Comments: [Bumped] What on earth leads the Establishment to think America
But wait, the One did command the tides to recede. We are the ones we have been waiting for.
Posted by james wilson at September 2, 2014 10:30 AM
Unlimited access to free spending will spawn every sort of demented transmophoria.
The governor has been disabled and the engine runs wide open until the fuel is spent.
Then, "Cut the fuel, cut the fuel!" they say, but I am only surrendering a few drops says I. If we all cut the few drops at the same time perhaps the engine will coast to a stop, and if we continue maybe it will rust in place.
Posted by ghostsniper at September 2, 2014 10:45 AM
It worked in Japan.
Posted by Christopher Taylor at September 2, 2014 11:24 AM
Mr. Lind is equating arrogance with stupidity. He paints an unjustified, non-interventionist picture. In the 1800's Britain converted savage communities into reasonably civilized [by our definition] societies. Among these was massive, populous India, as well as a variety of countries in SE Asia. We did likewise in Japan and Germany after WW 2. And likewise in the Philippines before WW 2.
Our stupidity is in the simple fact that we refused to adapt and apply what had been learned by the British, French, and ourselves and that we had no interest in adapting those lessons [French and American] from Vietnam to present day situations. Not hubris, arrogance, but simple, not complex, stupidity.
In Japan we quashed the militaristic haters and torturers and saw to it that schools ceased teaching Japanese supremacism and justification of sadistic treatment of others. We taught them to teach themselves the values of a democratic society -- always and all ways improvable if the citizenry stayed off their ossifying asses.
As suggested elsewhere, suppose we put bounties on heads and genitalia of all mullahs, imams, clerics, madrassa staff, funders of these vermin, and hunted down those we could reach ourselves? I suspect that in less than 10 years the tide will have begun to turn in our favor and to the benefit of the Islam umma -- and would be recognized as beneficial by the [remaining] non-hating Muslims.
Eradication of ISIS and its fellow travelers to prevent imminent danger is fine, but it's only treating the symptom. Islam needs a cultural/religious purging of Salafist interpretations of Koran, Sira, Hadith, and derivative Sharia law. Not an easy or short term effort even in the absence of our stupidity. Something of value must replace the 1400+ years of murderous culture--ask the apostates such as Ibn Warraq, Raymond Ibrahim, and others who understand the Muslim mind from the inside out.
Muslim children, 5 years old plus, are already being trained to hate. They will be the teachers and murderers for the next 80+ years, after ISIS, as such, is long gone, if we let fester the present Islamic education rot.
Posted by Stug Guts at September 2, 2014 11:41 AM
Mr. Taylor: The Japanese were civilized. Arabs are savages.
However, there are many stages between occupation and the ostrich position, I think that bombing savages is worthwhile. It is an object lesson, and it makes for pretty pictures.
Posted by Fat Man at September 2, 2014 12:03 PM
@Fatman: Tell the Nanking Chinese how civilized the Japanese were. Tell the Bataan death marchers how civilized the Japanese were. You mistake the accoutrements of civilization with civilized behavior.
Tell the 10+ million civilian victims of Nazism how civilized the high-culture Germans were. Yes, a high-culture of murderous ubermenschen, missing civilization as a nutrient or disinfectant in their case.
Similarly, tell the 80+ million victims of Communism [Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, Pol Potism, ...] how great those societies were with their wonderful governing infrastructures.
You've accepted inadvertently the definitions of the lice-ridden Leftists for words like: civilization, ethical and moral behavior. Those words, not too long ago did not need adjectives to indicate a 'type' of morality and decent behavior. Thus, you now see the facade and believe it is the substance. Wake up and hear the screaming of the innocents and smell the stench of the murdered victims!
Posted by Stug Guts at September 2, 2014 12:47 PM
Stug Guts, you do what others do when you try to separate religions into parts. One cannot. Either one is a Catholic, a believer of all the tenets of that Church or one is not a Catholic.
The same go for being a Jew. If you believe the Orthodox Jews believe the Reforms are Jews, guess again. they don't accept those as Jews in the believing sense.
