Does anyone else have a problem with this?

[Boxlicker101]

I'm remembering a newspaper column I read many years ago.

The writer posited that the human race could be divided into two groups; the 'rememberers' and the 'forgetters'.

The rememberers of one group will go, "We must hurt you because of what you did to us last week."

"Oh yeah?" say the rememberers on the other side. "Well we hurt you because of what you did last month!"

"That was in revenge for what you did last year!" shout the first group of rememberers.

And on and on it goes.

The forgetters forget about all that shit and just get on with their lives.

This sounds really hearts and flowers, but forgetting too much can be fatal. The Jews, for instance, will never forget The Holocaust. Women had better not forget warnings about trusting strangers.

Forgive, okay, but don't forget.

 

[Intrepid_Arjuna]

I.A. - I wanted to acknowledge your post, although I'm not exactly sure what point you were making related to this thread. But your post deserves visibility just on its own terms. And the thread got kind of sidetracked by a subseguent one with far less substance.

Yeah I realize its got nothing to do with the main issue in the thread, and thanks for acknowledging ... Ill desist from further posting on the side issue.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Yeah I realize its got nothing to do with the main issue in the thread, and thanks for acknowledging ... Ill desist from further posting on the side issue.

Only if you choose to - thread-jacking is a much-honored activity around here.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Unfortunately the India-Pakistani issue is one of those "no one is lily white" problems that just moves between simmer and fester. Doonsbury had a zinger of a cartoon about several such situations (India-Pakistan, Greek Cypriot-Turkish Cypriot, Sunni-Shite; African tribals) last Sunday. A U.S. soldier and an Iraqi soldier on their way to raid a terrorist safehouse and the Iraqi saying he couldn't wait to shoot the place up for what "those people" did to his relatives. "When was this?" the American asks. Answer: 1367.

Reminds me of something I heard one time, I forget who said it, that Ireland and Israel have "too much history." Goes for a lot of places, doesn't it?

 

[sr71plt]

Reminds me of something I heard one time, I forget who said it, that Ireland and Israel have "too much history." Goes for a lot of places, doesn't it?

Yes. Lots of it in Eastern Europe too. Although I've had it out my ears with the Cypriot issue (accredited to both sides; yammered at ad nauseum by both sides for six years), Israeli-Palestine (ditto for three years), Sunni-Shia, and even India-Pakistan (for five years). I once had to pull two women apart in the middle of the office and call in security guards for the Iraqi and a doctor for the Egyptian because of something tracing back to Babylonia.

I agree it's all something that can't be wished away--especially when the bloodletting is just continuing--but there needs to be some sense of balance filtering in over the centuries.

Fortuitiously, the Cypriot issue is improving a bit over all side's realizing simultaneously that they want economic progress and EU membership.

* * *

And, for Mr. E, up the line, I see no reason/benefit to bother with talking solutions to an issue like this on a porn site chat forum with someone with such extreme/stupid views as the one expressed. Not the least because Pure's probably right--you're probably just a bored 14-year-old avoiding doing your homework.

 

[cantdog]

Hmm. For some reason this quotation floated to the surface of my mind.

"The surest way to become a pacifist is to join the infantry" - Bill Mauldin

I also recall a paragraph in the book Panzer Commander by Hans Von Luck. He noted that it was always the tough talking, gung ho types that cracked first. The quiet ones who just went about getting the job done kept getting the job done no matter what the pressure.

That was a hell of a book. I liked Company Commander, too, by the captain who would end up accepting the surrender of Leipzig. There was a Stuka Pilot book, too. Great series by Ballantine. Out of print, a lot of them, now.

 

[cantdog]

BRRRRRRR WRONG AGAIN

Sticking your head in the sand won't make anything go away.

Putting you on ignore makes you gone, virtually. One has the peace of never having to read your words again. You might not go away, but if you're on ignore, you're as good as buried. Sayonara.

 

[rgraham666]

That was a hell of a book. I liked Company Commander, too, by the captain who would end up accepting the surrender of Leipzig. There was a Stuka Pilot book, too. Great series by Ballantine. Out of print, a lot of them, now.

The Stuka pilot was was Hans Rudel.

I've still got most of those books.

 

[cantdog]

Good post.

But flawed. It assumes those 'charged with the public safety' have good intentions. Not always. And they are the watchmen, and difficult to bring to heel.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes is an acknowledgment of a problem that's been with us for millennia.

 

[Guest]

But flawed. It assumes those 'charged with the public safety' have good intentions. Not always. And they are the watchmen, and difficult to bring to heel.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes is an acknowledgment of a problem that's been with us for millennia.

Granted, cantdog. I'm not so naive as to assume that everyone in a position of authority has benign intentions. However, the same dilemma confronts those individuals. It may be, of course, that their methods of pursuing "safety" include sacrificing public safety to promote their own careers and ensuring that they have a convenient fall guy or two.

In public, though--whether we, the people or their superiors--they still have to err on the side of "safety," which leads to the erosion of rights I discussed in my earlier post.

And "who shall watch those selfsame guardians" has indeed been with us for millennia, and I have no solution to that problem.