From: Jeff Davis (jrd1415@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Jun 06 2003 - 04:55:38 MDT
--- John K Clark <jonkc@att.net> wrote:
> "Jeff Davis" <jrd1415@yahoo.com>
>
> > When the 911 attacks came, I thought "***NOW
> SURELY***
> > people will ask 'Why?'
>
> You're assuming that if somebody hates you then you
> must have done something
> wrong,
No, I'm saying if somebody hates you and does
something incredibly bad to you, there's likely gonna
be a reason behind it. You can look for it
systematically, rationally, or you can decide you know
the answer, declare it to be "thus and so" and be done
with it. The latter method would seem to have it's
limitations, chief among them the severe likelihood
that prejudice will lead to error.
> but hate can be generated far easier than
> that.
>
> > Some segment of Islam--maybe even a very large
> > fraction--may disapprove of western cultural
> values
>
> Yes indeed!
>
>> but so long as we keep it here, and
>> don't force it on
>> them, it's probably not something they
>> care a whole
>> lot about.
>
> In the above you seem to be saying that the Islamic
> community is infused
> with a basic libertarian attitude, and I'm saying
> baloney.
That's how you feel. Fair enough. I don't know about
libertarian attitude. I'm really just guessing based
on my notion that people are pretty much the same
everywhere. They care about things starting with
themselves and then moving outward. Their families,
friends, their neighbors, the larger
neighborhood/community, and then provincial and
national affairs, and then the affairs of strangers in
far away lands. I can't think that they concern
themselves too very much with strangers in faraway
lands. Regular people care about things in proportion
to how it affects them personally. Or so it seems to
me.
With the modern spread of cultural memes, as noted by
Ramez Naam, I can see the fueling of a desire to have
more, to have what we have, and envy as well, even
strong envy. But homicidal hatred? I don't see it.
Even a more distinctively negative reaction, a being
repulsed by what they see as some kind of decadence,
or corrupted morality. Is this by itself gonna make
someone so hate-filled that they will come half-way
around the world to murder people? You may honestly
think so. I don't see it.
If on the other hand large groups of heavily-armed
foreigners with attitude(Europeans in this case) show
up uninvited and proceed to make trouble--kill people,
steal stuff, tell you what to do, and treat you with
overt contempt,...then I can see it.
>
> > It's the aggressive intrusion of the west that
> > inspires their antipathy. The crusades.
>
> 800 years ago, get over it!
I was just starting at the beginning. Too far back?
Ok. How about Nov 2, 1917? Less than a century ago.
People are still alive today(not many) who were alive,
mature, aware, and concerned back then. How about
1920, or 1922, or 1929, or 1936? How far back can I
go? What are the rules on this?
>
> >The invasions of western "colonial"
> powers
>
> For a very brief time in their history, and the USA
> was never part of it.
More's the pity. If the British and French hadn't
opposed it, the Inter-allied Commission of mandates in
Turkey might have altered events back when. But the
Report of American Section of Inter-Allied Commission
on Mandates in Turkey, August 28, 1919 was without
force or effect.
http://www.ku.edu/~kansite/ww_one/docs/kncr.htm
Whatever chance it might have had to effect world
events, evaporated when Woodrow Wilson stroked out on
Oct 3, 1919. Wilson proposed the Inter-Allied
commission to visit the Middle East to determine what
the people living there wanted: independence,
supervision under the proposed League of Nations
Mandate system, or other proposals.
>
> > most noitable and recently the parcelling up of
by the way, in the above line I meant to write "most
notably and recently".
> the Mideast by the
> > Europeans (primarily the Brits) after the defeat
> of
> > the Ottomans . [etc]
>
> The long list of bad events you mention happened
> centuries ago, and measured
> against the historic scale of human evil none of
> them rank very high,
This is a pretty shabby argument.
There are greater evils in the world, so
"lesser" evils, despite contemporary consequences
and victims, should be given a pass?
I don't think you really want to try and make that
fly.
It would be like saying "The 911 attacks killed only
3000 people. Historically, comparatively, that's
nothing! Fugeddabowdit!"
> certainly not enough to account for their vast rage.
From your point of view. The aggrieved parties may
feel differently.
> Nothing on you list
> comes close to what the Jews experienced,
> and far
> more recently too.
The holocaust, right? Another disjoint argument. A
distraction. First, the offenses against the Arabs
pre-date the holocaust. Secondly the Arabs weren't
responsible for the holocaust. And finally, it's
ludicrous to suggest that post-holocaust sympathy for
the Jews somehow provides cover for the separate
misdeeds of another time and place. And if perchance
the jews were partially involved in the perpetration
of those misdeeds, committed against separate and
innocent persons on another part of the planet, are
you suggesting that post-holocaust sympathy gives them
a free pass? That's whee this line of justification
leads.
> The
> stuff that happened to Islam is just the sort of hum
> drum evil that happens
> in history, nothing special.
I see. Hum drum evil. The kind you just sort of
ignore. Hmmmm.
>
> >And finally, the jewel in the
> > crown, the poison pill, the knife in the back (or
> > perhaps I should say the ice pick in the face) of
> the
> > deliberate, overt, unashamed, and unrelenting
> > "erasure" of Palestine and ethnic cleansing of the
> > Palestinians, accompanied by their replacement by
> an
> > ultra-aggressive, ultra-militaristic(which is to
> say
> > threatening), and ultra-contemptuous Jewish state
>
> I've said several times that it's a mistake to treat
> Israel like the 51's
> state, but to say that the reason Muslims in
> Indonesia hate the USA more
> than they love life is because America supports a
> nation who harmed a people
> who speak a different language, live 10,000 miles
> away and who they've never
> seen is ridiculous. Most Indonesian Muslims wouldn't
> recognize a Palestinian
> if he tripped over him.
Fine. Glad to agree. Let's leave Indonesia out of
it. Pakistan to Morocco then?
Best, Jeff Davis
"No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental
ills of society. If we're looking for the sources of
our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we
should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and
love of power." - P. J. O'Rourke
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