Defining Moments
Each week I write a post for my subscribers. A few weeks ago, I fired one off in a fit of anger and frustration. Its primary target was politicians that I believe demean Soldiers and others who I believe to be a fiddlin’ while the empire is in flames. It appears to have been a defining internet moment for me, although I’ve been doing this for a small audience for years. It’s also earned me some cyber-courage generated labels that I won’t share in this family friendly post. One of my fans told me that I did the country a great service – when I retired. Maybe so. While I was in service – like every other man and woman in the Uniformed Armed Services of the United States – I forfeited my freedom of speech on political subjects and politicians. Now that I’m out, I intend to say what I think. If it’s OK for retired political Generals to say what’s on their minds, then it must be OK for me. Unless you ask Harry Reid. Who may be at this moment sending a letter demanding that I shut up.
Candor is a Soldierly value. Maybe some of it rubbed off on me after all those years of hanging out with people who are candid by necessity. Sometimes the message you communicate needs to hit the intended recipients in the head as if it arrived there on the end of a piece of dimension lumber. Considering the many comments, including the profane name-calling ones I’ve received, many people felt the impact of that 2 X 4. Some agreeably and some not so.
As for my name callers, Dad used to tell me that the bit dog always yelps the loudest. Keep that thought in mind while you ponder the brouhaha about the ABC mini-series The Path to 911 (which I haven’t seen as of this writing – and might not see until the bootlegged copies turn up) and consider that the creator of Fahrenheit 911 sat in the Presidential box at the Democrat party national convention.
I believe the Democrat Party just had themselves another defining moment or maybe they’re just continuing to define politics for us. I might not be correct in my recall, but I don’t remember a former President, former cabinet members and sitting United States Senators demanding that Mikie the Hutt’s crockumentary be pulled from public access because of its inaccuracies. What I recall is Democrats attending the premier, Terry McAuliffe the DNC Chairman hugging Mikie and Mikie sitting next to President Jimmah in the Presidential box at the Democrat National Convention. That’s what I recall, but I am getting old and my memory isn’t always accurate. Of course, as Powerline points out in this post, there really wasn’t too much going on during the 90’s Path to 911, so I guess I don’t understand Mr. Clinton’s concern about the content of a docudrama.
Isn’t suppressing free speech what communists, Islamo-fascists and Castro do? If ABC succumbs to political pressure, how long can it be before Congressional letters start turning up at the offices of web hosts demanding the suppression of websites or removal of other content with which they disagree or that may be critical of their poor performances as public servants? How long before they demand the suppression of radio or news programs they don’t like? Did any of them ever demand censorship of the New York Times? The same Senate leader who proudly announced the killing of the Patriot Act because it infringed on civil liberties is hoping to suppress the free speech of Americans. I heard an ACLU lawyer defending the act in a radio interview. He said this isn’t suppression of free speech; instead, it’s the prevention of defamation. If politicians of all brands were more focused on serving our country than on serving themselves and their monetary contributors, this wouldn’t even be an issue. I have to believe that most Americans are sensible enough to decide for themselves what’s true and what isn’t in a television program. I’m also gullible.
Tomorrow is the anniversary of the most horrific mass murder in the history of our country. It should have been for our country and culture a defining moment. It should have led to actions that would forever alter in the minds of the people who only live to see us destroyed that we won’t ever run again and that it’s their destruction that’s imminent. Instead, the people who should be leading the assault against our country’s murderous enemies again chose politics over principle and feigned concern for what might appear on a television program when most folks would have likely been watching the Manning brothers play football instead – but not now. This is the group of people, conventional political thinking tells us, will be in charge of our country in November.
Lord help us.
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A porcupine with it quills down is just another fat rodent.Copyright (C) 2006 J.D. Pendry