"we are not a serious country because, as a democracy, we do not have serious voters"

By An Old Friend
sent: sunday, august 25, 2024 at 09:23:52 p.m. edt

subject: "We are not a serious country because, as a democracy, we do not have serious voters." The quote in my subject line comes from the brief piece below by John Hinderaker. His three-sentence closing paragraph would be worth emblazoning on many prominent walls. And it reminds me of this tidbit from Mark Steyn in 2010:

The election of Barack Obama was a fundamentally unserious act by the U.S. electorate, and you can't blame the world's mischief-makers, from Putin to Ahmadinejad to the many Gitmo recidivists now running around Yemen, from drawing the correct conclusion.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/08/the-devil-and-the-deep-blue-sea.php

august 25, 2024 By John Hinderaker

"the devil and the

deep blue sea

"one of my neighbors has a sign in their yard that says 'support women! vote for dems.' I am sure they think this makes some kind of sense. they care about something–abortion, I suppose–but they apparently don't care about the border, our economy, the national debt or the national defense. you know, the things that government actually is responsible for.

"pretty much every day there are news stories that prompt this bitter reflection, but for now, see this Fox news story: 'navy to sideline 17 vessels due to manpower shortage.

"the navy will reportedly sideline 17 vessels due to a manpower shortage that makes it difficult to properly crew and operate ships across the fleet.

"there just aren't enough merchant marines to keep all the ships going at once, according to rear admiral (ret.) Mark Montgomery, senior director of the center on cyber and technology innovation for the foundation for defense of democracy [sic], told Fox news digital. merchant marines operate the many support vessels needed to keep the navy running.

"'the problem, of course, is the ships are at sea, away from home port 12 months of the year,' Montgomery said. 'so you need two crews … we're desperately short of the number of people.

"the navy has in process something called the 'great reset,' which sounds ominous. meanwhile, china has significantly more, and newer, ships than we do, and they are unlikely to have recruitment issues. they are making a play for control of the pacific, and if any member of the democratic party cares, I haven't seen evidence of it.

"speaking of the age of our fleet:

"'the average age of the ships in the reserve force is about 45 years old,' Montgomery said. 'bBetween 20 and 30 years is fine, because you don't have the same issues of modernization of weapon systems and big changes in electrical power distribution … but 17 of the ships are over 50 years old.'

"recruitment is a problem across the service branches:

"the U.S. military has suffered some recruiting problems over the past few years, most notably in the army, which had to cut its force by 24,000 – roughly 5% of jobs – in 2024 to account for recruiting shortfalls.

"I don't know, just hazarding a wild guess here, but maybe the sorts of people who are likely to sign up for the military aren't interested in serving under a manchurian president. or under a four-star admiral who is a man posing as a woman named Rachel.

"we are not a serious country because, as a democracy, we do not have serious voters. autocracies like china and russia have many disadvantages compared to us, but in the present historical moment, they are nowhere near as stupid as we are. one trembles for the future."

N.S.: We are not, and have never been, a democracy. We were founded as a constitutional republic, and have never officially changed that.