From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Fri Jun 06 2003 - 09:13:55 MDT
Those who read the Friedman article might also wish to take a gander at
Llewellyn Rockwell's article _One Big Thing Wrong_ at
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1245 , written in direct
response.
Rockwell states, on Freidman, <<He begins with the question concerning
the entire Muslim world after 9–11: why do they hate us? And after the
most recent war, the question has broadened into: why does everybody
else hate us? By now everyone knows these questions, but little thought
is put into the phrasing of the question, namely, who exactly is "us."
Am I supposed to believe that the average Muslim hates me and you as
much as they hate Richard Cheney, George Bush, and Donald Rumsfeld? The
fact is that Muslims don't hate me or you. They don't know me or you.
But they do know the names of people at the top of the U.S. government,
and for good reason: these people have ordered the military occupation
of Muslim countries. We did not order this; they did, and the citizens
of these countries hate them for it. To conglomerate me and you with
Dick, George, and Donald is to engage in a very slippery rhetorical tactic.
[...]
What is Friedman's error? In a phrase, he conflates Power and Market (to
borrow a phrase from the title of Murray Rothbard's great book). In
missing this point, Friedman shows that he has done too much reporting
and not enough thinking. He sees angry people all over the world, from
Muslims in a rage over U.S. troops and U.S. movies, to the French
bourgeoisie, attacking McDonald's, and draws the most trivial conclusion
possible: people always hate the dominant power. He makes no sharp
distinction between econo-cultural influence and politico-military
imperialism, whereas any serious understanding of the world must begin
with this distinction.
What is the difference between econo-cultural influence and
politico-military imperialism? It begins with the elementary divide
between things that people choose to embrace and those that are foisted
upon them. American commerce is not dominant around the world because
people are buying products at the point of a gun. Consumers of the world
have chosen, of their own free will, to purchase these goods offered by
entrepreneurial companies.>>
---- http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1245
dehede011@aol.com writes:
> If you are a terrorist, a
> member of the terrorist group or a supporter of the terrorists you are against
> us. How else can you describe it?
The tricky thing here being who is defined by 'terrorist' and 'us'. I
can't help but thinking that 'us' in this case is those who would
eagerly use coercion on their fellow citizen to make him cough up the
tax dollars to pay for unilateral wars of aggression. I'm hoping I'm
correct when I suggest the intersection of this 'us' and extropianism
should be nonexistant.
I've seen pro-war demonstrators with signs saying 'protestor=terrorist'.
I'll bet these pro-war folks were part of Ron's 'us' group.
-Mike
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