This ties in with the earlier post here, "Do You Know Your Military?"
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
Gen. Mattis, Col. Urben, and LTC Dempsey all found that the officer corps is generally more conservative than the enlisted ranks. Educated conservatives tend not to support Pres. Trump and his policies. It cannot be blamed on liberal brainwashing.

This ties in with the earlier post here, "Do You Know Your Military?"
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
Gen. Mattis, Col. Urben, and LTC Dempsey all found that the officer corps is generally more conservative than the enlisted ranks. Educated conservatives tend not to support Pres. Trump and his policies. It cannot be blamed on liberal brainwashing.

This ties in with the earlier post here, "Do You Know Your Military?"
The officer corps is generally more conservative than the enlisted ranks. Educated conservatives tend not to support Pres. Trump and his policies.

"The battlefield has its own accounting." -- Gen. James Mattis

This ties in with the earlier post here, "Do You Know Your Military?"
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
Gen. Mattis, Col. Urben, and LTC Dempsey all found that the officer corps is generally more conservative than the enlisted ranks. Educated conservatives tend not to support Pres. Trump and his policies. It cannot be blamed on liberal brainwashing.

https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

This ties in with the earlier post here, "Do You Know Your Military?"
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
Gen. Mattis, Col. Urben, and LTC Dempsey all found that the officer corps is generally more conservative than the enlisted ranks. Educated conservatives tend not to support Pres. Trump and his policies. It cannot be blamed on liberal brainwashing.

Well, I am sorry to hear that. It does speak against the brainwashing theory of education. He made and makes choices. We all do. Also, my daughter is a bit older, so let me assure you that in the long run, as you bend the twig, so grows the tree. Personal values are deeper than headline politics.

After all my engagements with members of all the services, I can comment as follows: It's logical the President finds less favor with the Air Force and Navy officer corps, as those two officer groups have always been politicians in uniform.

As an Air Force officer (the first commissioned member of my family) I always felt I was swimming upstream against superiors that were more concerned with process than results. It mattered less to them of the outcome than finding the lowest risk to their own careers. I watched the most highly effective field grade officers winnowed out by an establishment bureaucracy. What remained were either "eye candy" brainless Steve Canyon wannabes, or avaricious, untrustworthy bureaucrats in uniform. The Navy upper ranks appeared even worse.

I've noticed some of the same as you are saying here. Even though I am not a Catholic, I have donated to local Catholic charities because the donation is not eaten up in overhead. They are dedicated and the funds get to where they are supposed to go.

"... but I think that there is more to it." Agreed, for sure. It can be difficult to fully discuss a topic in snippets and posts on a board like this. We all have other things to do with our lives (at least I would hope so!) and, therefore, in depth coverage and conversation can be elusive.

" I don't know the reason for this phenomenon." I suspect there are many reasons and here, in our conversation, we're just hitting on one possibility - the "indoctrination" issue. Let me speculate on a couple not covered in the article, but I've noticed in my experiences:

1) The military is also like a fraternity or exclusive club and you are a member or you are not. Trump is not and as a result will never be fully accepted and approved by some members no matter what he does.

2) Many career military (officer corps) like the fraternity to be "tidy" in certain respects. That is, the leadership is expected to maintain specific traditional behaviors and "face". Trump breaks those rules and shows a non-traditional face from time to time. [side note: Often the media snipes on him for being "non-presidential", which is the same thing.] This seeming superficiality is upsetting to traditionalists and blocks them from seeing what Trump is really all about. Therefore, they disapprove of him no matter what else he does.

If the speculations I just offered are true (especially the second, since all officers are educated), then perhaps separating out "education" as a meaningful stat is just a meaningless red herring.

I'm sure there are more possibilities.

If one in a hundred manage to get through the liberal indoctrination that is not proof that it does not exist, only that it is isn't 100% effective. This isn't exactly the most populous site on the internet.

My son was a semi-finalist in the high school essay contest, got a hundred bucks for college went to a tech school -- came out all in for liberal causes turned away from Rand's philosophy.

"So, even though the public school teachers are not "teaching" politics, by other (unstated) assumptions, they transfer or transmit messages that lead to weak or bad political ideas later in life in their children now. "
I wonder if this is happening under my radar. I wonder if some dispute happens and the teachers resolve it by utilitarianism. Or I wonder if it's part of the curriculum.

