Betrayal and treason. That such should be found so near to one's own heart. Metaphorically speaking.
Citizens, I tell you this not as an announcement, but as a warning, as a cautionary tale.
Treason must be rooted out. Treachery must be pulled up from source. It must be cut out. It must be burned through.
"Treason, sedition." It's been so long since last those words echoed. "Treason, sedition." "Treason, sedition." That they should echo so nearby. That the one accused and guilty should be so near at hand. Yes, j'accuse.
I'm not melancholy about it. I might be shocked. I think I am shocked. But things are as things are. And things must be done relative to the things that are. For every action and &c. Which is a statement that holds true in most situations. As always, there are exception. But this is no exception.
This is not a question of ethical behavior or morality.
Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Man's vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge remains imperfect and howevermuch he comes to value his judgements ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.
Herein is an issue of what is and what is not. It is binary. It is things done and left undone.
In aerodynamics, because one has only got the thing on paper at first, one uses dimensionless coefficients: ratios of this to that--centimeters, grams, seconds all neatly cancelling out above and below. This allows one to use models, arrange an airflow to measure what one is interested in, and scale the wind-tunnel results all the way up to reality, without running into too many unknowns, because these coefficients are good for all dimensions. Traditionally they are named after people--Reynolds, Prandtl, Nusselt, Mach--but the question here is, how about a number of this new name, this name I know? How's chances for that?
Not good. The parabola which this one has traveled is unexpected. The parameters breed like mosquitoes in the bayou, faster than one can knock them off. Hunger, compromise, money, paranoia, fascination, memory, comfort, potential, seduction, guilt. Actually, guilt gets a minus sign on this one, even if guilt is trendy in these situations.
Do you find it a little schizoid breaking up a flight profile into segments of responsibility? It's half-bullet and half-arrow. Rockets will demand this, not us. So. Perhaps one uses a rifle, a radio, a typewriter. Some typewriters in some places have killed many more than any one rocket could. Consider it. You are either alone absolutely, alone with your own death, or you take part in the larger enterprise, and you share in the deaths of others. Are we not all one? Which is your choice? The greater vehicle or the lesser vehicle?
Yeah, rocket science, kids.
If they ask me if this one was always crazy, I will say it was the country. The country turned them out. But I will tell them the truth. That among us was the one who was responsible. Not that we have all the details. But they will understand who it was and none other who shaped events along such a calamitous course. Means and ends are of little moment here. Idle speculations. But even though this one would carry the draft of this murderous plan with them to the grave, it will nontheless be known in all its infamy to one's Maker, if Maker there be, and as that is so, so shall it be made known the least of men. All in the fullness of time. It was never me.
But I will speak to that one, the one accused and guilty.
You came forward to take part in a work. But you were a witness against yourself. You sat in judgement on your own deeds. You put your own allowances before the judgements of history and you broke with the body of which you were pledged a part and poisoned it in all its enterprise. Hear me. I spoke to you, I spoke for you, and you only and you turned a deaf ear to me. If what we do is not holy, then man is nothing but antic clay. All acted in good faith according to their parts. For it was required of none to give more than he or she possessed nor was anyone's share compared to another's. Only each was called upon to empty out his or her heart in common and one did not.
Can you tell me who that one was?
What joins us together is not the sharing of work, not the sharing of bread, but the sharing of enemies. But if I was your enemy, with whom would you have shared me? With whom? Your compatriots? Where are they now? What broken shapes do you call your companions now?
Even if you should have stood your ground, what ground was it?
I wash my hands of this.
[ooc: The plot thickens...]
Citizens, I tell you this not as an announcement, but as a warning, as a cautionary tale.
Treason must be rooted out. Treachery must be pulled up from source. It must be cut out. It must be burned through.
"Treason, sedition." It's been so long since last those words echoed. "Treason, sedition." "Treason, sedition." That they should echo so nearby. That the one accused and guilty should be so near at hand. Yes, j'accuse.
I'm not melancholy about it. I might be shocked. I think I am shocked. But things are as things are. And things must be done relative to the things that are. For every action and &c. Which is a statement that holds true in most situations. As always, there are exception. But this is no exception.
This is not a question of ethical behavior or morality.
Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Man's vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge remains imperfect and howevermuch he comes to value his judgements ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.
Herein is an issue of what is and what is not. It is binary. It is things done and left undone.
In aerodynamics, because one has only got the thing on paper at first, one uses dimensionless coefficients: ratios of this to that--centimeters, grams, seconds all neatly cancelling out above and below. This allows one to use models, arrange an airflow to measure what one is interested in, and scale the wind-tunnel results all the way up to reality, without running into too many unknowns, because these coefficients are good for all dimensions. Traditionally they are named after people--Reynolds, Prandtl, Nusselt, Mach--but the question here is, how about a number of this new name, this name I know? How's chances for that?
Not good. The parabola which this one has traveled is unexpected. The parameters breed like mosquitoes in the bayou, faster than one can knock them off. Hunger, compromise, money, paranoia, fascination, memory, comfort, potential, seduction, guilt. Actually, guilt gets a minus sign on this one, even if guilt is trendy in these situations.
Do you find it a little schizoid breaking up a flight profile into segments of responsibility? It's half-bullet and half-arrow. Rockets will demand this, not us. So. Perhaps one uses a rifle, a radio, a typewriter. Some typewriters in some places have killed many more than any one rocket could. Consider it. You are either alone absolutely, alone with your own death, or you take part in the larger enterprise, and you share in the deaths of others. Are we not all one? Which is your choice? The greater vehicle or the lesser vehicle?
Yeah, rocket science, kids.
If they ask me if this one was always crazy, I will say it was the country. The country turned them out. But I will tell them the truth. That among us was the one who was responsible. Not that we have all the details. But they will understand who it was and none other who shaped events along such a calamitous course. Means and ends are of little moment here. Idle speculations. But even though this one would carry the draft of this murderous plan with them to the grave, it will nontheless be known in all its infamy to one's Maker, if Maker there be, and as that is so, so shall it be made known the least of men. All in the fullness of time. It was never me.
But I will speak to that one, the one accused and guilty.
You came forward to take part in a work. But you were a witness against yourself. You sat in judgement on your own deeds. You put your own allowances before the judgements of history and you broke with the body of which you were pledged a part and poisoned it in all its enterprise. Hear me. I spoke to you, I spoke for you, and you only and you turned a deaf ear to me. If what we do is not holy, then man is nothing but antic clay. All acted in good faith according to their parts. For it was required of none to give more than he or she possessed nor was anyone's share compared to another's. Only each was called upon to empty out his or her heart in common and one did not.
Can you tell me who that one was?
What joins us together is not the sharing of work, not the sharing of bread, but the sharing of enemies. But if I was your enemy, with whom would you have shared me? With whom? Your compatriots? Where are they now? What broken shapes do you call your companions now?
Even if you should have stood your ground, what ground was it?
I wash my hands of this.
[ooc: The plot thickens...]
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