The Summer of War never ended, man:
For those of you have yet to see 300, do yourselves a favor and see it. (Warning: Spoiler Alert)
This movie is not just about the past. It’s about today. Right now.
It’s about each one of you who stands in the breach against the enemy.
And it’s about each one of you who stands against the enemy within, who would happily widen that breach.
Today’s enemy is Islamofascism, but it is little different from the hordes following the tyrannical King Xerxes.
Today’s enemy within is the left, both at home and across the globe. And they too are little different from the scheming legislator Theron and the vile Ephori, who were willing—even eager—to see all Sparta kneel before Xerxes, just to gain power.
, do yourselves a favor and see it. (Warning: Spoiler Alert)It’s funny how often life echoes ridiculously homoerotic comic books GRAPHIC NOVELS THANKYOUVERYMUCH. But how to counter this swarthy, swishy threat to all that is good and decent in the World Wrestling Federation?
The left would see us all destroyed for nothing more than their own vile power and purposes. It is up to us—all of us—to stop them.
If 300 can hold of a million, you can make a difference.
You are the tip of the spear. You are Leonides.
Feel like the left is too powerful? Keep fighting.
Does it seem like their arrows are blotting out the sun? Fight in the shade.
Does Obama loom like the god-king Xerxes? Never kneel.
Where “fight”, of course, means “blog”, and “kneel” means “do a sit-up”, or something along those lines. Via, who has repeatedly been warned about this sort of thing.
June 30, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Hey so wait, do we actually get to (a) take up arms against these idiots and (b) play the role of the 7′ tall oversexed transexual with the earrings and the freaky freaky friends who (c) slaughters them? Fun! Out of curiosity, who (d) are they defending the pass on behalf of?
July 1, 2008 at 12:02 am
(a) yes, within limits
(b) only if you want to
(c) pretty much
(d) the power/telephone/internet company
July 1, 2008 at 12:12 am
(a) yes, if “arms” = “Wiimotes”;
(b) I think we (i.e.,the majority of Americans who think these people are fucking dorks) are the squirrelly hunchback guy to O[b/s]ama’s Freaky Moonage Xerxes;
(c) yes, but they will later be avenged by an even greater army of LARPers in our cosplay Waterloo, so don’t get cocky;
(d) Chester the Cheetos Cheetah in a spiked leather thong.
July 1, 2008 at 12:18 am
… For the record, “Cosplay Waterloo” is the name of my firstborn child. Dibs.
July 1, 2008 at 1:29 am
The “cos” portion of your desired (?) firstborn’s name is no surprise. Here is irrefutable proof that you and yours are tied to the Great Orange Satan. The allegation is now “out there” so feel free to rebut it in legitimate debate.
This unmasking will be your own Waterloo; fitting for another frenchman “the Editors,” who I assume is also monomaniacal, powermad, collectivest, and a fan of cheese.
July 1, 2008 at 2:07 am
The real enemy of this country is ‘The Stooopid’. The guy must have went back for seconds.
July 1, 2008 at 2:52 am
[...] Holy Shit! I laughed so hard I cried. That hasn’t happened in a long time. [...]
July 1, 2008 at 3:47 am
One god against billions?
WWCD?
Who really commanded at Thermopylae?
You minions really make us all lauf.
July 1, 2008 at 3:48 am
By “minions” I of course mean mini onions….
July 1, 2008 at 4:08 am
By “mean” I meant “mint”
(Education in this country is abominable)
July 1, 2008 at 4:13 am
I am aware of all internet raditions. Cosplay?
July 1, 2008 at 4:14 am
[...] Via The Poorman Institute. Posted by Jim Henley @ 7:13 am, Filed under: Main « « Musical Hubris | Main | [...]
July 1, 2008 at 6:02 am
The left would see us all destroyed for nothing more than their own vile power and purposes. It is up to us—all of us—to stop them.
Heh, indeedy, this is what I like best about being a leftist.
Plus the gay abortions, of course.
July 1, 2008 at 6:23 am
That’s the stuff. Keep it cumming.
July 1, 2008 at 6:33 am
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
What freakin’ total LOSERS!!!!!
