"The answer is hubris (in the ancient Greek sense). These people have a violent disregard for the normal boundaries of our political and social structures. They believe that the appropriate response to opposition is the social degradation of their opponents. They will let nothing stand in the way of their pursuit of power. Look at the tools they choose: torture, law-breaking, smear campaigns, planting false stories, paying for propaganda, etc.ouch.
In their eyes, normal rules don't apply. It's beyond even "the ends justify the means". For this crowd, it's enough that they are the ones employing the means. The ends are really irrelevant."
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
The ends are really irrelevant
* a commentor over at EW's:
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4 comments:
Like I've said before (and Orwell does in 1984), Power is an End in and of itself, not a Means.
The goal of Power is More Power. It doesn't matter what the consequences are.
Which is truly frightening when you think about it. These are the people who control the nuclear button. If the World Community decides that they can't have what they want, they may very well go around nuking people.
I just saw a snippet of "The Day After" the other day in which you see the lives of the Lawrence, Kansas folk in the couple of days runup to nuclear armaggedon. It was downright scary. All the more, because the people were openly speculating that we might have just loosed our missles because we THOUGHT the Soviets just had. Not because they KNEW they had.
I got chills. I can see Dick Cheney or whatever authoritarian replaces him whispering in the Preznit's ear, "They're going to attack us any day George. You have to nuke them first. It's what God wants you to do."
Don't you think these idiots would do it? Especially if they thought that we had a realistic ABM system and were invulnerable to counterattack? (regardless of whether we ACTUALLY DO have one)
And when you put that together with the knowledge that of all the military academies, the evangelicals are aggressively targeting the Air Force Academy (btw the Air Force is the branch that controls the launching of our land-based ICBMs), I'm wondering if this just isn't their plan. Instant Rapture, don't you know?
yeah - you are right viget. there's nothing legitimate that will stop these people. i've said that for years. there's a term we use in negotiation strategy: "irrational escalation" - the mind boggles when you apply that to the situation in front of us. nixon calling the tanks to the whitehouse will pale by comparison - but there are times when i think that a military coup is our best chance!
re 'a realistic ABM' - remember those stories (which probably werent true) where saddam thought that he had CBW becuase people were too scared to tell him otherwise? it's not difficult to imagine the same thing happening with these boys-in-the-bubble. and of course, they've never been good with stuff like probability and statistics and asking questions and such. to imagine the scenario, just imagine the katrina video set in the war-room...
as for the rapture, we really need to remind these fukkers that jesus is sposed to trigger the rapture. if they trigger a rapture-like scenario but forget to invite JC, then they may not get the result they want...
lukery,
They think THEY are Jesus's instrument. So by extension, whatever they do is what Jesus wanted.
I'm also afraid you're right about ABMs. I don't believe they're feasible. But, I can see the MIC telling the admin they're "just around the corner" just so they can justify their pillaging of the treasury. I hope they realize that the people in power actually believe their tripe and they're making the world less safe.
Thanks for the continued props on the front page! I don't think that I necessarily deserve it, but you're pretty unique among bloggers in highlighting many of your commentators' thoughts.
i have the best commentors.
thats why you all get 'promoted' to the frontpage - cos you are all saying smart stuff, always.
also, this blog is so small that im afraid that many people wont see the (brilliant) comments - so thanks again for all your input. i really appreciate it - even though i end up hijacking my own threads with new posts
thanks again - youre input really means a lot.
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