RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
Countrymen,
You know, the more I think about the behavior of partisan Democrats, the more I think that their error is not really in what they say — although there is plenty of that, but it is discussable, if discussion were possible — but in the way they say it.
Their purpose is not to discuss issues, it is to destroy an enemy with derision.
In his Duty Honor Country speech, Doug MacArthur deplores at one point the low estate of civility by noting with genuine astonishment and repulsion that people stoop even to mockery and ridicule. I forget the exact phrase but it is close to those words in italics.
Of course his meaning is that mockery and ridicule — aka derision and sarcasm (literally, tearing the flesh) — are not used in human, civilized communication. He longs for that communication.
My name must head the list of those who have employed those rhetorical tools. It must stop. It is not our language, it is not human discourse.
If others use those tools, we should note that they are and point out that they are not human tools and are not used in civilization. We should not try to outdo them in cleverness of derision. We should simply note what they are doing and leave it at that. And we should not admit derision to any discussion.
Derision is a species of sarcasm and sarcasm is a species of violence. Derision ipso facto is malicious. It should not be admitted to discussions.
Derision, itself, is the enemy. Look at Saddam in the dock. Look at John Kerry, the NYT editorial page, Jacques Chirac, Carville, Dowd, etc. etc. And on the other side, Leo, Styne that blonde female and so many others, my own name heading the list.
It has to stop. Because life is one and all things, therefore, are interdependent, derision is self-destructive. On the basis of this truth, how many Americans should be accounted suicides? At least 1 in 5.
Today we call someone/something pathetic as a derisive epithet. But the word implies compassion. Pathos is heart-melting suffering. What violence it is to use that sweet, sacred word derisively, in a sarcastic tone! Sub-humans are full of derision. Humans are full of compassion.
Compassion drove United States Armed Forces into Afghanistan and Iraq. The pathos of suffering in the Middle East grew unbearable. Pay-backs also were present. But pay-backs are done and left. Staying to transform can only be driven by compassion.
Stripped of derision, Democratic partisans are saying that our self-interest does not require staying to help build civilization in those countries. Probably they have a point, at least some bits of one. At least it is debatable. But they show their poverty of spirit in making this argument — disregarding for the moment their over-riding derision, which nullifies from the start any useful point they are making. They reject compassion for self-interest, which, on its own, is inherently myopic and therefore destructive. Compassion reads the plight of Middle Easterners and looks for ways to remedy.
Self-interest mixed in? Of course, existence is ambiguous and self-interest is necessary and beneficial understood in the sense that all life is one. But self-interest could not mount much less sustain the operations ongoing in Afghanistan and Iraq. Only compassion, the essential spiritual experience, could do that.
West Point has taught me to pay attention to what is going on, not evaluating it from outside, just seeing and stating it and extrapolating its consequences and letting the evaluations emerge from the inside. I think the foregoing does that in a useful way.
AMDG – VICTORY
