Posted on 09/02/2008 6:58:28 PM PDT by goldstategop
Film-maker Michael Moore has apparently praised the gulf weather for its chance of disrupting the Republican convention: “This hurricane is proof that there is a god in heaven.” Another low point in politics, though possibly one that could be passed off with a laugh—a partisan irony, rather than a serious derangement.
But over on the leftist Daily Kos website, there is a post that sinks much lower—so low that it caused many of the commentators to denounce it. Which led another commentator to make this remark:
I am prepared to do whatever is necessary to destroy the Republican Party as it exists today as well as everything it stands for.
If health insurance for all, an end to the Iraq War, an end to torture and illegal wiretapping, and a sane energy policy can be obtained at the price of destroying one teenage girl, her family, and the surrendering our self-respect I see that as a cheap trade.
Go talk about nobility of purpose to those 4,000+ dead American soldiers in Iraq.
Indeed, as another comment added:
This is about Power . . . How it is obtained—and how it is wielded in ways that affects all of us.
Are you telling me that you would not use character-destroying lies to ensure a war against Iran does not occur?
Are you telling me you would not spread lies about a man’s integrity, even if it defeated a candidate who take away the right to choose?
Are you telling me you would not destroy the love a family holds for one another, even if it meant letting someone who would destroy the constitution become president?
None of use would use these tactics in a perfect world. It is not a perfect world. It is a fallen world. We have to judge costs and benefits, not moral absolutes. I know this is the way to fanaticism and destruction—believe me I do. But, when we face opponents such as the ones we face . . . what else is there for us to do?
What choice do we have? When faced with monsters, we have to be monstrous ourselves.
“When faced with monsters, we have to be monstrous ourselves.” Well, no, but even if it were so, think one step deeper: What happens when the monsters are merely in your mind? When they are ordinary politicians whose views you so strongly reject that you have to elevate them into monsters to explain to yourself why they could hold such mistaken views?
This is the blade by which politics turns to bloodshed.
I’ve read everything Pournelle and Niven-Pournelle have written, including the complete There Will Be War series, and especially the non-fiction. If you haven’t read Strategy of Technology, written with fellow Cold Warrior Stephen Possony, I recommend it highly.
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/slowchange/Strat.html
From Pournelle’s short disquisition on this book:
“For a while it was a textbook in all three Service Academies and remained so for several years at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. It was also used at the Air War College in Alabama and the National War College, and it’s my understanding that Xerox copies are used (with our permission) in some classes at the war colleges to this day. “
For later.
And, like R.A.H, McCain is a former Naval Aviator, though one who has really made his mark in a field outside of his military achievements.
One cannot for long fight monsters
Without himself becoming a monster
And one cannot stare long into the abyss
Before the abyss stares also into you.
“For a while it was a textbook in all three Service Academies and remained so for several years at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. It was also used at the Air War College in Alabama...
It was still in use when I attended the Maxwell [A.F.B., Alabama] College of Zoomie Knowledge, and I quoted a passage from the book in my otherwise somewhat dry [and, since the India-Pakistana nuclear test exchange of May 1998, now classified] dissertation, Nuclear Proliferation in Southwest Asia: Probabilities and Possibilities.
IMHO, Mr. Possony knows whereof he speaks.
We’ve skirted the edge of the all-out before, but it’s never been this close.
Algore and the MSM set the stage for this by their actions
in Florida when they lost the election, do not doubt that
we will see a repeat in November.
< raises eyebrow> Interesting!
And here I thought you were just a treadhead type.
First tour, enlisted, back in the mid 1960s. Then, after that, I went to skool on the G.I Bill.
It wasn't until the early '90s I got into the stratospheric zoomie stuff.
And now I'm back among the grunts and doorkickers, unless things escalate into real noisy pyrotechnical displays in which neutrons and gamma rays are emitted.
It's no fun being a nonrated [not a pilot] puke around the USAF zoomies, unless you're in personnel or anything so classified that the rest of them can be dismissed with a *Sorry, I can't talk about that.... or have a really cool vehicle.
Guys, we are VERY close right now. If McCain wins, there will be riots. The DNC convention basically said the official line is now that all the elections from 2000 on have been "stolen".
Look at the various anarchists plots in St. Paul. Civil wars have started from much less.
In that, the other side has the advantage. Wholesale revolution and killing has always been in their mindset. It isn't in mine, nor would I like it to be.
The only real question is when, not if, it will happen.
Well, that's why I haven't taken to the field. Yet. No oe in their right mind seeks or starts that sort of conflict. But the right of self defense, and the duty to defend our country and our Constitution takes precedence over all. Once the ball gets rolling, it's going to mighty damn hard to stop. And that's not necessarily a bad thing for the future of our families and our contry.
May God forgive them, for I will not.
What is scary to me, is that it seems like every one is itching for a fight. Worldwide.
My buddy was in Austria a few months ago, and said the same thing.
If McCain loses, there will also be riots. By the same folks who will riot if he wins.
What strikes me about this is that it is almost word for word from an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
The Federation needed alliess to face the threat of the Jem’Hadar, and Cisco devised a ploy to bring the Romulans into the alliance with a very carefully crafted “Zimmerman telegram” proposing to allow another race to overrun the Romulans. When the Romulan Senator realized the fake and went to tell the Senate, his ship was destroyed so that any discrepancies on the evidence would be written off as damage in the explosion. In the end, the Romulans declared war.
The Cardassian commented to Cisco that the Federation had it’s needed ally, and all it cost was one man his life, and another his self respect.
That the leftists think they can bare this price is....terrifying, because of what it means.
If it comes to it, I don’t care if I see the other side. It isn’t important. I want my children to know what it is to walk in true freedom, and I will pay any price for that.
Not my children, who are grown now, but *THEIRS*, my grandchildren. For them I will stand in the gap, fall fair, fall foul, and should I see the other side of it, like our FRiend Noumenon, I will not be forgiving...
the infowarrior
No, you're most emphatically *not* wrong. We thought we were getting close during the Clinton years, but now? It's escalating, and escalating fast. Nobody knows what the touchstone is going to be, but the tinder is quite dry, and the resulting conflagration will be tremendous.
Insanity appears to be ruling the day, and "The Crazy Years" may well be just around the corner...
the infowarrior
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