After the pushback he (of course) got, he said:
"[My tweet] was poorly worded and did not convey my intent... I am very sorry for ‘spreading ick’ on other candidates and the DFL party. I will do everything I can to help resolve the issue: most likely the best thing for me to do is shut up. The tweet was stupid. I’m sorry."(The DFL Party is the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party: "It is affiliated with the United States Democratic Party. [It was f]ormed by a merger of the Minnesota Democratic Party and the social democratic Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party in 1944...")
The original tweet is actually a good conversation opener, in the right context. It's just not anything a politician can say. Compare how Hillary Clinton responded when she was asked, in Saturday's debate, about something she'd said a while back about how we should show "respect even for one's enemy" and even "in so far as psychologically possible empathize with their perspective and point of view." She said:
I think with this kind of barbarism and nihilism-- it's very hard to understand other than the lust for power, the rejection of (UNINTEL), the total disregard for human life-- freedom or any other value that we know and-- respect. Historically it is important to try to understand your adversary in order to figure out how they are thinking, what they will be doing, how they will react. I-- I plead (?)-- that it's very difficult when you deal with-- ISIS and organizations like that whose-- whose behavior is so barbaric and so vicious-- that it doesn't seem to have any purpose other than lust for killing and power. And that's very difficult to put ourselves in other shoes.She would never say that from their perspective they're "doing what they think is best for their community." And she will never say "Most likely the best thing for me to do is shut up." And she will never do what that Minnesota DFL candidate did: Up and drop out of the race because she said something wrong.
Posts
94 comments:
If you ever spread ick and it gets on somebody else, make sure they take that blue dress to the cleaners.
Whatevs.
She takes money from health insurance companies and drug companies. Proudly hates NRA, Iran and Republicans.
Ah'm going to say this again: Ah did not spread ick on that woman.
It would have been better and even greater for him if he had thought of it first rather than having to say it.
Power lust and money grubbing - where does that come from?
Sometimes the first few commenters take the material from the post right into the gutter.
Hillary was pushing her Woman Power of diplomacy as a triangulation trick to keep Dems popular at election time.
She doesn't like her enemies period. She wants them disarmed and disqualified from
Life...those damn Republicans.
I agree with part of what he said, that they think they are doing the best for their community, with the caveats that those words don't mean what Americans generally think of.
First: Their definition of community is not what Americans think of when we say community. We mean our community we live, work and play in -- even the parts of it we don't like. I consider people who disagree with me politically still part of my community. ISIS does not consider people they don't like part of their community. They are an incredibly insular group of people.
Second: What they define as "the best" is not actually what is best for people, as we understand it. We think that means the greatest good for the greatest number of people without sacrificing core values. For them, it is what is momentarily advantageous to holding power and making those they want to suffer actually suffer. The part I disagree with is that they are evil, which is why they have such twisted views on what is best and what is their community.
Bad people come to bad conclusions; ISIS is filled with evil people who, because they are evil, do evil things with evil motives while thinking what they are doing is reasonable. The evil people in ISIS think that evil things are the best way to help their group. They are wrong. And evil. But we can't pretend that they DON'T have reasons for what they are doing; they are just reasons that we can recognize as evil.
What Hillary said, that it is necessary to know your enemy in order to defeat them, is wisdom that is at least as old as Sun-Tzu. As for her insistence that it is difficult to understand ISIS I call bullshit.
The leaders of ISIS are quite open about their motivations, goals, ideology, etc. The problem is that, for whatever reason, the current Western leadership id either unwilling to accept that ISIS means what it says or are unable to acknowledge it for political reasons.
As for the tweet, good intentions don't make you not evil. And, from a Western values perspective, their intentions are evil. The fact that this person is unaware of this, just spouts a stupid platitude that violence is not the answer (news flash, it is the final answer in this fallen world) shows him to be an mal-educated, non-thinking, stooge.
God help us all.
Ann Althouse said...
"Sometimes the first few commenters take the material from the post right into the gutter."
I will watch for that.
I am Laslo.
That depends on what your definition of ick is.
The last thing ISIS is is nihilistic. They know exactly what they want.
It's a bit like the scene in "Independence Day" where the president asks the alien what he wants us to do? The answer, "DIE."
