Astonishing Idiocy
Post 1,002
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Astonishing National Idiocy*
Twelve score and 6 years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Twelve years later they gave us our glorious Constitution.
Now we are engaged in a great congressional and state legislative war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.
We cannot dedicate – we cannot consecrate – we cannot hallow – this congress and these state legislatures. The brave men and women, living and dead, who long struggled there have consecrated them far above our poor power to add or detract. Yet their courage and their suffering are now defiled by those today committed to violating their sacred oath to protect and defend the Constitution of this land. Instead, they have tried to end our democratic republic and they continue to undermine the tenets of our free society. They seek to ensure that this nation, so conceived and so dedicated to Liberty, cannot endure.
Now we are faced with the prospect of a key betrayer of our nation becoming Speaker of the House of Representatives. He stands in candidacy solely because of the cowardice of men and women who know better, but who chuse to compromise themselves and our nation for personal gain.
The world will little note what we say here, but it will never forget what the betrayers are doing here. It is for us the conscious, the loyal, to be dedicated to the unfinished work of the patriots who came before. It falls to we the living patriots to reject the usurpers, the cowards, those who seek to undermine our Constitution and steal the vote from every American. There is no other who will protect our justice, our Liberty and our freedom.
So it is for us to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from the loyalists of old we take increased devotion to that cause which they served and for which they shall not have served in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Because if it perishes, we will have done this to ourselves. Astonishing idiocy.
Astonishing Middle East Idiocy
Bret Stevens wrote a remarkably clear analysis of the Gordian knot that is the intractable conflict in Israel/Gaza in his Sunday piece, Hamas Bears the Blame for Every Death in This War. Clearly, Hamas is responsible for all the Jewish death and destruction done by their hands, their knives, their beheading swords, their rifles, their rockets, their mortars and their machine guns. Hamas has only one purpose, and it is to kill Jews. They are to blame for those deaths and that destruction. But who is to blame for this war’s Palestinian deaths?
Hamas embeds its command headquarters, its rocket launchers – really all of its war matériel – in civilian sites, like schools, hospitals, apartment buildings and mosques. If Israel is to stop Hamas from killing Jews, it must destroy Hamas’ war making ability, but that means that non-combatant Palestinians will be in harms way of Israel hobbling Hamas.
Some have already been killed or injured in this war and many more will almost certainly be harmed. Hamas likes when that happens, because Hamas and the ivory tower pinheads pontificating far from danger can then blame Israel for horrid war atrocities.
As long as Hamas can make jihad on Jews, every death, regardless of nationality, helps their cause.
This is not new. Every Israeli reaction to war, intifada, jihad and suicide bombers has resulted in condemnation of Israel at the United Nations, on TV from myopic, blathering talking heads and from street protesters. That offers Israel a horrific choice:
Israel can come down hard on its attackers to degrade their ability to harm Israelis, but doing that means unintended harm will come to otherwise non-combatant Palestinians; or,
Israel can stay its substantial military might in order to protect Palestinian non-combatants and in the process leave Israelis vulnerable to the next homicidal attacks by Hamas.
This choice is fundamentally one of deciding the nationality of the next pile of corpses. It’s a hideous, ghastly choice engineered by Hamas.
What, you might ask, is the Astonishing Idiocy about this? It is in the comments from responders to Stevens’ essay, some packed with false equivalents, childish “can’t we all get along?” logic, phony accusations and more. It’s the part of the general public swayed by hyperbolic condemnation of Israel spewed by self-certain delusionals, regardless of what Israel does.
It is verbal violence promoting military violence against Israelis.
So, tell you what: Let’s invite Hamas, Hezbollah, the IDF and civilians from all parts of Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Israel to join hands and sing Kumbaya and the Coca-Cola song about inviting the world to sing in perfect harmony. That should solve this problem.
That last was bitter sarcasm aimed at the Astonishing Idiocy of those comfortably willing to sacrifice Israelis on the alter of their ignorance and arrogance.
Once most of the hostilities had subsided and Israel was amassing hundreds of thousands of troops preparing a land invasion of Gaza, I began to think about what that would look like. It would be a blood bath, an atrocity. Hamas murderous militants would be killed and their stores of weapons would be seized or destroyed, but that would come at the cost of the death and suffering of thousands of Palestinian non-combatants and IDF soldiers.
So, I imagined a personality transformation, wherein Benjamin Netanyahu morphed from a self-serving despot wannabe into a statesman. Far fetched, I know, but stay with me.
He would announce that the IDF will stand by and not invade Gaza. It will protect all in need of protection. All that would be required is for Hamas to release all hostages/prisoners regardless of the color of their passport, be they civilian or military. Hamas must surrender its rocket launchers, rockets and other armaments. Certain criminals will be turned over to be tried in fair courts like at Nuremberg.
Right. This is fantasy. But a land invasion and the death and destruction it will cause won’t bring security to Israel. It will bring universal condemnation. And it will ensure that the next intifada is worse than all that came before, possibly looking more like the Yom Kippur war of 1973 when Arab nations joined forces to eliminate Israel.
Thomas Friedman agrees and sees a land invasion as a terrible and self-destructive thing (here and here). So does Marc Lynch of Foreign Affairs (here), as does President Biden and so many others. I fervently hope my confirmation bias vision comes to pass. Anything else will be self-inflicted Idiocy.
Homegrown Astonishing Idiocy
6-year-old Wadea Al Fayoume, a very cute Palestinian-American Muslim boy living in Joliet, IL with his mother, was stabbed 26 times by their landlord. Of course, his mom was stabbed multiple times, too, and was unable to attend the funeral of her little boy.
Apparently, he and his mom were guilty of the terrible crime of being Muslim. At least their attacker seems to have believed that to be a crime.
Words fail me. Tears and boiling blood do not.
Tuesday, October 17 4:00PM CDT
It’s reported that a rocket has exploded on a hospital in northern Gaza, killing hundreds. Various terrorist groups immediately blamed Israel. They didn’t look for facts or even informed opinions. That’s standard Middle East hate bias knee-jerk stuff.
Meanwhile, the Israel Foreign Ministry says it and others have video that proves that the missile was a misfire of a Hamas rocket. Several others fired at the same time made their way into Israel, but one never arrived there. It hit that hospital.
Even if they hear that explanation and see the video, no Palestinian will care about it and no rage will be calmed. They are determined to accuse, blame and be enraged. Without evidence. That rocket was just the best thing for Hamas. Makes me wonder if it really did misfire.
President Biden’s trip to the area has already been undermined by the Egyptians, Jordanians, Palestinians and others slamming doors.
Welcome to the fog of war where truth doesn’t matter, everyone is inflamed and almost nobody is informed.
Would that the only thing with enough importance to warrant comment were the perfidy, the cowardice and the disloyalty to country of congressional Republicans. O’ for those easier times, just 11 days ago.
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* Paraphrased from The Gettysburg Address by President Abraham Lincoln, delivered almost 160 years ago on November 19, 1863 at Gettysburg, PA.
Today is a good day to be the light
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- Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
- Fire the bastards!
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Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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Note that if you don’t care about being played for a sucker and you don’t mind being lied to, there’s nothing you need to do. Just go along as before, being fed lies that stoke your fear, that fire your anger, that make you distrust your neighbors and hate anyone who isn’t exactly like you. No need for that E Pluribus Unum stuff.
McConnell has come out of his shell and that there may be a little relief coming. But right now those are just rumors. If you have a Republican senator, be sure to lean on him/her to refuse to be stingy and instead take proper action to relieve suffering. Even if you’re doing okay, millions of others are not.
