Posted on 03/25/2006 1:42:58 AM PST by JohnHuang2
When I was just a kid growing up outside Nashville, we had chickens. Quite a lot of chickens, most of the time. We kids only partly understood why Mama and Daddy wanted all those chickens, usually in coops and behind fencing, but occasionally finding ways to wiggle out into the yard and driveway and in general make messes and hassles. As each of us got a little older, we understood that Daddy's income as a building contractor whose business was in a growth mode (like our chickens) wasn't quite sufficient to feed all six of us, so we had chickens to eat, eggs to gather and messes to clean up.
And we lived in a residential neighborhood, not out in the country.
But one vivid memory stands out as one of the most valuable lessons I learned from our "chicken experience." At any given time, we might have 50 to 75 little chicks in a rectangular coop, heated, with newspaper beneath. And the strangest phenomenon took place, over and over. We had to try to stop it as soon as we spotted it, or we'd lose all or most of those cute little chicks.
For no particular reason I can remember, a little spot of some kind would appear on the back or wing of one of the chicks. And as it hopped around, oblivious to the little mark on its exterior, another chick would spot the blemish – and peck at it. Other chicks would also spot the mark, and thinking it was a bug or something worth eating, would peck at it as well. Soon the first chick was bloody from the pecking, and many of the chicks would be attracted to the blood and crowd in like a scene from "Suddenly, Last Summer" and literally peck their little brother or sister to death!
In the process, other chicks would be spotted by flecks of blood and find themselves the new targets of the deadly pecking. A feeding frenzy ensued, and other chicks got spotted and flecked – and the orgy of mindless cannibalism would continue till almost no chicks were left alive.
What's my point?
I feel I'm seeing this very process play out in our national life, our big American coop, today. It's motivated not by physical hunger or primal forces of nature, but by partisan politics and deep-seated ideological differences. Activists on all sides of important questions circle and peer and look for some kind of mark, a misstep, a misstatement, a stumble, an apparent vulnerability in a leader or spokesperson of an opposite position – and they peck with a deadly intensity. And as they repeatedly hit the mark, others rush in and join the attack, quite often succeeding in demolishing, at least politically, their target.
But then the attackers (like those chicks) have picked up spots, some of the political spillover from the frenzy, and become targets themselves. And on it goes, gathering intensity, left vs. right, red vs. blue, liberal vs. conservative, pro-war vs. anti-war, pacifists vs. militants, each antagonist trying at least to destroy the credibility and integrity of those with opposing views.
And the media! Much of the fourth estate establishment feeds on the frenzy itself, eagerly searching for more blemishes to peck at, particularly in those whose ideology may not conform to the mindsets of the media movers themselves.
Today, the chief "target chicks" are the president of the United States, his vice president and administration, and any of us who still believe our leaders may actually know more than the average citizen and are diligently doing their best to protect our national interests, and indeed, all of us citizens. It's no surprise, of course, especially in an election year, that President Bush would be attacked by political opponents; but virtually every talk show host and comedian tees off on him and our government's policies obsessively. And TV dramatic shows work derisive comments and anti-Bush plot lines into many of their stories, while newspapers dig, dig, dig for anything that might convince the general public we're all being duped and led into bankruptcy, disgrace and defeat.
When challenged, the attackers so often resentfully respond, "Hey, this is a free country! I can speak my mind, and criticize our president if I want. I think he's a dumb jerk anyway, and I totally disagree with virtually everything he says and does. Hey – are you questioning my patriotism?"
And we've fallen into the habit of assuring the attacker we'd never do that, that we respect his right to express himself, and we're sure he's just as patriotic as we are.
Well, wait a minute.
Respectful disagreement is one thing. Reasoned argument, based on actual facts and not rigged half-truths, is fine. Even beneficial and stimulating. But wild-eyed, irresponsible assaults on the character and intelligence and personal motives of our commander in chief – while we're in a war and trying to hold our allies at our side – is, to me, decidedly unpatriotic!
I'm already on record accusing certain networks of treasonous actions in publicizing the Abu Ghraib abuses worldwide, knowing that the military had already investigated and stopped those indefensible violations and instituted court martial proceedings. This was private military information, which when publicized internationally scarred America's reputation and cost a number of lives in "retaliation."
And recently in this space, I've asked why Big Media isn't trumpeting the audio tapes and testimonies of Saddam's generals that there were indeed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that Saddam was actively promoting terrorism in the world, and that the WMDs were smuggled into Syria.
And they may still be there, waiting to be used against us.
Could there be bias? Could there be such prejudiced ideological blindness that the truth is buried in favor of more pecking at our leadership? What do you call that – "patriotism"? I don't think so.
