotel. "My sons are all adults and they've made decisions about their careers and they've chosen not to serve in the military and active duty and I respect their decision in that regard."

He added: "One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president."

Not the Right Stuff of the Greatest Generation is it? The Right Stuff of the Greatest Generation of JFK, Goldwater, and Reagan has been squandered by the slick and the mendacious, the ones who proclaim they "had better things to do".

And so we are on an eerily similar path as...

"Under these melancholy circumstances, an inexperienced youth was appointed to save and to govern the provinces of Gaul, or rather, as he expresses it himself, to exhibit the vain image of Imperial greatness. The retired scholastic education of Julian, in which he had been more conversant with books than with arms, with the dead than with the living, left him in profound ignorance of the practical arts of war and government; and when he awkwardly repeated some military exercise which it was necessary for him to learn, he exclaimed with a sigh, 'O Plato, Plato, what a task for a philosopher!'

Let's take a look at this excerpt:

"The retired scholastic education of Julian, in which he had been more conversant with books than with arms, with the dead than with the living,.."

and time travel from then to now...

"The retired scholastic education of Tom McClintock, in which he had been more conversant with books than with arms, with the dead than with the living,.."

From Gibbons', The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Lee,

Yes, I did note that now you did not answer my questions!

Since you are into quotes, I like this one:

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."
John Adams, 2nd President of the United States
US diplomat & politician (1735 - 1826)

Aaron,

Well, if you post once with a name it sticks in the system so I accidentally used your name a couple of times after I did it the one and only time I had intended to. Normally my real name, Bob, is there. Try it as an anonymous poster and you'll see what I mean.

Good luck "banning my I.P.". I have DHCP, AKA a dynamic I.P. address. It changes every time I reboot my computer and log on.

The timing of the posts that I took exception to was way too coincidental, Aaron. You posted a few minutes before someone posted using my name and then you posted immediately after that. However, maybe it was Tommy J or one of the other anonymous posters you approve of who posted using my name. With your amazing I.P. address scanner you should be able to tell, no?

Get off the anon commenter kick. I have been posting here for months and you know darn well I am a legitimate person who simply needs to keep my name out of this for reasons I have explained. I have nevertheless posted extensive biographical information. It's entirely your choice as to whether you choose to believe me or not.

On the "swearing" charge let's look at the facts. You had just called me an "anon coward"--not the first time you had done this. I replied with two two letter acronyms. They aren't typically used as substitutes for swear words. You can choose to read into them whatever you want.

If I did give you my name you would be able to confirm a couple of things via the "internets" (it's a series of tubes) from what I have said here online. I once wrote a story about my Navy Reserve unit I submitted to Navy News following an exercise in Korea that used to come up when you Googled my name but it looks like the page is gone now; the article was written in 1996. You'd find a copy of an LTE I wrote that someone posted on a blog--it was critical of Doolittle and entirely consistent with what I have posted here. That's it, at least through Google. If you look me up in the phone book you'd find we have a public listing and live outside Auburn which is what I have said here.

I don't work for any political campaign.

I have a somewhat unusual last name so that's why I choose not to post using it. There aren't very many people with my first-last name combination.

Bob

John,

Nice rationalization post as to why you did not serve in the military.

Lee and I have a point with this: You keep bringing up things like the fake effigy issue (got any proof besides Pearcy, John?) and attack a man who served his country for twenty-six years, whose wife served her country and whose son is serving his country but you didn't serve your country. Our point is that you need to knock it off because you have no basis for making any charges about service. You have no idea what it means.

You chose to sit out military service. You say you had or have asthma that would have prevented you from serving. Did you try? How do you know?

When I had my induction physical the doc wrote "peds planus" on my form. I had studied Latin and knew that meant "flat feet". I don't have an arch to speak of. I thought that would do me in but they allowed me to stay and I was sworn in a little later in the day. A few years later, during an unbelievably challenging physical I took to qualify for flight school, a slight heart murmor showed up on my EKG. I had to do another EKG running fast uphill on a treadmill for fifteen minutes. The murmur was acceptable and I was allowed in (I later DORd from flight training and went into the submarine service).

So your asthma may not have prevented you from serving your country. You don't really know. No, it was a choice. You chose not to serve as millions of others do in this all-volunteer world. I have no problem with that. But I do have a problem with your posts about Charlie Brown. Walk in his shoes and then make your posts about his service.

This is one of the reasons I have such disdain for Aaron. He got kicked out of the Navy yet feels he is qualified to post extensively on another man's service. That's rubbish.

And, by the way, BOTH my parents served in both WWII and Korea. My wife is a Navy vet. My uncle died on a submarine in WWII when a Japanese bomber dropped a bomb on his sub in the South China Sea. Another uncle went through the Battle of the Bulge, the Battle of the Huertgen Forest, and Frozen Chosin. Look those up if you need to. Three of the worst battles in U.S. history. Most of my aunts served in the military; one was a Marine Lieutenant Colonel. My cousin did his year in Vietnam and thankfully came home.

