Now where was I? Oh yes, McCain, Palin, Biden, Obama, and Sun Tzu. Old Sunny was hell on wheels in his day, so much so, that a lot of modern folk think he has the skinny on winning at any endeavor from hostile takeovers of companies to getting the girl of your dreams to go out with you instead of Bob down in accounting.
I've read "The Art of War" and it contains much good, hard common sense distilled down to easy to apply aphorisms, the whole thing larded with a healthy dose of fortune-cookie pablum. But like the Greeks with logic, Sun Tzu gets credit for thinking of it first, and creating what is THE baby step, must read, start here, study of strategy.
The most famous of his dictates reads more or less, "know yourself and know your enemy and you will never know defeat". This is true as far as it goes, so long as one ignores luck and happenstance - having the high ground, the best army, and best plan is for naught if god decides to drop a piano on you before the fight starts.
Nonetheless, if you can apply the rule (there's the rub), your chances for victory go right up.
I'm sure there is also a political version of the book - Machiavelli wrote one, but unless one has the option of putting enemy's heads on stakes, it's not too useful for practical politics in 21st century America. Still, if there some version of "The Art of political War" available, recent events show the democrats haven't read it, because, boy did they get caught flat footed.
Our brethren on the left are running around in circles and screaming to any sympathetic ear the the filthy republicans are actually trying to win the election, that they don't understand the rules, they're... they're... fighting back.
Uh, guys it's an election contest - if only one side tries to win, the whole competition idea goes out the window.
And herein lies a little insight into the mind of the democratic party (know your enemy... remember) - they are so confident of their own rectitude they cannot conceive of someone not wanting what they are selling. It flummoxes them that given their natural superiority in this contest, that the other side would would actually even want to go through with it. They are great, they are pure, they are destiny's children, they do not know their enemy.
If failure to know thy enemy is a dangerous conceit, failure to know yourself is a fatal one. And here again the democrats fall into a trap of their own making. It is difficult to have a clear sense of self when everybody from the New York Times editorial page to the flakes at MSNBC is telling you how great you are. Barack Obama is a nancy-boy, metrosexual amalgam of white guilt and black sense of entitlement, and to call Joe Biden dumber than a box of hammers is to risk insulting the intellect of of blunt objects, yet the watch poodles of the media have convinced a good portion of the voting public that these two are the god-like harbingers of a new politics. Worse still, it seems they have convinced Obama and Biden of this too.
Now, if the Palin pick is analogous to the battles of Lexington and Concord, where the British learned the colonists would indeed fight, I would suggest the next stage should be a good old Trenton sneak attack: Send every organizer, and speaker to the innerest of the inner cities with pictures showing the fully one in ten democratic convention delegates who are NEA members; arm them with lots of quotes from education folk saying that if the people are given school choice, they won't choose the public schools, and then ask how the democratic party thing is working out for their kid's futures.
Will it change any minds in urban America? Doubtful, but howls, and screams of the Obama campaign, at even the merest possibility he could loose the hold over his people, certainly might push some of the undecideds to McCain.
And, besides as a spectacle, watching the wheels come the Obama bus would take some beating.
9-7-08 Update: I wrote the above before I found this from Caroline Glick - I'm some kind of psychic apparently.
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8 comments:
As with "Love the neighbor as thyself" Sun Tzu says that one must know the enemy and One's self to assure victory. I am certain that the Democrats don't really know themselves or they wouldn't waste time with all that they aren't, and can never be -- like the party of my choice.
Nice thoughts, and the media will never get it - they do think I am still buying newspapers and watching television, but I had no idea until today what MILF was, and still wish I didn't. See how protected I am?
Good post, as per usual.
James
"...I had no idea until today what MILF was, and still wish I didn't."
M.I.L.F. stands for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which is the largest and most violent terrorist organization in South Asia today. I can see how learning of the existence of such a depraved and bloodthirsty organization would darken your day.
Or did you mean something else?
James
Not that it matters, but I found it meant something else - fighting the Moros doesn't bother me a bit. I have very selective sinning mores.
Mike, I think we might agree...
It's a new ball game, and the entertainment value is skyrocketing.
The Democrat campaign seems to be unable to avoid stepping on their own shriveled wiener at every turn, now they are faced with a strong outspoken woman.
The chickens are home to roost, in ever thickening hoards.
Always remember and never forget what Barak Husein Obama just said... he won't take away your guns until he gets the votes in Congress.
Sun Tsu is okay, but I always got more mileage out of Mushashi, Jim Boyd, and Dan Bolger. I commend them to the attention of all.
Dave P.
"watching the wheels come off the Obama bus". Ha ha ha!! I have a new hobby for the next two months. Of course, if he is somehow elected, watching this "genius" at work will provide hours of "bang your head on the wall" fun.
You mean we don't have the option of putting the Democrats, er, our enemies head on stakes?
Since when? I didn't get the memo!
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