The new Secretary of Defense has been (narrowly) confirmed by the Senate and is in office. Despite his many defects (as we all have), there is at least some hope that DoD will not be business as usual, and that we can at least partially move to having our military defend our Constitution and our homelands, and not try to garrison the entire planet and everything in orbit.
Hegseth’s initial message to the troops and civilians in DoD and the military departments is short and necessarily general in nature. But we need to be critical and read carefully.
Secretary Hegseth’s Message to the Force
Jan. 25, 2025 |
It is the privilege of a lifetime to lead the warriors of the Department of Defense, under the leadership of our Commander in Chief Donald J. Trump. We will put America First, and we will never back down.
The President gave us a clear mission: achieve Peace through Strength. We will do this in three ways — by restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and reestablishing deterrence.
o We will revive the warrior ethos and restore trust in our military. We are American warriors. We will defend our country. Our standards will be high, uncompromising, and clear. The strength of our military is our unity and our shared purpose.
o We will rebuild our military by matching threats to capabilities. This means reviving our defense industrial base, reforming our acquisition process, passing a financial audit, and rapidly fielding emerging technologies. We will remain the strongest and most lethal force in the world.
o We will reestablish deterrence by defending our homeland — on the ground and in the sky. We will work with allies and partners to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific by Communist China, as well as supporting the President’s priority to end wars responsibly and reorient to key threats. We will stand by our allies — and our enemies are on notice.
All of this will be done with a focus on lethality, meritocracy, accountability, standards, and readiness.
I have committed my life to warfighters and their families. Just as my fellow soldiers had my back on the battlefield, know that I will always have your back. We serve together at a dangerous time. Our enemies will neither rest nor relent. And neither will we. We will stand shoulder to shoulder to meet the urgency of this moment.
Like each of you, I love my country and swore an oath to defend the Constitution. We will do that each and every day, as one team. Together we will accomplish the President’s mission to deter war, and if necessary, defeat and destroy our enemies. Godspeed!
If we here at TPOL are counting right, this is just 337 words: we’ve seen longer messages and speeches from brass hats to order breakfast.
Don’t hold your breath, but having a true dogface soldier in the boss’s office at the Pentagon, even with no-service The Donald at 1600 PA, gives a little more hope than the usual routine of ring-knockers and brain-trust diplomats in uniform.
The Price of Liberty 
A conservative’s realization: being had by government
The following commentary by Rob Morse, a conservative advocate of the 2nd Amendment and armed citizens, is telling.
He points out clearly that government – American government at all levels – has failed. Particularlyin the field of education. That the American people (and the world) have been had. But we fear he still may not realize that it is not enough to reform government. We must do more.
See some comments on Rob’s comments at the end.
They Had One Job to do, and the Government Failed at it
We neither want the government in our bedroom nor do we want them telling us what to think. We wanted them to do a few simple jobs that most of us needed.
We wanted our children to learn to read, to write, and to know our history. We wanted the government to provide for common defense. We asked the government to mediate conflicts and stop criminals. We also asked for some infrastructure to promote travel and commerce.
Given our recent history, it looks like that was too much to ask. It is important to learn why those things failed.
We pushed the government into the education business for a couple of reasons. Parents with children wanted teachers they could trust. We thought that a public education would give us smarter voters who would make better decisions at the ballot box. We also thought that children of poor parents should have access to a basic education.
That didn’t turn out the way we planned. We’ve seen local, state, and federal agencies taken over by the teacher’s union. They not only ran the schools, but their political contributions ran the government for the benefit of the teachers rather than for the citizens. It became more important to promote special interests in school than to provide a basic education. We have whole school districts where students can’t read at grade level in school after school. Public education has declined for decades even though it consumes more and more money. Government schools were unable to give us what we wanted.
We asked politicians to give us reliable courts and first responders. We wanted a safe environment and safe food. That failed because of politics. It was more important to promote special interests than to lock up criminals and to keep our streets safe. It was more important to promote special interests than to have an effective military and safe food and drugs. It was more important to provide political kickbacks than to keep water reservoirs filled during peak fire season. It was more important to have DEI hires than to fight fires.
We’ve seen our legal system used to viciously harass political opponents. At the same time, the government can’t bring itself to jail repeat criminal offenders if they are illegal immigrants. We saw government strictly prosecute people who defended themselves while at the same time it returned violent-mentally-ill-addicts back onto the street to reoffend.
We’ve seen bizarre environmental regulations drive costs through the roof. At the same time, these regulations caused our forests to burn out of control. Politicians served their vocal supporters while they ignored the common good.We asked government to help provide safe transportation. It turns out that the kickbacks from public contracts were more important than the quality of the concrete and steel. It was more important to make DEI hires than to operate a safe and effective air traffic control system.
We asked government to give us something it is simply unable to provide. In our legislative system, concentrating benefits and diffusing costs is the formula for winning benefits for your cause, whether it be an ideological victory, economic gain for your industry, or just plain old-fashioned political graft. Politicians make amazing promises, but these incentives are always operating. We can limit this process of corruption, but only up to a point and only for a while. The members of the general public people who are harmed by incompetence are spread out and disorganized. As a result, the self-interest of government officials outweighs the demand for competence.
Legislators and bureaucrats spend other people’s money and advance their own interests. Overall, this system does not reward dedication and competence. In practical terms, we’ve seen more and more of us take our children out of public schools. We run our own businesses and moved those businesses to friendly states. For those who remained behind, we learned that our neighbors know more about us than government bureaucrats who are a thousand miles away. At best, we want to provide local control of common problems. That won’t stop it, but local control limits the scope of graft and corruption that can enter the public bureaucracy. We are asking politicians and bureaucrats to do too much and we are paying a horrible price.
It is time to make do with less government and more inconvenient freedom.
I gave you 800 words and my best ideas. Please let me know what you think, and share those thoughts with a friend. RM
We at TPOL respect and admire Rob, but we must point out that all of these issues, all of these problems and failures, are nothing more than features of these systems. The people cannot expect competence from any part of government – or really, anyone in government.
The solution is not reform. It is not even restoration of the original 1787 form of government: it is abolition. Pure and simple. Not just less government and more freedom, but NO human mandatory government and full freedom. Nothing less will work.