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
July 1, 2008 at 6:34 am
For those of you have yet to see 300, do yourselves a favor and see it.
Or you can see this instead (it wastes less time).
July 1, 2008 at 6:35 am
Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
July 1, 2008 at 6:36 am
How do these whack-jobs get off whistfully comparing our country to Sparta? I thought conservatives were supposed to believe in rational self-interest: if this country were as Sparta, these losers would have been left to die in the wilderness shortly after being born. Meanwhile in cosmopolitan Persia, they would have employed by whatever the Iron Age equivalent of wingnut welfare is.
You’d think people who ascribe to a political ideology involving rational self-interest would have asked themselves “in which country would I be better off?”.
July 1, 2008 at 6:38 am
(Warning: Spoiler Alert)
Really, should anyone over the age of 5 need a spoiler alert? Oh, my bad – I’m thinking of elitist bastards who have attended one or two history classes. Or read a book.
July 1, 2008 at 6:39 am
I surrender in advance if it will help avoid the horror of these ‘warriors’ emerging in public wearing nothing but leather underwear and red capes.
July 1, 2008 at 6:43 am
Um… The Spartans lost Thermopylae… They all died.
Jus’ sayin’…
July 1, 2008 at 6:43 am
Oh, and they seem to have forgotten the “tonight we dine in hell” bit. Bon appetit, motherfuckers.
July 1, 2008 at 6:52 am
Typical reality based thinking. If we all just clap a little louder, they will be brave Spartan warriors (and Tinkerbell will live!)
I’m going to do my part and start clapping loudly…right after I finish laughing. (El Cid, you may have found their only path to victory: Kill their enemies with pathetic.)
July 1, 2008 at 6:59 am
Yeah yeah a bunch of Spartans got offed by a big horde of Persians. OTOH the actual war with Persia was won 1) by the Athenians on the land at Marathon, and 2) by the Athenians (and Aeginitans) at sea by Salamis.
Yep those gay, fun loving, verbal-quipping, debating, God-questioning, democracy-loving, class warfare fighting, perfume wearing, philosophizing, dramatizing and art buying Athenians.
July 1, 2008 at 7:00 am
well, much like the Spartans, our conservative overlords are waaay into systematic, organized buggery. I think this chap (author) may just have experienced it at some point.
July 1, 2008 at 7:03 am
I can’t even bench half my bodyweight, and I think I could take all of them. Even with the odd saving throw.
July 1, 2008 at 7:04 am
Leeds:
Or in their case, “Tonight we whine in hell”.
Let it be so.
.
July 1, 2008 at 7:05 am
Leonides went to the right place. Hell, Leonides went. Our king turned his back on Tora Bora and made his stand in Iraq.
July 1, 2008 at 7:11 am
Teh Stoopidz it makes my head hurt.
July 1, 2008 at 7:16 am
“Tonight we dine at the All-You-Can-Eat Buffet place!”
July 1, 2008 at 7:50 am
Editors, we scoff at your warnings. Appeaser.
July 1, 2008 at 7:56 am
Mr. Cook clarifies exactly what it is that he and his comrades are fighting against:
Wherever there is a conservative engaging in speech on the radio, they’ll be there with the “fairness” doctrine. Wherever a 1st grader is not yet being taught proper condom use, they’ll be there to instruct him. Wherever there’s someone who has sent money to terrorist groups overseas, they’ll be there to defend him.
Why do I get the feeling that Mr. Cook probably would like to insruct those first graders in the proper use of condoms himself?
July 1, 2008 at 8:37 am
General Hydarnes, “Spartans! Lay down your weapons!”
King Leonidas, “Persians, come and get them.”
Washington, “The Welfare State!”
We the People, “From my cold, dead hands.”
If Washington fears honest citizens arming at their own expense, then it should.
July 1, 2008 at 8:37 am
OTOH the actual war with Persia was won 1) by the Athenians on the land at Marathon
Different war, 10 years earlier.
July 1, 2008 at 8:54 am
34: he presumably means Plataea.
