Concerning the murder and mutilation of American soldiers by the mujahideen in Iraq, Bill, as usual, cuts to the quick:
I am, unlike George Bush (or any male of the Bush family, for that matter) a Jacksonian:
The whole point of Jacksonianism is “You leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone. You play fair with me and I’ll play fair with you. But if you f**k with me, I’ll kill you.”
I believe that, at core, America is a Jacksonian nation. And when America finally realizes with what loathing we are regarded by the rest of the world, the result will not be what the rest of the world thinks will occur. There will be no sudden American need to apologize and submit ourselves to the world’s judgment. We are a nation founded on telling the rest of the world to go to hell, and shedding our blood to send it there.
When Americans realize that much of the rest of the world is not our friend, then they will regard much of the rest of the world as our enemy. And I can guarantee you that the rest of the world really does not want a Jacksonian America as its enemy.
Donnah would undoubtedly ascribe this characteristic to our Celtic blood. And the great thing about the Celts in this country is that they tend to have large families and don’t object to exogamy, and thus have spread their bloodline around.
Haggis, Guinness, leeks, and an Andrew Jackson attitude — what a combination.
Oh if only it were so. Americans are more concerned with Brad and Angelina’s Baby and how Jen is dealing with all that, than the recent murder and mutilation of Pfcs Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker.
I finally realized this all back in April of 2004 when Bush called off the Marines instead of burning Fallujah to the ground then turning feral pigs loose to forage amonge the ruins.
ryoushi —
Well, if Bill is right — if, mind you — we simply haven’t been pushed past our limit yet. Presumably that will eventually happen, and then the Jacksonian scenario will unfold according to its own inner logic.
The interesting thing is that there are a lot of Americans who say more or less the same thing. I read and hear it everywhere — “we just haven’t been pushed past our limit.”
We’ll see.
As for Shiloh, that People magazine sold 2.3 million copies featuring her, which translates to 0.8% of the entire American population while the magazine still made a tidy $2.25 million profit. So it takes less than 1% of the population to support the celebrity industry and hence it gives the wrong impression that Americans are all celebrity obsessed.
Are they planning to name their future offspring Antietam and Chickamauga? Sheesh.
nial, you must be Jacksonian through and through. Long before the Battle of Shiloh, the obscure word was variously interpreted to mean “the sent” (John 17:3), “the seed” (Isaiah 11:1), the “peaceable or prosperous one” (Ephesians 2:14)–that is, the Messiah (Isaiah 11:10, Romans 15:12)
America used to be a Jacksonian nation. Before Neitzche, Marx and Freud wrought their good works.
The country is ruled by nannies- by women with outer gentalia- and it is this that must end. Wer are ruled over by women, and can only suckle like little children at the altar of the welfare state.
Real men need to stand up and kick in this rotten structure of political correctness and cowardice.
Brandon–
i can sympathize with your Kim du Toit take on things. However, your prescription doesn’t come with directions. One is led to ask, how did the men let this happen in the first place, hmm?
A point of view that assigns blame to one side without assessing responsibility for both sides ends up with simply another extreme.
I do not want to return to the reality I lived as a child,where my father was the only legal owner of our home while it was my mother who paid the mortgage. That’s not an equitable situation and I’m glad that law is gone.
Prescriptions, please, and not descriptions which dehumanize either sex. I’m as tired of the women bashers as I am of the men haters.
Time for a new song and dance, Mr. Stanley.
I, for one, have been pushed past my limit. I have searched out information like that provided here and elsewhere on the net, and select talk radio shows.
The Legacy Media will not report the news. I have taken to printing and distributing, even leaving material copied from the internet so more people can read it for themselves.
I also plan on copying to DVD several videos shot by imbeds showing good works done by our troops; and those distributed on the net by our enemies showing decapitations of helpless hostages.
I may not have the financial resources to tell many, my hope is that I will ignite others to do the same and more.
If I have gone over the line, feel free to edit or remove this comment, this is your house and I understand. I am so VERY mad at the enemy, the media, AND our gummit.
Jeez, that we even have to discuss this mess is an indication of how screwed up the majority of the population of this Republic is.
I have talked before about the “bubbles”that Americans live in. The little bubble that is their home life, job and hobbies (wasted time on recreation, instead of getting in practice shooting weapons and protecting their families).
Until those bubbles are busted, nothing in “America” is going to change, least of all the attitudes of those that think if we are nice to our enemies they won’t kill us.
This is nonsense of course, they only haven’t done it yet because some have understood the threat. But be sure of this, they will kill us again in large numbers.
Then we will see who will stay in their fantasies and who will understand the threat, and demand revenge and carnage.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
Papa Ray
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
“We are a nation founded on telling the rest of the world to go to hell, and shedding our blood to send it there.”
Sounds like Khomenei and Ahmedinejad, doesn’t it?
Does that make them Jacksonian?
Dympha,
Although I can’t speak for Brandon, I am going to guess that he did not mean women per se, but the effeminization, or better, passivity, of men. True, neither you nor I want to return to the society in which women’s legal rights were restricted, but when economic depressions occurred in the 19th century, people and the market adapted and weathered them out. In 1929, people started looking to the government for aid. What happened in between? Well, among other events came Marx and Freud to our shores, along with a host of proletarian immigrants unlike the agrarian immigrants of earlier times. Thomas Jefferson was prescient: America has ceased to be a free republic now that so many of its people have gone to huddle in the cities. The Jacksonians were frontier folk, and we no longer have a frontier. The remedy? I am not sure there is one. We cannot return to the frontier except by a rigorous exercise of the historical imagination; and nothing from our schools or popular media is aiding us in the attempt. We can only hope that once enough people realize that we are under attack, our heritage will assert itself. Interestingly, it is the people who live along the border–the frontier?–who are most concerned about illegal immigration.
