Navy Sheep and Shepherds:
The Role of Black Sheep and Judas Goats©
by
Dr. Gerald L. Atkinson
4 July 2001
In the book, 'A Glimpse of Hell,' VADM Joe Metcalf revealed deep insight into the character of leadership for naval officers. He divided those Navy officers who obtain a command at sea into three categories. He put about 20 percent in his first grouping: "They do it because it's a way to get their ticket punched. They're not very happy. Some of them would be very happy to go through their entire Navy career without ever going to sea."
Fifty percent went into Metcalf's second grouping: "They'll go to sea and do the job. But the characteristic that distinguishes these people is that they don't have any imagination. I wouldn't want to go to war with them."
Finally, there was the remaining 30 percent: "They are the Nelsons [British Admiral Horatio Nelson, who won the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805] and the Moorers [ADM Thomas H. Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Vietnam War]. They have the imagination. They don't go by the book, because warfare doesn't go by the book. It takes boldness to beat the enemy."
VADM Metcalf's insight describes Navy leadership in general, not just command at sea. We see it today in the radical feminization of the U.S. Navy. In particular, we see it in spades in a primary element of this radicalization -- the New Age 'ethics' training at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Some Academy alumni are becoming aware that something is indeed awry at their alma mater. They have a foreboding, a sense in their gut that the traditional leadership training methods, which have worked so well over the past century, are being 'polluted' by civilians with PhDs in 'Ethics' from Harvard and Yale. But they can't quite grasp the details of what is occurring at the Academy. They don't understand 'philosophy,' at least the academic version being introduced there. They don't understand the 'therapeutic' techniques being used and whence these techniques originated. If they became aware of these elements, they would be infuriated at the malevolence which has been unleashed on their venerable institution.
Others, quite unconcerned, unaware, and disconnected listen to the debate (private and public) but are more interested in the next football game tailgate party, their NFL team, or their next vacation spot. They would rather not be bothered by the 'ethics' discussion in their midst. These are sheep who have always been sheep and will forever more be sheep.
And there is another cadre of naval officer alumni who, upon listening to an Academy team (a civilian PhD from Yale and a surface warfare officer) brief them on the current program, gobble up the 'dog and pony show' and are content that nothing is amiss -- only modern day education methods applied to a necessary discipline -- the teaching of military leadership and ethics. These are the sheep.
Still other alumni, Metcalf's 'leaders,' upon learning the background of the indoctrination methods being employed in the new 'ethics' program and where this 'therapeutic' indoctrination originated, are becoming quite upset that 'something is rotten in Denmark.' And they are willing to step out front and lead -- take action.
In this debate, one sees an even more discerning description than VADM Metcalf's leadership categories. One can plainly see shepherds (the 'leaders' in his last grouping, his 30 percent) and sheep (most of those in his first and second grouping -- some of whom have even had the Navy's coveted 'command at sea'). But if one looks closely, one sees two more important sub-groups, each smaller than the others, but much more 'in play' and much more 'deadly' for the U.S. Navy -- and the nation.
These two subgroups are the 'black sheep' and the 'Judas goats.' They operate within the group of sheep. The former cause harm. The latter are deadly and dangerous. Let me explain.
Black sheep are the 'apparent' leaders. Other sheep instinctively follow the black sheep. There are only a few black sheep in any herd. Small groups of sheep may graze with a black sheep and follow it wherever it goes. When all of the flock's black sheep are present, one knows that all of the other sheep in the herd are present. This provides an efficiency for the shepherd. All one has to do is count the few black sheep. If all are present, then all of the sheep are accounted for.
In our example, the black sheep or 'apparent' leaders are identified as those naval officers who are marked for the highest office (presumably, the Chief of Naval Operations) by their accomplishments as midshipmen. Each class has at least one. They may be the Mid with the highest academic standing, but most often it is the Mid with both the highest academic standing and the highest military grade -- the 'six striper,' the Brigade Commander.
One such 'black sheep,' whose word is still held in highest regard, reached the exalted Navy position. He is dubiously credited in the book, 'A Glimpse of Hell,' as being an "...absentee Chief of Naval Operations." Nevertheless, any private pronouncement by him to his Academy classmates on the issue of New Age 'ethics' at the Academy is still taken as 'gospel' for the sheep. If he chooses to 'go along to get along,' so do the sheep.
Another, who reached the highest reaches of the White House in an advisory position, was a central figure in the Iran-Contra affair. Obviously, as his career path rose to high visibility positions of power, his counsel was treasured by his Academy contemporaries on any subject of interest. The 'black sheep' speaks and the other sheep follow.
