Staff Duty Sucks, but I write a lot.
Staff Duty.
Again.
And I have it again on Wednesday, which at least turns my rather cheesy 3-day for Western Easter into a 4-day. I already wrote about the commemoration of the day on my Other Blog. Fortunately, I don't have to deal with any serious insanity.
Grim's Hall has a thought-provoking little philosophical piece on the place of folks like me in Christianity. I'm always inclined to think highly of an argument that involves quoting GK Chesterton twice.
Speaking of good ol' GK, let me share the following quotes on the modern spirit:
"A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt -- the Divine Reason."
"At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table."
"To sum up our contention so far, we may say that the most characteristic current philosophies have not only a touch of mania, but a touch of suicidal mania. "
GK on courage:
"But Christianity has done more: it has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing the distance between him who dies for the sake of living and him who dies for the sake of dying. And it has held up ever since above the European lances the banner of the mystery of chivalry: the Christian courage, which is a disdain of death; not the Chinese courage, which is a disdain of life."
However, not all my thought on this day is of such a high and lofty mode. There is also the muck of partisan politics and world affairs to consider.
Rurik on Kosovo, which is a well-reasoned and cogent argument. It is, sadly, uninspiring to me but probably not far off on the solution, which is for the rest of the world to simply butt the hell out and let the Serbs settle it on their own terms. Sucks to be Albanian, but there it is. There is nothing noble about the Albanian cause, and it has the deep disadvantage of being an Islamic cause, and that's a Bad Thing in terms of the Long War.
The EU, having more or less toppled the United Kingdom, is having problems with, of all places, the Baltic Republics. Plucky is the main word I've always had come to mind when dealing with Lithuania and Latvia and Estonia. It used to be the word I associated with Finland, but now "Fascist" is.
I've been griping about the lack of Global Warming lately, most notably when we got snowed out of a range (freezing rain, sleet, and lightning which finally shut it down) during the week before last. But apparently this is not merely a local trend. Global Warming is bunk. Throw another log on the fire, and get those greenhouse gases flowing!
Barak Obama is almost becoming too easy a target these days. I mean, check it out. Now, Barak is not stupid enough to mouth these phrases, but if you choose to call a man your "spiritual advisor" you get tarred with the same brush. His minister isn't the only one of his Chicago associates that I have huge questions about. It appears that he has ties to PLO agents, which makes sense given that his pastor is anti-Israel and anti-Semetic (in addition to being anti-white). And anti-United States, which is probably most relevant given that his loyal parishioner is running for president of said nation.
In other Partisan Political News, we have two outbreaks of intellectual honesty among liberals.
David Mamet has decided he can no longer be a liberal.
"And I realized that the time had come for me to avow my participation in that America in which I chose to live, and that that country was not a schoolroom teaching values, but a marketplace."
Kenneth Theisen has come out of the closet in Berkeley. He's come under a LOT of fire from Conservative bloggers but I'm going to stick up for him, as much as I can. Mr. Theisen is a vile, slimy piece of work who should be deported, but AT LEAST HE'S HONEST!
"If you 'support the troops' in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the other more than 100 countries in which they are located, you also objectively support U.S. hegemony in the world. I believe that the vast majority of people who say they support the troops do not wish to support U.S. imperialism, but that is what they are really doing by putting forth the slogan of 'support the troops'.”
"They are unjust, illegal, and immoral wars. Can you support the troops in these wars? Why is this any different from a German in World War II saying, 'I oppose the wars launched by Hitler, but I support the troops of the German army which are making these wars possible'.”
Thank you, Mr. Theisen. Thank you for a moment of unbridled honesty and clarity and common moral sense. It's only obvious. If you believe that the war in Iraq is "unjust, illegal, and immoral" you CANNOT support it, and by extension you cannot support me as I re-enlist to continue to fight it. If you believe it was not the best possible course of action for the United States, you can support me. But you cannot support me without supporting my actions.
Thank you for being honest. Thank you for being clear and to the point. Thank you, Mr. Theisen, for not hiding behind a cloak of hypocrisy. At least I know where I stand. You may be a damned fool, and a coward, and a parlor pink who will never amount to shit except among your fellow socialist schoolboys, but at least you are honest!
