Galt's Gulch

Love My Rifle More Than You

Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 4 months ago to Books
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Toward the end of her deployment, she discovered Atlas Shrugged, and it resonated with her. Focused and detailed, she often ran headlong into brazen incompetence.
SOURCE URL: http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2015/08/love-my-rifle-more-than-you.html

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  • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 4 months ago
    "Much of the narrative is about the unrelenting sexual harassment. In small words and grotesque actions, the female soldier is barraged every hour of every day. "

    Any female that willingly enters a world of men, especially men having to control and work against their education of no violence by their parents, teachers, and society; and then complain about the way men act and react in those situations, is far from Objectivism. Would one of those men feel comfortable at a baby shower or at afternoon tea? Where did she think she was going and who did she think she would be surrounded by--the same wussified men in our screwed up PC society?
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      Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 4 months ago
      In Atlas Shrugged, only Lilian Rearden speaks an allusive slur about Dagny's relationship with every track walker. Of course, when Hank Rearden is blackmailed by the State Science Institute, it is Dagny's reputation that he seeks to protect. In the movie, the reference is somewhat modernized. However, in our day and age, it totally fails. No one cares who Marissa Mayer or Carly Fiorina sleeps with. We have come past that, in large part explicitly because of Ayn Rand's portrayal of Dagny Taggart - a woman in a man's world - in Atlas Shrugged.

      That this post received three positives - less my Thumbs Down - indicates an unfortunate vestigial underpinning of unquestioned assumptions absorbed from the common collectivist culture among some visitors here.
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      • Posted by khalling 9 years, 4 months ago
        I do not understand the point of the first part of the comment and am confused by the second. I gave the post a thumbs up becsuse the book review sounded interesting. You thumb downed your own post?
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        • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 4 months ago
          I should have said "comment" rather than "post.' I was referring to Zenphamy's reply. The book is interesting on many grounds. I am not a military guy, even though I am in a military unit. I don't watch war movies or read war narratives. But this came to me, as I said, via the Foxhole Atheists. I found it in the library and one glance at a middle page showed that it was, as I said, written from the gut, the heart, and the mind. I just got her second book Plenty of Time When We Get Home: Love and Recovery in the Aftermath of War. One of the guys - and there were more than a few - who did not treat her like an object took shrapnel from an IED. She looked him up when she got home... and they got married... I will let you know how this work fares.
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      • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 4 months ago
        In reference to your statement that(indicates an unfortunate vestigial underpinning of unquestioned assumptions absorbed from the common collectivist culture among some visitors here), I consider an entirely unwarranted insult, couched in pedantic verbiage, to this site's Objectivist and Objectivist learning members.

        My feeling is opposite your's in that some posters don't always check their premises and make presumptions of the comparative value of their input to the site as objectively measured by 338 posts with 3,801 points for one vs some other with 146 posts and 13,317 points as pure examples only. Making rude or insulting assessments of others' votes on one's own posts and generated comments, seems counter-productive to the intent of most posters.
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 4 months ago
    Zenphamy's comment above is easily identified as being rooted in statistical norms for morality and ethics. Moreover, those alleged norms are, in fact, unmeasured, and must remain apocryphal. Even if they were statistically valid, it remains that right and wrong are not matters of public opinion, but founded on objective (rational-empirical) fact. The fact is that harassment - whether sexual, physical, or psychological - erodes morale and degrades unit cohesion. That is true in mere business and commerce. In combat, the consequences can be lethal.

    Zen said: "Any female that willingly enters a world of men ... and then complain about the way men act and react ...

    It so happens that just as women are statistically under-represented in the military, Hispanics and African-Americans are over-represented. Southerners are over-represented. Except for Southerners, the middle and upper economic quintiles are under-represented in the military. As it happens, Catholics are over-represented, but Catholic chaplains are under-represented.

    I must ask if it would be appropriate for Protestant soldiers to harass Catholics: bead-fiddlers, taking orders from the Pope, crossing themselves at prayer, and complaining all the time about the lack of weekly confessions and Eucharists? Every day, someone calls you a fish-eater, or a Cat-licker. Or someone hands you a string of Mardi Gras beads and asks, "Did you drop these?" and everyone laughs.

    Zen said: "Where did she think she was going and who did she think she would be surrounded by--the same wussified men in our screwed up PC society?"

    Perhaps the honkified, suburban kid who entered as a corporal because he graduated from a community college should be expected to adapt to a military dominated by poor African-Americans finishing their GEDs in the military. "I just used the last of my gun oil. Anyone got any?" And they all start in: "Have your momma send you a case of it, then we all have some while we wait for our 40 Acres and a Mule." Or the suburban guy is at mess and the meal is fried chicken, and they grab it off his plate: "You don't eat that. Go get yourself more rabbit food."

    Zen said: "Would one of those men feel comfortable at a baby shower or at afternoon tea?"
    And at that tea party, not just one woman who is clearly drunk, hits on him, but all of them jostle him, rub against him when passing, and ask him all afternoon about the size and shape of his genitals. Not just at one bizarre baby shower, but at every one, all the time. A complete and total lack of decorum. Not only that, but these are women he has to work with, who not only depend on his work, but must also provide him with facts and figures. Can they then be trusted to be reliable? Should he be? And that is just business and commerce. Make it life and death...

    Sexual harassment is essentially no different than ethnic or religious harassment: it is a form of collectivism, rooted in pre-civilized social norms that were inherited, not created.

    It is real. And it affects everyone. The question is what we do about it.
    See this Times of Israel article:
    http://www.timesofisrael.com/number-o...

    As in that article, the US military is making progress, also. The campaign has been on for about a decade (since Sgt. Williams left the military), and is highly visible. We have posters everywhere, and lots of free materials for leaders. I carry a flip book for commanders in my ditty bag, even though I am only an E-4. It does come up -- and I have complained, directly to the offending parties. I worked it out between us with one of them, and I have no problem serving with him again. I had no problem before. He just was unaware of the impact and consequences of his (ahem) "humor" in a single albeit protracted incident.
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    • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 4 months ago
      What a reply to one quote, one statement and two questions, generated by parsing each of the parts.

      The reply begins with a completely false premise about the root in 'statistical norms for morality and ethics' of my comment. My comment is rooted in direct, real world experience of the three issues the revue covers; actual and factual experiences of war zones and battle, women forcefully inserted in male work groups and activities, and women's perception of sexual harassment in such locals and activities.

      I personally have no problem with women that wish to move into and work within such environments, except that as a manager and business owner, I insist that they understand the environment they're entering. And further, that they must perform at a level and ability at least equal to the men with whom they work and that they will be assessed and measured on the same yardstick. I have encountered a very few that could succeed at such tasks.

      As to the author, as you state in one of your reply comments above, she wrote "from the gut, the heart, and the mind". The gut and the heart refer to emotion, rather than reasoned and rational addressing the factual experiences. It is purely subjective and I would expect that anyone saying "she discovered Atlas Shrugged, and it resonated with her) would grasp that basic issue.

      From the revue, I won't waste my time reading her.
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