Circling The Drain

I meant to comment on this when it happened a few days ago:

Rome’s nude statues covered up ahead of Rouhani visit

In further concession to Iranian president, official dinner with Italian PM does not include wine on the menu

What a craven, flabby, neutered thing our civilization has become. This is what ACID syndrome does to its victims: it sickens and enervates them with doubt; it destroys and disables their confidence, potency, and virility; it paralyzes them in the face of peril; it turns their bones and sinews to jelly.

In contrast: Winston Churchill, who was to host a dinner attended by ibn Saud, was told by the Arabian king that those attending must not drink or smoke in his presence. His response?

I said that if it was his religion that made him say such things, my religion prescribed as an absolute sacred ritual smoking cigars and drinking alcohol before, after and if need be during, all meals and the intervals between them. Complete surrender.

10 Comments

  1. Wilbur Hassenfus says

    They’re not surrendering to Rouhani. They’re symbolically humiliating the Italian people before him to demonstrate their own power, and their own contempt for their subjects.

    Churchill liked and identified with the British people. His cigar was their cigar. His wine was their wine. He regarded himself as their representative, not their owner. There’s no parallel there.

    Posted January 30, 2016 at 9:17 pm | Permalink
  2. Malcolm says

    No, I don’t think that’s right. They are making a religious gesture of atonement. Their disease is such that this grotesque perversion is what the religion of their fathers has become.

    Posted January 30, 2016 at 11:14 pm | Permalink
  3. Whitewall says

    “Their disease is such that this grotesque perversion is what the religion of their fathers has become.” Their religion as well as their culture and civilization. Symbolic of the decline of the Western world.

    Posted January 31, 2016 at 8:59 am | Permalink
  4. The one eyed man says

    No doubt the Italians were simply paying homage to the Bush administration.

    http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/01/29/statues.htm

    In other news: in a concession to Benjamin Netanyahu, the official dinner with the Italian PM does not include pork on the menu.

    Posted January 31, 2016 at 6:45 pm | Permalink
  5. Malcolm says

    I was just as irate about that Ashcroft story when it happened as I am about this one.

    You can’t troll me with Bush-administration stories. Sorry.

    Re Netanyahu: are you thinking of this?

    Posted January 31, 2016 at 7:16 pm | Permalink
  6. Whitewall says

    Too much Merkel, too little masculinity.
    https://www.rt.com/op-edge/329241-europes-tragedy-merkel-immigration/

    Posted January 31, 2016 at 7:26 pm | Permalink
  7. The one eyed man says

    I would never troll you about the Bush administration. Your two votes for the most catastrophic administration in American history are nothing to be ashamed of. Well, OK, maybe they are. But I would never troll you about it.

    Netanyahu already established himself as a treif-eater when he dined with Sheldon Adelson, so there is nothing untoward about inviting him to a restaurant where others are indulging in porcine pleasure. Nor is a restaurant where others are swallowing sausages and gorging on guanciale tantamount to a state dinner where the dignitaries all munch the menu.

    Most people believe that when you entertain a guest, you avoid serving food or displaying art which the guest would find grossly offensive. This has nothing to do with being craven, flabby, or neutered. It is simply a matter of acting with decency and thoughtfulness.

    Posted January 31, 2016 at 8:50 pm | Permalink
  8. It pains me to acknowledge (because of my Jewish ethnicity — not my religiosity) that ultra-Orthodox Jews tend to be extremely intolerant of any Jew who doesn’t adhere to a kosher diet. But that is how they have always been and why they tend to live in total isolation from other Jews. But at least, they don’t go around cutting off the heads of those they deem to be non-believers.

    Similarly, ultra-orthodox Leftists, like the OEM troll, are extremely devoted to Leftist politicians, like the execrable 0bama, Clinton and Pelosi (just to name a smattering of that steaming pile). I suppose that is why they think they can rile normal conservative Americans by mocking idiots like the former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who happens to be a Republican.

    Posted January 31, 2016 at 9:35 pm | Permalink
  9. Malcolm says

    It is simply a matter of acting with decency and thoughtfulness.

    Yes, yes, of course. I’m sure the next time one of us visits Tehran, the Iranians will stop hanging gays.

    It is one thing not to serve pork to a Muslim. It is quite another to squirrel away in shame the highest achievements of one’s civilization when entertaining the emissary of a culture that has, for 1,400 years, fought ceaselessly for that civilization’s destruction.

    But of course, I’m forgetting: you are a man of the modern Left. Yes, of course, Mr. Rouhani, for whom the very existence of our civilization is a daily and disgusting offense, must have his “safe space”, in the very cradle of the West.

    How craven can you be, Peter? You should be ashamed of yourself.

    Posted January 31, 2016 at 10:10 pm | Permalink
  10. JK says

    Radio talk show host Thom Hartmann, the number one liberal talker in the nation [also] made a reference to former Attorney John Ashcroft covering up a nude statue at the Department of Justice doing his tenure. Maher stopped him right there.

    “Except when it happened in this country, the liberals laughed at him and they opposed him,” Maher told Hartmann. “I wish they would have the same enthusiasm for intolerance elsewhere in the world as they do for Christians here at home who really aren’t a problem because they don’t really get their way. It’s laughable.”

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/01/30/bill_maher_liberals_would_have_same_intolerance_for_muslims_christians_at_home.html

    Posted February 1, 2016 at 1:57 pm | Permalink

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