Crushed and broken on the virgin soul
The body of Christian Peacemaker Teams activist Tom Fox has been found in Iraq, according to the BBC.
The US State Department says an American who was among four peace activists kidnapped in Iraq last year has been killed. ... Fox, 54, had been working with Iraqi human rights organisations for the past two years. The four men were travelling with Canadian-based international peace group Christian Peacemaker Teams when they were seized by a group calling itself the Swords of Truth.
It is abundantly clear from the Christian Peacemaker Team website that they could hardly have done more to declare their sympathy for the Muslim world, the Palestinian cause or their distaste for America. A less haggard Tom Fox is shown holding up a sign protesting the construction of an Israeli barrier in "Palestine". There's a statement abhorring the publication of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons, which says:
We, the members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq, are disturbed by anti-Muslim cartoons from twelve different artists published in September by Denmark's daily paper the Jyllands-Posten. The publisher claims the freedom of speech to publish the cartoons, but we believe they are only spreading hate and bigotry. To those who believe and act as if terrorism is an essential part of the Islamic faith, we say No! Stop! We cannot stand by and remain silent when our gracious Muslim brothers and sisters are being defamed.
Tom Fox wrote a couple of articles setting out his goals. In Why we are here?, Fox said:
As I survey the landscape here in Iraq, dehumanization seems to be the operative means of relating to each other. U.S. forces in their quest to hunt down and kill "terrorists" are as a result of this dehumanizing word, not only killing "terrorist", but also killing innocent Iraqis: men, women and children in the various towns and villages.
It seems as if the first step down the road to violence is taken when I dehumanize a person. That violence might stay within my thoughts or find its way into the outer world and become expressed verbally, psychologically, structurally or physically. As soon as I rob a fellow human being of his or her humanity by sticking a dehumanizing label on them, I begin the process that can have, as an end result, torture, injury and death.
"Why are we here?" We are here to root out all aspects of dehumanization that exists within us. We are here to stand with those being dehumanized by oppressors and stand firm against that dehumanization. We are here to stop people, including ourselves, from dehumanizing any of God's children, no matter how much they dehumanize their own souls.
Fox was not oblivious to the fact that terrorists in Iraq killed innocent people too. Or that his life was in danger at terrorist hands. He could offer no definite answer to the question he himself posed: "How do you stand firm against a car-bomber or a kidnapper?" But he was sure of one thing: fighting was always the wrong answer.
Clearly the soldier disconnected from God needs to have me fight. Just as clearly the terrorist disconnected from God needs to have me flee. Both are willing to kill me using different means to achieve he same end--that end being to increase the parasitic power of Satan within God's good creation. It seems easier somehow to confront anger within my heart than it is to confront fear. But if Jesus and Gandhi are right then I am not to give in to either. I am to stand firm against the kidnapper as I am to stand firm against the soldier. Does that mean I walk into a raging battle to confront the soldiers? Does that mean I walk the streets of Baghdad with a sign saying "American for the Taking?" No to both counts. But if Jesus and Gandhi are right, then I am asked to risk my life, and if I lose it to be as forgiving as they were when murdered by the forces of Satan.
Comments
I knew a man once who rushed to church in tears of gratitude over the fact that he didn't have to kill someone. It was at the height of Ferdinand Marcos' power and his secret agents were taking a tremendous toll of the underground. Two men in this mans' cell had disappeared. The first had taken a Greyhound-type bus to the Cagayan Valley and had never gotten off. Another had gone by outrigger from Luzon to the island of Mindoro, where it was said, he had been killed on a beach upon landing by a .45 pressed to his nape as he walked unsuspectingly on the sand. The suspected betrayer was a small, bucktoothed man with almost childish enthusiasm for basketball, given to hysterical fits of laughter. But he was certainly the informer and had to die before he betrayed a third. As it happened, someone else killed the informer and man whose job it was to shoot him was everlastingly grateful that God had arranged for the cup to pass away. Someone else had done the deed and he could go from out the darkness of the Marcos dictatorship with only sweet memories upon his soul.
