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Ah, I love the smell of irony in the morning! It’s always amusing when the right quote George Orwell; it just shows how much they misunderstand him. Have your ever actually read any of his works? Down And Out In Paris And London? The Road To Wigan Pier? Homage To Catalonia?
Maybe it is important to understand his April 1942 quote within the context of being bombed senseless in the Blitz; I am not aware the USA has ever faced such a threat,
Anyhoo, as you now are willing to accept George as a valid political philosopher, I offer these further selections to ponder:
“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”
“All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”
“(Mankind) is not likely to salvage civilisation unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell”
I mean veterans no disrespect, but with regard to freedom of speech and religion it could be argued that these are more a product of the Enlightenment, the period which got its name for bringing Europe out of the Dark Ages of religious absolutism and dogma and into the Age of Reason during the 17th Century.
So while I wouldn’t give poets and preachers the credit for encouraging freedoms of speech and religion, maybe they should fall to Rousseau, Voltaire et al, and their American descendants Franklin, Madison, Jefferson and Adams.
Likewise the freedom to assemble. Although it is arguable that political agitators and dissenters who fought the coercive powers of the sate, including the army, those your political representatives would now call traitors and call to be lobbed unceremoniously into Haliburton’s mysterious internment camps, are really responsible.
For the fair trial claim, look no further than the Magna Carta, source of Habeus Corpus and great influence on your own Constitution and Bill O’Rights.
Sadly, however, a fair trial has largely been a fantasy for most caught up in the US Justice system for many years, and GWB just sent Habeus Corpus down the Swanee a couple of weeks ago, so maybe you need to put your fightin’ boots back on and defend it.
The right to vote was won by much proletariat struggle through the ages and is very reluctantly granted by governments. The United States, has no federally mandated ’right to vote’ but the Constitution has been amended 5 times (1870 –1971) to protect it. However, elements within the GOP have been very effective in disenfranchising as many people as possible over the past two presidential elections. Another one for you to fight for, Timmer! See you on the barricades!
As far as mainland America is concerned, the only real threats to these institutions seem to have come from within. Some argue that most of the USA’s overseas military interventions have been performed more out of self-interest than altruism, but that’s another story.
Cheers
Elroy
Elroy -
Firstly, I feel it is important to note that many throughout history - even those who have more often than not been on the wrong side of it - have had moments of insight and lucidity; making quotes worthy of reprinting. To quote one who is famous is not necessarliy a wholehearted endorsement of every other utterance or action of that personage throughout their entire lifetime. Of course, you already knew that.
Secondly, you missed the point of the article...and I am loathe to interpret it further for you. Your lack of military service - hence an inability to understand what that particular brand of self-sacrifice means - has foiled your imagined insight yet again.
I enjoyed your rant, nonetheless! 
T
Timmer,
Did you know that quote is from a Marine chaplain/priest? Yep.
Elroys rant is incoherent.
Amy -
No...I didn't know that. George Orwell is attributed with that phrase all over the internet. Not that your claim isn't possible and plausible.
Yes, Elroy can be all over the map at times...a little rambly. But he manages to be funny every so often...and actually (in a blue moon) makes a good point.
Although I must admit - Elroy doesn't talk about the Diebold Machine Conspiracies of the Right Wing any more. Hmmmm....?
Timmer
Although I agree with you to an extent, it is equally important not to misrepresent
those you are quoting, which why I posted a few more of Orwell’s quotes.
The Right is always touting Orwell as a darling of the left who eventually saw the light and wave Animal Farm around as proof of the evils of Communism, but that just ain’t so, kiddies.
Animal Farm is a condemnation of Totalitarianism in ALL its forms, communist and fascist alike. Orwell was not a communist; he was, in the final analysis, a Anarcho-syndicalist. He was certainly NOT a pro-war conservative capitalist.
George Orwell was not on the ‘wrong’ side of history – that’s just the conservative moral absolutism nonsense that denies, as usual, reality. There IS no ‘wrong’ side of history, just different points of view.
Some truths transcend partisanship, but it is important not to be too selective, or to take quotes out of context. In the case of your quote, the context was Orwell’s town getting blown apart on a nightly basis.
Secondly, I did not miss the point of your article at all. I was just pointing that the rights you describe are derived from sources other than the military. They may (or may not) have defended them on the field of battle, but they are not the wellspring from which they flow.
I don’t imagine to have any insight into what it is to serve in the military; how could I? But I do not see what my lack of service has to do with my post. I was merely trying to bring a little historical fact into the debate lest you get too misty-eyed in your creation myth haze, but nonetheless I’m glad you enjoyed my reflections.
