George W.

[selkirk]

Sort of off-topic (or am I getting back on-topic?), but the fact that we have allowed organized groups of violent international criminals (otherwise known by the highly hijacked term, 'terrorist') to frame their activities in a religious context is a huge mistake.

 

I completely agree. But that goes equally for GWB and company as it does for those we call the terrorists. Our man George described our campaign as a Crusade, and has used the "clash of civilizations" metaphor repeatedly. He's amped up the religious zealots on both sides (to the extent there are really just two sides).

 

I think our pal Selkirk might argue that a good old fashioned fascist could have / would have done the same thing. And he is right. But the religious component is certainly dangerous. Some of these guys at the very top are looking for Armageddon, for gawd's sake!

 

Any group can be mishandled. It's the nature of all good sheeples to be led. I still wouldn't say that religion is bad. Or oganized groups are bad. Charismatic whack jobs with addictive personalities, and god complexes, on the other hand are horrendously bad.

[joblo7]

to believe bush story of the manhattan renov project and then iraq, and iran etc is to reveal the laziness and naiveness of the american mind .

 

truth is too hard to find or face for some.

[Seahawks]

seecocks is pollution!

 

and your a fucking hater.

[joblo7]

seecocks is pollution!

 

and your a fucking hater.

 

i dont hate you one iota , i am however offended by your cluelessness-arrogance-talk.

[Seahawks]

seecocks is pollution!

 

and your a fucking hater.

 

i dont hate you one iota , i am however offended by your cluelessness-arrogance-talk.

 

What was Clueless and what was arrogance that I said??? You just hate. Becuase I beleive something different than you , you label me clueless and I don't know where in the hell you get the arrogance. Just makes you look like an idiot.

Edited May 23, 2007 by Seahawks

[Off_White]

You know, it's not like we're changing anyone's mind here, but there's no need to get all pissy and insulting about things. C'mon, I think it's about beer thirty

[joblo7]

seecocks is pollution!

 

and your a fucking hater.

 

i dont hate you one iota , i am however offended by your cluelessness-arrogance-talk.

 

What was Clueless and what was arrogance that I said??? You just hate. Becuase I beleive something different than you , you label me clueless and I don't know where in the hell you get the arrogance. Just makes you look like an idiot.

 

that is just comical!! read what you wrote. that is you.

 

[Fairweather]

Inasmuch as they are tools used to divide individuals into "us" and "them," Religion and Nationalism are the twin banes of humanity. People don't seem to lack mechanisms for deciding who is less than human and worthy of oppression and death, but Religion has been one of the more effective sorting devices and a ready path to power. Christianity, while successful, has no copyright on this sort of thing.

 

 

...and on the opposite side of the coin is a scourge you forgot to mention - secular collectivism - a far bigger oppressor of mankind in modern times than the two you list. I'll take a good old fashioned Protestant/Capitalist leader over someone claiming to deliver utopia (on government terms, of course) any day. And after almost 500 years separate from catholicism I think most protestant practitioners can rightly detach themselves from any spiritual liability vis a vis The Crusades. Why do liberals keep digging up that 900 year old boondoggle?

[JayB]

Sort of off-topic (or am I getting back on-topic?), but the fact that we have allowed organized groups of violent international criminals (otherwise known by the highly hijacked term, 'terrorist') to frame their activities in a religious context is a huge mistake. The religious confrontationalists of this country have played right into the hands of the Osama bin Laden's of the world, by helping to polarize the religious atmosphere and turn the fight into something that it shouldn't be about. I wish people would wake up and realize that this is not about religion, it is about violent freedom fighters who have never learned (or been allowed, depending who's story) to play nicely. So what if they say that they are fighting for islam. That's not the f'ing point!

 

I'm sure that if you were to head to their camp and set them straight vis-a-vis their misappropriation of their own faith - they'd be happy to accept your authority on the manner and accept that your interpretation of their motivations is more accurate than their own understanding of the same.

