Posted on 10/30/2001 2:04:59 AM PST by Ada Coddington
lew@lewrockwell.com
No, no, no problem, that's what we're here for. ---Analogy Correction Central
Both your analogy and mine are valid. In both cases taking a shortcut through a rough neighborhood with an empty tank was extremely foolish. In both cases the youths are worthless punks who deserve to die.
Working on the assumption that there will always be worthless punks in the city, can we please agree that the wisest course of action is to stay away from their neighborhoods?
Or, for readers who are too obtuse to understand analogies: let's assume that there will always be evil psychopathic fanatics in this world and let's agree that it is unwise to effectively run their recruiting campaigns via US foreign policy.
I'm sure that crockwell must realize the kind of response his BS would invoke from them...that must be why he continues to wear his arse as a crash helmet.
Dying for the right to dissent is noble. Dying for $20 per barrel oil is foolish.
I see. Working on the 100th floor of WTC One is 'taking a shortcut through the most dangerous part of the city'? :-)
Actually, your "local youths" have a 1500-year-old chip on their shoulders the size of Mohammed's mountain, and they crashed a party on the nice side of town.
Rockwell shouldn't try to blame Osama's little murder raid on American foreign policy, and neither should you.
BTW - freepers driving on the bad side of town usually "accessorize". ;-)
And his neighbor would make a plea for understanding and tolerance, and plead with him to understand why these youths hate his kind.
Right. The murder of Massoud two days before September 11 was just a BIG OL' COINCIDENCE.
"let's agree that it is unwise to effectively run their recruiting campaigns via US foreign policy."
No. Let's agree that loony religious psychos who blame the Jews for all their problems AND are peed-off about something somebody did four hundred years ago need to be killed and their corpses stuffed with pig guts.
There are levels of validity. Mine embraces more of the specific facts in the case under discussion. Yours is truncated; mine is more accurate.
In both cases taking a shortcut through a rough neighborhood with an empty tank was extremely foolish. In both cases the youths are worthless punks who deserve to die.
But they didn't seserve to die in your analogy. They only looted our assets. It took my correction of the analogy to reflect the moral dimension of the object of the analogy.
Working on the assumption that there will always be worthless punks in the city, can we please agree that the wisest course of action is to stay away from their neighborhoods?
Simplistic, and therefore not useful as an analogy. We can agree that the wisest course of action is to take another route, given your set-up to the analogy, i.e. my wife and I are on a private trip, there is another route available, our gas is low, etc. But it simplistic to say there is no situation in which any innocent upstanding citizen should go through the neighborhood. And there is no reason to cede the neighborhood to those who "deserve to die".
Or, for readers who are too obtuse to understand analogies: let's assume that there will always be evil psychopathic fanatics in this world and let's agree that it is unwise to effectively run their recruiting campaigns via US foreign policy.
Let us agree it is unwise to craft US foreign policy around the psychopaths, who, by your argument, will always be with us.
You see, this is what I meant about people being too obtuse to understand analogies.
The point of the analogy was to differentiate between justification and explanation, not to offer a parallel with the WTC attack and about ten years of history!
You're going to need to find yourself another straw man with whom to argue. I did not say bombing rich countries is any more moral than bombing poor countries - it obviously isn't. However, the poverty of the Afghans is absolutely relevant because it means that attacks on them are all the more devastating. Think freezing or starving to death whilst fleeing a war zone.
I advocate crafting US foreign policy around the prescriptions provided by Presidents Washington and Jefferson. That such policies would coincide with what bin Laden et al claim to want is not a reason to discount them.
Incidentally, I hope everyone realizes that bin Laden's actual motivation for his jihad is basically irrelevant. What is relevant is what he says, whether he is lying or not.
Let's assume that the Fox News punditry are correct when they say that he is motivated by a hatred for freedom, capitalism, and all other things virtuous. If that was his actual 'platform' then he would attract a following that would probably fit into one of his American-made SUVs. However, by broadcasting his list of alleged grievances - Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq etc - he has become a folk hero to vast numbers of muslims throughout the world.
