by sehoy » September 17th, 2006, 11:07 am
By the way, speaking of coincidences:
September 16, 2006
What a difference 25 years can make…or not.
Pope Benedict XVI has, appropriately, stopped just short of apologizing to the perpetually offended and angry Islamists, for daring to remind the world that violence is not the perfect means to effect conversion and promote faith, and that Islam has not progressed markedly away from the sword in some hundreds of years. An apology would be useless, of course, because one could never be crafted to placate them, short of Benedict’s bloody head on a silver platter.
Proving Benedict’s point, of course, radical Islamists have decided that introspection is unappetizing, and thus they have, quite predictably, begun to rampage, burn, pillage, and otherwise carry on pretty much the way people do when they feel trapped and want to change the subject.
I’m going to write more on that later, but what has struck me today is this talk of Benedict being assassinated in Turkey. There is a best-selling book predicting it, and it is apparently the big topic of conversation in certain chat rooms.
I can’t remember a time when the assassination of presidents and popes was so openly discussed by so many, and so clearly considered a desirable event by people who have lost their moral compasses.
All I can say to these folks is: be careful what you wish for.
In March of 1981 an attempt was made on the life of Ronald Reagan. Only a few months later, in May of ‘81, an attempt was made on the life of Pope John Paul II. Payback was a bitch.
Even though the attempt on Reagan’s life was born from a sick celebrity-obsession (quite unlike the attempt on John Paul’s life, which was political), those two very hated men, once recovered, ended up being enormously effective tools in the beating back of an evil ideology whose tentacles were vastly flung. Who knows if those two seemingly unrelated assasssination attempts, and the fortitude and courage with which the targets endured them, didn’t create a cosmic shift of sorts.
Hey, I’m entertaining a notion here - there are things seen and unseen.
As I wrote earlier this year, though on a different subject:
There have only been 43 American Presidents in 230 years. There have only been 267 popes in 2000 years. There have been billions of other people. Greatness is not an illusion.
By greatness, I don’t mean a quality of goodness, but that aspect of a public person which raises them above the ordinary. Popes and Presidents, by definition, crowd that category and, you know, I don’t think the universe likes it when its great men are targeted like this, or struck down.
Call it Karma. Call it God, or “Cosmic energy” or whatever you like. I don’t think it liked those assassination attempts in 1981, for things certainly (and quickly) doubled back and bit the asses of those who applauded the violence (was it Peggy Noonan who wrote that when Reagan was shot she heard cheers in the newsroom? I don’t remember, but I do remember reading that a few on the left had champagne bottles in the fridge, hoping he’d die.)
Today, were attempts made on the lives of President Bush or Pope Benedict XVI, I have no doubt that there would be cheers in some newsrooms (hello, NYT) and hopes that either (or both) would die. I have no doubt that some would pop their corks in gleeful anticipation.
And funnily enough, they’d mostly be the same people who did so in 1981.
If you’re one of those pathetic people intrigued with the idea of someone, or some entity, assassinating Bush or Benedict, heed my warning - be careful what you wish for. Payback will be a bitch. And you won’t see it coming. You didn’t last time.
Und ich habe so viel Deutsch studiert! Ich werde nie perfekt.
You might want to read 
