Subject: resting on our laurels/a compulsive conformist speaks out
From: Jive Monkey (monkey_jive@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Jun 15 2001 - 19:02:25 GMT
Gee, you're right, Scottie, we did come rushing to the rescue of Europe, our
trading partners and friends, and we were even nice enough to blast Dresden
and then Hiroshima and Nagasaki to Kingdom Come, because God only knows what
would have happened if we hadn't. We were then so kind and heroic as to
install and prop up, often by force, unpopular governments in Iran, Vietnam,
Cuba, Zaire....
So, if I saved an old lady from drowning today, then went out and killed a
baby tomorrow, would I still be a hero?
You see this country for what it could be: a nation symbolizing and
upholding freedom for the world. My friends and I, in our haste, see it as
the opposite: a nation claiming freedom where this is little and pointing to
the good deeds of the past while doing little good in the present. I would
rather it was as you see it, but that is just a dream.
Blind obedience, unfortunately, is not the same as patriotism.
Ringo
From: "Scottie Bowman" <rbowman@indigo.ie>
Reply-To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
To: <bananafish@roughdraft.org>
Subject: freedom fighters
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 16:47:35 +0100
'...Yes, we DO protest your country ...' screams Valerie
perched on the barricade & waving her phrygian cap
- then adds, with commendable honesty '... besides, that's
the first thing young europeans learn to do ...' (having
in mind, I presume, among others, the cheese-walloping,
ozone-checking, tree-hugging, cyclists of Amsterdam.)
She can hardly make herself heard, of course, above
the chorus of sensitive young libertarians on the other
side of the Atlantic falling over themselves in their haste
to malign their own country & its leaders.
Well, thank God senescence has finally excused me from
the compulsive conformity of the young. And thank God
my membership of the Island Race exempts me from
membership of the European brotherhood.
I remember rather too clearly when liberty was last
overwhelmed in Europe. I remember how resolutely
'Europeans' fought for it then.
I remember too how despised the Yanks were in those days.
Oh yes. No end.
But not by me.
Scottie B.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Tue Jul 24 2001 - 09:20:44 GMT