Posted on 10/09/2001 11:25:39 AM PDT by johnqueuepublic
I had no idea that freerepubies were so well....devoted to Pat Buchanans silly ideas about governance.
The attack on America is OUR fault, it's because of our desire to build an empire?
Hardly
The attack occurred because we were perceived as weak by a group who hates our lifestyle.
If anyone is an armchair general it is Pat Buchanan, he has accomplished nothing (aside from an alliance with an avowed commie in his last ill failed bid for the presidency)since his service to tricky dicky.
The idea of an empire is founded primarily upon the idea of a defensive perimeter, a rather basic defensive concept. Buchanan thinks that the world will leave us alone if we pull inward and do what our enemies want us to do.
Buchanan wants us to toss Israel overboard to satisfy Arafat, that is an immoral position as far as I am concerned. Do you really think that the Taliban and other Islamic cult crazies will give up just because we sell her out? No, they will only demand more until we have nothing left to offer and that is when this country will be finished.
America faces two choices, take the reins of power and exercise them wisely or perish.
It was founded by the pilgrims who decided to leave their own country, which didn't encourage freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of the individual. So they migrated to an uncivilized land inhabited only by savages. The rock where they landed was to become a national shrine - and one of the most famous monuments in the world.
They drove off the natives, built rude shelters and houses of worship, meanwhile setting aside a special day to give thanks.
These pilgrims - all stern, austere men - believed in their God, but they also believed in work. They established schools under religious leaders that, in a way, became the first public, free education in the world.
Through hard, determined labor they forged a colony while the rest of the world chuckled.
But the pilgrims persevered. Intolerant of wrongdoing, they used gallows to punish criminals. In their day-to-day activities they had no patience for the weak and degenerate, who, if pampered, become the cancer of a nation.
Shortly, these pilgrims engaged in trade and commerce as their community grew. In the process, they became moderately prosperous.
Other colonists came and established other communities. And some of the noblest words ever written began to surface. Facades of our modern government buildings bear some of the legends written back then: "liberty," "justice," "freedom of worship.
Then one of the older nations sent tax agents to exploit the colonists. Alarmed, the colonists sent their greatest men as representatives to a general assembly, choosing a gentleman farmer as their leader. He united them and shook off the shackles of oppression as they won the fight against the "old world" and became a strong nation. That farmer is known as the "father of his country." Today, a famous U.S. city is named after him.
The new nation formed two houses of government. The more powerful was the Senate, whose members could be elected only if they were men of probity [integrity], honor, patriotism, and religion. The nation became a republic, though it is a republic no longer.
Ultimately, a civil war divided the fledgling country. Its leader, who tried to keep the republic united, was assassinated in the shadow of government buildings.
Eventually, many of the nations senators became ambitious for power. They began to make deals with leaders of important factions.
And the republic now became entangled in alliances with foreign nations. The alliances brought wars; the wars brought taxes. But the citizens didn't seem to mind. War, after all, also increased trade and industry. And, besides, the new taxes affected only the rich.
Farmers rebelled, sending petitions for subsidies, price supports. Government, wanting support for its own schemes, bought up the surplus crops and stored them in warehouses, where they rotted. Not to be outdone, industrialists were next to ask for tax benefits.
Finally, the government became all powerful. It guaranteed to protect the people from all forces of nature. And taxation grew and grew. Bureaucracy thrived as free housing, fiee food, free entertainment came next. The middle class declined under the added tax burdens. Crime became so commonplace that it was dangerous to walk the streets at night.
A crippled man led the nation into more wars and foreign entanglements. Patriots became known as radicals.
A general, who had been victimized by the government, pleaded with the nation to remember her past, to return to honor, to decent government, to the principles ofthe founding fathers. The people scoffed, and he died, bitterly thinking his anguished thoughts.
An honest senator dared to speak out for a halt to foreign subversion and to constant foreign aid and draining away from the people's money. The public at large recoiled, branding him a reactionary.
The nation fell deeper into debt. It joined a league of the world with enemies that exploited her. She increased taxes to send her wheat to those enemies. And she devalued her currency, substituting base materials for precious metals in her coins.
She became allied with powerful barbarians in still another stupid war. She sent "experts" to school the barbarians in the latest scientific discoveries.
The nation was now totally corrupt. Its middle class was finally dead. The barbarians moved in... and took over. And they destroyed the civilizations. That nation's name?
Ancient Rome.
