Robert Jones

"Can a man knowingly commit evil?"

Ever heard of Saul Alinsky?

I think one should be very careful that arguments against capital punishment are not used in arguments against abortion.

Absolutely: Fetuses don't rape, murder, torture, molest children, kidnap, maim, commit arson, or poison their fellow men.

Oh, was I making an argument in favor of capital punishment?

My bad.

"Kill the poor," by the Dead Kennedys.

Okay: Here's what I regard as the most irrefutable evidence of God, and his creating the Earth: The Big Bang theory. It suggests that at some point, the universe indeed had a starting point in time for originating.

My personal revelation that there is a God: Woman. There can be nothing save Divine design responsible for the physical and spiritual sensation making love to a beautiful woman can bring to a man.

My proof that there is a devil: Woman. Try living with one.

Shane:

I have been married to women from both worlds and I have remained consistent with some modifications of position.

I just posted this on another thread, but I think you would find this worthy of exposing your wife and children to. As you guys are aware, I have been proselytizing for her since I was 14.

I am very active in the home school community from both a Constitutional and individual freedom perspective. I do not see any reason why a Christian, christian, Morman, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Daoist cannot be moved to objectivism within the context of the approach taken on this link:

http://christianobjectivist.net/about.html

There are a lot more christian and catholic objectivists than any of us realize. Hell I've moved a lot of them to objectivism and their "faith" issues are there own.

At a minimum, it is a bridge to your wife and daughter and remember never burn a bridge unless you are attacking in another direction -

I love Marine Commander's:

"Retreat, hell! We're just attacking in a different direction!"~Major General Oliver P. Smith. Marine Corps. (Response to reporters query) Korean War Chosin Reservoir - Cong. Charles Rangle from Harlem NYC - was in that battle - "Frozen Chosin"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chosin_Reservoir

He was a long winded Marine - we all remember "Nuts!" in WW II.

Adam

Oh, hey, you ARE Adam Selene! By the way, I am one of those unrepentant Roman Catholics who agree with 95% of Objectivism. The problem with most Objectivists (many of the people here, excepted), are that they make it an all-or-nothing proposition. They get hung up on that "God thing" and go around "correcting" people for their religious beliefs.

I don't care if people think I'm irrational. They can get used to it, like I'm used to many of them owning way too many pictures of naked men staring at skyscrapers silhouetted by the rising sun.

How could Ayn Rand smoke? Probably by taking a cigarette out of her pack, inserting it into her cigarette holder, and then lighting it with her Zippo cigarette lighter. She probably put her lips to the cigarette holder, drew in her breath, and with that, cigarette smoke.

I imagine that's how Ayn Rand could smoke.

Robert:

I was sooooo tempted to post what you just posted...lol

However, you had better be careful because if Peter sees your profile Avatar, he will:

he is just a

You wouldn't have to be Adam Selene, leader of the lunar revolution?

I limit my smoking to one day out of the year: The "Great American Smokeout."

Say what you want about smoking, but here's an uncomfortable fact I'd like to see Objectivists address:

The life expectancy of smokers is a hell of a lot longer than the life expectancy of aborted children. The real question (which should make any conscientious objectivist squirm) is:

How could Ayn Rand have an abortion?

How could Ayn Rand smoke? Probably by taking a cigarette out of her pack, inserting it into her cigarette holder, and then lighting it with her Zippo cigarette lighter. She probably put her lips to the cigarette holder, drew in her breath, and with that, cigarette smoke.

I imagine that's how Ayn Rand could smoke.

Since it was Ayn Rand she probably lit the cigarette by snaping her fingers.

Burgess Meredith used to do that!

How could Ayn Rand smoke? Probably by taking a cigarette out of her pack, inserting it into her cigarette holder, and then lighting it with her Zippo cigarette lighter. She probably put her lips to the cigarette holder, drew in her breath, and with that, cigarette smoke.

I imagine that's how Ayn Rand could smoke.

I hadn't realized 78s were on the upswing. I have an upright Victrola in my living room, and my little boy and daughter simply love it. We listen to old wax by Tony Bennett, John Lee Hooker, Elvis, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee, Steve and Eydie, and Frank. Within an hour, Evan is worn out from cranking it before each spin, and Sarah is tired from dancing in circles. This is how I trick my kids into getting ready to go to bed each night.

