COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

A million people in and around the city of Paul Revere, of the Lexington and Concord patriots, of Bunker Hill, locked their doors and hid inside because a lone armed teenager with pipe bombs was on the loose.



DID THE BROTHERS TSARNAEV FAIL?
By: Patrick J. Buchanan
4/23/2013 10:02 AM

“Whatever they thought they could ultimately achieve, they’ve already failed,” says President Obama of the Boston Marathon bombers.
“They failed because the people of Boston refused to be intimidated. They failed because as Americans we refuse to be terrorized.”
Bostonians did react splendidly. From first responders to folks who gave blood, from hospital staffs to the FBI, ATF and state troopers, from the Boston and Watertown cops to the hostage rescue team that talked Dzhokhar Tsarnaev out of that boat.
But did the Brothers Tsarnaev really fail — as terrorists?
On Sunday’s talk shows, a sub-theme was that this had been the “most successful terrorist attack since 9/11.”
For consider what these brothers accomplished.
By brazenly exploding two bombs right at the finish line of the marathon, with TV cameras all around, they killed three and injured, wounded and maimed 178 people for all the world to see.
Within hours, their atrocity had riveted the attention of the nation. Cable channels went wall to wall, as did major networks. By the evening of the attack, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and President Obama had gone live to reassure us they would be apprehended and justice done.
Day two, Obama appeared again as the greatest manhunt in U.S. history was underway. On day four, the FBI released photos, imploring citizens to come forward and identify the men in the white and black caps.
That evening, the brothers murdered an MIT police officer, hijacked a Mercedes van and engaged in a gunfight with Watertown police that left Tamerlan Tsarnaev dead and his brother a fugitive.

On Friday morning, Gov. Patrick went before the cameras to tell a stunned nation he was imposing a lockdown on all of Boston and half a dozen neighboring communities. Red Sox and Bruins games were canceled.
A million people in and around the city of Paul Revere, of the Lexington and Concord patriots, of Bunker Hill, locked their doors and hid inside because a lone armed teenager with pipe bombs was on the loose.
Boston, said The New York Times, was a “ghost town.”
“The scene was extraordinary. The hub of the universe, as Boston’s popular nickname would have it, was on lockdown from first light until near dark Friday. A massive dragnet for one man had brought a major U.S. city to an absolute standstill.
“The people were gone, shops were locked, streets were barren, the trains did not run. The often-clogged Massachusetts Turnpike was as clear as a bowling lane.”
Saturday, all six newspapers this writer receives led with the capture of Dzhokhar. “Frenzied Hunt Paralyzes Boston,” ran the Times banner.
TV and print media are still consumed with the brothers, their motives, their travel history, their Chechen background, their Islamic beliefs. And Washington is in a ferocious debate over whether Dzhokhar should be interrogated at length or read his Miranda rights.
Each side of the gun control and immigration debates claims the marathon massacre and its aftermath validates their position.
On April 15, the day the Tsarnaevs set off the pressure cooker bombs on Boylston Street, there were 40 bombings and shootings across Iraq that took the lives of 75 and wounded 350. No one in the outside world knows the names of those who set off these bombs, and no one cares. And Baghdad was not locked down.
How, then, when these brothers are now as well-known as Timothy McVeigh, if not Osama bin Laden, and they committed an atrocity that mesmerized America for a week, and they forced a lockdown of one of our greatest cities, can it be said that they failed — as terrorists?
Worse may be yet to come.
For, just as some of the perpetrators of the Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson, Aurora and Newtown massacres found inspiration and exemplars in mass murderers before them, so the Brothers Tsarnaev may have shown the way for those who hate us to go out in their own special blaze of glory.
All true Americans were with the people of Boston last week. Yet there are individuals to whom these brothers are heroes. Lest we forget. Millions across the Muslim world still believe bin Laden struck a blow for them when he sent those planes into the World Trade Center.
Al-Qaida has been growing and gaining recruits since 9/11.
Yet, while Osama targeted the symbols of U.S. economic, military and political power — the Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, the Capitol — the Tsarnaevs hit a “soft target.” They went after innocent people engaged in the purely innocent activity of competing in and watching a sports event.
And from the weapons and bombs they were carrying Thursday night, they were prepared to keep on killing, until killed themselves.
Suicide-seekers going after soft targets such as ballgames, concerts, malls, parades or school events is something other nations have known but we have largely avoided. Our luck may have run out.
Let us pray the Boston Marathon massacre is not the new paradigm for the sick souls within.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?”

32 comments:

  1. ""I've never argued against any technology being used when you have an imminent threat, an active crime going on," Paul said.

    "If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and fifty dollars in cash.
    I don't care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him."
    "

    ---

    Continuing the long tradition of well-considered statements by the Paul family.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's fine for a liquor store stick up man, but the drones, if used, will be targeting enemy combatants, anywhere in the whirled, whenever the opportunity avails itself, regardless of their citizenship.

      If you do not like it, advocate to repeal or reform the Authorization of 14SEP01.

      Quit your whining, if it really matters to you, and get to work.

      Delete
  2. Purple Hearts for animated wounds...

    “Geek Cross”

    WASHINGTON – America’s largest combat veterans group is worried the creation of a new medal for drone strikes and cyber-warfare could bestow higher honor on those using a joystick to kill terrorists than soldiers wounded on the battlefield.

    The Distinguished Warfare Medal, announced Wednesday, would rank higher than the Bronze Star and Purple Heart, which is given to servicemembers killed or wounded in battle. The new medal would rank immediately below the Distinguished Flying Cross.

    But to some, like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, creating a non-combat medal is turning into a major Pentagon misfire.

