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The Lesson of Dunkirk (Thomas Sowell's retreat strategy)
Creators Syndicate ^ | 2/20/14 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 02/20/2014 8:34:50 PM PST by P-Marlowe

There would not be a United States of America today if George Washington had followed the tactics being urged by people like Senator Ted Cruz and his supporters.

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


TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: cruz; sowell; tedcruz; thomassowell
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To: Tzimisce
For once Sowell is WRONG

This is the third article in 3 days bashing Ted Cruz and advocating a policy of retreat.

41 posted on 02/20/2014 10:53:59 PM PST by P-Marlowe (There can be no Victory without a fight and no battle without wounds)
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To: Tzimisce

He isn’t ‘wrong’ (in his own mind).. he has just left the conservative brigade because he sees it winning sooner than he calculated, and threatening his calculus of social/racial evolution.

There is no explanation for this.. other than racial.

Unless he’s been telling me a story I’ve been lapping up for a long time....

Put another way, he sees his ox <and cows) about to be gored.


42 posted on 02/20/2014 10:59:18 PM PST by txhurl
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To: GeronL

No need to be sad, be glad that the obstacles to victory are showing themselves early.

There is a very high probability that the dominant RINO Desire to Lose will prevail just like it did in 2012.

Thus, this year could very well be the last year the Republicans have a majority in the US House of Representatives.

IOW, we must use this time effectively to Impeach Obama before November, 2014 by initiating Impeachment Proceedings from the House, which, in turn, requires a public resignation by Boehner as Speaker.

Winning in November, 2014 is unlikely considering all of the NSA files on all of us owned by the Democrat Party, if Obama even allows the election to occur.

With Holder leaving, Obama will need another lawless thug to keep the Gestapo-stlyle enforcement of decrees and regulations on pace with their Communist plan to “Fundamentally change the United States of America.”

I would be interested in who you think Holder’s replacement would be, in the off chance that we cannot get Commie Soetoro-Obama Impeached before Holder goes back to his day job at the Chicago Mafia.


43 posted on 02/20/2014 11:00:53 PM PST by Graewoulf (Democrats' Obamacare Socialist Health Insur. Tax violates U.S. Constitution AND Anti-Trust Law.)
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To: P-Marlowe

Hard to recall the few times republicans have actually tried to make forward progress: Goldwater, Reagan, Gingrich. They were all too brief, because their worst enemies were fellow republicans afraid to fight.

The root problem is that retreat is a tactic, not a strategy. Cruz retreats tactically all the time — but his strategy is attack and move forward.

Obamacare (and even Obama) is a disaster in any measurable sense, but the left will not let it go. As a result it is still the law of the land and they are simply metering out the disaster slowly to get the nation to acclimate to it.

No matter how correct and true your philosophy is, it is doomed without bare-knuckled fighters to move it forward. No matter how bankrupt and false your philosophy is, it will be accepted if you refuse to give up.

Politics isn’t about who is right. It is about who fights for their ideals and convinces voters. Cruz is nearly the only conservative politician who dares to do this. The rest are constantly waiting for a sunnier day, better footing, and a thousand other excuses before they are willing to fight.

Success and victory belong to those who claim it. All a strategy of retreat will ever accomplish is to cede victory to the other side.


44 posted on 02/20/2014 11:19:31 PM PST by hopespringseternal
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Only 17% of the govt was “shutdown” because Obama and Reid made it so. Cruz fighting to delay Obamacare was the reason. Obama has been delaying Obamacare regardless.


45 posted on 02/20/2014 11:24:47 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: Graewoulf

I don’t see impeachment happening with this bunch


46 posted on 02/20/2014 11:29:43 PM PST by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans!)
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To: P-Marlowe
We lost Bunker Hill but even though the battle was lost, the fact that we fought it was enough to give America a spiritual victory and a hope that we could ultimately prevail

most excellent post about the importance of symbolic victory!

47 posted on 02/20/2014 11:43:06 PM PST by uncitizen (Impeach the Communist Already!)
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To: eddie willers

> “He hasn’t attacked him....he’s telling him to hold his fire.”

Not true. Sowell has issued an uncalled for rant that Cruz is in it only for himself and compared Cruz to Obama, and then gone on to make a ghastly and false comparison with how Hitler came to power. Sowell has lost his mind.

Sowell reminds me of Johann the diesel mechanic on Das Boot who loses his mind after the U-Boat is rocked non-stop by depth charges forcing the Captain to retrieve his pistol to shoot him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDc7Ta2J5bQ (at 1 hour 57 minutes, 1:57:00)

Sowell has chosen sides. No one asked him to, he decided himself; it was unsolicited and it reveals no insight, no clarity, nothing informative, no alternate plan other than to allow McConnell-Boehner to continue the march off the cliff.

Sowell should redeem himself by apologizing to Ted Cruz and follow up his apology with a scathing attack on the likes of McConnell, McCain, Boehner and all the other yellow cowards in a manner as was done by General Savage to Colonel Gately in the classic great film “Twelve O’Clock High”, a film still taught in military academies and the War College as the definitive statement on leadership.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfbDcBkJ8QQ

“And Gately, as far as I’m concerned you’re yellow!”


