I dont know why, But calling some guy DICK just doesnt seem lady like!
On Nov 16, 6:02 am, dick thompson <rhomp2...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> *- Works and Days -http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson-*
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> Dead Souls
>
> Posted By_Victor Davis Hanson_On November 14, 2010 @ 8:09 am
> In_Uncategorized_|_29 Comments
> <http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/dead-souls/?print=1#comment...>_
>
> Millions of us shuffle around, sighing that most of what we hear pounded
> into our brains is either banal or as untrue as it is dangerous to
> identify it as such. So we ignore it, we the dead souls who live in the
> world of unmentionable thoughts.
>
> *The world of banality*
>
> Here is a daily inanity: "The great majority of Muslims are moderates,"
> and its ancillary: "Only a tiny percentage of Muslims are terrorists."
> Both are true, but they have value as admonishments only if there were a
> widespread Western effort to demonize Islam and persecute Muslims, or we
> knew that mass destruction required millions of conventional troops. But
> neither is true.
>
> Last year anti-Semitic hate crimes far outnumbered attacks in America on
> Muslims.
>
> Let us do some hypothetical math to suggest a small minority can be a
> very great worry. If the common referent of 1 billion Muslims in the
> world is roughly accurate, and if there are only, say, 10% of the number
> who are rather radical in their beliefs (e.g., the tens of millions in
> places like Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia), we may be
> talking only about 100 million Muslims who are indifferent to speaking
> out against terrorism (we saw that reflected in a number of polls after
> 9/11 tracking public opinion in the Middle East, in which only a quarter
> to a third of the respondents had a positive opinion of Bin Laden or the
> tactic of suicide bombing.)
>
> And further if, of that 10% /100 million subset, only one in ten is
> actually sympathetic, or willing to offer aid, to terrorists, and if,
> among that population of about 10 million, another one in ten actually
> wishes to commit terrorist acts, then we would have 1 million Muslims
> worldwide to watch out for --- or one in a thousand Muslims that might
> cause some worry.
>
> In that context, I 'd prefer the other banality "not all Muslims are
> terrorists, but most of today's global terrorists are Muslims"--- given
> that terrorism of the age requires very few zealots. The miniscule .001%
> of the Muslim community as potential terrorists is quite a lot, given we
> never hear of the size of the pool from which we are postulating.
>
> *No military solution!*
>
> I heard this banality four times this week on the air and at two
> lectures: "There is no military solution!"
>
> Well, yeah, of course, you cannot bomb or blow up your way to democracy
> in Iraq or Afghanistan. But who ever embraced that straw man as the sole
> answer in our ongoing wars?
>
> The fact is that in both theaters only military action can demoralize
> the terrorists and insurgents enough to back off to allow ongoing
> diplomacy and so-called nation-building to proceed.
>
> Iraq is fairly stable not just because of constitutional reform and Ryan
> Crocker's inspired diplomacy or Gen. Petraeus's brilliant efforts to
> assure civilians hope and safety, but also because the U.S. military and
> the Sons of Iraq in the Anbar Awakening annihilated vast cadres of
> al-Qaeda and radical Sunni terrorists.
>
> The history of war suggests gridlocked conflicts evolve to diplomatic
> solutions once one side fears losing or at least sees it cannot win. The
> banality of "there is no military solution" among today's elites has
> become synonymous with either "we are losing" or "we want out."
>
> *The unmentionables*
>
> Then there are the unmentionables that we dead souls carry around as
> well. All matters that even touch on race are good examples. The
> California papers are now heralding that the state's schools have a
> majority of Hispanic students. But while that is good news to liberals
> who seem to see race as essential not incidental to larger society, it
> raises then some very uncomfortable corollaries for reporters --- such
> as, is there any connection to why California's once top-flight public
> schools have fallen to near dead last in test scores, given millions of
> non-English speakers?
>
> Answers are offered in our major newspapers this week along the
> following lines. We are told in these articles that only 40% of Latino
> parents can vote (= if they could vote, would schools change for the
> better? And why did parents not take action to qualify to vote? And did
> not they already vote --- with their feet --- by the very fact they fled
> their homes to risk something entirely alien in the north?)
>
> In order not to address those questions, an "expert" is introduced into
> the article to reference school board elections where noncitizens might
> vote (= if one does not follow the law, change it!). We are next
> reminded in these reports that few parents speak fluent English. Presto!
> --- another PhD is found to suggest that rather than illegal aliens
> learning English, California should learn Spanish (= if a century and a
> half of custom is bothersome, drop the custom).
>
> We the dead souls read this and conclude just the opposite: Massive
> illegal immigration into the state --- by millions over the last two
> decades from the interior of Mexico --- has resulted in a sizable
> resident population with no English, no high school diplomas, and no
> legality. For most in these rubrics, an entry-level, manual-labor job
> too often became a dead-end one at minimal wages --- with all the
> ripples we'd expect into the second generation.
>
> Therefore one should stop illegal immigration, restore respect for the
> law, push English immersion, and stress the traditional American melting
> pot of cultural assimilation --- on the theory those who flee the
> nightmare of today's Mexico surely do not wish to recreate up here what
> they left down there, and instead are ready for a different social,
> economic, cultural, and political paradigm that explains why life
> changes radically from Tijuana to San Diego.
>
> Then a nanosecond later, we the dead souls sigh that we know such a
> melting-pot paradigm would work, and yet will not be tried in this era
> of the "salad bowl." Those who voice the unmentionable will be branded
> as racists by those who are mostly a) terrified of living in a world
> like they see today in Mexico; and b) believe that they live in a
> neighborhood or earn an income or navigate in a world that insulates
> them from the concrete wages of their easy political correctness.
