Military Colonists
Losing the war by refusing to acknowledge its existence:
In his book A History of Warfare, the late John Keegan said that Clausewitz had it all wrong. Keegan argued that the roots of every major conflict in human history were in fact cultural, not economic. Politics and economics are symptoms of war rather than the root of it. In the end, it's about Our Tribe being smarter and better-looking and more pious than Their Tribe. Therefore we must expand Our Tribe and either absorb or wipe out Their Tribe.
That, unfortunately, is the meaning of life. Literally. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors. It's not pretty, but it's the reality of existence. We're animals. Animals fight. They fight for food, for breeding rights, for territory. But they always, invariably and endlessly FIGHT.
The vast majority of Americans live in a bubble. They are provincial, never having traveled outside of their own country (and in many cases the State where they were born). They are self-absorbed, seeing only as far as their next meal and what's on television tonight. Most importantly, however, they are distracted.
Every diversion imaginable, for tastes subtle and gross, are hawked to us every minute of every day. Why worry about immigration and budgets and unemployment numbers when a really good time is only a credit card transaction away? What's the latest "reality" television show, and are there any exceptional specimens of Our Tribe showing some skin on it? Grab a beer and a cheeseburger and pay no attention to that woman next door in the burkha.
Hell, if you buy a good enough pair of headphones for your iPod, you can probably even drown out the sound of the barbarians stampeding across the borders.
Terrorism is an early warning in the clash of civilizations and all our leaders can think to do is hold a meeting with the heads of the opposing army asking them to get their hotheads to stop shooting at us because it's bringing our civilizations into conflict. Our civilizations are in conflict and have been as far back as they have both existed. The occasional plane hijacker is the first snowflake of a winter storm. Instead of preparing for a storm, we're trying to figure out how to stop snowflakes.
The conflict is primal. It isn't about American foreign policy or War X or Country Y or Cause Z. These are all "arguments" that explain the conflict once it's already under way. It's simpler than that. It's about the incompatibility of cultures, religions, political and economic systems. And it's about countries with a lot of oil and not much else trying to buy their way to an empire by using their own impoverished brethren as cannon fodder...
Islam embodies expansionism. Its directives of male violence and female subjugation have no other end. They protect the tribal imperatives of endogamy and violence, of inbreeding and the feud. It has no ideas except to get bigger and that makes its followers into ideal military colonists.
In his book A History of Warfare, the late John Keegan said that Clausewitz had it all wrong. Keegan argued that the roots of every major conflict in human history were in fact cultural, not economic. Politics and economics are symptoms of war rather than the root of it. In the end, it's about Our Tribe being smarter and better-looking and more pious than Their Tribe. Therefore we must expand Our Tribe and either absorb or wipe out Their Tribe.
That, unfortunately, is the meaning of life. Literally. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors. It's not pretty, but it's the reality of existence. We're animals. Animals fight. They fight for food, for breeding rights, for territory. But they always, invariably and endlessly FIGHT.
The vast majority of Americans live in a bubble. They are provincial, never having traveled outside of their own country (and in many cases the State where they were born). They are self-absorbed, seeing only as far as their next meal and what's on television tonight. Most importantly, however, they are distracted.
Every diversion imaginable, for tastes subtle and gross, are hawked to us every minute of every day. Why worry about immigration and budgets and unemployment numbers when a really good time is only a credit card transaction away? What's the latest "reality" television show, and are there any exceptional specimens of Our Tribe showing some skin on it? Grab a beer and a cheeseburger and pay no attention to that woman next door in the burkha.
Hell, if you buy a good enough pair of headphones for your iPod, you can probably even drown out the sound of the barbarians stampeding across the borders.
posted by Jar(egg)head at 14:02
2 Comments:
Throughout history, there are examples of the "modern" world getting complacent and the indigenous population feeling that they are beneath hard labor and so they import cheap labor and before you know it, they are no longer able or willing to defend themselves and the Huns come rushing in to rape and pillage and exact revenge for all the mistreatment.
History has shown that the "modern" world lasts about 500-600 years. Like in Asimov's Foundation and Empire, there are probably things we could do to shorten the "Dark" times, but is it something we can do now, or is that for our children?
I see America fracturing into multiple nation-states over the next century, as cultural differences and economic philosophies become irreconcilable. For now, however, there still exists a significant percentage of citizens raised in "the old way," with pride in American exceptionalism as a core belief. But that percentage is getting smaller every year.
At some point the stronger members of alliances -- the United States is an alliance, not a fact of nature as so many leftists seem to think -- at some point they get tired of supporting their morally and economically weaker siblings who are permanently camped on their couches. That's when the fight breaks out, the tears flow and the door gets slammed. If you're lucky, no guns are drawn.
Post a Comment
<< Home