New here but hope to contribute to the discourse.
9/11 hit us with shock and sadness that quickly morphed into the righteous fury needed to do the job in Afghanistan. Just one year later, the national resolve to effect regime change in Iraq was wavering to the point that it wasn’t certain we would go.
Clearly Iran and S. Korea need handling and little more than strongly-worded letters are being sent.
I fear that it will take another direct attack on the homeland to generate the national response needed to commit, truly commit, to winning the war for civilization.
No matter how immediate reportage from foreign fronts, the news of beheadings and atrocities from afar does not provoke us to stand on line at the recruiting office and go off to war.
I don’t want another attack on my homeland.
But I don’t want to watch my world fall from the benefits of civilization land by land, people by people.
Brandon is, of course, correct. We USED to be a Jacksonian nation. But 50 years of public school education, cultural indoctrination and uncontrolled immigration have destroyed that which used to unmistakably define us as Americans. There are Americans still residing in the United States but we are in a small minority. The left has worked its magic. Love of country and American ideals is now sneered at as jingoism. But the world has faced much much worse and the ideals of liberty have survived. But not without a HUGE cost. The Reconquista of Europe and yes, even the United States, will be VERY painful and VERY destructive. I pray that the Muslim savages strike hard and strike soon before the demographic tsunami, socialism, relativism, and multiculturalism destroy us completely from within. God Bless America!!!
papa ray: “Until those bubbles are busted…”
Well, papa, I have always contended that it will take losing three cities before Americans finally, collectively wake up and realize that we really are at war.
Sounds like Khomenei and Ahmedinejad, doesn’t it?
Inasmuch as they’re also willing to shed our* blood in order to send themselves to hell, I agree, but I think you’ve rather missed the point. This jacksonian way of thinking is literally live and let live, but also a quite literal interpretation of the biblical principle of an eye for an eye. In other words, reacting according to how you are treated. If someone attempts to kill you, you attempt it right back at them. If they want to live in peace with you, you are peaceful right back at them.
Ahmedinejad doesn’t want to live in peace. He’s an active aggressor (which means that he goes first rather than waiting for someone to piss him off), whereas the united states is primarly a reactive aggressor. That’s the difference. That’s why your comparison is a big pile of dung.
Bill is half-right. The US is not a Jacksonian nation; it is the one of only two nations in which the Jacksonians are significant (the other is Australia). There are other groups as well, the Jeffersonians, the Hamiltoniansm, and those (godforsaken) Wilsonians (think Jimmah). The Jacksonians are the largest of these groups, the backbone of America – but still a minority.
Jacksonians tend to ignore politics until they get, well, real riled up. That is one of the reasons that the other three groups or combinations thereof can do their dirty work in peace. And then, when it’s all good and messed up, they call the Jacksonians to bail ’em out. Most of our military is filled with Jacksonians.
NB, while originally and still bound to the Scots-Irish culture, Jacksonianism is actually trans-cultural. As long as someone or a group accepts the fundamentals of Jacksonian-ism (sketched out by Bill above), anyone can “join” (it goes easiest if one likes country music ;-). Minnesota Germans, New York Jews, California Hispanics, and Lousiana Vietnamese – anyone.
And, this is why I (also) disagree with Bill about how much he thinks the world hates the US. The various elites around world hate the US, but most if their people don’t. Because we let our wannabe-elites, especially the Democrats and their handmaidens, the MSM, filter and spin info from other countries, we think they hate us.
They don’t hate us. Think of the Danes et al who contribute here.
In fact, not only do they not hate us, they want to be us. If we made it easier for people – normal, hard-working, (will be) successful, (want to be Americans) people – to immigrate legally, many would. ASAP.
Brilliant post. I’d say Bill’s more than half right- at least in Red States. The Jacksonian world view still has much play out here. It’s the nationalistic extension of “don’t mess with Texas.”
or as they say in New Hampshire:
“Live Free or Die”
Akin to “Don’t Tread on Me” as well. Note: non of the foregoing sayings mentions getting UN permission as a condition precedent.
Let me tell you about my ancestors. They came over on the boat in the early 1900s from Russia (my dad’s side) and Romania (my mom’s side). Nary a Celt in the family tree by intermarriage or any other method (AFAIK).
And yet, here I am, Jacksonian to the core. My children as well (my mate is of Italian and Finnish origin).
Do not despair. Remember, Lincoln prevailed over the South AND the Democrat Copperheads. FDR prevailed over the Germans, Japanese, the Italians, AND the Republican fifth column. In other words our internal difficulties are more about the ins vs the outs than party.
Once a Dem gets elected Pres and suffers some attacks we will be united again. Which is why (other than socialism) Hillary doesn’t scare me. The logic of events will drive her to the correct conclusions. I’d prefer Lieberman, but by the time the Dems come to their senses he will be too old.
When Americans realize that much of the rest of the world is not our friend, then they will regard much of the rest of the world as our enemy. And I can guarantee you that the rest of the world really does not want a Jacksonian America as its enemy.
This takes the cake – a “Jacksonian” who wants to be loved.
When the world loathes you, this is leaving you alone. When the world calls you a bunch of fat useless slobs, this is playing fair. But this is not enough, you want to be loved.
You value your feelings and how others feel about you. You want the world to say only nice things about you. Feelings, love, pretty bunnies.
One piece of advice – You need to realise that it is by your actions that you are judged and that it is not important what the world says about you.
Second piece of advice – learn to tell the difference between someone who calls you fat & ugly and someone who kills 3000 of you.