    “It’s a boneheaded decision,” VFW spokesman Joe Davis told FoxNews.com. “This is going to affect morale and it’s sending troops in the field a horrible message.”

    By Thursday afternoon, more than 800 responses had been posted on the VFW’s Facebook page. Many said the medal’s high ranking on the military medal hierarchy would hurt an already-bruised U.S. military morale.

    One dubbed the medal the “Geek Cross” and suggested that the country was close to handing video-gamers Purple Hearts for animated wounds.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sec of Def Hagel already killed the commendation, you're behind o the learning curve.

      Delete
  3. “These guys tore apart this city,” said Yusufi Vali, a spokesman for the Islamic ­Society of Boston, near Inman Square. “I want to see them, if they are criminals, behind bars.”

    ...

    Vali said leaders would have reported Tamerlan or his brother if they had given any indication of violent intentions.

    “We’re a mosque that has very good relationships with law enforcement,” he said.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Inman Square

      has been renamed:

      "Imam Square"

      Delete
  4. The fallout from the terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon on Monday, which killed three and injured 152, will likely prompt a new assault on civil liberties in the supposed defense of freedom.

    Should we enact even greater security procedures following this latest tragedy to defend freedom and liberty? It makes no difference if we should or not. Without reading or understanding the bills before them, Congress will pass them. Obama will sign them and after it is passed and in Pelosian style, we will begin to understand what they passed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The longer they are, the more certain we can be of their efficacy and efficiency.

      ...like Obamacare.

      Delete
    2. "3,000 pages is not that much."

      Rufus II

      ...and that's just for starters.

      "As the Directorate of Health (and all the sub directorate Drones) Shall Decide. "

      Delete
    3. The new security procedures, and surely there will be some, will most likely not make us safer.

      What would most likely make us safer, ending Muslim immigration, will of course not be done.

      I am beginning to agree with Rufus who has said we are the dumbest nation on the planet.

      Delete
    4. And ending student visas. Why are we educating these people?

      Delete
    5. In hopes of producing more bin Ladens and that Atta boy.

      Delete
  5. "Panetta said the medal recognizes the reality that drones and cyber warfare “have changed the way wars are fought.”

    Under the Obama administration, drone strikes have become an integral part of America's counterterrorism strategy.
    "

    ---

    Esp. in The Homeland:

    Instead of "put your hands up..."

    HELLFIRE!

    ReplyDelete
  6. The boys killed three people, wounded a some more, and gave the rest of Boston a day off from work.

    And, Homeland Security got to show off some of their toys.

    Meanwhile, the local cops killed one of the assholes, and put the other one full of bullet holes.

    In the intervening week approx. 600 other folks were killed by gunfire in the U.S.

    In Memphis we call it "April."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Meanwhile, the local cops killed one of the assholes"

      His asshole brother killed him.

      Death by SUV.

      "Coexist"

      Delete
    2. I think I read or heard that the car they hijacked had a coexist bumper sticker.

      Delete
  7. Replies
    1. Great movie.

      I started watching 'Who's afraid of Virginia Woolfe' last night. First time I've seen it. Only got about half-way through so don't ruin it for me. Man, Liz is really un-likeable in it.

      Delete
    2. Drunk and bitchy all the way through.

      Delete
    3. "What's New, Pussycat"
      was more my speed.
      Since we're talkin O'Toole

      Delete
    4. "O'Toole had talents other than acting. He wrote two volumes of memoirs--no ghostwriter, no "as told to." The first, with the wonderful title Loitering With Intent, discussed his unusual boyhood as the son of a bookmaker.

      In Ireland and England back then, bookies were independent contractors who would set up at race courses and offer their own odds on horses. When the day's racing went against father O'Toole, sometimes his young son would be left behind to tell a sob story to the enraged bettors.
      I would say that's priceless training for an actor-to-be. "

      Delete
  8. Hawaii, Louisiana, and Mississippi are the least stressful states.

    Hawaii Remains State With Least Stress
    Residents of least stressed states report highest levels of enjoyment

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/161987/hawaii-remains-state-least-stress.aspx

    List of stressful and stressless states.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Pгеtty! Thіѕ haѕ been a really wonԁerful post.
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    ReplyDelete
  10. Lesson No. 3: Our immigration system is one of terrorism’s best allies. Related to the last point, this is a case of just how idiotic a politically correct bureaucracy can be. The father of the Tsarnaev punks only had to declare himself an asylum-seeker afraid for his life in the Russian Federation and our consular officials fell all over themselves to get him to America.


    Lessons of Boston
    What the fanatics took away

    By RALPH PETERS
    Last Updated: 3:44 AM, April 23, 2013
    Posted: 10:37 PM, April 22, 2013


    Solution: end Muslim immigration and student visas.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 99.5 percent approved.

      Since the sixties, we have had to atone for Teddy's sins at Chappaquiddick.

      Backwards and upside down immigration policies will be the death of this country.

      Already on the critical list.

      Delete
    2. What indeed? Arabs gorge on hate, they roll in it, they breathe it. Jews top the hate list, but any foreigners are hateful enough. Arabs also hate each other, separately and, en masse. Their politicians change the direction of their hate as they would change their shirts. Their press is vulgarly base with hate-filled cartoons; their reporting describes whatever hate is now uppermost and convenient. Their radio is a long scream of hate, a call to hate. They teach their children hate in school. They must love the taste of hate; it is their daily bread. And what good has it done them?

      http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1961/10/the-arabs-of-palestine/304203/

      Martha Gellhorn's article from 1961.

      Delete
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    ReplyDelete