"Over the past couple decades, prior to the Bush Era, the people who needed the sort of psychological fulfillment that comes from prancing around as Hofstadterian faux-warriors waging Civilization Wars obtained their fulfillment from...dressing up on the weekend in camouflage costumes and -- rather than playing golf or going fishing -- marched around in militia formations, primed to defend the nation from Janet Reno and her squadrons of hovering U.N. black helicopters. It was equally pathetic, but at least the damage was minimal."

It is a mistake to underestimate this strain of delusion, or to attempt to laugh it away. The damage done in the Oklahoma City bombing was, I guess, minimal in terms of relative body count, but hardly insignificant.

Joel Dyer investigated the "militia" phenomenon in his 1998 book Harvest of Rage. In the subsequent ten years, the economic and social conditions that fostered Timothy McVeigh have only gotten worse.

As our engagement in Iraq winds down, there will be no shortage of demagogues who will be only too happy to shift their focus on who the existential enemy is and encourage (implicitly, if not explicitly) domestic action against the perfidious liberals. ("The knife in the back" theory, for example, will be used to explain our "failure" to eradicate islamism and to justify "patriotic" responses here at home.) Tens of thousands of veterans will be returning home, many of them disaffected and psychologically scarred. Unfortunately, some of these will have the willingness and skill set needed to wreck serious havoc.

The next Democratic president, regardless of who he or she is, will unquestionably have to deal with a resurgence of domestic terrorism.

Der Untertan is the most famous novel by German author Heinrich Mann. It has been translated into English under the titles "Man of Straw," "The Patrioteer," and "The Loyal Subject" (translation by Helmut Peitsch). The title poses a problem for the non-German reader since there is no effective translation of the word 'Untertan' in the sense it was employed by Mann. The 'Subject' of the title conveys a sense of unthinking servility to the state.

Well, thank goodness language evolves. The next translation of the book will be titled "The Neocon."

But I jest.

Kinda.

OK...not really.

I have long wondered at the fear that a small random group of bad actors were supposed to inspire in the mightiest military power ever.

How did this happen, if not by manipulation and chicanery?

I can't believe that we were thrown into a state of panic that is supposed to have lasted 7 years and counting by a group of 20 hijackers. We have 1.4 million women and men in our military.

We have a 600 Billion dollar annual military budget. We have the greatest arsenal fighter planes, war ships, and submarines the world has ever known. We have sufficient nuclear weapons to render the earth itself uninhabitable.

The fear of the bogey man should not be sufficient to cause us to sell out to the biggest FEARLEADER!

Why should we not rise up en mass when one of our leader's handpicked aides talks of the legality of crushing a child's testicles to get a terrorist to talk?

How did we sink so low as a nation that we should allow our government to tell us to report our friends and neighbors to the authorities if we suspect their motives?

Why is it us lily-livered liberals who are the only ones who seem to have the conjones (as of yet uncrushed) to speak out against the immunizing of the telecom companies? Against the threats to freedom of speech and assembly? How can we not see that we are being manipulated by the kleptocracy that rules this country?

I have to go and lie down now.

Pax

"Steyn deeply flatters himself into believing that only he and his tragically small (and shrinking) band of warrior-comrades can bear the "psychologically exhausting" burden of defending The West and its freedoms."

One wonders how many freedoms Steyn's cohort will happily give away in the name of fighting for same.

Der Untertan is the most famous novel by German author Heinrich Mann. It has been translated into English under the titles "Man of Straw," "The Patrioteer," and "The Loyal Subject" (translation by Helmut Peitsch). The title poses a problem for the non-German reader since there is no effective translation of the word 'Untertan' in the sense it was employed by Mann. The 'Subject' of the title conveys a sense of unthinking servility to the state.

Although the novel was completed in July 1914, shortly before the outbreak of World War I, it was not published until 1918 (by Kurt Wolff Verlag of Leipzig). After the war, the novel enjoyed considerable popularity, given its critiques of the ultra-nationalism of Wilhelmine Germany.

"Der Untertan" portrays the life of Diederich Hessling, a slavish and fanatical admirer of Kaiser Wilhelm II, as an archetype of nationalist Wilhelmine Germany. Hessling is unthinkingly obedient to authority and maintains a rigid dedication to the nationalist goals of the German state.

Throughout the novel, Hessling's inflexible ideals are often contradicted by his actions: he preaches bravery but is a coward; he is the strongest proponent of the military but seeks to be excused from his obligatory military service; his greatest political opponents are the revolutionary Social Democrats, yet he uses his influence to help send his hometown's SPD candidate to the Reichstag to defeat his Liberal competitors in business; he starts vicious rumors against the latter and then dissociates himself from them; he preaches and enforces Christian virtues upon others but lies, cheats, and regularly commits infidelity.

Diederich's ideals: blood and iron, and the might of opulent power, are exposed as hollowness and weakness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Untertan

To beard... check this out:

http://www.bartleby.com/81/1533.html

Another meaning could be in an Auto-da-fe... once the victim was hoisted above the fire to roast... a long pole with a flame at the end would be thrust into the face burning off the beard. Perhaps this was the practice to control wild animals like bears and lions by thrusting fire into the face.

CIA... taking notes? Could be a nice conterpart to the waterboarding.