Letters to the Editor
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@AreaMan
AreaMan seems to be making stuff up out of whole cloth. Where is she getting assertions like these? "They obviously are fascist fanatics with confused goals. They hide pretty well and some of them are good at surviving, but they have no political program and cannot agree on a leader. The insurgency has no hope of taking state power."
Does she have a direct line to the insurgents? I am assuming not. Many of them actually have agendas. Especially Al-Sadr/Maliki (I think anyone with eyes open knows that the two are BFF).
She writes (quoting me): ""Because we're discussing something different -- the apparant rightwing racism of Ledeen and Reynolds". The remarks of Reynolds accusing the Left of racism were about the inconsistency of the Left in criticising napalm but not chlorine."
But, I think it's clear that whether the insurgnets have a strong or weak agenda has nothing to do with whether Ledeen and Reynolds are racists.
Lastly, she writes: ""How the US acts and now the insurgents act are not logically related.". Obviously, the rules that one side follows will impact the behavior of the other side."
Yes, but we must resist that impact, because it is not a logical reaction. How we treat the other side should be influenced only by our own ethics, morals, standards. There is no logic, nothing humane in justifying in saying that "Because the terrorists torture and behead their western hostages, we can torture and behead (if need be) accused terrorists in our custody." It's a form of group-guilt. Their poor treatment of westerners does not justify our poor treatment of accused terrorists (more than half of all Gitmo detainees have been released with no charges), it does not make it any more moral than their torture. We just sink to their level.
What is she (AreaMan) thinking?!
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Shooter explains....
If you are only slightly authoritarian as your score would indicate, then why do you advocate so strongly for authoritarian policies?
I'm not trying to play gotcha, I genuinely would like to know.
-- Jonathan Hoag
Consider that I'm being measured against folks that the test considers extreme. I'm not outside the mainstream, the bulk of commenters here are. One only needs to look at the pride with which extreme scores are touted.
There is also the disconnect between how one would like life to be like, versus what actually works, albeit imperfectly. That alone is what I consider the primary divide between liberals and conservatives. We both want the same things essentially, but differ on how, or even whether, a particular goal is achievable.
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LeCastor...think?
Let's give us all the benefit of the 'doubt.'
Remember that some people in every area have precocious hairs that grow under the armpit and stink like a goat: Mother's are astonished to notice their sons grow a early fuzz upon the chin and they call a man's beard. A person gets stuck back there [Please save yourself from tiny self-elf?] and shoots crooked. A voice that booms like a black boom-box, 'black-death-crap' about what the neocon boom-idiots want voiced, is a matter for the fools to huddle together, wacko, and talk about.
Have a good morn, if the world still exist, I may stop over here for some glorious lunch. I want a seat with the scrufiest sit and don't wear a stinky-saffron robe or I may use it for a distribution of shredded rags for our napkins and Kleenexes?
I'm glad we can wear healthy smell-tunics and distance our-self from the stinky fancy suit and pinko tie creeps. 'Um stink like a hoary billy goat in a beautiful heifer Field. Lo! Right.
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I don't know about Horace, Bebop...
The only thing I know is I don't know anything at all. I think Socrates may have stole that from Pythagoras, (or maybe it was Hypotenuse), I don't know. Philosophers really piss me off. I don't understand a word they are saying. I'm not sure they do either but I love to listen to them talk. :-)
Never trust Shooter. He cheats on tests.
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Tribal = Uncivilized
One doesn't have to be a right-wing pundit to recognize the barbarism of many Iraqis and other Middle East peoples. I'm a moderate Democrat and agree that tribalism is a relic of the Stone Age that has no business directing people's behavior in the modern world. To my admittedly Western-oriented mind, to be "tribal" is by definition to be uncivilized. The allegiance of civilized peoples is to the community, nation and world, regardless of family, religious or ethnic ties. The United States was founded on this principle, and most of Europe, after two centuries of bloody conflict similar to that occurring presently in the Middle East, has also finally come to this enlightened conclusion.
I have neither patience nor tolerance for cultural equivalency types who argue that certain practices of non-Western cultures are okay, because Westerners cannot grasp the traditions of other cultures. Female genital mutilation, child slavery, and, yes, murdering people from tribes other than yours are always barbaric, uncivilized and wrong.
I disagreed with the War in Iraq from the beginning, and I deeply regret the horrible conflicts between Iraqis that were unleashed. However, I'm beginning to think that, regardless of American intervention or nonintervention, Iraqis are incapable of ever settling their differences, much less peaceably, so long as they cling to primitive tribal and sectarian models and refuse to join the civilized world.
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Unfortunately, The Political Compass Quiz Isn't Working
for me. It's stalled at page 3. Though I would predict myself as an economic 0, and a social left-wing extreme minus.
I took the RWA quiz, and got a 23.
How can anyone put less than a -4 for the following?
- Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us.
- It is always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in government and religion than to listen to the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubt in people’s minds.
- The only way our country can get through the crisis ahead is to get back to our traditional values, put some tough leaders in power, and silence the troublemakers spreading bad ideas.
- Our country will be destroyed someday if we do not smash the perversions eating away at our moral fiber and traditional beliefs.
The “old-fashioned ways” and the “old-fashioned values” still show the best way to live.
- What our country really needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush evil, and take us back to our true path.
- God’s laws about abortion, pornography and marriage must be strictly followed before it is too late, and those who break them must be strongly punished.
- There are many radical, immoral people in our country today, who are trying to ruin it for their own godless purposes, whom the authorities should put out of action.
- Our country will be great if we honor the ways of our forefathers, do what the authorities tell us to do, and get rid of the “rotten apples” who are ruining everything.
- This country would work a lot better if certain groups of troublemakers would just shut up and accept their group’s traditional place in society.