৫ আগস্ট, ২০১৪
"Has any other country, in any other war, been expected to keep the enemy’s civilian casualties no higher than its own civilian casualties?"
"The idea that Israel should do so did not originate among the masses but among the educated intelligentsia," writes Thomas Sowell in a column that cries out for the old George Orwell quotation: "Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them."
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১০৬টি মন্তব্য:
It's hard not to notice that no nation in history has every had it suggested that they get more of their civilians killed, just to keep things even.
The reason why the intelligentsia support Hamas is rooted in Marxist critical theory.
Hamas represents the state of man before industrialization. They are the noble savage. Israel represents capitalism and the exploitation of the working class.
Our children have been so completely indoctrinated in cultural marxism, they apply it unconsciously.
War is ugly. When we voted for the Iraq war, we voted for all this ugly stuff to occur (I believe that Glenn Reynolds has pointed this out to Andrew Sullivan many times). We're getting an up close view of how ugly war can be and it's hard to argue that those acts we can now see seem criminal. But this is what we supported when we send drones to northern Pakistan. Or troops to Afghanistan. Or collalitions of the willing to Iraq. These soldiers aren't committing criminal acts. There doing the ugly business of war. In the case of Israel, the Palestinians don't want Jews on their lands. And Israel likely doesn't want Palestinians on their lands. No on on the Arab world wants the Palestinians in their country. And most of the Arab world wants Israel whiped clean off the Earth. There isn't a lot of common ground that anyone has been able to build on. And so there's war.
If we don't like what these two people are doing, cut their aid. Of couse, Russia will then give them aid and we'll lose a key ally. But it's our money and we can stop the flow of it - that won't stop the crisis but it will mean we're not financing it. But asking Israel to fight with one arm behind it's back because Hamas is hiding behind civilians and children - I know for certain that if Mexico or Canada was lobbing rockets into our country, nobody could restrain us from a overwhelming response.
Sowell has been cursed by too much common sense.
And in this country we have a President who has been indulging in vast extra-Constutional behavior on an array of fronts for years.
And he's a former "professor" of Constitutional Law.
Strip away everything but the basic facts, and most people would say he really would like to be a dictator.
Here' an excerpt of an interview Obama gave to what one would think is an intelligent publication, The Economist. Read how the interviewer jokes with him....
"But you face the danger that Congress may give up on the Export-Import Bank and may also get in the way of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). These could frustrate your policy.
Mr Obama: There’s no doubt that—
The Economist: You’d rather be a dictator. (Laughter.)
Mr Obama: Let’s just make sure that we note that that was not my quote. (Laughter.)"
And later in reference to the climate...
"They’ve [CEOs] got to know now are we pricing carbon? Are we serious about this? But none of them are engaging in some of the nonsense that you’re hearing out of the climate-change denialists. Denialists?
Eric Schultz (deputy press secretary): Deniers.
The Economist: Deniers.
Mr Obama: Deniers—thank you.
The Economist: Denialists sounds better. (laughter.)
Mr Obama: It does have more of a ring to it."
Laughter all around
Aren't all big ideas the product of the intelligentsia? The difference is that so-called brilliant people are, as Orwell noted, more susceptible to believing in patently stupid ideas that "ordinary" people with common sense recognize as impossible violations of human nature. Which of course cries out for Chesterton: "When men stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything."
The Columbus Ohio news was full of reports of price gouging in Toledo for bottled water, and steps being taken to identify the gougers.
The news guy thought this was reasonable, apparently.
Instead of noticing that you could get all the bottled water you wanted on a day when tap water was undrinkable.
This happens because people buy only what they need to drink.
That happens because it costs so much per bottle.
Otherwise the first three guys in the supermarket would exhaust the supply at $2.00 a case.
We live in times where an argumentum ad passiones seems to trump rationality in most cases. Facts, history, and reality in general are to be ignored, or at the very least maligned. It's all about who can scream the loudest and with the most emotion.
LarsPorsena,
"Sowell has been cursed by too much common sense."
I agree, though some think it gives him look of infallibility, which isn't so.
Still, good call here,...
"Our children have been so completely indoctrinated in cultural marxism, they apply it unconsciously."
Exactly right, and this includes feminism.
cassandra lite said...
Which of course cries out for Chesterton: "When men stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything."
One of the world's dumbest statements...at least of those that get repeated.
LarsPorsena said...
Sowell has been cursed by too much common sense.
Indeed. Compare his concise columns to the rambling gibberish you'll see at Slate, etc. He's the only "public intellectual" I've spent money on (doesn't include scientists writing on science).
While I get and agree with Sowell's overall point--that Israel like most civilized countries tries to minimize rather than maximize civilian casualties on both sides of the conflict--this is not what Israel's critics are saying when they point out the discrepency between Israel's civilian casualties and those of the Palestinians. Their point rather is that the huge disparity between Israel's civilian losses and the Palestinian civilian losses demonstrate that Israel's military response is disproportionate and not sufficiently targeted to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties.