I was in grade school and junior high when Vietnam was at its peak and though I took an interest in the news I was just a bystander. I remember the maps in the paper every day, though, and my parents arguing about the war a lot. My mom was a Dem and my dad was a Rep. Something about Vietnam made me want to serve my country as soon as I was old enough, though. I entered in 1977 when--believe me--military service was VERY unpopular. My friends were stunned. I didn't care.

Bob

"Bob" wrote: "This is one of the reasons I have such disdain for Aaron. He got kicked out of the Navy yet feels he is qualified to post extensively on another man's service. That's rubbish."

Actually, "Bob", it's not rubbish... why? I have been honest about my own service. Charlie Brown has NOT been honest about his and is also trying to hide his Anti-War activism.

BIG DIFFERENCE IN INTEGRITY... HUGE.

You wrote: "Lee and I have a point with this: You keep bringing up things like the fake effigy issue (got any proof besides Pearcy, John?)"

"Bob" so is the Brown Campaign going on record with a denial of the effigy issue?

Bob,

So using your logic, you and Lee have to stop commenting about the per diem issue until you choose to become legislators!

So what kind of proof would you like? Have you asked Charlie if he attending that disgraceful event and if he did what he was wearing?

John

Aaron,

You wouldn't know "honest" if it hit you in the head with a brick.

People don't care about your fake charges. Take a chill pill. Despite the fact that the "news" about this broke in the week before the election in 2006 in his first political race ever Brown still came within three points of knocking off a nine-term Republican incumbent in the most conservative congressional district in the state.

Bob

I'm a veteran and you all owe me big. If you don't serve you're a coward. I'm sick of policemen and firemen acting all heroic, thinking they're the big men on the block. I could whip them all. Veterans are the biggest heros! I don't care if I only served in front of a type-writer, I wore the uniform! All of you peons need to have higher taxes to pay for my early retirement, my kids college, health insurance, birthday presents, braces, cable television, and regular vacations. Oh, and even though we veterans are the toughest guys around and can clean your clocks, you need to pay extra taxes because the stress of wearing uniforms with confusing color arrangments messes with our minds.

Bob,

So what "news" broke: Charlie telling the truth about what happened at that event? Tell me more!

John

Away with you Bob! Be put in a cauldron of lead and usurer's grease, among a whole million of cutpurses, and there boil like a gammon of bacon that will never be enough.

Bob said:
Aaron,
You wouldn't know "honest" if it hit you in the head with a brick.

People don't care about your fake charges. Take a chill pill. Despite the fact that the "news" about this broke in the week before the election in 2006 in his first political race ever Brown still came within three points of knocking off a nine-term Republican incumbent in the most conservative congressional district in the state.
Bob
September 6, 2008 9:11 PM

First off Bob - your identity and cover story are lies. Please don't lecture me about honesty. The news broke a week before the election because that's when Charlie's former friends were holding an anti-war rally - that is until Mrs. Brown called the Pearcy's et. al. and tried to back them off.

Nice ethics, eh? S-can friends to win an election. The problem is that Charlie is taking money from a communist and a crooked state senator - I should say took... as the fundraiser was today.

Charlie owes the voters of the 4th CD an apology and he really owes John Doolittle an apology if he took a dime from the Democrat's Abramoff... Don Perata.

Shame on you "Bob" Shame on Charlie Brown - standing with a stuffed Marine Hung in effigy and now taking dirty money from Don Perata and a Communist. What a fraud Charlie Brown is... at least I was an honest screw-up in the Navy... Good Lord!

John and Aaron,

Nice post, John. Like your logic makes any sense. You're trying another of the verbal ploys Lee has warned me about.

Why didn't you enlist, John? You could have tried despite the asthma. I had allergies so bad as a kid I had to get shots twice a week. The standards were pretty low in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Odds are you could have got in.

Maybe you were you "too busy with other priorities" like Cheney? As Lee said you could have signed up to be a chaplain if you have a college degree from a recognized program in theology. My mother's uncle, an Irishman, was a chaplain in the British Army. He served at Gallipoli in WWI. Look that one up, too. One of the worst battles of a war known for it's horrible battles. Service in the Medical Corps was another option for you. My mother told me a story of when she said her rosary, crying with her fellow nurses from the rail of a hospital ship in WWII watching landing craft carry Marines toward Saipan.