The Islamists want slaves since they have been unable to run any sort of modern economy since Muhammed.
The "Translation movement" of the "Golden Age" of Harun a Rashid was all done by Christian Greeks who knew the languages to translate.
If you go to the ancient basilica "Hagia Sophia" in Istanbul, they were turning it into a museum when I was there ten years ago. Part of that was taking down the big panels with Arabic calligraphy that covered mosaics of the Byzantine era. They found that the mosaics had been carefully preserved and protected by the workmen putting up the panels after the Ottoman conquest.
The workmen, no doubt Christians who had "converted" to Islam, were hoping that the area would be reconquered soon by Christians.
All the supposed accomplishments of Muslims, like "Arabic numbers" which were invented by Hindus, are the work of others. Sometimes the others were slaves but Muslims accomplished little but death and destruction.
[Hillary] will never say "Most likely the best thing for me to do is shut up." And she will never do what that Minnesota DFL candidate did: Up and drop out of the race because she said something wrong.
She will never shut up, because she can't fathom the idea that every word that drops from her lips is not golden, and she is ENTITLED, entitled, I say, to rule.
It's almost enough to make you start liking him... after he tweeted: "ISIS isn't necessarily evil. It is made up of people doing what they think is best for their community. Violence is not the answer, though."
But isn't that the case for every horrendous movement in history? Don't ALL of them think they are doing what is best for their community? Did Lenin do what he was thought was BAD for the people? Hitler? Mao? Stalin? Pol Pot?
Earnest people can be exceptionally destructive.
And I don't think ISIS is nihilistic. They know exactly what they want. It's just destructive.
It's been pretty obvious for a while that Democrats are incapable of projecting themselves into the point of view of their enemies, foreign and domestic. Why should they bother? They are never wrong about anything.
A good conversation-starter, but hardly a sign of a deep thinker or someone leading the examined life. Given the false dichotomy between "evil" and "doing what [you] think is best for the community," seems unlikely that the speaker has any clear definition of evil, which in turn makes statements about whether someone is or is not evil meaningless.
But isn't that the case for every horrendous movement in history?
Yes, they all "just want to make a difference."
"ISIS isn't necessarily evil. It is made up of people doing what they think is best for their community. Violence is not the answer, though."
Kinsley Gaffe. He spoke Prog truth. Just own it, man.
By the way, "nihilism" is the latest Prog copout.
"This defiance of common sense has survived each atrocity and I predict that it will also outlast the Paris massacre. Only a truly massive loss of life, perhaps in the hundreds of thousands, will force the professionals to back off their deeply ingrained pattern of denying an Islamic component in the spate of attacks.
That pattern has the very consequential effect of shutting out the fears of ordinary voters, whose views thereby have negligible impact on policy. Worries about Shari'a, rape gangs, exotic diseases, and bloodbaths are dismissed with charges of "racism" and "Islamophobia," as though name-calling addresses these real issues."
http://www.danielpipes.org/16272/why-the-paris-massacre-will-have-limited-impact
"And she will never do what that Minnesota DFL candidate did: Up and drop out of the race because she said something wrong."
How sad that the Minnesota DFL candidate does not have the Post, the Times and numerous alphabet networks providing cover.
"ISIS isn't necessarily evil. It is made up of people doing what they think is best for their community. Violence is not the answer, though."
That reminds me of a scene from Starship Troopers (The Book):
""My mother said violence never solves anything." "So?" Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. "I'm sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that."
Lt. Col. Jean V. Dubois (Ret.)
"ISIS isn't necessarily evil. It is made up of people doing what they think is best for their community."
I don't believe this for a second. First of all, blowing people up and mowing them down with automatic rifles is inherently evil. Secondly, they are not doing it for "their community". They are thugs grabbing power for themselves.
Most Democrats have the good sense to keep these thoughts to themselves.
besides she may hit up isis or a donation
""ISIS isn't necessarily evil." Yes, it invites an invocation of Godwin's Law.
I'm inclined to think that actors are evil if what they do is evil, regardless of the purity of their intentions.
But if ISIS' pornographic violence doesn't reach the threshold of "evil," an obvious question is, what does (microaggressions against protected group members, perhaps)?