 

It would also be useful in this context if you'd take a bit more time to define what - exactly - you mean by "freedom" here when you refer to "Freedom Fighter." Is suspect that this is an outgrowth of the nostrum that "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." One man's rapist my be another man's romantic, but the mere fact that there are people who are incapable of making moral distinctions between rape and consensual sex doesn't erase the vast objective differences between the two acts, much less establish their equivalence as an axiom that anyone who rejects this categorization is bound to grant any legitimacy to.

 

Surely you are not talking about political freedom, nor freedom of conscience, nor freedom of the press or any other aspect of what could reasonable be included rational definition of the term "freedom," all of which are categorically outside of the set of objectives that Islamists include in their list of the policy goals they'd like to pursue should they ever secure power in any given arena that they happen to be active in at the moment.

[JayB]

Sort of off-topic (or am I getting back on-topic?), but the fact that we have allowed organized groups of violent international criminals (otherwise known by the highly hijacked term, 'terrorist') to frame their activities in a religious context is a huge mistake.

 

I completely agree. But that goes equally for GWB and company as it does for those we call the terrorists. Our man George described our campaign as a Crusade, and has used the "clash of civilizations" metaphor repeatedly. He's amped up the religious zealots on both sides (to the extent there are really just two sides).

 

I think our pal Selkirk might argue that a good old fashioned fascist could have / would have done the same thing. And he is right. But the religious component is certainly dangerous. Some of these guys at the very top are looking for Armageddon, for gawd's sake!

 

Is there such a thing as a terrorist, or do they all fall into the category of "those we call terrorists."?

 

If Hillary Clinton were to occupy the Oval Office, and were to articulate a set of arguments against the same set of behaviors that GWB, Tony Blair, and others have classified as terrorism - and her secular bona fides were sufficiently well established in your eyes, would Osama et al magically transmute from "those we call terrorists" into plain old terrorists despite the absence of any change in their tactics or motivations?

[kevbone]

Inasmuch as they are tools used to divide individuals into "us" and "them," Religion and Nationalism are the twin banes of humanity. People don't seem to lack mechanisms for deciding who is less than human and worthy of oppression and death, but Religion has been one of the more effective sorting devices and a ready path to power. Christianity, while successful, has no copyright on this sort of thing.

 

 

...and on the opposite side of the coin is a scourge you forgot to mention - secular collectivism - a far bigger oppressor of mankind in modern times than the two you list. I'll take a good an old fashioned Protestant/Capitalist leader over someone claiming to deliver utopia (on government terms, of course) any day. And after almost 500 years separate from catholicism I think most protestant practitioners can rightly detach themselves from any spiritual liability vis a vis The Crusades. Why do liberals keep digging up that 900 year old boondoggle?

 

 

Nice to see you back....I thought you retired Fairweather.

[mattp]

If Hilary were to occupy the office, I'd be equally horrified as you would. I have hate too.

 

Terrorism is terrorism. And I say "those we would call terrorists" because GWB is the #1 terrorist alive today or, if you have trouble with my use of the term, he is the #1 killer, maimer, and general terror-causer for no justifiable reason (except maybe the bad guy, if there is any single one we could call responsible, in Darfur). The biggest threat to sovereignity, security, peace, and human life has been US for the last several years. We have killed way more (probably times 100) innocent bystanders than all the terrorists put together. Saddam did not attack us, and he didn't pose a credible threat. The situation sucked, but we could easily have waited it out, at vastly less expense in terms of human life and dollars. We could have waited until we had broader support, thus not alienating the rest of the world the way we have, and we could have taken whatever action we had to take without anywhere near the same flagrant disregard for consequences and human life.

 

But we are getting sidetracked here. Is religion part of the reason WHY these criminals have the power they do or is it just a cloak for people who would otherwise lead us to go to war in the Middle East no matter what? If GWB and the Republicans were not supported by the core religious right voters who were in large part responsible for electing them TWICE, would we be in this mess today? Would it, in your estimation, be worse?

