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The Case for Rage and Retribution [flashback]
Time ^ | 9/12/2001 | Lance Morrow

Posted on 05/19/2004 10:21:31 AM PDT by jjm2111

For once, let’s have no “grief counselors” standing by with banal consolations, as if the purpose, in the midst of all this, were merely to make everyone feel better as quickly as possible. We shouldn’t feel better.

For once, let’s have no fatuous rhetoric about “healing.” Healing is inappropriate now, and dangerous. There will be time later for the tears of misfortune note.

A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let’s have rage. What’s needed is a unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury—a ruthless indignation that doesn’t leak away in a week or two, wandering off into Prozac-induced forgetfulness or into the next media sensation (O.J. … Elián … Chandra …) or into a corruptly thoughtful relativism (as has happened in the recent past, when, for example, you might hear someone say, “Terrible what he did, of course, but, you know, the Unabomber does have a point, doesn’t he, about modern technology?”).

Let America explore the rich reciprocal possibilities of the fatwa. A policy of focused brutality does not come easily to a self-conscious, self-indulgent, contradictory, diverse, humane nation with a short attention span. America needs to relearn a lost discipline, self-confident relentlessness—and to relearn why human nature has equipped us all with a weapon (abhorred in decent peacetime societies) called hatred.

(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: wot; wtc
This is old, right after 9/11. Read the whole thing and see how public opinion fares right now, a scant 2.5 years later. We see more anguish on our part about a bunch of Iraqis with bags on their heads than the beheading of our own citizens.

We 'arrest' militants and hold cease-fires with people who want to kill us. What is the problem here?

We didn't start this war, they did! Why all the hand-wringing? /rant

1 posted on 05/19/2004 10:21:32 AM PDT by jjm2111
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To: jjm2111

A good reminder how an obsession with frivolity (any Jackson, Scott Peterson, Kobe Bryant, etc.) blinds us to mortal threats. It was only the day before 9/11 that Chandra Levy was the top story.


2 posted on 05/19/2004 10:23:54 AM PDT by thoughtomator (Any "church" that can't figure out abortion and homosexuality isn't worthy of the appellation)
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To: jjm2111

Interesting post!

So much has changed. I think, at the heart of it, most Americans STILL don't understand that we are still under a substantial threat. I hope it doesn't take another, more horrific, attack to get people to understand. I pray we are never attacked again. I fear we will be.


3 posted on 05/19/2004 10:25:49 AM PDT by cvq3842
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To: jjm2111

I could agree more with this article...

but not by much.

I still know that rage.

When is it MY turn?


4 posted on 05/19/2004 10:26:47 AM PDT by Old Sarge
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To: jjm2111; All
I agree.

We all need a dose of some righteous anger.

Crosslinking to the Berg beheading:

-The Berg Beheading- some links--

5 posted on 05/19/2004 10:28:09 AM PDT by backhoe (Just an old Keyboard Cowboy, ridin' the TrackBall into the Sunset...)
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To: Old Sarge
"When is it MY turn?"

As you know from my post yesterday for me it's in a month or so. Do you ever read the Belmont Club blog?

One of the blog's readers pointed out how so much of the country was involved in WWII, compared to the tiny few who are actively engaged in this war today. I think the small percentage of those serving combined with the 5th column effect of the media has already shifted the opinions of many in this country back to the banal.

Thank God for the conservative media though. W/out Rush, FR, the WSJ op-ed page, and the conservative bloggers, I don't know where we would be.

6 posted on 05/19/2004 10:46:21 AM PDT by jjm2111
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To: jjm2111
Understand, one and all, it is them or us, period!

Denial and fear (we) are our greatest enemy - we need to face it head on -- which means, destroy every vestige of the enemy -- all of it!
7 posted on 05/19/2004 10:47:07 AM PDT by RAY (They that do right are all heroes!)
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To: jjm2111

Belmont Club? FReepmail me with details...


8 posted on 05/19/2004 10:51:26 AM PDT by Old Sarge
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To: jjm2111

I'm still one p*ssed off angry American over the lack of media and congressional interest of an American being decapitated while hearings occurred on Abu Ghraib. Whipping America while ignoring islamics is fueling my righteous anger. Further, I open up today's local paper and what do I read: "Iraqis want death for Abu Ghraib jailers." Where were these same Iraqis when Nick Berg died. The deafening silence from the islamic world is beyond contempt. These bottom feeding pigs nourish and protect their corrupt culture to produce murderers and then expect the rest of the world to bail them out. And nosepicking politicians and their lapdogs, mainstream media, oblige them. B*llsh*t!


9 posted on 05/19/2004 11:29:47 AM PDT by lilylangtree (Veni, Vidi, Vici)
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To: jjm2111

We should have destroyed the enemy without apologies.


10 posted on 05/19/2004 3:22:23 PM PDT by sheik yerbouty
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To: backhoe
We all need a dose of some righteous anger.

Worry not, my friend. So of us have never lost it, and still seethe with it.

11 posted on 05/19/2004 8:36:05 PM PDT by FierceDraka (The English word "Left" is translated into Latin as "Sinister". Think about it.)
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To: sheik yerbouty
We should have destroyed the enemy without apologies.

To paraphrase Ronaldus Maximus, "I have just signed legislation outlawing Islam. The bombing begins in five minutes."

Makes me wonder what we'd be doing if President Reagan was still with us, and serving as CINC.

12 posted on 05/19/2004 8:40:32 PM PDT by FierceDraka (The English word "Left" is translated into Latin as "Sinister". Think about it.)
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To: FierceDraka

We would probably not be having this discussion.


13 posted on 05/19/2004 9:22:38 PM PDT by sheik yerbouty
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