Free Republic

The world's first purpose-built aircraft carriers.

I would have to say that this post is the most in-depth and reasoned examination of the causes and results of the civil war that I have read in years.
It is for opinions like this that I pull up Freerepublic on a regular basis.
Kudos to the author.

"But that leaves me with a problem - what do I do from here?"

A vast number of people in this country have the same problem. The rage is that what is so apparent, what yields so surely after a little honest thought, seems to be something not communicable to the other side.

In my years, I have often wondered how the German people allowed the Nazis to rise? How did the North Koreans allow themselves to be sold into hopelessness? Why would any of the subject populations of brutalized countries accept their fate with seeming timidity?

Nearer to home, figuratively, why does Hollywood always assume that numerous minions are always available to do the bidding of whatever bad guy the plot constructs? Wouldn't you think that they all understand what happens in the last act?

I've come to understand that some tragedies cannot be prevented, and that is the saddest blow to befall me as I near retirement. There will be no magic moment where the dark side suddenly realizes and confesses the error of their ways. No happy ending will occur after the forces of good wipe them out afterward.

And that is because ignorance feels better than understanding. That having someone tell you that someone else caused "all of that", whatever "that" may be, will always appeal more than facing consequences for your choices. For that is what life is- a collection of your choices, and those choices which were made for you by people who just knew what was good for you- often before you were even born. It is those choices which will strictly shape your opportunities.

Yes, there will be blood on the concrete before this long vandalism spree slows. And that is because the cycle of creative destruction among free individuals will always occur. Sometimes the building outpaces the burning down. Sometimes not.

It is only after they sell themselves into chains, that populations realize what the actual cost of "free" is. And by that time it will be a repeat of the soviets, dancing at their victory in 1917, and then never being allowed to dance again for 80 long years, long after the dancers were dead. But long enough for them all first to see 10 million or more of their fellow dancers killed by not just the champion of the people, Stalin, but mainly by those minions he gathered around himself to do his bidding.

Do you want power and wealth- then learn to gather minions around you. But you have to want it really bad.

Do what you can, but don't think that the bill will not be paid. The advantage will lie with those snakey enough to maneuver others into paying the bill. This is what they train for, and always will- this is what our system has been corrupted into.

Just realize that you aren't the only one.

We all have failed. We had no real chance to do otherwise, if we were to provide for our families, rather than enter the zealot ring.

Well thought out, well written.

There would appear to be a different video attached rather than one of gun safety.

"..There are millions of Low Info voters ready to believe this, make no mistake.."

You're right. And that's why my despair is so deep.

"..They attempted to place the Emperor under house arrest, using the 2nd Brigade Imperial Guard Infantry. They failed to persuade the Eastern District Army (Japan) and the high command of the Imperial Japanese Army to move forward with the action. Due to their failure to convince the remaining army to oust the Imperial House of Japan, they ultimately committed suicide in traditional Japanese form..."

I believe it was the first book you referenced, "Downfall: The end of the Imperial Japanese Empire", that I remember. I read it so many years ago that I couldn't recall the title.

One of the points I was making was that the coup started when a number of field-grade (Majors and Lieutenant Colonels) officers took it upon themselves to "protect" the emperor, not depose him, by surrounding the imperial residence and cutting him off from any further traitorous advice. This shot my eyebrows upwards, because I would have thought that an adventure reserved for the highest level of general officers.

I don't believe that those officers, however, so steeped in Bushido, would have harmed the Emperor in any way, and wouldn't have dreamed of ousting the Imperial House. This transcended politics and was religion.

Their target was to destroy the rescript, the first actual recording of the emperor's voice ever played over the radio, not the emperor himself. He could be contained merely by throwing a protective "cordon" around the residence, and thereby eliminating all communication except what flowed through them.

It is amazing what depths people worldwide can fall to when they have convinced themselves that they are acting to "save the nation". And how no limits apply to them in their zeal and righteousness.

I don't recall anything about a counterfeited order from the emperor, but I have lost much through the aging process, so it was probably so.

The danger is in how determined, finatic groups, once they put the pieces in place, can seize control of a government, by controlling the flow of information.

What may not be widely known is that after the first bomb was dropped, and the Emperor's advisers were attempting to end the war, a coup was begun by a number of military field-grade officers.

A number of people were killed, as these finatics attempted to find and destroy the Imperial rescript (a recording of the Emperor's capitulation for radio broadcast to the Japanese people). This recording was hidden for several days by a couple of very brave servants during the coup and eventually, after the coup began to fall apart, was spirited into the radio station, and transmitted.

Only then could the plotters no longer maintain that they were acting on behalf of Hirohito, who they had claimed was being "betrayed by a cabal of cowards in the cabinet."

The story of the coup itself makes fascinating reading, but I just can't remember the name of the book, after all these years. I'll bet it could be found on the internet, though.

"..He’s staying out of the way and letting the Democrats and their media flunkies flail about like demented chickens.."

Good line.

"..He had to realize that he needs some leverage when he's the Commander in Chief. JMHO.."

Exactly right.

"Where’s the link?

I have no link... just a stack of newspapers. I suspect that you may be able to google the Columbus Dispatch and pull up electronic versions of the story.

I haven't since I'm a dinosaur who likes paper.

"..What were the 10 amendments by Henry that were not included?.."

Some were folded into the ten which did pass. This may not have been such a good idea.

For instance, the First Amendment combines a strong statement warning the government to keep it's nose out of the religion business, with a separate freedom included for persons and the press to speak without fear of being arrested. Yet a third part, adding that of being able to gather together in groups without arrest, was also thrown in.

These 3 concepts were crunched together, with "excess wording" minimized, into the First Amendment.

The problem is that due to the brevity of the final wording, all of these freedoms have come under revisionist attack by persons or interests who wish to "clarify" what was meant. A fuller more ironclad wording would have been possible if the freedoms had not been so compressed, for the sake of brevity, perhaps, or elegance, or even to save the trees from their paper fate...

Only the courts now can protect the rights of the citizens, when they are not busy "reading new, previously unimagined rights" into the Constitution. Sadly, this protection is often from the Supreme Court itself. Warren vs Roberts.

In fairness to Madison, and the rest, I can envision them saying in good faith, "How much more plainly need it be said?" since they originally didn't think it needed written down at all. "What part of inalienable don't you understand?"

"...I am ALWAYS dumbfounded at our collective luck in having this group of practical idealists for the founders of our country..."

It makes you wonder just how many other times in history a similar push for liberty occurred, in some unknown and so unremarked place. But the simple lack of a Patrick Henry, a Madison, or a Washington, or all three, at the critical time, doomed the effort to failure.

But I guess that only in the one unlikely instance where it all came together at once, as you say, here in the U.S., would we be free and able to remark on it now...

In the other instances the less fortunate wouldn't know what they missed, and so wouldn't miss it.

Or is that to simplistic?