Letters to the Editor
William Timberman
Published Letters: 3298 Editor's Choice: 7
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As though solutions were of interest
[Read the article: Support for al-Qaida plots on large right-wing blog]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The rest of us are arguing that nothing--no matter how heinous--is an essential threat. That essentialism itself is a delusion. That we have to deal with social phenomena in all their historical complexity. And that cooking up demonized images of the essential other is not, in fact, the first step toward coming up with a solution to anything. -- Paul Rosenberg
If GB doesn't understand this already, it's likely he never will. I applaud you for trying, though. If the above quote were short enough to fit on a bumper sticker, Paul, I'd contribute to a fund to put one on the bumper of every SUV in America. On the other hand, things short enough to fit on a bumper sticker are what got GB -- not to mention us -- into this mess to begin with.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't; now there's a bumper sticker that seems to sum up the liberal conundrum quite nicely. Still, we keep on keeping on. I do hope, though, that this year's Liberal Defense Appropriations Bill contains the funding for more Pauls, more Glenns, and above all, more folks who can actually read. The Republic is, after all, in mortal danger; even GB agrees with that.
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From the horse's mouth
[Read the article: Support for al-Qaida plots on large right-wing blog]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I remember a program on PBS (where else) some years back, in which a panel of religious dignitaries discussed the nature of God's covenant with man. I think it may even have been hosted by Bill Moyers.
Anyway, on this panel there was a Protestant -- a Baptist, I think -- who was the pastor of a fairly large, urban congregation, a Jesuit scholar, a youngish reform Rabbi, and a Muslim scholar, educated partly in the West, who'd written a number of books about the nature of Islam, and the duties of Muslims. None of these folks were fundamentalists, in other words, and all were accustomed to ecumenical conversations.
In the course of the discussion, the question arose whether or not a moral man was allowed to, in effect, negotiate with God about the nature of obligations which seemed to contradict his own conscience. I think that one of the examples used was that of Abraham and Isaac.
There was a good deal of to-ing and fro-ing about whether or not God was justified in testing Abraham's faith in such a cruel way, and whether or not Abraham would have been within his rights, spiritually speaking, to refuse God's commandment. The Christians and the Rabbi did some predictable liberal waffling about the metaphorical meaning of the parable, but when it came to the Muslim, he said, straight out: This is silly. You cannot argue with God, you cannot reason with him, or make deals with him. He is He, His purposes are not to be questioned.
When pressed about this, he spoke of the necessity of submission, and of the hubris of Western egotism in the face of God's law, by which all believers must be bound. Religions which do not understand this fundamental principle are false religions, and societies which turn from it are doomed to endless chaos and cruelty.
Well, yes...he argued for something no child of the Enlightment would countenance for an instant, would even fight wars over, I suspect. Yet what he was arguing for was humility of a kind any of us would be familiar with from the history of our own religions; thy will be done, in fact. He certainly wasn't proposing to inflict his own religious principles on anyone, or offering to kill any of us Abrahams unwilling to drive the knife into our own Isaac just because he would feel compelled to do so.
Paul is right. The reductio ad absurdum in this thread is all GB's.
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The persistence of GB
[Read the article: Support for al-Qaida plots on large right-wing blog]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, have it your way, GB...perhaps these nasty Imams will feast on your liver someday after all. Hell, I think I might even be persuaded to myself, given the way you keep dangling it in front of us.
This argument isn't over whether or not some folks are nasty and murderous; it's about context, which I have to tell you one last time, you don't -- and can't -- control. Not here, not anywhere, not even when you offer yourself as a one-man self-fulfilling prophecy.
There is one final question I would like to ask you though, if you're old enough. Did you have a personal bogeyman before 9/11? Did it have a beard, and quote from the Koran, or were you, perhaps, holding forth on the International Communist Conspiracy, how it was painting the entire world red, and that if we didn't stop it in Korea, or Viet Nam, or Afghanistan, it would come and eat our livers, and our children's livers?
We've all heard this story before, even if you haven't. Go peddle it elsewhere, we aren't buying it.