Now of course, some Bleeding Heart Type will say, "You said he should be deported. Shame on you for opposing his free speech!" Others will recall that I have stated that this sort of stuff is tantamount to treason and support of the enemy, namely al-Qaeda. Turns out that I'm right after all--Harvard has gone and done a study statistically correlating certain types of statements in Western media with attacks on US troops. Which I could have told you about--and did, years ago--based on my studies of the Philippine Insurgency. But I don't have a degree in Economics.
Along the same lines, I've found this little piece. Kinda makes my little rant the other day seem not quite as irrational as you might think, no? Trends, folks. Trends.
Meanwhile Colonels are arguing with each other, and getting busted by my old Brigade Commander, the Marine Corps is using big game hunters as trainers, an Archbishop turns up deceased, and the IVAW's little festival is falling through.
I've give the Final Word to Greyhawk.
Again.
And I have it again on Wednesday, which at least turns my rather cheesy 3-day for Western Easter into a 4-day. I already wrote about the commemoration of the day on my Other Blog. Fortunately, I don't have to deal with any serious insanity.
Grim's Hall has a thought-provoking little philosophical piece on the place of folks like me in Christianity. I'm always inclined to think highly of an argument that involves quoting GK Chesterton twice.
Speaking of good ol' GK, let me share the following quotes on the modern spirit:
"A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt -- the Divine Reason."
"At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table."
"To sum up our contention so far, we may say that the most characteristic current philosophies have not only a touch of mania, but a touch of suicidal mania. "
GK on courage:
"But Christianity has done more: it has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing the distance between him who dies for the sake of living and him who dies for the sake of dying. And it has held up ever since above the European lances the banner of the mystery of chivalry: the Christian courage, which is a disdain of death; not the Chinese courage, which is a disdain of life."
However, not all my thought on this day is of such a high and lofty mode. There is also the muck of partisan politics and world affairs to consider.
Rurik on Kosovo, which is a well-reasoned and cogent argument. It is, sadly, uninspiring to me but probably not far off on the solution, which is for the rest of the world to simply butt the hell out and let the Serbs settle it on their own terms. Sucks to be Albanian, but there it is. There is nothing noble about the Albanian cause, and it has the deep disadvantage of being an Islamic cause, and that's a Bad Thing in terms of the Long War.
The EU, having more or less toppled the United Kingdom, is having problems with, of all places, the Baltic Republics. Plucky is the main word I've always had come to mind when dealing with Lithuania and Latvia and Estonia. It used to be the word I associated with Finland, but now "Fascist" is.
I've been griping about the lack of Global Warming lately, most notably when we got snowed out of a range (freezing rain, sleet, and lightning which finally shut it down) during the week before last. But apparently this is not merely a local trend. Global Warming is bunk. Throw another log on the fire, and get those greenhouse gases flowing!
Barak Obama is almost becoming too easy a target these days. I mean, check it out. Now, Barak is not stupid enough to mouth these phrases, but if you choose to call a man your "spiritual advisor" you get tarred with the same brush. His minister isn't the only one of his Chicago associates that I have huge questions about. It appears that he has ties to PLO agents, which makes sense given that his pastor is anti-Israel and anti-Semetic (in addition to being anti-white). And anti-United States, which is probably most relevant given that his loyal parishioner is running for president of said nation.
In other Partisan Political News, we have two outbreaks of intellectual honesty among liberals.
David Mamet has decided he can no longer be a liberal.
"And I realized that the time had come for me to avow my participation in that America in which I chose to live, and that that country was not a schoolroom teaching values, but a marketplace."
Kenneth Theisen has come out of the closet in Berkeley. He's come under a LOT of fire from Conservative bloggers but I'm going to stick up for him, as much as I can. Mr. Theisen is a vile, slimy piece of work who should be deported, but AT LEAST HE'S HONEST!
"If you 'support the troops' in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the other more than 100 countries in which they are located, you also objectively support U.S. hegemony in the world. I believe that the vast majority of people who say they support the troops do not wish to support U.S. imperialism, but that is what they are really doing by putting forth the slogan of 'support the troops'.”
"They are unjust, illegal, and immoral wars. Can you support the troops in these wars? Why is this any different from a German in World War II saying, 'I oppose the wars launched by Hitler, but I support the troops of the German army which are making these wars possible'.”