Islam is no different, Either one believes of one is an Apostate. The Hadith teaches what a Muslim must do to spread Islam. Just like the Cafeteria Catholics aren't Catholics no Muslim can be non-halal and be a Muslim, unless they are lying to deceive the infidel.
While you might not take up the sword and ride off to the Holy Land for another Crusade, that doesn't mean you wouldn't cheer the Horsemen on to victory. Or support them in some way.
Flip that around. Religion is not rational. You either believe...or you don't.
Posted by Vermont Woodchuck at September 2, 2014 12:55 PM
VC, your points are mostly correct. However, before the Abrahamic religions were codified and further explained by "authorized" interpreters, there was room for honest differences of opinion as to how the precepts were to be understood in the present and in unusual, new situations.
I believe this kind of discussion continues among Christians and Jews and Hindus. Islam, closed the door on these kind of discussions 1000 years ago. I suggest that that closed door may be reopened, leaving, for example, Koranic 'kill the nonbeliever' urgings as applicable only to the time and place of its original writing. Not a great chance of that kind of revolution in Islam, I'd say. In it's absence, the confrontation will be very bloody.
I differ with you where you say 'Religion is not rational' if you mean by religion, god. Belief in It, God or god, is certainly more rational, reasonable than thinking that everything came originally from absolutely nothing.
Religions, on the other hand, with their sets of beliefs and required procedures have many contradictions. That's what the continuing controversies are about in Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, and even no-god Buddhism. Nirvana, and Tao, as the ultimate beginingless source of all, beyond attributes, sounds to me like my idea of god or God, pure being/awareness/bliss.
The most rational to me, is that what one sincerely intends to do, and what one does confirms what one believes. All the rest is diversion from the essential; search/find what's worthwhile believing in.
Posted by Stug Guts at September 2, 2014 2:57 PM
"....everything came originally from absolutely nothing."
==================
Who said "absolutely nothing"?
Further, what's with the word *came*?
I believe in today.
I hope for tomorrow.
That's all.
Posted by ghostsniper at September 2, 2014 5:06 PM
While all is being said, not much is being done.
To address a scourge such as Islam we must think in terms of extermination.
Think: Dresden;
Think: Hiroshima and Nagasaki;
Collateral damage? Every time some unfortunate guy gets beheaded and the video goes viral?
Really, collateral damage? You're worried some kids or old people are gonna get killed?
When they kill one of ours, we kill one hundred of theirs.
It has been seen and experienced in most every other country in the world, from the "super-powers" to the Third World yocky-dock countries: Islam is not a good thing. It benefits nobody, apparently not even the adherents. What is more important, innocent non-Muslims or psychopathic suicide-prone fanatics?
We are all listening to rumors that something bad is gonna happen on 9-11. Instead of cowering and hoping that it won't happen near us we should be fire-bombing Baghdad and other concentrations of Muslim terrorists. Can't find 'em? Enlarge the target area.
Posted by chasmatic at September 2, 2014 11:02 PM
ghostsniper, I was trying to cover all the bases. Nirvana, Tao, Parashiva, Supreme Being, That, God all the same idea of reality to me. If none of these applies to how someone lives their life that's fine as long as they don't intend unnecessary harm to others.
chas, the enemy, as you've described elsewhere, may already be within our gates, our communities. Fmr governor,Tom Kean, who led one of the 9/11 investigating commissions said that the 9/11 attack was 4 years in the planning. If there are sleeper jihadists here already, what do we do?
It's been nearly 13 years since 9/11 2001.
Who knows whether the government's got all the possible sleepers covered? It seems Homeland Security is so busy covering their own backsides that they don't have time to cover the foreign, now domestic, threat.
What happens when ebola-infected jihadists slip across our southern border infecting those they've traveled with or are housed with in detention and medical facilities? How do we find and quarantine those infected, infecting that we did not originally detain?
By this time, the National Guards all across the southern and northern borders should be in operation -- but that would call for obvious, intelligent planning/execution by our gummint. Too much to ask for. Doom on us somewhere soon.