The other, more dangerous category of naval officer, is akin to the Judas goat. The stockyards use such a goat to lead the sheep to slaughter. Without the aid of a Judas goat, the sheep would mill around endlessly in the pen and would not enter or traverse the chute to the slaughter house. The Judas goat, mingling with the sheep, is trained to lead them out of the pen and down the chute to the slaughterhouse. And at the last second, the Judas goat is allowed to escape by a side-gate while the sheep go to their appointed end.
The most vivid example of the Judas goat is the Academy alumnus who has spent over ten years 'teaching' in the new 'ethics' program. He helped Dr. Nancy Sherman design and implement the ethics curriculum at the Academy. Indeed, he is a public spokesman for the New Age therapeutic 'ethics' program at the Academy. He has swallowed the doctrine of the civilian PhDs from Harvard and Yale -- hook line and sinker. And he chastises those who would stand up and criticize the new program. He is, in fact, a military 'foot soldier' for the Frankfurt School gurus who would destroy the military institution as they have destroyed other U.S. institutions over the past 30 years. His name is COL Paul E. Roush, USMC (Ret.).
COL Ron Ray, USMC (Ret.), an official in the Reagan administration who served on President Bushs (the elder) Presidential Commission on Women-in-Combat testifies that COL Roush, while a member of the Academy Faculty, was one of the most rabid radical feminist sympathizers to testify before that body in favor of women in combat roles.
Let us look at a speech that this Judas goat recently gave to a military audience. It was entitled, 'Ethics: Learning from the Past for a New Millennium,' and was published in Supply Corps News. It was prepared by the Judas goat for delivery at the 1999 Naval Reserve Supply Community Workshop in Williamsburg, VA.
The Judas goat begins his remarks with an observation with which many educated in the tenants of western civilization and culture agree. "...we are morally autonomous and therefore individually accountable for our actions." Interspersed throughout his remarks in the body of the speech are other universally agreed propositions, "Every military person takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion," and "...when we teach the priority of loyalties, the order from highest to lowest is Constitution, then mission, then service, then ship or unit, then shipmate, and, finally, self. These 'motherhood' statements are infused in the text to make 'respectable' the abominations which follow. In true 'change agent' fashion, he is attempting to let the audience know that 'he is a good guy, and has no hidden agenda.
To cement this impression, our Judas goat concludes his remarks with an excellent tribute to 'traditional' naval ethics, based on U.S. law. "Let me close by citing a portion of congressional legislation - legislation that is, by definition, binding on everybody in the military. It is found in section 5947 of Title 10, U.S. Code. This section deals with the obligations of command, and establishes the positive obligation of commanding officers to demonstrate '... a good example of virtue ...; to be vigilant in inspecting the conduct of all persons who are placed under their command; to guard against and suppress all dissolute and immoral practices.' The words in the legislation were first set forth in the Regulations for the Navy, drafted by John Adams, and approved by the Continental Congress in 1775. They were codified at the express request of the Navy in 1956. In my judgment those words are an expression of the bedrock culture toward which military leadership should aspire. They capture the ancient and true tradition that must be regained and treasured and nurtured. Only so long as those words represent reality will the military deserve the full trust of the American people." Yes, the Judas goat knows how to use good old American apple pie.
But it is within the body of the text that the Judas goat gives away his agenda -- critical theory -- right out of the teachings of the Frankfurt School from which his change agentry originated.
Every example of negative 'ethics' provided by the Judas goat was designed to show the military, and especially the Navy, in the worst possible light -- and with the worst possible interpretation of the facts of each case. In fact, at least one of the examples is drawn from completely anonymous unsubstantiated allegations of wrongdoing -- exactly what DoD Instruction 1320.4 allows (in complete violation of a person's constitutional right to face one's accusers in a court of law) in the naval officer promotion process (right down to promotion from LT to LCDR). This is Critical Theory in action. The Judas goat is a change agent in the role of Frankfurt School 'foot soldier' revolutionary.
First, the Judas goat completely misrepresents the truth in his attempt to lend 'credibility' to the content of the new and improved 'ethics' curriculum. He states, "We resolved early on to adhere to a number of fundamental principles. First, the curriculum focused on primary rather than secondary sources. That is, we required the midshipmen to read Aquinas and Aristotle and Kant and Mill rather than books about Aquinas and Aristotle and Kant and Mill. We wanted them to wrestle with the ideas of some of western civilization's greatest minds."