Thanks. I do lose my patience and down vote short declarative announcements of idiocy, but like you, I tend to accept almost any statement supported by a fact, at least as a point worth discussing, so I do not down vote stuff just because I disagree with it.

I know a bit about the history of Catholic education in America, not only from my own experience, but from a graduate class in local history of Detroit. Detroit had Catholic schools from 1800 because it was French before it was English and American. The first wave of Irish came there a generation to a decade arlier than the rest showed up in Boston. Following them came Germans and then Poles through the 1920s. Catholic schools were always the mainstay in Detroit and they created the middle class of the suburbs as people moved up and out. Personally, I grew up in a Catholic neighborhood in Cleveland, but I attended public schools because my family was anti-clerical for political reasons left over from Europe.

Anyway... I agree that Catholic education tends to be conceptual. The indoctrination into mysticism and altruism is based on and delivered via ideas that are identified and explained. Public education does not identify its implicit morality; and it has no explicit philosophy. They do not even hold to John Dewey's pragmatism. They just float...

That said, though, again, from personal experience, we had little Ayn Rand coteries in all the public schools that I knew from Cleveland. I was at a Model United Nations sponsored by the Council on World Affairs, very left-liberal and all, but all I had to say was "... that's not rational..." and some girl asked me out to lunch. "So you read Ayn Rand."

Just to say, I agree broadly with your perspective, but I think that there is more to it.

Well, we have some points of disagreement. For one thing, a broad fact, one of the many values in Ayn Rand's Objectivism is that she showed how (implicit) assumptions about metaphysics and epistemology become ethical beliefs and political agendas. So, even though the public school teachers are not "teaching" politics, by other (unstated) assumptions, they transfer or transmit messages that lead to weak or bad political ideas later in life in their children now. At least, that's the theory...

Myself, I see that kids accept their families as normal. Liberal, conservative, Christian, atheist, house painter or auto mechanic, you inherit what you are given. Some people break from that, some completely. But in all my years, while I have heard Objectivists tell of disassociating themselves from their families, I never heard it from a conservative. And never from a liberal. If anything Democratic or mildly liberal parents turn out progressive and radical left children. But conservative parents raise conservative children to be conservative adults. That makes sense, if you accept the traditional value of traditional values.

As for the other points, I tend to agree with your perspectives. I am not a fan of former Sen. Clinton. I do not like her or her coterie. But I grant that she is a "policy wonk." She thinks - evilly - about big ideas, long range plans, deep consequences. I give her that. Donald Trump offers the simplicity of fascism.

As you note about Adams and the other Federalists, brought to our world for a comment, they would see Donald Trump as a modern day Andrew Jackson, raising up the rabble.

"sponsored by the Ayn Rand Institute come from Catholic schools"
If we move our kids to another school, it would be a Catholic school. I know people from Jewish, Muslim, and atheist backgrounds who send their kids to Catholic school because the local Catholic school has its act together. They are really impressive. They do some indoctrination, but they also see problems and fix them. It seems while atheists argue whether a free market or socialistic programs are better at helping the poor, Catholics actually help them. And it's not just about helping the poor. They're good at helping themselves.

" I can't say I've never slipped"
I didn't mean to say you might slip and make mistake. I mean you don't actually think education can be the same as indoctrination, even if you it's teaching conclusions you believe in.

"I know many career military officers who are highly educated in the non-indoctrinated sense of the word."
The OP article says officers approve of Trump less than enlisted people. People are saying it's because Trump is actually the better choice, but education is often just political indoctrination, and that indoctrination makes officers less supportive of Trump.

If you're just saying you don't trust the voting judgment of people who vote for candidates you disagree with, that sounds like a truism. I was talking about the relationship between education and support for Trump.

I do not know what the relationship is. The arguments that a) Trump is actually better and education makes you too stupid to see that or b) Clinton is actually better and education makes you smart enough to see that are not helpful.

Thanks for reading me take four paragraphs to say I don't know the reason for this phenomenon. :)

"... I assume you would never..." I can't say I've never slipped in the past, but I try very hard not to interchange the terms. Unfortunately, that is not the case across the board.

"... are you saying that on average..." I'm saying no such thing. I know many career military officers who are highly educated in the non-indoctrinated sense of the word. I also know a well educated very very high ranking officer who is a "dyed-in-the-wool" liberal. I would trust his judgement on many things, but NOT how to run the country or who to vote for.

