The ultimate cruel irony
Bookworm on Aug 21 2009 at 10:39 am | Filed under: Britain, Leftist morality
You all know about the Scottish government’s insane decision to free the mass murdering Lockerbie bomber on “compassion” grounds. You also all know about the government-sponsored rapturous, hero’s welcome this same mass murderer received upon his arrival in Libya. That’s yesterday’s news. Steve Schippert, who blogs at ThreatsWatch, finds the ultimate cruel irony, though. Click through to this photograph (which I don’t reproduce here for copyright reasons) and check out the logo on the boarding stairs taking al-Megrahi to freedom and a peaceful death. Then, come back and contemplate Steve’s words:
The irony is bitter, biting and painful. Shame on one single judge in the Scottish judicial system who, alone, has thumbed his nose at justice and the whole of the West. A scar Scotland will not soon erase.
To which I will add that the British pull this stunt a lot: taking a brutal murderer, condemned to life in prison, and then releasing him on compassionate grounds to die at home. This is only the most visible example of a noxious trend that allows someone who committed heinous murders to enjoy a peaceful death in the arms of loved ones. It’s one thing to take a stand against the death penalty (not a stand with which I agree, but one that can be intellectually defended) and another thing entirely to come up with this soft-headed compassion that grants to a cold-blooded killer a reprieve from the very essence of his sentence — life, a whole life, in prison.
One more thing: to give credit where credit is due, the Obama administration, so far, is appropriately outraged by this insult to justice and decency.
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condemned to life in prison
Life imprisonment was always a lie. It was told to appease feckless and weak willed individuals who won’t support the execution of anyone not related to their personal self-aggrandizement or wealth hoarding. It was much easier to simply pass the buck to somebody else.
One more thing: to give credit where credit is due, the Obama administration, so far, is appropriately outraged by this insult to justice and decency.
Only because they would have traded him for some political gain, like funds or some dead bodies in return for the terrorist.
Dave mentioned here before about laws.
The goal of any civilization is not to create laws, but to create strong and virtuous leaders which then ensure the safety and prosperity of the people. Laws, by definition, are just one way to ensure that people don’t need to go to extremes in defense of themselves, that they can afford the luxury of virtue by being allowed to behave in a virtuous manner. They don’t have to lie, fearing that everyone is lying to them, because they have a contract court to enforce violations. They don’t have to be ready to execute strange merchants, because the contract court will ensure that if they flee, they will be chased down and brought to justice. You no longer have to end the encounter on your favorable terms then and there, or lose the chance forever. This tends to moderate people’s behavior, allowing them to stand on the middle path of virtue, only going to extremes when absolutely required by virtuous standards under Aristotelian philosophy.
Britain has shown what kind of leaders they promote. And Obama has shown what kind of leaders the Left promotes.
They aren’t the people I would wish to follow or be ruled by, assuming I had a choice. Isn’t that why so many came to America, because their own personal rulers were jack arse crazies, mass murderers, Fidel Castros, Mugabes, or Chavezes?
The problem with democracy is that nobody is going to fight for abstract principles. People fight, as the US military so often said, for their comrades in arms. They fight for a person that embodies the beliefs that they hold dear. They fight for democratic leaders or autocratic aristocrats. They don’t fight for a piece of paper. They fight for the people that died and killed for that piece of paper.
This is just a fundamental human fact.
Thus advocates of democracy are always faced with the challenge of the conundrum. If democracy is designed to be a system that prevents the aggregation of power in one individual, then how the hell does the system ever come about without a charismatic and powerful leader to get democracy on its feet? The answer is that it doesn’t happen. It always takes individuals like George Washington, or Nathan Hale, or Lincoln, or a ton of other patriots to make the system work. The system doesn’t make it work for us just by existing. The system just allows individuals to do what they could have done, if they wanted to. It doesn’t supply the individuals, however. That’s fate for you and providence.
If there is no individual around to take charge, the system becomes corrupted by the pettiness of a thousand wannabe aristocratic robber barons: small fry aristocracy. That’s because the system is only as good as the people running it. Even with all the checks and balances in place, we all saw what the Left did here and what they did in Britain, how the socialists kicked out Churchill after he sweated blood to defend Britain, how FDR used war exigencies to implace the poisonous seed of America’s eventual economic destruction (not to mention the unConstitutional standard of 4 terms, and more if he hadn’t died. The ONLY THING that saved us from Britain’s socialist turn after WWII was that FDR died, another aspect of providence as I interpret it.). The system always requires a noble defender in the form of a leader, a charismatic or just plain ruthlessly powerful leader.
People are not going to organize into a coherent whole without a figure, something to rally around. This was as true in battles ancient and medieval as it is true today.
