The socially conscious government under the latest commander in chief is weeding out the less-than-woke recruits to be done – once and for all – with “extremism.” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin distributed a memo on April 9 covering “issues raised by commanders and supervisors on ‘gray areas’ such as reading, following, and liking extremist material and content in social media forums and platforms.” The glaring problem is the lack of a proper definition for “extremism,” as Hill Democrats seem to believe any manner of protest from conservatives and libertarians falls under the heading of white supremacy. Go figure.
Don’t We Have Boot Camp for This?
Austin’s memo listed several line-of-effort (LOE) edicts to tamp down future extremists donning the uniform. The secretary also promised to create a Countering Extremism Working Group (CEWG), to which each branch of the military will appoint a designated representative. Those meetings should be a hoot. But one LOE is perusing recruits’ social media pages. The memo states:
“The LOE will make recommendations on further development of such capabilities and incorporating algorithms and additional processing into social media screening platforms.”
Algorithms? That sounds downright witch hunter-y. Apparently, the Pentagon is charged with “looking into” how to spy legally. Perhaps the NSA already has guidelines for such things. Another player has surfaced through the ranks to clang further the alarm bells of folks who may be extremist and could use additional education or suitable flogging: the senior enlisted adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Air Force Chief Master Sergeant Ramón “CZ” Colón-López has the ear of the DOD. And CZ is concerned that troops cannot distinguish between BLM riots using incendiary devices and violence towards federal buildings and the Jan. 6 uprising that had a few more people and no Molotov cocktails. He claims that the younger troops didn’t understand that some bad actors “latched on” to the peaceful protesters' plight to loot and pillage and lay claim to the 52-inch flat-screen.
And that brings up the definition by which the military defines extremist activities. Department of Defense Instruction 1325.06 says:
“Military personnel must not actively advocate supremacist, extremist, or criminal gang doctrine, ideology, or causes, including those that advance, encourage, or advocate illegal discrimination based on race, creed, color, sex, religion, ethnicity, or national origin.”
That covers both the KKK and BLM, whether CZ reads the definition as such or not. And frankly, does the Pentagon, the Joint Chiefs, or the DOD seriously believe that extremists are intelligently, methodically, infiltrating the military? Can a patriotic young man or woman just desire to serve their country in the most of noble pursuits? For goodness sake, the military has boot camp for getting recruits in lockstep and replacing any perceived radical ideals with a more specific, country-first, and focused ideology.
It probably won’t matter, as the likes of one U.S. senator from Illinois remarked, ineloquently, after the Jan 6 protest and Capitol breach: “The insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6 did not wear white robes and hoods, they might as well have.” Helen Keller could have translated the message: Conservatives, especially pigment-challenged folks, are violent racists.
Social Justice Warriors Aren’t Gonna Like Guns
As the Pentagon gets in bed with big tech and crafts standardized screening questionnaires for recruits to catch folks who believe in God, Country, and Family – much in that order – what applications will still be acceptable? If there are any left after weed whacking algorithms catch use of words like Republican, conservative, and Second Amendment, the field of recruits may be a dismal, avocado toast-eating, tea-drinking lot. Do we want the U.S. military – charged with the protection of this nation – to be a thoroughly politicized mess of genderless “theybies?”
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Read more from Sarah Cowgill.
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