[a history buff]

I've read Patai; some of it does resemble reality, but a lot of it is wishful thinking. Yes, many if not most Arabs do have paranoid tendencies, low expecations of life & of recently suicidal violent tendencies. But so do most people who grew up in other despotic dictatorships like East Germany, where 25% of the population was found to be "clinically paranoid" after the wall fell. Many have pathetic work habits, just as in the old Soviet Union.

In my opinion, some who focus on the problems of the Arabs do so to legitimize denying them the very antidotes to the very problems they correctly deplore such as the right to vote and freedom of the press. When people are denied our freedoms, they become nutty along the lines described above, be it in Germany, Spain, or Syria. And when given those freedoms, they prosper.

[MissAmericanPie]

Yeah, I see the same symptoms breaking out right here in the USofA but no one address's them either. Here we go with the "when we deny" stuff, so I guess that means it becomes our responsibility to fix their problems and give them what they should be earning for themselves. Seems to me they deny themselves these trappings of sanity. Freedom of the press and the ability to vote will fix all their mental problems will it? I don't think you realize that their mental problems are far deeper than anything ever experienced in East Germany.

At least in East Germany they didn't skin each other alive and tear down all trace of civilization. The task to raise these people above their cave man status would be a huge undertaking and not workable as is obvious by their past. They seem to rise to a certain level, then because of some spiritual, dark, defeatist, "something" they slide back into war and self destruction. So far they don't seem big on understanding cause and effect, their comprehensive reasoning takes on more cunning than reasoned intelligence, with no issue of right or wrong, fair or unfair, just or unjust coming into play at all. That is just my observation but it indicates to me a pretty hopless situation.

[CatoRenasci]

Perhaps, but it's not our job to give the Arabas their rights or a democratic form of government or an alternative to their beknighted religion. Those who do not establish their rights by fighting for them, or by their forebears having fought for them, never appreciate the rights.

Even here in America, the only ones who seem to appreciate our rights and institutions are (1) those who have come here from nations where they had no rights in Eastern Europe or Asia or (2) descendents of those who fought in the Revolution or the Civil War. Most everyone else is a freerider.