Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
Regime change can begin overnight but they tend to be bloody. Persia is the last civil society under the boot of Islam. If enough of them wake up and take back the power from the mullahs and basijee and the IRRGN then there is a chance that they can slaughter their opponents in the streets. It will take a great deal of slaughter.
Nothing will happen, just like nothing happened in China when the army gunned down the protestors in Tien an Men square.
It’s going to be bloody, but that’ll teach the carbon units a lesson in humility, show them that where they belong is in the dirt and under the boot rather than standing tall and having an opinion.
Coming soon to a US city near you.
Curtis is right that Iran is the last “civil society” held in thrall to the dictates of Islam, but I agree with JTW that what we are likely to see is a replay of Tien an Men Square. Memories are short in modern societies–at least the forward-thinking middle class parts of them. Most young people in China today have never heard of Tien an Men Square–let alone remember it. And unlike the Shah, the religious zealots that rule Iran will have no compunctions about enforcing their vision of utopia, no matter how bloody the methods. What are a few cracked heads when you are “on a mission from God?”
Which only points out that Hanna Arendt was correct: There IS a significant difference between Totalitarian regimes and merely Authoritarian ones–despite what leftist critics say. The Shah was an authoritarian–there were limits to his cruelty and desire to control every nook and cranny of society beyond which he would not go. Totalitarians, by contrast, are driven by visions of absolute truth that brooks no opposition and demands that all share it’s vision totally in every aspect of their lives. As such, such people and regimes can brook no disagreement–let alone opposition–as why would one opt for anything else once the absolute truth has been revealed? Or, as one Muslim “militant” said in Iraq about the first round of elections: “Why do we need a Constitution when we have the Koran?” It is no accident that the first impulse of totalitarian regimes such as the old Soviet Union is to put their dissidents in psychiatric prisons. For surely anyone unsatisfied after THE TRUTH has been revealed must, perforce, be certainly insane.
Or remember the text Muslims carried around on plaquards during “anti-war” protests a few years ago, reading “we don’t want freeom, we want Islam”
Nobody here may favour the Grey Lady much, yet this is an interesting read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/20/opinion/20iht-edcohen.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
“Where is this place, where the young shed blood, and then people go and pray?” I fear it is the same place where “They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God.”
Or in more recent words, “I saw Satan laughing with delight… the day… the music died…”
It was a powerful piece, a poem of recognition and desperation. One voice on a rooftop among many who wonder, “how long”. There are good people in Persia, who long for freedom, just as there are billions of good people on this planet who similarly long for that taste of freedom. Our nation, and a few others have have struggled at great cost to achieve that fragile freedom. It will not “come”. It must be won.
I know why the mullahs need nukes. It’s to keep others out who may one day wish to help millions of people who wonder “where is this place where no-one comes to help”.
yeah, yeah…..not our yob…..
[...] Neptunus Lex: How long can the security forces man the barricades to prevent the people from peacefully assembling? [...]
“where is this place where no-one comes to help”
That is very hard to listen to.
My response.
We want to come.
We would come.
but if we do we are hated for it and called imperialists, occupiers, dictators, and worse.
and if we do nothing?
the same, only the words are different.
damned if you do, damned if you dont.
so what do we do?
Mr. President?
Completely agree with you CG-23.
The past few years have been devoted to screeching about how a young nation, that pulled itself up by its bootstraps then became the place where people went for freedom, and this all was an evil thing.
Makes it neqar impossible to overcome the domestics who make that a point of their own editorials/comic routines/newspaper “articles” and political campaigns, for the mindless many take that at face value and oppose action.
So, here “we” are paralyzed before the world.
Don’t forget the one at the top told the world in Europe and Egypt we are worthy of their disgust.
Yep…no “L” in Obama.