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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Lois my analogy is real. Muslims in general didn't attack us. Some specific types did and they died in the act.
If some other Muslims were involved, we have little proof of it, haven't caught them, and Bin Laden lives in our friendly Pakistan. (the Grey house) None of this has anything to do with Iraq (The pink house we destroyed for their riches)
So my analogy is clear and has nothing to do with offense or defense. No army is marching on us. We were attacked and have killed many, many times more innocent people in retaliation and "defense" but managed to avoid the few that were actually involved, in particular the country where nearly all the attackers came from and the country where the ringleader is clearly living. What have we accomplished? How are we safer?
killing and invading the wrong people eventually endangers us, both from future terrorists and endangers our freedom, values and democracy too
Peace
Karl
Edit: and Lois, your "kill em all" policy assume that none of the innocent victims have, or will ever have, the capacity to seek the same policy that you seek. That's not true. When folks think like you, they will invoke the same bloodlust and create more innocent victims. Maybe you'll be one of them.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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"anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matt 16:25)
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sketchy
Trad climber
Vagrant
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Karl,
You say muslems in genral didnt attack us. Have you already forgot the huge crowds of muslems cheering and dancing in the streets after the 9/11 attacks. Not one major muslem group denouced the attacks, a few made some half A$$ remarks always followed with "but....". And as for for the analogy with the houses, if the person in the grey house was not only hiding the person you were looking for, but also repeatedly telling you they support that person well then fuk them too.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jody
The way that scripture relates is as follows.
In order to save our skin, and acting out of fear, we are willing to kill many thousands of patently innocent people, engage in torture and give up our civil liberties and principles of due process and fairness, all the while proclaiming that we are trying to spread our sacred values and ideas.
That is called losing your soul trying to save your skin. If we really tried to walk our walk, the vast majority of Muslims would respect us and the radicals would be a powerless minority. Those who think otherwise don't know the Muslim world and have just been sold a bill of goods.
If due process, rights to lawyers and courts, and even the rights to inform your family, after years, that you have been arrested, are important enough to preach, they are important enough to practice.
Peace
Karl
Sorry to go off the UN topic. If we only vote our interest and don't cooperate with the World. Why should they cooperate with us? Cause we are powerful? Kinda sad. We won't be the most powerful for long. The writing is on the wall.
Ask youself. Is that how you live. Kissing butt to the most powerful. Only considering your interest and not your kids, or your neighbors?
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Brian
Trad climber
Cali
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Lois,
So you don’t care “how” we get rid of the bully, or care about “justice”? Karl points out, among other things, that we are (in several clear cases) not hitting the bully in question, but just hitting people (some of whom might be bullies, but not the bullies that hit us).
So, your hypothetical bully beats you up and you want to “get him” (and finish him a la Machiavelli: “The injury you do your opponent must be that you need not fear his revenge”).
However, the bully who beat you up ran away and hid in his neighborhood. Now, you know he was Irish (just an example, I’m Irish), so you go to the Irish neighborhood and start beating up Irish folks to try to find the bully. Some of the other folks you beat up are no doubt relatives of the bully and know where he is, so you are getting to the bully to some degree with this behavior. However, many other people are unrelated to the bully, but are caught up in your unfocused revenge. Some of these innocent bystanders disliked you and your kin already, but they never had attacked you and probably never would have. Others were actually well disposed to you and your kin. However, now you have beat up some of the bullies relatives (good, I suppose, to some degree), as well as innocent bystanders you happened not to like you (not so good) and some innocent bystanders you actually liked you (bad). You have not got your bully yet, but because you don’t care about “justice” you have made a whole bunch of other bullies more likely to attack you in the future because of your behavior.
However, you also don’t care about “how” we get to our hypothetical bully, so you round up some folks who you are pretty sure know the bully and know where he is. You rough these folks up trying to find where your bully is hiding. In the process of rouging up and detaining these folks, you find a few more who have nothing to do with the bully, but you detain them indefinitely anyway.