Or, perhaps, does he simply not believe in the existence of evil?
We must empathize with our enemies. Unless they are Republicans. Then we must brag about how we hate them the most.
Subject - why people hate and how we need to look deep inside, study mindfully, and attempt to understand why they hate. New! Why some politicians on the left make moral equivalencies and then realize how ick it sounds, and then say 'wow I should just shut up.' Gutter whatevs. Does anyone care to look at why Hillary is filled with so much hatred? Flip flipping hatred. She wants to be our champion, but she hates most of us. Her latest hate is Charter Schools. She takes big bucks from those she claims to hate. Is this not part of the conversation? I say it is.
She cannot clearly articulate why ISIS hates us - it's too confusing for her? Maybe she's not qualified to be our champion.
Matthew Sablan - Bad people come to bad conclusions; ISIS is filled with evil people who, because they are evil, do evil things with evil motives while thinking what they are doing is reasonable.
...and some politicians make excuses for bad people who do bad things. Learn to like the ick.
Dan The Man -thank you. You got my meaning perfectly.
"Secondly, they are not doing it for "their community". They are thugs grabbing power for themselves."
-- Themselves IS their community. They don't care about the people pumping gas or working on farms. Those aren't part of ISIS's community.
"Themselves IS their community."
So if you and I knock off a liquor store, we are doing it for "our community", which makes it OK.
It is made up of people doing what they think is best for their community.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/12/the-beheading-of-a-9-year-old-girl-prompted-huge-protests-in-afghanistan/
It's possible to say ISIS believes forcing people to live by Sharia will benefit them spiritually or in an afterlife. But once you transition to specifics like beheading children the argument loses its meaning. There's no religious justification for this which means they are superimposing their own barbaric desires onto a generally religious political framework.
"ISIS isn't necessarily evil. It is made up of people doing what they think is best for their community."
They think what is best for their community is to go into other people's communities, lock them in a theater, and start shooting them.
They think what is best for their community is to put people in cages and set them on fire.
I wonder if he would say the same thing about Dylan Roof.
Political speech is controlled entirely by how women will react.
Amy Schumer had a nice piece on ick.
ISIS is pure evil, and it ain't up for debate. The guy deserved to go down, and it doesn't matter whether what he said contained nuance or not.
"Twenty-four hours ago, I said on the radio apropos the latest campus "safe space" nonsense:
This is what we're going to be talking about when the mullahs nuke us.
Almost. When the Allahu Akbar boys opened fire, Paris was talking about the climate-change conference due to start later this month, when the world's leaders will fly in to "solve" a "problem" that doesn't exist rather than to address the one that does. But don't worry: we already have a hashtag (#PrayForParis) and doubtless there'll be another candlelight vigil of weepy tilty-headed wankers. Because as long as we all advertise how sad and sorrowful we are, who needs to do anything?"
It wasn't very many years ago that Althouse in a post seem to belittle Mark Steyn's vision of what was coming in Europe and ultimately for the US. I think he was more realistic.
http://www.steynonline.com/7293/the-barbarians-are-inside-and-there-are-no-gates
The POTUS just said we have no idea what to do with a 'handful' of people (ISIS/ISIL) who are willing to die. In a very real sense he is really saying 'get used to it'. As he continues to say that the majority of the victims of this 'handful' of people are Muslims - and therefore, as a Muslim himself, maybe, just maybe the thought is: the West and specifically the US does not deserve the safe society we've fought for and built as long as others suffer, so must we.
> The original tweet is actually a good conversation opener, in the right context.
If by context you mean among fourteen year olds. Much older than that and it is the dull commentary of people who have never managed a mature thought or observation. Umm... OK, that does describe the modern university.
Why is this even an issue? ISIS is contained. Except where it isn't.
Tribal affinity is a stable system. It's just extremely poor. You spend all your resources on defending your stuff. It happens to be the Arab way, which is why they're in the dark ages.
He lived as a devil, eh?
that's a palindrome.
Reviled did I live, said I, as evil I did deliver.
Evil turns up on palindromes a lot.
A palindrome is a joke with one hump.
Obama just got eaten alive at the G20 press conference. THAT was a spectacle.