Another huge Rushhead here, since 1982.

Note: This posting is reprinted from my column at modernconservative.com. It can be found at Liberatchik.

***

I hate political art. Political art is not for me. I am uncomfortable with it mainly because its foremost practitioners’ politics are way stronger than their art – and their politics suck.

Yet, if you are like I, you know viscerally what it feels like to be a conservative artist, especially if you’re one who takes his art seriously. It feels lonely as hell.

Especially if you won’t sell out. It has not been news that the art world is peopled with flaneurs, shockers, and other assorted pretentious dilettantes who pose at being outcasts. But, you know who the real outcast is: It’s you.

It’s not just that you don’t fit in – you even feel as though you’d have been exiled from the Island of Misfit Toys. It’s not that you are lacking in a certain social DNA – it’s that you’re completely bereft of it. Kind of like that scene in Taxi Driver when Robert DeNiro, woefully inept at dating prowess, takes an uptight Cybill Shepherd to a porno theater on a first date.

By day, you’re just some guy or girl with a workaday job. You save up enough loose change and singles to finance what your family regards as your “eccentric hobby.” The earmarks of your passion are the oil paint you can’t fully scrape out from under your fingernails or the smell of photo fixer you can’t get out of your skin and clothes no matter how often you wash them.

You hide your political beliefs. You know you’re not a liberal, a progressive, one of those mindless lemmings who’ve “gone green.” But, you’re struggling in your art career, and your position in the gallery scene is too precarious to let people know the “real you.”

So, you adopt a bifurcated self, hoping to avoid a confrontation with the movers and shakers, those oh-so insouciant curators in black turtlenecks, whose opinions you secretly despise whilst simultaneously craving their imprimatur.

You swell with a strange kind of “half” pride when you finally see your work hanging in one of those trendy galleries. You’re “half” elated when a collector buys one of your pieces. You convince yourself that you’ve kept your art “pure,” because you’ve kept politics out of your art – while hiding your personal political beliefs from the majority who automatically assume that because you’re an artist that you’re also a leftist.

You make yourself believe that you’ve kept yourself “above it all” by not stooping to the same level as the rest of the art community. Yet, deep down, you also know the very minute your secret political self is unmasked, that you will be blackballed, that so-called “friends” will drop you like a hot potato, and that in the art world you’ll be persona non grata.

You’ve censored who you are in order to stay safe, fit in, and pass by unnoticed. But your real self looks upon your artist self with nothing but scorn and shame, because deep down, you fear that you have sold out in some more insidious way than by prostituting your art.

You tell yourself it’s not your fault, because you know that the selfsame “tolerant” lefties have stacked the deck against Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians. They get away with it because of Political Correctness, you tell yourself.

But then, from out of the past comes the stinging rebuke that maybe they are not the only ones culpable for this bad scene. The admonition that, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing,” echoing in your mind comes not from Edmund Burke, but your own conscience.

Yes, when the intolerant left finds out about your clandestine conservatism, of course your art career will be ruined: You have already abdicated the sanctity of your conscience by prostrating yourself before people who hate what you stand for. Why should they suddenly respect you when they already know you’re lacking in spine and stomach?

Or, you can take some schooling from Don Vito Corleone: “You can act like a man! What's the matter with you?” I have never had the problems so many conservative artists have with liberals because I have never played this self-defeating charade of hiding my political beliefs. I don’t bash people over the head with them, but at gallery openings and such I don’t let an insult go by without at least offering an “I disagree with that.” If you are forthright about who you fully and truly are from the start, then you set the terms by which others deal with you, not they.

Do you see the Tea Party movements the past year, filled with people who found the courage to stand up and defend their cherished beliefs and the Constitution of the United States of America? These are regular guys and gals who finally realized that being consoled by their membership in the “silent majority” was a fool’s bargain – their liberal opposition was only too happy to oblige their silence.

What am I asking of my fellow artists? To join Liberatchik? Sure, but Liberatchik is merely a symptom of the problem, not the solution. True solutions to the ills that plague society seldom rest in collective action.

The solution rests in being true to yourself, and standing up for your beliefs as an artist, as a citizen, as an individual. What is needed, now more than ever, are individuals whose purpose in life is to fully engage in the pursuit of their happiness, not in wanting to be liked by everybody.

