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It is, perhaps, one of the funniest aspects of film that we put forward the idea of a fair fight, when it literal, physical combat for your life. Let's work on that for a moment. In sport, say something like the Indy 500, the definitions of the race cars are incredible.
The precise specifications end up defining the difference between fair play and cheating. Not the term "fair play." Then, on the other hand, we have war. There is no such thing as fair play in war, and there is no cheating. In war, advantage is sought relentlessly, without limit.
Pick any sport. There are rules. Flags. Infractions. Penalties. Why is a team limited to a certain number of players on the field? A team? I meant to say both teams, and the equal number of players. What about things like off sides? You jumped the whistle, the gun, the hike.
I'm not saying there are no rules in war. The most important on the field are rules of engagement. I'm not saying there's no morality in war. The most important morals are kill less, not more; don't obey evil commands; where possible, fight for right not wrong.
But in war we seek infinite advantage over the enemy. If they have 5 soldiers, we want 50, or 500. Allow me a surprising example, and a huge part of my own conversion story. Truman and the atomic bomb. As a young man, I was, and stated so many times, deeply ashamed by this.
What eventually hit me was indeed very personal. I might never have been born if Truman had not done so. My father was among the first troops into Japan after the surrender. His probably of surviving the war - and I wasn't born yet at the time! - would have plummeted.
I know it's an imponderable time loop, of the kind that so many wonderful time travel stories employ, but it hit me very hard. And it's not just my father's life, or those of the GIs who'd have been invading, it was also the Japanese people too. Their situation was dire.
Consider, they were already vanquished. Consider, they have an ancient tradition calling for suicide over surrender, and honor by dying the right way. What would that invasion have looked like for them? I'll tell you a bit more about my father's experience to demonstrate.
He was billeted with a family where the father and mother of a lovely young woman were thrilled to have him. Why? Many of their neighbors were starving, scrounging for impossible to find food. Billeting my father, they ate, and lived. Poor dad, he thought the daughter loved him.
Had she, I might have been half Japanese. Alas. He never did get over her, either, but that truly is another story! But he did live, and so did that family, and millions of other families. They were already vanquished but it certainly took the atom bombs to persuade them so.
In my youth, when the term "patriotic" came up in conversation, I aggressively disavowed it. I was proudly anti-patriotic and never apologized or demurred. Yes, I've always been a natural born firebrand. I often explained my shame over the bomb. What a shock my conversion was.
And also consider verse 4:11 again, now. "To be victorious in battle and to acclaimed for one's skill is no true skill." Who even thinks of Truman without there being a question mark on him in this direct regard? He merely defeated an already vanquished enemy. Fame? Acclaim?
Who remembers the delightful move War Games from the 80s? The only way to win is to not play, right? And here I am now, completely pro-atomic bombs, and wanting our arsenal to be revamped and made mightier. Alas, youth is so often wasted on the young.
I'll confess, I've been struggling over the Lock Her Up question. She is already vanquished. What about our nation's sense of fair play? What about our healing, and the reunion of left and right into a single whole, again? Will the attempt to defeat her further, further wound us?
Nope. We've completed such wrongful comprises vastly too many times on our way here. If we compromise over Rule of Law in order to reunite, the union that results will end up just as evil as before. We must never hesitate to defeat an already vanquished foe.
So then, what's our atom bomb? I don't know if we have one, or not. We may, but that has yet to be determined. For us, a complete rout, a total landslide victory in 2020, and retaking the House while we're at it, and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate would suffice.
Sadly, I suspect that we're going to have to fight it out, however, in something far more like guerilla warfare, deep in the muddy trenches. I've mentioned before that we have a 20th Century Sun Tzu master who explained everything to us with brilliant writing, Chairman Mao.
Try to imagine a 25-year revolution. It's brain breaking. One of the parameters he discusses is protracted war, as opposed to quick-decision skirmishes. The key to quick decisions is to concentrate your forces on a weak spot, and annihilate it, or come as close as you can.
Another key he explains is that the Red Army had essentially NO weapons, and no weapons production capability. He explains, though, that you can kill with your fingers or a kitchen knife. When you do, you now own a weapon made in London, Berlin or Pittsburgh.
Mao clearly states that the only way they survived was to look at their enemies as their own supply line for the best weapons in the world. Phenomenal. Do you remember, from verses 2: 17 & 18, what we do when we capture an enemy's chariot? Place our own standard upon it.
As mere guerilla warriors, with no atomic arsenal to count on, yet, that's the kind of fighting we must prepare for, politically. Federal law - Lock Her Up - must be made whole again, as must State and Local. From the bottom up, we must make local justice our mission.
These decades, we have allowed corruption to spawn and thrive in the darkness of cozy, complicit relationships. How do we defeat an already vanquished foe, locally? Find the corruption and shine the light of public judgment upon it.
If we want HRC locked up, and we must never stop until she is, we may have to build our capability to lock up small corruption locally, first, across our nation. Local corruption flows upward to State and Federal levels, rapidly. If we build this, it won't take long.
And allow me to clarify what I mean by "the light of public judgment." I do NOT mean force of law. It is often there that the corruption thrives. What I mean are the secrets so many know, but so few discuss. It is in these secrets that the dark shadow of corruption thrives.
When the light is shined, a foe will be vanquished, simply waiting to be defeated. I must offer one example in closing from my own favored focus. When we find a school budget overpaying for what is under-delivered, we must shine a light.
Like Mao's Red Army, we can survive a protracted war if we must. Let us learn our tactics well. And, also like them, let us anticipate the day we become a regular force with our own supply.
I say, #MAGA requires no less.
I say, #MAGA requires no less.
To return to previous sections in our #WarForAmerica2020 and #SunTzuForMAGA series, don't forget to head over to @WarForAmerica21.
79 verses completed, 343 to go. And also, be sure to purchase John Minford's translation, here:
amazon.com/Art-War-Pengui…
79 verses completed, 343 to go. And also, be sure to purchase John Minford's translation, here:
amazon.com/Art-War-Pengui…
