Guest Post by Kurt Schlichter
Help, I’m being oppressed! My freedom of speech was been utterly stripped from me because when I retired from the Army those fascist monsters took away my TOP SECRET security clearance. See, a security clearance is a special privilege I should be entitled to exploit for as long as I want to because… well, shut up peasant, that’s why. I learned this in my Con Law class, right after we studied the Constitution’s text enumerating the rights to abortion, wedding cake baking servitude, and to be called by the bizarre pronoun of your – I mean “xir” – choice.
Oh wait, all of that – except the giving up my clearance part – is utter nonsense.
But John Brennan, that hack, and his elite pals are supposed to get the special privilege of keeping it. Why? As a professional courtesy. See, security clearances are things you pass out as favors or rewards, I guess, at least among the elite. Courtesy among them, nothing for you, though. You aren’t special. You’re just some guy serving his country and not turning it into a profit center on the outside. Like a sucker.
I got my clearance for the same reason you readers who got one got yours –because I needed it to do my job in the service of our country. And when I stopped needing it because I was no longer doing a job in the service of my country, I didn’t get to keep it to inflate my value as a pundit or “consultant.” Mine went away. As did yours, I’ll wager. The chances are pretty infinitesimal that you are one of the special somebodies who get handed power and privilege not to serve our country but as a perk for being part of the in-crowd.
Being a colonel was just a job for me, and doing what you did was just a job for you. But for a lot of these retired generals and senior bureaucrat timeservers, it’s a lifestyle. I always saw my eagle as leased; they think they hold the pink slip on their positions. Oh, and do they ever have contempt for Normals like you.
Security clearances get pulled routinely when the holder no longer needs access because the fewer people with access, the safer the info is – pretty basic stuff. But hey, we’ll take the chance on classified info spilling if it means elite jerks can get to bask in the warm light of being In The Know. It’s not like any of our betters ever got caught up in classified info shenanigans. Not Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit. Not that Towering Doofus James Comey. Not David Petreaus. And not his mistress.
Oh, wait – all of them totally did. But, of course, these elite malefactors are all in jail, because you or I would be if we did what they did. Aren’t they?
Oh, right. They aren’t. They’re special. More professional courtesy. More special rules for special people.
Now, we’re also told that these special somebodies need to keep their clearances in case someone actually in the government who is actually doing a government job (instead of raking in bucks as a “consultant” or pundit) wants to ask their sage advice. How would that go with John Brennan?
“Hey John, it’s Don. Yeah, no hard feelings. Anyway, I needed to pick your brain about some stuff that you have a unique perspective on. So, how do I lie to Congress and get away with it? How about leaking to the liberal media – any pro tips? Oh, and how do I get 30 of our sources in China caught and shot? Yeah, I know you weren’t in charge of the CIA then, but you can tell me how you repaired the damage when you were Director. Oh. You didn’t. Awkward.”
If we had a real media and not the world’s most pompous Democrat transcription service, the CIA’s blown Chinese spy ring disaster would be front page news but hey, Omarosa! In any case, the only consulting anyone should do with the members of this class of unmitigated failures whose incompetence brought us 9/11, Iraq, Libya, ISIS, and a future where we would all be wise to learn Mandarin, is to ask their opinion and then do the opposite – Costanza style.
Let’s look at our elite’s track record of success. Don’t worry – it won’t take long. We’re still chasing bandits in Afghanistan after nearly 17 years, the Navy can’t stop running into other people’s boats, and our best and brightest in the FBI are texting each other like teens while they try to undo the election. They can’t be bothered with things like, I don’t know, following up on warnings about psychotic freaks who get online and announce their plan to shoot up schools. Oh, and remember the 2008 economic collapse? I’m thinking you weren’t the one making bad bets with billions of dollars that brought it all tumbling down. By the way, guess how many people the feds tossed in the pokey for the 2008 meltdown that cost you and me a trillion bucks? One. Uno. A single dude.
If you lifted $50 of Coors Light from a 7-Eleven fridge, where would you be?
Our elite is a failure that is fixated on its own privilege and avoiding accountability. As my upcoming book Militant Normals: How Regular Americans Are Rebelling Against the Elite to Reclaim Our Democracywonders, is it too much to ask that our elite actually be elite? Is it too much to ask that we have one standard of accountability?
The liberals are right about something – privilege is destroying our country. But it’s not privilege based on what hellhole your great-great-great grandfather escaped from or the kind of biological plumbing you were born with. It is privilege based on your membership in a selfish, feckless, unaccomplished caste of schmucks that fancies itself our betters yet rejects, with the help of a complicit liberal press, any kind of accountability for the mess it’s made of everything.