Posted by Stug Guts at September 3, 2014 10:29 AM
There is a concept called the formative years. It is the period ranging from birth to about 5 years old. This is the period where the foundations of a person's personality are constructed. During this period, for all intents and purposes, what is done cannot be undone. What little wiggle room there is for personality transformation is over by the end of puberty. Even psychiatrists, who are highly trained professionals that treat people, one on one, sometimes for years, will tell you that it is very hard to change an adult’s personality.
Conventional wisdom continues to resist the self-evident truth that personalities, once formed, are set for life. Personalities are not reasoned into and they cannot be reasoned out of. On an micro level, women continue to believe they can change men's personalities and penologists continue to believe in the rehabilitation of criminals. On the macro level, the Liberal and Neo-Con political elites believe that the character of nations, indeed the culture of entire civilizations, can be brought to a state of moral excellence if enough force, moral suasion and money are brought to bear.
First, let us consider the application of force. It has been observed that people are notoriously ungrateful when they are on the receiving end of a pointy stick. The only end to the use of force will come when you break the enemy’s will and this requires the massive and merciless use of force. An occupying force must wade in and rip the guts out of the enemy. But, over the long term, liberals and their ilk cannot withstand the onslaught on their sensibilities by the spilling of so much blood. They quickly find that their appetite for killing wanes and they lose their stomach for battle.
Second, let us consider the use of moral suasion. However, for any effort of this sort to be successful, a timeline of a few years is nowhere long enough. This is because the unwashed are reluctant to agree that their nation's values are worthless and vigorously resist any requests to commit cultural suicide.
Lastly, there is the matter of money. Changing a nation’s character through some sort of cultural reconstruction can only be achieved over several generations and the narrative for this kind of endeavor changes from an “occupation” to one of “a colonization.” No nation has ever been able to pay for the cost of colonization without looting or exploiting the resources of the occupied country but the collective conscience of the elites will not allow for that. We are in a war whose objective is some ill-defined attempt at cultural reconstruction. Compared to other wars our casualties are low but the actual dollar cost is so high that it cannot be met for very long. Said another way: this war cannot be won because the ruling class does not have the stomach for all out war and while they dither over a less violent alternative the country will run out of money.
Posted by Blown Fx at September 3, 2014 2:20 PM
Somewhere out there is a person that may want to kill me.
Should I spend whatever resources it requires to seek him out and attempt to kill him?
Or should I spend the resources I have to reinforce my daily life in whatever ways I choose so that it is very difficult for any person to ever kill me?
For more than 4 decades I've been employing the latter to 100% success and will continue to do so.
But then, I have to exchange effort and toil for my wealth rather than stealing it so therefore it is more valuable to me and I am reluctant to waste it on silly whims that are immoral and never fruitful.
"Good habits are worth keeping, bad habits are never worth starting."
--gs, 2099
Posted by ghostsniper at September 3, 2014 8:31 PM
This isn't a question of "dsyfunctional culture". Barbarism is not culture; the two are orthogonal.
"It is not a clash of civilizations that is going on, but a clash between barbarism and civilization."
- Geert Wilders
Posted by AGoyAndHisBlog at September 4, 2014 8:02 AM
Hey folks, the terminology is gumming up the clear communication of ideas.
The Islamists have different definitions of right and wrong than we do. The Islamists are commanded by their religion to not entertain arguments about right and wrong -- Allah's commands as expressed in Koran, expressed by Mohammad in Sira and Hadith [the Sunna], and by Islamic authorities in Sharia law.
Anthropologists define culture objectively as 'the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another.' [dictionary.reference.com]
So, Barbarism IS a culture, tho one which we oppose because it is so much less civilized [by our definition] than ours. The Islamist, however, considers Islam the ultimate civilization when obeying Allah's commands to convert, enslave, or kill nonbelievers.
Geert Wilders, bless his courageous stand, is simply presenting the sane Western view of Islamic perverse activism as barbarism, given its extreme and cruel position relative to Western civilization.
