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2007-07-12 Israel-Palestine-Jordan

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Posted by gromgoru 2007-07-12 13:29|| || Front Page|| [7 views ] Top

#1 First things first:

The tyranny of the weakminded

There, fixed that.

We may ask whether the Palestinians, be they Fatah or Hamas, represent a partner for Israel or a lethal threat. Another basic question is whether the Palestinians actually want to build a viable state. They may not, because the moment they have a state with defined boundaries, their war against Israel will effectively be over.

This early point may well be the best. It speaks volumes as to exactly why the Israeli and Palestinian conflict is no closer to a settlement today than it was decades ago. The only true progress has been in exposing all Palestinians as terrorist facilitators such that their constant claims of victimhood now ring patently false. Hamas' coup in Gaza and the bloodshed that followed has ripped the mask from Palestinian cries for justice.

One French philosopher observed that the mark of a good democracy is when the people are better than their leaders. According to this logic, [he laughs] Israel is a great democracy.

This goes double for America.

That comes from a mindset that is very popular in the US of "cultivating the moderates" or seeking a "win-win situation."

[British MP and Celsius 7/7 author] Michael Gove and [German researcher] Matthias Kuentzel both attribute the weakness of the West to its lack of understanding of ideology as a driving force, particularly in the case of Iran. Generally, Westerners prefer to ignore the ideological dimension and focus on pragmatic problem-solving. They seek the "root causes" of terrorism, as if they were material. This mindset prevents one from understanding the enemy. For example, it fails to take into account the public declarations of [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad such as: "The Zionist regime must disappear from the scene of existence," which is a literal translation from Farsi. Indeed, the essential weakness of Israel and the rest of the West is that we tend to think that every dispute can be settled through some kind of deal.

Another type of faulty reasoning is the assumption that our adversaries are decent people just like you and me.

This approach is called "cognitive egocentrism." It happens when you believe that everybody else is as reasonable as you are.

Bush's continuing reference to Islam as The Religion of Peace [spit] demonstrably proves this notion. Despite the near-constant deceit and lies that issue forth from Fatah and Hamas, Israel's liberals continue to suffer from this cognitive egocentrism as well. Western leaders simply do not, cannot or will not accept that any deal struck with Islam is essentially rendered meaningless by taqiyya. This one fact voids all diplomatic efforts andonce understoodchannels all further rational effort towards a military solution.

One thing is clear: Political correctness is a form of linguistic totalitarianism that leads to Orwellian "slavery." When there are certain things you're not allowed to say, it means in most cases that there are certain things you're not allowed to think.

I have always maintained that the ultimate goal of Politically Correct speech is thought control. Recall the scene from "1984" when Winston Smith's friend brags to him about how his job at the Ministry of Speech involves removing thousands of words from the dictionary each day. Much like how "ungood", "plus-ungood" and "double-plus-ungood" are merely all shades of "good" and the concept of "bad" has now been disposed of: So Politically Correct speech prunes controversial terms from our vocabulary in an attempt to eliminate even the thought of ideas that subvert the sterile thought-scape sought after by its practitioners.

It is this modification of public opinion through the editing of allowable expression that we see happening in the EU as they intentionally unbolt Islam and terrorism despite the deep and abiding connections between them. While Europe has never been a bastion of free speech, America always has and it is particularly reprehensible that our own government still refuses to properly identify the enemy confronting us. This refusal has left mute The Voice of America and other legitimately powerful propaganda tools that we could bring to bear in our fight for survival. America's political elite are emerging as a traitor class unworthy of their own citizenship in this great nation of ours.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-07-12 17:56|| 2007-07-12 17:56|| Front Page Top

#2 An odd thought just occurred to me -- the Left gets gooey over strongmen in weak societies, but has nothing but contempt for the leaders of strong societies. Only when the leaders of free societies act like strongmen -- abusing women, silencing opposition, selling access to the highest bidder -- do they have any respect for them.

Strong men in weak societies have the power to -- attempt -- to remake those societies to their whims. Castro, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Chavez, Hitler (before he attacked Stalin) -- all were "progressive" heroes. They claimed to be trying to "perfect" society, while really just ruling according to their whims.

The Left lusts for that kind of power. They know the best way to organize everyone's lives -- and not being able to do it enrages them. They have nothing but contempt for those who truly try to lead from within the bounds of the law in strong societies, and vehemently despise the people in those societies who resist their utopian schemes.

The tyranny of the weak is the effect of that lust combining with their hatred for strong societies. The strong must be hobbled and humiliated, and the weak who are lorded over by tyrants must be increased, so that the Annointed may rule.

Posted by Rob Crawford">Rob Crawford 2007-07-12 20:13|| 2007-07-12 20:13|| Front Page Top

#3 Amen Rob C.
Take HRC for example. "She" has no desire to Lead, Govern, Administer, Shepherd, etc.

She intends to RULE. In fact, she's drooling to RULE (&REIGN). With all those "useful idiots" out there; she just might. In Jesus' name, God Forbid!

Posted by Asymmetrical T">Asymmetrical T 2007-07-12 21:17|| 2007-07-12 21:17|| Front Page Top

#4 RC may be onto something here. When one examines the Left's spiritual belief structure it all too often resembles a "cafeteria culture". Paganism, New Age, Atheism, Wiccanism: All of these constructs point towards a potentially less-well-anchored core philosophy. While monotheism is not the end-all or be-all answer to beliefmerely examine Islam for proof of thisit still tends to have a more concentric doctrinal substrate.

Thusly, in the absence of such a bedrock stratum, it is definitely conceivable that participants might yearn foror otherwise subconciously desirea souce of personal authorization not available from more dispersed deistic pantheons. It would therefore be no great surprise if Liberals then sought out these "strongmen" as substitute deities in order to satisfy their craving for simplification and order.

It is certainly no great leap to note that the cognitive dissonance induced by moral relativism and the irrational, inductive, feeling-based decision making process so often exhibited by Leftists literally demands some other center of gravity not apparent in their spiritual consitution.

Other threads today have addressed Politically Correct thought and the totalitarian mindset it represents. Leftist thinking may well depend upon such restrictive thought processes to counterbalance the free-floating notions of answerable philosophy that they so often embrace.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-07-12 22:33|| 2007-07-12 22:33|| Front Page Top

23:32 Verlaine
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21:17 Asymmetrical T