A whole lot of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is going on lately. The enemies of freedom in this country are friends of the ISIL heroes headed this way to kill us off for them.
... it doesn't seem to have any purpose other than lust for ... power. And that's very difficult to put ourselves in other shoes.
Oh, I think Hillary understands "lust for power" very, very well.
Twitter has a learning curve.
No one is listening to our slimy Liar in Chief anymore. His lies are beneath contempt. And the whole world knows it.
This ISIS cell is the deadliest thing to come out of Belgium since French Fries.
Like Patty Murray crediting Osama bin Laden's popularity to his building of child care centers, he must have just gotten into the habit of babbling pablum to women. "Community", "child care", and "women's health" should find their way into every statement if you're a Democrat. No thinking required. Oops.
"it doesn't seem to have any purpose other than lust for killing and power"
She just tried and failed to put herself in "other shoes."
"And that's very difficult to put ourselves in other shoes."
Not difficult at all. Progs just don't like what they would see when standing in "other shoes."
"Violence is not the answer, though." Probably he meant, IMHO those benighted non-evil ISIS people would be wiser not to use violence, whatever their legitimate desires.
But sometimes violence is the answer. It is currently the only answer I can imagine for dealing with ISIS.
"I will watch for that."
Thank you.
— the management
Althouse I rather like your instincts as a contrarian thinker. But in this occasion, the Minnesota Democrat just blew it. As someone else above rightly observed, this is one of those inadvertent insights into the mind if the activist left. Maybe if we just do something about income inequality, campus diversity and climate change, they won't bring automatic weapons and suicide vests to our concerts and football games.
If what's best for one community is shooting and beheading members of another community, then should the community-to-be-attacked allow supporters of the attacker-community to immigrate in among them by the millions? But such immigration is Democratic foreign policy.
But how does this fit with the Democrats domestic policy in which special snowflakes have to have special safe places? The Democrats really have a trifecta of failure running - Bernie reformed the VA except it's not reformed; O'Malley reformed the Baltimore police except they aren't reformed; and Hillary directed our successful foreign policy which has contained the jihadists as, for example, in Paris. Obama is responsible for our booming economy, our cheap accessible health care and our reformed education system now run by football teams.
Hillary would execute her enemies on live TV, holding the knife to their necks herself, if only she could get away with it.
She already called half the country liars for believing their own lying eyes instead of the blue dress. She already believes she has an inherent right to rule us. She already ignores laws. She already has the nomination, and the election, via bought votes, whether real or fraudulent. She is one election away from being a dictator that will make Eleanor Iselin from the Manchurian Candidate look like Pipi Longstockings.
That her enemies are observant Christians, supporters of individual rights, believers in the rule of law, and that those are exactly the same enemies ISIS is beheading, is merely a sick, humorous coincidence. She will hold the knife to their throats, and slice just as sincerely.
Hillary 2016! Because she is a power-hungry shrew, a lying, corrupt authoritarian, who is so much better than anyone else she CANNOT lose. And then God help us all, because Hillary will only wield the knife.
Progressive politicians have been saying things like this for a long time:
"We've got to ask, why is this man so popular around the world? Why are people so supportive of him in many countries that are riddled with poverty?
"He's been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful... We haven't done that..."
That was my senator talking about Osama bin Ladin. About one year after 9/11 she said that.
"The most recent reports say there is a crisis in child services in the United States. The cost of daycare spaces has reached absolutely astronomic levels. Placement at the University of Missouri, for example, easily breaks the $40,000 threshold. And if your toddler is lucky enough to squeeze into Yale, which has some of the most craven caregivers, the most swaddled cocoons and safe spaces on the continent, it will set you back a minimum $60,000. But hey, if you want the very best day care for the intellectually infantile at any of the top Institutes of Higher Whining, that’s why God gave you noses — so you could pay through them."
Our leaders can't even stand up to college crybullies.
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/rex-murphy-university-administrators-and-real-professors-should-take-note-every-brain-needs-a-spine
>>building day care facilities
Because if there's one thing a woman who is forbidden to leave her husband's house, or drive, or get a job needs, it's day care for her kids.
Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin and Mao were just doing what they thought best for their communities.
At least the dude admitted that what he said was stupid, because it was.