Identification notes:
The pilgrim's rock - Foundation of the Temple of Jupiter
The gentleman farmer - Cincinatus
The assassinated leader - Julius Caesar
The general - Marc Anthony
The honest senator - Cicero
Author unknown
Rome fell because she became corrupt and indolent, she failed to maintain her armies conscripting others to do her fighting.
To those of you who want to follow Pat Buchanan into battle I wish you well, but I seriously advise you to make out your last will and testament before you pick up your pitchforks.
NO PAT NO!!!
What is it that is being missed here?
The attack took place because:
1)-We have maintained an embargo on Iraq for 10+ years, which has resulted in the deaths of perhaps 1,000,000 people, mostly old people and children (and we need to protect the children , don't we?).
2)-We continue to support Israel, to the exclusion of the Palestanian people, and
3-We continue to maintain troops in Saudi Arabia.
He didn't say anything about McDonald's or our religious beliefs.
If that's what bin Laden says.... shall we take him at his word?
And if so, what can we do to avoid WWIII?
I'm not for a real Empire, but by putting the fear of God in certain people, and ignoring the "wretched hive of scum and villainy"(the UN) we could do a lot of good.
No doubt the Romans believed themselves to be different also, as they fed Christians to the lions, and others that the 'Romans' deemed unworthy.
King Solomon said, 'There is nothing new under the Sun, no, nothing.'
We dont need to follow the playbook of the Romans,
OUR FOUNDING FATHERS LEFT TO US A ROAD MAP THAT WORKS.
Yes, but look at the reality. Our soldiers aren't fighting for God and country. When our soldiers pull out of the Middle East the only aspects of "our" country that will remain will be things like Planned Parenthood clinics, UN relief agencies, NOW activists, and global businessmen making deals with local strongmen.
Just yesterday, CNN or MSNBC had a long interview with a former KGB chief, describing how the US needs to "reform" its intelligence agencies. Just today some news channel did a long piece on how the Pakistan government stays in power -- it's a military dictatorship and it stays in power with military might.
This is not just how America is "seen" overseas. This is how America IS overseas. Adopting policies from the most hated, oppressive police-state scum that have ever existed, and making friends not with populist governments, but with military dictatorships. (And now we have NATO plane "patrolling" our own borders.)
"Putting the fear of God in certain people" would be a great idea. It would be great if we could start with the Establishment people making the decisions right here in the US.
But I don't believe -- and I don't think _anyone_ believes -- that it's going to happen.
Mark W.
America First!!!
And now we must save the middle East from the corrupt, facist, despotic tyrannies, that have caused so much human suffering.
We don't need an American empire, we need to finish what our founding fathers started, and make freedom, liberty, and justice for all, possible for the whole world.
I think that the idea behind the article was we should embrace the idea since we are already being accused of it.
No one wants a fifth reich and I think the author carefully states his concerns along those lines.
What I cant for the life of me "get" is why you think your demi-god Pat B has the answer, that you should cast off Israel and bow to Usama's demands. That will always lead to tyranny and an American empire may be the ONLY alternative - if you want to take up arms agains that idea then I think our short experiment in self government has failed.
GHWB coined the term I think with the idea that it meant that we were the only superpower left and that the burden of defending freedom fell on our broad shoulders.
This is the core of Pat's appeal I think, it allows him to run around blabbering about shipping jobs to Mexico and UN helicopters hovering over Georgia (or whatever locale is currently popular)
It is unavoidable that buggy whip jobs either disappear or are shippped off to less labor costly nations as long as we demand the cheapest products available - it has nothing in my opinion to do with some grand conspiracy to kill US jobs.
American empire is here already, so we might as well empbrace is because the rest of the world is going to hate us regardless.
Regarding conservatie socialists and liberal socialist, that is a rather non precise method of dissing everyone - to a great degree it is the fault of the public for sending idiots to Congress like Pat McDermott of Wash St. and Barbara Boxer from Calif.
There is a difference between the Dems and the Repubs, the Libertarian party is a disaster and that explains why they have about 2 bucks in their war chest for the next election.
All cliches are cliches because they contain a kernel of truth, its a shorthand way of communcicating an idea, I didnt write the article Im just the guy who posted it because I thought it was intriguing to say to the left, "Ok we are an empire, stick it where the sun dont shine"
If I restated the law of the jungel for the author as, "If in a place that is hot, humid and full of lush tropical vegetation you are faced with barbarians who have already killed members of your family and are intent upon killing the rest, you had better have a way of defending yourself" would you be satisfied?
Doesnt have the same ring though does it?
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