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The other day on Facebook, I hit “share” on  a piece from Brietbart calling for the banning of the gay pride rainbow flag. It was, I believe, a somewhat satirical piece pointing out the hypocrisy surrounding the current controversy over the Confederate battle flag now swirling about us. A long time friend of the blog soon sent me a message informing me that my “hate” and “homophobia”  had motivated him to unfriend me.  My response:

If you wish to unfriend me, that’s certainly your choice. But as to homophobia, I think perhaps some context is in order.

I live in one of the most gay friendly cities in America. It’s in fact a vacation destination that explicitly markets to gay and lesbian audiences. I’ve quite a number of gay friends, both in real life, and across social media. I’ve invited and hosted married same sex couples into my home and cheerfully broken bread with them. I’ve enjoyed interacting with you via blogs for a decade now. I would gladly invite you and your family into my home.

What annoys me (and I’m presuming you are referencing the Brietbart link about the rainbow flag) is when the political left in America stakes out a moral position, usually one not held by even a plurality of our population, and then proclaims that it is the only proper position and that even debate on the matter is hate speech, and no decent person can think or say otherwise. Gay marriage, sexual assault on campus, the position of blacks in American society and the obvious racism inherent to all whites, male privilege, and a host of other issues.

The Left here has turned from a movement dedicated to growing the rights of all to instead restricting the rights of many, to reward people for being a member of one tribe, at the expense of others. Pointing out the hypocrisy of MANDATING the celebration of the rainbow flag versus the hysterical banishment of the Confederate battle flag, is to me, a legitimate expression of protest against the political left, and not, per se, a condemnation of the LGBT population.

A mentally unwell person walked into a church, one of the few well functioning majority black communities in urban America, and was treated with kindness and grace. And he repaid that kindness and grace with murder. And what is the reaction of the left in America? A serious discussion of mental health? A discussion about all the people that had heard from his own lips his murderous intentions, and yet did nothing to forestall this tragedy? No, we’re suddenly obsessed with talking about a flag, one that had, essentially, nothing to do with the horrific murders at hand.

I am conflicted by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s call for the state legislature to debate removing the Confederate flag from its current position. In spite of my Southern heritage, I hold no particular brief for the flag. I’m not either for it, nor against it. And what South Carolina does is a matter for South Carolina. I have never lived there, and haven’t even visited in over 30 years.

But I also know that pandering to the passionate cries of the Social Justice Mob outrage du jour is never a good idea. My thinking was that Gov. Haley would have been best served to wait a week before rendering her call to the legislature.

Instead, now, we see a neo-Puritan purge of all things Confederate. Wal-Mart has pulled products, Amazon as well. Dukes of Hazzard merchandizing will be purged of the unclean flag. The reactionary Apple store has pulled every app or game featuring the image.

As you may have been already informed (Read Facebook link), Apple has removed our game from AppStore because of usage of the Confederate Flag. Ultimate General: Gettysburg could be accepted back if the flag is removed from the game’s content.

We accept Apple’s decision and understand that this is a sensitive issue for the American Nation. We wanted our game to be the most accurate, historical, playable reference of the Battle of Gettysburg. All historical commanders, unit composition and weaponry, key geographical locations to the smallest streams or farms are recreated in our game’s battlefield.

What social good has come from this? None. Instead, now people will smugly pat themselves on the back celebrating their moral purity over their peers, when in fact they are simply erasing the history, both good and bad, that has made the United States what it is. How can we celebrate the victory of the Union, and subsequent Constitutional prohibition on slavery, if we cannot even honestly discuss the Civil War itself?

The Social Justice left loves to bask in its glow of societal sophistication, when in fact, it’s merely engaging in the same prudery that led Victorians to put bloomers on piano legs.

We have serious issues facing our nation today. We’re deeper in debt than any nation in history has ever been, and the structure of our spending virtually guarantees that debt will be ever increasing. Our Supreme Court today issued a decision that in effect says that the law is not what is written, but whatever Obama says it is. We have a foreign policy that is rewarding nations that chant “Death to America” on a regular basis, but shun, mock and punish stalwart allies.

And yet here we find ourselves arguing over the most trivial matters, matters that have nothing whatsoever to do with the event that spurred our current discussion.  And it is a conversation I cannot avoid. I’m not only being told that this conversation must be had, but that I must take the only right and moral position, the position stakes by the far left.

You can pass any law that tells me what I must do or must not do. But history has shown, no matter your laws, you cannot tell me what to think.

Overnight, a Lockheed-Martin F-16C Fighting Falcon assigned to the Arizona Air National Guard’s 162nd Fighter Wing crashed during a training mission.

The incident occurred at approximately 8PM local time, with the aircraft coming down approximately five miles east of the Douglas Municipal Airport, approximately one hundred twenty miles from the 162nd’s base at Tucson International Airport.

In a news release issued shortly before midnight local time, 2LT Lacey Roberts stated the pilot’s status was “unknown” and no further information has been provided since.

via F-16 Crashes Overnight In Arizona | Fighter Sweep.

Per KVOA, the pilot was an Iraqi undergoing training. If the rescue crews haven’t found him yet, it’s not looking good.

Tanks and Bradleys getting in a little live fire training in the Baltics.

One of the authors here slipped while cleaning the shower yesterday, and pulled a muscle in his back. He’s had this injury before (one time while trying to reinstall the M242 25mm chain gun in a Bradley during BGST), and it is excruciating.

Light content, basically, for a day or two. 

FREE SPEECH

HATE SPEECH

““If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”    -JS Mill

“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”  -Justice Wm H Brennan.

Drowning doesn’t look like drowning. If you have kids and access to a pool, please be careful.

Stolen from Gruntworks.

Where they have the interesting question, EOD or ER- who you gonna call?

The Pentagon will place approximately 250 tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers throughout six countries that are close to Russia, the department announced Tuesday.

Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania, along with Germany, will have company- to battalion-sized equipment sets located inside their territory under the new plan, dubbed the European Activity Set.

via Pentagon Placing Gear in Eastern Europe.

It certainly makes more sense than sending units own equipment over to train with for 30 days and then back home.

And of course, it sends a message to both our allies and Russia. Unfortunately, that message is a quiet whisper, and not a robust pronouncement.

H/T to ijkvmi88