The Random Comic Strip

The Random Comic Strip

Words to live by...

"How beautiful it is to do nothing, and to rest afterward."

[Spanish Proverb]

Ius luxuriae publice datum est

(The right to looseness has been officially given)

"Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders," wrote Ludwig von Mises, "no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interest, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle."

Apparently, the crossword puzzle that disappeared from the blog, came back.


Saturday, September 15, 2012

Time to stand up, I think


When I was a young man in the Navy and we were embroiled in the war in Vietnam, the anti-war folks had a saying of sorts. You'd see it on their protest signs, on T-shirts, and various other places. It went like this:

What if they gave a war and nobody came?

Although I was young and stupid, I could easily see the logical flaw in that.

Well, it has come to pass... "They" have given a war and we have not shown up.  You see, it will never happen that nobody will show up. Ever heard of a party where the host felt it was a failure because "nobody came?" Somebody showed up, maybe only a small number but it became their party, not the host's. And that is exactly what would happen with war. Someone will show up and they will end up the winners.

Japan and Germany did this in the 30's... they went to war and the other side didn't show up. Did they stop waging war? No. They widened their war, they expanded their aggression, they sought more and more. They were emboldened.

We would rather that people not be like this, not be war like. But that is fantasy. People are war like, they are aggressive. And they are encouraged by success.

It is long past time that we recognized this. It cost us a "bloody nose" at Pearl Harbor before we showed up in 1941.  It took that attack to wake us up. I would have thought 9/11/2001 would have done it this time around.


3 comments:

Torggil said...

Whats going on over there? Do you know if there's another war in the works? If there is, Iraq should have shown you that "regular warfare" won't work in the long term. Trouble is unilateral strikes just pisses off the international community. The best bet is assassination.

Douglas said...

The "war" started decades ago. For the Arabs it began around the time of the Balfour Declaration, maybe before. Our involvement began when we recognized Israel in 1948.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict

It has broken out into conventional war a number of times over the years. I don't know that it will ever end.

Douglas said...

Oh, forgot to mention that Faye thinks we need a "Mitch Rapp". (If you don't know who Mitch Rapp is, look up Vince Flynn.