Aaron and John, had either of you retired from the military as Brown and I did you would be aware that active duty, reserve and retired military personnel are strictly prohibited from wearing their military uniform at political events. I'm sure Lee was aware of that reg, too. Here is the applicable USAF instruction (it is 16.9 Mb): http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/shared/media/epubs/AFI36-2903_21SWSUP_I.pdf

The rule prohibiting retirees from wearing their uniform to political events isn't something you had to dig around to know, though. We were all trained on the wearing of the uniform. The rules are common knowledge in all services.

I should note that Republicans have made an issue of this before with no joy. Also in the 2006 election, a retired Navy officer, Joe Sestak, was running as a Democrat against Republican Curt Weldon. Sestak appeared at a 2006 Memorial Day event in uniform and addressed the crowd. He was invited to attend as the senior retired military officer in the area (he was an admiral). His photo appeared in the paper with a caption saying he was speaking at the Memorial Day event and was challenging Weldon for Congress. The photo was taken by the newspaper and the caption was written by the newspaper.

Sestak was authorized to wear his uniform to such an event and by all accounts I can find, his speech was about Memorial Day and included nothing about his campaign or the race for Congress. Yet Republicans seized on the photo as "proof" that Sestak had worn his uniform for political purposes in violation of uniform regulations which are still in effect for retirees. Blogs were filled with accusations of the sort flying around here.

Sestak beat ten-term Congressman Weldon 57-43. Just before the election it was revealed that Weldon's staff had peppered the Navy and the Pentagon with inquiries into Sestak's military record. Navy officials were prohibited from complying with these requests.

Back to Brown. The last thing Charlie Brown would have wanted in 2006 or anytime after he announced his candidacy for office was for a photo of him in uniform at a political event to get published in the paper or on the internet. He knows the rules as well as anyone else (and much better than either of you) and knows that such a photo would do in his campaign.

That's why this story stinks to high heaven. All it was is an attempt by an anti-war activisit lawyer to get back at Brown because Brown refused to get involved with his ridiculous activities.

So keep it up, boys. If history is any guide you are helping Brown with your nonsensical accusations.

And if you have more on this as you have implied, why don't you post it, Aaron? You could save McClintock a bundle in campaign spending. Get it out there now!

Bob

"Bob" - you dodged the following:

First off Bob - your identity and cover story are lies. Please don't lecture me about honesty. The news broke a week before the election because that's when Charlie's former friends were holding an anti-war rally - that is until Mrs. Brown called the Pearcy's et. al. and tried to back them off.

Nice ethics, eh? S-can friends to win an election. The problem is that Charlie is taking money from a communist and a crooked state senator - I should say took... as the fundraiser was today.

Charlie owes the voters of the 4th CD an apology and he really owes John Doolittle an apology if he took a dime from the Democrat's Abramoff... Don Perata.

Shame on you "Bob" Shame on Charlie Brown - standing with a stuffed Marine Hung in effigy and now taking dirty money from Don Perata and a Communist. What a fraud Charlie Brown is... at least I was an honest screw-up in the Navy... Good Lord!

Bob,

Your post rambled, but I will address two points buried in there:

I did not enlist because I was going to college and then began a career with Longs and started a family. Again I ask, do you and Lee feel that this disqualifies me from commenting?

As to Charlie: You seem to speak for him without speaking for him: You assure us that he KNOWS the rules about where to wear that uniform, but you don't tell us whether he obeyed those rules.

So I will ask again: Did Charlie attend the event where a Marine was hung in effigy and if he did was he wearing his uniform?

If you really don't know the answer, then ask Charlie!

John

The Wood Shed Behind the Little House on the Prairie

leereed79@hotmail.com

Bob, that's where you and I are going to have a meet-up.

You keep visiting to that place on the uber right side of DumDum Ville. There are lots of snares of the Fowler set up there. They are very primitive in construction, but you keep....well we will be talking about that.

This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, but it is for your own good...

Hoosier Daddy...

Semper Fi

On Friday morning I got up and looked at a piece of paper I had shoved in my pocket from the afternoon before. Care packages to 3 Marine companies... deployed in defense of Aaron Park and John Stoos and assorted sock puppets' 1st Amendment Right to trash Charlie Brown with primitively crafted stuff from Feliz. (is this a great country or what!?!?)

You know, that's what Marines do, defend draft dodgers, shirkers, and BCD/DD DD214 holders.

So I got a strong stab of that OLD SCHOOL AMERICAN VALUES...

DUTY, HONOR, COUNTRY

and considered it my duty to help with the cause of defending Park, Stoos, Feliz's Rat's (that's southern for Rights)

So I called the Marine Sergeant who is heading up this project around 8ish. I explained to the Marine Sergeant that I wanted to buy $400 worth of stuff to put in those Care Packages. I went on to explain that I wanted help in doing that. I wanted someone to go with me who knew what would be most important, preferably from someone who had been there, done that, i.e. having served over in the Big Sand Box and Afghanistan.

