and seemingly, prone to violence. (see comments re: the first link.... and the second section in the 2nd link)
Do you think that there is a point at which an armed uprising is acceptable vis-a-vis the alternatives? Is it ok to take action preemptively?
Is there a point at which you will rise up in revolt? (BTW, don't tell me, I could be a provocateur....But decide for yourself where the line is...best to do so beforehand, so you'll not just be ruled by emotions like anger or fear). But where is your line in the sand? Having to show your papers every time you enter or leave a town....Or whenever a policeman decides he wants to know.....or when taxes get above 60%....or what?
Seriously though, while Roberta and I may disagree, she has a point...Starting the fight may be a tactical mistake. But I think not being willing to start one makes you weaker....
Something to think about.
Taking the high road is ok, I guess. Not wanting to "Start" something is ok, I guess. Here are some people who took the high road, who refused to be the ones to "start" something. Seemed to work out ok for them.
ReplyDeletebut that could never happen here. And it could never happen again. Could it. Could it?
There is no "Start". It has already "Started". The idiots in question understand not to "fire the first shot'. They know exactly what the threshold is, and will not cross it. They will simply take away freedom and tax and regulate until we are all enslaved. Wait, that has already happened. And they laugh at the idea of people who choose to 'Live and let live" and draw the "Line in the sand" outside their own front door.
When you draw the line in the sand outside your own door, you volunteer to be a prisoner. The line in the sand must be drawn outside your opponent's door, if you are to retain your freedoms.
By the way, Americans fired the first shot in the war of independance, in the first world war, in the civil war (of course). That makes us bad guiys, (of course)
Prone to violence? You betcha. Beats being- well- prone.
"Firing the first shot" is not necessarily a literal act, Og; and I'll thank you to come to my own blog to call me an idiot.
ReplyDelete...As I was planning to attend yours, for much the same reason.
Let us examine incidents of "shooting the bastards" in the the 20th Century here in America; mind you, I don't think most of them were bastards, at least not compared to their peers, but they were somebody's bastard:
JFK: we got LBJ and he got carte blanche. Fail.
MLK: Oh, yeah, that was an improvement. Jesse Jackson started his rise waving that bloody shirt.
RFK: Liberal East Coast Democrats looked even more heroic and brave to the easily impressed.... (That shooting may be the hinkiest of them all).
And the men who shot them are not heroes -- and shouldn't be.
Clinton got a lot closer to crossing my line than any other President -- but he blinked. The boy might be power-mad and immune to criticism but even he eventually figured out the ice was getting thin, though I doubt he ever really grasped just how thin.
As for Mr. B, he may have missed my point: making threats (which you were) makes you a target; declaring just where your line is tells 'em how far they can go. And I do not cotton to that; like Og, I think they have already gone too far. Unlike Og, I'd like to try medication before moving on to amputation. Jeez, we are still getting over the last civil war.
When it is time to shoot them, they'll get shot. Shut up, shoot and stay shut up. You don't get any parades and you are like as not to shoot a damn archduke anyway. But don't for a minute think modern civil wars are especially solution-prone: they're what you do when the alternative is worse.
Sorry. If I want to call you an idiot, Roberta, I will not do so from behind a keyboard, I will do so to your face; however, this isn't about you, except peripherally. Yours is not the only blog I read. You are not by any means the only person I know anxious to complain about all the inequities but still trying to put band-aids on gangrenous limbs that desperately need amputation.
ReplyDeletehell, I'm surrounded by them.