Knock It Off

by

Gadfly

            This essay addresses the recent exchanges between President Trump and four Congresswomen, collectively known as the squad. The exchanges sound petulant.  However, before we treat the two parties with moral equivalency and tell both to cease and desist, let me begin with a story.

Training for combat operations in fighter aircraft is dangerous business.  High speed, three-dimension maneuvering, with high g-force loading on the aircraft (and bodies—five Gs makes 10 pounds weigh the equivalent of 50 pounds), and a variety of tactics employed to defeat an enemy pilot characterize the flying.  It involves split-second decision making and extreme physical exertion.

            One of the safety measures during such training operations is the “knock it off” call.  If any pilot (or weapons systems officer in two-crew fighters) sees a situation developing that could easily spiral out of control, then they are to shout out, “knock it off, knock it off, knock it off.”  This basically reboots the training.

            On one of my missions near Stuttgart, West Germany in the early 1980s, I heard over Guard frequency (all aircraft must monitor Guard frequency on UHF—ultra high frequency), “Antar one eight, knock it off, knock it off, knock it off!”  Less than a minute later, I heard the same call, with the tone of voice sounding more urgent.  About five minutes later, Stuttgart Control announced over Guard frequency, “All Antar aircraft, RTB [return to base] immediately.”  I knew something tragic had happened and led my formation back to base.

            Antar was the call sign for members assigned to the 20^th Tactical Air Support Squadron based at Sembach Air Base, West Germany.  We were all checked out as forward air controllers, flying the OV-10 Bronco.  Each member then had a number assigned.  For example, Antar 18 (Antar one eight) belonged to a pilot named Chris.  The pilot in a different aircraft, another Antar, was assigned to fly as the Red Baron on this day of flying.  His mission was to fly into the vicinity of the various Antar training missions to measure their vigilance awareness (clearing for other “enemy” aircraft that were closing in on their position).  The procedure was to make two ninety degree turns and then to rock your wings to signal that you noticed his presence.  The Red Baron would then proceed to another Antar training area.

            Antar 18 did not follow the procedure.  Instead, he became aggressive and maneuvered against the Red Baron as though he was an actual enemy aircraft.  Because of the high G-loading, airspeed and altitude were rapidly depleting, becoming dangerously low and slow (approaching stall speed).  This is why the Red Baron was calling knock it off.

            Antar 18 stalled out and, because the aircraft was too low, was unable to safely eject from the aircraft.  Antar 18 had a passenger in the back seat.  Both died in the crash.

            Safety, legal, and flying evaluation boards were convened.  The Red Baron was exonerated by all three boards.  Yet, by an authority at a higher level, the Red Baron had his wings taken away, as if he was just as guilty for the crash as Antar 18.  He believed someone should be punished for the aircraft loss.  Antar 18 and his passenger were already dead.  Could not punish them.  This was assigned guilt through moral equivalency . . . not based on evidence but personal opinion and a tit for tat moral reasoning paradigm.

            The knock it off call that is needed in the case of Trump versus the squad exchange is not for Trump or the squad.  It should be directed at the anti-America faction in America, the cancer that is symbolized by the squad.

            “The squad” is openly socialist in their political orientation, which is extremely contrary to the idea of America.  Whether they are tutors or mere unwitting champions of the ideology, understanding the ideological “formation process” is enlightening and disturbing.

            For those who follow my blog entries, you are familiar with some of the evidence I have provided as it relates to the socialist (communist and fascist) infiltration of American institutions.  We can learn a great deal from those who “drank the Kool-Aid,” such as Whitaker Chambers, Bella Dodd, and Douglas Hyde.  In his book, I Believed, Hyde tells his story about becoming a prominent Communist in Great Britain.  In his book, Dedication and Leadership, Hyde explains how Communists are recruited and developed to be very active in the movement.  Here is a lengthy excerpt from Dedication and Leadership:

 

. . . In Communist hands the subtle method [in non-totalitarian societies] may take on an almost sinister quality, as ideas which would otherwise be unacceptable are skillfully got into the heads of those who attend the classes.

            Such instruction leads those who are indoctrinated in this way to abandon and repudiate practically all their past thinking and, indeed, to abandon the very things which first brought them to Communism.  For example, the man who joined because he was at heart a pacifist comes in time quite naturally and ‘logically’ to accept the need for violence [think Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and Antifa], for civil war and insurrection (even though anyone who has experienced civil wars knows that these tend to be much nastier and bloodier even than ordinary ‘imperialist’ wars) and to sit up till midnight studying Lenin on the art of insurrection as a means of establishing a system of society in which war will evermore be impossible.

            The man with a liberal past comes believing that by joining the Communist Party he is somehow putting himself on the side of liberty, freedom, equality.  After attending a few Marxist classes he has come to ‘realise’ that these are but ‘bourgeois concepts’ which must be not only abandoned but also combated, since they are all part of the means by which an inhuman social system is made acceptable, in the guise of being tolerant and democratic, to those who suffer at its hands (pp. 86-87).

Based on this formation process, is it hard to understand the ideological motivation for sanctuary cities and states, open borders, and the claims about inhumane detention centers and concentration camps by members of the squad and other leftists?

There is no moral equivalence between Trump and the squad.  Like Trump, Americans need to protect the idea of America and be bold enough to tell the squad and those they symbolize to “knock it off!!!!!!”  America is our home.  “Home is where the heart is.”

 

When President Trump tells members of the squad to go home, he means they should go to where their heart belongs, which is not America.  The truth may hurt; but it can set us all free from the brutal chains of illusions and delusions.