Posted on 09/26/2001 8:59:57 AM PDT by Radioheart
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Since September 11, there’s been a common refrain among the Kumbaya Left: "We have to try to understand what made these people so angry." Um, no, actually we don’t. continue… |
We (USA) are in a war mode against these Islamic terrorists, don'tcha know??!!
Please stop saying this. I am not sure how this is supposed to help me understand your point of view when you refuse to tell me the "way" you see "things" in the first place, i.e. with respect to my hypothetical example. Am I supposed to take my answer to the hypothetical, and invert it? Is that what you mean? Is this a riddle?
I am also not sure why you constantly refer to a interracial murder and not to just murder. (Is there a hidden agenda there?)
I don't know what the hell you're talking about, and perhaps I'd take umbrage at the implication of this remark of yours, except that I'm not even sure what it is.
Since you seem to care: the reason I "constantly refer to an interracial murder" is very simple. A few (four?) posts ago I tried to think of a more person-to-person analogy (rather than country-to-country) of an attack which takes place for (stupid) "reasons", and then examine what your preferred response would be. I cast about in my mind for some example, and (for who knows what reason) randomly came up with the scenario, Racist White Kills Black Man With White Woman On His Arm.
There was no "agenda" (whatever the hell that could be). It was simply the first thing that popped into my head.
Now you ask why I "keep referring to it". Well this should be obvious, i would think. You never answered the damn question. When I have a question and the answer to it would be informative, yet my correspondent refuses to answer it for some reason, I'd like to find out why, or restate the question, until he is willing/able to answer it. So, it's not that I'm in love with the hypothetical or even think it's that good. It's not that I have some sort of "agenda", whatever that could possibly mean.
It is simply that you kept dodging the question, so I asked it again.
Since you insist on that hypothetical, which I do not see the relevance of, I will try to reply.
"Try"? There is no try. Just answer the damn question. It's really not that hard. The word "yes" or the word "no" will suffice.
You seem to forget that motive is always investigated.
I didn't "forget" this at all. In fact, it is a key (crucial!) part of my hypothetical example. Recall that in the example, a racist white man murders a black man who he happens to see with a white woman. I straightforwardly have stated every time that his motive was racism (i.e. he didn't murder the black man for his wallet or some other reason). Presumably what this means is that the murder was investigated by the police and racism was indeed determined to be the motive.
So you see, motive is built into the very structure of my hypothetical example.
As you stated in an earlier post it is a waste of time and energy to try to understand why.
You have truncated my statement. A full statement of my claim would be something like: when figuring out how to respond to something that someone did, it is a waste of time and energy to try to understand "why they did it" if your response to the act will and should be the same no matter what that answer is.
I hope my position is now more clear.
ou also say that you do not see how the matter of entangling alliaces are relevent now since we were attacked by a foreign power. This is another point that we are not on the same wavelength.
Apparently so. I mean, a couple dozen men supported or funded or trained presumably by certain Arab countries hijacked airplanes and smashed them into our buildings, killing thousands. Which part of this scenario am I supposed to consider an "alliance"? Who is our "entangling alliance" with in this scenario? The hijackers? Taliban? I really don't understand.
I see this as a vitally relevent point because it is our constant involvement in places around the world that has brought this attack home.
It is? Explain. I can only assume from this statement that you think you know why the attackers did what they did. If you know this, how do you know this?
If you do agree with what General Washington said then I am sure you would agree that that would mean bringing our troops back home from around the world,
That would be silly and I would do no such thing, because we are at war and Washington's statement cannot apply to wartime in any comprehensible way. If we "bring our troops home from around the world" that will just make it that much more difficult for them to find and kill Osama, and to make war on whoever else funded/supported this act of war against our country.
stop foreign aid and military weapon sales to any country,
Foreign aid? You betcha. I (along with you) would be the last person to shed a tear if we stopped taking tax money out of American workers' paychecks and sending it to two-bit bureaucrats, dictators, power-mongers, etc. around the world, whether they be Israel or Egypt or Timbuktu. You betcha.
As for "military weapons sales", just what the heck is wrong with that? If some bustling American firm has a great military product and can find a good market somewhere in the world for it, I say go for it. I don't consider "a US company selling weapons to some country" the same thing as an "entangling alliance". Maybe I misunderstand the plain English meaning of the term, but doesn't "alliance" imply some sort of action on the part of our government?
