Honorary Marine
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
Uncle Pays the Bills
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May 11th, 2012 at 9:28 am
God bless them both
May 11th, 2012 at 9:51 am
Crap, I click these links thinking I can choke back the tears.
Man that’s a touching story.
May 11th, 2012 at 10:10 am
While touching, remember that your tax dollars paid for that.
May 11th, 2012 at 10:23 am
Pollen count must be way high today too.
May 11th, 2012 at 10:41 am
I think I can forgive that expense. Anyone else?
May 11th, 2012 at 10:51 am
Divemedic said: “While touching, remember that your tax dollars paid for that.”
They were going to be paid regardless of what they did.
I consider it an appropriate use of their time.
May 11th, 2012 at 11:07 am
God bless them, every one.
Semper fi, Cody, you fought the good fight longer and harder than you should have had to. Fair winds and following seas.
Divemedic, bite me!
May 11th, 2012 at 1:26 pm
Let’s see. What’s the hourly pay for a Marine Sargent to guard a Dying Child versus the hourly pay of some TSA Goon who fondles children? I’m guessing about 50% less.
If my Federal Tax Dollars at Work are spent Guarding kids instead of Molesting them, then it’s a No-Brainer.
“Semper Fi” to Gyrenes everywhere.
May 11th, 2012 at 2:23 pm
Yeah, you don’t hear about a young child idolizing the TSA for their sacrifice or strength.
And you certainly don’t hear about someone from the TSA volunteering to stand guard overnight outside a hospital room giving every visitor a blue-gloved “salute”.
Nor do you hear the same about IRS agents.
Wonder why.
May 11th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
I just don’t think that I can be logically consistent in complaining about my tax dollars going to waste when they are sent out in the form of food stamps while at the same time paying for an honor guard.
I know the marine is paid one way or the other, but every marine that is doing a job like this, or playing in the Marine Corps band is tax money that is being wasted, just like the money going to other unnecessary programs.
By supporting this sort of thing, people perpetuate hypocrisy: THAT unnecessary expense is bad because I don’t like it, but THAT OTHER one is good, because I do. If you want children to have honor guards, then why not donate your own money to pay for it?
If not, then you have no room to complain when others want the government to spend money on unnecessary things that others want. That is how we got $15 trillion in debt: everyone has a pet unnecessary project.
May 11th, 2012 at 3:51 pm
Divemedic: You certainly have a point. In this case, however, my impression was that this Marine did this on his own initiative and probably on his own time. I don’t think that this was something he was doing while “on duty”.
May 11th, 2012 at 4:28 pm
Just file it under “recruitment expenses” rather than waste. Someone will hear this story and join the marines because of it.
May 11th, 2012 at 6:11 pm
Stupid allergies.
Thank you for linking that.
May 11th, 2012 at 7:38 pm
Divemedic: my favorite quote at times like this: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson.
To the unnamed Sergeant who stood guard: Oo-rah!
There are Marines … and there’s everybody else.
May 11th, 2012 at 7:54 pm
Wolfwalker: So in your mind, spending money on children, if done through the defense department, is good but spending money on children through the agriculture department is bad?
May 11th, 2012 at 9:17 pm
Divemedic, I’ll answer your loaded question with one of my own: would you truly deny a dying child his last wish, simply because tax dollars paid for it?
There are uses for my tax money to which I object, and uses of my tax money to which I do not. This comes under the latter heading. Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large; I contain multitudes.
May 12th, 2012 at 12:38 am
Divemedic:
Marines aren’t paid by the hour, they are paid a simple pittance that’s barely enough to survive on just to be a Marine.
THIS is what a Marine does, not penny pinching or profaning something sacred just for kicks.
May 12th, 2012 at 8:17 am
OK, then none of you can complain when the pet project that someone else wants is being paid for with tax dollars. It’s for the children, after all.
Food stamps for everyone.
May 13th, 2012 at 10:59 pm
Divemedic: the entire point of taxation is “because you wouldn’t do it otherwise” — i.e. to override individual free choice.
You can clear your logical impasse easily: ask any taxpayer whether they would voluntarily cover this guy’s pay for that night, absent taxation.
Hello! Over here!
You see, that’s the principle that matters. If there were no taxation, if the government were voluntarily funded, I don’t see something like this going wanting for support.
Taxation is theft. It is root of the moral problem. What is done with the loot afterwards is secondary — and to deny the victims permission to express a preference for one use over another (up to and including a declaration that one would support something *without* being robbed at gunpoint) on the grounds that doing so sanctions the theft, is an illogical application of the principle.