Newspaper Page Text
(She Ahuattce The ADVANCE, July 26, 2023/Page 7A
A free press is not a privilege but
organic necessity in a great society.
- Walter Lippmann
COMMENTARY
out of
CONTEXT
A compilation of quotations on a variety of
issues by national, state and regional writers,
well-known personalities, just plain everyday
people and from various publications
collected by the editors of THE ADVANCE.
Quotes for our Times:
Spencer Brown, managing editor for
Townhall.com: Joe Biden falls apart on
camera during meeting with Israel's Presi
dent.
What's more, Biden and others in his
administration have dodged questions or
tried to brush off criticism for the president's
failure to welcome Israel's Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House
for a visit, Florida Governor and 2024 presi
dential candidate Ron DeSantis slammed
the Biden administration for its snubbing of
Netanyahu. "What this Biden administration
has done, I think, has been disgraceful," De
Santis said. "The way they treat a strong ally
like Prime Minister Netanyahu has been dis
graceful."
Byron York, chief political correspon
dent for The Washington Examiner. Politicize
Defense? Never!
The point here is that within the last few
years, Democrats on Capitol Hill have in
serted plainly political measures into the
National Defense Authorization Act and
have blocked military promotions en masse
for political reasons. Remember that when
you hear some of those very same Demo
crats complaining that today's Republicans
are "politicizing" the defense process.
Chad Wolf, former acting secretary of
the Department of Homeland Security and
executive director and chair of the Center
for Homeland Security & Immigration at the
America First Policy Institute: Biden is cook
ing the books at the border.
Taken together, the reality is vastly dif
ferent from the picture the Biden adminis
tration is painting. When you combine the
illegal aliens apprehended by Border Pa
trol, the aliens found inadmissible at ports of
entry, the categorical parole illegal aliens,
and the gotaways, it turns out that 294,183
illegal aliens, unlawfully entered the U.S. in
May, or nearly 9,490 per day.
Nearly all have made their way into
American communities because ICE is de
taining a record-low number of illegal aliens
under the nationwide catch-and-release
scheme currently in place.
This is a crisis by design. The American
people deserve transparency, and Con
gress must hold this administration account
able through proper oversight and defund
ing these unlawful policies.
Dan Gainor, freelance opinion editor for
Fox News Digital: The movie the media tried
to kill is still going strong.
CBS's Elaine Quijano explained nine
years ago, "Jim Ballard has one mission: to
track down child traffickers." Quijano end
ed the piece saying, "liberating one child at
a time."
"Sound of Freedom" doesn't just high
light those important victories. It shows how
Americans are gradually being liberated
from the grip of the left. The press tried hard
to squash this film. Instead, it's going strong
promoting the kind of values even liberals
used to support - faith and freedom.
Only now, movies like this are succeed
ing without the legacy media.
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The military doesn’t
need diversity, equity
and inclusion
THE
RICH
LOWRY
COLUMN
House Republicans voted
to end diversity, equity and in
clusion programs and person
nel at the Pentagon, and one
wonders whether the U.S. mili
tary will ever be the same.
The provision was one of a
number of anti-“woke” mea
sures in the House-passed Na
tional Defense Authorization
Act — including reversing the
Pentagon’s new abortion-en
abling paid travel and leave
policies — that have occa
sioned sputtering outrage.
According to National Se
curity Council spokesman
John Kirby, there’s no way that
President Joe Biden would
ever sign such legislation “that
would put our troops at greater
risk or put our readiness at
risk.”
America’s leaders used to
worry that we wouldn’t have
enough stopping power to de
fend against Soviet tanks po
tentially pouring through the
Fulda Gap or a survivable nu
clear force in the event of a
nuclear first strike; now they
worry service members might
not be learning enough about
microaggressions.
Last year, Bishop Garri
son, serving at the time as the
senior advisor to the Secretary
of Defense for human capital
and diversity, equity and inclu
sion, said that diversity, equity
and inclusion needs to be part
of every decision that the mili
tary makes — it’s a “force mul
tiplier,” and will make the mili
tary more lethal.
It’s not clear how this
could possibly be true. Is the
Marine operating a howitzer
going to be more proficient if
he’s familiar with the work of
Ibram X. Kendi? Will our
fighter pilots be better at aerial
warfare if they think the U.S. is
defined by systemic racism?
Are our submariners lacking so
long as they don’t know that
it’s supposedly offensive to ask
someone with an accent where
he or she is from?
If diversity training is so
crucial to a fighting force,
maybe we should stop sending
so many munitions to Ukraine
and ship the embattled coun
try PowerPoint presentations
on equity instead?
The U.S. military has been
a model for decades of how to
build a racially diverse institu
tion that is united by common
purpose and standards. That
doesn’t mean it is perfect —
nothing is — but it was nota
bly diverse long before anyone
thought it needed diversity,
equity and inclusion training.
Thankfully, by its stan
dards, the Pentagon doesn’t
spend much on diversity, eq
uity and inclusion. It requested
just $115 million in 2023, al
though that was an increase of
nearly $30 million.
This suggests that the per
sonnel and programming
around diversity, equity and
inclusion can be easily axed,
and they should be.