There remain a few detainees who you are sure are related to said bully. Do you really not care “how” we get them to talk? Let’s run through some options. We could beat these folks up a bit to try to get them to talk (I take it from your comments you are still on-board with this, even though these individuals are not the actually bully). If this does not work, we could resort to cruel treatment (are you OK with that?). If that does not work we can use torture (are you OK with that, again nothing that none of these folks is the actually bully himself). Of course, some of these folks are hard cases (we Irish are a tough lot) and won’t talk. Are you really OK doing anything to get information to get to the bully? “Anything” gets pretty dark… You could rape and mutilate certain detainees. You can haul in the children of these detainees, maybe rape a detainee’s daughter in front of him, maybe rape his son in front of him. If he still doesn’t talk, maybe you could skin one of his children alive…
Before the right wing jumps on me on this forum, let me make clear that I am not claiming anything about whether such behavior has occurred. I merely want to point out to Lois the consequences of saying “justice” and the “how” do not matter. That is a pretty easy thing to say from the safety of an air conditioned home or office, while typing away on a computer screen. However, I think it pretty unlikely that folks are willing to grab the kid of “suspected” terrorist and then rape and torture the children in an effort to get the parent to talk. I could think of some more fvcked up stuff to use as an example, but I hope I’ve made my point. Machiavelli has a point (noted above); if you are going to hit someone you should insure they cannot counter your attack. However, this should come with some wisdom: (1) don’t hit people over small things, because you should hit to kill, and (2) be sure you hit the right person. 9/11 was no small thing, and we should certainly find and neutralize the people responsible; however, in our zeal to do so we have focused on hitting “someone” rather than hitting and finishing off the right person and, in the process, have created a generation of people who may well come back to hit/haunt us.
If anyone is really willing to do anything, anything at all without any reservations, in order to get bin Laden or his cronies, then you are exactly the kind of person I don’t want to be associated with and you are exactly the kind of person bin Laden would love to meet and recruit…
Let’s all hope that we do find bin Laden and bring him to justice; but let’s all hope that we don’t make any new bin Laden’s by using a broadsword (and a blindly wielded one at that) rather than a scalpel.
Brian
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Brian
Trad climber
Cali
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Lois,
Just who do you think we are hitting? Following my analogy above, we have followed your bully into a dark room and started swinging. We are hitting lots of people and we are even hitting some of the bullies pals (e.g., al Zarquai), but we have not hit the bully. I agree that we want to get bin Laden and, when we do, we should make sure that the injury we do him is such that we need not fear his revenge; however, what are you willing to do to get bin Laden, become like him? We could carpet-bomb the Pakistan-Afgahnistan border with nukes and I'm pretty sure we would get bin Laden, but I'm not so sure that is a good idea...
Brian
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Brian
Trad climber
Cali
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Jody,
I am not a pacifist; however, especially when reading Scripture, I often suspect I should be...
You may have seen some bumper stickers while on your patrol reading: "When Jesus said love your enemies, he probably meant don't kill them."
There is all sorts of theological jujitsu you can use to try to get out of this demand; but on my reading, the central message of the Gospel is love and forgiveness, even of the unloveable and unforgiveable.
Again, I am not a pacifist. This is just something I struggle with.
Brian
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sketchy
Trad climber
Vagrant
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Treating this war as global war is right thing to do just not publicly. There are an estimated 1.1 billon muslems on earth the majority of the top clerics and imans have declared war on the west. Forntatly most of these are in arab regions and there is an old arab saying that possiably even pre-dates mohhamed "me against my brother, me and my brother agaisnt my cosuin, the three of us agaisnt the rest" Bin laden has had some success in getting "me, my brother, and my cousin" together but there are still major rifts in islam. The 80's had low amounts of terriorism mostly becuase of the Iran-Iraq (sunni-shia) war. Al Qaida will never have trouble recruiting amoung the belivers of the koran. Whether or not or not we do anything to them. To do nothing will be seen as a sign of weakness. We have made gains in fight agiasnt terror as evident by Bin Ladens offer of a truce less than a year ago. Truces are only offered when the muslems are weakend and need time to recover and are broken by the muslems as soon as they feel they have suffiecent force to win. This is the example set by Mohhamed with his treaty with the meccans, and is considered by muslems to be the "perfect example". Not everyone in nazi germany was pushing jews into ovens, but had our soldiers gone over there and tried to only fight the bad ones we would have lost.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Ok so many folowers of a certain religion believe that God plans to torture everyone who doesn't belong until the end of time and beyond.
And that religion has a long history of conquest based on those beliefs. They figure those "other religion believers" are going to hell anyway so what's wrong with killin em?
But I don't think every, most or even many Christians believe in killing all the Muslims even though fanatics have thought and acted on it in the past.
Same goes for Muslims.
Islam is probably less exclusive than many versions of Christianity because they believe they follow the same God as the Jews and Christains, have some respect of all the "Religions of the Book" and believe that Jesus will come back at the end of the world and destroy the anti-Christ.
I honestly don't believe that the majority of either religion advocates killing the other, and I've lived around both.
Jody makes a quick illogical jump for the specific terrorists that attacked on 9-11 to all Muslims everywhere. Dishonest and ill-informed Jody.
