bobbyw24
08-13-2010, 08:26 AM
Attacked by left, smeared by the right – I must be doing something right. That, at least, is what I’m led to believe by the two most recent polemics directed at your humble servant. The first, from the pages of the Daily Caller – the right-wing answer to the Huffington Post – is really a study in the damage that public school has done to our youth: the incoherence is palpable. Entitled "Sun Tzu versus Justin Raimondo," the piece, by one Kerry Patton, takes on my most recent appearance on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s "Freedom Watch" program, albeit through a tangled thicket of tortured prose, to wit:
"While many conservatives and libertarians argue similar points of interest, they oftentimes are arguing the same message."
Whatever that sentence may mean, it is hardly worth the effort to uncover, so we’ll go on to the next, which claims, in so many words that I really "missed the point" of Wayne Simmons‘ argument. So what was Simmons’ point? Well, we are never told. Instead, Patton gives us a quote from the Chinese warrior-philosopher Sun Tzu:
"The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected."
So what do these words of wisdom have to do with the issue in contention on "Freedom Watch," which was, on that occasion, the war in Afghanistan and our foreign policy of perpetual war in general? Well, it’s not clear, and before the author makes any effort at clarity he emits a litany of bromides, e.g. "war is a necessary evil," and then lists some of the varieties of this particular evil, as if he’d just come from the latest session of his class in Evil 101. He seems to have missed – or failed – Basic Grammar, however, as he instructs us that the purpose of war-making is "to seize the submission of their enemies." Leaving such niceties as the elements of style aside, we are still left in the dark as to exactly what Simmons’ point was supposed to have been. My own take is that Simmons was perfectly direct in his contention that "all they understand is Power," and his argument that brute force exercised by a government answerable to none but itself was all too clear.
In any case, Patton finally lets at least part of the cat out of the bag with yet another Sun Tzu citation:
"For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."
Yes, well I don’t exactly think putting 150,000 troops in Afghanistan is the equivalent of winning "without fighting," and indeed Patton seems to recognize this:
"The current methodology of fighting unconventional and asymmetric threats today in places like Afghanistan and Iraq has been proven unsuccessful. Implementing some of Sun Tzu’s playbook today is the likely cure to succeed in securing our National Security platform."
Then comes the inevitable apocryphal aphorism:
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/08/12/folly-left-and-right/
"While many conservatives and libertarians argue similar points of interest, they oftentimes are arguing the same message."
Whatever that sentence may mean, it is hardly worth the effort to uncover, so we’ll go on to the next, which claims, in so many words that I really "missed the point" of Wayne Simmons‘ argument. So what was Simmons’ point? Well, we are never told. Instead, Patton gives us a quote from the Chinese warrior-philosopher Sun Tzu:
"The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected."
So what do these words of wisdom have to do with the issue in contention on "Freedom Watch," which was, on that occasion, the war in Afghanistan and our foreign policy of perpetual war in general? Well, it’s not clear, and before the author makes any effort at clarity he emits a litany of bromides, e.g. "war is a necessary evil," and then lists some of the varieties of this particular evil, as if he’d just come from the latest session of his class in Evil 101. He seems to have missed – or failed – Basic Grammar, however, as he instructs us that the purpose of war-making is "to seize the submission of their enemies." Leaving such niceties as the elements of style aside, we are still left in the dark as to exactly what Simmons’ point was supposed to have been. My own take is that Simmons was perfectly direct in his contention that "all they understand is Power," and his argument that brute force exercised by a government answerable to none but itself was all too clear.
In any case, Patton finally lets at least part of the cat out of the bag with yet another Sun Tzu citation:
"For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."
Yes, well I don’t exactly think putting 150,000 troops in Afghanistan is the equivalent of winning "without fighting," and indeed Patton seems to recognize this:
"The current methodology of fighting unconventional and asymmetric threats today in places like Afghanistan and Iraq has been proven unsuccessful. Implementing some of Sun Tzu’s playbook today is the likely cure to succeed in securing our National Security platform."
Then comes the inevitable apocryphal aphorism:
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/08/12/folly-left-and-right/