F3/Gamucci--7-6-11.Candy Nuts

Aye, we planted the ShovelFlag in the Wet Gloom and the Faithful gathered:

Bootlegger

Fargo

Rook

CrotchRocket

Holtz

Moniteur

Waco

Lauder

Wichita

Achtung Baby

RedWarrior

Pomfret

Antonio Table

Brooks

74

BlackBird

Haywood

Sweeper

McNulty

Silence

Robocop

DarkWarrior

Mizer

Commodore Griswold

THE Rock

Critter

McNugget

RedRider

OBT

That Thang:

                Run to the Brickyard

                                Pusherama

                Run to Senator Ramos’ Office

                                Six Minutes of Mary

                Run to Harper Valley

                                Randorama

                Run to Garfunkel Bridge

                                Robert Plants (2X)

                Run to Back Forty

                                Lunge Walk

                                Froggies

                                Ollie Norths

                Run to Ramos’ Office

NakedMan Moleskin:

1.       WarBaby:  Fargo—33, you bastard, you killed Kenny.

2.       WarDaddy:  Achtung Baby—51, God bless your ancient hide. 

3.       FNGs:

a.       Critter—an AG-er, with a great head of hair an plenty of Whodat tude.

b.      Lauder—AG firstimer on Saturday and back for a Downpainment on Wednesday.  Something’s wrong with you Brother.

4.       Today’s Chuck:  Chuck Norris swims in Seattle without a life vest.

5.       Today’s Sweepertee:  Dashboard Jesus by Anonymous.  Many versions, but Cool Hand Luke’s is the best.  Banjo’s make McNulty cry Brothers. 

6.       Class-4 Unilateral Rebrand: 

A fact well known to the Faithful is that once named—always named—unless something good happens (rare) or you keep whining about your name (see Crotchrocket f/k/a Davy).  In the case of RedRider, something good happened.  He was Lawnmower, which made no sense and sounded lame.  When the Faithful discovered that LawnMower had actually pinned Dan Gable (best quote:  “once you’ve wrestled, anything else in life is easy”) in n all-Virginia Scholastic Grappler Showdown in 1984, by popular demand Lawnmower got re-branded as RedRider (“Lunatic Fringe”, Google it if you don’t get it).  That’s a cool nickname.  It drove poor CrotchRocket nuts. 

So the Faithful were shocked this morning when RedRider tried a Class-3 Unilateral Rebrand.   Class 1 is where your name is bad and you whine a lot but don’t actually have the temerity to start calling yourself by a new name (cf. Crotchrocket f/k/a Davy)—Class 2 is when your name is bad and you do re-brand—Class 3 is when your name is great and you whine anyway, but Class 4?  Class 4 is what RedRider pulled this AM.  That is where you have a great name and you pull a Unilateral Rebrand to make it even better.  So, and of course the Faithful called him on it immediately, we just could NOT let RedRider rebrand as “Rough Rider”.  That’s a Class-4 UR and it’s never been tried before.  Only by the grace of Gorwin do we not rebrand you “Davy”, RedRider.  Only Gorwin has saved you from that.  Anon.  Don’t do it again.  You killed Kenny.

7.       Today’s Goofy: 

One of Goofy’s favorite 19^th Century British philosophers was John Stuart Mill.  One day Goofy quoted him to Detco:  "War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things.  The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling that thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.  The person who has nothing for which he will fight, nothing that is more important than his own personal safety is a more miserable creature and has no chance of ever being free unless by the efforts of greater men than himself." 

Detco:   What’s that  mean Goofy?

Goofy:  Just this.  Just this:

I have never met an American (soldier or civilian) who openly professed a love for warfare or advocated it strategically where a non-violent option was available.  In short, I have never met a war monger.  I am not contending that such people do not exist, just that I have never met him--or, I have met him and he kept his violent proclivities hidden from me. 

It seems to me that a significant segment of the American populace believes in the existence of war mongers amongst us, feels compelled to oppose them and thinks that they can argue them out of their blood lust.  "Give Peace a Chance" they say.  Or, "what if they had a war and nobody came?"  Their logic seems to be that war is a tango that takes two, so remove one willing participant and the dancing will stop, as if aggression is fueled not by the desire to subjugate the weak, but by the mere existence of opposition in the strong.  Ergo, remove the opposition, and the aggression, starved of fuel, dissipates into the breeze like pink stardust.  Bliss.  No war.  Peace wins. 

I actually like this theory and can think of only one practical objection:  there is not a single example in the recorded history of man where it has worked.  In fact, history teaches us the opposite.  Aggression continues until sated by the total subjugation of the aggressee by the aggressor, successful resistance by the aggressee to the aggressor or the intercession of a third-party on behalf of aggressee against the aggressor.  If "they" give a war and "we" don't show up, "they" will not go home and put flowers in their hair and dance the Fandango.  They will simply take our unwillingness to defend ourselves as a sign of the bankruptcy of our moral will and feel free to take from us at no cost that for which "they" were willing to fight, but "we" were not.

We can wish all we want for peace, and when confronted unprepared by an insatiable aggressor cry "but, that's not fair" until we are United Nations Blue in the face, but that will not keep us free.  These kinds of Wishes and Buts are the Candy Nuts that would be the end of us all.