Replies

“Well, I say, urr, harumph...as Republicans, we are the ones that must always take the high road. I see no need to resort to this type of tomfoolery to achieve our political goals.”
You go ahead and take the high road, then kiss our country goodbye.
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP Script excerpt
                                     THEO
                         It's a different knowledge they need 
                         now, Clive. The enemy is different. 
                         [[The defenders must be]] [So you 
                         have to be] different too.

                                     CLIVE
                         [[Have you gone]] [Are you] mad? I 
                         know what war is!

                                     THEO
                         I don't agree. I read your broadcast 
                         up to the point where you describe 
                         the collapse of [[your own sector 
                         in]] France. You commented on Nazi 
                         methods, foul fighting, bombing 
                         refugees, machine-gunning hospitals, 
                         lifeboats, lightships, baled-out 
                         pilots, by saying that you despised 
                         them, that you would be ashamed to 
                         fight on their side and that you 
                         would sooner accept defeat than 
                         victory if it could only be won by 
                         those methods.

                                     CLIVE
                         So I would! 

                                     THEO
                         Clive!  If you let yourself be 
                         defeated by them, [just because you 
                         are too fair to hit back the same 
                         way they hit at you,] there won't be 
                         any methods but Nazi methods! If you 
                         preach the Rules of the Game while 
                         they use every foul and filthy trick 
                         against you, they will laugh at you!  
                         They think you're weak, decadent! I 
                         thought so myself in 1919. 
                         [[Filthiness! That is their secret 
                         weapon!]]

                                     CLIVE
                              (A little shaken)
                         I[['ve]] heard all that in the last 
                         war. They played foul then. And who 
                         won it!

                                     THEO
                         I don't think you won it! We lost 
                         it!  But you lost something, too. 
                         You forgot to learn the moral. 
                         [[Because victory was yours]] you 
                         failed to learn your lesson twenty 
                         years ago, you have to pay the school 
                         fees again! Some of you will learn 
                         quicker than others. Some will never 
                         learn it. [Because] You have been 
                         educated to be a gentleman and a 
                         sportsman - in peace and in war. 
                         But, Clive, [[my dear fellow]] [dear 
                         old Clive], this is not a gentleman's 
                         war. [[This is a life and death 
                         struggle, with your backs to your 
                         cliffs against the hordes of 
                         barbarism.]] [This time you are 
                         fighting for your very existence 
                         against the most devilish idea ever 
                         created by a human brain — Nazism.] 
                         And if you lose there won't be a 
                         return match next year, perhaps not 
                         even for a hundred years!
Today the foe is different but the battles are the same.