Villainous Company

I heard this little fish hack feller on Hugh Hewitt during my ride home tonight and I thought, "thanks dumbass, usually people of your ilk disguise their loathing of the troops (whom they have never met) with feel good crap about being against the war but supporting the troops".

Not this guy, I can hate him freely. Even more than people who put their own thoughts in quotations.

This may take me two or three tries to articulate properly. I'm kind of tired.

I once read (and I believe it with all my heart) that there are certain things you should never say out loud.

Like in a marriage: you should never say, "I want a divorce" unless you mean to walk out the door. Because once those words come out of your mouth, you have crossed the Rubicon.

I think social conventions are like that. We have an awful lot of ugly emotions inside of us. But as I taught my boys (and according to 70's lore, I screwed them up psychologically) our conscience is like a wall that holds back all that ugliness inside of us. All of us, no matter how nice we are on the outside, have ugly thoughts.

And that wall is the most important thing about us. Every day, with every act and every word that comes out of our mouths, we either add a stone to that wall, or we take one away.

There is an ancient superstition that by naming a thing, you give it enormous power. I think this basic truth is where that superstition comes from. And that is what I tried so hard to teach my sons. Don't name the thing you don't want to become.

All that 70's bullshit about letting your anger out is such crap. We don't need to let our anger out. That is not who we want to be. Our minds should be in control, in the end.

So when I see a man like this, saying it isn't "safe" for him to criticize the military because his name is in the phone book and they could beat him up, it's like seeing an ugly worm underneath a rock. It's ugly and dangerous. It makes other people think it's OK to say that, and it's not because it's not true.

Sometimes the social inhibitions, even the hypocritical ones like people who secretly don't support the troops but won't say so, come from shame. But they have value, too, in that they keep the general tone reasonable.

This man feels no shame for taking cheap shots at people he isn't fit to shine the shoes of, and that frightens me. I can't help but wonder if this represents a turning of the tide. I have a lot of bad memories from growing up, of the way the military was treated. I hope I am wrong.

Damn.

Good point Cass.

You wouldn't be making fun of me, would you Mr. On?

Good night :)

Let me be frank.

No.

I'm sorry, but isn't the LA Times embarrassed about printing this fellow's trite banalities? I mean what the hell kind of writing is this?

But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they're wussy by definition.

What biting wit! What command of the language! What junior high-school student wouldn't be proud of that sentence!
Itrust this fellow isn't being paid during his internship.

Cassandra - glad to have you back! One of the biggest things that hasn't been taught in years, and it shows, is critical thinking and presentation of arguments. The piece in the LA Times is a prime example of the lack of critical thinking skills.

That's why I come to VC, Powerline, HH, Michelle Malkin, and many others! Here I can read commentary from people who not only know how to think - you know how to write!

Very glad you are back!!

Thanks, Wyoming :)

I tried to read the LA-LA Times (aka the DogTrainer) when I was out in soCal spd, but it was just too "lite" a paper, even for me to take.

Cassandra,
First a few words from our sponsor:
Back again, eh? Stubborn womyn! :)
You've made me submit to Typekey (ugh) just to get a few stupid words in edgewise.

I was reading about the inestimable Mr Stein last night, and had some definite thoughts about the whole thing, which to make a long story short, are well summed up in your post of 8:40 PM, Jan. 24 (It scares me how much I think like you, SOMETIMES! And this isn't sucking up, either.)
It reminds me somewhat of Whittaker Chambers comments, to paraphrase, of the "man the beast", and what happens when "it" gets out, untrammeled by religion, culture or social mores.

Don, I can't imagine you needing to suck up to anyone :)

I missed you so much when you were gone - more than you can imagine. There are times when you chime in with something so perfect I just wish I could fold it and put it in a book somewhere. But I have a good memory, so I suppose you can imagine some of your comments pressed between the dusty pages of my mind :)

Sometimes there have been things I felt so passionately and I haven't been able to really articulate them, and I just get so upset. And it often seems that at those times you or Pile (my infrequent commenters) will pop up and supply just the right words - the ones I couldn't come up with. And it's even better than what I was thinking.

That, in the end, is why I think I came back. I can write anywhere - that's the easy part. But you all would not have been there. And it just was not possible to do this without you guys.

Plus, as you observed, I am a mite stubborn :)