Subject:
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Re: Iraq (was Re: Holy crap! (was Re: The partisian trap)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 21 Oct 2003 18:26:16 GMT
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Viewed:
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1164 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Marchetti wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:
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And now generals are also toting the ‘god given mandate’. Religious zealots
in command.
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See, this is the kind of cohesive backward and forward looking thinking that
I don’t see from you in other discussions, say about the gun issue.
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The cohesion is there. I think you’re just blinded to it. It’s an inherent
factor in your culture--it’s something I noticed when I was in Chicago last
week. In one breath a guy I was in a meeting with spoke of ‘socialism’ as if it
was dung on his shoes, and the very next moment was wondering if the Dept. Of
Homeland Security would pay for swipe cards for kids getting on school busses.
So the thought process is that the gov’t should be ‘mandated’ to pay for swipe
cards for kids, for the one in a billion chance that a terrorist might hijack a
school bus, but medical care, which people use daily, shoudn’t be covered.
It’s amazing what we can justify.
Further to the point, when such an onus is placed on one particular historical
event, such as, say, a revolution against tyranny, and that this focus is
propagated into virtual ‘holy myth’ status thru subsequent
generations--Washington crossing the Delaware--Ooooh... that people tend to
believe in the ‘infallibility’ of said myth--“The Revolution” solved our
problems then, and a revolution will fix our problems now.
Easily seen thru the gun debate--“Guns solve problems” Hey, when that crook is
dead at your doorstep, I guess it’s difficult to argue that rationale--problem
solved--I wasn’t robbed! However, looking past the ‘immediately fixed problem’
we see a larger picture of even bigger problems associated--why was there a
crook in the first place? Drug habit? Too poor to afford food for family? And
the otehr fallout of having guns in the house--Few weeks back, adn I refrained
from posting it--he was 4 years old and he shot his sister dead and wounded
another. It was probably a legally obtained gun. I don’t know, nor does it
matter--if there was no gun, she’d still be alive. This isn’t a ‘few eggs being
broken to make something better’, this is thousands of deaths per year. It
hasn’t been proven, nor can it be imho, that if you don’t have your gun, that
your elected leaders would become tyrannical. I’ve pointed to instances in
recent history and I see with my own eyes elections happening in democratic
countries all over the world, and I don’t see, nor hear of the need for, guns.
Take a look at the instances you list below. The issue of slavery was ended
when two armies under the direction of officials fought. This does not
constitute you with your gun in your house. Hitler--the allied armies came
together. All instances of revolutions or war that lead to abolishing some form
of tyranny or injustice came about thru the use of legitimate armies. And the
other instances, such as Womens Suffrage, was ended, not even with a war, but a
‘true awakening’ of society. I’m waiting for such awakening to happen ‘carte
blanc’ where same sex issues are concerned.
I think that’s the line for me--You are not a ‘well regulated militia’ unless
you’re in any semblance of a cohesive armed forces unit.
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It’s all well and good to pat ourselves on the back and say we overcame the
witch trials, slavery, women’s suffrage (by which I mean their inability to
vote), Hitler, the McCarthy era, etc. -- it’s smooth sailing from here on...!
But then stuff like the advent of President Shrub and the ascendance of
whacko politics rears its ugly head and you just have no idea where you are
any longer. That’s why the Founding Fathers stressed eternal vigilance as the
price of freedom. That’s why William Burroughs -- probably the greatest
american author of the last century -- stressed the conflict between those
seeking liberty and the powers of control. There is nothing older or newer
than the struggle to remain free. You are never free to rest on what has gone
before -- every settled conflict is ripe for a return.
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Yes eternal vigilance is the price we pay for our freedom. Vigil does not
equate to guns. When you are vigilant, it means you are ever watchful and wary.
And you must also learn from past mistakes--leaving certain issues unchecked for
lenghts of time are harder to fix. Further, leaving guns in peoples homes leads
to 5 year olds being dead. It’s a concrete fact--you can read about them in
todays newspapers, you can visit them in the cemeteries.
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My worry is that the game has become supra-national. That politics within a
country are superfluous to the real conflicts arising between the “powers
that be.” While nations are seen to have political and military power, much
of the money that drives the engine of the world rests in private hands --
now more than ever we are seeing a consolidation of wealth amongst the few as
never before. Nations owe, the international banks own. Another concern is
the brazenness of the activity -- it’s not even well-hidden, it is plainly in
the open and no one questions anything.
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Now here’s where we start agreeing again.
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“And Cheney has retained unexercised options for 433,000 Halliburton stock
shares.”
Why isn’t that front page news all over the nation? How did the U.S. become
a mere pawn in the chess game between the multi-nationals? How is it that the
youth of america have been sent to die in a foreign land for goals as
short-sighted as those stated by the President? How is it that he has
maintained the backing of both houses of congress in the commission of these
international atrocities? These guys play with peoples lives at the expense
of the taxpayer for the purpose of enlarging their own wallets.
Silence.
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Frustrating, ain’t it? Try being in a separate country where I can’t even vote
these idiots out of power. It’s akin to having an arrogant bigger cousin who
breaks things, but in this case, you can’t even complain to the parents ‘cause
there are no parents.
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Where I live I could go a five minutes walk from my home and see people
standing on a street corner waving flags and holding up poster-sized images
of their children that are fighting in Iraq. It pains me to see their
self-imposed delusions stretched so far. I mean, how does it ever become
okay for people to send their children to die for goals so vague? How do
they justify it to themselves? When their children come back in body bags,
they will be the ones that have to preside over the funerals with their
tears. I’ll be sitting at home enjoying life in the North American Game
Preserve while they are tearing at their shirts in their grief.
I told ‘em it would be like that.
Iraq did not attack us first. They could not have attacked us first. I just
don’t see the line of reasoning -- for me it ends right there. Did not, could
not.
What the hell are we doing in Iraq?
-- Hop-Frog
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And on this we completely agree. But we’re ‘voices in the wilderness’.
Dave K
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