[i_like_sun]

I remember watching an interview of W, where the interviewer asked him "was there any other information source other than US inteligance you consulted before making the decision to invade Iraq?" he replied "I consulted a higher power, from within".

 

Now, my response to that is "what do we usually do with people who hear voices in thier head?" - Yeah, we lock them up in a mental institution and forget about them!

 

Anyone else remember that news clip?

[JayB]

I don't actually find the prospect of Hillary in the Oval Office horrifying. She may advocate and try to implement policies that I oppose, but the prospect of someone sitting in the Oval Office who doesn't always support legislation that I am in favor of would hardly be sufficient cause for me to lose the capacity to differentiate between my personal political interests, the interests of her administration, and the national interest - much less lose the perspective necessary to assign the proper weighting to these three considerations - which seems to have happened to a large sector of the Democratic base over the course of the past few years. If having a Democrat in the White House would reverse this trend, that would be a welcome development indeed.

 

As things stand, you seem to have lost the capacity to make elementary moral judgments that are untainted by your passionate loathing for this administration. Let's suppose, for the sake of this argument - that one were to accept your characterizations of the President. You seem to be arguing that the existence of "the world's number one terrorist" negates the possibility of the definition having any objective meaning. "I believe that the president of the United States is a terrorist," ergo there are no terrorists, only "those who we call terrorists." If "those who we call terrorists are not, in fact, terrorists, they must be something else. What are they, exactly? I'd love to see you develop this argument further if this is what you actually believe.*

 

Even if we grant that all killing of human beings is ultimately physically equivalent, you seem to be arguing that all killing is morally equivalent as well. There are various degrees of responsibility for civilian deaths in warfare - ranging from direct responsibility in those cases where a nation uses its military to intentionally target and kill civilians as a matter of policy, and extremely indirect responsibility in the case where the disruption to the normal conduct of life and/or commerce that results from the decision goes to war leads to more civilian deaths that would have resulted from taking no action whatsoever. It's one thing to accept that the US is responsible in the latter of the two senses, quite anther to argue for the former and completely ignore who is actually doing the killing in Iraq, the fact that they are doing so intentionally, and to completely ignore the fact that this country has made staggering sacrifices in an effort to prevent Iraqi civilian deaths resulting from the actions of "those who we call terrorists."

 

I'm quite confident you would not be making these arguments if there was a Democrat in the White house that had decided to invade Iraq or anywhere else - and that's both sad and profoundly disturbing because I think that this is broadly characteristic of the political Left these days. This does not bode well for the West.

 

*Further, if you are sincere in your conviction that the President, the elected leader of your country, is *actually* a terrorist - not in the adjectival sense, but in the literal sense - let alone the "world's number one terrorist," then your current repose is quite puzzling. If I felt the same way that you claim to feel, with the passion and sincerity that you claim to feel - I would have left the country and renounced my citizenship, at a minimum.

[mattp]

What are you trying to say here, Jay? You use a lot of words to say very little, as far as I can tell, but that you think I am blindly in favor of what any Democrat might say or do, and that I think killing people for a just cause is the same as killing them for an unjust one? In my posts here, as in every other thread I have ever participated in on this site, I have never said either.

 

Our actions in Iraq have not even remotely been undertaken in what I perceive to be our national interest - unless you think setting up a permanent fort on top of the southern Iraq oil fields is "our national interest" when the predictable consequences - and the predicted ones - included many years' civil war, general instability in the region, and the alienation of important allies.

 

I don't necessarily equate all unjustified mass killing with terrorism, but terrorism is defined as "the systematic use of terror as a means of coercion" (Websters Dictionary) and I'd have to say that our President's careless threat of military action, particularly when combined with his wreckless deployment of the U.S. military, comes very close to that defenintion. Over and over again he has given speeches saying things like "you're either for us or against us," and just what result do you think he's trying to produce? A little coercion, perhaps?