Let's try a simple analogy. I take my wife on a drive to the other side of town. I take a short cut and run out of gas right in the middle of the most dangerous part of the city. We are quickly surrounded by youths who, despite looking like millionaire rappers, extract us from our vehicle, rough us up and steal all of our possessions. When the ordeal is over, my wife turns to me and refers to the mess into which I have got us. I correct her by pointing out, freeper-style, that it was in fact the local youths who got us into this mess. She looks at me as though I have completely lost my mind. End of story.
This is just an excuse. You could use the same explanation about the Japs bombing Pearl Harbor in 1941. No matter what you call it, it is still horsesh*t. You guys are Lew Rockwell are living in a fanatsy world.
"FLAME OFF !"
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LoanPalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
So being dead and poor is worse than being dead and rich?
Or did you mean that it was tougher for the survivors? The same ones who are virtual slaves to the Taliban, and can be murdered for not joining the military, for not professing the Islamic faith, or (for females) for allowing one's skin to be exposed, voice to be heard or opinion to be known? Personally, I'm betting that they see that their true oppressors are getting bombed, and are holding on to hope that things will be better when the Tally-tubbies are gone. (Recall that they are a minority ruling party)
In this case, the silent-for-a-darn-good-reason majority are glad we're bombing the Taliban's resources, and are trying to avoid civilian casualties as much as possible. Their valuelessness on the eyes of the Taliban means more to them than their lack of cash. It would be nice to have more money, but being in a war zone sucks equally for all. (Having been raised in a family that danced with destitution for a few years and lived in a shelter for a while, I can tell you that the poor aren't the victim class that the Left makes them out to be... it stinks when toast is all you have to eat for a week, but it does not define your life.)
Yes, of-course I meant it was tougher for the survivors. That is why I made reference to the refugee crisis; I wanted to make sure my post was unambiguous to all but the most half-witted of dolts.
(Having been raised in a family that danced with destitution for a few years and lived in a shelter for a while, I can tell you that the poor aren't the victim class that the Left makes them out to be... it stinks when toast is all you have to eat for a week, but it does not define your life.)
How on earth did we get to talking about the left's immoral and destructive class warfare ideology? It has nothing to do with bombing nations whose GDP is less than Winn Dixie's quarterly revenues. And speaking of hardship stories: I attended an English boarding school. The toast there was decidely sub-par too. I didn't let it define my life though.
Well, let's see:
I take my wife on a drive to the other side of town. I take a short cut and run out of gas right in the middle of the most dangerous part of the city. We are quickly surrounded by youths who, despite looking like millionaire rappers, extract us from our vehicle, rough us up and steal all of our possessions. When the ordeal is over, my wife turns to me and refers to the mess into which I have got us. I correct her by pointing out, freeper-style, that it was in fact the local youths who got us into this mess. She looks at me as though I have completely lost my mind. End of story.Where is the justification here? Who is being proved blameless? The driver, or the youths? Are you suggesting the youths were justified in "roughing" him up because he decided to take a short cut and ran out of gas? That's where your analogy fails. Your defense of your analogy (in italics) relies upon your own definition of "justification."
That's the problem with Lew . . . he is so wrapped up in the idea of isolating the U.S., bringing the troops home, etc., that he fails to see when his own arguments become intellectual failures. He relies on the notion that the U.S. would be left alone if only it withdraws from the world; in other words, he relies on his own definition of "peace."
Take our current police-action. Lew would argue that if we had stopped supporting Israel (among other things), the Muslim radicals would leave us alone, and none of this would have happened. Apparently, he has more faith in radicals than I. He so desperately wishes that his version of peace occurs that he fails to acknowledge the weakest part of his argument. He's too busy pounding the square peg into the round hole.
Naturally, I'm too "obtuse" to pick it up. I'm too busy trying to "sell" the war. It's all about oil, anyway. [chortle]
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