The critics' argument is also unfair, in that the main reasons for the discrepency are(a) Israel's much lower civilian casualty count has to do with it being a wealthier country with better emergency services than the Palestinians', (b) the fact that Israel has a massive advantage in weapons compared to Hamas, and (c) Hamas is using the Palestinian population as human sheilds and intends to use every civilian death to its advantage. Considering all this it may mean that Israel's actions are unwise, or doomed to failure in terms of Israel's actual goals, but the difference in casualty counts alone is not due to callousness on Israel's part. Can anyone doubt that if Israel had an effective way of targeting Hamas with far fewer Palestinian civilian deaths that they would use that option instead?
It's a convoluted standard derived from sloppy thinking. The intelligentsia's reasoning is: The Palestinians are an independent people... except that they're under Israel's control. They have a right to protest and act out... but Israel cannot act out in turn. Israel must treat them like its own citizens, even though the expectation is not reciprocal. The Israelis must not respond to provocation... but the Palestinians must be treated with kid gloves lest they rise to provocation. We're actually complimenting the Israelis by believing they can meet Western standards... but all the while defending Palestinians as justified in reacting in ways otherwise abhorrent to Western standards because the Israelis are repressing them...
To the "intelligentsia", that's all straightforward logic.
The Orwell quote is dead on in this case.
It's kind of Reagan's fault. He kicked of missile defense technology, which led to the Israeli Iron Dome that has shot down nearly all of the Gaza-based rockets Hamas intended to randomly murder and maim. The security fence has largely put an end to Palestinian deployment of teenage suicide bombers targeting pizza joints, dance halls and the like. Now we find that Hamas has recruited the children to dig the tunnels under the homes of Israelis - tunnels stocked with handcuffs, ropes and tranquilizers.
But really the key piece of information is that more Palestinian children than Israelis have died during Israeli's attempts to counter these tactics.
Vicki Hearne characterized IQ tests as testing the ability to believe things quickly.
The line about WWII is a good one.
chillblaine wrote:
Our children have been so completely indoctrinated in cultural marxism, they apply it unconsciously.
Yup. The kids of today, they are indoctrinated in it like Hamas is indoctrinated in hatred of the Jews. Even if they don't know what it's called they are that.
Maybe they get it second hand so it's no longer called socialism/marxism/communism, but they regurgitate the same talking points.
The most practical way to keep the enemy's civilian casualties down is to hammer Gaza with everything the IDF has, and to hit Hamas so hard that an average fighter takes one look at what's coming at him, drops his AK-47, and throws up his hands to surrender. That will also kill a lot of "innocent" civilians but in the long term will result in vastly fewer civilian casualties.
I could be totally offbase, but as I see it war has pretty much been force on force for almost all of history. Systematically wiping out civilians was the exception, and generally considered bad form. The civvies just got different flags and rulers, and one didn't want to destroy the work force or cause them to be difficult to deal with under new management.
The British didn't know how to take a civilian army. Guenerica was a test bed for civilian casualties. The fire bombing of Dresden, bad form. Weapons of mass destruction are somehow immoral because they are not constrained to the armed force, but no one cares if the opposing force is decimated -- that's why they get the big bucks (or whatever). Cannon fodder.
Terrorism is an aberration. I know, it's been around for a very long time & there are lots of historical examples. There are lots of historical examples of serial killers, but they're still aberrations. Killing masses of civilians has never been all that systematic, let alone embraced by a large number of people. It is perfectly understandable but totally bizarre that the people that think terrorism is a good idea then get upset when their own population suffer as the recipient tries to stop it.
The view of these "Elites" is exactly backward.
On the one hand you have Israel, who is trying to protect it's own civilians and attack the enemy, who has surrounded himself with civilians to avoid targeting.
On the other, you have Hamas, who prefers to attack Israeli civilians and who uses its own people as human shields.
Israel is obeying the laws of warfare and Hamas are the war criminals.
What Thomas Sowell remarked on is in the same class as "Higher Standards"
To recycle a comment of mine a few threads ago;
'
"Higher Standards"
That strange thing which makes Abu Ghraib II, were some prisoners got panties on their heads, much, but really much much, worse than Abu Ghraib I, were people were put trough the meat-grinder.
"Higher Standards" the cop-out for garbage who have NO standards at all. For if they did they would say something like "We hold all people to the SAME high standards, but it is more grievous if the USA (or say the CC) breaks them".
'
I can only add that those, most of them anayway, who make the comparison in fact don't give a damn about casualties, it's just propaganda.
This may have been mentioned
before, but in the casualty count highlighted by the media, the number of Israeli IDF soldiers and
Palestinians are identified. Dead Palestinians are occasionally broken down adult and children.
Note, no mention of dead Palestinian "soldiers". Apparently firing off the rockets is but a mere part time job, which can be executed by civilians. It can be a distracting occupation however, surrounded by screaming children or hospital patients on gurneys.
