Secretary Hegseth is reportedly considering re-naming the USNS Harvey Milk. It has to be done. Naming a ship after a statutory rapist “civil rights activist” is one of the more bizarre fashion statements of the combined Obama-Biden era. The Obama administration had decided to have a “John Lewis” class of social justice warrior ships including the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the USNS Harriet Tubman, all of which are currently under review by the Navy. This late-days Obama move transformed military assets into billboards advertising political agendas like a NASCAR badge. This grave departure from tradition correctly ends now.
The superficial sting of this matter is that Harvey Milk had an openly pedophilic relationship with a teenage boy, which has always been, and still is, a depraved crime in this country. Serious countries don’t have pedophile ships. Did they realize how insane this would look? Other countries – enemy countries – can peruse a public domain ship-tracking website and go “Oh there’s the Harvey Milk, the pederast. America’s such a joke now. Maybe they’re too busy doing drag queen story hour to remember how to shoot guns.”
But it’s so much more than that. Milk is just the child-molesting figurine at the tip of a much broader movement. Our Naval ships were used as pawns not just in a partisan game of social justice vanity, but in a revolutionary branding ritual akin to the Jacobins’ lewd transformation of the Notre Dame into the “Temple of Reason.” A rejection of tradition and order.
The United States Navy has had ship-naming conventions since the 1860s, including states, rivers, notable military leaders, and other maritime-related figures. Patriotic, politically neutral, naval-relevant topics. Only in 2016 was the aberrant category of “civil rights activists” added. Civil rights activists don’t have anything to do with command of the sea or the warrior ethos. Not just thematically, but because “civil rights” is a partisan movement of the left.
Case in point: why wasn’t the Civil Rights Act of 1964 quickly amended in 2021 to resolve the escalating civil rights emergency of people being summarily fired from their jobs and denied public and medical services due to vaccination status? Because “civil rights” is not for everyone; it’s a selective system to promote only the authors’ favored classes.
Should ships be named after equally maritime-unrelated conservative movement heroes in retaliation, such as a “Second Amendment” class of ships including the Charlton Heston and the James Madison? (Never mind that the 2nd Amendment is considered a “right-coded” value despite being part of our founding Constitutional rights.) No, they should not.
If that scenario sounds ridiculous, consider the potential scope – whether unilateral or bilateral – that this fad could have encompassed. What other “civil rights”-related names could have, under other circumstances in November, eventually emblazoned the 7 as-yet-unnamed ships in the John Lewis class? Rachel Levine? Dylan Mulvaney? Where, as we’ve asked for generations, does it end?
Restoring order, as Joseph de Maistre said, is “not a contrary revolution but the contrary of revolution.” Revolutions, such as the social justice movement, deviate from the baseline, established order. Military ships should be named after superlative military leaders, not the preferred idols of either – or especially only a single – political party.
Which brings us to an interesting question at hand: what name will close the Pandora’s Box of seagoing political advertisements forever? Whose combat legacy is worthy of the Naval reset? Strong cases have been made, but the Navy’s appointed committee will decide.
Naval ships are a sacred vessel of liberty and protection; unlike other military assets, they are individually named and christened in ancient ceremony. In returning to tradition, Secretary Hegseth correctly stays focused on “warrior ethos,” the military embodiment of restoring and maintaining order.
Vanessa Battaglia is a defense engineer with 14 years’ experience designing software, hardware, and airborne systems for the Army, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, Special Operations Command, and the Federal Aviation Administration. She spent most of her time in the defense world at Raytheon, and lately writes for The Federalist and Human Events as well.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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