The question that always bothered me was whether that person -- or any man -- had any right to expect someone else to do the dirty job for him. Can we ever simultaneously acknowledge the necessity of a deed and the absolute immorality of doing it? That in a nutshell is the Problem of Evil: that evil exists and that by and by we will have to face it. The question Tom Fox should have posed is "how do you stand firm against a car-bomber headed straight for a schoolbus?" And if you say, "shoot to save the children" ask yourself if it ever justified to be glad that God had sent someone else to shoot the bomber and go hell in your stead. Tom Fox stood for his beliefs to the bitter end. And now the men who killed him are out there, waiting to kill again.
posted by wretchardthecat at 3/10/2006 09:35:00 PM
181 Comments:
Wretchard
You posted this as I just finished commenting on your last piece.
too bad for his family.
but i refuse to get wroked up over dupes like him and his idiot buddies.
they equate us with the jihadists. and this idiotic and irrational false equivalency is the real reason they went into harm's way.
if they were rational, and if they understood that the jihadists are evil and that we are good, then they would have never gone where they went.
if instead of running interference for the enemy, he supported our efforts he'd be alive.
as it is, he died for idiocy.
what a waste.
May God keep him and his family - I hope at the moment of his death he felt strong in the rightness of what he was doing.
But my feeling is that he threw away his life because of a basic misunderstanding of the nature of this world. This world is a place of struggle between life forms for survival and it was designed to be that way. We are meant to grow through our struggle to survive. That doesn't mean we should not look for ways to live in peace - we should - but we should never bow our heads down to have our lives taken away by those who would happily kill us for their gain. And essentially that is what this man did....he misunderstood the nature of life in the raw and he met it head on in the form of a jihadist in Iraq.
In order for evil to triumph it is only necessary for good men....
....to always act only like "good men."
Bobalharb,
How is Mike wrong? This pacifist was running interferance for the violent luntics who killed him for it. That's about as sensless way to die as I can imagine.
Fox differed from the poseurs in that he was willing to pay top dollar for his sense of moral comfort. Grant him this: he was willing to pay for it in full. But I think it is fair to say the same can't be said of the ordinary kumbaya crowd. They've lived in security for so long they really can't believe that the necessary bill for pacifism is the one that Tom Fox signed up for.
To paraphrase Hemingway, "all pacifist stories, carried far enough, end in death, and it is a dishonest storyteller who keeps this fact from you." That's the part they keep back.
bobalhard, mike lief might be saying it too crudely, but his point is pretty valid. Mr. Fox truly did not understand the nature of the forces he defended. And for that, alone, he behaved foolishly.
It may be noble to die defending one's beliefs, but it can NOT be noble to just willingly 'give up' your life for no purpose. And I challange you to construct a 'supporting' peaceful purpose in Fox's slaying. It changes nothing, and it makes the Canadian group of which he was a member also seem to be ineffectual in their 'ministry' efforts.
Unlike results portrayed in the movie "The End of the Spear", this story seems much more likely to end up merely an unimportant postscript, and not become the "tipping point" they sought. I fail to see how this tragedy brings glory to God, even though I pray I am wrong.
bobalharb:
religion of "peace" was kiling people 1400 years and is wiling to kill another millenium if we let them to do that.I met belief that they started to do that as answer to Crusaders.In that case I must say that almost 400 years to see to the future was from Muhammad and Co realy unbelievable art.Crusaders came cca 400 years after Muhammad.Second mistake of many people is belief that there are good mooslims and bad jihadists.Quran is only one and talks to every mooslim by the same language.Third and bigest mistake is belief,that if we shall accept islam as ours religious neibourgh,we can live side by side in peace.The truth is:jews could do anything and Holocaust would not be prevented.I agree with somebody saying that Gandhi and all his teaching could succed against foe such as Brittons-chrestians.Gandhi was lucky that he did not meet islam in any form.Islam takes form such that it fullfils word of Quran.To take over Europe it takes form of Jihadis.Jihadis will kill theirs brothers if they will stay in road to Global Caliphate.Mullahs used cartoons 3 or 4 months after publication in that Danish publication.
They needed those cartoons in Febr/2006.So?
Stupidity of those pacifists as Fox despite theirs personal heroism, is only trying to prevent ours fighters from fight for continuation of our civilization.
Stupidity of his assassins is also clearly visible.They show what they are-killers who are trying to erase us from this globe.I only hope that USA will take lives of those "heroes" as wake-up call.
The insurgents kill their own best friend, a usefull idiot corroding the heart of western resistance.
