Reply #39: About that 'Fighter, not an Appeaser' line [View All]

[mojowork_n]

Hard not to agree with that one. (Does anyone else ever wonder if Alan Colmes has to shave in the shower, to avoid private time confrontations with mirrors? Will it eventually turn him into a vampire?)

And yet, for me, that's also getting a little uncomfortably close to that classic Karl Rove/Leo Strauss Republican frame. The one that says "standing up to terrorism/evil/outsiders/illegal minorities/people-not-like-us" justifies *everything*, including throwing out the Bill of Rights and Constitution, for the sake of defending the security of the Heimat (that's "Homeland", in the original German, I think), and expanding the effectiveness of executive power.

You know, you sort of hear Obi Wan reminding you to "stay away from the Dark Side" if you pause a minute...

Hesitate for too long and Yeats (Eliot? Chinua Achebe?) is whispering in your ear, "...The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity..."

And the trap springs shut.

All of a sudden you're sharing a world view with Hobbes, Malthus, and Dumbya's "Base", the perspective that holds human existance to be (necessarily, a priori, for the majority of poor slobs), "nasty, brutish and short."

Because "the Best" are always a minority, aren't they?

Defending Byzantium, or manning Hadrian's Wall in the waning days of the Empire, with crosses instead of eagles on their standards, what were the last Legionnaire's asking themselves, as they turned to face the hordes of pagan barbarians/people-not-like-them?

...I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, and it's been a hell of a day so far, so I may be reaching for something that's past my ability to share right now.

Thanks for the point of departure, anyway, Flying Squirrel. (Great DU name.)