The "intelligencia" isn't anything of the sort. It's just the usual collection of self appointed "betters" deciding how others should live and think.
I mean, anyone can be a xenophobe or a bigot, but it takes the intelligencia to turn that into scientific "evidence" and justify encoding the bigotry and ignorance into law and Government action.
See: Communism, Socialism, Fascism and Progressivism.
"War is ugly. When we voted for the Iraq war, we voted for all this ugly stuff to occur.... We're getting an up close view of how ugly war can be and it's hard to argue that those acts we can now see seem criminal. But this is what we supported when we send drones to northern Pakistan. Or troops to Afghanistan. Or collalitions of the willing to Iraq. These soldiers aren't committing criminal acts. There doing the ugly business of war."
"We" didn't vote for the Iraq war, and neither, really, did Congress, as was their Constitutional right and obligation. They simply ceded power to the President, voting to give him the authority to do whatever he wanted to do to "fight the terrorists."
This is why our invasion of Iraq was so horrible, and, yes, criminal: Iraq was not an existential threat to us, they hadn't invaded us or threatened to do so, (or have the capacity to do so), they had no WMD...the whole thing was simply the desire by the neo-CONS (emphasis added...for emphasis) to "remake" the middle east, to carry out their vision of American domination of the region and control over its resources.
Nearly all wars are similarly criminal, and are usually about conquest and the taking of or exertion of control over land and resources.
"Our children have been so completely indoctrinated in cultural marxism...."
Um, what is "cultural marxism?"
On the one hand you have Israel, who is trying to protect it's own civilians and attack the enemy, who has surrounded himself with civilians to avoid targeting.
Israel is illegally occupying Gaza. Perhaps if Israel doesn't like getting nicked and scratched they should stop choking the victim.
Don't forget Israel has committed the unforgivable sin of trying and rejecting socialism. It was once a darling of the left, but now receives the special scorn reserved for the heretic.
Chesterton: "When men stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything."
One of the world's dumbest statements
Not really. Humans have a spiritual appetite that needs to be satiated (see Maslow's hierarchy of needs) just like the others.
Religion provides that need. Those who don't choose religion simply divert all that spiritual energy into something else - a cause (AGW theory) or a person (cult of personality, like Obama) or more often themselves (unhealthy narcissism).
They deny a God in heaven and then create their own little God-Kings on earth.
Thomas Sowell: "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"
Perp: "Robbing you and raping your wife. See, I have a knife"
Sowell: "Hah. Its of little use, I have a 9mm, see?"
Perp: "Hey that would be disproportionate force!"
Sowell: "Golly gee, you are right. Wait here while I go get a kitchen knife, brb"
Hamas and the MSM should get this year's Oscar for cinematography. They have been practicing a media war with doctored scenes of wounded and dead.
The American retribution phase during the last six months of WWII included massed raids of fire bombs that were deigned to roast entire city populations alive 100,000 a night. Curtis LeMay's guys made the Book of Revelations apocalypse events seem moderate.
"Note, no mention of dead Palestinian "soldiers". Apparently firing off the rockets is but a mere part time job, which can be executed by civilians"
The majority of the "civilian" deaths are military aged males. What luck for Israel...
In Germany the mass firebomb raids were excused to destroy the RR system that ran through the bombed cities and thereby to stop the Eastern Front to Western Front troop and supply movements back and forth between Russian and Allied Armies.
In case of Japan we just wanted to help the Emperor out with the Japanese suicides he was ordering to save his sorry Sun god ass.
Unknown said...
I could be totally offbase, but as I see it war has pretty much been force on force for almost all of history. Systematically wiping out civilians was the exception, and generally considered bad form. The civvies just got different flags and rulers, and one didn't want to destroy the work force or cause them to be difficult to deal with under new management. "
Crack open a couple of real history books. That will disabuse you of any such chivalrous thoughts.
Remember, the treaties limiting war from touching civilians were put in place by First-World nations after the global fracas of 1939-1945. (Or 1937-1945, if we include all of Imperial Japan's war-mongering in China as part of World War 2.0)
The nations of Germany, Britain, the United States, and Japan all supported and took part in campaigns that did tremendous damage to civilian targets as part of regular war strategy.
These attacks ranged from bomber raids over German cities to the Battle of Britain and V-2 rockets pointed at London.
The new treaties of war were put in place after that global war was over.
The nation of Israel adopted those treaties of war, but their opponents have not. (Hamas is not a nation-state, nor has it joined the treaty, nor has it suffered any consequences for performing acts which are against the treaty.)
What is a civilized nation to do, when dealing with a quasi-military enemy which does not follow International Treaties about attacks on non-military targets?
garage: "Israel is illegally occupying Gaza."
There is no cure for this degree of impenetrable stupidity.
garage mahal said...