MM: "what [President Trump] advocates is socialism, nationalist socialism."
term: "Trump is definitely intellectually conflicted."

I don't see President Trump as having a philosophy, ideology, or even clear positions on basic issues.
- Should gov't spending be increased or decreased?
- Do you think US continue agreements to provide security for other countries, or should US dial back those agreements and let countries provide for their defense?
- Should we make moves to privatize Social Security, PPACA, and other social safety net programs, or should those programs stay in existence but be reformed?
- What do you think of asset forfeiture?
- What do you think of gov't surveillance on Americans not suspected of a crime?

I believe he has no idea on these. I think he has no idea if he's for socialism if you asked in a neutral way, something about hardworking American's money being used to help other native-born hardworking American's who've fallen on hard times. He's not for it or against it. He does not know. He knows what gets attention. If you were making a reality TV show and wanted to know just how much chest a woman should show to get people not to flip to the next channel, I believe he would know how much skin is too much and what the sweet spot is for getting eyeballs on that screen. If you asked him to think up three things that are kind of offensive but would get everyone arguing, he would know them off the top of his head. If you asked him unprepared what socialism is, he would struggle. If you asked him to use socialism in a sentence that would get people in line at a deli with a TV playing to look up and watch the show, he would have one.

"I see is that the entire educational system from K and through college degrees is highly overloaded with liberal socialists more intent on indoctrination " -GaryL

This is the crux of it, right? This is a radical claim. Education, real education, should not indoctrinate dogmas. I see no indoctrination happening. I have two kids in public school. I pulled them out of a private school because of disagreements with them. The public school is pretty good, considering it's provided for "free" and run by the gov't. Compared to private business, it's not that great. There are some great people there, and there are some people younger than I am who are counting the years until they're eligible for retirement. I see a huge problem there of treating kids like babies. Kids can't just run outside and play for recess. Their games must be pre-approved by teachers. They're not allowed to refuse to play with someone. They're not allowed to pick up sticks. The list of proscribed activities is staggering.

But I see no politics there whatsoever. There are all sorts of things I don't like. Since I do not like them and I do not like President Trump's public persona, I could try to contort them into "indoctrination". Esp with policies I don't agree like the drug war, which I think is a tragedy that threatens liberty way beyond people caught up in the war, I could say the reason everyone can't see it my way is the schools are indoctrinating them in it at a young age. Most people who agree with elements of the drug war have been brainwashed, I'd (wrongly) say. If only they could be like me, freed of the dogma, they'd see the light.

What intellectual masturbation that would be! I have to accept that intelligent people think drug prohibition, even war-like prohibition, is a good idea, and it's not because they're brainwashed. I actually have to ask them what they think. We have to see if we disagree on the goals, or how much we're willing to pay for prohibition if it does work. We could also see if we disagree on the facts we're using. There are hundreds ways to dig into this issue. Or I could just say they must be brainwashed not to agree with me, which would be intellectual junk food way worse than Taco Bell.

Really what I think happens is people buy into the self-serving claims of politicians, that say either President Obama or President Trump are the incarnation of everything that's evil or incompetent. There is a lot of evil and incompetence in the world. If you believe in the self-serving political rhetoric, that means there's a lot of Trumpism or Obamaism in the world. But it's complete and utter nonsense. Contrary to what they'd have you believe, we have pretty good education here. We are amazingly prosperous and free, by historical standards.

It's like really stupid tabloid-level thinking has found its way to websites that non-tabloid-followers read, and otherwise reasonable people believe absurd claims like there's a massive political indoctrination program. I find it absurd on its face, but it's like how if "Big Brother" in a totalitarian country repeats something enough it starts to sound reasonable. This is not "Big Brother", but just millions of "little brother" friends sharing absurd ideas.

Maybe this is what people mean when they say the country is politically divided. I imagine people who accept the brainwashing-in-lieu-of-education claim would claim that I too have been brainwashed since I believe Clinton would by far a better choice than Trump. I don't know how to dig into that if the person denies me agency and thinks I've been massively duped at a young age. I'm basically doing the same thing back when I say they're saying something absurd that's been made reasonable on account of being echoed by millions of "little brothers".