July 1, 2008 at 8:56 am
I thought Marathon was the end of THAT (the Leonidas/Thermopylae battle) invasion, The second invasion was by sea and ended at Salamis, I thought. Both could be thought of as the same ‘war’.
Herodotus thought so.
July 1, 2008 at 9:05 am
OK OK having consulted wiki, yes Marathon was the end of the first ig invasion. Thermopylae was part of the second invasion which ended at Salamis at sea and Plataea on land. My bad.
Anyway, the Athenians won, twice (or thrice depending on how you count the battles) and the Spartans lost once.
July 1, 2008 at 9:06 am
I thought Marathon was the end of THAT (the Leonidas/Thermopylae battle) invasion, The second invasion was by sea and ended at Salamis, I thought. Both could be thought of as the same ‘war’.
Herodotus thought so.
No, Herodotus got it right.
Marathon 490 BC
Thermoplylae and Salamis 480 BC
Plataea 479 BC
July 1, 2008 at 9:29 am
Did he? Again an invasion is not one war, but just an invasion. Here’s the 1911 Brittanica on Herodotus:
Nor does it even seem to have been his object to give an account of the entire struggle between Greece and Persia. That struggle was not terminated by the battle of Mycale and the capture of Sestos in 479 B.C. It continued for thirty years longer, to the peace of Callias (but see Callias and Cimon). The fact that Herodotus ends his history where he does shows distinctly that his intention was, not to give an account of the entire long contest between the two countries, but to write the history of a particular war – the great Persian war of invasion. His aim was as definite as that of Thucydides, or Schiller, or Napier or any other writer who has made his subject a particular war; only he determined to treat it in a certain way. Every partial history requires an “introduction”; Herodotus, untrammelled by examples, resolved to give his history a magnificent introduction….“
July 1, 2008 at 9:37 am
While I support making fun of dumb people, especially dumb people of this political bent, it might help in perfecting your approach to realize that there hasn’t been an organization called the “World Wrestling Federation” for over half a decade. (They got beat by the World Wildlife Fund for the initials “WWF.”)
And I bet even the guys we’re making fun of here know that.
July 1, 2008 at 10:32 am
If you read the five issue comic book series, which is much better than the movie (and easily downloaded via bittorrent), you’ll see that the traitor character in the movie didn’t even exist in the comic. Frank Miller’s original version was a lot simpler — Sparta was betrayed by the priests, who were paid off with gold and pretty young playtoys.
The movie people decided that the American people couldn’t handle the concept of organized religion betraying a state, though, so they invented the cardboard traitor character and placed him in the nobility. I wonder what the doughboy above would think of the original version. And as someone else said, these kinds of people would be the first ones left to die from general uselessness if we were really Sparta.
July 1, 2008 at 11:39 am
Von Rex, the traitor was some shepherd in the Herodotus’ version.
Never saw the movie or the comic. Sounds like the comic would be better.
July 1, 2008 at 11:43 am
Interestingly enough, some details you remember and some you don’t, I guess, but the priests at Delphi DID try to dissuade the Athenians from fighting the Persians, and there is some indication they were kind of paid off. So Themistokles sent ANOTHER embassy to Delphi, saying ‘hey we wanted counsel on how to fight them, not how to capitulate, thankyouverymuch’. So then they made some cryptic verses about the ‘wooden barricade of Athens’, at which Themi immediately said: ‘aha, so it’s the SHIPS like I been tellin ya!’
July 1, 2008 at 12:24 pm
I don’t know just what’s going on in that picture of Mr. Dumpy McDuctape, but I can tell you for sure he’s courting heatstroke.
July 1, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Von Rex – read the books again.
Ephialtes is definitely there.
Or just check out the cover of the third issue here: http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2007/03/08/comics-you-should-own-flashback-300-2/
July 1, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Antother take on “300″:
Massive, better equipped, aggressive invader is heroically held of by small, inspired warriors defending their home.
US Military vs. Iraqi resistance.
July 1, 2008 at 2:20 pm
And just as Sparta was the lynchpin that defended all Greece—that great cradle of democracy
And yet Sparta was a highly militarized collectivist state which reared its children communally, and its institutions among the least democratic of all the Greek city-states, especially compared with Athens.
