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Quote Unquote Secretary Rumsfeld Media Availability En Route to Tokyo:
“You have to think of what’s taking place. What’s taking place is it’s not a surprise, it is that the terrorists, the remnants of the regime, are going to school on us. They watch what takes place and then they make adjustments. We go to school on them. We watch [inaudible], make investments. And the question is who’s going to outlast the other? The answer is Britain will outlast all of us. “
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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You are right, that is a scream, Dale!
When the world comes to an end, there will be 5 kings, the 4 in the deck and the King of England.
IF you can avoid eating brusselsprouts.
Curious.
I wonder what he meant by that last sentence.
*shrug* Maybe it’s because British troops have the easiest patrol areas along with a massive reduction in their troops in Iraq.
ed
What he means is that Britain has demonstrated in its history that it is capable of surviving in the face of attack from evil forces both internal and external, even- actually mostly**- when observers who don’t understand this characteristic of Britishness are utterly dismissive of its chances. (Those who do understand will see the humour of this joke- click on the link, and you will see there was laughter- I think it is correct to read this as laughter of people in agreement, rather than cynical anti-British derision, given that the context was not a Samizdata comments thread.)
Every time, Britain succeeds against the odds. Examples are endless, but basically the day of doom never actually comes. Which means people can predict it forever, of course. As one example, however, might I draw everyone’s attention to the impending rise of the Tory party in the face of the inexorable (not!) forces of Marxism in British politics?
** make that “invariably” 😉
Alice is correct.
From the linked transcript, it’s obvious that the audience was laughing in comfortable agreement with a spoken truth.
Hmm.
So I guess that makes it the British equivalent of “God looks out for fools, drunkards and Americans”?
ed
Yes, Alice is correct, but this time there is a worm eating Britain from within. One Tony Blair, who seeks to dissolve, or at least much dilute, the British character with millions of immigrants who have nothing in common with our culture. Worse, he makes laws to make our culture conform with other (undemocratic European and Islamic) cultures. Tony Blair does not like Britain or the doughty British character and seeks to destroy it.
It’s lucky we didn’t let all those Saxon, Viking, French Protestant, Jewish, Irish and Scottish immigrants in, otherwise where would we be now?
John B – Don’t be so silly. They never arrived in huge, unassimillable hordes and they didn’t all arrive at the same time. The number of Jews and Scots was very small indeed. The Vikings came to rape and plunder then go back home again. It is too silly to compare these immigrations, which took place over 2,000 years, with today’s half a million per year. Also, the new ones want to destroy Western civilisation. The previous ones just wanted us to be better dressed.
Alice is correct on all counts. Rummy loves the British. What serious American does not? I hope it may always remain so.
Verity, the Vikings did NOT arrive more than 2000 years ago – they started around 750AD and ended around 1000AD – and they certainly didn’t do their thing and then go home again.
Perhaps you were not aware that about a third of England was at one time called “The DaneLaw”?
Why do you think that might have been?
The evidence is still there today in place names, personal names, and even the physical appearance of the people.
I don’t dispute your basic argument – I just like to get the history right…
Verity
As usual, spitting anti-immigrant poison… “the new ones want to destroy Western civilisation”. Maybe a very few of them, but of the non-genuine asylum seekers, I’d wager most are quite happy with/neutral towards Western civilisation & just want a piece of our rather tasty pie. I’d argue that those fok prob. outnumber the loony “work from within to take them down” nuts at the very least 1000 to one.
I would be worried on a daily basis if I lived in your world where 1/2 million people devoted to taking us down were streaming into the country every year. However, even if I believed, I’d like to think I might get a *little* suspicious at the lack of even the most minor terrorist outrage, given all their strength of numbers. Still… maybe they’re just all getting ready, eh? Or waiting ’til they reach critical mass…. say 5 million dedicated terrorists in the UK? That might do it.
There may be a very slight difference between 800AD and today that could contain a clue as to the otherwise sudden (past 50 years) attractiveness of Blighty to johnny forengner . I could be wrong but I don’t recall my history books detailing how the welfare state was offering free accommodation, generous up-front cash payments and education to the vikings or the normans at the time of their impromptu visits. It may be however, that all evidence of the benefit offices and associated paper shuffling were inadvertently destroyed in an overenthusiastic and foot-shooting raid by Erik the Red.