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Proportional Responses| Posted Saturday, November 24, 2007 at 1:38:33 PM | I'll preface my remarks by saying I'm diverging from my typical political tirade for a day. Also, that I am a firm admirer of the TV program, West Wing.
I was reminded of a murder that took place in Brazil several years ago. A nun, simply trying to help the unfortunate, murdered in a remote section of the country.
As I contemplated what I just heard a number of thoughts came to mind. The first was a speech given by President Bartlett on the West Wing. The conversation in the program pertained to how to respond to the death of American servicemen abroad and Bartlett's comment follows.
"Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation. He could walk across the earth unharmed, cloaked only in the words 'Civis Romanis', I am a Roman citizen. So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens."
The show then went on continuing to discuss the virtue, or merit, of a proportional response. You do this and we'll do that, almost like a dance step.
I don't believe in the value of such methodology where one continues to up the ante until a player drops out.
Our use of the atom bomb in WW11 may have seemed barbaric to some, but. Look at the number of lives saved by that one attack! No one knows how much longer the war would have dragged on and what the cost would have been in lives and fortune.
The known method of a proportional response makes it too easy for our enemies to know exactly what they can get away with. I'm all for throwing out this method of calculation and declaring ourselves as the Roman citizen did. Your transgression against America or the American citizen should be handled so immediately and forcefully that there is no doubt of our national sovereignty. | |
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