Posted on 10/28/2004 10:26:07 AM PDT by Noumenon
[S]edentary life becomes the last stage of civilization and the point where it begins to decay. It also constitutes the last stage of evil and of remoteness from goodness.... [S]edentary people have become used to laziness and ease. They are sunk in well-being and luxury. They have entrusted the defense of their property and lives to the governor who rules them, and to the militia which has the task of guarding them.... They are carefree and trusting, and have ceased to carry weapons. Successive generations have grown up in this way of life. They have become like women and children, who depend upon the master of the house."
-- Ibn Khaldûn, Muqaddimah, 1377
Wow, a great read! Bookmarked and printed out! Thanks. You are right, imagine this guy and VDH together on a talk show or something..
Wisdom is where you find it.
Pretty much sums up the modern American liberal mindset, doesn't it?
We're on the verge of throwing our own civilization away. This is one of history's great watershed moments. And as Harris points out, it is the decisions - or lack of them - made by individual men that determine the rise and fall of of cultures and civilizations.
In other words, it is up to us - it always was.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
-Ronald Reagan 40th president of US (1911 - 2004)
Indeed.
Some of us - no - a lot of us Get It. Will it be enough, in this time and in this place? We're going to find out and soon. War is coming, and not just from the Islamofascist front.
read later
"That is why it is impossible simply to stand by and not take sides. No outcome is assured by any deep logic of history or by any iron law of human development. Individual civilizations rise and fall; in each case the fall was not inevitable, but due to the decisions – or lack of decision – of the human beings whose ancestors had created the civilization for them, but who had forgotten the secret of how to preserve it for their own children."
That's one of the most telling insights of the preface. There is no neutral ground - morally, philosophically or otherwise. That's the gist of, "you're either with us, or wit hthe terrorists."
The AQ threat is not seen as a threat by a large portion of our population because they are not part of our civilization. They are outsiders, barbarians inside the gates. They are the enemy within.
Even if AQ is not totally successful it's unclear we will survive the contining 'velvet revolution' of the left.
"If the enemy is composed of men who will stop at nothing, who are willing to die and to kill, then you must find men to fight on your side who will do the same. Only those who have mastered ruthlessness can defend their society from the ruthlessness of others."
Fell deeds await...
That is where the citizens give up and don't care anymore. It not a matter of entrusting, it's a case of despair.
You keyed this in yourself, didn't you?
I've started reading it, but not finished yet.
He has told me how he and all his friends used to take shotguns and .22s to school every day and lean them up in a corner so they could hunt something for supper after school.
He walked all the way from Florida to NY and slept under bridges, etc. just to get a job. Never had to show ID and never got rousted for vagrancy.
...and many more eye-openers.
My long-departed Father ( born 1890, Cape Hatteras ) told me of many such things-- we really have let a lot of freedoms slip away. We won't be seeing them return, either.
These days, you go out for a Sunday drive in your Aeronca, and people (including many FReepers) want to shoot you down.
Jeez! My Mom- the old Master Sergeant- learned to fly in an Aeronca back in WWII, at Caspar, Wyoming. I've never been sure if her tale of lashing the prop back on with baling wire and then taking off was true, or just a wee exaggeration.
Yes I did. I felt that it was that important. The book itself is quite interresting. More on that after I've finished it and had time to digest it.
That assumes that events don't overtake us over the next week or so.
I'm impressed. Your Mom invented safety wire! ;-)
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