Posted on 05/13/2013 1:08:36 PM PDT by jazusamo
A hundred years ago, anyone who might have predicted in 1913 the monumental, man-made catastrophes that would occur in the rest of the 20th century would have been considered warped, if not completely mentally deranged.
Who would have believed that the continent of Europe, which had not had a major war in nearly a hundred years since Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, would set off two World Wars that were incomparably worse than any wars before, anywhere in the world?
Who would have believed that an authoritarian and militaristic regime in Germany, and a centuries-old despotic dynasty in Russia, would both be toppled — and later replaced by governments even worse, deliberately slaughtering their own people by the millions?
Even harder to believe would have been a prediction that totalitarian communism, having mismanaged some of the richest natural resources in the world in the Soviet Union, leaving its people with a standard of living far lower than that in Western Europe, would be seen as a model to follow by other nations.
These nations included China, where the rhetoric of Mao's "great leap forward" masked the reality of people literally starving to death by the tens of millions. Meanwhile, Mao was greatly admired by many leading intellectuals around the world, including in Western democracies such as the United States.
What is the relevance of all this today? Few people think that we face dangers of comparable magnitudes. Even with a sluggish world economy, we are still far more prosperous than the people of a hundred years ago. And there has been no major war, anywhere in the world, since World War II.
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
” Whatever Barack Obama’s words, his deeds have been directed less toward stopping Iran from going nuclear than they have been toward stopping Israel from stopping Iran from going nuclear. “
Nailed it.
Oh how difficult it is for any of us to go for one paragraph without deservedly combining the names of Obama and Hitler.
I would love to see this man as president.
However, he is far, far too intelligent to lower himself to the office now polluted by Clinton and Obama.
When I become dictator of the multiverse, I will invite him to be my deputy.
Thanks for the pings jaz. Thought provoking.
Amen to that.
A fair point, but to whom would we surrender?
Also, a "surrender" implies negotiation. There's no middle ground here - just people who want to kill us for what we represent.
Mr Sowell usually writes very well, but he didn't follow through the logic with this article. His points are salient, though, and it's always good to give voice to truths that won't be spoken by those in power.
By what criteria?
Certainly not by death toll as a percentage of the populations involved, which seems a not unreasonable metric.
Whatchyu talkin' 'bout, Thomas?
Only because the insane slimes didn't have the where with all to wage it!
In the final analysis, the USA has the physical power to kill every Muslim on the planet, and anybody who tries to stop us.
One or two, or a dozen dead US cities would not defeat us militarily, not even close.
But one billion dead Muslims would do a whole lot to discredit the RIFs.
Whether Americans would be willing to take such action is an entirely different question, and one I hope to never see.
and one I hope to never see ...you and me both, FRiend. Nothing good can come of it.
Terrorists are playing a game that they can't win. However, they'll consider it a victory so long as the US loses. That, combined with the fact there's not a hard target for the US to hit, makes this a difficult endgame indeed.
The additional fact that we're playing with one arm tied behind our back (Obama, and the overall leftist regime) makes it even worse. Tough to pull out a victory when your own coaching staff is rooting against you.
Not after losing a city or two, IMO.
If the two parties refuse to fight back with vigor in such circumstance, I believe a third party would arise and squash them both.
The problem, of course, is that a genocidal America won't really be America any more. We would physically survive, most of us, but the soul of America would be dead.
That, and events would happen far too fast - there wouldn't be time to organize a 3rd party, challenge for the presidency, and so on.
I think that we'd see some form of martial law before a legit 3rd party challenge - in a time of war, of course.
What can I say, I'm pessimistic today. As we both agreed upon though - I hope *none* of this comes to pass. Far better for a little patience, and BO to be remembered as "An Unremarkable Failure", than as a "Revered Symbol of the Liberal Cause".
Ironic that should a device be detonated in the United States, it will be in a major metropolitan area. The same areas that voted in the decision makers that will allow, through their arrogance and incompetence, the terrorist strike to occur.
A self-correcting system perhaps?
Oh how difficult it is for any of us to go for one paragraph without deservedly combining the names of Obama and Hitler. * *
An interesting twist on Godwin's Law where the comparison is justified.
Read a book recently that had what I thought was a terrifyingly plausible near-future scenario.
Caliphate by Tom Kratman.
Terrorists nuke 4 American cities. Something like 5M dead. The media/government complex goes into its old routine of roosting chickens, etc.
This time the American people aren’t standing for it. A truly grass roots third party for revenge springs up. 3/4 or better majority in the House at the next election, plus electing a (crazy) President. And of course the opportunistic senators (most of them) promptly switch sides.
Congress passes a law making politically-motivated violence an exclusively federal crime. The new President promptly starts pardoning anybody who offs his few remaining political opponents, liberal judges who make inconvenient rulings, media people and academics who speak up, etc. which is of course perfectly constitutional.
3 years after the nuke attack on America, he scorches the Muslim lands. 250M+ dead.
American becomes a fascist nation de facto while remaining a liberal democracy de jure. And we launch a true Empire aimed at destroying Islam forever.
Very scary stuff, IMO.
Good words! This president is hell-bent on getting his ideology firmly entrenched so that it cannot be undone easily. Imagine trying to take back America to normalcy and trying to fight a nuclear war...especially after our cache is reduced to less than 1/5th the size of Russia’s no telling how many Iran will have, not how many China does have now.
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