In the aftermath of 9/11 we heard the usual liberal cries for a reasoned, proportional response. The term is an exercise in idiocy if one thinks further than the warm, fuzzy, pseudo-civilized sound the concept invokes that characterizes liberal thinking. What does proportional response mean in the real world beyond the touchy-feely world of the liberal?

    On 9/11 mass murderers executed a terrorist plot against the United States that killed almost three thousand of our civilian population. The proportional response demanded by our liberals would entail our going to a Muslim country, hijacking several of their commercial aircraft, and crashing them into structures containing three thousand innocent Muslim civilians killing all as well as those sent to execute this act of retribution. This, while leaving the planners of the terrorist act alive and free to attack us again. Do we seriously want to attempt proportional response or do we want to apprehend and exterminate the root organizations that launched the plot so that they will not be able to attack our country again?

    Any sentient human being with a few brain cells still intact should be able to see the faults in the logic behind proportional response.

    In microcosm consider the typical interaction between the schoolyard bully and his targets. All who have gone through primary schooling have probably had to deal with this situation. The schoolyard bully will target those he perceives least able to defend themselves and, despite numerical superiority, the victims will not be disposed to defend themselves. Their acquiescence emboldens the aggressor and life becomes extremely difficult for his victims.

    The situation is exacerbated because, normally, the bully attracts a group of followers who avoid victimization by becoming part of his entourage and they become minor terrorists as the bullies satellites. Their power exists only through the protection of the bully’s reputation and the fear others have of him. Nevertheless, those subjugated live in fear that to resist even the subsidiary members of the gang will bring down the wrath of the gang leader.

    The problem becomes; how to deal with the situation? The school administration operates in ignorance of the situation and, when problems surface, generally treat them as isolated instances of "boys just being boys." The parents, busy with their own daily problems advise their children to "stick-up-for-yourself" and then go about their adult business. In truth they are, themselves, probably trying to deal with other forms of intimidation at work and in other aspects of their daily lives. In this vacuum, the school yard extortionist basks in the admiration of his lackeys and the terror of his victims. Those oppressed by them find each day a terrifying ordeal to be gotten through going to school, in the school yard, and returning home after school. I know because once, when I was very young, I was one of them.

    Most deal with the problem by appeasement and hope the bully will leave them alone. This is the power of the extortionist. His mantra is, if you pay me in one way or another I will leave you in relative peace. In opting to buy peace the victims sell their dignity but still live under the oppression of the bully. Those willing to unjustly do violence to others are never satisfied and occasionally subject their victims to a variety of little tortures, if only a threat, just to maintain their power and remind their victims that they are not free of his power. This is the way of the world and it matters little if the victims are school children, shop keepers, nations, an oppressed group, or innocents killed by those who use terror as a political tool.

    In the liberal world of unreality, those who would oppress others are dealt with by trying to "understand" the oppressors viewpoint. They then try to negotiate with him to reach an "equitable solution" so that everyone can live in peace. Any opposition is metered out in "measured" or "proportional responses" which serve only to shore up the fiction that they are bravely dealing with the aggression in a civilized manner, maintaining some kind of dignity while hoping desperately that they are not provoking the oppressor into still more aggression.
 
By "giving peace a chance" the appeasers are selling their souls to evil. By negotiating with those who would oppress them they are little better than the thousands of battered woman who live in constant fear that they might do something to provoke their oppressor. This viewpoint assumes that they must have done something wrong and therefore deserve being brutalized.

    The alternative to appeasement is justifiable aggression or self defense. I learned early in life as an Irish Catholic kid attending a parochial school in The Bronx that there are those who oppress and those who submit to oppression. This did not require a PhD in behavioral science to figure out. With great trepidation I made a decision to resist the school bully. To my amazement he folded after being struck in the face three or four times with my fist. This was a decidedly disproportionate response but it solved my problem and the problem of several of my more timid classmates.

    Measured or proportional response doesn't’t work. Those who antagonize you must be subjected to as much pain as you can deliver, enough to cause him to fear you. If he overcomes his fear and comes for you again you must repeat the lesson only with much greater force until he understands that the space you choose to occupy is the space he must vacate when you appear. I learned this over half a century ago. I did not always come away the victor in my various youthful confrontations but I did always manage to inflict enough damage on my, would be, tormentors to have them understand that the price of a conflict with me would be a lot of pain and some of their blood.
 

    In the military I was taught the very practical lesson that the enemy you leave dead on the battlefield is one less who will be trying to kill you or your comrades the next day. In these things there is only winning or losing, living or dying; there is no such thing as proportional response if you want to live and win.

    The events on 9/11 should have awakened us to the reality that our world is a dangerous place and it is foolish to consider it in the unreality of John Lennon’s illusionary world described in his song "Imagine." Would that we lived in the Utopian world he describes where there is no violence or need for good men to stand against evil. To the smarmy liberal/socialists in academia who do such an insidious job conditioning a foolish segment our young people to hate their country and love socialism.  This is a totally unacceptable position. It is, however, the viewpoint of the warrior who must risk his life to protect such human garbage so that they may have the right to malign our country and the people that go in harms way to defend it.