WW 2 Germany and Japan demonstrated that barbarism and culture are quite compatible for certain national groups who've got their own definitions of right and wrong.
Up your multi-poly-cultural analyses and syntheses!
We need to cooperate with the Islamists by sending them off, as quickly as possible, to the reward they seek in their version of Paradise.
Posted by Stug Guts at September 4, 2014 10:41 AM
"Barbarism IS a culture"
No. Please learn to read. Then go take a few courses in anthropology.
Barbarism can be an undesirable FACET of a culture (so-called). Again, they are orthogonal. But barbarism is not culture, per se.
The Germans and Japanese had far more to their culture than barbarism (which was aimed at and visited on certain, specific groups).
Wilders has it absolutely right.
Posted by AGoyAndHisBlog at September 4, 2014 12:02 PM
Goy, you contradict yourself. If as you say barbarism can be a facet of a culture, then barbarism is NOT orthogonal to other components of the culture but within the dimensions of that culture. When the barbarism is so immense compared to other culture components, it takes on expressions, activities of its own, making the other cultural components essentially unimportant.
I would trade all of the art, writings, ... of wartime Japan and Nazi Germany to save one child from murder or mutilation by those barbarians.
That barbarity is the essence of those cultures; their fine music, science, visual arts are simply the grotesque makeup that the murderers wear.
It goes back to my comment about terminology gumming up the communication of ideas -- we can't even agree on what represents civilization and culture and barbarism, and what the 'norms' are in our own civilization for assessing whether a culture is essentially barbaric or civilized.
As stated, I agree with Wilders position; I understand his terminology and his intent.
Once we get inside the mind of Islamist murderers we may find additional ways for defeating them.
The 5-year old Muslim murderer-in-training of 2001 is now 18 years old, ready and willing to implement his training. How shall we deal with the 5-year old trainees of 2004-2014? Kill, murder all the 5-10 year olds NOW, before they kill us?
Or, do we put adequate effort in uprooting the culture and civilization [from their viewpoint] which has survived for 1400 years by maintaining a murderous domination over Muslims and others?
The Islamists are simply practicing the bushido of the samurai -- loyalty to Allah and Mohammed, death before dishonor.
At the moment, it seems we are again suffering from lack of imagination and consideration of the clear and present danger. Stupid is as stupid does; that's why we are in serious doo-doo.
Posted by Stug Guts at September 4, 2014 4:35 PM
"you contradict yourself."
No. I didn't. Buy a dictionary. Get someone to edit your posts. And get some perspective. You sound hysterical. And confused.
Posted by AGoyAndHisBlog at September 4, 2014 4:58 PM
Goy, in my initial response to your original 'orthogonal' remark, I gave ready reference to an internet dictionary source. I would buy a dictionary except I'm not keen on all of the short stories they offer without allowing the reader to get a word in.
I give my editors a post and they give me the shaft. I prefer use of a bow and mallet.
If you would contend with the simple facts and questions I raised, we'd probably learn something useful. Ad hominem attacks are justified when they are justified -- please present your justification(s). Just because you are wrong on your orthogonality idea does not mean you are necessarily wrong with other ideas you've presented. I'm trying to stay with semantics without the confusing tics of impreciseness.
Posted by Stug Guts at September 4, 2014 6:33 PM
And then he said,
my idea of a civilization is one in which the highest art form is raising decent, loving children who've developed by considering the examples of others and their own experiences, how to live and let live, to be reasonably self-reliant in a complex society and to have guiding principles for appropriate decision-making.
For the childless the same considerations apply -- developing one's potential with no unnecessary harm to others.
Necessary, unnecessary? Try Confucius for starters, "Respond with Kindness to Kindness, and to aggression with Justice." Yes, capitalize on Respond, Kindness, and Justice.
If there are no exact, detailed rules for these achievements, good, figure it out for your self. That's what being a human being is about.
Posted by Stug Guts at September 4, 2014 7:14 PM
Man oh man. I am getting a headache listening to the squabbling. It is difficult extracting ideas and concepts with all the semantic fireworks.