Of course there are scenarios in which I would oppose military weapons sales to foreign countries, and that is if we view those countries as belligerents/rivals/threats to our own. Such sales should be prohibited in the interest of national security, of course.
Now of course there is an enormous slippery slope hiding within the previous two paragraphs. That is, we end up implicitly separating countries into an informal (but which would inevitably become formal) list of Friends and Belligerents, and so we end up coming close to the whole "entangling alliances" thing you detest so much, in spite of my best efforts not to. However, i don't see any way around this. Shall we prohibit American firms from selling products anywhere else in the world, for fear that in doing so they will inevitably pollute our country with an "entangling alliance"? I think this approach would be taking Washington's advice just a tad too far, don't you?
and the main and only priority of the US military would be the defense of America.
Naturally. Well then, consider this scenario: the US is in a "cold war" style rivalry with an expansionist superpower (calling itself, say, oh I don't know, the "USSR"). The following is a perfectly plausible situation: this "USSR" wages yet another expansionist war against a neighbor (call it, say, "Afghanistan") which it considers to be a "rump state" or which it thinks it needs as a buffer zone or for natural resources or whatever (I don't honestly know the USSR's motivation for having wanted Afghanistan). US leadership considers this, ultimately, a threat to the US in that it will aid rather than halt USSR expansion. US firms sell, and/or are allowed to sell, arms to the Afghanistan anti-USSR forces.
You come along and complain that this is an "entangling alliance". But isn't it just as reasonable to make the argument that these arms sales and "entanglements" were done precisely (in the long run, of course) for the "defense of America"?
I don't know which is the truth, all I'm saying is that the argument is no less plausible to me than yours is.
I see you as wanting to blindly lash out without thought or concern to the future.
Thank you for telling me how you "see" me, but you haven't explained just exactly what I have said that makes you "see" me this way. I still think you have misunderstood, deliberately or inadvertently, almost everything I have written.
You see me as being callous to the dead and, somehow, of being a racist.
"Racist"? When the hell did I say that? I said no such thing and think no such thing.
I do remember making an implicit statement to the effect that you were callous to the dead, in one of my earlier posts. I am sure this was out of line and I apologize. I do still believe, however, that in a way you do not take their deaths seriously enough - i.e. as the act of war which they were.
PS Need I even point out that you still haven't responded to my hypothetical example? I can tell you tired of responding to me, and I will help you out: Don't even bother writing any more responses to me, unless you intend to (or are able to) answer my question:
Should black men cease dating white women because of the knowledge that there exist racist white men who would kill them for doing so?
I just can't understand why you find it so difficult to answer this one. YES or NO!?!? You could even just type one letter (Y or N?)
I agree with this article until this line. These fundamentalists do not rage against our advanced technology. They rage against our Judeo-Christian heritage, and how it highlights the fact that theirs is a religion which must punish heretics to survive.
The rightness and morality of our religious heritage highlights the wrongness of theirs, and so we must be silenced like their own dissidents are.
This is nothing less than a holy war, a jihad if you will, between Islam and Christianity. The Crusades live...
The most important thing in my argument was punishing the perpertrators and changing our policies and it seems to me that the most important thing in your argument was my answering whether black men should stop dating white women because they were attacked by a racist. Well, since I am a white man and I am married to an Asian for me to oppose the dating of white women by black men or by any other race would be hypocritical. Besides,I don't see any reason to care one way or another whether any member of one race dates a member of another race. I hope now you can rest easy.
The examples you give show that you still do not understand what George Washington meant and how are entangling alliances and interventions can be found at the bottom of most of our problems. I will not get into another long historical discussion on how the internationalists in this country and others have wreaked havoc with our country. I do not seem to understand what you are saying and you do not seem to understand what I am saying. I am sure we will meet again and cross swords. Good night, Dr. Frank.
I will take that as a "no" since it is the most straightforward answer I am likely to get from you.
In order words, even you agree that there are situations when an aggressive action taken by someone does not warrant examination of his motives for the purpose of changing our own behavior to conform to the wishes behind those motives so as to simply avoid future such aggressive action.
You and I both now seem to agree that "Racist white man kills black man for dating white woman" is just such a situation. Why the hell does the racist white guy care that the black guy is dating a white woman? The motive is irrational and wrongheaded to begin with and, consequently, we both agree, ought not to be listened to.