Take a look at Frances Byrd’s example. This Jeanne d’Arc of the conservative art movement is out there, standing on her own two feet, facing the fire, but succeeding. She’s succeeding because she’s true to her art, true to herself, and her soul is not for sale.

(And, if I may add, she has raised the editorial cartoon to the level of high art -- here is some political art I actually admire).

Take an assessment of your own life as an artist, your own soul. You will be welcome by us at Liberatchik, should you so wish, not because you’re “one of us,” but because you’re true to yourself.

Then, half the battle will be won already.

I'm sure that Bidinotto had a backup, because Journalspace crashed before and Robert put everything back online piecemeal. I was unaware Journalspace as such fell down; Bosch Fawstin and I simultaneously sent each other e-mails asking what had happened to Robert's site.

Now I know.

Please let us not refer to that person as "O'Bama." It makes my Irish (and Welsh) blood boil to even imply he's a son of Hibernia!

I think Rush gets it in spades. I heard him last week talk of how when the Democrats overreach, they will create a state so massive that the Republicans can turn the statism on their former tormentors once they get back into power.

I believe that it is incumbent upon every American to make Obama fail. I am willing to take an economic "hit" if it will help bring down these nakedly power-hungry goons.

And, incidentally, all the conservatives who are calling this "socialism," you are falling into the liberals' trap: The liberals themselves have become so emboldened as to call it "socialism" already (see Newsweek's recent cover "We're All Socialists Now").

No, what Pelosi, Obama, and Reid, et al, are pulling is fascism. With all-too-willing big business cohorts, they will force a merger between the corporations and government (the hesitant are already being bullied into "cooperating") on such a widespread scale as we've never seen before in America. Anyone familiar with Mussolini's rise to power -- in how he took a revolutionary governing philosophy and couched it in traditionalist terminology -- will see eerie echoes in Obama's all-too similar stratagem.

Obama is no Zelig, sans personality; that is only what he wants us to think. His ruse of being "all things to all people" masks a man who has a very distinctly sociopathic personality, the ruthless tyrant.

Not to get off topic, I think gold rocks , but Robert , what arm of the military do you/did you serve ?

Signed, Curious (or Gigi, same thing)

Gold especially rocks, and my favorite gold coins have no mention of God on them (this is coincidental). They are the Mexican 50 Peso coins minted around the 1940s, simply gorgeous coins, right up there with the St. Gaudens $20 double eagle.

I served in the 1st Forward Light Infantry Secret Squirrel Psyops Battalion Brigade Regimental Command of the Royal Army of the People's Republic of Freedonia.

Naw, I just made that up. Actually, I served in the U.S. Army, U.S. Army National Guard, and New York State Guard. Currently I am on a V.A. disability pension and chilling out with the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary.

Why do you want to know? Are you trying to steal my identity? ;)

Please let these boards not become a haven for making racial and ethnic insults.

Here here...

But if you make racial or ethnic compliments, IMHO, you're insulting the others just the same.

Bob

I agree with you, in part: I'm quite sure Michael was using that space to celebrate human achievement. I've read your comments elsewhere in this thread, and what I gather is that you are against imputing to *all* people in the Jewish group these achievements, especially because all Jews have not earned this praise.

I can sympathize with the bad taste left in your mouth by concepts like racial and ethnic pride, especially when some in those groups get a free ride by expropriating the achievements of their betters within that group, and ascribing to the group -- and not the individual's own talents and hard work -- credit for those accomplishments.

In that regard, here, here as well.

Robert,

Wolf as a white supremacist?

Dayaamm!

Maybe you should read some more of his works. White supremacist is a tad off.

Michael

Hi Mike. While I can be a hothead sometimes on the subject of anti-Semitism, let me just say this:

The stereotype cliches that Wolf raised in his "observation" (more or less a variant of "The Jews control the media, Hollywood, New York, Florida and U.S. foreign affairs, etc.") are not just facile and hackneyed. They are the catch phrases often employed by racists of all stripes (whether they be white or not) who hope to create or exploit resentment against Jewish people.

I know whereof I speak. Although I am not Jewish, I ran the office of a Jewish civil rights organization for many years. And, part of our work was media watch. Such phrases as Wolf used are the very code words employed by hate groups, whether they be Stormfront, National Alliance, Al Sharpton, or the Nation of Islam (Farrakhan's group).