On the one hand you have Israel, who is trying to protect it's own civilians and attack the enemy, who has surrounded himself with civilians to avoid targeting.
Israel is illegally occupying Gaza. Perhaps if Israel doesn't like getting nicked and scratched they should stop choking the victim.
8/5/14, 10:49 AM
Israel quit Gaza nine years ago. They are only back because they are being attacked. If the 'victim' doesn't want to be choked, it shouldn't try killing the other party. As for the Israeli's, if you are going to do the time then they might as well commit the crime so they just ought to blast Gaza to pieces since there is no appeasement that will work with Hamas other than national suicide by Israel.
Cook what drugs do you take to come up with pseudo-legalistic nonsense?
Garage you ignorant slut...
Israel is illegally occupying Gaza
No it isn't...which is why Hamas can fire missiles and build tunnels there, and Israel was forced to invade Gaza recently. If Israel was occupying Gaza, they would already be there, and wouldn't have to invade.
Israel and Egypt are blockading Gaza to try to prevent the importation of weapons and missile components, and the exportation of Islamic terrorists.
Anne,
Thank you. Reading much of what's on Social Media and hearing what's on Main Stream Media, I'd begun to worry that we'd returned to 1939 - as it's certainly open propaganda season on Jews, which has historically turned into open season on Jews.
At least someone recognizes the insanity of what's going on.
garage mahal said...
On the one hand you have Israel, who is trying to protect it's own civilians and attack the enemy, who has surrounded himself with civilians to avoid targeting.
Israel is illegally occupying Gaza. Perhaps if Israel doesn't like getting nicked and scratched they should stop choking the victim.
You manage to be both stupid and a liar. Twofer.
The Garage fella said: "Israel is illegally occupying Gaza. Perhaps if Israel doesn't like getting nicked and scratched they should stop choking the victim."
Occupying Gaza?
Via Israel Foreign Affairs Ministry (2005):
"Israel demonstrated its willingness to trade land for peace in its 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, when it gave back all of the Sinai Peninsula. This decision entailed painful sacrifices, including the dismantlement of the town of Yamit and the uprooting of all the Sinai settlements.
Today (reminder Garage, this is 2005)Israel is poised to disengage from the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the northern West Bank, an initiative that will be the first practical test of the possibility for peaceful coexistence with the Palestinian Authority under the new leadership of Mahmoud Abbas."
And the rockets red glare ......
Israel is illegally occupying Gaza.
Israel pulled all stationed soldiers and settlers out of Gaza in 2005. After nine years, you'd think terrorism apologists could come up with new excuses.
Garage mahal wrote;
Israel is illegally occupying Gaza. Perhaps if Israel doesn't like getting nicked and scratched they should stop choking the victim.
Israel pulled out of Gaza years ago. No settlements, no occupation. Nothing. If there are blockades and such its again because of Hamas's actions. Not Israels. Egypt is also on board with blockading Hamas.
Israel's enemies expect them to fight a war of attrition.
Make life, not abortion.
The Roman way would solve the Gaza problem for Israel. Step 1, you line up the entire population and shoot every tenth person, man, woman, or child. Doesn't matter.
If they don't learn from Step 1, you proceed to Step 2. Step 2 always works to stop further violence. If you're not aware of Step 2, brush up on history.
"Um, what is "cultural marxism?""
Nice bubble you got there.
No wonder you believe such crazy shit.
arage: Israel is illegally occupying Gaza. Perhaps if Israel doesn't like getting nicked and scratched they should stop choking the victim.
God that is dumb.
Israel long ago stopped occupying Gaza.
Perhaps if Israel doesn't like being shot at every day with rockets they should stopscrewing around with fake cease-fires and decimate Hamas for good.
FIFY
I also can't help but note that American civilian deaths have been notably scarce in just about every conflict we've ever fought in. Including the ones in which we killed millions of enemy civilians (and rightly so). Such is war.
"Israel is illegally occupying Gaza."
Except that, they're, you know...not occupying Gaza. More evidence that the more likely someone is to support Hamas, the less likely they are to be in possession of the pertinent facts.
Elie Weisel took out a full-page ad in to day's WSJ, the gist of which is child sacrifice stopped being permissible when the Angel stayed Abraham from cutting Isaac's throat.
Hamas apparently never got the memo.
Strange how all these countries that now want minimal civilian casualties didn't mind killing all those civilians in:
The Second Boer War (1899-1902)
Somali “Mad Mullah” Jihad (1899-1905)
Philippine-American War (1899-1902)
The Boxer Rebellion (1899-1900)
Italo-Ottoman War (1911-1912)
First Balkan War (1912-1913)
Second Balkan War (1913)
World War One (1914-1918)
.
.
Polish-Soviet War (1919-1921)
World War Two (1939-1945)
Greek Civil War (1946-1949)
First Indochina War (1946-1954)
First Arab-Israeli War (1948-1949)
Malayan War (1948-1960)
Korean War (1950-1953)
Second Indochina War (1956-1975) –The so-called “Vietnam War”
.
