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Monday, November 19, 2012

The Ship Of State



From this essay at American Digest (hat tip to Pastorius of Infidel Bloggers Alliance):
The thing is under the boat. The crew suspects as much but can't know for sure exactly where it is. They won't know where Leviathan is until it rises, inevitable and unstoppable, from the deep directly beneath them.

Can you feel it lurking just under the surface? I can and I think you can as well. The Greeks knew it as "Nemesis." Melville's Ahab knew it as "thou damned whale" and he struck at it from Hell's heart. Unperturbed it gathered him up and took him down. Then it took the boat and after that the ship. All save one followed. The whale beneath the surface of America's life is still there and all signs point to its breaching soon. Exactly where and exactly how are still unknown, but soon.

I feel the thing beneath the boat and I think others of my fellow citizens in ever growing millions feel it as well. We do not feel good about it and what it augers for the near and far future.


[...]

It's large and it's under the boat and it is beginning to rise. The crew is confused and flailing about. And the captain is insane but convinced he's on the right course. During the boom years it was commonly said, "A rising tide lifts all boats." True enough, but the rising of Leviathan can break the spine of our boat and send it down into the Maelstrom. And the thing is under the boat.
Read the entire essay HERE.

Or was Longfellow correct in his poem "O Ship of State"?
...Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar...
Certainly, America has been through times of upheaval several times since the founding of this nation. America survived as the land of the free, the land of opportunity, and the land of prosperity. Now, however, America sails in uncharted waters. There be monsters lurking just below the surface, and the wind is gone from America's sails.

Recently, Pastorius of Infidel Bloggers Alliance drew the following analogy between "Americans" and the pod people of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which the humans have no chance against the alien invaders:
I find that I am surrounded not by fellow Americans who believe in American ideals - and can thus proceed on a somewhat rational course through history under the protection of those ideals - but instead I find that I am surrounded by "Americans" - simulations of citizens, people who look like neighbors and friends, but who are more like pod people, their souls hollowed out and replaced with the goo that oozes out of our televisions; the lure of free stuff, the worship of Barack Obama, and the desire to all have their own reality TV shows someday.
And, yes, we truly are a food stamp nation:


More information at Gateway Pundit's "Corrupt & Criminal Media Withheld Reports on Economic Realities Until After Election."

32 comments:

  1. America changes and adapts as a nation, and we are at one of those points. I don't predict a sudden catastrophe, but rather a continuing slow slide downward.
    WW II and the decade afterward was our pinnacle.

    We have lost our national character, and it shows.

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  2. The film Lawrence of Arabia was on this weekend. The same old thing then as now. Excellent post.

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  3. I said as much myself today, AOW; but not nearly so eliguently. Great post!

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  4. Conservatives on Fire,
    Thank you for the compliment on my blog post. I did work harder than usual on this particular piece. Of course, as a literature teacher, I relate to metaphors as a good way to express that is going on right now.

    I must disagree with you on one thing, though. Your latest post is just as good as mine. You and I have different styles of getting to the point, but we DO get to the same point.

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  5. Silverfiddle,
    America changes and adapts as a nation...

    So far, that's been true.

    But nations fall, too.

    Political leaders are so determined to fashion a new world order.

    Also, the words of Benjamin Franklin keep coming back to me: "A republic -- if you can keep it."

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  6. Ohh, ignore it.
    What you can't see can't hurt you right?
    Right?
    What's on TV?

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  7. @Silverfiddle --- WW II and the decade afterward was our pinnacle.

    -----
    Largely because Roosevelt waited until he felt certain our late entry would ensure we were the last economy standing in the industrialized world.

    Now, if the fringe right wants to buy into the idea that prosperity means the dismantling of the social welfare state, fine.
    But first admit you are certain you can accept the consequences to the economy at large and second explain why you don't expect the financial system to conform to reasonable social norms.

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  8. Re: The Food Stamp bar chart; I guess, to Liberals, this represents a measure of B.O.'s success.

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  9. "Largely because Roosevelt waited until he felt certain our late entry would ensure we were the last economy standing in the industrialized world."

    Does that mean he was waiting for Pearl Harbor?

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  10. Does that mean he was waiting for Pearl Harbor?

    ---
    I'm sorry if I'm being a little subtle and requiring you consider a complex thought.

    Roosevelt indeed held off entering the war as long as possible. I do accept the evidence that he had intelligence indicating a possible attack and decided it was time to enter the war. The attack would overcome most opposition to declaring war and that opposition was still considerable.

    A reading of the history indicates he was goading the Japanese.
    Not to say we should not have entered but just to flesh out the right wing jingoism.