This resentment of the Jews, and their many accomplishments, is often a gateway to even more caustic language, often which includes the advocacy of violence against the Jews. It is a weaker form of "blood libel," which puts on the Jew a scarlet letter in the form of a sobriquet (e.g., "money lender," "diamond merchant," "shyster lawyer") which brings with it the suggestion that the Jew is: a. In a place of higher authority; b. That the source of that authority is suspect (probably nepotism or patronage); c. That because of this suspect basis of authority that the Jew uses his ill-gotten gains and position to "control" a certain sphere of human activity.

Therefore, it is expected of the gullible by the demagogue to easily lead them towards the final step in this chain of distortions, by exploiting his sense of envy and resentment, that, d. There is a Jewish conspiracy which secretly controls everything and runs a shadow government (currently called "the Zionist Occupation Group" [ZOG] by overt racists, or "neo conservatives" by covert racists).

Wolf's words, "Chosen by God to rule the Holy Land, the City of London, Wall Street, Hollywood, US foreign policy", cannot be anything other than (at best) a manifestation of resentment of the Jews, and a suggested mischaracterization that they feel "chosen" to be the masters of "the rest of us."

If they were shtick, they were delivered with too much seriousness to suggest facetiousness. There were also no smiley faces to clue us that he was j/k.

Mike, I don't think Wolf is a white supremist, and I doubt that he is. I made these points about National Alliance and the Deutsches-Amerikanisches Freundschaft Bund to point out to him that his rhetoric sounded exactly like someone from those rabble-rousing groups, and that he should think twice before writing such moronic nonsense.

That I am the only one who called him on it is to me, frankly, frightening.

There was a Jewish guy who wrote a letter to the editor of TNI some months ago, about Ed Hudgins' article on Sam Harris, in which he made the observation that if objectivists got their wish that religion went away, it would more or less be the veritable equivalent of a "final solution." A lot of what he wrote sounded eerily a lot like what I have been saying about atheists' "blind spot" when it comes to religious people. While I don't for a minute think Ed would really want a "final solution by other means," (Ed is a friend, and a forthright and decent guy as the day is long) I can sympathize with the logic of his hypothesis.

To get down to brass tacks, Mike, I'm saying this: If Wolf's comments were made in a social vacuum, then they'd be little more than harmless. Given the history that such statements have had -- whether in the same wording or paraphrased -- in the actual intimidation of Jews and divesting them of their rights and safety, we cannot ignore that history. It is an ugly history, and falls into the same category with similar "observations" that "blacks love fried chicken and watermelon,which they buy with food stamps," and "American Indians are lazy drunks who can't hold onto jobs or wives," and "can we trust Mitt Romney -- a Mormon -- to be loyal to his oath of office, if elected president?"

(This last is a recycling of "can we trust John Kennedy -- a Catholic -- to be loyal to America, and not the Vatican?")

Please let these boards not become a haven for making racial and ethnic insults.

Robert,

Within the context of a thread discussing roughly 50% of the top powerful people in the world being Jewish, I did not find the first quote antisemitic (or anti white shoes, either ). Most of that list dealt with "show business, government, etc." Here is the entire post to check for context:

Hm. Why it always falls to me, I do not know. Anyway, I have to say something on behalf of the stupid and slow-witted, among which I am a prominent member. The political principle of democracy and equal justice is to check the natural aristocracy of brainy rich people. In America, this means Jews and white-shoe bankers who dominate banking, show business, government, etc.

Us dumb folks are not terribly effective at speaking up for ourselves. We have silly prejudices and worse than silly expectations. For instance, most Americans believed Saddam had nuclear weapons and was somehow responsible for 9/11. People at the top knew better and lied to us. Stuck in Iraq, average Americans are incapable of explaining what should be done next, except they like the idea of winning. Israel is the Holy Land, and all God's children (except Muslims and Chinese) are doing the right thing. We don't care to think too hard about Russia at the moment.

Having gulched more than most, I hereby certify that slow-witted people are attracted to Objectivism with equal or greater passion than very smart people. Rand's theories are accessible and logical. Her fiction demonstrates how ideas move the world or destroy our ability to function. Hank Rearden was blocked, emotionally twisted, guilt-ridden and deceitful. Took years to free him, conveniently squeezed into a short soap opera that will never be dated or outmoded. Was Hank Rearden a genius? No. His wife, brother, and mother bullied and outsmarted him approximately forever. Rearden reminds me of Thomas Edison, engaged in ten years of failed experiments and guesswork, boss of a crew that did most of the lab work for him.