This statement is demonstrably false. It is made for purely pedantic hubris in an attempt to impress those of us who have not tried to read Kant and the others from their original texts. Kant, for one, is universally criticized as being 'difficult to impossible' to understand from his writings. Invariably, his texts have required translation from the original German (how many Mids read German fluently) and INTERPRETATION to sort out his meaning. Adults who have studied Kant for many years tell me that it is nearly impossible to gather meaning from his original texts. Why? According to Paul Strathern ('Kant in 90 Minutes,' pp.9, 1996) "...the use of jargon...was to reappear with a vengeance in the philosopher." H.J. Patton ('Immanuel Kant: Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals,' pp.8, Harper Torchbooks, 1964), who translated and analyzed Kant, states "Unfortunately most readers...even many teachers of philosophy -- feel insufficiently at home in German to read this work...in the original...[Kant] does expect too much of his readers [in English]: for example, he expects them to recognize at once in his long sentences the particular noun to which his excessive number of pronouns refer."
So, what the Judas goat obviously means (but hasn't the honesty to tell us forthrightly) is that the Academy invited civilian PhDs from Harvard and Yale who have studied Kant and the others to come to Annapolis and provide Kant's 'meaning' for the Midshipmen. Of course, they could make their 'interpretations' without the Judas goat or any of the others in the military department at the Academy understanding just what was being taught to their students. For sure, the Superintendent on down through the military department heads neither read nor understand Kant without 'interpretation.'
Most of us who do not have PhDs in Philosophy or Ethics turn to trusted historians for their interpretations of the masters. For me, it is Will Durant who wrote 'The Story of Philosophy' in 1926 with periodic reprints up through 1961. Immanuel Kant was a premiere figure in the line of 'idealists' from Voltaire, Hume, and Rousseau in the 18th century. These philosophers, the 'Enlightenment' thinkers, differed from the 'realists,' that is, those of the virtue tradition of Aristotle (4th century B.C.) and St. Thomas Aquinas [13th century A.D.] (see 'Hooked on Philosophy: Thomas Aquinas Made Easy,' Robert A. O'Donnell, Alba House, 1995). The 'realists' held sway up to several decades before the socialist French Revolution (1789).
Kant lived at the time of that revolution. In fact, according to Durant, "Kant hailed the [socialist] French Revolution with joy." He thus became a founder of the philosophy which led to the Franco-German path of absolute 'liberty,' that is, the egalitarian view that produced Karl Marx, and Europe's move to socialism (both German National Socialism -- Nazi Germany -- and Stalin's communism) during the bloody early-to-mid twentieth century.
In his time, Kant was compared to Robespierre, the 'fool as revolutionary,' the lawyer who (guided by the philosophy of Voltaire and Rousseau) was the Jacobin force behind the slaughter of thousands of French aristocrats, priests, and middle-class Frenchmen during their revolution. To quote Durant (pp. 208), "Robespierre had merely killed a king, and a few thousand Frenchmen, but Kant had killed God."
Kant laid the foundation for today's 'secular humanism.' He believed that a 'moral sense' transcends religion and God. To him, Religion must not be based on the logic of theoretical reason but on the practical reason of the 'moral sense.' Any Bible or revelation must be judged by its value for morality and cannot itself be the judge of a moral code. Churches and dogmas have value only in so far as they assist the moral development of the race. The real church is a community of people, however scattered and divided, who are united by devotion to the common moral law.
To Kant, "Morals are not absolute; they are a code of conduct more or less haphazardly developed for group survival, and vary with the nature and circumstances of the group." That is the concept of 'situational ethics,' which has pervasively captured contemporary American 'modern liberal' society.
To Kant, "An action is good not because it has good results, or because it is wise, but because it is done in obedience to this inner sense of duty ... by placing morality above happiness; we can cease to be beasts and begin to be gods." This philosophy later became the basis of the Universalist movement in the U.S., embraced by the Unitarian Church. Man would no longer serve God, but God would serve man as men became gods.
Kant's idealism led directly to Hegel who led to Marx. Hegel took the categories named by Kant and elevated the category of 'relation' to a preeminent position. He was the father of the 'dialectical movement,' the idea that perpetual change is a process of unifying a 'tension of opposites.' Of course, this process was incorporated into Marx's 'dialectical materialism.' Kant had built the hen house. Hegel had hatched the socialist eggs. And Marx brought socialism to its final conclusion, communism -- the finished product.
Whereas our Judas goat claims that, "...some people are uncomfortable with divine command or natural law," he not only countenances but lauds the teaching of 'ethics' at the Academy by trained civilian 'facilitators' with PhDs in Philosophy to teach 'their interpretations' of Immanuel Kant. The 'idealist' tradition flows from Kant to Hegel to Marx. The Judas goat is either ignorant of this history or is an agent in its infusion into the minds of our future naval officers. Take your pick!