And why, oh why do I ever waste my time typing to Lois who never listens, never understands, is COMPLETELY misinformed, and has her head completely buried in the sand. (otherwise you're great Lois, just when you try to write about what you don't bother to think about) If you practiced medicine like you study politics, your patients would be covered in leeches
Peace
Karl
Edit: Just to refute one point about the Islamic world not condemning 9-11. Check out
http://www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php
Even the supreme leader in Iran comdemned 9-11 and so did the Palestinians.
in fact lets post most of the text from this link
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2001-09/13/article18.shtml
DUBAI, Sept 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Muslim world expressed condemnation Wednesday towards the attacks that occurred Tuesday in the United States, news agencies reported.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) grouping 57 Muslim states condemned Wednesday the previous day's attacks on the United States, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"We condemn these savage and criminal acts which are anathema to all human conventions and values and the monotheist religions, led by Islam," OIC secretary general Abdel Wahad Belkaziz said in a statement.
Renowned Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi encouraged Muslims to donate blood to the victims of the attacks and said that helping the victims with blood and money is considered a charity.
In a special interview with IslamOnline, al-Qaradawi said that any sane Muslim who abides by Islamic laws would have never caused the incident. He added that acts of terrorism are a crime regardless of the nationality or religious backgrounds of the victims.
Qaradawi said that the U.S. bias towards Israel in the Palestinian conflict, while unjust, does not provide a basis for justification for terrorist attacks, adding that the battlefield is in fact in Palestine.
"If the United States uses double standards in its judgment, Islam refuses to do so. We do not hate the American people even if we disagree with the policies of their ruling government," he said.
Libyan leader Moamer Qadhafi condemned the "terrible" attacks and said his country was ready to send aid to the American people.
"Different policies and the conflicts with America shouldn't be a psychological obstacle to sending humanitarian aid to the American people and all people in America who were profoundly affected by these terrible attacks," Qadhafi said, suggesting blood donor offerings.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami condemned what he said was the wave of "terrorist" attacks and expressed his "deep sorrow and sympathy with the American nation."
In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak Tuesday condemned the "attacks" and "terrorism" that struck the United States and said he was "very sad" after hearing the news.
An official source in Syria said, "Damascus condemns the destructive sabotage attacks which targeted innocent civilians in the United States, which caused serious damage to property and essential installations."
Jordan added a similar condemnation: "The Jordanian government and its people express their feelings of sorrow and present their sincerest condolences to the American people, their government, President [George W.] Bush and the families of the innocent victims of terrorist attacks that violate all religious and humanitarian values."
And the Gulf States added similar reactions.
"Saudi Arabia condemns the regrettable and inhumane explosions and attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon," a Saudi official said.
The Kuwaiti cabinet said in a statement: "Kuwait, which rejects all forms of terrorism, condemns these terrorist acts and expresses its deep sympathy to the people of the United States." Kuwait put several army, navy and air force units on a heightened state of alert.
In Doha, Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani condemned "the terrorist attacks and their serious consequences for global security."
In Abu Dhabi, Emirati Information Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan "strongly condemned these savage attacks," adding that "such horrible criminal acts need an extensive international campaign to eradicate all forms of terrorism."
Oman's foreign ministry said the sultanate "showed total solidarity with the United States over these terrorist acts, whose perpetrators will absolutely be punished."
And a Yemeni government spokesman said in a statement that, "Yemen strongly denounces these terrorist acts and renews its condemnation of terrorism, which threatens security and stability in the world."
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat "completely" condemned what he said was "the apparent terrorist attacks in the United States."
For its part, Baghdad said that Tuesday's terror attacks in New York were the "fruit" of American crimes, in an official statement by a commentator on Iraqi television.
"The American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity, and [the attacks] are an affront to American politicians," the commentator said.
In the world's most-populous Muslim nation, Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri condemned the "brutal and indiscriminate" attacks in the United States and said her country would join the global battle against terrorism.
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yo
climber
I'm so over it
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Man, I hate those Mauritanians so much I can't stand it.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Hi Jody
I'm all for putting the morality of Jesus in our society. I remember he preached sacrifice by the rich for the poor, loving your enemies, paying your taxes, and much tolerance and respect.
I don't remember him preaching about what should be taught in school and he didn't have much to say about sex either. He didn't campaign to get the Roman and Greek creation myths debunked either.
Love, Respect, and Truth speak for themselves. Religion used to control masses just gets folks angry and fearful, Islam or Christianity or whatever.
Bring religion in to politics and you corrupt at least religion. It's happened too much already.