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  11. Awesome generalization, I would have never seen it as that, but it is a perfect depiction on what is happening to our society and our way of life.

    Scary.

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  12. I think that something has already happened. It is not like a huge whale that will suddenly in a rush of water surface in a second.

    It is like evil rot that has been slowly growing, reaching it's tentacles, roots, or branches out into every aspect of our nation and lives.

    With Obama's election in 2008 it was like a strong fertilizer was poured onto the beast and the growth rate was multiplied beyond our imagination.

    With Obama's re-election, the beast is in control, never to let go. Like a fast growing cancer spreading and no treatment available.

    Well, there is a treatment but none of our Republican leaders are willing to do what it takes. They would rather try to simply keep the beast satisfied by feeding it the nation bit by bit.

    Sorry to be so down, but I don't have a lot of hope today in politicians.

    Debbie
    Right Truth
    http://www.righttruth.typepad.com

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  13. Yes indeed, that is a true parable.

    I thought we could stop it if we turfed that a-hole Obama out....but we all know that America has turned soft and now instead of looking where we came from and knowing our history, we have decided to go down the road of suicidal Progressivism .

    I think it's too late and things are gonna have to get really bad now in order for people to wake up.

    And they will.

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  14. "I'm sorry if I'm being a little subtle and requiring you consider a complex thought"

    You're just full of [SHIT]. OK if I said a 'bad word' kick me off. But who needs to listen to someone who has done nothing but read books and, has obviously, no connection with real life? At least the 'VETS' on this blog have seen reality something that, Daffy, you will and never know of!

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  15. @Jon Berg Is'nt Daffy entertaining ? LOLS ! Thats about all he's good for.

    He had 2 brain cells at one time, but one ran away...the other got lonely and followed ! :)

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  16. Hey Paladin,

    Do you want to make a bunch of quick bucks? Well sure we all do. Here's how it's done: buy Daffy for what he is worth and sell him for what he [thinks] he's worth! OK there is a problem: who would buy him? Yeah guess it wasn't such a 'sure thing' after all! I'll try to come with something more plausible. Have you heard anything about Alfred E. Neuman lately?

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  17. Ships don't always sink as fast as the Titanic did. And even the Titanic took a bit of time to go under.

    Let us remember that the Titanic impact with the iceberg was felt as a gentle bump as far as most aboard the ship could tell. An engineer, however, KNEW that the collision with the iceberg was indeed fatal -- in spite of the gentle impact.

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  18. Debbie,
    It is like evil rot that has been slowly growing, reaching it's tentacles, roots, or branches out into every aspect of our nation and lives.

    With Obama's election in 2008 it was like a strong fertilizer was poured onto the beast and the growth rate was multiplied beyond our imagination.


    Yes, there comes a point that the rot accelerates astronomically. That's where "America" is right now. The sores are deep within and only starting to break through to the surface.

    You're right, Debbie. Pessimism now is justified. Of course, utopians will not recognize that reality, will they? What dreamers they are!

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  19. Well, whatever floats yer boat, maties. I fer one wants narthin better'n a warm place to rest me keel while me ponders the risin' an fallin' of the tides.

    The changes we've already seen are only preliminaries to the changes that are coming and I think we all sense that. It's hard not to, really, when all the signal flags are up and all the signs are there.

    What we're really all waiting for is to find out who or what is going to win.

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  20. With all the terrible things that are now going on in the Middle East today quite naturally the radical Islamic group the Muslim Brotherhood side with Hamas and against the State of Israel. This thing is that Obama and his administration has close ties with this radicle Islamic brotherhood group. This in itself say a lot about the true nature of Obama and his administration. This is more fully exposed and explained in the short booklet by Frank Gaffney that is entitled THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD IN THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

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  21. Hey Walt, check out the news.

    There is a cease fire and Egypt has been very cooperative.

    I know it hurts the fringe right to admit it but given that Egypt had been ready to explode under Mubarak, Obama and Hillary have handled this pretty well.

    Frank Gaffney? Now there's a neutral source.

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  22. Sounds like a Tale of a Tub to me...