The Judas goat next describes seven (7) 'triggers' that led to the current New Age 'ethics' program at the Academy. They were Iran-Contra and Ollie North, the 'chaining incident' of a female Mid to a urinal, the EE cheating scandal, a car-theft ring, sexual abuse by a Mid of a 2-year-old, a Mid climbing through the window of a home to talk to a girl, and a professor who 'blew the whistle' on the Academy's leadership training. While all of these incidents have been hyped in the national media, nearly all have an explanation and a solution that has nothing to do with the introduction of a New Age anti-American 'ethics' program at the institution.
These claimed 'triggers' are simply excuses for letting the civilians in and letting them determine the required 'ethics' for our future Navy leaders. As is becoming clear, civilian ethics (as practiced by President Clinton (the then-Commander-in-Chief and the rest of his Boomer cohorts) is vastly inferior to the traditional ethics, based on naval tradition and U.S. law that has been taught at the Academy for decades -- with exemplary results.
The truth be told, there is only one problem at the Academy. This problem encompasses all of the 'triggers' that the Judas goat identifies for us -- affirmative action. If preferences were eliminated for certain groups, nearly all of the problems described above would vanish.
The Judas goat then defines five, actually six, reference points for moral behavior. These are: 1) utilitarianism a la John Stuart Mill, whose philosophy is now being argued to legitimize neonaticide in the U.S., 2) Kant's categorical imperative (the major philosopher in the flawed 'idealist' movement), 3) natural law, 4) Divine command (ahhh, religion is at least a peripheral reference point), 5) virtue ethics, and 6) constitutional ethics (his preference, a made-up category which is included to make all of the rest of this gibberish seem reasonable).
The Judas goat's description of these reference points is so tortured and contradictory that it is clear that he has absolutely no basic grounding in the subject. It is also clear that the extent of his investigation into the subject (and after spending 11 years as an instructor of 'ethics' at the Academy) was to take the 'interpretations' of the civilian PhDs as gospel. For his and your edification, let me recommend several texts, which would narrow the list down to two reference points. The Judas goat misreads Kant and some of the other flawed philosophers of the failed Enlightenment period and doesn't even realize that three of his reference points (numbers 3, 4, & 5 above) are, in fact, one.
Anyone with an interest in this subject should read the following: 1)Hooked on Philosophy by Robert A. O'Donnell,
2) Aquinas' Summa: An Introduction and Interpretation by Edward J. Gratsch, 3) An Introduction to Philosophy: The
Perennial Principles of the Classical Realist Tradition by Daniel J. Sullivan, and 4) The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant.
Finally, the Judas goat summarizes seven (7) case studies which are a core part of the Academy's 'ethics' curriculum. They are Iran-Contra (the Judas Goat's interpretation, not that of Timberg, Poindexter, or North), My Lai (but not the account of those courageous Americans who fought and won the Cold War as described in We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young, by LTGEN Harold Moore, USA (Ret.) and Joseph Galloway), an Air Force coverup of an illegal air strike in Vietnam and its false reporting (but not the 'Glimpse of Hell: the Explosion on the USS Iowa and Its Coverup'), sexual harassment on the USS Safeguard (but no accounting for the abortions and illegitimate births by single mothers serving aboard U.S. Navy combatants), Tailhook '91 (absent an account of female naval officers who misbehaved and were not even charged), Aberdeen (without mention of the tragic miscarriage of justice in the false accusations of Sergeant Major of the Army Gene McKinney by numerous Army females), and an anonymous sexual harassment charge by a female reported in the Marine Corps Gazette of February 1999 (without the concomitant discussion of DoD Instruction 1320.4 -- unsubstantiated accusations in the promotion process for military officers).
Yes, the Judas goat has done a masterful job. He has used Critical Theory in an attempt to malign the reputation of the Navy and Marine Corps by using inflammatory examples in a biased fashion to satisfy his former superiors in the political chain of command. Toadies such as COL Roush are rampant in the system and are doing disastrous damage to the service to which they claim loyalty. He is not alone.
But the Judas goat and his false creed are easily refuted -- at every turn. A starting point is to recognize that there are but three systems of ethics, three conceptions of the ideal character and the moral life, which have evolved over the past 2,500 years of Western Civilization. They can be summarized as three different ideas about virtue. One is that of Jesus, which considers all men to be equally precious, resists evil only by returning good, "...identifies VIRTUE with LOVE, and inclines in politics to unlimited democracy."