Well, hats off to the misguided Mr Fox, in that he went all the way (assuming he really understood that they really were going to really abuse and really kill him and he turned the other cheek anyway- then it was brave as hell. Of course, if he didn't really understand that than it is just weak and pathetic).
Though, the more I think about it, the more this sort of Martyrdom of radical western peaceniks should be celebrated and encouraged.
THREE CHEERS FOR MR FOX, MAY ALL THE CHRISTIAN PEACEMAKER TEAMS SHOW YOUR DEDICATION!
A top candidate for the Darwin Award, in more ways than one. The gene pool is better off without him.
I won't cry for a misguided moronic fool like Fox. I'll laugh instead, long and loud and hard. So long, sayonara, adios, sucker.
The meek shall inherit the earth, a 6 foot plot above them. Guess what, it's true!
Milan-Gandhi didn't meet islam in any form?
He did, and there were muslims who subscribed to his ideals, and some of them were actually very saintly. Pity there weren't more of them.
Let's not forget there were many muslims in India even then.
Milan,
Maybe there are good supporters of Hamas and Bad supporters of Hamas?
...as well as good and bad illegal arms middlemen?
---
Sanctimony and Silence
For all the bluster, mum’s the word on the main question as the ports debacle ends.
So to all the bitter port proponents, spewing all the bile: Once you’re done with the insults, the slanders, the juvenile analogies, the constructive-engagement Kool-Aid, and the rest of your bag of tricks, can you please explain, just one time:
Why doesn’t it matter if the UAE provides material support to Hamas?
---
I Don't Blame The UAE For Bailing...
If you want to get round export controls, just sell the product to a front company in Dubai.
The middlemen will take it from there.
---
Crushed and broken on the virgin WSJ Dogma.
A Tibetan philosopher of whose works I am particularly fond wrote this in the 1940's about pacifists of the day. The shoes still fit the today's pacifists:
The Pacifist Position
The second point upon which I would touch is the arguments brought out by the pacifists of the world. All true and good people are pacifically minded and all hate war. This is a fact which the academic idealist and pacifist often forgets.
Such people tell us that two wrongs do not make a right; and to meet murder with murder (which is their definition of war) is sinful; that war is evil (which no one denies) and that one must not take part in it.
They contend that thinking thoughts of peace and of love can put the world straight and end the war. Such people, fighting the existent fact of war, usually do little or nothing concrete to right the wrongs which are responsible for the war, and permit their defence - personal, municipal, national and international - to be undertaken by others. The sincerity of these people cannot be questioned.
It should be remembered, in countering these ideas and in justifying the fighting spirit of the Christian democracies, that it is motive that counts.
War can be and is mass murder, where the motive is wrong. It can be sacrifice and right action, where the motive is right.
The slaying of a man in the act of killing the defenceless is not regarded as murder.
The principle remains the same, whether it is killing an individual who is murdering, or fighting a nation which is warring on the defenceless.
The material means, which evil uses for selfish ends, can also be employed for good purposes. The death of the physical body is a lesser evil than the setting back of civilization, the thwarting of the divine purposes of the human spirit, the negating of all spiritual teaching, and the control of men's minds and liberties.
War is always evil, but it can be the lesser of two evils, as is the case today."
We read from Reuters that his poor guy was tortured before he died. I thought on all his past pictures, the earnest looks, the hopeful orange uniform ... all the useless accoutrements of pacifism ... and get very, very angry. Those SOBs had no right to kill this man any more than they had a writ to kill a child.
Civilization, if it has any purpose, to protect the silly and the weak in spite of themselves. The kids, retards, old, infirm and the pacifists. None should die before the wolves while civilization stands. We no longer leave grandma on the trail with a bottle of whisky and a razor when she gets too old to walk. From that point of view no innocent man deserves to die. But Tom Fox's killers certainly do.
Howdy do!
It appears Fox committed suicide-by-Islami.
Perhaps his killers have been convicted of sin by his idiocy, stranger things have happened but the Bible says that many will be destroyed by peace. Worship God not peace.
Jesus was The innocent God/man who gave HIS life for the sins of the world. That is finished: tetelestai! The wages of sin is death and it was paid to the Father in full. No one else needs to die for the sins of the world.