One of our most valued, loyal allies is British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In a recent eloquent, impassioned speech before the Foreign Policy Centre in London, he nailed the issue, the bottom line of our international struggle. In a statement worthy of his predecessor Winston Churchill, he proclaimed, "This is not a clash between civilizations. It is a clash about civilization!"
Because the evidence is so overwhelming that a legitimate defense of Western Civilization, indeed civilized society itself, is at hand, when people put their political prejudices ahead of our country's safety – while we're at war – they do demonstrate a failure of patriotism. Such people might as well stop saying, "Don't question my patriotism," as though it's got magical power to shut the rest of us up.
You can't wave a "peace sign" at me or still a majority of my fellow countrymen, while our bravest young men and women are in armed conflict with crazed zealots determined to wipe us off the face of the earth, and call it patriotism.
I beg to differ.
I have never given a second thought to Pat Boone, but I saw him the other night on O'Reilly, and he was great. Articulate, informed, thoughtful. Very impressive.
How has he managed to survive with sanity intact amongst the hollywierd crowd for so long?
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The 20th Century Left =
Pictures of a vietnamese Re-Education Camp
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1308949/posts
The 21st Century Left =
Same-Same HERE..???
.
Almost, but not quite. In England state schools are like American public schools: government funded and relatively unprestigious. Grammar schools are like charter schools: selective but still government funded. Private schools are like American private schools. And public schools are the equivalent of American prep schools; they are often boarding schools, and are expensive and very prestigious.
Your example of St. Anne's Catholic High School would probably be a private school, while Harrow School and Eton College are public schools.
Said another way, the American Left is the only reason we may lose this war. >>
"One doesn't mind, so much, mainstream journalists being bastards. It's their being such dumb bastards that one finds so irksome."
-- Tony Blankley
You're way too kind, Tony.
They are to a man, self and America-loathing, un-and-anti-American, TREASONOUS dumb bastards.
And are, along with those of their comrades who comprise Foggy Bottom's bastard offspring of the Communist Party of America(CPUSA)/Soviet Agent Alger Hiss-descended brahmanas and its "Foreign(er) Service(ing) wing and such other putrescent issue of the CPUSA as the ABA, Trial Lawyers, NEA, AARP et al -- and the modern Democrats -- and as were those fearsome and loathesome scribblers, Conkrite, Rather, Arnett, Jennings, Koppel et al, who went before them, a part of the serially seditionist and subversive Socialist Internationale-supporting reason the United States of America plunged immediately into the Soviet-Agent inspired post-WW-II orgy of pathological guilt that saw to the Marshall Plan and to the birth of the, to this day, Moscow-drafted manifesto-following and pathologically-hesperophobic United Nations.
And to this Nation not having won a single war -- or even a peace -- since 1945.
Well said, Pat Boone.
" But I would take Pat Boone's argument one step further: By doing everything to delay the onset of the war, by immediately telegraphing to the enemy its intentions to do a TET-OFFENSIVE-GAMBIT REPLAY, the American Left--self-serving, treasonous, dumb bastards--in fact CAUSED the war to become protracted.Said another way, the American Left is the only reason we may lose this war." --Mia T
"One doesn't mind, so much, mainstream journalists being bastards. It's their being such dumb bastards that one finds so irksome." -- Tony Blankley
Synchronicity #2 with Blankley.... ;)
Excellent article! Thanks.
...It's motivated not by physical hunger or primal forces of nature, but by partisan politics and deep-seated ideological differences...
Life, liberty, truth vs. anti-life, anti-freedom, anti-truth individuals and their enablers.
I spot a lot of chickens.
Keep your powder dry, spread the word, and don't break any laws. Watch your speech so no one can accuse you of sedition or threatening speech. Stay away from hate groups. When it does go down, there will be good people of all colors who will need to band together if we are to win.
Like you did?
OK. You got me. Actually I used to live in Shelby County, and I admit it wasn't all that great. I also used to live in L.A. and Marin Counties, and they both suck big time.
Boone has been scorned by the left for decades because of his squeaky clean image and his religious beliefs.
This essay shows why they're actually afraid of him. He loves his country and he's not afraid to say so, and to point a finger at those who don't.
"Pat Boone is one of the few postive things to ever come out of Tennessee !!!!!!!!!!!"
Don't be dissin' my home state! I really don't appreciate it.
Bravo...It needs to be said.
Then why are you encouraging folks to suppor...on second thought, forget I asked that. Instead I shall find a wall to beat my head against. :^)
By the way, quit using profanity in your posts, (#26). It's unladylike and you're too smart to resort to that.
"Obviously you have hot lived int state for a very long time."
Dear Maria, my family "moved" to Tennessee in 1795. If you hate it so much why do you stay? Are you locked in a cellar with nothing but an internet connection?
Bumperoo!
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