Thank you, Mr. Theisen. Thank you for a moment of unbridled honesty and clarity and common moral sense. It's only obvious. If you believe that the war in Iraq is "unjust, illegal, and immoral" you CANNOT support it, and by extension you cannot support me as I re-enlist to continue to fight it. If you believe it was not the best possible course of action for the United States, you can support me. But you cannot support me without supporting my actions.
Thank you for being honest. Thank you for being clear and to the point. Thank you, Mr. Theisen, for not hiding behind a cloak of hypocrisy. At least I know where I stand. You may be a damned fool, and a coward, and a parlor pink who will never amount to shit except among your fellow socialist schoolboys, but at least you are honest!
Now of course, some Bleeding Heart Type will say, "You said he should be deported. Shame on you for opposing his free speech!" Others will recall that I have stated that this sort of stuff is tantamount to treason and support of the enemy, namely al-Qaeda. Turns out that I'm right after all--Harvard has gone and done a study statistically correlating certain types of statements in Western media with attacks on US troops. Which I could have told you about--and did, years ago--based on my studies of the Philippine Insurgency. But I don't have a degree in Economics.
Along the same lines, I've found this little piece. Kinda makes my little rant the other day seem not quite as irrational as you might think, no? Trends, folks. Trends.
Meanwhile Colonels are arguing with each other, and getting busted by my old Brigade Commander, the Marine Corps is using big game hunters as trainers, an Archbishop turns up deceased, and the IVAW's little festival is falling through.
I've give the Final Word to Greyhawk.
posted by Just A Decurion at 3/17/2008 04:09:00 AM
5 Comments:
Sort of an odd compilation young sapper, but up to your usual standards.
Thanks.
ps. Those that continue to speak on your behalf aren't done yet, you know?
I can't my original post(s) just now, but I've been doing BOHICA posts for some time.
I second the motion that stuff duty sucks!
I'm curious as to your thoughts on two things, one of which you've touched on.
First, Obama. Why is it that Obama is repeatedly asked to repudiate statements made by people whose endorsement he has not sought, like Farrakhan (Being asked if he agreed with his former pastor is reasonable, and he's said he doesn't agree with those statements), and the matter continues to be harped upon, while John McCain gets to say 'I don't agree with' the statements of a man whose endorsement he explicitly and aggressively sought out, and the matter is dropped? I'm not asking that anyone be given a pass, I'm asking if you have any thought on why two politicians in similar situations shouldn't be treated the same by the supposedly objective press?
Second, have you seen/what do you think of this "Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq"? ( http://www.responsibleplan.com/o/2757/images/responsible_plan.pdf )
I have my own thoughts, but I'm curious about yours before I say what I think.
First: I don't watch the news enough to know to what you are alluding in regards to McCain. McCain, as the least of the three evils actually running for President, more or less gets a free pass from me.
Second: I don't know nor care about Louis Farrakan except in as much as Mr. Obama has relations with members of his organization.
Third: Having skimmed the plan, the military portion of it appears to be more or less equivalent of "Go home now". It is also false that there is no movement towards national reconciliation in Iraq and that blows out the basis of their plan. The rest of it has to do with attempting to get the State Department to do stuff it simply doesn't have the manpower to do (nation-building) and lots of semantically null fluff.
Re: McCain, it's in reference to a Rev. Hagee, whose endorsement he rather enthusiastically courted, who has made statements calling the Catholic Church 'the great whore' and vigorously encouraging broader middle-eastern warfare with the stated intent of causing the Apocalypse.
Don't get me wrong, the man's got a right to say whatever he likes. I just find the actions of the press in these things highly questionable. It's all well and good for you, as a voter and someone who is trying to make an informed decision, to give McCain favorable treatment as the 'least of three evils', but journalists, at least in my own opinion, should be striving to treat all applicants to the position the same way without bias, precisely so the electorate can make that informed decision.
As far as the 'plan'... yeah, that's about what I thought, too. It seemed to me a lot of cheerleading 'and we should do it DIPLOMATICLY!' fluff without any real substance of how one actually exerts diplomatic pressure after beginning the process with a declared objective of not exerting military pressure. Was just curious about how you'd see it. Thanks.
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