February 17, 2007
slaves and knaves...
Yesterday Charlene and our son Will had the, ummm, interesting experience of passing through Los Angeles International Airport on Friday afternoon before a 3-day weekend. (And flying Southwest, to add to the charm.)
She was just now mentioning the dense masses of people pouring through—no possibility of even sitting down—and how vulnerable it all was to any sort of terrorist attack. Almost indefensible. Shuffling masses of sheep.
Which makes me very angry, to think of the utter stupidity of people to not realize that this is why we are hunting terrorists in the far corners of the globe. Not to mention the cluelessness of many Americans, who don't even know that we are hunting terrorists in the far corners of the globe!
STUPID STUPID STUPID! Montebanks, nihilists, piecrusts! Pigeon-livered lean-witted peasant slaves, as Shakespeare might have put it...
Whew, there...I feel better now...
There's no way we can wall-off America from danger. The world has become very small. Millions board planes for distant places every day. There's no possibility of keeping them all under observation. I could plot a crime in Frisco today, and execute it in Tokyo or Moscow or Calcutta tomorrow.
Brave Americans and our allies are, right now, at painful cost, whacking wasp's nests in places most people don't know exist, such as the Horn of Africa, or the Philippine archipelago, or Waziristan. We should be supporting them with unstinting encouragement and gratitude. But most Americans are too stupid to care. Shuffling sheep, so stupid they actually believe that what's on the TV news is reality.. And Leftists and pacifists and journalists and "academics" are worse than stupid—they are on the other side.
Folly heaped upon folly..
Canadian soldiers of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) stand guard in Panjwai district of Kandahar, Afghanistan on Jan.10.
Allauddin Khan / The Associated Press (Army Times, Frontline Photos 1/23/07)
Methinks you're too hard on the average American, John. Yes, most of us are sheep. That's the way it is supposed to be. Not all of us can be sheepdogs, nor should we be-- there would be too many of us going rogue. That's not to say that we shouldn't support the sheepdogs, or report our suspicions to the sheepdogs, or to act as sheepdogs on the spot if needed to fight a wolf that appears in our midst. But the sharp teeth and claws should be reserved for the sheepdogs, and our role should be one of backing them up, through our sheer mass of numbers if nothing else.
Besides, if the War on Terror were so all-consuming that we couldn't think of anything else, wouldn't that be an indication of something going very badly wrong?
The problem, John, is that too many of our fellow sheep think that there is no need for sheepdogs, and that the sheepdogs among us are no better than wolves, if such even exist. All we can do in that regard is to give support to the likes of Nick Cohen, whom you quoted in the previous post. The willfully blind may still not see, but at least they will be seen by the rest of us for what they are.
Posted by: Hale Adams at February 17, 2007 09:27 AMWell, you are right, and of course most of us must be sheep most of the time, and let other people protect us.
On the other hand, anyone walking through and airport or bording a plane who doesn't have at least a few sheepdoggish thoughts...well, maybe that's the next post. And of course I'm sure a least a few of those people who look so sheep-like ARE thinking like that....Charlene or I probably look like sheep to the others, but Flight 93 is never far from our minds.
Posted by: John Weidner at February 17, 2007 09:55 AM