Saying that they are doing what they think is best for their community simply reveals what an empty statement it is that someone means well. By this standard, Hitler meant well. And I mean that literally, Hitler was doing right by his community as he saw it.
Everybody's a good guy! There is no evil in the world!
The smartest thing that jackass ever said was "I resign."
Not to worry, Obama has just explained that Paris was a "setback" in policies he plans to continue, evidently, regardless of the results.
It was a stupid statement.
When one believes that doing evil is the highest good one can do, one is evil. All the way evil. Evil by conviction and ideology. There are degrees of being evil, and I think that's the highest tier - when all the goodness in a person has turned to the service of destructiveness.
I think I would like to hear more about how defines "evil". In our society perhaps we don't think about the word much. I think he has some hazy idea that "evil" is linked to selfishness, but it is not. Selfless behavior may be almost entirely or wholly evil.
Anyone else remember the case of the mother, I believe in Texas, who murdered her high school daughter's cheerleading rival? She was selflessly evil.
Well I guess I'm not Hillary. I find it hard to envision a situation where I would be so stupid, naïve and thoughtless as being able to "empathize' with her political policies.
You just keep shufflin' along and shoveling that pablum Hillary, and who knows, you might be President of the United States. I'm not going to go all Alec Baldwin and say I'd leave the USA if she became President. Rather more likely is that I'll become much more inner directed and shut out news of her "achievements". I mean when Captain Nemo (in her pantsuit) orders the submarine to dive, (after a successful submergence under the good Commander Obama) there's not much point in figuring out just how far down it will go.
I like Steyn's phrase--"weepy tiltheaded wankers". We not only have them in and around Paris, we've got a plethora of them on college campuses around the country. I dunno--their growth must be from the weather or something. And the wankers at Mizzou are outraged that the world's attention turned to Paris instead of Columbia Mo.
Remember, you can't spell empathetic without pathetic.
Not to worry, Obama has just explained that Paris was a "setback" in policies he plans to continue, evidently, regardless of the results.
That is beyond infuriating. We saw Bush torn to shreds because he didn't act on vague intelligence before 9/11.
But we see, brutally, what an insanely open immigration policy leads to. And he wants to JUST KEEP DOING IT?
When a bombing or attack happens, it is OBAMA'S fault, specifically. If he gave a shit about this country, he'd feel shame.
"Learn to like the ick."
Monica did.
I am not Laslo.
"Violence is not the answer, though."
Tripe of the first order. Well, no, tripe at least serves a purpose (allegedly some people eat it), this is dangerous stupidity.
Violence is SOMETIMES the answer. Violence isn't the answer to every problem or challenge. Violence is the answer to ISIS. Violence--in general, just say maybe.
Is there a Costanza correlary for evil? The death toll is irrelevant, it isn't evil if you believe it is good?
Original Mike said...So if you and I knock off a liquor store, we are doing it for "our community", which makes it OK.
You can't be sarcastic enough not to bump up against an actual Leftist belief, Mike. I am sure there's some Islamist Sister Soulja out there right now arguing that ISIS needs to take a break from killing Muslims and focus more on killing Christians/non-Muslims. If it's true of inner city blacks--and was argued as such by a "prominent" respected Leftist pundit, whys shouldn't it also be true of Islamists?
"ISIS Determined to Attack Within France"
"ISIS Determined to Attack Inside US"
I'm sure there's a briefing out there, somewhere...
Contemporary liberal/Progressive: "Let us seek to understand the motivations of those who wish to destroy us, so we can blame ourselves and work to change what it is that we are doing wrong to make them hate us so much."
After the Internet has worked: "I think I'll just shut up."
Contemporary liberal/Progressive: "Let us seek to understand the motivations of those who wish to destroy us, so we can blame ourselves and work to change what it is that we are doing wrong to make them hate us so much."
"Unless they're Republicans. Fuck those guys."
Progressives would prefer a caliphate over less government control. Keep that in mind.
damikesc,
"Progressives would prefer a caliphate over less government control. Keep that in mind."
What? No way. What caliphate is going to be pro-choice on abortion or support gay marriage? Those are pretty big issues for most progressives.
Almost everyone who does evil does so because they feel they have no choice, or because the evil is in some way good.
