{"id":45976,"date":"2014-07-30T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T17:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=45976"},"modified":"2014-07-31T09:11:14","modified_gmt":"2014-07-31T14:11:14","slug":"a-brief-history-of-proportionality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=45976","title":{"rendered":"A Brief History Of Proportionality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Act <\/strong>1<\/strong><\/p>\n

[SCENE:\u00a0 The New Jersey-side bank of the Delaware River, December 24, 1776.\u00a0 General George WASHINGTON, having just led the ragged Continental Army across the Delaware River, is having a final conference with his senior officers before attacking the Hessians, who are passed out, hung over after their Christmas drinking binges, in their winter camp in Trenton New Jersey<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON:\u00a0 Our revolution has had major setbacks this past year.\u00a0 Now is our time to strike back, re-set the balance of this war, and convince the French, Dutch and Spanish that the Revolution can be sustained!<\/p>\n

[The generals cheer – except for A. LIBRELLE, a civilian bureaucrat attached to the Army by the group Justice For Britain<\/em>].<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 I’m sorry, General.\u00a0 This attack is disproportionate.\u00a0 Your men need to get drunk,, become hung over, and then wake the Hessians so it can be a fair fight.\u00a0 And lose the cannon.<\/p>\n

General Marquis de LAFAYETTE:\u00a0 Sacre bleu<\/em>, is this person mad?\u00a0<\/p>\n

[And SCENE<\/em>]<\/p>\n

Act <\/strong>2<\/strong><\/p>\n

[SCENE:\u00a0 Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 3, 1863.\u00a0 General George Gordon MEADE, commander of the Army of the Potomac, is at the front line atop Cemetery Ridge, alongside his battered, bloodied army.\u00a0 Across a wide open field, Confederate General George Pickett is lining up his troops for their epic charge across the rolling field of grass, as MEADE’s artillerymen load their cannon<\/em>]<\/p>\n

MEADE:\u00a0 Men – this is it.\u00a0 It’s here that the union stands, or falls.\u00a0 We hold here, or the war is over.\u00a0\u00a0 Who’s with me, boys!<\/p>\n

[The men cheer – except for A. LIBRELLE, a representative from Quakers for Peace, whose head shakes and face scowls disapprovingly<\/em>].<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Wait, General.\u00a0 This isn’t proportionate.\u00a0 You should move your men off this hill and away from behind these walls and fences, and move down into the field so that nobody has cover, and it’s a fair fight.\u00a0 And what’s with the “men” and “boys” bit?\u00a0 Isn’t that just a tad patriarchal?<\/p>\n

MEADE:\u00a0 It’s the Army…<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>[And SCENE<\/em>]<\/p>\n

Scene 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

[SCENE:\u00a0 London, June 5, 1944.\u00a0 Generals Dwight EISENHOWER, Bernard Law MONTGOMERY and Omar BRADLEY are firming up the final details of the next day’s invasion of Europe, known to us as “D-Day<\/em>“.]<\/p>\n

EISENHOWER:\u00a0 The entire fate of Western Civilization hangs on tomorrow’s invasion.<\/p>\n

MONTGOMERY:\u00a0 Quite.<\/p>\n

BRADLEY:\u00a0 We’ve done all we can.\u00a0 Now, it’s just down to the guts of the regular GI Joe.<\/p>\n

[A. LIBRELLE, representative from the United Nations Office of Philosophy, interrupts<\/em>]<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Wait – Generals?\u00a0 This invasion is by no means proportionate.\u00a0 You have battleships, paratroopers, waves and waves of bombers.\u00a0 The Germans have none of theses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

MONTGOMERY:\u00a0 Then you suggest…<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Do the invasion without the battleships, the bombers, or the paratroopers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

EISENHOWER:\u00a0 That’s suicide!<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 It’s proportional!<\/p>\n

[And SCENE<\/em>]<\/p>\n

Scene 4<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>[SCENE:\u00a0 Somewhere in the desert of Judea,\u00a0early in the morning, 63BC.\u00a0 Roman legionary RICHARDUS Magnus is addressing his Legion before their final assault on the Jewish stronghold of Masada, where dozens of Jewish patriots are making a last stand against the Roman conquerors<\/em>]<\/p>\n

RICHARDUS:\u00a0 Legionaires!\u00a0 Today we shall charge up the siege towers and scale the walls and build a pyramid of the enemy’s skulls!<\/p>\n

[The soldiers cheer lustily, as A. LIBRELLIVS, a reporters from the news-scroll Tempus Romanii, stands, bored, kicking at clods of sand<\/em>]<\/p>\n

RICHARDUS:\u00a0 [Looks at LIBRELLIVS with a look of ill-concealed disdain<\/em>] Anything to add, Librellius?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLIVS:\u00a0 Nah, I got nothing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

[And SCENE<\/em>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Act 1 [SCENE:\u00a0 The New Jersey-side bank of the Delaware River, December 24, 1776.\u00a0 General George WASHINGTON, having just led the ragged Continental Army across the Delaware River, is having a final conference with his senior officers before attacking the Hessians, who are passed out, hung over after their Christmas drinking binges, in their winter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-45976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pc","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45976"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46045,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45976\/revisions\/46045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}