Being a Marine who doesn't shirk his duty, he immediately said he would help me personally. We met up and tooled on out to Wally World in his truck. I said, "Let me see if I can talk ourselves into Sam's Club without a card" (let alone the one that gets one in early). We walked in and showed them what we were up to and they being the Patriots that they are( give it up for Sam's Club ),
they arranged a "temporary number" and a assigned person to help us).

The Marine Sergeant grabbed a long based dolly and off we went. He was quite careful in the stuff he picked and needed repeated encouragement from me to really get into it. His pace picked up a bit, but still he was quite concerned about spending OPM. He would stop and take out his cell phone and put it on calculator mode and get a running total.

I had to prompt him to get 3 copies each of the 2 movie dvds so that each Marine Company could have one.

We got bunches of socks, Q-tips (to clean out ears and clean rifles), deodorant, fitness mags, paperback novels to pass around, tooth paste, energy bars, coffee, decks of playing cards to play "spades" ( no ACBL sanctioned duplicate bridge games that could get interrupted in a heartbeat), sudoku and cross word puzzle books, and more....

The Marine Sergeant and I got to the check out line. There was this guy ahead who had a whole lot to check out so we had to wait. While we were waiting, the Marine Sergeant told me about how he and his fellow Marines whiled away their down time on shipboard.

They would practice hand-to-hand combat on each other, and things like "choke holds". After several days of that, the ship Doc came down and put his foot down on their down time activities. He was getting sick and tired of having to patch them up. He didn't have the foresight to see that these Marines were simply getting ready to defend Park, Stoos, Feliz and other assorted shirkers, draft dodgers, miilitary service bomb outs and such that cover McClintock's back.

The Bill, $457.00 well spent. I will keep that bill. It was one the finest hours I have ever spent in my life.

But it didn't stop there. The Marine Sergeant and I tooled back to the putting the Care Packages together place. I got the light boxes. When I approached the putting the Care Packages together place, I heard an unbelievable human social buzz upstairs. I carried the 1st box upstairs and it was elbow-to-elbow and hip-to-hip with folks. And tables piled to over-flowing. And this was a very large place. We are talking a couple of hundred people or so, cutting across all generations.

I bowed out at that time. I passed on the helping of the Marines who defend the Rats (southern for Rights) of Park, Stoos, Hector,Feliz, and assorted sock puppet military service shirkers, draft dodgers, bad military DD214's to issue primitive slurs on those who serve this country honorably and well...

These shirkers, draft dodgers, bad military DD214's guys wouldn't know

DUTY HONOR COUNTRY

if it hit them up besides their head...

But this Marine Sergeant with whom I was privileged to spend an hour with...Knows the meaning of...

Semper Fi

Aaron and John,

An "honest screw up in the Navy".

I've seen plenty of them. They were the guys in X-barracks awaiting NJP or trial for the more modest court martial offenses. The really bad guys were in the brig awaiting trial or serving their time.

At one time when I was enlisted I was waiting for my ship to come into port and spent two weeks in a petty officer's barracks in Yokosaka, Japan. One of the guys there was part of a team that would visit American servicemen in Japanese jails. This was 1980. He told me about visiting guys who had been locked up since the Korean War for serious crimes like rape and murder. He said there were lots of Vietnam-era guys. See, our SOFA with Japan allowed Japan to jail U.S. military members who committed crimes against Japanese citizens. Honest screw ups could spend a decade or more in a place where virtually no one spoke English thinking about what they had done.

Here's a quote from an article about the treatment of a Marine who landed in a Japanese jail after being convicted of a serious crime:

Quote
CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa -- When Rodrico Harp was sentenced to seven years at hard labor for his part in the infamous abduction and rape of an Okinawa schoolgirl in 1995, he never thought he'd be assembling cell phones or making auto parts. That's what he claims "hard labor" meant at Kurihama, the Japanese prison near Yokosuka where most American servicemen convicted in Japanese courts wind up.

"I made parts for Mazdas and Nissans," Harp said during a telephone interview from his home in Griffin, Ga. "You had no choice. If you refused to work, they put you in what we called a chill box, a little cell with nothing in it, and they forced you to sit rigidly all day at a desk until it was time to eat and sleep.

"Sometimes, if they thought you were too rowdy or misbehaving or just not doing what they wanted you to do, they'd put you in a straitjacket in a padded room."
Unquote

A couple of years later I spent a month working in the legal office at Naval Aviation Schools Command as a freshly-minted Ensign awaiting transfer. There was one case in particular that I remember vividly. An "honest screw up in the Navy" was trying to get discharged by acting crazy. He would wander the halls and sidewalks staring up in the air mumbling. The psych docs couldn't find anything wrong with him. He had been to Captain's Mast a couple of times and was busted down to E-1 and didn't have much pay left after getting docked.

