184 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
184 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
Draft for an Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto (version 4)
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<p>Substantive changes from version 1 to 2 are <font color="red">marked in red</font>; changes from 2 to 3 are <font color='blue'>marked in blue</font>; changes from 3 to 4 are <font color='purple'>marked in purple</font>.</p>
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<p>Counting email, this now reflects approximately 200 comments from<br />
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across the blogosphere. Thanks for the feedback and suggestions.<br />
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Since this process has to close sometime, I’m declaring that there<br />
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will be at most one more pre-publication draft.</p>
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<p>I will post a fair copy of the final version. For legal purposes,<br />
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this work is ©2002 by Eric S. Raymond. Email me for distribution<br />
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terms — I’m not especially interested in making money from it, but I<br />
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want some artistic control of how it’s used.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>WHEREAS, the year since the terrible events of 9/11 has exposed<br />
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the vacuity and moral confusion of all too many of the thinkers,<br />
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politicians, and activists operating within conventional political<br />
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categories;</p>
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<p>WHEREAS, the Left has failed us by succumbing to reflexive<br />
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anti-Americanism; by apologizing for terrorist acts; by propounding<br />
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squalid theories of moral equivalence; and by blaming the victims of<br />
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evil for the act of evil;</p>
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<p>WHEREAS, the Right has failed us by pushing `anti-terrorist’<br />
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measures which bid fair to be both ineffective and prejudicial to the<br />
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central liberties of a free society; and in some cases by rhetorically<br />
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descending to almost the same level of <font color="red">bigotry</font> as our enemies;</p>
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<p>WHEREAS, even many of the Libertarians from whom we expected more<br />
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intelligence have retreated into a petulant isolationism, refusing to<br />
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recognize that, at this time, using the state to carry the war <font color='purple'>back to the aggressors</font> <em>is</em><br />
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our only practical instrument of self-defense;</p>
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<p>WE THEREFORE ASSERT the following convictions as the basis of<br />
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the anti-idiotarian position:</p>
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<ol>
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<li>
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<p>THAT Western civilization is threatened with the specter of mass death<br />
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perpetrated by nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons placed in the<br />
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hands of terrorists by rogue states;</p>
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</li>
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<li>
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<p>THAT the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attack, and its lesser<br />
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sequels, are motivated by a combination of religious fanaticism and<br />
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a smoldering resentment of the West’s success and <font color='purple'>by their own culture’s failures;</font></p>
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</li>
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<li>
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<p><font color='blue'>THAT the terrorists have declared and are<br />
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pursuing a war not against the vices of Western civilization but<br />
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against its core virtues; against the freedom of thought and speech<br />
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and conscience, against the life of reason; against the equality of<br />
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women, against pluralism and tolerance; against, indeed, all the<br />
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qualities which separate civilized human beings from</font> <font color='purple'>savagery,</font> <font color='blue'>slavery, and<br />
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fanaticism;</font></p>
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</li>
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<li>
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<p>THAT no adjustments of American or Western foreign policy, or<br />
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concessions to the Palestinians, or actions taken against<br />
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globalization, or efforts to alleviate world poverty,<br />
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are of more than incidental interest to these terrorists;</p>
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</li>
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<li>
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<p>THAT, upon their own representation, they will not by dissuaded from<br />
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their violence by any surrender less extreme than the imposition of Islam<br />
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and shari’a law on the kaffir West;</p>
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</li>
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<li>
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<p>THAT, as said terrorists have demonstrated the willingness to use<br />
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civilian airliners as flying bombs to kill thousands of innocent<br />
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people, we would commit a vast crime of moral negligence if we<br />
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underestimated their future malice <font color='red'>even<br />
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<em>without</em> weapons of mass destruction;</font></p>
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</li>
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<li>
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<p>THAT they have sought, and on plausible evidence found, alliance<br />
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with rogue states such as Iraq, <font color='red'>Iran,</font> and<br />
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North Korea; states that are known to have active programs working<br />
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towards the development and delivery of weapons of mass destruction<br />
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that would multiply the terrorists’ ability to commit atrocities by a<br />
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thousandfold;</p>
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</li>
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<li>
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<p>THAT Saddam Hussein poses a particularly clear and present<br />
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danger <font color='purple'>in combination with them,</font> a danger<br />
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demonstrated by his known efforts to develop nuclear weapons, his use<br />
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of chemical weapons even on his own population, his demonstrated<br />
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willingness to commit aggression against peaceful neighbors, and his<br />
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known links to the Islamic terror network in Palestine and<br />
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elsewhere.</p>
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</li>
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</ol>
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<p>WE THEREFORE AFFIRM that both the terrorists and their state<br />
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sponsors have made themselves outlaws from the moral community of man,<br />
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to be dealt with as <font color="purple">rabid dogs</font> are.</p>
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<p>WE FURTHER AFFIRM that the `root cause’ of Islamo-fascist terrorism<br />
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lies in the animating politico-religious ideas of fundamentalist Islam<br />
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and not in any signicant respect elsewhere, and that a central aim of<br />
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the war against terror must be to displace, discredit, and destroy<br />
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those animating ideas.</p>
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<p>WE REJECT, as a self-serving power grab by the least trustworthy<br />
