Todd Zywicki has an interesting post on Volokh concerning the debate over allowing the military to recruit on college campuses (and, by implication, the question of allowing ROTC on campus as well). Along the way he offers this wonderful quote from Thucydides:
The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.
Which reminds me of the awe and even veneration liberals suddenly discovered for the military after the submission of what a writer in Legal Times called possibly “one of the most important amicus curiae briefs ever submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court.” I’m referring, of course, to the brief filed by 29 high-ranking former military leaders in support of racial preferences in the Michigan cases.
Apparently the need for “diversity” in the armed forces is sufficiently compelling to justify racial discrimination on college campuses, but not compelling enough to allow military recruiting, or even a military presence, on those campuses.
Precisely how would the armed forces benefit from the preferential admission and graduation of “diverse” law students if they are not allowed to recruit them?
because bravery only exists in the army.
and intelligence only in the academy.
Well, obviously — if even the colleges aren’t allowed to give racial preferences, the military won’t be able to. And even more particularly, the service academies, one of the sources of officers, won’t be allowed to.
I said this several times on the comments section of the Zywicki post, but apparently no one reads them: this is not a Thucydides quote. Thucydides would not and could not have said anything like this. What is “scholars” in fifth-century Greek? Sophists? Socrates was a philosopher who famously fought in numerous campaigns. Thucydides himself was something of a scholar, I suppose; he was an Athenian general. All Greek men fought. There were no ancient think tanks. No ancient Greek would even consider the possibility of making a distinction between scholars and warriors.
Aaaaaah!!!
Well, obviously — if even the colleges aren’t allowed to give racial preferences, the military won’t be able to.
Meep – Yes, but the situation that results from not allowing military recruiters on campus is that colleges can (thanks to the departing Justice O’Connor) give preferences, but the armed forces are not allowed to recruit them. Not to mention (well, I’m mentioning it now) that removing the military presence from campus, by for example not allowing ROTC, deprives those campuses of the diversity a military presence would provide.
Professor – You may of course be right about Thucydides (I’m tempted to ask, can you cite where he doesn’t say that?), but it’s still a good line. It’s so good it makes actus even more befuddled than usual….
“Apparently the need for “diversity” in the armed forces is sufficiently compelling to justify racial discrimination on college campuses, but not compelling enough to allow military recruiting, or even a military presence, on those campuses”
I think the military is capable of recruiting outside of campus.
A fine quote, I use a variant in the title bar of my military reading list site:
http://militaryprofessionalreadinglists.com
I poked around a bit and kind of settled on Butler as the source, although I’d like to hear otherwise…