    Those who discover within themselves the will to stand up and fight those who would oppress can go two ways. They, with their new found power, can use it to become an oppressor themselves or they can use it to protect those who are powerless. Even if one chooses to use their power to protect, it is amazing how many will want to live under that protection and pay tribute for the protection. This was the basis of feudalism. A warrior, in exchange for the protection he offers to the serfs, demands tribute for that protection. The serfs gained nothing, they only traded one oppressor for another. In contrast, our modern day American warriors, all volunteers, demand no tribute except the honor to serve their country and the respect of the citizens whom they protect. They accrue great personal honor but get little respect or gratitude from those they protect after the body bags are counted and processed and the danger to the nation is over.

    As I write this our sons are again in harms way. My only son is somewhere out there, an Army veteran of 25-years in Military Special Operations. We never really know where he is when he goes on a mission. Security is so tight in his particular unit that even his family, is not privy to that information. We only know that if Special Operations are being conduced anywhere in the world, he is most probably involved in a dangerous role. So my daughter-in-law, my three grandchildren, and I wait; hoping and praying for his safe return. Someone once observed that, "They also serve who stand and wait."

    As our sons go in harms way, the media is demanding their "First Amendment" right to publish sensitive operational details that could get them killed. Some of our "honorable" members of Congress also seem unable to resist leaking sensitive information that they are bound not to reveal.

    The Constitution has a way of dealing with those who give aid and comfort to the enemy. It is called treason. Although, there are those who have chosen to betray our national security in Congress, the media, and in our entertainment industry they do so with impunity since few are ever actually charged with treason. We must rethink our position on this and begin to charge and prosecute those who put our people in danger to show that we will not tolerate such reckless anti-American behavior.

    Many who demonstrate against our use of force in our national defense simply fear having to do their duty in defense of our way of life or sending their sons. As a caller on a recent  talk show indicated, they do not want their son to have to fight but are comfortable if someone else’s son is sent to defend our country in his place. This is despicable. Others have emerged from under their academic rocks to indict our country as being morally equivalent to the terrorists. However, none seem willing to immigrate to freedom in the countries that sponsor terrorism to escape the"American oppression" they claim is rampant.

    Happily, surprisingly, these America hating academics are getting so much backlash from their students and general public opinion that they are now claiming that they are being denied their First Amendment rights because so many find their libelous, anti-American remarks intolerable and are using their own First Amendment rights to stand up and say so. To the liberal/socialist mind, only they are to be permitted Constitutional rights, those who disagree with their Anti-American venom are, somehow, not to be allowed theirs. This is a classic example of what I call the "Berkeley Syndrome", a disease that appeared in the ‘60's that, in my opinion, should be recognized as a destroyer of American values and purged from American life. To the liberal/socialist mind even patriotism in America is seen as a form of discrimination because our patriotism counters and repudiates their warped world view.  After all, they whine, who are we to hold our way of life out as preferable to any other?
 

    It is gratifying to this old American that so many of the young Americans in our institutions of higher learning seem to be able to see through the socialistic proclivities of their professors and are rejecting their venom. Perhaps I have been too cynical and there is hope for the youth of America. If enough stand up and reject the socialistic dogma that has passed for intellectual discourse in our universities over the past 60-years, those in academia who preach hatred for our way of life might find themselves unemployed, replaced by those who truly respect free speech and appreciate the genius of our founding fathers and the American way of life.

    One might think that the carnage of 9/11 and the other terrorist attacks by radical Islam over the past fifty years would serve to educate the cowardly appeasers of the world but they have not. The recent terrorist attacks on Israel by Hamas from Gaza and the apparently coordinated rocket attacks by Hezbolla from Lebanon provoked a defensive response by the Israeli Defense Force.  Once again, we hear world criticism calling for proportional response by the victim, Israel, with no criticism of the perpetrators of this latest terrorism.

    The study of world history shows that no meaningful or lasting peace has ever resulted from war unless one of the combatants has been forced into an unconditional surrender.  We have seen Israel attempt to trade conquered land for peace only to be attacked from the relinquished land.  It occurs to me that Israel might be better served by adopting a policy in which no land secured in defense of its country will be relinquished in the future and the conquered territory will be permanently annexed into the State of Israel.  The lesson to be learned is that there must be a meaningful and permanent penalty for terrorism and aggression.  Forcing terrorists to wander homeless in the dessert for forty years or so might temper their rabidly aggressive proclivities.

    Because history no longer seems to be taught in our State public schools, few remember that it has only been in the past century that conquered land was not only restored to the conquered but also the conquering nation paid for the restoration of the aggressor country.  In past centuries territory acquired in war became the victors property and the conquered people considered themselves fortunate if they weren't reduced to slavery.  It wasn't until the "Imperialistic" United States of America liberated Europe twice in the 20th Century that restoration and compensation for the conquered became the rule.  It doesn't make much sense to me either.