.
Lebanese Civil War (1975-1991)
.
.
oh there are so MANY wars but no one cried then.
SJ,
"What is a civilized nation to do, when dealing with a quasi-military enemy which does not follow International Treaties about attacks on non-military targets? "
I'd say Fire and Sword... but maybe that's just me.
Except that, they're, you know...not occupying Gaza
Israel maintains control of the Gaza's air space, territorial waters, electromagnetic sphere, population registry and the movement of all goods and people. Under international law, that is an occupying force.
Existential conflicts don't bring out the warm, fuzzy side of nations and their leaders. Roosevelt, Truman, and Churchill were quite ruthless in pursuit of their war aims. So were Stalin and Hitler, but the difference is that they were ruthless in pursuit of all their other aims. Stalin, for example, devoted upwards of thirty percent of the national budget to build the Moscow subway. That magnificent subway that all the left wing intellectuals creamed about was responsible for the malnourishment of millions of Soviet agricultural workers......Israel is conducting its defense in a hard ass way, but Hamas is ruthless about everything. If you don't believe me ask a Palestinian Christian. They didn't emigrate when Israel controlled the territories but now they do.....The only leftist or Muslim who has standing to speak about Israel's transgressions are those who have protested the many instances of Muslim persecution of their religious minorities.
Actually, Hamas occupies Gaza, following a violent coup which deposed the ruling Fatah faction. Hamas continues to be characteristically aggressive against people in Gaza and Israel.
This is such a stimulating argument: "You can't criticize X because I don't recall you criticizing Y"
Israel maintains control of the Gaza's air space, territorial waters, electromagnetic sphere, population registry and the movement of all goods and people. Under international law, that is an occupying force.
You either don't know, or don't care, that Gaza's rulers are explicitly and publicly committed to killing Jews. Imagine how you'd react to someone who repeatedly pledges to rape and kill your daughter, and keeps on trying to break into your house to do so.
We get that you're a brainless anti-Semitic parrot that's capable of nothing beyond echoing whatever seems popular on the left. Why you feel the need to keep demonstrating your idiocy remains a mystery.
garage the hopeless: "Israel maintains control of the Gaza's air space, territorial waters, electromagnetic sphere, population registry and the movement of all goods and people."
LOL
Garage simply can't keep himself from writing ever more increasingly idiotic things.
Utterly hopeless.
"I also can't help but note that American civilian deaths have been notably scarce in just about every conflict we've ever fought in. Including the ones in which we killed millions of enemy civilians (and rightly so). Such is war."
That's why Americans take civilian deaths in other countries so lightly...we can't relate. That's why sociopaths who say we "rightly" killed millions of civilians in our wars can glibly say "such is war" without a thought to what that really means: that war is a crime, a hell inflicted by humans on other humans, that it makes humans into monsters.
Drago said...
garage: "Israel is illegally occupying Gaza."
Actually he is illegally occupying Wisconsin and come to think of it so is Robert Cook occupying someone's land illegally. A while back another commenter on this blog-forget their name- who claimed to be part Native American made the trenchant observation that there are 3.1 million native American's and that the US is roughly 3.1 million square miles and thus everyone who isn't part Native American is occupying a Native American's one square mile. I don't see many guilt-ridden progressives who use Israel as their way of guilt-displacement packing their bags and getting the hell out of here, but then again what can you expect frauds, liars bullshitters?
As for Gaza, that used to belong to the Philistines long before the Arabs got there, where a Jew by the name of Samson knocked down the temple, long before any Arab was there and long before the best part of Mohamed ran down his momma's legs.. The Arabs have no more right to be there than anyone else so they can pack their bags as well.
@Robert Cook,
Look cupcake, perhaps I didn't introduce myself. When I hazarded an opinion on the dirty nature of war, I didn't gird my intellectual loins with a quick read of my favorite french philosopher. I just thought back to what war is actually like, for the people on the ground, gutting it out. War is a stupendous crime against human nature, and it speaks volumes about that nature that it is sometimes better than the alternative. So you can be assured that no one you have ever heard of takes the deaths of civilians more seriously or less glibly than I do when I say "such is war". Doesn't stop it from being completely and utterly right. 11-B.2O/B4.
Wingers think they are under tyrannical control because health care subsidies were given to people. Can you imagine these these fucking crybabies living in Gaza for one day?
garage: "Wingers think they are under tyrannical control because health care subsidies were given to people."
Yeah, it has nothing to do with forcible payments and forcible cancellation of policies or anything like that.
Garage is once again demonstrating his superior rural wisconsin high school level of logical reasoning.
Impressive.
garage: "Can you imagine these these fucking crybabies living in Gaza for one day?"
First, thanks again for all your courageous service to your country garage.
Again, impressive.
Secondly, I haven't spent alot of time lobbing rockets into my neighbors yards.
