Someone Else's Thought For The Day

From cartoonist John Cox:



Now there are some folks, who regard themselves as morally superior beings, who question why the other bastard has to die. The answer of course is that the other bastard is attempting to impose his will, or the will of his leader, upon you by force. It is the act of coercion by force that makes what General Patton called the other bastard an enemy.

Peace is simply the absence of enemies.

But there are some folks, who pretend to be morally superior beings, who would have us believe that "peace" could be achieved by submission to the will of the other bastard. In reality this is not peace, it is slavery.

There are some well meaning people, some of whom that I respect, who believe that there are times that one cannot have both peace and freedom at the same time.

I have to disagree.

Liberty is simply the condition of existence in which the person is free to live his own life in accordance with his own rational judgment. This does of course require the absence of some other bastard who is attempting to impose his will upon the person by force.

In practical terms real peace and real freedom are inseparable. I will go further is saying that to a civilized person, peace, freedom, and security, are simply three words that can be used to describe the identical condition, the absence of another bastard imposing his will upon the civilized person.

Contrary to what those who describe themselves as peace activists would have us believe, and as General Patton has ably demonstrated, the path to real peace invariably takes us over the real dead bodies of those other bastards who insist on violently imposing their will upon us.

Unfortunately this process is by no means a safe one.

Let us take this day to remember those who died on the path to real peace.
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John Bergstrom Doesn't Play Well With Others

John (aka Varmint) wrote a comment:

So far Obama has waffled on Guantanamo, rendition and tribunals. during the campaign he even pretended to respect gun rights. But abortion is something he has never compromised on. it is very important to him for some reason. strip everything else away and he still believes in it.

Here's my theory:

If we believe that the Right to Life (and the causally subsequent Rights of Liberty, etc.) begins at conception, then at what point (short of a conviction for a capital offense) can that right be denied to a person? Voluntary Socialism has been repeatedly proven (The Plymouth Colony, Jonestown,etc.) to not work. Thus in order for Socialism to "work" it has to be made compulsory, through the credible threat of violence against productive persons. Which means that any social concept that restrains the power of the state, such as the Rights of Life and Liberty, has to be rendered invalid. Preferably by the victims themselves. What Ayn Rand used to call the Sanction of the Victim.

The term "pro-choice" is a typical socialist inversion of meaning. To deny the Right to Life of a fetus would be in moral effect to deny the Right of Life to that person for the entire span of his or her life. Thus it would open the door to the Coercive Socialism through the credible threat of deadly force against productive persons.

But as the history of the Soviet Union has shown, that doesn't work either.

What are your questions on this block of instruction?

(Yes, I know what Rand's position on abortion is.)
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Blast From The Past

This one is directed to the Washington Establishment in general and both houses of Congress in particular:

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice. Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?

Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves become the greatest grievance. Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God's help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do. I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place; go, get you out!

Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!

-- Oliver Cromwell, Speech to the Rump Parliament, April 20, 1653

Hat tip to Dr. John Ray.

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Blast From The Past

"There was once, O men of Athens, something in the minds of the people that is no longer there --something that defeated the might and wealth of Persia, that vindicated the liberty of Greece, the was never conquered on land or sea, and that is now gone, leaving all Greece in turmoil and dismay.

"And what was that? Nothing elaborate or abstruse, but the simple fact all men hated those who took bribes from the seekers of power and the agents of subversion. That was accounted the greatest of crimes, so that he who was convicted of having been corrupted of bribes or by favors was condemned to the ultimate penalty, with no room for excuse and no hope for pardon.

... But now everything is for sale ... For what are now the consequences of treason? Envy, for those who have profited; laughter for those who confess; pardon for those who are convicted; and hatred--hatred is now reserved for the man who speaks harshly of treason."

-- Demosthenes, 341 B.C. (written three years before Athens lost her independence)

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