Three cheers for dolts, creators of light bulbs and rock lyrics, over the road transport and fast food.

As to the second quote, to my eye it reads like anti-tribalism and disgust with USA foreign policy, not anti-Jewish racism per se. We can ask him. A good litmus test would be to ask him what he thinks of Muslim tribalism. At the moment of the quote, we were discussing the interpretation of a verse in Leviticus (19:18) about which type of neighbor to love and the doctrine of collective atonement and some other similar considerations. For the record, here is the original quote.

Tribal to the core. Don't intermarry. Stick together. Chosen by God to rule the Holy Land, the City of London, Wall Street, Hollywood, US foreign policy.

I have to quit this thread. Nothing constructive to add, and my question about GWOT died on the vine.

W.

Michael

Oh, yeah, sure, "Chosen by God to rule the Holy Land, the City of London, Wall Street, Hollywood, US Foreign Policy" doesn't at all smack of anti-Semitism.

It's NOT tribalism he's attacking; it's JEWS he's attacking for being tribal.

SHOW those quotes to any number of Jews -- the vast majority will tell you that they're anti-Semitic, and that there is a deep, resentful undercurrent against the Jews to Herr DeVoon's rhetoric and rehashing of the same anti-Jewish stereotypes.

And, equating AIPAC with CAIR?!?!? Should I equate the Boy Scouts with CAIR? After all, they are both "organisations."

Robert,

I am curious. What does turning the other cheek have to do with what I wrote? Here is my quote:

I have no problem with teaching fear to those who need it (and on a personal level, I have done a bit of this myself in the past), but it is a tragic mistake to miss out on teaching Muslims to love individual rights and other forms of love where this can be done. I would expect you, as a Christian, to have at least some sympathy for the approach of teaching love for human beings.

The solution to this whole issue is a package of many measures and there is no one size fits all. There are simply too many Muslims, too many denominations and too many countries involved for that to be realistic.

My point is that the military has the job of using the sword (and I strongly favor of them using it when they need to). We intellectuals have the job of using the word. We can preach to ourselves and we can preach to Muslims. (I use the term "preach" loosely here.)

When we do engage Muslims in debate, what is wrong with trying to convince them to use love as a standard (as well as reason, of course)? Isn't that part of persuasion? Are you against using this argument along with others? Preaching love (as I mean it here) does not mean abandoning getting tough with enemies or not mentioning anything else. That would be oversimplifying and if there is one thing I keep clamoring against, it is oversimplification.

I highly recommend reading Bernard Lewis on his view of the Islamic world. I think his analysis and policy recommendations are sane, practical and moral because they are based on demonstrable reality and deep knowledge.

Michael

Turning the other cheek is what Christians do.

As for the preaching love and all that mushy stuff: Hey, I'm not a hippie. Find some chick with flowers in her hair to sing "Kumbaya" to them and preach about love.

It's beside the point to preach love to them in a debate. It only makes us look weak.

I've read some Bernard Lewis, but I don't remember anything about preaching love in there. Then again, I'm sure I read but a fraction of his total output.

In all fairness, Mike, why wasn't what Wolf de Loon spouting off bigotry? It was right out of the Stormfront handbook about ZOG!

Robert,

I object to preaching ethnic cleansing as in killing a "billion of the bastards." I don't recall any post by Wolf preaching that, or any form of antisemitism for that matter. I recall he said some things said against AIPAC, but that's a lobby group, not a people. Someone bashing CAIR is not necessarily an anti-Muslim bigot, so why should bashing AIPAC be considered thus? I personally think bashing ANY politician or lobby group is fair game because I have yet to see one with a diploma of saint or angel.

Could you please supply a quote of something you object to from Wolf as bigoted? I am sure if you find something that sounds antisemitic, Wolf will be glad to explain what he meant. If it really is racist, I will ask him to stop. That's fair, isn't it?

Michael

Fair enough. Here are two examples of his (transparently veiled) anti-Semitism:

"The political principle of democracy and equal justice is to check the natural aristocracy of brainy rich people. In America, this means Jews and white-shoe bankers who dominate banking, show business, government, etc."

