Not a sleeping giant
March 31, 2008 – 11:31 pm by JohnAfter September 11, 2001, I remember callers to talk-radio shows (probably Boortz and Hannity) and possibly online columnists (perhaps at TownHall.com or World Net Daily) using the old phrase “they’ve awoken a sleeping giant” to refer to the crimes committed against Americans and the wrath they were about to incur. Using that phrase, sleeping giant, struck me as totally lame because, one, it was stolen from WWII when Pearl Harbor was attacked and, two, it wasn’t even true. It was just some catch-phrase these flag-waving morans had heard and it struck them as poetic or patriotic, which was very astute at one time but was just idiotic in 2001.
Today in the LRC blag, one of my favorite political writers, Anthony Gregory, who only recently seemed to become an active blagger again, relates an email he received from a reader:
Implicit in the claim, by advocates of U.S. intervention, that America was minding her own business when struck by terrorists on 9/11/2001 is the idea that leaving people alone is a virtue.
This could be a good entry point for libertarian education.
I never thought of it that way before.
