Posted on 08/15/2006 5:19:13 PM PDT by Urbane_Guerilla
I guess one man's splitting hairs is another man's making critical distinctions.
The value of using the actual name of something to describe it, is that it is identical to the thing being described.
I agree that Jihadists is best. Or Ottomans, but there's no Turks, are there?
You copied something out a dictionary that has very little to do with Islamic Jihad but sounds like something very naughty indeed. Even the crude dictionary definition of fascism is enough to understand the jihadis are not fascists.
Yes, it fits. That is not the issue raised.
The issue is whether it is better than calling the thing itself by its own name.
So you say, I say they are islamofascists. (And copying and pasting is a good thing.)
I admit, I'm not handling "The Age of the Common Man" very well.
"Let's just be happy with Islamofascism. It suitably explains the problem."
Yes, I agree. Nicely put.
The earliest extant writing we have about mohammed's life was written 350 years after he died. It purports to refer to an earlier biography, written long after mohammed lived.
If the life of Christ were dependent on such historical sources, would anyone take it seriously?
But doesn't this demonstrate how important it is to focus on islam, and not on fascism?
See, this is what discourages me, just a little. Why should we be happy calling our enemy something other than what they are?
Isn't calling them fascists just an invitation to an irrelevant debate and worse, a failure to face up to reality?
What are we saying? That calling them fascists makes them sound worse than they are?
I believe calling them what they are is as bad as it gets. So why not just call them what they are? What is to be gained by calling them fascists?
So you say with a complete inability to justify or defend your choice of words. You typify the attitude of the New Dark Age in your belief your mere existence entitles you to meaningful opinion.
Bleary imprecision is not a virtue. The Cult of Mediocrity is as big a threat to Western Civilization as Islam.
But the West will have to suffer much more loss, something on the order of a major city with millions of people wiped out by a nuclear blast, before the West comes to the recognition that you have, and takes your advice, and puts it into action.
From George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, 1946 It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because out thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.......................The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. .................. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable." The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way.....
Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism?
A very wise reply. Thank you.
Mr. or Ms. AdamSelene235, we are going to have to agree to disagree. You are NOT going to change my mind on this issue.
P.S. I never liked George Orwell that much, anyway.
Wow, wow, wow. TYVM, AS.
So decades ago, Orwell thought the word "fascist" had lost its meaning except as a mindless pejorative? Wow.
Ahem. Sort of the point I was making (lol).
P.S. I never liked George Orwell that much, anyway.
I understand your discomfort with Orwell's belief that words have meaning.
P.S. His reputation will survive your disapproval.
The US currently resembles a fascist nation than the Islamic terror threat. Although we have elections, the outcome of the races is determined by who gets large corporate donations. Fascism doesn't require a dictator, but it could be reasonably defined as an oligarchy of elites sponsored by large corporate and business interests. We definitely meet the criteria for stringent economic controls and belligerent nationalism.
I have an entirely different point of view on the situation than most. What is taking place is three apostate religions that abandoned their prophetic roots are ruled by clerics who, in their histories, were empowered to interpret a book containing what they consider God's law. Both sides reject the principle that God is capable of revealing his will in modern times, considering that a heretical doctrine. As a result, rather than approach God and seek reconciliation in his will, they slavishly cling to their priestly worldviews and condemn each other to death for the blasphemies for which they accuse each other. Oddly enough, the one principle on which all three religions agree is that anyone who professes current revelation should be persecuted and oppressed.
Until Christians, Jews, and Muslims seek current revelation from the living God, they are doomed to continue in this path until God himself will overthrow their kingdoms and supplant it with his own. The current conflicts will escalate until the conditions will make the vineyard ripe for the final harvest.
P.S.S. - Good. I was real concerned about that. Now I can sleep tonight.
I used the phrase islamofascism when SeeBS News called me over the weekend for a poll they were doing. I was 1 of only 924 polled, lol. (that's a tiny # to me, but what do I know?)
I used islamofascism, I said that was our greatest threat, that they were trying to destroy not only America, but all of western civ, and why yes, I do consider myself a born-again or evangelical Chirstian. Then I answered some of the limited choice questions in ways just to P.O. the poller, as he was calling from NY (I'm in GA) and I will bet dollars to donuts he was a lib.
That's ok, I'll bet he thought I was an uneduacated yokel, lol.
Oh yeah, I also mentioned we should be doing profiling more in airports etc, since most of the attacks in the past decade have been by Mulsim Arabs.
I said some other stuff too just to "scratch my nails on the blackboard", but I can't remember now. Hubby was sitting there LOLing, I'm surprised the poll taker didn't hang up on me.
But I was glad to get islamofascism in there.
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