The second 'system of ethics' is based on the ethic of Machiavelli and Nietzsche, which accepts the inequality of men, relishes the risks of combat and conquest and rule, "...identifies VIRTUE with POWER," and exalts an hereditary aristocracy.
The third, the ethic of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, considers that only the informed and mature mind can judge, according to diverse circumstance, when love should rule, and when power; "...identifies VIRTUE with INTELLIGENCE, and advocates a varying mixture of aristocracy and democracy in government.
It is, indeed, our marvelous heritage that our Founding Fathers, well versed in the history of Western Civilization and the disastrous consequences of the socialist French Revolution fueled by the 'idealist' philosophers, crafted a constitutional republic. They took the best from each of these three systems of ethics; a Declaration of Independence which recognized the Judeo-Christian concept of God as the foundation for our 'inalienable rights,' while accepting the fact that we are not all equal in every aspect of our being and our circumstances but are 'equal under the law,' and limiting the power that a central government (that necessary evil) has over our lives.
If you need further exemplification of this concept, please read Balint Vazsonyi's book, "America's 30 Years War: Who is Winning?" It is a concise summary of the two paths Western Civilization has taken since the American and French Revolutions in the late 18th century. There are only two paths -- the Franco-German way (Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, and other 'idealist' philosophers) and the Anglo-American way (Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, Locke, Jefferson, and other 'realists'). It should be required reading for anyone connected with the Leadership and Ethics program at the U.S. Naval Academy. It is a direct refutation of everything that the Judas goat places before us. It should be read by every concerned Academy alumnus who wants to leave the herd of sheep and become a shepherd -- one of VADM Metcalf's 'leaders' with imagination, courage, and conviction. Otherwise, America's culture war will, indeed, be lost to the New Barbarians.
As the noted leftist, Christopher Hitchens, remarked on national television during the Clinton impeachment hearings, "The culture war is over. We won. Get over it."
Hitchens is a secular humanist Englishman (actually, a self-described atheist, " I'm an atheist. I'm not neutral about religion, I'm hostile to it. I think it is a positively bad idea, not just a false one. And I mean not just organized religion, but religious belief itself. He is a leading commentator on American culture and politics and makes his living in the USA as a literary figure. He is "Critic at Large" for Vanity Fair, writes the Minority Report column for The Nation, and is a frequent guest on current affairs and commentary television programs.
Hitchens' major claim to fame, in addition to being a darling of the liberal left, is his book, "The Missionary Position: Mother Theresa in Theory and Practice," (Verso, 1995), which strongly criticized Mother Theresa. This criticism runs from her "...proselytization for religious fundamentalism, for the most extreme interpretation of Catholic doctrine," to her "taking money - over a million dollars - from Charles Keating, the Lincoln Savings and Loans swindler, even though it had been shown to her that the money was stolen," and that she is EVIL for saying that "... the suffering of the poor is something very beautiful and the world is being very much helped by the nobility of this example of misery and suffering."
Christopher Hitchens is symbolic of the cultural Marxist elite of the Boomer generation of Americans. He, and his human secularist philosophy fit the elites of this generation like a glove. Indeed, Bill and Hillary Clinton are the power elite icons of our new state-sponsored religion, secular humanism, which informs our morals and ethics in our politically correct, multicultural society.
The change agents are at work in our culture, infusing their New Age ethics into every institution in the land. They have now infected the military, the last American institution to stand fast under their onslaught. The Judas goat is one such change agent, who accomplished his damage in the new ethics program at the U.S. Naval Academy.
The fact that the cultural Marxists have been so successful in co-opting American military officers is a chilling reality and gives further evidence that Hitchens' pronouncement ("The culture war is over. We won!") is not just an empty boast. The leftists are on the march and are making major advances, led by the Boomer-in-Chief, Bill Clinton and his cultural Marxist wife, Senator Hillary. But even at this late hour, the battle can be won by right-thinking Americans, marching together. Wake up Academy alumni! Wake up America!
Footnotes:
1) Thompson II, Charles C., A Glimpse of Hell: The Explosion on the USS Iowa and Its Cover-Up, W.W. Norton & Co., 1999.
2) Ibid.
3) Durant, Will, "The Story of Philosophy," pp. 137, Simon & Schuster, 1961.
4) Hitchens, Christopher with Cherry, Matt, "Christopher Hitchens on Mother Theresa (an Interview)," Free Inquiry Magazine, Vol. 16, No. 4.
End of footnotes.
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