Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Although I perceive there would be a passionate disagreement between sides roughly equal in number over whether it’s a good thing, I further perceive there would have to be near-unanimous agreement that the spirit captured in the poster below is, today, either dead or slumbering. With our President flying around apologizing to seemingly everyone for seemingly everything, and not breathing so much as a peep of request for apologies to come back in the other direction, we’re just a little bit too Jean-Luc Picard-ish to comprehend the not-terribly-complicated concept of destroying those who would destroy you, so something else more worthy can be created or preserved. Our mood is just a tad bit too kum-ba-ya for that this year.
Kum-ba-ya does have its place, I’ll admit. Occasionally in human history, perhaps a war here & there might have taken place solely because two sides, both otherwise intent on preventing it from taking place, failed to take the time to understand each other. But with the science-fiction luxury of launching and then inspecting alternate timelines and alternate universes, I submit one would eventually discover this to be an exceedingly rare scenario. I haven’t even heard anyone take the time or effort to argue the point in any specific instance, except of course for the invasion of Iraq, and that was far from an intellectual argument. Just mob-protests and bullying. “Sanctions will work, war won’t,” they said. Sanctions had been tried; they didn’t work. War worked. They sneer at the “Mission Accomplished” banner and demand that I join them in heckling it. Saddam and his sons are dead and cold in the ground, where they should be. Why should I be heckling that sign?
But the real debate we ought to be having, it seems to me, is — how primitive does an antagonistic entity have to be, before some thought is put into perhaps reviving the old spirit? Before even our most rabid peaceniks are forced to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, kum-ba-ya is not the answer to everything? You can’t negotiate with a crazed mountain lion that’s already tasted human flesh, for example.
Could the peaceniks, those who demand all others negotiate, compromise, find common ground on things, be somehow persuaded to follow their own advice? Could they ever deign to accept, or merely contemplate, the concept that perhaps there is a spectrum of enemies, some of whom could be constructively brought to negotiation tables, others of whom, perhaps, could not? Where do the sharks embroiled in a feeding frenzy fit into that? Where does Kim Jong-Il?
Should that old fighting spirit be retired to the ash bin of history forever? Unconditionally? No matter who arises to confront us on the world’s stage next year? In the next century? Regardless of where they fit on that enemy-spectrum? How strong is our commitment to this sanctions-over-war Jean-Luc-Picard mindset? How strong should it be?
Seems to me that’s the question we should be trying to answer.
One has to wonder why those lovers of moderation, compromise and endless talks, those haters of extremism in all its forms, have left it up to me to be the first one to ask it. How’d that happen?
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Just an observation.
Peace at all costs is not moderation. It’s extremist.
The peacenicks would have you believe that “we” are for war at every whim. Which is clearly not true.
So who’s really the moderates?
- philmon | 06/09/2009 @ 13:13It’s like that bumper sticker I saw the other day, we’ve all seen it, at least a variation of it, that said ‘Peace Works’. I felt like sayin’ to the moron driver, ‘ No shit, war brings that peace’.
“But the real debate we ought to be having, it seems to me, is — how primitive does an antagonistic entity have to be, before some thought is put into perhaps reviving the old spirit? Before even our most rabid peaceniks are forced to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, kum-ba-ya is not the answer to everything?”
OK, first of all your premise is all wrong. It has nothing to do with how “primitive does an antagonistic entity have to be”. That has nothing to do with the peaceniks. Readers Digest version – America bad. Full stop.
We, America, (and that needs to be clarified since they don’t march in the streets because of genocide in Darfur) are the cause of the world’s ills. We “create” terrorists. We are the reason other countries feel the need to threaten us. We are bad and no other country can be as bad as us, ever.
Secondly, kum-ba-ya is the answer to these people. We just need to have dialogue, apologize for our errors and trespasses. Understand and empathize if Iran wants nuclear since we have and we are the only country to have ever used them on another country.
Don’t judge North Korea too harshly. We interfered back in 1950 and they would now be a unified country, North & South, and full of peace love and understanding, if we hadn’t gotten involved.
Morgan, you’re trying to use logic and reason, the fault that we all have, when trying to understand these people. It’s like trying to hammer a nail with a loaf of bread. Futile indeed.
Unfortunately we now have one of these losers as our Commander in Chief. So the real question to him is ‘When would you pull the trigger, Sir?’ (Three Skinnies in a lifeboat with a hostage doesn’t count).
- tim | 06/09/2009 @ 13:17