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logomachy--1. A dispute
about words. 2. A dispute carried on in words only; a battle of words.
logomachon--1. One who argues about words.
2. A word warrior.
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2004-11-11
I'd like to say he is only momentarily deranged . . .
by Kerry's loss, but I think W drove this guy batty long ago.
Anyway, he sent a letter to John Derbyshire at NRO's The Corner:
GLOAT, and watch your pretend Teddy ride up the mound of civilian corpses he thinks of as San Fallujah Hill.
Gloat, and see suicidal economic policies precipitate the worst economic dislocation in 75 years.
Gloat and enjoy the spectacle of a faith that imagines Torquemada to be the Redeemer; prefers burning Joan to the miracle of the loaves.
Gloat and chuckle as you watch a polity riven and divided by demagogue fueled ever more implacable hatreds.
Gloat. Time and reason will bring you low. Is it just my impression, or do nut cases on the right make extravagant claims of fact (Eisenhower and Earl Warren were knowing agents of the Communist conspiracy) while nuts on the left are exercised by fantastic metaphors? Is it that liberals live in a fantasy land (as opposed to a land haunted by fantasies) or are they just more pretentious?
Anyway,my brother points to the assumption that true Christian Gospel implies liberal social polices and that people who disagree are idolatrous heretics.
And one cannot but chuckle to read of his concern about a "polity riven and divided by demagogue fueled ever more implacable hatreds".
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Veterans' Day, since a.d. 400
Today, Veterans' Day, is also the feast day of St. Martin of Tours (316-397), who was a veteran of the Roman army. Wouldn't this further evidence of the great Christian Anti-Constitutional Jihad Conspiracy just curl Maureen Dowd's toes!In his early years, when his father, a military tribune, was transferred to Pavia in Italy, Martin accompanied him thither, and when he reached adolescence was, in accordance with the recruiting laws, enrolled in the Roman army. Touched by grace at an early age, he was from the first attracted towards Christianity, which had been in favour in the camps since the conversion of Emperor Constantine. His regiment was soon sent to Amiens in Gaul, and this town became the scene of the celebrated legend of the cloak. At the gates of the city, one very cold day, Martin met a shivering and half-naked beggar. Moved with compassion, he divided his cloak into two parts and gave one to the poor man. I am not entirely enthusiastic about St. Martin as patron of soldiers. He had to be forcibly restrained to take the oath of enlistment and spent his early years in a rear-echelon ceremonial unit. When ordered into battle, he refused to bear arms on the grounds of Christian conscience, saying "Put me in the front of the army, without weapons or armor; but I will not draw sword again. I am become the soldier of Christ." Fortunately, the invading Germans offered to negotiate, and Matin was discharged a few days later.
This pacifism of early Christianity is a sturdy and authoritative tradition, but I find it unpersuasive, at least as a general rule. It was professed by men who were or who wished to be monks; that was why Martin tried to avoid enlistment. Certainly, as Chesterton pointed out, to the very limited extent that the Gospels give any sign of Christ's attitude toward soldiers, it is that He was rather fond of them. Maybe it was the lay down your life for another bit.
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2004-11-10
Good Riddance
Fox News reportsIsraeli on Wednesday approved a Palestinian plan to bury Arafat at his sandbagged West Bank headquarters, known as the Muqata, in Ramallah. Palestinians want to turn it into a shrine, defusing a potential conflict with Israel by dropping a demand for a Jerusalem burial. Yeah. Israel said the only way Arafat's corpse would be allowed into Jerusalem was dragged behind a tank and nipped at by wild dogs--they offered to import the wild dogs, if necessary.
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