Lord knows, I am a simple man. Inarticulate, barely made 160 on the Stanford-Binet. ad hominum remarks are superfluous and pejorative.
Ahem, my uncle Louie Lozko, we all called him "Letsgo Lozko", he raised bantam chickens. He told me all they did was cluck: happy, sad, right or wrong, in sickness and in health, morning noon and night, clucking their little galline hearts out. He reckons they often did it just to hear the sound of their own voices.
Oops, drifting a bit. Er ... where was I?
Posted by chasmatic at September 5, 2014 5:06 AM
What on Earth leads us to believe, etc. ....
Our successful experience in civilizing Germany and Japan after WWII led us to believe we could duplicate these efforts on a smaller scale. And no one can argue that these two nations weren't behaving in as savage a manner as the current denizens of the Fertile Crescent Indeed, the numbers of innocents killed by these two so-called 'civilized" nations dwarfed the death tolls we see in the Middle East. But that's because the savagery was organized to an incredible degree. And therein lies the rub
Japan and Germany were two organized civilizations that simply went off the rails. So the solution was to subdue them and then do the equivalent of a lobotomy and excise the diseased belief set that caused these two organized civilizations to go berzerk
Iraq on the other hand, hasn't been a civilized entity since 1258, when the Mongols annihilated Baghdad and left the people of Iraq flapping around like chickens with their heads cut off. This and subsequent savagings by Tamerlame and the Ottomans created an ultra-chaotic, post-Apocalyptic, Mad Max like culture that had no organizational structure at all above the clan and tribe level. And so, when we set out to repeat what we did for Germany and Japan, we could found nothing to excise. The whole damn brain was diseased.
Posted by Call me Lennie at September 6, 2014 7:51 AM
We have no problem executing a heinous killer, baby raper, mass murderer, so forth; we have no problem killing an unborn child in mother's womb in the last trimester of pregnancy; we have no problem carrying a concealed weapon or having a weapon in the home to stop a threat to life and limb which usually leaves the perpetrator dead.
We have a problem, it seems, waging war on a radically psychopathic ethnic group that has killed, raped, maimed, enslaved, brainwashed and destroyed other people since oh, about 1200AD.
We have a problem administering the kind of military actions that will be decisive in eliminating the threat. Think: Dresden, no problem there. Think: Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no problem there.
We have a problem over-reacting to the situation the way we did at Waco and the Branch Davidian compound, the way we did at Bundy's ranch.
Folks, as unpleasant as it may appear, going against spiritual principles that I and many others espouse in Christianity, the only solution for the Muslim threat is to kill every last one of them, their families, their friends, their neighbors; to lay waste to their crop lands and salt their wells, to destroy their buildings such that no two stones lay atop one another.
The justification, if one is needed, is that the Muslims are Evil. Biblically or worldly, believers or atheists, young, old, gay or straight, male or female, White or Black or any other combination of the above, the paradigm in which we all repose dictates that some things are good, some bad, and some Evil.
Posted by chasmatic at September 6, 2014 9:59 PM
This argument of who or what constitutes barbarism is much like a cat chasing it's tail. You're using your culture condemnation to define the word.
One example of my position would be the Chinese. They consider all not of the Middle Kingdom to be barbarians, yet they will drowns a baby girl so that they may have a son.
Part is the population laws of the Country, but the other part is that sons will take care of the parents in old age, whereas the female child marries and belongs to another family.
Barbaric? By whose definition? Here is the coin, at which side are you looking? Are we all not a product of our own culture?
What is appalling to one, is culturally acceptable in another. How about the rural Chinese custom of the father deflowering the daughter as a bridal gift to the groom. How about plural wives in Islam? Or taking 12 year old children as brides in that culture?
Should we, in America, go back to public executions? How about a Star Chamber to 'take care of those that slip past justice' like other countries have? Would you like to bring back Eugenics? Just for the Welfare recipients? The Homeless? That cleans up many societal ills. May be ghettos are the solution for the undesirables. Central and South American Countries practice this form of 'tidiness'.