How delightfully courteous of you to "forget" to mention that behavior of your islamist terrorist bestest buddies.
Well played.
You will make an excellent dhimmi.
Robert Cook: "....a hell inflicted by humans on other humans, that it makes humans into monsters."
The biggest "hell inflicted by humans on other humans" in the last 100 years has been that created by leftists in search of their utopian paradises.
100 million dead.
You'd think a marxist would ponder that a bit before lecturing others about what makes humans into monsters.
But that's clearly a bridge too far for our resident coffee house lefties who are really really upset that those jooooos simply won't march themselves into the ocean.
Can you imagine these these fucking crybabies living in Gaza for one day?
I actually would love to imagine a fucking crybaby like Garage living in Gaza for one day. That's about how long he'd last.
"You'd think a marxist would ponder that a bit before lecturing others about what makes humans into monsters."
Maybe a marxist would ponder that.
However, that easy boogeyman to the side, humans have been slaughtering other humans in untold numbers for eons before marxism ever became the flag waved by seekers of power over others, and in present day humans continue to slaughter other humans for reasons having nothing to do with marxism. Humans will always find their justifications to slaughter other humans and feel justified in so doing. What are our reasons for doing so? Because we're the good guys, killing the bad guys! Of course!
garage mahal: This is such a stimulating argument: "You can't criticize X because I don't recall you criticizing Y"
Ha! This from the same guy who, regarding the ObamaCare subsidies, said, "Which leads me to: were you writing about this bombshell in 2009-2010? Were any conservatives? Anyone period?"
Anyway, here's a hint, Garage - no-one's saying you can't complain about x if you didn't complain about y. But when you do so, we're left to wonder what the difference is between the two situations that caused you to treat them differently.
Star Trek: A Taste of Armageddon
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon
Systematically wiping out civilians was the exception, and generally considered bad form.
Was, and is.
Killing a chunk of the enemy population, however, was entirely normal, and is less so today. WW2 holds the record for greatest *number* of civilian deaths, but in percentage terms it doesn't hold a candle to earlier conflicts.
By historical standards, in both absolute numbers and percentage terms, the Gazans' suffering is trivial.
Can you imagine these these fucking crybabies living in Gaza for one day?
It is easy to imagine; I'd be killed by the Palestinians. :)
Robert Cook: "However, that easy boogeyman to the side, humans have been slaughtering other humans in untold numbers for eons before marxism ever became the flag waved by seekers of power over others..."
It's not a "boogeyman".
It's a fact.
In the last 100 years leftists have raised state sponsored mass murder to an art form.
No one is arguing that humans weren't killing each other with gusto prior to that.
It's just that the left has been so very, very good at it that all other movements/gov'ts pale in comparison.
Step 2 always works to stop further violence.
Carthage has not been a problem for 2,159 years.
Robert Cook said...
"You'd think a marxist would ponder that a bit before lecturing others about what makes humans into monsters."
Maybe a marxist would ponder that.
However, that easy boogeyman to the side, humans have been slaughtering other humans in untold numbers for eons before marxism ever became the flag waved by seekers of power over others, and in present day humans continue to slaughter other humans for reasons having nothing to do with marxism. Humans will always find their justifications to slaughter other humans and feel justified in so doing. What are our reasons for doing so? Because we're the good guys, killing the bad guys! Of course!
Yes Bob, But Marxists/socialists/ whatever stripe YOU subscribe to have been have been murdering in wholesale lots to a degree that would make Ghingis Khan jealous. Cheers you lying old bastard.
The bottom line is that anyone is not blinded by stupidity (like Cook) or anti-Semitism (like garage) recognizes that if Israel had any chance of living in peace with the Palestinians, Gaza would not have been blockaded in the first place.
"In the last 100 years leftists have raised state sponsored mass murder to an art form."
Yup. It always starts with Hope and Change and Unicorn Farts. And ends with people being sent to labor camps.
This is what Robert Cook offers.
"Yes Bob, But Marxists/socialists/ whatever stripe YOU subscribe to...."
You presume much, but know little.
The "communists have murdered millions!!!" burn. Get me some aloe, that one always burns so bad. What a bunch of fucking clowns.
garage mahal said...
On the one hand you have Israel, who is trying to protect it's own civilians and attack the enemy, who has surrounded himself with civilians to avoid targeting.
Israel is illegally occupying Gaza. Perhaps if Israel doesn't like getting nicked and scratched they should stop choking the victim.
8/5/14, 10:49 AM
Hahaahaaaaaa. That is a good one right there! Have you NO understanding of history? Have you NO understanding of how those boarders came about? Have you NO understanding of the land returned already? It sometimes appears that if it did not happen in the last 72 hours, it did not happen at all.
garage: "What a bunch of fucking clowns."
Garage writes off 100 million murdered by leftist statists in the last 100 years.
Bravely writes them off of course.
Always bravely.
And courageously.
Garage writes off 100 million murdered by leftist statists in the last 100 years.