>
> *Rhetorically ignorant --- or "he's back*"
>
> Andrew Sullivan is an iconic character of these depressing times --- a
> sort of herky-jerky Paris Hilton of the blogosphere, in which brash
> amorality, such as accusing the Palins of faking pregnancies or smearing
> officials as "war criminals," substitutes for any real thinking.
>
> His latest attack last week offers another teachable moment. Sullivan
> claimed that I, and others, committed the "big lie" (note the
> characteristic Sullivan bombast: "liar," "torturer," "criminal" are
> favorite slurs) by stating that Obama did not believe in American
> exceptionalism, based on the president's following remarks:
>
> "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits
> believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek
> exceptionalism. I'm enormously proud of my country and its role and
> history in the world. If you think about the site of this summit and
> what it means, I don't think America should be embarrassed to see
> evidence of the sacrifices of our troops, the enormous amount of
> resources that were put into Europe postwar, and our leadership in
> crafting an Alliance that ultimately led to the unification of Europe.
> We should take great pride in that.
>
> And if you think of our current situation, the United States remains the
> largest economy in the world. We have unmatched military capability. And
> I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our
> Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our
> belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are
> exceptional."
>
> Here Obama engaged in what in American parlance is sometimes known as
> prebuttal (see below) --- the anticipation of criticism to come through
> preemptive qualification.
>
> But Sullivan thinks that the "context" and qualifiers that Obama tacked
> on, praising the U.S., nullify the force of his more dramatic and
> sarcastic introductory statement: "I believe in American exceptionalism,
> just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and
> the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." Therefore those of us who
> quoted Obama to the effect that the president felt American
> exceptionalism was simply a variant of what all countries profess were
> peddlers of the "big lie."
>
> Of course, Obama really did make it clear that exceptionalism is just a
> notion that every state claims, America no differently than any others
> in its belief in its own singularity. But Sullivan leaps to the puerile
> conclusion that the Obama add-ons, the prebuttal, nullify the force of
> the controversial statement.
>
> Yet such subsidiary amplification --- sometimes known to the Greeks
> as/prolepsis/and sometimes more technically with elements
> of/procatalepsis/, and perhaps/antanagoge/--- serves two purposes: the
> controversial theme can be voiced for the record, and yet the speaker is
> protected from criticism by preemptive qualification. We know what Obama
> meant since he otherwise need not have said anything about
> exceptionalism; we also know that the na�ve or disingenuous partisan
> like Sullivan would immediately point to the qualifiers.
>
> Most politicians do this. When George Bush gave his May 1, 2003,
> "Mission Accomplished" speech on the deck of the/USS Lincoln/, he
> infamously stated, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the
> Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."
>
> Bush wanted to convey the thought that we had won the war and so spoke
> as he did. He also wished to qualify what he said, just in case violence
> again broke out. So he added all sorts of add-ons and qualifiers in the
> speech, starting with the word "major" (as in maybe less major combat
> has not ended). There were others like this in the speech, such as: "And
> now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that
> country." And this: "We have difficult work to do in Iraq." And this:
> "The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is
> worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then
> we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq."
>
> One could argue that Bush's "major combat operations ... have ended"
> statement referenced only more "major" combat operations in the
> three-week war against Saddam's conventional forces and government
> alone, and not insurgencies or terrorism or non-conventional fighting,
> but I won't argue that. I think even Bush regretted that premature
> assessment, which often had the later effect to discourage noting
> progress from the surge, given the public's remembrance of the prior
> false hope.
>
> I think instead Bush wanted to assure the nation that most fighting of
> all sorts was largely over, and yet he was not entirely certain of that
> --- thus the qualifications. He was logically faulted for that speech by
> the Left, especially by the likes of Andrew Sullivan, who posted
> repeated attacks on the controversial "major combat operations in Iraq
> have ended," but who on that occasion ignored the qualifiers that
> followed throughout the speech. Sullivan, however, is never consistent
> in his criticism because he suffers,/inter alia/, from the worst trait
> of a commentator --- the constant desire to adjust his own opinions,
> often in blatantly hypocritical and contradictory style, to the assumed
> prevailing view.
>
> Bombast and hyperbole do not denote passion of belief or sincerity.
>
> *Notice*s
>
> This week, I gave an internet lecture ("The Life of an Ancient Soldier")
> and Q&A with Philip Terry as part of Professor Paul Cartledge's (Clare
> College, Cambridge) global efforts to commemorate the 2,500th
> anniversary of the Athenian (and Plataean) victory at Marathon. It can
> be accessed athttp://www.marathon2500.org/. Cartledge wrote, among his
> many books, an underappreciated biography of the Spartan King Agesilaos
> (/Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta/). I say underappreciated because
> the title misleads; the book is really a comprehensive history of
> fourth-century Greece and Sparta in particular, with a wealth of
> insights and references.
>
> In September, C-Span, as part of their series to tape representative
> classes at American colleges, came to Hillsdale, where I was teaching
> for a month. The video of a class on World War II, in particular
> emphasizing the strategy of Churchill, Hitler, Roosevelt, and Stalin,
> can be found here. Warning --- the class was a marathon one, and I
> lectured without notes and impromptu for the entire period of three
> hours. Although I haven't watched it yet, I imagine there are plenty of
> slips, given the lack of a prepared text (the same is true of the
> Marathon lecture). The preview of the long tape is here:
>
> http://www.cspan.org/Watch/Media/2010/11/14/HP/A/40577/FDR+Churchill+...
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Article printed from Works and
> Days:*http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson*
>
> URL to article:*http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/dead-souls/*
>
> Copyright � 2010 Pajamas Media. All rights reserved.
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