Sunday, June 04, 2006
Flag Day
"DAY"?
Most of you are familiar this:
IT IS THE SOLDIER
"It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.
It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.
It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag." .........................
While it is true that soldiers don't "give" us rights--they secure them by giving us their service, their youth, often their limbs and sometimes their very lives--it is still sadly amusing to see how many pixels have been burnt up by Lefties in an effort to deconstruct these simple and noble truths.
But two can play at deconstruction. Let me try:
NOT THE SOLDIER
It is some ministers, not the soldier
Who are morally confused about who the good guys are in this struggle.
It is the reporter, not the soldier
Who can't seem to tell the truth even if their lives depended on it. And lives do depend upon it. Soldiers know this; reporters have forgotten.
It is the poet, not the soldier
Who spends hours trying to find a word that rhymes with "Bushitler". (The word you're looking for is of course, "Kush-Schnitler", Shakespeare.)
It is the campus organizer, not the soldier
Who drives a pink papier-mache tank. Soldiers drive the camo-colored M1 Abrams. Vroom, Vroom, Boom, Boom.
It is the lawyer, not the soldier
Who stays up nights worrying about the alleged "Rights" of alleged psychopathic killers whose only conception of "rights" consists of your right to die. Allegedly.
It is the politician, not the soldier
Who thinks a moistened finger placed strategically into the wind is some kind of answer to the Call of Duty.
It is the protestor who hates the flag
Who chafes beneath that flag
Whose cause will be forgtotten
Long after the names of those soldiers
Who serve that flag are written in Glory
Tho' they dealt in Death
Their cause was Life
And their flag is our flag
Flying free, burling and unfurling
Into the very Face of Eternity.
Most of you are familiar this:
IT IS THE SOLDIER
"It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.
It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.
It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag." .........................
While it is true that soldiers don't "give" us rights--they secure them by giving us their service, their youth, often their limbs and sometimes their very lives--it is still sadly amusing to see how many pixels have been burnt up by Lefties in an effort to deconstruct these simple and noble truths.
But two can play at deconstruction. Let me try:
NOT THE SOLDIER
It is some ministers, not the soldier
Who are morally confused about who the good guys are in this struggle.
It is the reporter, not the soldier
Who can't seem to tell the truth even if their lives depended on it. And lives do depend upon it. Soldiers know this; reporters have forgotten.
It is the poet, not the soldier
Who spends hours trying to find a word that rhymes with "Bushitler". (The word you're looking for is of course, "Kush-Schnitler", Shakespeare.)
It is the campus organizer, not the soldier
Who drives a pink papier-mache tank. Soldiers drive the camo-colored M1 Abrams. Vroom, Vroom, Boom, Boom.
It is the lawyer, not the soldier
Who stays up nights worrying about the alleged "Rights" of alleged psychopathic killers whose only conception of "rights" consists of your right to die. Allegedly.
It is the politician, not the soldier
Who thinks a moistened finger placed strategically into the wind is some kind of answer to the Call of Duty.
It is the protestor who hates the flag
Who chafes beneath that flag
Whose cause will be forgtotten
Long after the names of those soldiers
Who serve that flag are written in Glory
Tho' they dealt in Death
Their cause was Life
And their flag is our flag
Flying free, burling and unfurling
Into the very Face of Eternity.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Chesterton
ON the difficulty of keeping a monkey and watching it evolve into a man:
"We talk very truly of the patience of science; but in this department it would be truer to talk of the impatience of science. Owing to the difficulty above described, the theorist is in far too much of a hurry. We have a series of hypotheses so hasty that they may well be called fancies, and cannot in any case be further corrected by facts. The most empirical anthropologist is here as limited as an antiquary. He can only cling to a fragment of the past and has no way of increasing it for the future He can only clutch his fragment of fact, almost as the primitive man clutched his fragment of flint. And indeed he does deal with it in much the same way and for much the same reason. It is his tool and his only tool. It is his weapon and his only weapon. He often wields it with a fanaticism far in excess of anything shown by men of science when they can collect more facts from experience and even add new facts by experiment. Sometimes the professor with his bone becomes almost as dangerous as a dog with his bone. And the dog at least does not deduce a theory from it, proving that mankind is going to the dogs--or that it came from them."--'The Everlasting Man'
"We talk very truly of the patience of science; but in this department it would be truer to talk of the impatience of science. Owing to the difficulty above described, the theorist is in far too much of a hurry. We have a series of hypotheses so hasty that they may well be called fancies, and cannot in any case be further corrected by facts. The most empirical anthropologist is here as limited as an antiquary. He can only cling to a fragment of the past and has no way of increasing it for the future He can only clutch his fragment of fact, almost as the primitive man clutched his fragment of flint. And indeed he does deal with it in much the same way and for much the same reason. It is his tool and his only tool. It is his weapon and his only weapon. He often wields it with a fanaticism far in excess of anything shown by men of science when they can collect more facts from experience and even add new facts by experiment. Sometimes the professor with his bone becomes almost as dangerous as a dog with his bone. And the dog at least does not deduce a theory from it, proving that mankind is going to the dogs--or that it came from them."--'The Everlasting Man'
