Response to "Sword of Honour" in London Spectator

The London Spectator ^ | 30 July 2003 | Brad Patty

[Grimr]

This is an edited version of the full response, which can be found here: http://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2003_07_27_grimbeorn_archive.html#105945170925184005

[curmudgeonII]

As for Lincoln himself, the immediate cause of Southern secession was his attempt to disarm the Southern militias by seizing the armouries of their state militias.

Nonsense.

[quidnunc]

curmudgeonII wrote: (As for Lincoln himself, the immediate cause of Southern secession was his attempt to disarm the Southern militias by seizing the armouries of their state militias.) Nonsense.

Exactly so; it's nonsense.

[Savage Beast]

This guy Robinson is off is rocker. What a wild imagination. He seems to be hallucinating.

But he need not fret. American foreign policy is being set by President George W. Bush, who is a Yankee, not a Southerner.

[Redbob]

How about John Brown?

I suppose he also is "nonsense"?
And the fascist culture that encouraged him?

[Redbob]

Well put.

[Savage Beast]

I tried to read Robinson's article, but it was just too boring. Where did he come up with such a fantasy? Do you think he really believes this stuff?

[quidnunc]

Redbob wrote: How about John Brown? I suppose he also is "nonsense"? And the fascist culture that encouraged him?

You believe the Abolition Movement was a fascist culture?

[curmudgeonII]

And the fascist culture that encouraged him?

I got news for you, Red.
The Civil War's been over for almost 140 years.

And you lost.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

And the fascist culture that encouraged him?>>

Well, the fascist culture that inspired him was killed at Appomatox Court House in 1865.

[livius]

Good artilce! Thanks for posting.

[RobbyS]

Mr. Bush is a Texan. Do not confuse him with his father.

[RobbyS]

"Fascist" is a totally anachronastic term.

[Savage Beast]

President Bush was born July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Connecticut, of Yankee stock. He was also educated in New England.

[RobbyS]

George HW Bush came to Texas as a grown-up and has never quite got the Texan thing down, but his son is a different critter altogether.
He grew up in Midland, and returned there after graduating from Harvard. He was about 14 when he went to prep school and evidentally he felt more at home in Texas than in the East. One reason that the Eastern elite hates him so much is because he has so deliberately rejected much of what they hold dear, including their agnosticism. Compare their disdain toward him with their adulation of William Jefferson Clinton, now a resident of New York. I once knew, casually, Wille Morris, a Missippian who came to work for the Texas Observer, a famously liberal Texas magazine. Willie evetually became, for a short time, the editor of "Harpers" or "Atlantic Monthly," (never can tell the difference between these two rags). He wrote a memoir called"North Toward Home." George W. Bush will never write such a book. When his memoir is finally published, it probably will tell how a boy from Texas found himself in an alien environment and made the best of it ,before returning to Texas to live his life. Of course the ranch and hat are all imposture; he is not and never was a cattleman. Wsanht to understand himself, however, and you had better think independent Texas oilman."That is a type one doesn't find in New England and is as antithetical to the Ivy league view of the world as the Virginian Lees were to their Yale classmates.

[Savage Beast]

Of course what you say is true. I know this about President Bush also.

One point that you make is particularly pertinent: The reason "Liberals" (or, in Europe, "left wing radicals") hate him so viciously is because he has all their most prized credentials including formidable education and intelligence, could be one of them, and knows them thoroughly and yet has only contempt for all that they stand for, thus exposing their mendacity, their corruption, their fundamental immorality, and their decadence.

George Bush was born with the credentials that the "Liberals" and the "left wing radicals"--and their darlings, the Kennedys and the Clintons--only dreamed of having, including aristocracy, political contacts, wealth, social position, et al.--and furthermore is truthful, honorable, moral, and ascendant.

For a man of his stature to repudiate them and the ignominy that they represent is the ultimate denunciation.

He represents the truth that threatens the falsity of their paradigm. People will do anything to protect a cherished paradigm, no matter how absurd it may be.

It's no wonder that they constantly seek to discredit him. They cannot rise to his level; so they seek to drag him down to theirs, if not in fact (which they cannot do) then in public perception, which is yet one further expression of their depravity.

[Grimr]

I think he's collected his research from genuine sources. The psychology study he cites is real, for example, insofar as any psychology can be said to be real. Unfortunately he does not cite his sources, this being an article in a popular magazine, but I suspect he's done proper research.

The problem is that he comes from a culture in which traditional honor has died. He is in possession of a lot of facts, but he doesn't understand the context. As a result, he misunderstands what honor is, and how it applies.

[autoresponder]

SWORD OF HONOR

[dixiechick2000]

Thanks for the ping!

I tried to read Robinson's article, but just couldn't get through it. However, I enjoyed this one very much.

" Women did not fight duels: but they certainly did not entertain insults."

The men fight the duels, and kill the bugs...

[King Prout]

very enjoyable read.