Starting from zero, staging a coup in Pakistan to get their hands on nukes, would certainly take less than two years.

Also starting from zero, organizing a resonably convoluted shell-game to get a ship with a 100kt fusion-boosted fission warhead plus ten tons of industrial quality zink into Chesapeake Bay when winds are towards DC? One to Five years.

Zink: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq1.html#nfaq1.6
Pakistan: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Pakistan/PakArsenal.html

Both efforts can run in parallel ofc.

And we don’t know that they are starting from zero. On the contrary we know that when it comes to a coup in Pakistan they are starting far from zero, already having the Secret Police (ISI) in their corner.

Won’t the total impossibility of O holding on to the Presidency make him *more* predisposed to extraordinary measures that keeps him in power, not *less*?

Even people speaking the same language may lazily, readily, self-consciously, deliberately, whatever, chose negative inferences from barely ambiguous choices of words.

Add to that ruthless politicians who advance by instigating everything from envy to distrust to hatred between neighbors.

It is clearly going to be much harder for multi-culti neighbors to mount rebellion against their common enemy when that enemy controls the major avenues of communication and pass lying interpretations across the language barrier.

“Fred, I think you haven’t quite divested yourself of the massive amount of self-deception socialists dress themselves in.”

You just toss something like this out there, and I have no idea as to why you say that about me. Your denial rings hollow and you have the nerve to be flip when I call your attention to it. I can assure you that if the roles were reversed you would not stand for it. But I would never go to that level anyway, so it’s a moot point.

Point out to me how I am currently a cryptic socialist. Put up, or stop the cryptic sniping. And using Girard as a template to cram down on me, however elegant you think you are being, is still an ad hominem attack.

Grow up.

I was talking about the ideological rhetoric you developed and put on this blog. I was not talking about you personally. I meant no insult because, frankly, I don’t care what your personal motivations were in whatever life or ideological choices you have made. You make an argument that appeals to a certain kind of reasoning, and I attack that argument and call into question that reasoning. If you want to take that personally, then I would say that you are, as some psychobobbies would put it, “over-determined.” Your life choices are your business, and not mine.

As re: Girard–you want to attack Girard then get ready to attack the history of the French novel up through the first half of the 20th century, since much of it is about envy.

I still maintain that Voltimand is completely wrong about me and my life. I am not attacking his affinity for the insights of Rene Girard. They shed light on aspects of some of the people involved in the socialist project. But the psychological profile he puts up in no way correctly takes the correct reading of my life and thinking. I claim no privileged status and only humbly submit a few shards of testimony about my life. I do not know Voltimand personally, as I do not know you; I dare not presume to know you guys well enough to make a judgment about your psychological profiles. The arrogance of attempting to do so simply is not a part of who I am.

One has to be very careful, as I stated, to not succumb to the temptations of reductionism. Girard’s insights are not invalid. They are just not valid for all persons who have participated in socialist movements. I see in Girard perhaps his own biases, as the French are so famous for (and my ancestry is French, by the way!): tending towards cynicism. We have to be careful not to project on to others our own dark perceptions.

I have read C.S. Lewis’ “The Great Divorce.” I am not going to comment about the aspersion cast about the kind of type of character described in that book that I am supposed to be.

I do not appreciate being “psychologized” like this on a public forum, as if I am supposed to be still some kind of closet socialist. I happen to think I stand on solid footing in Catholic theology, Catholic social teaching, and in traditional, orthodox understanding of scripture. I object to being pidgeonholed by people who have not studied theology and philosophy as I have. Clearly, my years on that journey and how I have evolved do give evidence of my faith struggles and growth as a human being, an incomplete project as I type these words.

However, you did not answer the question I raised, as I was clearly referring to the ten, not to the two Great. Still, your answer was enlightening. I believe Voltimand saw something none of the rest of us saw, and thus his comment was not necessarily meant as an insult. I am reminded of the various case studies in C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce: so many so close to paradise, but their self-assuredness would convince them the gray town was where its at.

The first part of the Great Commandment is not an easy thing to expostulate upon. How does one “love” a Mystery and an abstraction one has never seen? And yet we can, but the journey to arrive at that state of being requires a kind of maturity and humility that comes only from having some inner calm. An inner ability cultivated over time to appreciate beauty and be humbled in awe of the universe and creation. God does not need our love, so God wanting us to love Him/Her must be rooted in a greater wisdom that understands us completely. That understanding knows we cannot rest at peace until we expend energy in seeking God out. It’s a journey that tests us in every way, because we can never fully understand God. We are fragile beings, and so our existence is fraught with suffering and destruction. Job’s story is in many ways our own.

To me, to love God means being humble and open to being filled by the Holy Spirit, so as to incrementally grow in a relationship with this Mystery. We seek out that which we love, so to love God is to always, restlessly be seeking God out in our encounters with the hints of God’s existence – in creation and in our fellow human beings.

And that is why the ultimate proof that we love God is in how we love our fellow human beings. To know what this means, we have to look to the life that Jesus of Nazareth lived and try to follow that life as best we can. That is why both parts of the Great Commandment are joined in a kind of symbiosis. They aren’t opposed to each other.

Religiosity that is devoid of, or relegates to an inferior position, the love for human beings is a deception.

Remarkable, indeed. But my grandfather kept a little carved wooden sign over his bar at home (where he mixed his daily scotch and water) which said:

We are too soon old, and too late smart.

Cheers.

L3

My overall point remains about perceiving happiness in others, not something that can be purchased, is the thing ultimately envied.

Whatever the source of your happiness, the fact that you are, or even if you are only imagined to be, will raise envy; a very sad state in which to be inclined.

One so afflicted can find the cure within their psyche and soul, but will find it exceedingly more difficult with social justice devils relentlessly picking at the scabs.

From what I can gather from the religiously faithful and/or trained — which sure excludes me — one’s love for God, the first commandment, is the said to be path to happiness. Thus I have always found it remarkable that it is so infrequently concluded that coveting, warned against by the last commandment, is the surest path away from happiness.

Fred, as your disillusionment with “liberation theology” grew, did that juxtaposition ever strike you? Positively following the first leads to happiness, violating the last leads way from it.