Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Sectoral Balances In Culture, Not Just Currency. Cheney on Torture, Shame, Disgrace & National Ruin: "I Would Do It Again in a Minute"

(Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

Cheney channels his inner Nero, and Ariel Sharon.



How did we get to this point? Are NeoLiberals the ONLY humans that think that Sectoral Balances apply only to currency - and even then, only when they want them to, for personal gain?
My own son asked me a question about the culture that we want for the USA. As answer, I have to tell him that I am ashamed of Dick Cheney, not proud.
Jerrit: "The short version is that he was questioned about the innocent victims of the CIA rendition program, some of whom died, and said he was more concerned with the guilty ones who we mistakenly let free. 
I was stunned. Isn't there an opposite quote from either Jefferson or Franklin? I was thinking it's one thing to have such a thought if you're a bitter, spiteful person, but another level of brazen, insensitive sociopathy to say it on national TV."
An honest answer isn't long in coming, if we actually are honest.

"Yup."

People that knew Cheney personally have said that he was always that way.

There's an immediate, follow-up question. What has gone horribly wrong with our policy-staff selection process, that sociopaths like Cheney even get into politics, let alone promoted to the highest levels of our government?

Yes, we do have a few countering quotes. Quotes that previously led our destiny in an adaptive direction which we could always build upon, and be proud of.

“It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. 
But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, 'whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,' and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.
John Adams, The Portable John Adams

...
“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.” - George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775

Wasn't security what Dick Cheney SAID he wanted all along?

You have to wonder whose security he was really looking out for. Certainly not our security, in aggregate.

If we can't select people guiding us to a better/faster/leaner cultural Adaptive Rate than our recent policy actions, then there are some pieces missing from our culture's current adaptive processes. George Washington had it right.
Dick Cheney can't procure security by practicing treason.
People like Cheney showing up in our history are a sure sign of cultural decline and cultural death. He'll be linked in our history the same way Nero & the fall of Rome were.

When it comes to an argument between Dick Cheney, versus George Washington AND John Adams, I'll go with the Founders, every time.

While Cheney pontificates on his personal, faux morality, his own immorality is plain to see.


Would YOU elect Cheney again, in a minute?

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