So point out who are the barbarians. Define them but try not to use your cultural censure.
Posted by Vermont Woodchuck at September 7, 2014 5:00 AM
Barbarian
1 - of or relating to a land, culture, or people alien and usually believed to be inferior to another land, culture, or people;
2 - lacking refinement, learning, or artistic or literary culture;
I chose the word Evil to describe the enemy which threatens the world. There is a moral, perhaps spiritual paradigm assumed. Can there be any doubt that the followers of Islam do harm to all other people?
This is not a domestic problem. No need for the societal remedies like public executions or racial segregation and control. Every country contends with its own troubles, like racism, poverty, over-population, degenerated morals. Let each country deal with their troubles as they see fit.
On a global scale, the Evil ones are the Muslims: radical, conservative, wishy-washy, Westernized, all variations that hold the Koran as their holy book.
Some may be found in our country but the problem is on a world scale and any peoples harmed by the Muslims must come together to fight the foe.
The remedy to the damage and destruction, the murder most foul and the barbaric actions of Muslims can only be met with a force strong enough to overcome once and for all that which threatens all others.
Death sudden, overwhelming, final, no hesitation, and thorough by whatever means will accomplish the end result — elimination of the Evil.
Posted by chasmatic at September 7, 2014 6:13 AM
"....to kill every last one of them...."
==============
Oh dear, do I need to explain the impossibility of such a thing?
As far as I can tell no muslim is a threat to me, besides, only I get to determine what is a threat to me, and then I get to act as I see fit.
The far greater threat is the average jackboot on the street for s/he can destroy my life in various ways with little or no repercussions.
I care not about assumed threats 10,000 miles away when there are hundreds of proven threats within pissin' distance.
Posted by ghostsniper at September 7, 2014 9:07 AM
@ghost — No need to explain anything; I am aware of the implications of such a task. All it takes is time and determination.
It certainly is important to have a strong defensive plan. The ability to react to any given threat is essential. The only drawback to that is "Surprise favors the attacker".
Being pro-active and implementing an appropriate offensive plan assures keeping control of confrontations. We do have weapons with a 10,000 mile range.
Posted by chasmatic at September 7, 2014 9:37 AM
well, isn't it a cast iron bitch defining barbarism without using one's own cultural mores as a guide in that definition.
This isn't to say we shouldn't BE defining such actions for one can look at actions and know that they are intrinsically wrong. Being so they DO require action on good peoples part.
The problem as I see it is the variety of 'cultures' now in our own society; they clash with the choice of actions that might be taken. If you ask in Peoria, should we hammer ISIL flat, the answer percentages will be different from the one you'll get in Dearborn or Philadelphia.
Everyone gets a voice according to the Constitution; vote for a war and maybe we get another Vietnam reaction. What do we do?
Chas, you know first hand as I what that feels like. Others here may also, I just don't remember them dating themselves. Apologies for any omissions.
Posted by Vermont Woodchuck at September 8, 2014 7:30 AM
"Everyone gets a voice according to the Constitution;"
Not exactly.
Everyone gets a voice regarding who gets to make the decision, which is a different thing. There is no formal public referendum on war, nor should there be. There is (ideally) a decision by Congress and, thereafter, a follow-up decision by the Commander-in-Chief. Thereafter, everyone gets a voice to express their opinion on the decision itself and/or its implementation, but that's it. All of this is fairly explicitly spelled out in the Constitution.
The key there, obviously, is to have a functioning Republic, with elected representatives and a C-in-C who make will rational, informed decisions that are based on the interests of the People who elected them, as opposed to half-baked, political decisions driven by the quest for power, "imperial glory" and/or "national greatness". Sadly, with the possible, qualified exception of WWII, we've seen far too much of the latter and very little of the former in the US since early 1861.
