John Robson: Liberals are infecting our military and police forces with wokeism. We will all pay the price

"I think policing, like soldiering, used to attract mostly serious, stoic applicants willing to endure hardship to protect order against chaos," writes John Robson. "But if so, those professions are unlikely to appeal to social justice warriors." PHOTO BY PATRICK GIBSON/COCHRANE TIMES

 

What the government is determined to fix is not the military's capabilities as a force, but its lack of social justice

Years ago, American political philosopher Harvey Mansfield made a troubling observation that I cited in these pages five years ago. You might suppose that a mere $8 billion under current circumstances, for what Gurney rightly calls unspecified purposes, indicates that the Trudeau Liberals are not serious about fixing the military. What they are determined to fix is the lack of social justice. And they really seem convinced that, if identity politics crushes all opposition, there will be such a flowering of true human fulfillment that lack of modern equipment, logistical support or actual soldiers will be of no importance in safeguarding our security.

The military isn’t just incapable of fighting. Everything is exquisitely politically correct yet, despite lavish remuneration and ridiculous job security, polls repeatedly find the mood and ethics to be dismal. The solution, naturally, is a further assault on patriarchal bigotry in the belief that perfect justice is just one seminar and three pronouns away. The testimony was given by the head of the Mounties’ union, who has a vested interest in the size of the force and used social justice language.

I think policing, like soldiering, used to attract mostly serious, stoic applicants willing to endure hardship to protect order against chaos. But if so, those professions are unlikely to appeal to social justice warriors. And if only SJWs need apply, you’ll wind up with an inadequate pool of unsuitable applicants trickling into institutions that spectacularly fail to deliver either on their ostensible mandate or on social justice, becoming instead dungeons whose occupants are in no mood to live together let alone do their jobs, under leaders unfit to inspire them to do either. Mansfield’s insight might be called conservative since it relies implicitly on human nature being both flawed and intractable.

Source: John Robson | NP