-and-

"Tribal to the core. Don't intermarry. Stick together. Chosen by God to rule the Holy Land, the City of London, Wall Street, Hollywood, US foreign policy."

By all means, I'll run out an get some right now! After all, it's of crucial importance not to trust God. God forbid!

Perhaps not, but it is of crucial importance to separate church and state.

Oh, please! What church is that? How does "In God We Trust" *really* impinge on your freedoms?

What is tearing this nation apart is the Puritanical impulse, and your original post was an example of it. Decency and common sense fly out the window when Puritans, ever armed with the wish to impose their will on society, seek to act as boards of censorship, and expunge every trace and mention of God's name from the public record. Or, in the case of evangelicals, to go around saying bilge like "We have freedom of religion, but not freedom *from* religion. So, yes, I agree with you there.

But only so far as saying if you don't want to believe in God, I'm not going to force you.

It is silly that anyone needs to be "protected" from seeing the word "God" on our coinage. When I was an Objectivist and an atheist, back in the day, I didn't have that kind of attitude that I needed to have my atheism validated by the State.

The motto "In God We Trust" IS our national motto, and it is meant to represent that, not state-imposed religion.

Take that off our coins, and what are we left with? "In Politicians We Trust"? Even when I was an atheist, I placed more trust in the imaginary superbeing than the corrupt fiends who run things on Capitol Hill and the White House.

When the ACLU seeks to force the city of Las Cruces, New Mexico, to remove the three crosses from their city seal (the NAME of the town means "The Crosses," for Chrissakes!), is that protecting the rights of atheists and agnostic and members of other faiths, or is it actually imposing the tyranny of the minority?

The ACLU, which once defended civil liberties in the land, is dead set on stamping out the free exercise of Christianity in the public square.

As an American, I am saddened at the death of the "live and let live" attitude most people had, and respect for both religious people as well as atheists. What we have now are a bunch of rabid secular humanist bigots and monstrosities like Rev. James Dobson, all trying to impose their will on the people. Mainly, because they don't trust the democratic process to settle those issues.

Hey, I would die on the barricades to defend your right to run as an atheist for public office in any and all of those nine states, friend. Should you form a 501©3 or legal defense fund for such a purpose, you can count on me for $1000.00, and that's a fact.

But, only if I can keep "In God We Trust" on our money.

Otherwise, I don't see why I should defend your right to free speech if you violate my right as an American to have our nation's motto on our coinage.

Democracy requires give-and-take, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

We ALL have to live with things the government does that offend us, or that make us uncomfortable.

Atheists ain't any more priveleged than religious folks in this regard.

By all means, I'll run out an get some right now! After all, it's of crucial importance not to trust God. God forbid!

I am waiting for some dyslexic in the Treasury to stamp "In Dog We Trust" coins. I would love to get a hold of those. Bow Wow! But it will probably not happen. My cries for pleh will go unheeded.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I wish God was a dog, honestly! That would mean -- if man was created in the image of God -- we would be the most trustworthy and loyal mammals on the planet. Man would be man's best friend!

Bob,

Yes I do think that is bigotry. That's enough. If you want to preach bigotry, do it on your own space, not mine.

Michael

In all fairness, Mike, why wasn't what Wolf de Loon spouting off bigotry? It was right out of the Stormfront handbook about ZOG!

However, they will succeed if the West greases the skids by, say, blasting the hell out of Iran's nuke facilities and staging a coup to topple Ahmadinejad from power. I think Iran will benefit much more from a power vacuum than Iraq did. Yes, agreed that Iran has quite a student movement, whereas nothing of the sort exited under Sadam Hussein.

That said, without some ass-kicking, I don't see it happening. There is an acceptance of fate in Islam that is simply frightening. A direct result from a religion called "Submission." We've got to make them fear Uncle Sam more than they fear Allah.

Robert,

I have no problem denying Iran nuclear power (even by means of war) given the "second-coming" (14th Imam) bent of Ahmadinejad and the ruling clergy. That's a very dangerous kind of mentality to be in charge of massive means of blowing things up. But even if Ahmadinejad were toppled from power with our involvement (and that is the wrong guy to topple in Iran, anyway), I seriously doubt the repercussion in the Sunni world would be very great. It wasn't when the the Shah was installed, it wasn't when the Shah was toppled (Iraq even went to war with them) and I don't think it would be with Ahmadinejad. The Muslim world is just too big and divided for an oversimplified "shock and awe" approach.

