WA Democrats Endorse Department of Peace

This is an updated entry of one I made last September.  I think it appropriate to repost it in light of the Washington State Democratic Party endorsing this weekend, a plank supporting the creation of a Department of Peace and Non-Violence. 

This is patently un-American and it telegraphs to me that the Democrats are clueless when it comes to the security of this country!

They say it would be funded at 2% of the Department of Defense.  They say that means about 80 million dollars.  You look at the agenda and tell me how far 80 million dollars would go.  To set up the Academy of Peace alone would be a minimum of 10 time times that much!  Only an idiot would believe that figure!

VW

Here's my entry from last September  (Below is a complete copy with an updated link.)

There is a move afoot to create a cabinet level department called the Department of Peace (DOP).  It is supported by the real moonbat fringe like Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney, Charles Rangel, and “Baghdad” Jim McDermott and about 50 other left-wing extremist Democrats.

Essentially, through the Department of Peace, a schoolyard fight would become a federal case.  Domestic violence would also fall under the new bureaucracy.  There would be federal involvement in just about any kind of altercation you can think of.

Obviously it would go beyond the realm of corralling the schoolyard bully. The DOP’s other mission would be the castration of the United States military.  One of the ways they propose to do that would be to establish a U.S. Peace Academy.  This from the Peace Alliance website.  They are the rganization behind this:

• The Department of Peace will create and administer a U.S. Peace Academy, acting as a sister organization to the U.S. Military Academy
• The Academy will research and teach the most cutting-edge techniques for the amelioration of violence among domestic and international populations
• The Peace Academy will provide assistance to the military in international conflict-resolution
• The Peace Academy faculty will be derived from well-established practitioners known for best practices in the field of conflict reduction and resolution

Isn’t that nice?  All we have to do is tell those nasty soldiers to play nice.  We’ll deploy peace advisors with them so that we can tell them who to shoot and not to shoot.

Seriously, there is a fundamental breakdown in the left’s understanding of the role of the military in the United States.  By law and very much by tradition and training, our military is non-political.  That doesn’t mean they don’t have opinions.  Most do and about 75% are fairly conservative.  What it does mean is that ingrained in to each Soldier, Sailor, Marine, and Airman is the idea of civilian command.

The military does not start wars.  Military people are not war mongers.  Training to fight, and a willingness to apply that training if called upon by the President and the American people, is not the same as war mongering.

What the average peacenik doesn’t, won’t, or can’t understand is that the military does not make policy; it carries out the policies of the civilian government.  The military is an instrument of foreign policy.  In other words, it isn’t the military that decides who to fight.  Assisting the military in “international conflict-resolution” would be akin to putting a lawn mower engine in a formula-one race car.  Again, it isn’t the military that starts the wars; their job is to end them.

Next, you have to think of who would staff such an institution.  Can you imagine an academy full of Ward Churchills and Cindy Sheehans?  It boggles the mind.  And unlike any other public school, you have to know there would be a test of ideology which is totally unconstitutional.  But then, most Left-Wing Extremist Loons don’t care much for the Constitution.  They pay it lip service if it advances their cause.  They would happily quash the free speech rights of anyone that disagrees with them.  In any case, you know there would be an ideological litmus test.  That is PATENTLY un-American!

< A Department of Peace isn’t a new idea.  I seem to remember it being brought up in the 70’s.  In any event, the idea’s been around for awhile.  We need to confront this idiocy and put it to rest.  War is not always the answer, but dictators don’t listen to those who ask for peace unless it’s to gather strength and buy time.

We learn nothing from history.  Dictators bent on regional and world domination are not interested in peace and look upon countries that try appeasement as weak.  Neville Chamberlain learned that lesson a long time ago.

VW

Comments

[Just another republican]

This is going to be the same thing as renaming the War Department. The War Department should have never been renamed, not becasue we should use our millitary for the creation of war but because we should not lose sight of why we have a millitary. To fight wars. Renaming it is a form of doublespeek that is so double ungood Orwellien I can't see strait.

I oppose this for its doublespeak nature. I oppose this as another form of expanding central government. I oppose this as an out and out lie of resource use. I oppose this on it unconstitutional check on another federal agency. I oppose this on the basis of putting political officers in charge (excuse me, "advising") of the millitary and millitary operations. I oppose this on the basis that the federal government has no right to interfere in the domain of state and local authorites.

I suggest that all concerned democrats (and republicans and everybody else that wants too, actually) set up or join a non profit agancey to advance the goals they think that only a cabinet level agency could do. Helping people to overcome problems with non-violence is a noble goal, It just isn't the governments responsibility.

[MOGS]

this idea rocks. More commissars and zampolits? That's EXACTLY what this country needs to execute foreign policy :)

[Kelly]

Do you listen to Dori Monson? He was hot about this yesterday.