Peace
karl
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Mountain Man
Trad climber
Outer space
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 8, 2006 - 09:39pm PT
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On 9/11, Moslims were dancing in the streets all over the world.
Please don't try to rewrite history.
Oops, sorry, liberals.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Lois, I have a hard time undstanding why but you are the one and only person on this forum that I'd like to strangle!
I feel but don't understand why you drove Singer mad, but just can't explain it. It has something to do with being intelligent and well meaning on one hand, and blind and stiff on the other.
I love this country. I want it to be better. I don't want to be respesented by a bunch of lying, killing, torturing Bush Administrations neocon fanatics.
That same self-criticism that you are asking for from the Muslim community, that they should censor those extremists who cause the violence and hatred, is our responsibility as well. It's our job to censor our fanatics so their fanatics won't use our nutjob's words and actions to recruit their nutjobs.
You are quite happy to paint 1.1 billion people with the same brush due to the actions of a small minority, yet you aren't willing to take any responsibility for the actions of your government. You turn a blind eye to everything that doesn't support the unsupported and ignorant view that you have come up with.
You were quite happy to jump in and support the idea that no muslim country condemned 9-11. I posted clear links and evidence that ALMOST EVERY muslim country condemned 9-11 right away. Did it sink into your head? I doubt it. This is just a tiny example of the bubble you are living in.
Mountain Man posts "On 9/11, Moslims were dancing in the streets all over the world.
Please don't try to rewrite history.
Oops, sorry, liberals."
What! You are rewriting the history buddy. I posted the evidence, now you post yours.
I just watched a great (because of its subject significance) movie called "Good Night and Good Luck" about Edward R Murrow. He had the courage to expose Senator Joe McCarthy's unamerican tactics in McCarthy's fight against communism.
Back in those times, folks were fearing communist infiltration at high levels of the US government and Media the same way we fear Muslims today. Similar tactics were being used, Secret evidence, repressed due process, and so on. Nobody cared that those "communists" civil rights were being violated. Of course later we found out most had been railroaded.
The civil rights you deny today to the supposed enemy (who might be innocent just as those accused by McCarthy were innocent) are the rights you lose tomorrow.
Most of all, I believe in keeping your eyes open. I deeply believe in the golden rule. I want our country to walk the walk that they demand from other countries. I don't see it.
I don't hate America. I hate those who would trample American values and principles like civil rights, due process, freedom of speech, and justice for all. I'm sure the folks who criticized Hitler during his rise to power were regarded as German haters as well. (and there goes the thread)
I am totally fed up with people who would criticize my patriotism because I'm willing to stand up for the principles that this country was founded on.
Peace
karl
Here's yet another lie of Bush and Company that's being uncovered. Be careful not to read it.
(Bloomberg, June 30) The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.
... "The Bush Administration asserted this became necessary after 9/11," plaintiff's lawyer Carl Mayer said in a telephone interview. "This undermines that assertion."
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Locker
The problem is that Iraq was created arbitrarily after the demise of colonialism into an artificial country that contains three groups that seem destined to go after each others throats. No amount of dying by our troops is going to change that. Unless democracy is thrust aside and a new Saddam type dictator steps in and does the killing and repressing just as he did.
Or else split the country into thirds.
None of those options are in our plans so basically we plan to sit there and waste our money and soldier's lives while Iraq becomes an Islamic state aligned with Iran. It's totally in the cards and staying there won't change that.
Leaving our soldiers in harm's way in a no win situation is not supporting them.
We killed millions in Vietnam over many years and the "support our troops" crowd kept complaining that they just need to kill on vaster and vaster scale in order to "win" It wouldn't have worked and that war was wrong. So is the Iraq war. It's no win, whether it's sooner or later.
Peace
karl
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Nature beat me to it.
Lois,
1) Who is 'they'?
2) How was comandeering Iraq, in ANY way defensive?
3) If all muslims are bad, why did we mess with Iraq, and not start with the largest Muslim nation? Indonesia?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Lois wrote:
"I will propose that the "real" reason we went there,
in the first place, was to establish a US presence in
the middle east and then for military, political and
ecconomic reasons. GW grossly miscalculated the effort
involved in doing so which resulted in the current
mess we are in. Like so many people have done, ever
much to their own undoing, he significantly
underestimated his enemy and now is experiencing the
fruits of this sort of narrow-minded thinking."
I should give credit where it is due. Nice post Lois. Is that any reason to kill 50,000 Iraqis?