Was hard for you to get this dumb, or did it come naturally?
Robert Cook said...
"I also can't help but note that American civilian deaths have been notably scarce in just about every conflict we've ever fought in. Including the ones in which we killed millions of enemy civilians (and rightly so). Such is war."
That's why Americans take civilian deaths in other countries so lightly...we can't relate. That's why sociopaths who say we "rightly" killed millions of civilians in our wars can glibly say "such is war" without a thought to what that really means: that war is a crime, a hell inflicted by humans on other humans, that it makes humans into monsters.
8/5/14, 6:11 PM
Agreed and often someone has to stand up against the monsters and say "enough, not one step more". Would you have been happier if no one stood up to Germany or Japan in WWII? Germany was still monstrous prior to nations fighting back. Are you saying those fighting back, against evil are just as culpable as the aggressor? Is self defense and working to defend others monstrous? How many times should a cheek be turned? When is enough? The citizens of Gaza are involved in near continuous attacks on Israel. Citizens are targeted, citizens and solders are kidnapped and killed. These attacks are carried out by men, women and children that hide among women and children. What is your solution? According to the citizens of Gaza, they will NOT be done until every last Israeli is dead.
The "communists have murdered millions!!!" burn. Get me some aloe, that one always burns so bad.
For anti-Semitic douchebags like garage, violence only matters if it can be blamed on the Joooooooos.
For anti-Semitic douchebags like garage, violence only matters if it can be blamed on the Joooooooos.
Most Jews in the U.S. agree with my position. And you never answered why there are zero elected Jews in Congress. Thoughts?
Robert Cook:"You presume much, but know little."
LOL
That would be Robert Cook, noted 9-11 and October Surprise Truther writing that!
Presuming much. Knowing little.
Zero elected Republican Jews that is.
Most Jews in the U.S. agree with my position.
They may share the positions you've thoughtlessly and ignorantly swallowed about various economic policies, probably because of an unfortunate and outdated association of Republicans with anti-Semitism, and a culture of idealism that regrettably confuses intent with outcome.
They absolutely do not share your bigoted, uninformed, and dishonest positions about Hamas.
Not one elected Republican Jew in Congress. Democrats have over 30. Looks to me like Republicans voters just don't like the Joooooooos. But they do love Israel. Wonder why?
garage mahal: "Zero elected Republican Jews that is."
Says the Hamas defender.
Robert Cook said...
"Yes Bob, But Marxists/socialists/ whatever stripe YOU subscribe to...."
You presume much, but know little.
No, Bob. I've got it right.
Says the Hamas defender.
Says the guy that gives Hitler a pass killing millions. Whatever dude.
Looks to me like Republicans voters just don't like the Joooooooos.
Relying on how things look "to you" is a mistake, when we're discussing someone as unwise as garage mahal.
There's been an awful lot written about the sociological association of Jews with the party of Al Sharpton. Your interpretation of this fact, like so many of your political interpretations, is idiotically wrong.
You keep skirting the question as to why there are no elected Republican Jews in Congress. Why do you think that is?
garage mahal said...
Says the Hamas defender.
Says the guy that gives Hitler a pass killing millions. Whatever dude.
LOL
Hitler was a national socialist.
He is lumped right in there with the rest of the authoritarian leftist ideologies.
I guess they didn't cover that in your "advanced" rural high school courses. I'll bet you were a real whiz in woodshop.
Moron.
garage mahal: "You keep skirting the question as to why there are no elected Republican Jews in Congress. Why do you think that is?"
The reasons for why there are no currently serving republicans in congress who happen to be Jewish has no bearing on your continued rhetorical support for the islamist terrorist Hamas group and their purposeful use of civilians as human shields in order to maximize civilian casualties for propaganda purposes.
Which you then eat up.
The only relevant question here is why so many on the left have aligned themselves, over and over again, with radical and destructive forces globally who seek the diminishing of the US.
Hitler was a union-busting libertarian. I don't know of any serious people who deny this anymore.
garage mahal wrote:
Not one elected Republican Jew in Congress. Democrats have over 30. Looks to me like Republicans voters just don't like the Joooooooos. But they do love Israel. Wonder why?
Um because Israel is the only semblance of democracy in that whole god forsaken region of murderers?
And isn't Hamas designated as a terrorist organization? You want the democratic party to be the party that supports Hamas over Israel?
You keep skirting the question as to why there are no elected Republican Jews in Congress. Why do you think that is?
Actually, I've answered it twice, but like most anti-Semites, you're quite stupid, so I'm not at all surprised that you couldn't understand it. I'll try again, but I recognize that you probably still won't get it.
There was a time when racists were more comfortable in the Republican Party, and that time coincided with a lot of Jewish immigration, so the inaccurate but understandable conclusion that there was something inhospitable to Jews in the Republican Party.
