Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (33666)	10/17/2001 2:03:17 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 82486

Chris, Churchill quoted from a poem in that speech. I looked up his quote on Google, and found it was "If" by Kipling. If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on"; If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run - Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

To: The Philosopher who wrote (33666)	10/18/2001 5:52:54 AM
From: thames_sider	Respond to of 82486

But I believe that the American people are as ready today to meet the needs of stern days as the British were in the early 1940s. Hopefully you'll never need to, either. Keeping things in perspective, in late '41 (pre-PH) the British, with a small and battered army, were almost alone, faced by the most powerful military machine ever seen, which had swept through the larger continental armies and now controlled nearly all of Europe, was near its peak in power and had few if any obvious weaknesses. The US is now confronted by a few madmen with small regard for their own lives and none for ours. They're based in a small, landlocked country, desperately poor and short of conventional weapons and surrounded by enemies. Their only strength is in their ability to cause panic and disruption disproportionate to their numbers, using and relying on the freedom and safety hitherto felt by the West in general and US in particular. Sure, take them seriously; but assess them seriously, too. However spectacular their abominations, they cannot really hurt the West unless we let them... by taking actions, limiting our freedoms, out of proportion to the real threats faced; or if we leave Afghanistan as a worse threat (long-term) than we find it. Or by over-reacting so far, or spreading our net so wide, that we make more and more dangerous enemies than we remove...