Patton’s America

TJIC links to a retelling of General Patton’s famous speech:

Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight. When you, here, everyone of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.

This is the culture I was born into.

It is now mocked by our political leadership. It is anathema to our educational classes, both elementary and collegiate. The core of our urban population has run away from this competitive pride. Big Media finds it cause for shame and apology.

Beyond the first-ring suburbs and into the vastness of purple mountains and amber waves of grain, Patton’s America still lives.

I am behind enemy lines. I live amidst the apologentsia. Everything foreign to Patton’s America is welcome here. I am not.

But to leave my homestead for the fruited plain is to surrender. I will not vacate the field of battle to a conurbation of losers. Because I was born into Patton’s America.

In my country and my culture, we do not surrender. We win.

We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we've got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts.

If it comes to that, yes.

It can difficult to see my smiling and well-meaning neighbors as that sort of enemy. But they are. They have attacked, invaded and established colonies in my country. In Patton’s America. Our views cannot coexist.

I hold that we are already at war. It has been a war without much violence so far. We retain so many petty luxuries it is easy to forget our differences are irreconcilable.

My greatest hope is that when the conflict becomes undeniable, the invaders will stay true to their character and surrender. Being invaders from within—traitors, in a sense— they must retain a kernel of their cultural heritage. They, too, were born into Patton’s America.

I wish to welcome them home.