If Hemmingway said all stories end in death he was a liar. Jesus rose from the dead! As will all who are in HIM. Hemmingway also committed suicide-by-shotgun.
People believe lots of crazy things including Hemmingway. Some people worship mellons but I never heard of anyone giving his life for a mellon.
If you kill a suicide bomber you do not go to hell and if you die for peace you do not go to heaven, automatically. To get to heaven you must be born again into Jesus Christ. It is a gift of God that no man should boast. You have to ask God to save you in Jesus' name. I'm a sinner! C'mon you know how it goes. Save me Jesus.
Great conversations.
Thanks Wretchard.
Fox differed from the poseurs in that he was willing to pay top dollar for his sense of moral comfort. Grant him this: he was willing to pay for it in full. But I think it is fair to say the same can't be said of the ordinary kumbaya crowd. They've lived in security for so long they really can't believe that the necessary bill for pacifism is the one that Tom Fox signed up for.
To paraphrase Hemingway, "all pacifist stories, carried far enough, end in death, and it is a dishonest storyteller who keeps this fact from you." That's the part they keep back.
I said on a previous thread that I generally despise pacifists, especially those who preach their sanctimony while knowing that braver men will do the dirty work to protect them. Those willing to die, to not fight back in that dark alley, I can grant some measure of respect, though as you've noted - they are the minority.
Fox certainly died for his beliefs, but I still would like to know if, in the days before his death, he prayed that some bad American special forces would burst through the door to save him. If so, he's not the latter.
Either way, in this context, he's objectively as much a threat to this country as the jihadists, perhaps even moreso because he'd sap our ability to protect ourselves from not only the jihadists, but any other group that came along. Red on red.
"...but he died for his beliefs, and they are the only kind of beliefs that will ever lead us to peace. I celebrate this man."
I sympathize with you bob, but in my opinion we will never have total "peace."
So long as that is true, men such as Fox, with their blunt and un-nuanced view of the world, will always be a tool in the hands of aggressors and evil men.
Bobalharb,
How, exactly is "mistaken & futile" different from "meaningless"? The only meaning I can find to take from his death is "Don't do that!" In all honesty, the world would be a better place had he gone to Iraq and blood eagled those who ended up kidnapping him. Sometimes peace can only be achieved via appaling violence. Fox's methods wouldn't stop Mussolini or Petain, much less Stalin or Hitler. These folks have lived such sheltered lives in the West that they have no conception of what evil really is, nor do they understand that there are degrees of evil and that some evils are needed.
One more bit that just came to mind: Fox's death also has the meaning of "Be careful what you wish for." He went to Iraq to look for evidence of torture, and sho 'nuff, he found it!
Mike Lief said" I agree wholeheartedly; they deserve death. But a death far less kind than that permitted by the tremulous West; they deserve the kind of death they inflicted on this hapless man."
Mike, I think the reason that we are told "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord" (Romans 12:19) is that no man can mete out the punishment that those killers deserve without darkening much of the light of his own soul.
For any of us to give those men just the kind of death they inflicted on Fox would be to place our feet firmly on the same crooked path that that killers had trod. To my mind, a firing squad will do nicely enough.
CNN has this to add:
During a news conference, the Rev. Carol Rose, a Christian Peacemaker Teams co-director, said she forgives Fox's kidnappers and renewed her plea that the other three hostages be released.
"We do hope mercy will be extended to the other three," she said.
Calling Fox a man who maintained "a firm opposition to all oppression," Rose urged anyone angered by Fox's death not to retaliate and to "set aside all inclination to vilify or demonize others, no matter what they have done."
Mercy? How have those three remaining hostages sinned against their captors that they might seek mercy? The word is money. The kidnappers are waiting for money. The reason they dumped Tom Fox onto the pavement is to show what happens when mammon is not forthcoming.
"Civilization, if it has any purpose, to protect the silly and the weak in spite of themselves. The kids, retards, old, infirm and the pacifists. None should die before the wolves while civilization stands. "
Very suspect train of thought. Its apparent that Tom Fox deliberately and consciously went a long way to get himself offed. If anything THATS the mark of civilization - an holy fool like Fox being suffered to write his own destiny.
