Recruiters on campus – Making you look bad ponytail boy?

The attack on recruiters is nothing new, but as the Boomer Left continues to strengthen its hold on gov’munt schools in many places, it is quickly reaching Solomon Amendment levels….in High School!

Over at TCS, Douglas Kern just tears it up. Read the whole thing. I like his tounge-in-cheek writing style.

Damn those sexy Marines! A curse upon their macho swagger and fascinating scars and rugged boot-camp-sculpted physiques and manly ill-fitting uniforms! How dare these vulpine volcanoes of voluptuous virility vend their voluminous values to vexed valedictorians? Who will keep our young adults from succumbing to the siren call of patriotism and public service?

Ponytail boy the High School administrator, perhaps? Or is it crunchy Village Voice readers that, though they cannot stand anything testosteroney-like, they find…something…attractive…

"In promoting this type of recruiting effort," Bamburger writes, "our government apparently realizes what advertisers and marketers have known for years -- teens are fertile ground for influence because they still are at a point in life where impulse can overrule rational thought. So it's not a leap to worry that our children also might be unduly and dangerously swayed in these times by a call to patriotism. It's not a stretch to imagine that when they sign on the dotted line for boot camp, our children have focused more on the well-cut uniforms and group camaraderie and not on the long-term, and possibly deadly, consequences of even a short stint in the military."

If you're an adult at eighteen, then you should be a bona-fide adult, not a juvenile on stealth double-secret adult probation. At 18, the law says you're old enough to vote; old enough to have sex; old enough to have an abortion; old enough to enter a legally binding contract -- heck, you're even old enough to incur the death penalty, assuming recent case law from Suriname doesn't persuade the Supreme Court to the contrary. So you're old enough to vote on questions of when and how the military will be used around the world -- yet not old enough to make your own decision about joining the military. Say what?

Whether it's jacking up the drinking age, subsidizing Romper Room party colleges with taxpayer dollars, or ejecting those luscious Marine recruiters from our public schools, the theme is the same: we are creating an extended adolescence for American young people that reaches well beyond their eighteenth birthday. The years between eighteen and twenty-one are a limbo in which responsible behavior is little demanded and even less expected.

At what point do decisions entail grown-up consequences? At what point do the training wheels come off our citizenship? Precisely what favor do we think we're doing teens by prolonging their goofy years?

Boom. That’s in the 10 ring. Don’t underestimate today’s youth, though not all are perfect.

So don't hate those Marines because they're beautiful. Don't hate them for their smokin'-hot stubbly haircuts and their surprisingly generous college tuition deals and their slick sales pitch. Fight them on their own terms. Present the case to your kid for the advantages of a nice drunken college education on someone else's dime over patriotism and making your own way in the world. Sell them on the joys of sedentary pursuits over high adventure. Make your own wicked cool berets. If your precious little adult isn't buying it, don't blame those sexy Marines. Blame yourself.

Marketplace of ideas ponytail patchouli boy. Don’t be such a puss an perhaps your young men and women will want to join you at NYU New Paltz.

BTW, a subject for another day. He is righ on WRT the 18yr olds. Don’t get me started on the “you can kill hundreds of Jihadi for your country, be in charge of $millions of equipment and carry enough firepower to destroy a building,,,,,but don’t you dare have a beer at The Irish Times. Harumph.

Hat tip The Corner.