The guy I worked for was the base legal officer, a burly A-7 pilot trapped behind a desk for a tour (this position did not require a lawyer). He was getting sick of this "honest screw up in the Navy". Finally he was able to catch him telling his friends about how he was just doing an act to try to get out. His "friends" all agreed to testify at his SCM. He got what he wanted, apparently--a piece of paper that said Bad Conduct Discharge--AKA Big Chicken Dinner (that's how they had us remember it in boot camp training). At least it wasn't a Duck Dinner.

Time came for this guy to leave the Navy. In those days the Navy was required to take you to the base gate and give you $50 for transportation upon separation for less than honorable reasons. My boss took the guy to the back gate of Pensacola NAS which is maybe ten miles from nowhere. Before letting him go he made him turn over the flight boots he was wearing because they were "organizational clothing" meaning they were issued by the organization and subject to turn in on transfer or separation so that they could be used by someone else. So the "honest screw up in the Navy" walked out the gate in his socks, seabag on his shoulder and a Big Chicken Dinner and $50 tucked in his pocket.

My point with these stories? Honest screw ups in the service were a net drain on the military effectiveness of the United States. Time and resources went into the "care and feeding" of these people instead of them being a productive part of their organization. The service would have been much better off had they never enlisted at all.

So thanks, John. At least you didn't become an honest screw up in the Navy and settled for that wonderful career at Longs instead.

Too bad neither of you learned about real morality in your separate journeys--morality that isn't defined by political boundaries.

Bob

Her's a summary of the types of military discharges:

Honorable Discharge
To receive an honorable discharge, you must have received a rating from good to excellent for your service to the Navy. Even though you only qualify for a general discharge, you may receive an honorable discharge under two circumstances. 1. When you are being separated because of a disability incurred in the line of duty 2. When you receive any awards for gallantry in action, heroism, or other meritorious service

General Discharge
You receive a general discharge when you separate from the service, under honorable conditions, without a sufficiently meritorious military record to deserve an honorable discharge.

Other Than Honorable Discharge
You receive an other than honorable discharge for misconduct or security reasons.

Bad Conduct Discharge
You receive a bad conduct discharge (BCD) when you separate from the service under conditions other than honorable. You receive a bad conduct discharge only by an approved sentence of a general or a special court-martial.

Dishonorable Discharge
You receive a dishonorable discharge (DD) when you separate from the service under dishonorable conditions. You may receive a dishonorable discharge only by a general court-martial and as appropriate for serious offenses calling for dishonorable separation as part of the punishment.

Bob,

I guess you have made my case about the dangers of abandoning the principles upon which our country was founded: Morality is found in God's Word and is proclaimed through his church. IF you and Lee think that morality comes from serving in the military then you are truly the dangerous men.

John

John

You say:

Bob,

I guess you have made my case about the dangers of abandoning the principles upon which our country was founded: Morality is found in God's Word and is proclaimed through his church. IF you and Lee think that morality comes from serving in the military then you are truly the dangerous men.

John
September 7, 2008 9:00 AM

.Ummmm…

Well

Those uber rightists known as the Freepers got wind of you, John, back in 2003. Someone spilled the beans on you, and the Freepers picked up on this.
You scared the Devil out of them, and generally speaking they don’t freak out very easily.

It was your brand of Morality and the Means by which you intended to impose this morality that freaked them out. This is what got the Freepers attention. http://articles.latimes.com/2003/sep/30/local/me-stoos30

McClintock Advisor Looks to Bible as Basis for Law
By Scott Glover
September 30, 2003 in print edition A-23
John Stoos, a key advisor in the gubernatorial campaign of Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock, has a dream:

“I dream of the day when a strong Christian majority is elected to a city council somewhere in America. This council could then pass a resolution declaring that abortion is now illegal in their city,” Stoos wrote this year in a conservative religious journal.

“Of course, the city attorney would quickly tell them that they cannot do this, at which point he should be fired and a good pro-life attorney should be hired to replace him,” he continued. “Next up would be the police chief, who would likely say he could not enforce such a law. Again, the council should accept his letter of resignation and hire someone who would.”
(…)
In an essay published in the Chalcedon Report in the summer of 2002, Stoos wrote: “Before you commit your time and talent to particular candidates, you should ask them some basic questions.” Among the questions is whether the candidate “understand[s] the biblical principles upon which our nation was founded,” and whether he or she subscribes to “serious magazines or journals like the Chalcedon Report.”*
(…)
Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law professor at USC, defended Stoos’ right to express such opinions, but found his views troubling in someone with influence in state government.

“He encourages the open disobedience of the U.S. Constitution,” Chemerinsky said. “It’s the equivalent of the Southern governors who said they wouldn’t enforce school desegregation and would fire anyone in government who tried to carry out the Supreme Court’s mandate.”

