Friday, September 21, 2012

The Butthurt Effect







The United States of America seems to have lost the set of brass balls it was born with during its revolution.  There was a time when if a set of easily offended people got all butthurt we'd encourage them to get mad.

Example:  Declaration of Independence - The Founding signers knew that they stood the chance to lose everything just based on the signing.  Ethan Allen's property and house were bombarded by a warship from the coast then his house and property were razed and pillaged by the British.  Just for signing.  His wife was in hiding and she died basically of a broken heart.  He was imprisoned on a British warship inside a small wooden box and shipped across the Atlantic...then to Ireland...and then was released as a part of prisoner exchanges at the end of the war.

Today:  Some schmuck makes a video and we The President and Secretary of State go out apologizing for...what a private citizen did in his spare time (and badly).  Yeah.  That is a shift I must say.

We should just shut all consular facilities in these nations and have only embassies in the capitals.  Then  we will tell all nations that we will not apologize for our citizens private actions that are in-line with the law.  If they wish to protest they are of course free to do so as long as they do not resort to violence.   Once that is said...we supply the OR ELSE portion of the speech.

Or Else would feature these points

  • A reprisal will take place in several stages
    • Stage 1) Diplomatic/Economic Sanctions taken Unilaterally
    • Stage 2) Ejection of diplomats from the USA and a closing of embassies
    • Stage 3) Complete trade shutdown (unilateral...other nations can do as they wish)
    • Stage 4) Wait until they squeal and become more conciliatory
    • Iraq/Afghan Special:  For those two nations that have benefited from our investments...no more investments, we simply pack up and leave leave a sign that says thanks for all the fish.
There is no reason to invade or waste our troop's lives in these backwards nations.  We can simply cease doing business with them.  Oil is sold on a world market...we don't need to embargo that at all.  Basically we can remove our presence and stop giving them fodder.  At some point the people will likely overthrow their current governments and what they put in its place may be better or worse (Egypt I'm looking at you).  The reality is that eventually when they are tired of failing they will find a way to create a benevolent form of government.  So far we have simply bankrolled their failures and put an artificial floor so that as bad as things might seem they are actually far worse.  

It is simply tough love.  We don't need to be violent, but we do need to show them that violence will not be tolerated without responding in kind.  At some point they will likely become less butthurt and move out of their fundamentalist phase towards an enlightenment that the west had three hundred years ago.

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