You know why you got Trump? Because Donald Trump, with all his quirks, is exponentially more competent, capable, and trustworthy when it comes to running this country for the benefit of Normal Americans than the sorry collection of Ivy League-credentialed dimwits, progressive poohbahs, and Fredocon enablers that masquerades as America’s elite.
Pull their security clearances? Yeah, but that’s just a start. Strip them of all of the privileges they haven’t earned, then ship the whole useless bunch of them off to a desert island and see if they can survive eating their own smugness.
I am right with you on everything except this. I think that you don’t lose your security clearance. You lose your need to know. You are always bound by your security clearance to protect the secrets that you know. You just don’t get to know any new ones.
“You are always bound by your security clearance to protect the secrets that you know.”
If that’s true, why does your clearance have value to private companies and organizations if you can’t tell them anything?
Because if they are working on things involving such clearances, or want to be, they can fill you in on exactly what you are going to go and lobby for. It says you are a member of the wink wink nod nod club of special people.
It also means you will probably get it approved, get it quicker, and it won’t cost Uncle as much.
Aha ha ?? oh your not joking?
how much is your defense budget? Have it shrunk much the last decade 2 decades? ooh❣, ALLthose $ and time Murica have saved by letting the in crowd keep their security clearance made me all warm and fuzzy inside☣ probably novichok?, im going to vote globalist next election ??
I must say i am amused. I needed to laugh before i went to bed to wipe out all the fear porn and propaganda i have consumed or been exposed to today?
(Edit; i see i went overboard with the emoji thingies btw)
Someone needs to take their meds and go sit at the Kids table while the adults in the room talk ….
Great article.
I have spent some time around Ivy Leaguers. A couple were fortunate to avoid serious bodily harm owing to their view of “normals” as the author calls them. Many are fine folks, much like any group of people you might encounter.
However, a sense of entitlement runs through many of these Ivy types. They are born to wealth and priviledge, and know nothing else. They have never thrown a punch in anger, and certainly never have had their ass kicked for being A grade douchebags. Everyone should have those experiences – punch shit out of some asshole for being an asshole, or receive such if you let your mouth run too hard.
I had occasion to grab hold of a couple of such types because they pissed me off by being assholes. The stunned look on their faces said volumes – they simply had been unable, until that point, to imagine they might get their asses kicked for being douchebags. And close they were to a flogging, moreso than they ever would know. They needed their asses kicked, as I doubt a bit of a scare was really enough to influence them. I could not afford to be expelled, so a fright was all I could afford to deliver. Some many years later I frightened one of them again when our paths crossed. I am not one to forgive and forget.
These type pricks cannot believe that anyone will ever stand up to them, and if it happens, they resort to the kind of crap referred to in the article – saying no to these assholes just is not done, you see. They cannot even imagine it, and if it ever happens, they run for whatever recourse they think their money and influence can buy them.
We the people need to stand up to these shits.
Good testimony, Llpoh. In the past you’ve testified to Ivy Leaguers’ smarts and work ethic – which really can’t be denied, even given whatever other legs up they may have had. That they are smart and disciplined doesn’t preclude their having an unwarranted sense of entitlement.
Llpoh- I read all about this elite fellow for decades who’s father gave him 200 million to start out with in the real estate game, I think he went bankrupt about six times and made a shitload of money turning his assumed name into a brand. The funny thing is some elites are privileged and some aren’t. Some are OK and just like you and me, and some aren’t. It’s like the pigs in Animal Farm some are more equal than others and you should let them run the farm.
I had to work hard to get to the bottom rung of the ladder but by middle age, I ran into the opposite bias. In rural North Florida, so many employers looked at my record and said I was over qualified or would not be able to fit in with the other men, that I wrote a second resume that fudged dates and left out all the good stuff. A man has got to swallow all his pride when he needs work to feed his wife and kids; the SOB liberals can’t keep a good White man down forever.
After you get rid of lifetime security clearances, get rid of professorial tenure at public universities.
After you get rid of lifetime security clearances, get rid of professorial tenure at public universities.
Kurt, as usual, is spot on. I would add a couple of things. Persons GS-15 and under (colonel grade) should be able to keep their clearances for a limited time “at the convenience of the service”, that is to say, if their agency has some reason for it. There are quite a few good old Navy chiefs who are needed to make things work these days, even after they retire. As for flag officers and senior (SES or SIS) folks, they can keep theirs for a limited time but only if they agree to accept the rules of conduct they previously worked under (no talking to the press, to start with) and their income from government contracts and consultancies is strictly limited. Think that is too generous? Watch them howl if you impose those rules.
“Make things work “for whom? To what good end?
At least severals states have law prohibiting convicts from profiting from their crimes- meaning book deals and movie deals among other things.
How about a law prohibiting government hacks from profiting from their time in government “service”- meaning book deals and movie deals among other things?
Except for Whistle Blowers…