Go figure.
July 1, 2008 at 2:34 pm
The ultimate smackdown on these typing turds has been out there for a long time, already.
July 1, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Has anyone told these Spartan-fetish dudes that the Spartans were whipped decisively, and more than once, by the all-gay-lover-couples Sacred Band of Thebes?
July 1, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Nice on ice.
July 1, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Wow that is quite the 500 page blog post/Gay RPG Beginners box set. Are they trying to make you gay too?
July 1, 2008 at 4:29 pm
they weren’t just beaten by thebes. they were destroyed decisively by the fucking persians. at thermopylae.
they held out for less than a day in a narrow pass and were overrun. it made for a great story (and in the movie the story was expanded to last 3 days, the spartan council was falsely shown to not be supportive, and the producers decided “thermopylae” was too fucking confusing for americans and called it the “hot gates”, a place i suspect mr. vox may have some use for IYKWIM.)
so if this idiot’s plan is to suicidially oppose us for 3 hours before going back to self-destruction-by-cheeto, let the bodies pile up before us.
July 1, 2008 at 4:30 pm
OK, I’ve done what I can to get that group together with this group for a Massive. It pleases me to help.
July 1, 2008 at 4:39 pm
“You are the tip of the spear?” What’s he really trying to say here?
July 1, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I believe this is also central to the Editors’ point, and that I could not rest until I made sure he knew about it.
http://www.castrotheatre.com/p-list.html#70mm
70MM FESTIVAL
TUE JULY 1
7p, 9:05p: Blue Thunder
The best helicopter movie ever?
July 1, 2008 at 4:45 pm
They are the tips of the spears of asparagus.
Irony is not dead, just exhausted.
July 1, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Robert Green: FWIW, “hot gates” is a pretty fair translation of Thermopylae into english.
July 1, 2008 at 5:08 pm
I am the tip of the missile. I am Airwolf.
July 1, 2008 at 8:02 pm
you were correct the first time – 300 was a comic book first and foremost. 5 issues, put out by Dark Horse Comics. it was later assembled into a lovely hardcover graphic novel, then eventually into the film that really popularized it.
July 1, 2008 at 9:53 pm
a) Is it too much to respond that they go read Pericles’s funeral oration, on the virtues of an open society? With all respect to Frank Miller, there are actual historians who were closer to the action.
b) I love that the “Get Involved” link leads to a page where you can donate to the cause of their pockets. That’s beautiful.
July 1, 2008 at 10:00 pm
The get involved button to donate cash to Chris was my favorite part too. “It costs lot’s of money to fight the liberals”. Not really, you could run your blog for free on blogger and leave people the fuck alone with your valueless pan-handling. It’s always the cherry on top.
July 1, 2008 at 10:27 pm
[...] then. Secondly, I have learned from the internets that pointing out that someone is clearly several Spartans short of a phalanx is “ad hominem”, which is … um, I think a Harry Potter spell intended to compel [...]
July 2, 2008 at 7:12 am
Has The Exile been shutdown?
July 2, 2008 at 8:49 am
Life to too darn short not to have some fun, and this has been fun.
July 2, 2008 at 1:44 pm
[...] another kid and it’s a boy, I think his name’s gotta be Hogan Erasmus (especially since Cosplay Waterloo is already [...]
July 2, 2008 at 5:28 pm
[...] enlisting in military. blogging. [...]
July 4, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Unh!Oof! Trying. . . to get . . . into the . . . breach. But . . . fat kids . . . won’t move. . .
September 28, 2008 at 2:48 am
[...] is it always fiction with these [...]
December 20, 2008 at 12:13 pm
[...] Modern Conservative, “You are Leonides!“ [...]
December 23, 2008 at 8:21 pm
[...] Modern Conservative, “SPARTANS!!!!!!“ [...]
April 5, 2009 at 7:05 pm
[...] you thought that was hard to take, imagine having to convince yourself you liked it. Now imagine the sort of person who is now trying to make themself like that video, and how much they deserve to feel like that, [...]