The precedent of the US Constitution has been written in the blood of many, tyrants and patriots. It has been indelibly etched into human history, not because of its flowery wording, but because of how much strength of will it brought out of individual human beings. It allowed the potential of the human species to be realized, perhaps for the first time in human history that has ever happened on an organized and sustainable body. America needed neither conquered lands nor conquered people to sustain itself, unlike previous Empires of the past.
Idealists focus on flowery words, about a better world, but they inevitably give the reins of power to crooks and megalomaniacs. Why? Cause they’re too focused on the future, and never paid as much attention to human nature in the present and past.
I would have called it Scot Free, but the phrase dictionary says otherwise.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/scot%20free.html
I am thoroughly confused and mortified at his release. The Glasgow Airport bombing should have been a rallying cry to think twice. I left to wonder if there is some quiet quid pro quo in the making. Stay tuned.
No need to wonder any longer about the quid pro quo.
BP chairman Peter Sutherland announced the firm was investing $900million – about £545million – to search for oil in Libya. If the firm strikes rich, it could be worth £13billion.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1207772/Blair-blood-money-Lockerbie-deal-Talks-Gaddafi-hours-BP-agreement.html#ixzz0Ow0oFGJm
BP was also one of the oil companies Palin was fighting off from exploiting Alaskan oil at lower than market value, I believe.
Ym
Speaks volumes about the state of affairs in that one female governor had what Scotland was lacking – cajones with a moral compass.
BW, I applaud you for trying to find something positive to say about the Obama administation, but this may not deserve applause. I view the responses as tepid.
Obama sold himself as the man to lead us to a new relationship with our European allies. If by that he meant he would helplessly agree to European snivelry, new relationship established. Obama could’t even succede in keeping Al-Megrahi under house arrest during the supposed final months of his life.
What a change from 2004 when Kaddafi turned over nuclear bombing making materials. Thugs like Kaddfi, no doubt have noticed the difference.
This article chronicles Libyan terrorism and what the future bodes:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/21/al-megrahi-lockerbie-libya-scotland-opinions-contributors-terrorism-muammar-al-qaddafi.html
In the late 80′s, Libya funded and trained Charles Taylor, whose brutal incursion into Liberia, resulted in over 200,000 deaths during two civil wars lasting neary 14 years. Libyan operatives may have been resonsible for breaking Taylor out of a US prison prior to backing his Liberian invasion that turned into a region-wide conflict.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1910365,00.html?xid=feed-yahoo-top-linkbox
POTUS while making his grand tour through Europe (even prior to being crowned) spoke of ‘reaching out’.
This is the result of sticking your hand in the lion’s cage.
Why would Scotland think twice about their decision, when our own President didn’t think once about how his ‘new and improved’ approach of Let’s Be Friends with the scum of the earth.
This is just a sampling of what happens when you feed the animals by hand or in my opinion, by mouth, when you speak ‘weakness’.
I included a website calling for a boycott of Scottish products.
It might be a little premature to call for something like this, until it is clear what the majority of Scots feel about it.
I don’t think we should try and punish Scotland for a government decision that didn’t have the people’s support.
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/22572
I’m not sure what to make of this claim. I assume those discussions were with the state department.
Public denouncements and private pronouncements, I guess.
I am sure that there was a dual-track from the get go considering the majority of the victims were Americans. Mueller’s letter would not have been written or released without a heads up from elsewhere here and was certain to try and assuage the pain and anguish from the families.
A ‘nameless’ state department is just such a vague response. Hillary Clinton, is the Secretary of State and seems like a good place to begin. Oddly enough (not really) you barely hear her speak on State matters. I have found it peculiar that the media has not been knocking on her door asking all sorts of questions.
I never understood why Hillary took the job. Obama clearly got the best of it this time- he neutralized Bill and Hillary and then snubs her by sending him to N. Korea.
She’s left arguing against female mutiliation and rape to Africans, a significant minority, if not majority, holding the opinion it is their right if not their duty.
They have billboards in Liberia reminding women they have a right to say no, and reminding the men that rape is a crime.
This is a huge problem but did you notice the attention it got here by the MSM? She did something to tick off the media during the primaries, or was it Bill? The MSM had to prove their non-racist bona fides by dumping her for the Oneder.
Hilliary has been not only neutralized, but neutered. Period.
I think she took the job in exchange for the DNC writing off political debts. Although I have not read this anywhere as fact. I remember that she owed millions and there has not been any mention of it since.
I think the attacks on Hillary (well earned in most cases) was tied into alternating presidencies Bush I/Clinton I/Bush II /oh..no not Clinton II (too). I think it started to feel like political incest.