Over time, corrosive and corruptive power changed the Democratic Party, so that anti-Semites like you are now much more comfortable there. Unfortunately, it takes time for cultures to recognize that deterioration, so there's still something of an obsolete but powerful Jewish tribal affiliation for the Democrats.
There's also the matter of Jewish ethics (as in many other cultures) supporting the downtrodden, and while it's indisputable that progressive policies hurt the lower classes, it's not obvious - one actually has to have an understanding of how economics works to see how things work. Many well-meaning but economically-uneducated Jews that sincerely want to help less-fortunate people fall into the trap of supporting bad policies because they sound good. Again, it's unfortunate, but the effect is one of limiting the number of Jews that identify with Republican policies, in which case you end up with fewer Jewish Republican candidates and therefore fewer Jewish Republican representatives.
Because you're painfully stupid and incredibly incurious, you believe that it's because of Republican anti-Semitism. That has little to do with reality, and just reflects the prejudices that have burrowed into your shallow, hate-filled mind, which is consistent with your defenses of Hamas and various other mewlings that only confirm how much you esteem yourself, and how little that esteem is actually warranted.
You know very little, you cannot think beyond partisan talking points, and you believe against all evidence that people can't see your constant goalpost shifting as you lose debate after debate after debate.
garage: "Hitler was a union-busting libertarian."
LOL
Yeah, a real "small government" guy who was all about getting government out of people's lives!
Stupidity on stilts.
garage: "I don't know of any serious people who deny this anymore"
You don't know anyone serious.
At all.
And you never have.
You are a low-info voice-actuated automaton who provides rhetorical aid and comfort to a terrorist group whose sole mission is the extermination of Israel.
Utterly unsurprising.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/civil-rights/214344-anti-semitism-flares-up-with-gaza-crisis
"Can you imagine these these fucking crybabies living in Gaza for one day?"
Why would any reasonably sane person want to live in a self-inflicted sh*thole run by a cult of self-immolating zombie death cultists?
Even the Arabs are sick of the Palestinians (see "Palestinians/Jordan 1970s", "Palestinians/Lebanon 1980s", "Palestinianns/Kuwait 1990s"). Those parts of the Arab Middle East currently not tearing themselves apart are glad the Palis are Israel's problem and not theirs.
garage the historical illiterate: "Hitler was a union-busting libertarian."
You know what other nations did not allow independent unions?
The Soviet Union.
Communist China.
In fact, every communist country.
In each and every communist nation unions were governmental entities that advanced the governments goals.
So, in moronic garage-world, every communist nation was a libertarian paradise!
And, in the end, apparently that illogical deduction makes it ok to support homicidal and murderous terrorist organizations.
Well played garage. Well played.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/jewvote.html
Since 1916 the highest percentage of the Jewish vote that any Republican candidate has had is 43%. The lowest 10%. The 43% for Harding is the only time more the Jewish vote for the Republican exceeded that for the Democrat. The socialist Debs took 38% of the Jewish vote, 3% of the total vote.
In order for there to be Jewish Republicans in Congress there need to be Jewish Republicans. They're a rare breed. Apparently rarer then black Republicans.
And just a note. As I've mentioned before, all black Republican congresspeople have come from majority white districts. All Democrat black congresspeople from majority black districts. Republicans have proved time after time they vote ideology over race. Democrats have yet to do so.
Hitler was a libertarian? As in a "smaller government is better" libertarian?
Hitler was a libertarian? As in a "smaller government is better" libertarian?
So e ideas are so, so stupid that even intellectuals won't touch them. For that, we have garage mahal.
"Hitler was a union-busting libertarian."
Ah yes, I recall from the history books how there was way too much freedom in Hitler's Germany.
The lack of Jewish Republicans most likely has to do with the fact that most American Jews tend to be socially liberal, and feel uneasy with what they perceive as a Republican party too much influenced by religious voters. Jewish history in the West and in Russia has featured a lot of persecution sanctioned by Christian religious authorities, although it's true that the worst persecution of Jews was committed by atheist or secular authorities (e.g., the Nazis and Communists). Anyway, the unease with Christianity influencing politics has made most Jews avoid the GOP.
Another reason for Jews being mostly identified with Democrats might be regional--Jews tend to be most numerous in the same coastal areas and cities where liberalism is strongest, and it might be that Jews there are most exposed to liberal ideas and associate with more liberals (though this could be a chicken and egg question). Why coastal areas tend to be more liberal could be explained by the availability of land--pricy rents may encourage singles to live there, while people with families (who tend more conservative) will move to outer suburbs where they can afford more space.
Anyway, that's just my theory. Make of it what you will. But I don't think for most Jews the issue of Israel is a trump card, largely because they (correctly) view Israel as a strong state not in immediate danger of being wiped out as was the case several decades ago. So Jews today tend to be all over the map when it comes to approving Israel's actions, and won't vote in a monolithic body on that issue.
Upon reflection there really is no way garage actually believes that Hitler was libertarian. Yet he still wrote that.
Amazing.
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