History bites U.S.

17 December 2007

Georgie W. doesn't know it, I'm sure, but history has his back, in his big-lie invasion of Iraq.

Michael Barone notes in "Our First Revolution — The Remarkable British Upheaval That Inspired America's Founding Fathers" that in 1689 English pamphleteers wrote of the need to maintain a balance of power in Europe. (Barone's book is about the political and military battles that drove King James II out of the country, making William and Mary king and queen.)

A pamphlet titled "A View of the True Interests of the Several States since the Accession of their Present Majesties to the Imperial Crown of Great Britain" said, "It is a Maxim of True Policy that whensoever any Prince is exalted too high, and becomes formidable to his Neighbors, the other Princes ought to enter into a League together, to pull him down, or at least hinder him from growing greater."

Take that, Saddam!

One more invasion by W. and his Neighbors should smack him down, too.

ooo

I hung up on a begging phone call this morning from some deep-voiced man representing some group raising money for some police charity. He started by saying that recently a police officer was killed in the line of duty in Las Vegas. That's where I cut in and hung up.

Don't police have life insurance, like other workers? Don't they have death benefits? Why should the public have to support these people? Yes, it is tragic when a person protecting the public is killed, but we don't get hit for money for bus drivers killed in wrecks on the job. Astronauts, carpenters, high-steel workers, journalists ... they all die on the job. What makes cops — and firefighters — special? They don't know how to find an insurance agent? The government agency they work for is so ill-funded, or breaking that law?

I should, I suppose, track down what Lost Wages pays its coppers, but fact-checking is not the Blogger way.

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