[JayB]

I'm saying that your stance is nakedly partisan, and that this - rather than any serious moral considerations - has determined your position from the get go, and your attempts to argue to that moral considerations, rather than political ones, are so transparently shallow and insincere that they establish this fact at least as clearly as stark admission of the same.

 

It's hardly worth the effort to point out the fact that per your argument, the "millitary coercion" used to bring the killing in Bosnia/Kosovo to a close would also qualify as terrorism, as would the threat to use millitary force to halt the slaughter in Darfur, etc.

 

 

 

 

[mattp]

You've got some serious attention deficit problems if you think I am any kind of blind supporter of the Democratic party. I'd venture a guess that you've voted Democrat more than I've voted Republican, but I think the Democrats are largely a bunch of spineless opportunists that are really little better than their opponents.

 

As to the war? Maybe you don't think it is immoral to invade a country and cause 600,000 people to die based on false premises, but I do.

[ashw_justin]

It would also be useful in this context if you'd take a bit more time to define what - exactly - you mean by "freedom" here when you refer to "Freedom Fighter."

You're right, that term was much too sympathetic to use in an umbrella sense. I didn't mean to suggest that these acts of violence are at all acceptable, or even solely committed for the purpose of gaining 'freedom.' These guys don't want freedom, they want blood. They are radical criminals and it's murder no matter what book or flag is waved. We should deal with them just like any other armed murderer.

 

However, just to explore the idea of 'freedom fighters,' certain Palestinians have argued that they murder to gain freedom from Israeli occupation, and certain Iraqis now evidently murder to gain freedom from U.S. occupation. Now I hesitate to compare this to the colonial uprising against Britain since that was a more conventional war between armies (and of course as you point out JayB, the ultimate goals may have been different). The terms of engagement are grossly violated by guerrilla attacks. But then we wrote them, and unfortunately they are not stupid enough to fight our military on our terms.

 

But in any case, somewhere we will have to draw the line between combating terrorism and taking over the world. We took over Iraq at the strong objections of the vast majority of the other countries in the world. That's pretty serious. World Wars have begun over things like that. But I digress. There is another crisis of perspective: by calling what we are doing 'war on terrorism,' we legitimize terrorist acts as something more than the despicable crimes they are. Declaring a 'war on terrorism' is the same kind of stupid as declaring a holy war on Islam. "Hey terrorists! Can we play Jihad too!?"

 

But the question is, assuming that the administration knew what it was doing when it declared a 'war on terrorism,' what was worth the cost of handing this wet dream to the terrorists? Let me throw out the idea that they decided that this rallying cry, no matter how ill-conceived, was necessary to motivate the U.S. public into supporting that which Washington thought needed to be done. Perhaps reason may not always win over a population. Maybe it's just easier to rely on:

 

a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.

Geertz called it religion. It also happens to describe propaganda. Is there technically a difference? Should we build our politics and foreign policy around either?

Edited May 23, 2007 by ashw_justin

[JayB]

You've got some serious attention deficit problems if you think I am any kind of blind supporter of the Democratic party. I'd venture a guess that you've voted Democrat more than I've voted Republican, but I think the Democrats are largely a bunch of spinless opportunits that are really little better than their opponents.

 

As to the war? Maybe you don't think it is immoral to invade a country and cause 600,000 people to die based on false premises, but I do.

 

Blind supporter of the Democrats? Probably not. I am arguing that your hatred for the current administration has blinded you in certain fundamental respects, and left you unable to contemplate serious strategic or political issues in any fashion that is not congruent with your hostility to the Bush administration.

 

I don't think it's moral to ignore who's actually doing the killing in Iraq in order to advance my domestic political agenda, much less grant those doing the killing the title, much less the high moral stature that comes with the term "freedom fighters," much less ignore the fact that objective of both our policies and sacrifices in Iraq has been to limit the civilian death toll, rather than to increase it, etc, etc, etc - all for the same reason.

