XDA

Being secure in my coolness, such as it is, or resigned to me geekdom (take your pick), I have no problem with revealing that I watch Star Trek and have since I was a boy in 1966. In the original series, there was one episode (Mirror, Mirror) where Kirk and company somehow hooked up with a parallel universe where the United Federation of Planets (here) was the evil Empire of Earth, where their symbol was a picture of Earth with a dagger through (or behind) it. Evil Spock had a goatee. They did a two part episode (Through a Mirror, Darkly, pts. 1 & 2) on the recent "Enterprise" series with the same parallel Evil Earth (they even recreated the benign scene at the end of First Contact, where Dr. Zefram Cochrane meets the Vulcans and plays them Ooby Dooby (performed by Roy Orbison), but this time, in the alternate universe, Cochran pulls out a short shotgun and kills the Vulcan). The background images during the opening credits to the show were more martial and the soundtrack was too. Actually, it was all quite well done. It all ends in tears though.

But the rather bad TV science fiction got me thinking about American History in the 20th Century. We have been the good guys playing rock and roll rather than gunning down visitors, taking their ship and enslaving their entire population. We fight hard, when we or our friends are attacked, and we cause a lot of deaths but we don't conquer or enslave and we've held out a hand of kindness often, even to our former enemies. I'm beginning to think that it might become necessary in the near future for us to say no more mister nice guy. I don't think anyone in June, 1942, when the fourth Jap carrier went under at Midway, knew that the tide had turned and it was going to be non-stop victory after victory until the war ended. Likewise, I can't say that we've turned the corner the other way in the current war. But it sure doesn't feel like we're winning right now.

A Japanese sneak attack which killed just over 2,200 and nearly destroyed the Pacific fleet was sufficient to get us serious about fighting and winning that war. Apparently a sneak attack which killed 3,000 Americans in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania doesn't have the same power to full us with the terrible resolve it will take to fight a long, hard fight and win. But we see from recent events that the radical Islamicists will not stop, cannot be appeased, will not be talked out of their murderous ways; and will one day succeed in a terrible attack (probably a dirty bomb; maybe a nuclear weapon) which will finally do the trick and get even the Democrats serious about fighting and winning. Terrible innocent sacrifice to get there, but that's how the stars are lining up and I can't see any other way to victory right now. Of course, in 1985 I was pretty convinced we would nearly all die in a Soviet/American nuclear war, so I could be wrong.

I hope I am.

I'm thinking about growing a goatee, though.

Diomedes already has his.