Posted on 01/10/2002 8:09:35 PM PST by Pokey78
Edited on 04/23/2004 12:04:04 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
There's a small but telling scene in Ridley Scott's "Black Hawk Down" that contains some dialogue that reverberates, at least for me. In the spirit of Samuel Johnson, who said man needs more often to be reminded than instructed, I offer it to all, including myself, who might benefit from its message.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Many years ago a one-eyed carpenter name Jesus commented that "not every day is Christmas."
Peggy Noonan's The Case Against Hillary Clinton, ReganBooks/HarperCollins, 2000 is excellent.
I've spent the evening on Marine sites in the prepublication work for a friend's Aid and Comfort: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam, a treason indictment of the plastic-chested Barbarella on the NVA AA.
No one was beating his chest that he'd been shot. There was a tremendous esprit de corps. The devotion to duty, honor, country of legend.
Peggy Noonan was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan. If we can regain a portion of the patriotic feeling of the man and the times, we will have advanced miles from the moral cesspool of eight years of the traitor-rapist who betrayed our constitution and the men and women who defend it.
Peggy Noonan is condemning a nation of Oprahs and Rosies, and summoning what's in the heart of America.
Hey, Time Wounds All Heels, Ditto.
Me, I'm not wounded in the slightest. The FDNY is wounded, the NYPD is wounded, the Rangers and CIA are wounded, the families of the people in the towers and the Pentagon are wounded. Let's leave sympathy to those who really deserve it.
Today the perp is usually hooded or covering up to the photographers. Think of a movie from the 30' or 40's. Many of the perps then were notorious and thier perp walk was an opportunity to smile and PLAY to the cameras,to indulge thier contempt for the charges and to display thier arrogance.
Having just read all your posts, I am amazed at how profoundly you have missed the point of this fine article. You are seeing what's not there, and not seeing what is there.
lawgirl, it's a good one, but I like the John Wayne/return of masculinity one better!
I have to agree with you. I am so glad that you brought this article to my attention. Thanks!
It's so profound that there are people defending her from diametrically opposed positions. Why don't you set us all straight? What is her point?
Is she approving when she says:
"Now that's someone who knows that everybody's been shot."
If so, I think it's a poor metaphor, one that reflects the very same whining she's writing about. But maybe I'm being too harsh. You've probably been shot too, after all.
internal-reflective self-honesty? isn't that redundant, some how?
No. For example, there are alcoholics that would be internal-reflective and rationalize not quitting. That is not self-honest. Self-honesty requires respect for ones own body and mind. Think about it, being self-reflective is not the same as being self-honest. Hitler surely wasn't.
she is not saying "you're losing some freedoms, get over it"
I know she's not saying that. She seems unaware that its a fact.
she is saying we all have to take some lumps, and suck it up, for the benefit of the whole. "the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few or the one."
That's the cry of the collectivist. Is that like majority rights over individual rights? ...Tyranny by the majority. Or society's rights over individual rights? Individual's have rights, not groups. The whole is made up of its individual constituents. When the individual is sacrificed eventually so is the whole.
The smallest minority is the minority of one -- the individual. When the individual is protected all larger-than-one minorities as well as the largest majority are protected.
Because I'm quite certain from the tone of your post that you are not one bit interested in, or open to my point of view.
as for the rights of the individual, they are paramount, and i concur that the protection of the one, is the protection of the whole, but those individuals who rise to protect society are the gems... an example, the beaches of normandy... individuals fighting for the whole
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