I have no problem with teaching fear to those who need it (and on a personal level, I have done a bit of this myself in the past), but it is a tragic mistake to miss out on teaching Muslims to love individual rights and other forms of love where this can be done. I would expect you, as a Christian, to have at least some sympathy for the approach of teaching love for human beings.

The solution to this whole issue is a package of many measures and there is no one size fits all. There are simply too many Muslims, too many denominations and too many countries involved for that to be realistic.

Michael

Well, we can argue details, but the main thrust of my argument was rhetorical. Yes, i know some Ayatollah jerkoff really runs things in Iran, and his word is law. My main challenge was the *equivocation* between Christians, Jews and Moslems. I do not see it, and cannot see it. I can make out a laundry list of atrocities commited in the name of Islam that are not commited in the name of Christianity and Judaism.

Nor was I saying that a one-fell-swoop attack on Iran would answer everything. I was giving a single *example,* namely to address the point above. "Shock and Awe" worked only inasmuch as it toppled Saddam from power, but afterwards we didn't exactly calculate what would happen in the power vacuum. However, I am glad that the United States has established two bases of operations (Iraq and Afghanistan) with Iran in the middle. What I am NOT happy about is precisely the point you raised about the Sunni Moslem world: Saudi Arabia is behind all this Jihad shite, and we didn't attack them because we are whores for oil.

I have sympathy for your approach in trying to foster relations with reasonable Moslems. I have in fact left numeous postings on these boards praising Irshad Manji, and others, who seek to revive the Islamic tradition of Ijtihad. However, that's the carrot. And, without the stick at the backs of the radicals and their sympathizers (more people than you think), there'd be little impetus to change their way of thinking. Yeah, I'm with Daniel Pipes and Wafa Sultan on building bridges (I don't know who Yaron Brook is, though). It ought to go without saying that we oughn't to throw the baby out with the bathwater on this, which would only end up alienating decent Moslems, who certainly don't deserve to suffer from the excesses of their extremist brothers.

However, so many decent Moslems are silenced from speaking their true thoughts on these matters. Yes, half of it is from fear. But, the other half is from shame of not following their own religion as rabidly as the terrorists. Until decent Moslems admit that perhaps Mohammed was a murderous Schweinehund, they will be permanently cowed by the more devout of their faith. I have no problem saying, "hey, St. Paul was probably wrong about this or that," and I am not stoned for it. A Moslem most likely would be if he even suggested that Mohammed was not always a swell fella.

As a Christian, though, here's where I stand on the subject of the kind of agape love you are describing.

If I turn the other cheek once, shame on you.

If I turn the other cheek twice, shame on me.

The West has turned the other cheek to the Moslem jihadists *thousands* of times. Time to slap back, I say!

Bob,

It is simple. I think bigotry is evil.

Michael

Well I think that submission of my grandchildren and great grandchildren to Islamic tyranny is even more evil. I would have no compunction about pushing the button that wiped out a billion of the bastards. After which I would sleep the sleep of blessed. And if you think this is bigotry, then keep on thinking so.

If thine enemy even threatens to smite thee on thy cheek, tear his head off and shit down his neck.

Ba'al Chatzaf

That may work on paper, but I think the Chinese and the Russians would soon follow suit to wipe 250 million Americans off the face of the earth. Don't underestimate the Chinese: They pull the strings behind the scenes on a lot of Jihadist terror, as well as North Korean madness. The Russians are nuclear whores. As long as they get rubles for weapons, they're happy.

Be careful of what you wish for.

Hm. Why it always falls to me, I do not know. Anyway, I have to say something on behalf of the stupid and slow-witted, among which I am a prominent member. The political principle of democracy and equal justice is to check the natural aristocracy of brainy rich people. In America, this means Jews and white-shoe bankers who dominate banking, show business, government, etc.

I have found an organization to which you may join with your fellows, who make similar observation those "Jews and white-shoe bankers who dominate banking, show business, government, etc."

http://www.natall.com/

Maybe we can meet for some biers down at the Rathskeller, Herr Wolf De Voon Jackboots, and then go to a Bundist meeting to bust Jew skullcaps in afterwards.

Jesus: Have you ever read your own entries? You sound like some gullible shill reading from "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

P.S.: I have a GWOT ribbon on my uniform. You? What have you done for us lately?