48 posted on 02/20/2014 11:45:01 PM PST by Hostage (ARTICLE V)
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To: P-Marlowe

Thomas Sowell is way out of the ballpark if he claims only the Dunkirk retreat as illustrating his take on political strategy. Why didn’t he review the Battle of the Bulge or countless other historical times of fight to the last man. I suspect it is because Sowell has more on his mind than principle which has been so important to the founding of the USA. I do not walk lock step with such thinking.


49 posted on 02/20/2014 11:45:14 PM PST by noinfringers2 ( /*)
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To: P-Marlowe; stanne

The commentary on this thread is some of the best I’ve ever seen especially your post #6 and stanne’s post #9, but so many others as well that I am still reading.

It’s reassuring to know so many conservatives have their eyes wide open and are tuned in to the same frequency.


50 posted on 02/20/2014 11:50:43 PM PST by Hostage (ARTICLE V)
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To: Gene Eric
"Obama has been delaying Obamacare regardless."

YES! WHY has this NEVER been pointed out? OBAMA is the one who keeps wanting to delay the individual mandate.

Latest I heard was until 2016!

Had Obama played ball with the republicans, instead of locking up monuments, everyone would have been better off.

Including Obama.

Oh, well, he wanted it. It's Obama's baby 100%.

51 posted on 02/20/2014 11:51:24 PM PST by boop (I just wanted a President. But I got a rock.)
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To: hopespringseternal

Yes, so many need to understand the distinction between strategy and tactics.

Strategy is defining and focusing on a goal.

Tactics are actions and decisions made to reach the goal.

Sowell’s tactics are to side with those (McConnell, Boehner et al.) whose strategy is to passively resist Obama’s fundamental transformation of the United States into a totalitarian state.


52 posted on 02/20/2014 11:56:15 PM PST by Hostage (ARTICLE V)
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To: boop

>> YES! WHY has this NEVER been pointed out?

For the same reason Iraq was front page, and Afghanistan is lost in the folds — if mentioned at all.

The MSM is the Country’s threat. I hope Sowell isn’t retreating.


53 posted on 02/21/2014 12:15:04 AM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: jazusamo; P-Marlowe
Thankfully, you have been spared from posting this, dearest jazusamo!


54 posted on 02/21/2014 12:20:06 AM PST by onyx (Please Support Free Republic - Donate Monthly! If you want on Sarah Palin's Ping List, Let Me know!)
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To: FReepers; Patriots; FRiends













Free Republic is Your Voice and Your Forum!
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55 posted on 02/21/2014 12:21:18 AM PST by onyx (Please Support Free Republic - Donate Monthly! If you want on Sarah Palin's Ping List, Let Me know!)
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To: P-Marlowe
I hate to say it, but I will anyway...

Sowell is reacting to Cruz as if he thinks Cruz is a nutcase. He frames It in his usual great rhetorical prose, but he's totally wrong.

We are not facing a outside force intent on destroying us.

The force is from the inside this time and Washington would not be amused by it, yet would be powerless as a military General to do anything about it short of a Coup.

56 posted on 02/21/2014 12:22:58 AM PST by Cold Heat (Have you reached your breaking point yet? If not now....then when?)
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To: oldbrowser
I half suspect they are trolls trying to stampede us into attacking those who agree with us eighty percent of the time instead of attacking those who disagree with us all the time.

I suspect those that raise this 80% issue are amnesty pimps.

57 posted on 02/21/2014 12:30:19 AM PST by itsahoot (It is not so much that history repeats, but that human nature does not change.)
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To: P-Marlowe
"I think we will see the attack on Ted Cruz part IV very soon."

Yep-3 attacks in 3 days, no reason to assume there won't be 4 in 4 days.

"He awes both his fans and Ted Cruz an apology."

I agree. I particularly resent his personal attacks on Ted Cruz.

Mr. Sowell, with all due respect- You know nothing about Ted Cruz. I would bet that you have never even talked to him-Yet you make an assessment of his character and deem him to be "self serving"- But Boehner and McConnell are wonderful because they "fight" by retreating and caving to the dems? Wait...What?

How disappointing to read this and the other attacks by Sowell on Cruz.

It shows how desperate the GOPe is to take Cruz out of the picture.

58 posted on 02/21/2014 12:36:10 AM PST by Pajamajan (Pray for our nation. Thank the Lord for everything you have. Don't wait. Do it today.)
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To: txhurl
Unless he’s been telling me a story I’ve been lapping up for a long time....

Remember when Arrienna Huffington was the toast of the conservative talking heads?

59 posted on 02/21/2014 12:45:54 AM PST by itsahoot (It is not so much that history repeats, but that human nature does not change.)
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To: P-Marlowe

ping


60 posted on 02/21/2014 12:52:53 AM PST by gattaca (The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. Ecclesiastes10:2)
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