I now put forth, for your consideration, that "Psycho brainwashed religious fanatics kill over six thousand innocent civilians because (a) some guy told him it would get him into heaven; (b) the U.S. has a certain number of troops stationed in Saudi Arabia (why the hell do they care?); (c) Israel is among the countries the U.S. gives tax money to (why the hell do they care?); (d) some guy told him the U.S. is the Great Satan; (e) the U.S. attempts to prevent a dictator named Hussein from building WMDs (why the hell do they care?); (f) any or all of the above" is another such situation.
Maybe I can refine my position to help you understand it. Go ahead, by all means, examine peoples' motives for doing insane evil things all you want. It's a free country, spend your time however you want.
But having done that, one should not automatically conclude from those motives that we ought to alter our behavior one iota in response to them. After all, sometimes peoples' motives are just stupid and wrong.
This is the case with whatever bastards committed the atrocity on 9/11. Their motives were stupid and wrong, every bit as much as the motives of a white racist who kills a black man for dating a white woman.
And that's why I don't give a rat's ass what the motives for 9/11 were. Whatever they were, they were stupid and wrong, and they add up to the same thing no matter what: Act of war.
Once the war is over, I'm sure, it would be an interesting intellectual exercise to go back and read about what got these psychos so pissed at us. But not now. Now is not the time.
Your thinking is a prime example of "not seeing the forests for the trees". We agree on the need for punishment of the terrorists, but your inability to see anything else but your blood lust will cause the deaths of many more Americans. It is sad, and you called me callous.
The fact that you so often write: "why the hell do they care" indicates you cannot see that every action has a reaction and that is another reason why your callous disregard for life will only lead to further deaths of innocent American civilians. That is a great shame for if you thought a little more you might see.
I see you are still stuck on the 'white racist' bit. I am not sure why you are so fixiated on white racists but if that is your interest then so be it. My interest is trying to make sure this type of attack will not happen again and the prevention of such attacks will not be due to blind blood lust. I do hope that you eventually see this before too many more Americans die.
Well, perhaps they're right just this once. By referring to the murdering scum as "Terrorists", we underscore their success and may indeed give their brethren some sort of validation, making future attacks more likely. Therefore, I call them by the appropriate name: "The Enemy".
Actually it is the terrorists who will cause the deaths of many more Americans - unless they are stopped. My only position here is that "understanding" the "motives" of mass murderers is a far less efficient means of stopping them than if you simply kill them. You call this "bloodlust" and accuse me of being callous to my fellow Americans. Far from it. I am advocating the policy which is most likely to save the largest number of lives (well, American lives - which are, of course, my primary concern).
The fact that you so often write: "why the hell do they care" indicates you cannot see that every action has a reaction
No, it doesn't. It does not follow from my statements at all. I tire of restating and explaining everything I write as if to a kindergartener, however, so let's just let this one slide. You were very eager to make the jejune point "every action has a reaction" and here have labored very hard to paint it as if it is in opposition to something I wrote (which it is not), so let's just pretend you succeeded and move on.
I see you are still stuck on the 'white racist' bit.
Give me a break, please. I can't tell if you are truly dense or just stubborn. I presented a hypothetical question which would be informative, and you kept dodging it and refusing to answer. So I kept asking it. That, and not me being "stuck on" the details of the hypothetical, is the entire explanation for my repetition. I promise you.
Why you insist on pretending this means I am "stuck on" the details of this hypothetical is beyond me. The details of the hypothetical were irrelevant, especially to me - you do realize that right? I have no particular special interest in "white racists". The question could have been about black ballet dancers or space aliens for all I care. It is only the fact that you wouldn't answer the freaking question or even acknowledge it which forced me to keep repeating myself.
Come to think of it, it was a very effective strategy on your part for having to avoid uncomfortable questions which would expose your hypocrisy and inconsistency. Step 1: ignore the question and never answer it. Step 2: anytime they repeat the question, accuse them of being "fixated" and "stuck on" the details of the question. Step 3: But whatever you do, do not answer it.
That way you never have to actually answer the question, and at the same time you get to pretend you have some kind of vague high ground. Clever!
My interest is trying to make sure this type of attack will not happen again
So is mine. The number-one, historically-tested way of preventing acts of war is to fight back and defeat the enemy so they cannot do it again.
I do hope that you eventually see this before too many more Americans die.
Too many Americans have already died, my friend. They died because a war has been declared on us and we have for some reason chosen to pretend otherwise. Now, for many of us, our eyes have been opened to the reality: we are at war.
I do hope that you eventually see this before too many more Americans die.
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