Outside of Shakespeare and cartoons, there are very few humans who do evil for the sake of doing evil.
The line between good and evil runs through every human heart.
Bobby said...
damikesc,
"Progressives would prefer a caliphate over less government control. Keep that in mind."
What? No way. What caliphate is going to be pro-choice on abortion or support gay marriage? Those are pretty big issues for most progressives.
Because they think it will be their caliphate. I've been saying for many years, and fully believe, that most liberals would prefer a fascist dictatorship so long as its their fascist dictator.
Tim Maguire,
Ah, got it- if he'd said Progressive Dictatorship, I'd have understood the point implicitly. But he used the term caliphate, which has a very specific definition and context.
I'd agree that a significant number of Progressives would have no problem with a dictatorship if their values were the ones being enforced. But I'd also say that a significant number of Conservatives would have no problem with a dictatorship if it was their values that were being enforced (i.e., over social policies rather than the economy). I don't see either Progressives or Conservatives as being for less government control overall- they change positions based on the issue.
Neither of them would be the same as a "caliphate," of course.
Gawd, what a moral toad she is...
Hillary's point if she had one (her use of empathize was so inappropriate it borders on illiteracy) is valid and trivial. No bloodthirsty tyrant declares his intent to rain destruction and suffering on the people whose acquiescence has brought him to power. All tyrants rule in the "name of the people," except those who rule in the name of god. Anyone who has read The Prince knows this to e axiomatic.
It is vitally important to understand our enemies, just as it is vitally important that the physician understands his patient. However, it is a fatal mistake to empathize with the enemy, just as it is a fatal mistake for the physician to empathize with his patient. Just imagine FDR following Hillary Clinton's strategic advice. Other Americans besides the Nikkei would have been rounded up and sent to camps.
The B on my Mac keyboard is f'ed up.
What? No way. What caliphate is going to be pro-choice on abortion or support gay marriage?
That assumes that conservative Islam is running it. I'm sure one can find more "progressive" Muslims out there who have a hankering for total control.
But I'd also say that a significant number of Conservatives would have no problem with a dictatorship if it was their values that were being enforced
I disagree. Conservatives and Republicans (not one in the same, obviously) seem more willing to hold their "leaders" accountable. Republicans were ready to toss Nixon out of office for a fraction of what the Dems are willing to vote for to win the WH.
Also, for a lot of us, it would just be "creepy" to have that level of domination. That isn't good for anybody.
It seems Hillary is confusing "empathy" with "understand". It is VITAL we understand our enemies. Helps us know how to deal with them. Empathize? A lot of these people are loathsome. I don't see how one can empathize with a murderous cult.
This all ties into yesterday's post of the Smithsonian article about Sayyid Qutb. Devout Muslims have a problem with Western societies, whose values are incompatible with Islam. That is why it is such a bad idea to invite large numbers of so-called "refugees" from Islamic countries to immigrate to Europe and America.
We see them as backward and primitive. They see us as immoral and godless. Western societies are secular and pluralistic, and believe in liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Islamic societies are neither secular nor pluralistic, and believe in submission to the will of Allah, as put forth in the Koran and other Islamic writings.
A Muslim in the West sees a society where people do not follow the laws and customs of his homeland, where people eat pork and drink alcohol, where women dress immodestly and are mostly, by Muslim standards, licentious and immoral. They see things that are tolerated and even celebrated in the West that would result in whippings or execution in their homelands; there are no gay pride parades in the Muslim world. Even worse, the devout Muslim in the West sees that this society has a corrosive effect on some of his co-religionists, who may yield to the temptations that Western society has to offer. A "good" Muslim, i.e., one who actually follows the tenets of his religion, is obligated to jihad, which is one of the five pillars of Islam, in order to destroy those things that offend Allah and tempt Muslims into sinful behavior.
And that's where we run into problems. Our government leaders try to tell us that the jihadis are not really Islamic, that they have "hijacked" the religion for their own ends. But the fact is that the jihadis are more devout in their faith than the Muslims who are not murdering Westerners. We see their actions as evil; they see them as necessary. It should be noted that nobody, no matter how villainous, sees himself as evil in his own eyes. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Osama Bin Laden, etc., all could come up with justifications for their murderous behavior, and so too, the jihadis of ISIS.
