Since Arabs view the world differently, who's to say that we're right and they're wrong?
Unfortunately they have reached the logically correct conclusion based on their stated worldview. In the (paraphrased) words of the late Francis Schaeffer,
Without a transcendent moral authority, one that stands outside of our own human experience, then all of morality is relative and what is right or wrong will ultimately be determined by who has the greatest ability to force their definitions of right and wrong on everyone else
It is a sad state of affairs, but if we can not even agree on what the authority is for defining right and wrong we can't even talk with each other about it anymore.
God doesn't advocate moral relativity. "Thou shalt not" is an imperative, not an opinion or a request.
To paraphrase a famous saying, "if you (Rather) stand for nothing, you (Rather) will fall for anything", even what the Arabs put out.
In other words, I have no principles, no values, no opinions, no beliefs and no business opening my mouth!
If it looks like a turd, smells like a turd, tastes like a turd, it just might not be a turd DAN! I mean, just who's to say?
Sh** is sh**, even when emanating from the mouth of a droid!
Dan Rather and co. are a bunch of ignorant shmucks.
If not you, then who? If not now, then when?
-PJ
EVEN for psycho-sweaterman Dan "courage" Rather (that description may reveal how long it has been since I've watched him) this is un-freaking-believable.
You know, if you think about it, this sort of thinking (i.e. liberal) equates arabs with animals: They're saying, "it's their nature, like a predatory animal, and they can't change it. It's just a part of nature."
In a situation like this, maybe they need to have it explained in another way... Let's say that there's a bear on the loose in your neighborhood, and it's begun killing people. Would you say, "who's to say if the bear is right or wrong in killing people?" Well, maybe a lot of liberals would, but once a few of them have come out of the south end of a north bound bear, I'd bet that their friends might start thinking about getting rid of that bear.
Mark
"Wait a minute," I asked her. "When a Palestinian straps on a belt of dynamite lined with nails and walks into a pizza shop, blowing up innocent people, that wouldn't be objectively wrong?"Gee, I could say that the Palestinian"Of course I would think that is wrong," she answered me. "But the Palestinians believe this is a legitimate form of warfare. And they would say the Israelis are doing the same to them by killing innocent civilians when they retaliate militarily. Who am I to say what is right or wrong? Who am I to say that the Palestinians are wrong in their beliefs?"
"But don't you think there's a difference between a person blowing himself up in a restaurant, and a military that responds by searching for and killing terrorists. Granted that innocent civilians are killed in both circumstances -- but in one situation the innocents are targeted, and in the other situation they are regrettably caught in the line of fire?"
"Well, that's a very Western way of looking at things. You see I'm Christian and American. I see things the way you do as an Israeli -- we have the same moral framework. But the Arabs view things differently, and who's to say that we're right and they're wrong?"
At this point we both realized we weren't going to get any further in the conversation, and we politely thanked each other and parted ways.
Just as revealing was the reaction from the European media. In the American press, you read things like: "An observer to the bomb-blast scene described a dead young girl, perhaps 10 or 12, lying on the ground with her eyes open, looking as if she was surprised." For Europe, on the other hand, the main significance of this development was that it was "unhelpful" to the "peace process". Before I'm accused of being more upset about dead Jewish than dead Muslim kids, let me say that I take people at their own estimation: in the Palestinian Authority schools, they teach their children about the glories of martyrdom; indeed, the careers guidance counsellor appears to have little information on alternative employment prospects; at social events, the moppets are dressed up as junior jihadi, with toy detonators and play bombs. It's not that I place less value on Palestinian lives, but that Chairman Arafat and his chums in Hamas do. So does Saddam Hussein, whose government (the subject of an admiring article in this week's Spectator) gives $25,000 to the family of each Palestinian suicide bomber. So does the Arab League, which at last year's summit passed a resolution hailing the "spirit of sacrifice" of the Palestinian "martyrs" and thus licensed Wednesday's massacre. As for the "peace process", those Europeans who, just a few months ago, were urging the Americans to cease operations for Ramadan evidently feel no compunction to demand from Chairman Arafat and his dark subsidiaries any similar "bombing pause" for Passover.
In the days after September 11, we were told that Muslims had great respect for their fellow "people of the book" - ie, Jews and Christians. This ought to be so: after all, the dramatis personae of the Koran include Abraham, Moses, David, John the Baptist, Jesus and the Virgin Mary. It's one thing to believe that the Israelis are occupiers and oppressors and that the Zionist state should not exist. But no Muslim with any understanding of his shared heritage could in good conscience blow up a Passover Seder. It marks a new low in the Palestinians' descent into nihilism - though, as usual, the silence of the imams is deafening. As for the nonchalance of the Europeans, that too should not surprise us: in my experience, the Continent's Christians, practising and nominal, find the ceremonies of Jewish life faintly creepy, notwithstanding that these were also the rituals by which their own Saviour lived.
But this year, when the Christians' solar calendar and the Jews' lunar calendar have coincided and Easter and Passover fall together, it's a safe bet that George W Bush will make the connection. The first time I ever heard him speak, he spoke openly about his faith and about Christ in a way that would be unimaginable for a British politician. He will know all the details - "the baby tried to crawl away, but it died, too".......................