Amy –
Um, what are you on about? Orwell said that during a BBC broadcast on the 4th of April, 1942. I’ve tried looking for any reference to your imagined ‘Marine Chaplain’ but, I’m afraid, it looks like you’re on your own with this one. Unless the rest of the whole world is wrong. Or Orwell was quoting the priest. Or something. Maybe the priest was quoting...Orwell! The thing with quotes, Amy, is that their use is not a case of ‘finders keepers’ but, as a Christian conservative, I’m sure you’re quite used to inventing your own reality.
And there you go again with another of your insightful, searing, well-reasoned and beautifully articulated rebuttals. My ‘rant’ was not ‘incoherent’ dear; maybe you just didn’t understand it. Better get back to Ann and Michelle and their spittle-flecked harping against all and any voices of reason.
Cheers
Elroy
Hmmm. Talking of bait, what is this ‘Elroy doesn't talk about the Diebold Machine Conspiracies of the Right Wing’ titbit I see before me?
You must be think I’m some kind of sucker, but maybe it’s you that can’t see what’s going on.
You think Rove et al would have tried the Diebold trick after all the publicity it got just prior to 11/7/06? He may be evil, but he’s not stupid.
They have other means. Robo-calling, voter ID, and all manner of underhand tricks to make sure that Democratic voters don’t even get to cast the vote that won’t be counted.
Anyhoo, this election doesn’t really matter that much. Capitol will be gridlocked for the next 2 years, so I doubt the Dems will be able to inflict that much damage in the interim. The Repubs will, in their time honoured fashion, ignore any kind of mandate the Dems have and obstruct all the way to ‘08.
And ‘08 is what really counts. That is the one Rove does not want to lose, and he now has a further two years to refine his various disenfranchisement techniques, the GOPS electoral known unknowns. That is the Dems know there are things they do not know.
So stay tuned for 2008 buddy, ‘cause THAT is where the gloves come off. And we, the scumbag dissident looney left, will be there protecting YOUR civil rights.
Cheers
Elroy
PS Sorry to write two posts in row Timmer, but you popped another post in there while my head was turned, and you know I can't resist. I also can't just sit and wait for someone else to enter the fray like my saviour Gert, or the effusive and overly garrolous Amy, so I just kinda got on with it.
E.
Elroy -
Ahhh...so you DO like to have it both ways! I guess I am not surprised. So does this mean you are off the Diebold bandwagon for good, oh conspiratorial one?
"They have other means. Robo-calling, voter ID, and all manner of underhand tricks to make sure that Democratic voters don’t even get to cast the vote that won’t be counted."
Riiiiiiiight. And they just CHOSE not to play these tricks this time around - perhaps as part of a master scheme they will diabollically conduct in 2008? Watching too much TV, there killer?
Yes, you are falling back into your old 2-post, no-signature ways again. This one was allowed...maybe cuz you asked nicely?
Heck, I even edited in your name for you...you wouldn't want folks to not know who you are would ye?
T
What are you on about? The only ones that want it both ways is your buddies Rove and bunch of merrie olde pirates!
Are you truly suggesting that conspiracies don’t exist? Of course they do. Don’t be naive, Timmer, it doesn’t help.
I have never said that Diebold was the GOP’s only stratagy for stealing elections; Rove is too smart for that. He learnt in 2000, after the hanging chad debacle, that it is unwise to put all one’s eggs in one ballot box, so for 2004 he spread the abuse far and wide, like a many-headed hydra. Or like Al-quada; take out one arm, one leg, but the beast keeps swinging.
And the beauty of the Diebold manouvre is that it can be turned on and off, literally like a light switch, so given the publicity it has gotten lately, Rove would have been nuts to use it. It could even be that Diebold may even be a patsy, the fall guy so to speak, that makes the public think that something has been done and can now rest easy.
It may come back for 2008, it may not; there are many other ways to skin a chook. And it’s not a matter of watching ‘too much TV’, Buster; unfortunatly, this stuff gets no oxygen from the MSM apart from the HBO documentary, which was a factor in Rove keeping the machines quiet this time round.
This is well documented, Timmer. It's not just my brain overheating here. Take a look around.
Anyway, justice must not only be done, it must be SEEN to be done. That is to say, machines that are even CAPABLE of being manipulated must be eradicated, whether thaey have been used in the fiddle or not. Prevention is better than cure Timmer. Don’t you agree?
Furthermore, as far as I can see, the fact that the 2006 election’s exit polls pretty well reflected the result shows just how far the result of 2004 was out of wack.
None of this is hard, Timmer; unless you do not care to look.
