Random quotations from today

Since I am spending this gorgeous federal holiday in my office waiting for our suite selection lottery number to come up, I’ve had the opportunity to do some honest-to-goodness reading of various sorts, the likes of which I’ve not been able to accomplish in some time. Two statements have stood out thus far, and the connection between them is fascinating to say the least.

From an AP report:
‘Al-Muhajir, also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, became the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike in June. [On a recent tape, he said] “The American people have put their feet on the right path by ... realizing their president's betrayal in supporting Israel… so they voted for something reasonable in the last elections.”’

Funny, somehow I don’t think this endorsement will be heralded on any Internet site or literature celebrating the new congressional majority.

And now, from Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind:
“Near the end of his life, a Radical mob of artisans, in the county of which [Scottish conservative Walter Scott] was sheriff, tried to overturn his carriage and do him harm. This shocked Scott more terribly than anything had had occurred in all his career before: the leveling savagery of the future, skulking behind the fantasies of humanitarians like Bentham, had started up Lucifer-like. ‘And these unwashed artificers are from henceforth to select our legislators,’ he had written a little earlier. ‘What can be expected from them except such a thick-headed plebeian as will be “a hare-brained Hotspur, guided by a whim?”’”

What indeed.

And finally, since Jonathan's blog recently included one of the lengthy monologues from V for Vendetta to commemorate Bonfire Night, I started browsing a website with a number of quotations from that most interesting of movies. I happened upon the following – the introduction of the film – and was struck once again of its truthfulness. Ideas are wonderful, but are they The End? Applied beyond the political, did Christ die for an idea, or for the ransom of individuals… people? Are we devoting our time and energies to ideas, or people? Which of the two are eternal?

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot – I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.
But what of the man? I know his name was Guy Fawkes and I know, in 1605, he attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. But who was he really? What was he like?
We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail. He can be caught, he can be killed and forgotten, but 400 years later, an idea can still change the world.
I've witnessed first hand the power of ideas, I've seen people kill in the name of them, and die defending them.
But you cannot kiss an idea, cannot touch it, or hold it... ideas do not bleed, they do not feel pain, they do not love... and it is not an idea that I miss, it is a man... A man that made me remember the Fifth of November. A man that I will never forget.