Sunday, April 12, 2009

They Don't Play By Our Rules and They Don't Care


They only respect strength in proportion to the willingness to use it when needed.

"Most people respect the badge. Everybody respects the gun." --Robert De Niro in Righteous Kill

That's not the way I want it to be, but it's the way the carnal world works.

Jim Treacher: I'm told this opinion might be "extreme"

Shootings happen more often than we'd like, but people like Oliver Willis and Markos Moulitsas have no problem pinning one on Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or whoever else they want to malign. Whereas pirates kidnapping Americans at sea happens once every 200 years. But I'm not supposed to wonder if President Obama running around the world with a "Kick Me" sign on his back -- which almost flew off during his spine-bending bow to a king -- has anything to do with America getting, um, kicked.

I mean, what's been protecting American ships from piracy for two centuries? (Assuming "simple common courtesy" is off the table.) Why hasn't this happened since before running water and electric lights? The horrible nightmare of the Bush Era is over and everything's supposed to be hunky-dory. Why isn't everybody else playing nice and sharing and using their words?

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