That reality of politically-motivated action - which is a function of too much concentrated power wielded by too few hands in DC - tends to unnecessarily complicate what would otherwise be a rather formulaic decision-making process when it comes to military conflict. The reaction required to deal with islamic barbarism need only have one criteria: whether or not it presents an existential threat to the American People. If so, then military action is justified and, indeed, required. With that, the detail of labeling it "barbarism", or not, is rendered moot, and cultural considerations are no longer relevant.
Posted by AGoyAndHisBlog at September 8, 2014 9:06 AM
As is often the case, the devil is in the details.
9/11 2001 was 4 years in the planning and a few hours in implementation. At what point in those 4 years was that sequence an existential threat, calling for our corrective response? How imminent and intense, widespread must the threat be before we act?
After we eliminate that particular threat do we go back to sleep, or do we uproot and destroy the sources of the previous and new existential threats from the same barbaric culture?
Sane people with a desire to live and let live, will go the uproot, destroy, and reorient the salvageable remainder [children and Islam-disaffected adults, at least] of the barbarian culture.
So-called barbarism and civilization exist along a continuum of multiple behaviors. Each culture, as others have noted, define differently the rightness or wrongness of behaviors.
So, if we do define other cultures as barbaric and capable of using great deadly force against us, NOW is the time to act against them, rather than wait until they, for example, recruit ebola-infected recruits or slip in a purchased miniaturized nuclear bomb to wreak havoc among us.
Cultural considerations are ALWAYS relevant these days. Hate and murder-mongering cultures -- their teachers, activists, funding sources, fellow travelers -- must be sent back, ASAP, to their source for reprocessing and adequate quality control before being released issued as humanes.
Placing bounties of ~$100,000 on the heads of these hate and/or murder-mongerers would be an inexpensive way of sowing distrust, confusion, retribution among the barbarians. After the first 5,000 barbarian teachers and leaders are effaced [cost of $500 million] we should see a great enthusiasm to earn the bounty for the next 5,000.
This to be followed by an in-depth exegesis of Islam's murderous, civilization-debasing history, Koranic language corruption [not pure Arabic, etc.], political-based distortions, ...
Posted by Stug Guts at September 8, 2014 10:52 AM
Goy, I beg to differ with you but one hell of a lot of people did have a voice in that war called Vietnam. Johnson didn't run again and Nixon got hammered by those voices that don't have a voice.
They may not vote on Capitol Hill but they vote for Capitol Hill and they certainly vote in the streets.
Stug, from I posted we agree. We must make choices based on our cultural backgrounds when it affects us and our allies. As for being guardian of the world, others have to stand up for themselves; we cannot and should not do it for them.
Realize through, there are no moderate Muslims, either they believe or they're apostates. If the latter, they'll be put to death along with the infidels.
Posted by Vermont Woodchuck at September 8, 2014 1:10 PM
"they vote for Capitol Hill"
That's all they vote for. Everything else is secondary to that. Which is as it should be... at least as far as decisions about military action are concerned.
There was a lot more military involvement in VN long before the electorate got a "vote" on the issue - street or otherwise.
The larger point here, of course, is the nature and quality of the leadership who actually make these decisions, and the criteria upon which they base those decisions. No one seems all that interested in addressing that aspect of this issue.
Posted by AGoyAndHisBlog at September 8, 2014 1:47 PM
The next fantastic fortune will be made by the genius who produces an ap that detects and displays on smartphones and TV's an index combining: the stress levels in a speaker's voice, speaker's appearance, blink rate, iris dilation/contraction, changing facial musculature, content and tonality of the message -- incongruities will be indicative that something is not quite right. The CIA has for years used these techniques to screen candidates, detecting innocent misrepresentations, lies, traitors, or need for deeper investigation.
If the ap combines these indicators and delivers an estimate of level of overall incongruity, then BEWARE, depending on the level of mismatch attained.
This ap will lead to only the most honest, as well as the best practiced liars getting the vote from the viewing public. Rewards for those outing the liars can be funded from the assets of the detected liars.Imposing long prison terms on those later shown to have lied will be effective if the prison terms are spent working on pig farms. The pigs will be pleased to be able to look down upon the incarcerated political swine.