This strikes me as what Adams was afraid of when he said democracy isn't turning power over to "the rabble". That's precisely how it seems to me when people say education is sham, our institutions are all corrupted by cabals of powerful people, and what we need is rule by "working people" instead of the institutions of a democratic republic.

"The problem with the "Marxist indoctrination" theory is that it fails to explain the Gulch." The Gulch is explained by people that can still think rationally. They can see Marxism as well as other political ideologies for the sham that they are.

Since when is bringing back good paying jobs a national socialist idea? Let's see how the jobs are brought back before making that stretch in judgment.

"His attitude toward women..." Yes, some off color locker room guy talk has some people running about insanely proclaiming Trump is somehow 100% misogynistic - begin hand wringing and nail biting. VP Pence says something the opposite and gets roasted as if they expect him to be a playboy and he refuses to act out their script - more hand wringing and nail biting. Little people can stand before a mole hill and convince themselves it is a mountain.

"...even the military is not exempt from charges of Marxist indoctrination." They aren't. Why should they be? IMHO though, if a charge is brought, there should be proof. Even career military individuals could be part of the swamp that needs draining. Joe McCarthy wasn't wrong all the time.

First, I did not downgrade your post. I don't do such things to people expressing their thoughts whether I agree or not.

Pointing out the notion there may be indoctrination styles other than Marxist, or as I said Marxist/PC - since PC is not necessarily a Marxist tenet, does not subtract from the fact of Marxist/PC indoctrination taking place on a rather large scale. With that said, I am not surprised that Catholic schools turn out students that may be over represented in ARI winning submissions. The reason is empirical for me as I live in a large metropolitan area with a very large Catholic population that includes many Catholic schools scattered all about - many attended by friends and family members. The schools, at least the ones I am personally familiar with - mainly high schools, even accept students that are not Catholic and allow many students to opt out of religious instruction classes. Furthermore, religious instruction (or as you prefer: indoctrination) is NOT brought into the usual academic classroom. The reason for this is purely economical as these schools need the funding to continue in existence and the population at large, Catholic or not, views these schools as high quality private education for their children. These schools have very high academic and BEHAVIORAL standards often not found in the public schools sometimes found on the same city block. These standards supersede tuition paid.

"you do not believe any poll from the establishment?"
If uneducated people took over the military leadership, they would be the establishment. Then the view of not trusting the educated would be in conflict with not trusting the establishment.

I guess I've become an old-man "conservative" or whatever you call it. I think usually (not always) in any organization the "establishment" got to be in charge because they showed up and did the work using their education.

" if "educated" actually means indoctrinated into left wing extremist"
For you and me, though, I assume you would never use the word "educated" to mean indoctrinated in anything, even if the indoctrination were in conclusions you agreed with.

In the context of the OP, are you saying that on the average US military officers are not actually educated (in our use of the word) but rather indoctrinated in political dogma?

Actually, I am just ignoring most of what the establishment is saying because I cant accept on face value what they are saying. I dont have an opinion one way or the other about whether soldiers like Trump, and its not very high on the radar in terms of important things at the moment.

I do this with most of what the establishment says. For example- global warming. I wont live to see any effects of the supposed global warming anyway, so why would I waste my personal time trying to analyze the data that the pundits are putting out there.

I get the distinct feeling that the establishment has a vested interested in global warming to advance their "control" agendas. It is immaterial to me if Trump, Obama, Hillary, etc are for or against the agenda. It is what it is.

As an engineer, I have a distinct impression that if indeed there is global warming, that it is more likely to be a result of some huge factors that have resulted in heating or cooling the earth for a long long time, and that are far beyond what we could affect as humans.

Additionally, establishment types cant predict whats going to happen this year, let alone the next 100 years.

Also, so what if the sea level goes up a few feet in 100 years. If I lived on the coast there is plenty of time to just move inland to the "new" coast.

Therefore, I ignore the establishment's comments about global warming without even bothering to say I agree or dont agree. I dont know.

As to whether soldiers like Trump, I dont know, and frankly dont care. There are more important things to think about than if someone likes trump or not.

Education means an exploration and grounding in the truth of reality - not what we wish to be truth or reality. It only benefits one to examine Marxist and leftist propaganda to point out the flaws in such. Teaching them as truth (as many progressive professors do these days) is ideological indoctrination - not education. I stand by my words.