Sic semper tyrannis!

[Bake]

Qaddafhi got the fate tyrants (almost) always get. Same thing that happened to Mussolini.

Good luck to the Libyan PEOPLE!

Bake

[occupyeverywhere]

1. So would you wish the same thing on Bush & Cheney?

Both tyrants.

[DFab420]

3. you can't be a tyrant if your term ends every 4 years and you can only have 2......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrant

Look it up...

[occupyeverywhere]

5. Sorry, I like to stay informed

That's why I try not to use wikipedia. :-)

[Bake]

8. Then you know that by definition, they weren't "tyrants."

I can think of all kinds of derogatory terms for them, but tyrants isn't one of them.

Bake

[occupyeverywhere]

11. How about mass murderers?

Do you think Bush & Cheney were mass murderers? Certainly a mass murderer is worthy of being in the crosshairs of Hellfire missile launched from a Predator drone.

[TheWraith]

46. If the Iraqis find Bush or Cheney hiding in a drainage pipe somewhere in Mosul...

...then they're free to do what they think is necessary.

[Bake]

4. BushCo, while terrible, were not dictators.

If we had had the political will to remove them from office, we could have.

Qaddafi got what tyrants often get from THEIR OWN PEOPLE: the Mussolini treatment. They just haven't hung him upside down in the city square.

Bake

[occupyeverywhere]

6. You don't need to say "had" twice.

[Scuba]

13. Gee thanks, us dumb liberals need your grammar lessons...

[ArbustoBuster]

23. Yes, he does.

In grammar, the construction "had had" is what's called the third conditional. It's used in English to speak in the present about things in the past that didn't happen.

[joshcryer]

39. It's my favorite line in any book ever. "Had had." Love it so much.

[SidDithers]

24. Yes, he does...

lrn2grammar.

Sid

[occupyeverywhere]

31. Either way works.

[SidDithers]

34. But "had had" and "had" are not the same...

and convey a different meaning. You're wrong for telling the poster that they don't have to use "had" twice.

Sid

[occupyeverywhere]

35. Reading both

Take out one "had", either way the same message is conveyed. "had had" just looks verbose.

[SidDithers]

37. It's OK to admit you're not as smart as you thought you were...

Whether something "looks verbose" or not doesn't matter. A poster used, correctly, specific words to convey a specific meaning. You, incorrectly, told them they were wrong for using those specific words. Learn from your mistake.

Edit: See http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/conditional2.htm for further education.

Sid

[occupyeverywhere]

38. Not at all

I simply said they "didn't need to".

[Bake]

40. Thank you. I'm a lawyer. Words are my tools.

I know the subjunctive case when I see it, or mean to use it.

Bake

[SidDithers]

43. Happy to jump in...

words are tools, I like that :thumbsup:

Sid

[occupyeverywhere]

45. What kind of law do you practice?

That's not a very good metaphor, there is a lot of nuance involved in language so it's not very descriptive to say that words are something so mechanical.

[Bake]

19. Would YOU?

Seeing some of your posts, one has to wonder.

Bake

[occupyeverywhere]

32. What do you mean by that exactly?

[Bake]

41. I think that's pretty clear.

I'm not saying (nor am I advocating it) it because I don't need a visit from Agent Mike and Secret Service.

You said; you explain it.

Bake

[NeedleCast]

33. Tyrant

I don't think this word means what you think it means.

[chrisa]

36. No they were not - tyrants can't be voted out of office.

[Taverner]

2. Although I don't shed any tears for Mummar, I do want to know what really happened

[Bake]

10. I too would like to know.

But we do know the end result. Did Qaddafi think it would end any other way?

Bake

[Blue_Tires]

7. Think I read that on a flag somewhere...

:dunce:

[rug]

9. Spoken by John Wilkes Booth after he put a bullet in Lincoln's head.

[msongs]

12. seems like person's tyrant is another peron's hero eh? nt

[rug]

14. Yup. Dramatic quotes seem to sprout from pools of blood.

[Bake]

15. Actually it goes back to the death of Julius Caesar, 55 B.C.

Hence, the Latin ...

Bake

[rug]

20. I always found that odd since Greek was used in the Senate.

[whatchamacallit]

17. +1 for inconvenient facts n/t

[thucythucy]

44. The accuracy of that quote by Booth

is in dispute. Some witnesses heard him shout, "The South is avenged!" Booth was probably drunk anyway, and may have slurred his words, since as well as being a certified cold stone racist he also had a well documented taste for the booze. As for Lincoln, he was a funny sort of tyrant, submitting himself to an election--one he felt until September 1864 he was certain to lose--right smack in the middle of a brutal civil war.

I too wish that Quaddafhi had been arrested and tried for his crimes. I also wish he hadn't spent four decades torturing and murdering his opponents, Then too, he could have stepped down and fled when the uprising began, rather than urging his followers to fight to the death, causing who knows how many additional deaths. Actions like that are bound to stir up feelings of anger and hatred, feelings difficult to suppress once they're unleashed. I wonder if some of the people in the crowd that found him had relatives, friends, loved ones murdered by the old regime. If my spouse or child or sibling had been tortured to death under some tyrant's orders, I don't know that I'd be able to control myself if I suddenly found myself in a situation where the man responsible was there in front of me, and I had a gun in my hands. That uncertainty makes me reluctant to judge anyone in a similar situation.

BTW, not only was Mussolini murdered by the mob, so was his mistress, whose only crime, as far as I know, was her exceedingly poor taste in men.

Let's hope at this point that the violence in Libya stops, and the healing begins, because after the last four decades (and more, if you know the history of the region) there is an awful lot of healing to be done.

[Cirque du So-What]

16. Qadafhi can tell his troubles to Ceaucescu

They've got all eternity roasting on that spit to reminisce.

[Bake]

18. Don't forget Mussolini. And Julius Caesar.

Bake

[white_wolf]

25. Eh for his time Julius Caesar wasn't especially terrible.

He was certainly better than some of the Caesars that came after him.

[Odin2005]

30. Hey, Caesar was a populist, don't compare him to those assholes!

[DinahMoeHum]

21. "My G*d, what an ignoble end!" - Dwight Eisenhower (re Mussolini's execution)

The same sentiment is with me now.

Can't say Qadaffi didn't meet a fitting end to his murderous regime in the same way.

[Bake]

42. Excellent post, and by the way,

I credited you for the quote in my "other" thread.

:hi:

Bake

[Tyrs WolfDaemon]

22. Semper Ubi-Sub-Ubi!

[iris27]

26. LOL... n/t

[Tyrs WolfDaemon]

27. That is most of what I recall from High School Latin

The other is the 'uno, duo, tre Romanii' song

[alcibiades_mystery]

28. Small personal anecdote

My father grew up on Milano. He actually saw Mussolini strung up. My grandparents were brought by the partisans to see it because they had been members of the Fascist Party. My father was three and a half at the time.

[Odin2005]

29. Thus always to tyrants.