My wife and I have been asked by a Roseville City Council member who is running for reelection to meet with him on Tuesday for a photo shoot. He is a Republican and held an analogous position that you held with McClintock with a Republican Assemblyman. I won’t ask him what you suggest I ask him.

He would think I lost my mind…

BTW…He is a current member of Bayside and past Senior Warden at a local Episcopal church. He and his family are Christian through and through…His daughter who just graduated High School is going to William Jessup University…

Lee,

What you need to do is expand your mind a bit: Read some of the great thinkers whose ideas gave us the freedoms and liberties that our soldiers fight and die to protect. Men like Augustine, Luther or Bonhoeffer in theology and then Patrick Henry, Mr. Adams and Mr. Blackstone on government and then you would discover that my views are pretty mainstream in American history and most of the founders would be shocked by the views held today. Even the deists Jefferson and Franklin would think I was pretty moderate!

You, the reporter at the Los Angeles Times, and the professors they quote are upset that I would suggest a local government defend innocent human life. I am happy to rethink my position if someone shows me that the Declaration of Independance does NOT say God gives us the right to life which government is to protect or shows me where in the US Constitution they have established a right to abortion.

Unless you can do that then it is not those racist governors who stood behind states rights to defend the indefensible that I am in league with, but rather I stand with President Lincoln and the abolitionists who were willing to say the Supreme Court was wrong in the Dred Scott decison and were willing to fight for a change in the US Constitution so there would be no more confusion about blacks being fully human and fully citizens!

So which side would you have been on in that battle to "disobey the Constitution" as the professor puts it?

Actually, this goes right to the point I was making about morality: If it is not grounded in the Scriptures then it is grounded in man's wisdom and that very quickly leads to "might makes right" which we have seen some pretty ugly examples of in the past couple of hundred years. Remember, ALL the Germans who stood trial after the Holocaust used as their major defense the fact that they had not done ANYTHING that was "illegal."

Hope this helps and it can bring you that much closer to a vote for Senator McClintock!

John

Nice that you all can take personal shots at each other all weekend. But please- there are some serious allegations here. Brown having fundraisers with someone under 4 federal investigations and a former Communist party member? Then having Clinton Hack Westly Clark take a swipe at Gov. Palin while campaigning for Brown. Brown in attendance at an anti-war rally in uniform.

Where is the Press?

Where is the Brown Campaign? The silence is deafening. At some point refusal to answer becomes an answer doesn't it?

Bob, Lee- you seem to know what the Brown Team is up too! What is the TRUTH? Did he have these fundraisers, did he attend the Rally?