Once-a-week waterboarding of Congressman and staff, would also be useful as a means for detecting lies, prior to any new legislation being presented.
I am NOT sincerely sorry for diverting the discussion from its original path.
I wonder whether "Black Jack" Pershing's method of dealing with Muslim terrorists in the Philippines, whether true or false, would be effective today. Worth a try.
Posted by Stug Guts at September 8, 2014 3:39 PM
That's all they vote for. Everything else is secondary to that.
The election of '74 started this country on the long slide down that road to this day's President. With the exception of Carter, who so disrupted the economy, that the Left couldn't over come his mess. G.H. Bush changed that back only to have Hillary screw the pooch with her demands for single Payer Health Care.
Another delay, but a chance to crush the Left was squandered by Dubya and that Compassionate Conservatism crap.
The Bamster is just the next in line of destructive Soros fools. all from that 1974 election and those street 'voters' raising hell in '72.
Posted by Vermont Woodchuck at September 8, 2014 3:56 PM
VW, you've just made my point. As I stated, the electorate doesn't get a vote on policy, nor should they. They get a vote on which folks will decide policy. This is especially true when it comes to the decision to use military force.
And while the topic has already been covered elsewhere here in depth, if you're looking for the election that started this (former) Republic on the long slide down to empire, being essentially ruled by the Wannabe-Golf-Pro-in-Chief and his sinecured minions and handlers, you'll need to roll back quite a bit further... to 1860, to be precise. It's been one long, slow downhill ride ever since the last substantive constraint on federal overreach was eliminated through central banking, war on civilians, fiat currency, "reconstruction" (so-called), the 14th Amendment federal protection racket, the 17th Amendment, tax on income and "incorporation doctrine" - all of which were cheerfully provided as facets of the Republican agenda. As that process took hold, all talk of political parties, "left"/"right" (or equiv.), "democracy" and "Republic" became little more than the fog through which most people can't (or don't ever bother trying to) see past in order to understand how the Hamiltonian vision of omnipotent, centralized government and class society ultimately became our reality.
We're seeing the endgame of that vision, and that reality - the one Jefferson and others warned about. The Republican (formerly Whig) Party STARTED that process; their (temporary) "loss" of political control in '74 - just part of the ongoing kabuki theater to keep the electoral masses busy fighting amongst themselves - had little if any significant impact on the bigger picture. But one must actually acknowledge the bigger picture in order to recognize any of this.
Posted by AGoyAndHisBlog at September 8, 2014 6:22 PM
@Stug — I like the idea, a truth app. Probably short-lived as techno-hackers can fiddle most anything these days.
"Black Jack" Pershing's method, yes, true or false, is appropriate. So is Vlad the Impaler's.
http://dpjk.blogspot.com/2014/08/vlad-impaler.html
Kipling spoke to it in The Grave of the Hundred Head.
Posted by chasmatic at September 8, 2014 8:59 PM
"The election of '74 started this country on the long slide down that road to this day's President."
Good lord, man, the Republic was broken in 1933, Obama just pushed on the plunger. Roosevelt crapped in the bowl.
Posted by james wilson at September 9, 2014 9:58 AM
james, by that condition, the downturn took place when the Federalists got their way back in 1789.
Posted by Vermont Woodchuck at September 9, 2014 1:30 PM
chas, thank you for alerting us to the negotiating technique used by 'Vlad, the Impaler.'
"Vlad, just like most of his predecessors and successors, had as primary goal to keep Wallachia [his homeland] as independent as possible. Vlad had the Turkish envoys killed on the pretext that they had refused to raise their "hats" to him, by nailing their turbans to their heads."
h/t Wikipedia
Posted by Stug Guts at September 9, 2014 3:14 PM
That is more insightful than you think it is, Woodchuck.
Their ship sailed for over one hundred and forty years. The fact that it sailed on for half again as long after getting holed is a testament to their greatness, but not to ours. We're done. In this form, at any rate. Good riddance.
Posted by james wilson at September 9, 2014 8:03 PM