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Britain
Rule America?
2005-10-23
In 1933, the Oxford Union - a debating society and one of the strongholds of liberal elite opinion - held a debate on the resolution "this House will in no circumstances fight for king and country." The resolution passed. Margot Asquith, one of England's leading liberal lights, wrote that same year, quite sincerely: "There is only one way of preserving peace in the world, and getting rid of your enemy, and that is to come to some sort of agreement with him. . . . The greatest enemy of mankind today is hate."

Churchill disdained the new liberalism, mocking one of his opponents as part of "that band of degenerate international intellectuals who regard the greatness of Britain and the stability and prosperity of the British Empire as a fatal obstacle. . . . " So deep was this liberal loathing of empire that even as the first shots of World War II were being fired, Churchill's private secretary, Jock Colville, witnessed at a theater "a group of bespectacled intellectuals" who, to his shock, "remain[ed] firmly seated while 'God Save the King' was played."

These elites could see evil only at home. The French intellectual Simone de Beauvoir did not believe that Germany was a "threat to peace," but instead worried that the "panic that the Right was spreading" would drag France, Britain, and the rest of Europe into war. Stafford Cripps, a liberal Labor member of Parliament, feared not Hitler, but Churchill. Cripps wrote that after Churchill became prime minister he would "then introduce fascist measures and there will be no more general elections"...

The liberal opponents of the British Empire were proved wrong, but their misplaced disillusionment was enough to sap the vitality of imperial confidence. After rising one last time to fight Nazism, the sun set on the British Empire.

Likewise, it is pleasant to believe that the crisis of confidence in today's liberal elites won't affect the outcome of our war with Islamist extremism. The greater worry concerns what happens next. Will protestations of liberal elites become mainstream diffidence about America's place in the world? Will we, too, stop believing that America stands firm, as a great force for good - and then see our place in the world diminish?

History, it turns out, can be both a comfort and a caution.
Posted by:Spert Gleresh7104

#7  Loosely translated, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
Posted by: Phil Fraering   2005-10-23 12:46  

#6  Barb, can you give us a translation?

For us folk who aren't into dying languages (or dying cultures...).
Posted by: CrazyFool   2005-10-23 12:09  

#5  Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

[A thousand pardons for using Phrench]
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2005-10-23 11:58  

#4  No institutional memory or no shame?

No, they willfully destroy history. When there is no history, then they can make it up as the go along. That is why the old books were tossed in our school systems. That is why the marxists dominate the history departments of our universities. It requires constant attention and censorship to stop true historical research and understanding. Orwell forwarned you.
Posted by: Slimble Sholulet1097   2005-10-23 08:54  

#3  The singular parallel is that these traitorous socialist toolfools repeat the same program of lies endlessly, generation after generation. That they can even exist as parasites disproves the idiocy they spout. Freedom, true freedom, allows true tolerance, even tolerance of sedition, and that tolerance breeds another crop of these cretins.

No institutional memory or no shame? I tend to believe it doesn't matter. They are trendy self-satisfied vampires who have broken Rule #1: Never buy your own bullshit. They suck the lifeblood out of great countries, the few bastions of freedom, tainting public discourse, sewing confusion and sedition, producing nothing of value, nothing worthy of the security they enjoy and work tirelessly to undermine. Safely protected within the bosom of their victim, they pronounce themselves elite intellectuals, logrolling for each other, spreading their asinine memes, insinuating themselves into the foci of the information system, poisoning yet another generation. They are as obviously pathogenic to freedom as the totalitarians, whether religious or communist or whatever the trendy flavor may be, zealots that should be eradicated, not coddled.

I recommend hunter / killer teams. Make the lists, check them twice, and off the pricks before they so weaken us from within that we lose the will to survive. CWII this way comes.

Some would say, "Would that we had Churchill with us today. Or Maggie with all her faculties intact." Indeed, that would be grand, splendid, quotable... The public would "get it" more readily, respond more favorably to the tasks Bush has set for himself and our nation. The odd thing is, despite all of his deficiencies as an orator, Bush does the things that need to be done. The proof of that assertion? Simple: that he displeases so many here at home fades into embarrassment when we are (accidentally?) allowed by the media to see how the troops respond to him - and to Rummy, and Cheney, and the rest of the administration. Greater enthusiasm and adulation is damned hard to imagine. I find that a very interesting contradiction.

Gosharoonies, could it be that they see a very different President Bush than the one we (are allowed to) see? Somehow, with even less MSM exposure, they know, even while serving at the point of the spear, the spear he wields as CINC, what is debated endlessly by the voyeurs - the public... they know that Bush has it right, is doing the right things, is making a difference, is writing history, and protecting each and every one of us. Must be more there than meets the eye sadly limited to viewing the MSM images delivered up for our consumption. Must be something about the man, the guy our troops have come to know, that so inspires them. Would that the voyeurs, the chattering classes, the ankle-biting single-issue fools - you'll recognize them as the one wearing blinders - could see it, too. Wouldn't that be grand?
Posted by: .com   2005-10-23 01:38  

#2  Sometimes the parallels with Rome are scary - the influx of immigrants who micro-colonize rather than assimilate; the disparaging of traditional values and beliefs by self-loathing intellectuals; the utter demolition of public insititutions by foolish judicial fiat; and most troubling, the moral relativism that cannot fathom that some cultures, values, ideals and nations are in fact more valuable than others. I believe in America, but the pugative we will have to endure to overcome the messes internally and externally we have allowed to fester through sloth and timidity are not going to be pretty or pleasant...... diversity of culture is not a strength, and most importantly, Islam is a dangerous poison that grows in the shadows becasue we think it is not more dangerous than being a Methodist........
Posted by: Just About Enough!   2005-10-23 01:06  

#1  Will we, too, stop believing that America stands firm, as a great force for good ...

Over my dead body.
Posted by: Zenster   2005-10-23 00:52  

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