Monday, August 04, 2008

A Moral Giant

RIP Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.

The history of European Communist parties should really be divided in to two periods: BGA (Before Gulag Archipelago) and AGA (After Gulag Archipelago). The few diehards in the free world who hadn't abandoned Communism after Khruschev's speech condemning Stalin were woken up, in large part, by the narrative of Solzhenitsyn.

I do hope that when the moral midgets of our current age, the ones who tell us that torture is acceptable -- nay, necessary! -- against the nearly-ridiculous threat of terrorism[1], when they finally pass beyond this life, Alexander Solzhenitsyn will be there at the pearly gates, ready to beat them to within an inch of their afterlives.

[1]The Soviets believed that the ever-present threat of a NATO first strike justified their Terror. Given that NATO actually had planned first strikes throughout its history, and people advocating first strikes continued to hold positions of power within the US government until the moment the Cold War ended, can we say history has been kinder to the USSR than it will be to the US, where the threats posed by terrorism are miniscule in comparison?

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