Freedom Under The Fear of God
________________________________________
John E. Stoos
The Chalcedon Report, June/July 2003
"He who rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God." (2 Samuel 23:3b)
There is a simple choice that any group of people must make when organizing the civil government that will rule over them. On the one hand, they can pledge, as the Pilgrims did on the Mayflower to "solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another, Covenant and Combine ourselves together into a Civil Body Politic…" This choice continued years later, when Americans made the same choice by breaking with Mother England. The colonists upheld the principle of "ruling in the fear of God" in the Declaration of Independence with those famous words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" [or "property" as in the early drafts].
Or, on the other hand, a group of people can choose to go the way of the French who presented their "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" shortly after our own Declaration of Independence. Not wanting to be under the shackles of religion, and in their pride and rebellion wanting nothing to do with "ruling in the fear of God," the French revolutionaries simply declared that all men are born equal. Americans held to a "firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence," but the French stated, "[T]he principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation."1 The French Declaration talked a lot about "protecting" the rights of individuals, but it was all subject to the laws of the sovereign state. It was not long thereafter that hundreds of thousands of French citizens lost their heads on the guillotines after their "right to life" was deemed expendable by a "committee" of their fellow citizens all done under the laws of the sovereign nation, of course!
Two Choices
Now this may sound simplistic, but these are the only two choices. Either people understand that basic rights come from God and choose to live in a proper fear of God by acknowledging His sovereignty, or people reject God and look to the wisdom and understanding of man to establish what is right and wrong. There are no other choices. The former has been practiced by many countries in Europe and the West, and most consistently, albeit not perfectly, here in the United States. It has resulted in the greatest expansion of freedoms and liberties in the history of mankind. The latter brought forth the French Revolution, the horrors of Marxist Communism in the twentieth century, and, of course, the ultimate humanist experiment of Nazism attempting to create the super race that would rule the world for a thousand years.
Sadly, today few Christians truly understand this choice and certainly few consider the implications. It should truly grieve us to see how much has been forgotten about the impact of the gospel of Christ as it sets people free, not only from their individual sin but in the general affairs of men as well. M. Stanton Evans has done a masterful job of reviewing this part of Christian history in his book, The Theme is Freedom. This work should become required reading in all Christian homes and schools. Mr. Evans shows in great detail that only if a people embrace the Biblical principle of "ruling in the fear of God" can any government find "a proper balance between the requirements of liberty and those of order."2 Only living under God's law enables societies to find a way to give the civil government enough power to keep order, but not so much to endanger their freedom. Mr. Evans puts it this way:
That biblical teaching was the formative influence in the creation of Europe, and that Europe was the nursery of freedom as we know it, are both established facts of record… [T]his correlation of Christianity with the rise of freedom is anything but accidental. In fact, the precepts of our religion provide the conceptual building blocks for the free societies of the West — including the very idea of liberty as we know it, limits on the power of the state, and the institutions that gave these practical expression.3
Our modern educators and experts often equate "ruling in the fear of God" with the Taliban or other extremists. In fact, Democrat Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Ohio put it this way: "One could say that Osama bin Laden and these non-nation-state fighters with religious purpose are very similar to those kind of atypical revolutionaries that helped to cast off the British crown."4 You see in the minds of the modern liberal, religion is the problem and to them all religions are equal.
Freedom and the Truth
All religions are not equal, and only Christianity reveals the truth about God's nature, creation, man's fall, and the great salvation available through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. The freedoms and liberties that Americans have enjoyed are the product of this faith, and if we fail to understand the foundations upon which they are built, the United States will lose them in very short order. Ms. Kaptur and the other skeptics view Christianity as oppressive. However, they should be asked to explain why the very freedoms and liberties they say they cherish have only existed and flourished where the gospel has been preached and the Bible has been respected and obeyed. The reality is that the concepts of personal freedom and limited government are uniquely Biblical, and any discussion of these concepts by the moderns is simply borrowing from solid Christian foundations.
For more than five years on my radio show this topic was debated, and I usually asked liberals to give me just one example of people enjoying freedom and liberty anywhere in the world today, or in history, that was not based on the Biblical teaching of personal liberty and limited government. The best they could do was to try and make our nation secular in its origins with a little revisionist history and then claim our own Constitution as their example. Just ask the Blacks of the 18th and 19th centuries or the unborn children of today how well the Constitution protects life and liberty if the foundations of the Declaration of Independence are not consistently followed by those in power.
The advance of freedom has come at great cost down through the centuries, from the early Christian persecution and Church Councils to our own American War for Independence. We are at risk today of forgetting not only these struggles and sacrifices, but of forfeiting the very foundations themselves as Americans enjoy the safety and affluence that these freedoms and liberties have brought to us.
So, the next time someone objects to having "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance or "In God We Trust" on our federal reserve notes, ask him when it last was that he sat down and carefully read the Declaration of Independence. If he finds the language of the Declaration objectionable or dismisses it as irrelevant for our modern world, then ask him to explain to you what he would replace the principles of that great document with. If you discuss it with him, perhaps you can help him understand the wisdom of choosing to live under the fear of God in freedom and liberty. You might also explain to him that the alternative is certainly living under the fear of man, with the eventual tyranny and death which naturally flow from that choice, as demonstrated by so much of the 20th century.
Notes
1. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen; approved by the National Assembly of France, August 26, 1789.
2. M. Stanton Evans, The Theme is Freedom. (Regnery Publishing, 1994), 25.
3. ibid., 29.
4. Quoted in the Toledo Blade, March 2003.
________________________________________
John E. Stoos is a political consultant living in Sacramento, California, with his wife Linda. They have six children and sixteen grandchildren.

This article is on-line at: http://www.chalcedon.edu/report/2003junjul/stoos.shtml

Based on the Chalcedon article above one can see just what John Stoos believes. If we look closer we can also see how dangerous his ideas about government are.

Let's examine a few of John's ideas for American government and their implications...

1. John thinks the Constitution is flawed because it doesn't define the origin of its power. John argues that the origin of the Constitution's authority is the Creator and he relies on the Declaration of Indpendence as proof since "God" or "Creator" or any other reference to deity is not mentioned in the Constitution. However, the Declaration of Independence is only a historical document; it has no force of law in the United States today.

So John believes that the Constitution--as interpreted by the Supreme Court for 205 years--is not the source of law in the United States and that we should look instead to the Declaration, at least in terms of the role of religion in defining the laws of the land.

It sounds like John needs to propose a constitutional amendment so that the Preamble reads something like this: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union under our Christian God and in service to Him, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

That would resolve the whole question of the origin of authority for the U.S. Constitution.

2. John says no one has been able to give him "one example of people enjoying freedom and liberty anywhere in the world today, or in history, that was not based on the Biblical teaching of personal liberty and limited government". He believes Christianity is the only source for the concepts of freedom described in the Declaration and the principles of government enshrined in the Constitution.

