Thoughts at large

[Lorax]

I want to know if Dick Cheney's heart is in Davy Jones' locker.

[rb336]

I want to know if Dick Cheney's heart is in Davy Jones' locker.

i always though he was more of a micky dolenz type [[sorry, mick)

[Omaha]

Quite clever rb336.

But I am particularly fond of “an army of one� and “be all you can be.� Both focus on the importance of the individual. The first is of course ridiculous. Army’s are groups of individuals organized in a bureaucratic command and control system. The armed forces are a collective and it reflects collective values: we're all in this together; we are looking out for one another; we stand together; we can do collectively what we can't do individually.

Thanks goodness they stop short of "be thy brother's keeper." The armed forces almost sounds socialistic!

Just like there is no “I� in TEAM, there is no room for disobeyers of orders [[individualism) in a fighting force [[My Lai, Abu Ghraib, et. al., being understandable exceptions).

So what’s needed to entice enlistment…is to turn a government run organization that is collective in its very essence into “an army of one� or a place where you as an individual can “be all that you can be.� That my friends is a BRILLIANT use of spinning to both deny the obvious and glorify the individual.

Let’s just remember that E Pluribus Unum [[out of many, one) really means that you are on you own in this dog-eat-dog society where any hint that a collective approach can actually go some good must be smashed into nothingness. In a conservative worldview this is a pull yourself up by your bootstraps, it’s all about me, pull the ladder up after you kind of competition where only the strong survive…like Gordon Gekko. He’s still alive and well all these years later.

Boy it’s great to have this kind of insight. Thank goodness for all the Colbert Conservatives and Social Darwinists out there. We see and explain the world as it really is.