Thomas Sowell: Suicidal Hand-Wringing

Creator's Syndicate ^ | September 19, 2006 | Dr. Thomas Sowell

[Edgerunner]

If they succeed in their endeavor, and we suffer a horrendous attack, killing many thousand people, I would NOT want to be in their shoes. They ought to think about that.

[Ancesthntr]

...No amount of security precautions can protect us from all the thousands of ways in which terrorists can strike at times and places of their own choosing -- and eventually strike with nuclear weapons. Our only hope is to get advance information from those we capture as to where other terrorists are and how they operate.

Squeamishness about how this is done is not a sign of higher morality but of irresponsibility in the face of mortal dangers.

I have been saying for a few years that we will only arise from our PC-induced sleep when the savages whack us over the head with a nuclear firecracker. If 9/11 and nearly 3,000 dead civilians didn't shut the appeasement crowd up for a generation (which, in the initial aftermath I thought it would), nothing else will. I dread the day we wake to find that a city (or several) have gone up in a mushroom cloud. Of course, I wouldn't exactly envy those living in Moslem countries after that, the 72 raisins notwithstanding...because a world of hurt is going to rain down on them shortly thereafter. Of course, that won't help the dead here, just like finding 4 genetically ball-less, senseless ex-Senators/ex-humans strung up on lampposts won't help them.

[Panzerlied]

We are at WAR! What part of this statement do people fail to understand? AAARRRGH!

[TigersEye]

Fixing broken link in post #32.

The Real McCain

[magooey]

Taking Sowell's argument another step, we should consider the possibility that the decadence of the government and elites is inimicable to the conduct of the war. In other words, if the present government is going to throw this death-match that we obviously have been fighting from 911, then it behooves the American people to engage a government that will protect our civilization. If these dangerous Supreme Court justices won't be impeached for massively interfering with necessary war-fighting conduct, then maybe it is time for a Second Continental Congress.

Often, defeat in war is enough to motivate overthrow of the existing government, e.g. ousting the Kaiser after WWI, or the Russian Revolution in the same period. The albatross that is the Vietnam War is a burden that would be nullified with a new government. Our corrupt elites (from Enron to those keeping the southern border open for the cheap labor crowd) may also need to be swept from power. The option of a Second Constitutional Congress should not be so easily ignored.

Magooey

[TigersEye]

I think there is great merit in your POV. Beyond merely considering it we should contemplate it as potentially the only option left to those of us who value freedom and liberty should the current situation continue to degrade into empowering our enemies. IOWs, we may have to accept that the U.S. will not muster the will or cohesiveness to defeat our foreign enemies without ourselves being bludgeoned into chaos. At that point the time will be ripe for restructuring in the manner you suggest.

I think there are too many variables twixt here and there to predict whether that would entail a bloody civil war or an easy sell. But presently the circumstances exist that will lead in that direction IMO.

[TigersEye]

I neglected to say "good post." Very prescient.

[SeaBiscuit]

Bravo! Our enemies are using 'rights and freedoms' to destroy us, and our enemies at home want to give them those rights.