Posted by
M. E. Ward on Thursday, August 20, 2009 2:01:54 PM
Genocide seems like an odd term to use in a discussion about individual liberties and how they pertain to the Second Amendment. Whether or not its “political theater,” as Jane describes to openly carry an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle on your back and a 9mm pistol on your hip to a political rally, as “Chris,” a well dressed African American, recently did in Phoenix, Arizona, is up for debate. But, to link Chris to all the homicidal maniacs who’ve carried out or threatened dastardly deeds is an exercise in intellectual disingenuousness on Jane’s part, to say the least.
The intellectual dishonestly on Jane’s part is such a stretch of the imagination that it would be the equivalent of calling Abraham Lincoln a war criminal for suspending the writ of habeas corpus and classifying political dissent as a hate crime against the State during the Civil War. I wonder if Jane would consider the hostilities between the North and South “genocide,” since in many cases it was brother against brother. Lincoln claimed the War Between the States was necessary to save the Union. By Jane’s definition of genocide, does that not make Lincoln a war criminal for advocating violence to squash political dissent? If so, should a war criminal have his face on Mount Rushmore? What about Lincoln’s secret plan to send all the African-Americans back to Africa after the Civil War, as part of his “reparations” deal? Was that not a crime against humanity?
Warren Buffet recently warned that our current debt is not sustainable, and threatens to turn us into a banana republic. That’s an interesting choice of words given we have our first African-American President. Some in the current administration might consider Mr. Buffet’s use of the term “banana republic” a “hate crime” given the history of race relations in this country, and the perception that many banana republics are governed by vicious despots who use military force not for defense of the republic, but to eliminate their political rivals and squash civil unrest. That could never happen here, right?
Does anyone remember Kent State? Remember Crosby Stills Nash & Young’s song, “Four Dead in Ohio?” Recording such a song today might get the artists thrown in jail and charged with a “hate crime” for thinking bad thoughts about an out of control Federal government.
Civil wars happen for a reason.
Spain’s civil war was a classic “
culture war” between the Marxists on the left, supported by Russia, and the fascists on the right, under the command of General Francisco Franco, supported unofficially by the United States.
Ernest Hemingway’s “
For Whom the Bell Tolls” depicted the brutality that took place in many of the towns and villages during the hostilities. Many could be clearly classified as genocide, and crimes against humanity. The novel’s protagonist Robert Jordan committed many vicious acts that one might consider “genocide” depending on whether or not if you classify blowing up trains full of women and children in the name of political ideology an act of war, or an act of terrorism.
As the so called “progressives” in this country likes to proclaim whenever there is a Republican in the White House, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. It all depends on who’s ox is getting gored.
References:
Genocide: – noun -- the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. Origin: 1940–45; < Gk géno(s) race + -cide. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved August 20, 2009, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/genocide
10 Things You Didn't Know About Abraham Lincoln
“But it was a wise man who said, ‘All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.’ We don’t want our country to evolve into the banana-republic economy described by Keynes.” -- Warren Buffet, chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, a diversified holding company, in an article that appeared in print on August 19, 2009, on page A27 of the New York Times.