Gotta keep the alien eye well fed. That means reading a lot. Movies and TV, unless they're documentaries, just don't cut it. The alien eye gets a better bang for its buck by purchasing used books. The latest one just arrived, The Lost Art of War. My alien eye was drawn to the back of the book, wherein were listed the Seven Destroyers. I thought, given the current lunacy over the debt limit, this week I'd list the destroyers and see if any of these behaviors observed in ancient China, c. 400 BCE, have any modern equivalence in contemporary politics surrounding this fake crisis.
The Seven Destroyers
Those who lack intelligent tactical strategy but are pugnacious and combative out of ambition for rewards and titles.
Self-contradicting opportunists, pretenders who obscure the good and elevate the bad.
Those who put on the appearance of austerity and desirelessness in order to get something.
Those who pretend to be eccentric intellectuals, putting on airs and looking on the world with aloof contempt.
The dishonest and unscrupulous who seek office and entitlement by flattery and unfair means, who display bravery out of greed for emolument, who act opportunistically without consideration of the big picture, who persuade leaders with tall tales and empty talk.
Those who compromise primary production by needless luxury.
Those who use supposed occult arts and superstitious practices to bewilder decent people.
They had Republicans in ancient China? Who knew?