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elements of our own side, the theory that terrorist depredations can<br />
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be effectively prevented by further restrictions on the right of free<br />
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speech, or the right of peacible assembly, or the right to bear<br />
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arms in self-defense; and we strenuously oppose police-state measures<br />
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such as the imposition of national ID cards or airport-level<br />
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surveillance of public areas;</p>
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<p><font color="red">IN GRAVE KNOWLEDGE that the state of war brings<br />
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out the worst in both individual human beings and societies, we reject<br />
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the alternative of ceding to the world’s barbarians the exclusive<br />
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privilege of force;</font></p>
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<p>WE SUPPORT the efforts of the United States of America, its allies,<br />
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and the West to hunt down and capture or kill individual members<br />
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of the <font color='red'>Islamo-fascist</font> terror network;</p>
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<p>WE SUPPORT speedy American and allied military action against the<br />
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rogue states that support terrorism, both as a means of alleviating<br />
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the immediate threat and of deterring future state sponsorship of<br />
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terrorism by the threat of war to the knife.</p>
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<p><font color='red'>WE SUPPORT, in recognition of the fact that the<br />
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military and police cannot be everywhere, efforts to meet the<br />
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distributed threat with a distributed response; </font><font color='blue'>to arm airline pilots, and to recognize as well the<br />
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ordinary citizen’s right and obligation to respond to terrorist<br />
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aggression with effective force.</font></p>
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<p>WE SUPPORT, as an alternative greatly preferable to future<br />
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nuclear/chemical/biological blackmail of the West, the forcible <font color='blue'>overthrowing of the governments of Iraq and of other<br />
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nations that combine sponsorship of terrorism with the possession of<br />
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weapons of mass destruction; and the occupation of those<br />
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nations</font> until such time as the root causes of terrorism have<br />
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been eradicated from their societies.</p>
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<p>WE DEFINE IDIOTARIANISM as the species of delusion<br />
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<em>within</em> the moral community of mankind that gives<br />
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aid and comfort to terrorists and dictators operating outside it.</p>
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<p>WE REJECT the idiotarianism of the Left — the moral blindness that<br />
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refuses to recognize that free markets, individual liberty, and<br />
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experimental science have made the West a fundamentally better place<br />
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than any culture in which jihad, ‘honor killings’, and female genital<br />
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mutilation are daily practices approved by a stultifying religion.</p>
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<p>WE REJECT the idiotarianism of the Right — whether it manifests as<br />
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head-in-the-sand isolationism or as a <font color='purple'>a<br />
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Christian-chauvinist political agenda that echoes the religious<br />
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absolutism of our enemies.</font></p>
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<p>WE ARE MEMBERS OF A CIVILIZATION, and we hold that civilization<br />
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to be worth defending. We have not sought war, but we will fight it<br />
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to the end. We will fight for our civilization in our thoughts, in<br />
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our words, and in our deeds.</p>
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<p>WE HAVE AWAKENED. We have seen the face of evil in the acts of the<br />
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Bin Ladens and Husseins and Arafats of the world; we have seen through<br />
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the lies and self-delusions of the idiotarians, who did so much both to<br />
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make their evil possible before the fact and to deny and excuse it<br />
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afterwards. We shall not flinch from our duty to confront that<br />
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evil.</p>
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<p><font color='purple'>WE SHALL DEMAND as citizens and voters that<br />
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those we delegate to lead pursue the war against terror with an<br />
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unflagging will to victory and all means necessary — while<br />
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remaining always mindful that in the process of fighting the enemy we<br />
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must not stoop to the enemy’s level of contempt for human rights and<br />
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dignity, must not become what we fight;</font></p>
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<p><font color='purple'>WE SHALL REMEMBER that in this struggle more<br />
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than previous conventional wars, the West’s keenest weapons are reason<br />
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and the truth; that it is our obligation as citizens to insist on<br />
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reason and the truth; that we must shine a pitiless light on the lies<br />
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from which terrorist hatred is built; and that we must also be<br />
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vigilant against the expedient lie from our own side, lest our<br />
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victories become tainted and hollow, leaving root causes unaddressed<br />
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and sowing trouble for the future.</font></p>
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<p><font color='purple'>WE HAVE FAITH that we are equal to these<br />
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challenges; we shall not be paralyzed by fear of the enemy, nor<br />
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yet by fear of ourselves;</font></p>
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<p>WE SHALL SHED the moral cowards and the appeasers and the<br />
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apologists; and we shall fight the barbarians and fanatics, and we<br />
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<em>shall</em> defeat them. We shall defeat them in war, crushing<br />
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their dream of dominion; and we shall defeat them in peace, using our<br />
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wealth and freedoms to <font color='blue'>win</font> their women and<br />
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children to civilized ways, and ultimately wiping their diseased and<br />
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virulent <font color='red'>ideologies</font> from the face of the<br />
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Earth.</p>
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<p>THIS WE SWEAR, on the graves of those who died at the World Trade<br />
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Center; and those who died in the Sari Club in Bali; and those who<br />
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died on U.S.S. Cole; and indeed on the graves of all the nameless<br />
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victims in the Middle East itself who have been slaughtered by<br />
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terrorism and rogue states:</p>
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<p>YOU SHALL NOT HAVE DIED IN VAIN.</p>
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<pre>
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Eric S. Raymond
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17 October 2002
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____________________
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(your signature here)
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</pre>
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<p><a href="http://enetation.co.uk/comments.php?user=esr&commentid=83175091">Blogspot comments</a></p>
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