 

[sk]

If I'm not mistaken, Seahawks, it has been proven that large sections of the New Testament, the Gnostic Gospels and maybe more, were simply discarded because they supported the idea that individuals should trust themselves more than the Pope or whoever may be running the church. I'm not real clear on all of this, but I think it is something like that.

 

This gets us back to the earlier idea that the Christian religion (or the Moslem faith, or the Mormon Church) was fashioned by people who were a product of their times.

 

 

thats what i heard

[mattp]

I don't think it's moral to ignore who's actually doing the killing in Iraq in order to advance my domestic political agenda, much less grant those doing the killing the title, much less the high moral stature that comes with the term "freedom fighters," much less ignore the fact that objective of both our policies and sacrifices in Iraq has been to limit the civilian death toll, rather than to increase it, etc, etc, etc - all for the same reason.

 

JayB: WE have killed more people in Iraq with our bombs and bullets and our destruction of the infrastructure than the "bad guys" have. OUR analysts warned that this was likely to happen - beyond the "collateral damage," the President was warned that a civil war was likely to ensue. Our policies HAVE NOT been to limit civilian casualties or we would have gone in with sufficient troops to control the aftermath and we'd be taking care of things now.

 

The blinders are on YOUR eyes, not mine.

 

Your strategic genius, George Bush, may succeed in setting us up to control Iraqui oil for years to come, but maybe not. We may well find that it would have been cheaper to buy the oil.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

You guys are all in fine form this evening.

 

 

[mattp]

Welcome back. Now what was it that you believe in again? Jay and I can argue about how great Bush is for ever, but what about the religious component? Would you argue that your religious beliefs have nothing to do with your politics?

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Welcome back. Now what was it that you believe in again? Jay and I can argue about how great Bush is for ever, but what about the religious component? Would you argue that your religious beliefs have nothing to do with your politics?

 

Our last two Democrat presidents were evangelical Christians - both were Baptist. Would you argue that your hatred of Bush really has anything to do with his religious beliefs and its effect on his politics considering that the Baptist sect is at least as evangelical as the Methodist sect is, and could hardly be any less inimical in your eyes?

[Dechristo]

Humans and religion go hand in hand; it's endemic to specific levels of consciousness. It's not bad or good, it's the way it always has been and, probably, the way it always will be as long as the those levels of consciousness are present.

 

Generally, humans possess a need for affirmation and inclusion - to belong - in order to establish identity, affirm their beliefs, and combat the universal proclivity to loneliness. There are as many "clubs" as variable ideas humans can conceive and two or more agree upon, allowing all humans to "belong", whether to childhood clubhouse, genetic heritage, national cause, or global religion...it's nearly endless in variety of manifestation and ubiquitous in participation.

 

Perhaps, in the end, the most salient determinant of an individual's choice in adherence to a group of political/religious nature (I find the two very similar) is their notions of Right and Wrong. It is here, I believe, the Christian finds (his- or) herself on shaky ground.

 

Through study of many of the world religions (with a major exertion in Christianity), I've come to believe the meat of the message in the world's religious texts are allegorical and/or metaphorical. There is little, to no, other way to convey ideas irrational to the rational mind. All of the great teachers of mysticism and spirituality have taught, almost exclusively, in this fashion; including the famous guy from Nazareth: Jesus.

 

As someone here has already pointed out, it is the literal understanding, only, of "religious" texts that perpetuates misunderstanding and allows for the wielding of words as weaponry when their intent was to disarm. In my view, there is universal misunderstanding (weaponry) forged by rational interpretation of ideas and terms such as "sin", "Satan" (the Deceiver), "Christ", "through Christ", to "abide in Christ” ...it’s a long list. But, I witness most of Christendom behave through, what I deem, this false understanding of their guide.

 

I see religion (and political affiliation) as part and parcel of the prevailing human condition, but, like that guy from Nazareth, I am not in favor of it.