John misunderstands cause and effect. Christianity has evolved significantly over 2,000 years. One could legitimately argue that the evolution of Christianity was an effect of the evolution of the thinking of man regarding personal freedom and government and not the other way around. Democratic principles date back 2,500 years to ancient Athens, well before Christianity. Under the influence of the Church, Europe descended into the Dark Ages for hundreds of years. History is replete with examples where organized Christianity held back progress on political freedom; the Mayflower was an example of people seeking freedom from the yoke of the Church of England.

On this point I don't think John has made a case at all.

3. John wants U.S. law to be defined through the lens of the Christian faith.

John will probably argue that historical Christian leaders who sought power and oppressed freedoms were not living Christ's teachings (as we understand them from the New Testament) and I would agree. But John would have us live under God's law--now this is important--AS DEFINED BY CHRISTIANS. He doesn't say which branch of Christianity gets to do the defining. This will bring us back to the way governments looked in Europe in the 18th century.

I ask you: Where will people flee to if (when) John's new government slowly restricts freedoms until we are living in a Church-state similar to European governments of the 18th century before the French Revolution? John doesn't tell us how his form of government will control the definition of "God's Law". That's the fundamental flaw in his argument that not only is the U.S. government based on a belief in God, it is based on a belief in the Christian God and this belief structure should be used to define law. That opens our government structure to abuse.

You may agree with the immediate practical results of John's form of government. Abortions would be outlawed. Stem cell research would be stopped. Homosexual unions of any kind would not be permitted. Pornography would be illegal. And so forth.

But you have to ask yourself: Where will this end? God isn't here to define his law for us himself so that means man must do it. Which men, and what prevents them from acting human and using their power for the wrong purpose? The answer: Nothing. That's the basic fallacy of John's odd model of American government.

And it's a reason why you should think very hard before voting for Tom McClintock because John was once Tom's principle political advisor.

Bob

Charlie says his campaign is patriotism before partisanship, people before partisanship, your dog before partisanship, pass the state budget with tax increases before partisanship and don't question my service record before partisanship...

Bahahahahahaha!

I agree though, Aaron. As I drove past this stupid rally, I could see many people holding up signs that said "Elect Democrats", "Vote Democrat" and that sort of stuff. Brown is as Partisan as his friend Wesley Clark. But we could have guessed this. Brown also claims to be Conservative, when in fact he's very liberal. He claims to support the troops, but then rallies with Cindy Sheehan. He claims not to support gay marriage, but won't take a stance on Prop 8 and then goes down to Socal to campaign with Brad Sherman. A flip-flopping two faced liar is what he is. And this was just a political stunt aimed to gain votes by passing himself off as someone who cares about the troops.

McClintock's campaign manager said in an article in the Auburn Journal about the veteran's rally that McClintock is a strong supporter of veterans.

He didn't offer any examples. The legislative record show that, in fact, McClintock has voted against bills for California veterans.

Why doesn't McClintock have a guy like the former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces Europe campaigning for him? Maybe he isn't really the guy veterans want in Congress.

Bob,

I am going to trust the readers of this blog: If they read my article and your "analysis" they can clearly see that you did nothing but attack straw men that we not in my article.

My thanks to Lee for posting the complete article, and even though it was written many years ago I don't think I would change a word!

John

PS: Bob, I really would recommend that you read M. Stanton Evans' book! It will give you a much better picture of history than whatever propaganda you have been reading of late.

PPS: OK, I can't resist at least one comment: I hope the readers did note that Bob, along with every other liberal I have ever asked, did not cite another example of where freedom and liberty have flourished.

John,

Perhaps the readers of this blog are actually waiting for an explanation from you. What DID you mean in the article you wrote and Lee posted that you stand by today? What was the point of the article if not to lay out your ideas for American government and make a case for them? How do my "straw men" (your words) differ--specifically--from the ideas you propounded in the article?

Is "specific" uncomfortable for you? If not you should have no problem answering these questions. If you evade them...folks will wonder why. They're not trick questions.

And you still misunderstand cause and effect.

Bob

Bob,

Again, most of the readers here know English pretty well, so they can compare my article with your straw men on their own.

BUT, I will humor you and give just one example: In fact it is your very first line: "John thinks the Constitution is flawed because it doesn't define the origin of its power." Please show me where I said that in the article.

After stating this false premise you then level several attacks that are simply not true: Thus I properly refer to your "points" as straw men, because that is just what they are!

Anyone who wants to know what I believe can read the article.

John

Thanks for your evasion. I fugured you would avoid specifics at all costs. You really don't want anybody to know what your long-term goals are; you would lose people in droves.

Bob,

No secrets here: You can read the Book that I following including the last chapter that explains clearly where things are going.

You can also read most everything that I have written and listen to all most sermons at our public website: www.COTKS.org

So why don't you either admit that you used straw men to cloud my writing or explain where it is that I want to go that causes you concern.

John