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33897
Peace
karl
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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The problem is Lois, that there is no wild boar charging at you that you could just shoot. There "may" be some dangerous animals out there in the forest and you are scared enough to burn the forest down to make sure they'll be killed.
but I'm done with this thread (no promises, just hoping)
Don't worry about me. I'm my favorite person in the whole dang world and I forgive myself my weaknesses. And I trapped myself a mouse last night (very cute those nasty bastards) and threw it out without a moment of remorse.
and I assure you that I'm fairly prejudiced against Islam myself. That's why I made a point to study it and why I make a point to be fair to it's followers. Why? Cause I love myself, want the best for myself, and, since happiness comes from within, want to save my soul first. I know that we believe what we want to believe so I'm careful to be objective and question all my assumptions.
Peace
Karl
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Brian
Trad climber
Cali
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Lois, Jody, et al.,
When someone critiques America, it does not always mean they hate America. The sort of Ann Coulter BS that “all liberals are terrorists” or “liberals hate America more than terrorists” is as silly and simplistic as Al Franken or Genine Garofalo saying Bush is “evil.” The reality is that things are more complicated than that.
People want a black and white world, because it makes it easier to sleep at night and easier to trust that one’s moral compass is right on. However, what we have is a much more complicated world made up of shades of grey.
America is not good in an absolute sense. Many good, even great, people were or are American: Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Jefferson, John Muir, and many more that you could add to the list. However, Joe McCarthy, William Calley, Steven Green (innocent till proven guilty however), were/are also American and to overlook this is to engage in a convenient sort of cherry-picking.
As I have said in earlier posts, Al Qeaeda should be fought tooth and nail.
I believe evil should be resisted; I’m just not naive enough to think that evil is only something “over there” or in “them”; evil is also “here” in “us” (and not just in the worst examples of “us Americans,” but in each one of us). Again, evil should be resisted; but that means it should be resisted “in here” as well as “out there,” in us as well as in them.
Henry David Thoreau (another great American who is read far too little in contemporary life) pointed out in his “Resistance to Civil Government” (a.k.a., “Civil Disobedience”) that a man or woman can serve the state in a variety of ways: with his body (e.g., as a soldier), with his mind (e.g., as a politician), or with his conscience. Serving the state with one’s conscience means calling the state and its inhabitants to be better than they are; it means pointing out where we do not walk the walk, where our actions do not match our rhetoric, where we fall short of our highest ideals. Serving the state with one’s conscience means critiquing the state.
Unfortunately, no one likes to be critiqued and, while men and women of conscience do the state an invaluable service in critiquing it and calling it to a higher standard, things do not go well for such people. They are called “unpatriotic,” “traitors” and “blasphemers.” A partial list of such servants of conscience would include Socrates, Christ, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Vaclav Havel, Nelson Mandela, etc.
When conservative people condemn liberals for critiquing the state, it is sometimes justified. Some liberals are Pollyannas who think that if we simply hug bin Laden and tell him we’re really great folks, all will be well (which is, of course, silly). However, many more liberals are critics of the state out of love (as Karl points out), calling us to live up to the ideals enshrined in our best documents (the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, etc. Yes, I know that legally several of these core documents do not apply to non-citizens, but this is the kind of criticism I am talking about—do you really think that the “inalienable rights” with which our Creator endowed us (as it is put in the Declaration of Independence) only apply to citizens and green card holders? If these are inalienable rights of all humans, ought they not apply to all humans (e.g., due process versus indefinite detention without charges)?
America is both great and tragic: great when we live up to our lofty ideals and tragic when we fail to do so and make excuses and justifications for why that failure is OK.
I stand with America when America stands with justice and the good, and not otherwise.
Brian
PS--Jody, what to you think of my "pacifism" post above? I'd really like to hear your perspective, as this is genuinely something I struggle with. Thanks.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Lois, I am the Black Angel of Death to mice!
Sometimes the trap just catches them by the leg, then I let em live.
Both in my camper van and house, they come in waves and drive me mad if I don't keep up with em.
Referring to your other thread about Bear 46. I've actually marked the tails of live ones I've let go with a sharpie to see if the same ones come back.
I use WMDs on ants too.
It's all about survivial and self preservation Lois. Kill, Kill, kill!
Godless animals!
Peace
karl
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Lois, these mice have no remorse about invading my home and eating one bite of every little thing. They leave their filthy excrement on my food preparation services.
If I were to lie still enough, for long enough, they would eat me alive! You want me to shoot the wild boar but spare the vermin?
And unlike Muslims, or liberals, the mice really are ALL THE SAME. Barbarians living naked near the bottom of the food chain. I toss their dead hides out the door and they join their usual place in the order of life.
At least finally we get to see that compassionate side of yours
Peace
Karl
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