    Jonathan Swift

    The wits of the present age being so very numerous and penetrating, it seems the grandees of Church and State begin to fall under horrible apprehensions lest these gentlemen, during the intervals of a long peace, should find leisure to pick holes in the weak sides of religion and government. To prevent which, there has been much thought employed of late upon certain projects for taking off the force and edge of those formidable inquirers from canvassing and reasoning upon such delicate points. They have at length fixed upon one, which will require some time as well as cost to perfect. Meanwhile, the danger hourly increasing, by new levies of wits, all appointed (as there is reason to fear) with pen, ink, and paper, which may at an hour’s warning be drawn out into pamphlets and other offensive weapons ready for immediate execution, it was judged of absolute necessity that some present expedient be thought on till the main design can be brought to maturity. To this end, at a grand committee, some days ago, this important discovery was made by a certain curious and refined observer, that seamen have a custom when they meet a Whale to fling him out an empty Tub, by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the Ship. This parable was immediately mythologised; the Whale was interpreted to be Hobbes’s “Leviathan,” which tosses and plays with all other schemes of religion and government, whereof a great many are hollow, and dry, and empty, and noisy, and wooden, and given to rotation. This is the Leviathan from whence the terrible wits of our age are said to borrow their weapons. The Ship in danger is easily understood to be its old antitype the commonwealth. But how to analyse the Tub was a matter of difficulty, when, after long inquiry and debate, the literal meaning was preserved, and it was decreed that, in order to prevent these Leviathans from tossing and sporting with the commonwealth, which of itself is too apt to fluctuate, they should be diverted from that game by “A Tale of a Tub.” And my genius being conceived to lie not unhappily that way, I had the honour done me to be engaged in the performance.

    This is the sole design in publishing the following treatise, which I hope will serve for an interim of some months to employ those unquiet spirits till the perfecting of that great work, into the secret of which it is reasonable the courteous reader should have some little light.

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  23. Duck,
    There is a cease fire...

    Well, if so, that's good news.

    We shall see if the truce holds.

    If did notice THIS over at Reuters last Sunday: "Hamas finds cause to smile under Israeli assault."

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  24. Is there really a truce yet? From Clinton in Jerusalem as Gaza truce still elusive at 3:55 P.M.:

    However, Gaza's rulers, the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, revised a statement that a truce would start overnight, saying it was still waiting for an Israeli response to proposals and did not now expect an announcement until Wednesday.

    An official in the Egyptian government, whose new, Islamist leadership has been playing peace broker in Cairo, had also said a ceasefire could begin on Tuesday. But Israeli officials continued to say that discussions were still continuing....

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  25. Interesting that Israel is the one continuing.

    They continue to be a rogue state.

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  26. Duck,
    Interesting that Israel is the one continuing.

    Come on. It's not that simple.

    Who started this skirmish in the first place?

    If the fellow next door were lobbing grenades into your home, would you just sit there and take it? You know that you would not!

    All my life I've been hearing "Peace in our lifetime! Peace in the Middle East!"

    Hardly.

    Not gonna happen, is it?

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  27. https://www.google.com/search?source=ig&rlz=&q=sharia+for+non-muslims+pdf&oq=sharia+for+non+&gs_l=igoogle.1.1.0i30l2j0i8i30l5.281.6984.0.10250.11.5.0.0.0.0.954.2578.2-1j1j1j1j1.5.0...0.0...1ac.1.soTvyeo2DUM

    google search term sharia for non-muslims

    read pdf file

    54 pages

    then you will understand you are Kafir


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  28. Blogginator,
    Here in the D.C. area, I see quite a few of those COEXIST bumper stickers.

    People really are capable of perseverating in stupidity!

    Ostriches!

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  29. then searh John Guandolo the outlawed brief. In it he describes the hisotry of the Muslim Brotherhood, its goals, abd methods including its spread to America in the 1960s. Yup the 1960s. Todays there are chapters on nearly every college campus under the name of the MSA and others.

    Understand al quaeda is an attack arm of islamic jihad and frankly a distraction

    the real threat comes by way of the Muslim Brotherhood which moves much slower and with more purpose using immigration, creeping Sharia, and placement of persons advising influential people in government, media, education, etc.

    The Jordan leader recently said his country is crumbling under him. This is the strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood to undermine the foundational structures of a society and then switch to attack mode when the enemy is defenseless

    AOW, I decide to just start posting what I have here. They are barely hiding theeir efforts, no is no reason we should hide our awareness.

    FYI--I have more but this post is already to long

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  30. people think of Islam as a religion. It was in the beginning when Mohammed was in Mecca but he failed to gain converts so he moved to Medina and became a warrior/politican. He also began having revelations which allowed him to move to a political/economic system. That system brought thousands of converts as his followers could keep their plunder in the name of Allah.

    COEXIST is actually the strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood until they have sufficient resources to over throw the society. When an adherrent sees that bumper sticker, he knows he has already defeated that person.

    In short, check the box---still stupid

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  31. You'll be lucky if it's slow and gradual enough for everyone to adjust. Something tells me it won't be though.

    Perhaps it's better for it to rise and get it over with.

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