e.[-XEMPLI) g.[-RATIA], MikeinWeHollywood over in the Proposed Constitutional Amendment thread’s pretty good at this; yet at some point society decides to make whoever’s beyond the pale of acceptable bigotry pay by their being shunned/ snickered at? (Ironic, huh.)

Absolute power corrupts ——-

. .– (the auto-didact) LORD ACTON ( 1834 – 1902 )

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And while we’re at it how bout

Those who cannot remember the(ir) past are condemned to repeat (their mistakes).

. .– (the Harvard man of letters) GEORGE SANTAYANA ( 1863 – 1952 )

Thanks for hewing to the thread’s subject much better-er than me. And your factoring out those who rose democratically “vee” those who rose solely through force of arms . . . is SOOey-tainly instructive!!

Mark:

It’s good to see you’ve come back to, lol, “nuance”. Although, we guess, at the upcoming festivities honoring uncle Ho & uncle Fidel, we should cross you off the list to bring the Jell-O salad? Wink. (Um OK. For those slow on the uptake — waves hand — I’M MAKING FUN HERE of the Left’s soft spot for Marx and the recent tensions of “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the Party!” vee “Better dead than red.”)

I am aware of Jewish history prior to Israel’s independence, that all of it was not perfectly honorable and upright, and that there were elements, notably the Stern Gang, whose deeds rank in the annals of the truly despicable, and who are rightly dishonored in shame and embarrassment in Israel today.

And yet the contemporary Palestinian equivalents of the Stern Gang are national heroes, destined for heavenly glory! The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was in league with the Nazis and his heirs quote Hitler’s works with back slapping approbation.

Most of the Haganah’s actions were defensive in nature. If we were in their situation, subject to constant Arab attacks to general British indifference, we would justify our measured response by referring to the following verse:

We believe that men should appeal to the civil law for redress of all wrongs and grievances, where personal abuse is inflicted or the right of property or character infringed, where such laws exist as will protect the same; but we believe that all men are justified in defending themselves, their friends, and property, and the government, from the unlawful assaults and encroachments of all persons in times of exigency, where immediate appeal cannot be made to the laws, and relief afforded. (D&C 134:11)

It is worth remembering that the modern state of Israel was created by the United Nations not by some revolutionary war for independence. The war started with major attacks by the Arabs on Jewish settlements soon after the resolution (UN Res. 181) for the partition of Palestine into two states was announced in late 1947.

The Jewish state of Israel survived the attacks and the siege of Jerusalem despite being massively outgunned and outnumbered, with no thanks to any other country. They had to smuggle all their arms in as the Mandate was ending – the U.S. and British policy at the time was to hope they went away – sort of like our policy in the former Yugoslavia – can’t possibly let the poor Serbs defend themselves can we?

The peculiar thing is that liberty was often defended, indeed extended, in times of external peril, by people of quite conservative bent. You may find Franco typical of the european conservative, but was not De Gaulle, who came to the presidency of France not once but twice through revolutionary means, ultimately the best friend of individual liberty the French had had in generations?

The key difference between the men who democracies turned to (sometimes extraordinarily) and those that came to power solely through armed means is these democracies choose whom to turn to in time of crisis. Thus it was to Churchill and not to Mosely (the former labourite) to whom they turned. De Gaulle’s response when asked in 1958 to being accused of intending to trample liberties (“Have I ever done that? Quite the opposite, I have reestablished them when they had disappeared. Who honestly believes that, at age 67, I would start a career as a dictator?”) is instructive in this sense, for it suggests that people turn not only to those who will keep them safe, but to those whom they trust with their liberties and with their ultimate values.

Because ultimately, there are times when those with psychological predispositions against drawing conclusions are unfit to lead. Sometimes–and we might see this in Halifax, Chamberlain’s preferred successor–the refusal to draw conclusions is ultimately a failure of vision, of becoming so enamoured with the nuaces of the situation that one fails to recognize the true, larger situation.

( i. ) successful/ ( i i. ) nationalists/ ( i i i.) revolutionaries;

while revolutionaries, Hitler — due in part his whacked-out extremes in such percieved expediencies as ethnic cleansing — wasn’t successful; whereas uncle Joe’s imperialism — purporting to be a revolution of the proletariat — earns an asterisk since it’s not framed (at least) as being nationalist . . .

In the US — NOT the Ameri-K.-K.-Kay of slavery but, subsequently, wherein ethnic-favor’s worked against — such talk would rightly be considered completely counterproductive — despite there being more truth to the Jews’ having had, from Roman times to the 1940s, more “Aryan”-European enemies than Middle Eastern ones!