Cheers
Elroy
PS BTW, have you any idea what happened to the ‘Bush mis-speaks’ post that I put up yesterday on your Dumbass of the Week comments section? It’s gone walkabout.
E.
Elroy -
Sheeesh...sometimes you remind me of a spoilt child, who insists that it is always someone else'f fault when you mess something up (a loose metaphor, but workable nonetheless).
Your stubborn insistence on the boogeyman of Diebold is something to behold. Yes, I have read some of what you have sent on this crap (and others), but see no reason to believe that one side is manipulating them any more than the other...if at all.
Yes, there are conspiracies out there my boy, but Diebold taking 2004 and Bush orchestrating 9-11-01 rank right up there with Nessie and Big Foot.
And in all honesty, I have NEVER deleted any comments from Dumbass Of The Week...including yours. Maybe you shuold look again?
T
Elroy -
And sometimes you remind ME of a spoilt child who refuses to acknowledge a truth that is staring them in the face and instead retreat into their world of fantasy.
I will agree with on one thing though – that is one loose metaphor! What did I (or my ilk) mess up? Al Gore won. John Kerry won. The evidence is overwhelming. It is statisically impossible for Bush to have won in ‘04. I’m not whining, I’m stating a fact. Why Kerry didn’t stand and fight is frankly beyond me.
But it wasn’t all done with Diebold by any means. There are other electronic voting machines with their own idiocyncrasies and you can’t vote on them if there ain’t none, a situation in many poor, and therefore democrat, areas. And then there was the gerrymandering, the voter intimidation, all kinds of stuff. It was a death from a thousand cuts and, although it pains me to say it, a genius strategy by Rove.
As was his apparent silence in ‘08. Now we look stupid. Brilliant! Clears the coast for ‘08.
You’ll agree that a Dem victory in ‘08 is a far greater disaster for the Repubs than the Dem victory in ‘06, yes? So would it not be wiser for the Repubs to lose the battle in order to win the war? The Dems are gonna get hammered by the media attack dogs for the next two years, with anything and everything remotely constructive they put forward being slammed as ‘over-reaching’ with ‘no mandate’, of inflicting BO’s ‘SF values’ and all the rest. Rove reckons if he gives the Dems enough rope they’ll hang ‘emselves, and the FOX et al will be helping by tugging furiously on the end of it.
What don’t you get about this? Ever read ‘The Prince’ by Machiavelli? Plato’s ‘Republic’? This is nothing new. Sheeeesh!
You see no reason to believe? Really? How hard have you looked? Open your eyes and try again.
And don’t try conflating this with 9/11 or, for that matter, Nessie. Or Big Foot. Or Whitewater. They have zip to do with each other
The best trick the devil ever pulled, said whatsisname in that movie, was convicing you he didn’t exist. Take a bow, Karl Rove.
Cheers
Elroy
PS. You didn’t? Oh. Coulda fooled me.
Haloscan just ate my lengthy comment, so in protest I will not rewrite it!!!
C'mon, Timmer! Buck up! I'm not sure that Haloscan is going to actually notice your refusnikin', so git yer head down an' yer butt up, soldier!
I could try quoting Kipling at ya'll; you, know, 'If', a favourite with conservatives across the Anglophone world?
'If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"'
Y' know, I can empathise. Haloscan has eaten my comments before too, but I do not let it beat me. Personally, I circumvent the horrors of Haloscan by preparing my lengthier screeds in the word proccessing program of my choice and traanfeering them across. I don't cut and run – I cut and paste!
Even worse for me, the last time a post went missing from Haloscan it turned out to be deleted by – you!
But have I given up? No! Will that post be back? Yes! See, having prepared that post on my mother-in-law's 'puter, I had no back-up for it after you erdictaed it. But will I refuse to post in protest? No! Will I win? Who knows. That's for you to dedcide. But it will be back. Probably longer than ever.
But that's just my lily-livered, head-for-the-hills, surrender-monkey liberal mentality for you. I guess I'm just a quitter.
And now, will somemone please pass the Brie as I say
Cheers!
Elroy
Hey Timmer,
The diebold conspiracy that Elroy peddles so viamently, may not be such a conspiracy after all?
check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5...h?
v=5WMG34cv0zM
Doesn't seem like a far-fetched idea huh? Something to think about.
Elroy -
So...are you saying that by letting Haloscan "beat me" I am, in fact, a Pansy "cut-and-runner!?" Mate, are you actually sinking low enough to call me (I can barely force myself to type the lowly, despicable slur) a LIBERAL!!!!?
MAN, you know how to insult a guy! Out of the thousands of insults you could have shot across my conservative bow, THIS IS UNCONSCIENABLE!!!
So where's the missing post, huh?
Cheers
Elroy
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