Diversity, equity and in
clusion is a scammy fad that
has ballooned into a more than
$3 billion industry even
though there’s no solid evi
dence that it works, and it may
well make things worse.
As the left-of-center au
thor and podcaster Jesse Singal
writes, diversity, equity and in
clusion programs often “seem
geared more toward sparking a
revolutionary re-understand-
ing of race relations than solv
ing organizations’ specific
problems. And they often
blame white people — or their
culture — for harming people
of color.”
Why does the military, of
all institutions, need that?
At the very least, diversity,
Please see Lowry page 16A
GRITTY
More Thoughts on
Affirmative Action
Following the Su
preme Court deci
sion finding preferen
tial treatment, i.e., af
firmative action, in
college admissions
unconstitutional, the
president of Harvard
issued a statement to
“Members of the Har
vard Community.”
This statement tells us how those man
aging one of the nation’s most prestigious
universities understand justice, knowledge
and learning.
First, let’s consider what Harvard’s
president does not say, which is to recog
nize the importance of “equal protection.”
The unconstitutionality of affirmative
action, per the court, follows from the 14th
Amendment requiring “equal protection of
the laws.”
Where does this idea of “equal protec
tion” come from?
If we look in our Bible, in the book of
Exodus, judges are directed to apply the law
equally to all, and not give special treat
ment to the poor.
We know this is not because the Bible,
which emphasizes the importance of char
ity and sensitivity to others, is indifferent to
the unfortunate.
It is because it is not the job of the
judge to determine outcomes — that the
world reflect his personal preferences —
but to apply the law.
But at Harvard, everyone is so smart
that they feel they know what the world
should look like. Good and evil are defined
in the president’s office at Harvard.
So, there is less interest in “equal pro
tection” than achieving social outcomes
that reflect how the president of Harvard
thinks the world should be.
Per the president, “diversity and differ
ence are essential to academic excellence.”
And “Harvard must be a place of opportu
nity.”
But “diversity and difference,” per Har-
Please see Star page 16A
By Star Parker
The Keeper
From the Porch
By Amber Nagle
They call
him “The
Keeper.” Well,
that’s what
they called
him a few
years ago when he hiked the Appa
lachian Trail from Maine to Georgia
— all the while carrying 363 uniform
name tapes of deceased U.S. military
veterans who had died from suicide.
“I did it to raise awareness of the
problem,” George Eshleman told me
last week. “Veterans are 57% more
likely to take their own lives than
people who haven’t served. Over
6,000 veterans committed suicide in
2020.”
Thousands of people followed
Eshleman’s progress on social me
dia and left encouraging comments
under each status post. When he
met other hikers on the trail, they’d
inevitably ask him about the name
tapes, and he would launch into his
explanation that he was carrying the
names for the family members, and
for the veterans themselves.
But Eshleman had another rea
son for embarking on the long foot
journey — a secret reason.
“I had lost a very good friend to
suicide, and it put me in a dark place.
I found myself on the path to the
same outcome,” he says. “I had decid
ed to take my own life on the trail and
end things. I had kind, caring people
in my life, but I can’t explain it. I just
felt so alone.”
A few days into his hike, he sat
beneath a tree, pressed a Glock 17
against his chest and wept.
“It was that moment that I real
ized I wasn’t alone, and that I had to
complete my mission. I had to get
those name tapes to Georgia for all of
the people those strips represented.
And so I put the gun away and stood
up. I got back on the trail.”
There was also the realization
that every individual who commits
suicide ends up affecting someone
else — family members, friends, co
workers, random people. Eshleman
didn’t want to hurt his loved ones, and
he also didn’t want some “poor hiker
to find a dead body with his chest
blown out.” He turned his thoughts
to living and to joining the fight to
help veterans find greater connection
and mental health through research
and services.
He finished his hike in five
months, meeting dozens of folks
along the way and sharing his mission
and explaining the high likelihood
that veterans who return home from
combat often live with PTSD, depres
sion, anxiety and suicidal thoughts.
“I’m tired of talking about it,” Es
hleman told me. “We’ve got to find
ways to help all these men and wom
en. Awareness is great, but it’s past
time for action.”
When Eshleman returned home
to Georgia, he wrote a story about his
journey and titled it “The Keeper.” A
friend took his story and reformatted
it into a screenplay. An independent
filmmaker started making it into a
film last year.
“I don’t want to just make films
for the sake of it, or do things for vani-
typurposes,” director Angus Benfield
said, referring to Eshleman’s story. “I
want to do a film that I believe goes
beyond the four walls of the theater
— something that will affect people
in their everyday life.”
Eshleman has attended some
of the filming sessions. He says that
they expect to wrap up filming this
autumn and start editing. “The Keep
er” will be out in theaters in 2024. A
portion of the movie’s proceeds will
be donated to Disabled Veterans of
America and other veteran suicide
aid and prevention groups.
Eshleman, who lives in North
west Georgia, told me that like other
combat veterans, he has to fight hard
er some days than others just to get
through a simple day.
“I have good days, and I have bad
days,” he said. “I now understand that
asking for help is a sign of strength,
not weakness. If you see someone
around you is struggling and in a dark
place, let them know you are there,
and let them know you care. It can
make all the difference.”