I remember reading in a novel a conversation between two of the main characters, and one asked about the nature of good and evil, and whether they actually were objectively the good guys (There enemies practiced human sacrifice and worshipped an evil god, so yes, they were).
"I prefer to think of it as 'us' and 'them,'" the other character replied. "It simplifies things."
Gosh - the DFL got a bit ahead of themselves in running Dan Kimmel off. According to the Stribe, Danny Boy is a far more qualified candidate than Ben Carson.
"The native Oklahoman received appointments to West Point and the Air Force Academy, as well as a full Naval ROTC scholarship to the University of Oklahoma. He entered the Air Force Academy in June 1970."
Kimmel actually received appointments to two military academies and a full-boat rotsy scholarship. But through it all, military history never taught him the difference between societal conflicts and all out war.
Clyde wrote: Our government leaders try to tell us that the jihadis are not really Islamic, that they have "hijacked" the religion for their own ends. But the fact is that the jihadis are more devout in their faith than the Muslims who are not murdering Westerners.
100% spot on!
The default Obamazoid narrative is one of the grossest of Big Lies ever foisted by a government on its people. If anyone has hijacked Islam it is the moderates who try to live secular lives. ISIS has literally thousands of clerics and scholars in its service who can justify every aim, act, and policy in the light of Quran and the Hadiths. It is the moderate Muslims who cannot argue their case from scripture. In this respect they are just like Modernist Christians who try to hold their ground against Fundamentalists by arguing that gay is good, that abortion isn't murder, that maleness and femaleness are fluid interchangeable concepts.
It may well be that gay is good and abortion isn't murder, but those who hold these opinions cannot cite chapter and verse from the Christian canon which support their viewpoint. (The gender stuff is totally indefensible from any standpoint that respects evidence and logic, so why any Christian goes there is beyond me.) The Fundamentalists who oppose these innovative reforms of Christian morality can easily defend their position without going outside the canon.
@Clyde said (about "devout" Muslims) ...
"We see them as backward and primitive"
Speak for yourself, Clyde. I see them as uncivilized killers with no respect for human life. Their crazy religion encourages lies and deceit and in doing so breaks the myth that there are two kinds of Muslims, radical and otherwise. Disrespect for women and permission to kill family members without consequences are built into their religion-based laws. There will come another World War when we will all believe that the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim.
To quote someone or other,
"Then again some men just want to watch the world burn,"
I always found it interesting how many otherwise sane and normal people a psychopath can get to follow them around.
Hillary has all the earmarks of a sociopath, but an enormous number of weak minded people are going to vote for her.
Isn't it a truism that everyone chooses what they think is best? Do we really think that terrorists, criminals, and your neighbor next door is willfully choosing what they think is sub-optimal?
The problem is their goals and what they are choosing from.
"but those who hold these opinions cannot cite chapter and verse from the Christian canon which support their viewpoint."
Galatians 3:28
I like modern moderate liberal Muslims — even if they can't support their viewpoints by citing chapter and verse from Islamic sharia. In fact, I like them partly because they can't. Come to think of it, I like them a lot better than Fundamentalist Christians who can't wait to kill all Muslims — modern, medieval, old, young, male female — just kill them all.
Which FUndamentalist Christians want to kill all Muslims?
I like them a lot better than Fundamentalist Christians who can't wait to kill all Muslims — modern, medieval, old, young, male female — just kill them all.
What's your plan for solving the 1,400 year old problem?
exhelodrvr1 asks:
Which FUndamentalist Christians want to kill all Muslims?
There is a great deal of overlap between that group and the Fundamentalist Christians who say "murica" instead of America.
There is a great deal of overlap between that group and the Fundamentalist Christians who say "murica" instead of America.
Which isn't an answer to "who are these Christians"?
It's like the Starbucks "controversy". I am devout and know plenty of devout followers and NONE gave a damn about the red cups. Only people I saw discussing it were bemoaning a non-existent complaint campaign.
Uhuh. Name them.
Uh-oh. Putin is pissed: "Our air force's military work in Syria must not simply be continued," he said. "It must be intensified in such a way that the criminals understand that retribution is inevitable."
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