Posted on 09/28/2004 8:10:45 AM PDT by bikepacker67
...
In general they advance where terrorism has blazed the way by revealing the impotence of law and government when they are not backed by the self-confident application of lawful force. The post-modern world lacks self-confidence and shrinks from using force. It places its trust in treaties and conventions that it enforces only against those who agree in advance to be bound by them. Thus, in the week that its citizens were pleading for their lives in Iraq, the European Union was mainly concerned to prevent Turkey from making adultery a criminal offense -- a droll illustration of "European values."
This high-minded timidity permeates modern culture at high and low levels. For instance, a recent thriller about hostage-taking, "Man on Fire," directed by Tony Scott and based on a novel by A.J. Quinnell, received harsh critical reviews precisely because it seemed to approve of revenge and vigilantism.
Creasy, played by Denzel Washington, is a burnt-out former mercenary who becomes a bodyguard to a young girl in Mexico City. She gradually draws him back from his suicidal despair by her frank affection. When she is kidnapped and apparently murdered, he methodically sets out to find and kill the men responsible -- in very brutal ways. As in the 1970s Charles Bronson movie, "Death Wish," the viewer essentially sympathizes with Creasy. The critics thought this a crudely vicious message on both occasions.
But as Bacon pointed out: "Revenge is a kind of wild justice." It will inevitably -- and arguably rightly -- become the resort of decent people when law and government fail to deliver justice.
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
This is an outstanding perspective. GREAT article.
As long as we remain overcivilized, anarchy, violence, murder and superstition will continue their sinister recovery -- until one day you may think you hear your own mother's voice on the network news.
These concepts must be kept from the students and faculty of the Kennedy School of Government lest their empty little heads implode.
we could crush the resistance in Iraq in a week if we only had the courage too
:(
It's sad that good men have to die because we're to scared to do what's nessassary.
It's like the old story in old England where the condemned man asks the judge if he's really going to hang him for stealing a horse. The judge answered, "No, I'm hanging you so that horses won't be stolen."
Terrorists must be killed to stop them. Without hesitation, ceremony or remorse. Where ever they're found, and by any means necessary. To philsophize about the morality of retribution is an indulgence we can no longer afford.
"Eehhhhhh, I'm gonna need 3 coffins..... {BLAM} .... my mistake, 4 coffins....."
ditto
Yes, but ... the article is worth reading and has many good points. For one thing, it brings the rationale (of something most FR posters take for granted) down to a step-by-step level that even most liberals could follow during some rare moment of intellectual honesty. I'd like to see this article get wide distribution.
Must be a lack of self-esteem. Send for the NEA they'll fix it right up.
BUMP
This is a great story.
Thanks for posting it.
Superb!
Thanks again!
The left/lliberals/Democrats have cowed most politicians into being cowards by controlling the media and feignening a super morality. Politicians and the mediia usually (but not always) determine national policy. We have been on this slippery slope for years.
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