But on the other hand he also almost certainly incited and encouraged others to put themselves in his position. Given his statements, he would almost certaily have given shelter and comfort to wounded terrorists hunted by "eeevil" western soldiers. He did give them comfort by opposing the forces of the west in Iraq.
A pearl of wisdom from appears to be Fox's weblog : http://waitinginthelight.blogspot.com "I have to assume the racist attitudes of the security contractors stems from the necessity for a human being to dehumanize and marginalize another human being in order to kill them. Dehumanization is a mind game military-leaders the world over have used to indoctrinate recruits with and it also seems to be the case with these mercenary soldiers."
"It has become increasing evident to me that after stripping away all the rationales for the US invasion of Iraq, what is left is the reality that the current U.S. Administration felt compelled to invade from a basis of hate."
"Fearless, prudent and wise. We in CPT need to work to find a balance between all three of these character traits. But is its my sense that removing ourselves from the shadows and darkness will never create the capacity for those living in the shadows to grow in the light."
"The force of war has three central aspects. First it requires a tremendous deal of energy. Both external, physical energy and the internal drive to carry out the external aspects. Second it requires tremendous organization and teamwork. To take on the implementation of a war plan requires a great number of human beings working together. Third it requires a unified vision of purpose. Goals must be established and everyone plays a part in their successful outcome. Unified vision, teamwork and energy are all very good things to make use of to bring about the creation of the Peaceable Realm. But in the case of warfare all of these aspects come from a reverse image- and that reverse image comes from the negative, parasitic energy of Satan."
Sorry to speak ill of the recently departed, but Tom Fox - YAAFM.
fellow peacekeeper,
There are lots of people driving around with bumper stickers saying "war is never the answer", "imagine", "peaceful patriot", "peace works", "how to win the war on terror: don't be afraid", "war against evil is a contradiction in terms", "can we try a little peace now", "war creates more terrorists", "let love rule", "peace takes courage", etc. Tom Fox is hardly alone except in that he put his money where his mouth was.
It's a deplorable fact, but a fact nonetheless, that the USS Iowa was nearly rejected as a museum ship by the city of San Francisco because it was once an instrument of war. It was subsequently accepted on the proviso that the ship be used to host "peace conferences" and symposia promoting gender equality. What to do when the jihadis come to cut the moonbeam's throats? What to do?
Do you mean that he was not given a military tribunal to find his status? Perhaps he would have wished to be in Guantanamo.
Do you mean to say that he was held someplace where none knew where he was? Perhaps he would have wished to be in Guantanamo.
Do you mean to say that he was not treated like a civilian caught up in the winds of war? Then he may have wished to be caught by an orderly military run by an accountable State that adheres to the nicities of warfare and the agreements of such between States.
Do you mean to say that he was used as a propaganda piece, to be disposed of once his value of incitement was over? Then perhaps he would have enjoyed the unlawful personal sport of the small minority of a percentage that were found and prosecuted at Abu Ghraib where the worst he would get is panties on his head and being led around on a leash for that sport.
Do you mean to say he actually thought that trying to defend those that hold to no State, to no law save their own, to no form of agreement on the proper treatment of civilians caught up in war and to say that these concepts amongst the affairs of men were better than an orderly arrangements between States?
These Transnational Terrerists do not respect any of the things that make the civilized order between Nations possible. They seek, each in their own way and corner, to tear down that structure and replace it by that of force of will with a gun. Death is their only answer to those that disagree. Death now. Death later. Death always. It is their rallying cry.
What do we call people who do not build but only seek to destroy?
What do we call people that act in an uncivilized manner to bring down the order of all Nations?
What do we call people who obey no law, save those they set, and even that be unsteady as power shifts amongst them?
For these people do have a name, you know. It is an easy one, once placed in those terms. They are self-defining.
Perhaps the poor man who sought to enforce the rights of those that respect none may have realized his folly in contributing to the tearing down of that civilization that gave him birth.
Instead they gave him death.
What are they?
Barbarians.
And how many more of these people who 'wage peace' will they kill?
As many as they can get their hands on. All of them if they are given their way.
These Barbarians are called many names: al Qaeda, ETA, FARC, Shining Path, Islamic Jihad, MILF (do NOT google that!), Jamaa Islamia, Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah... they seek the same, each in their own way. They cross-train and seek common methodologies and suppliers. Their avowed goals are different, their results eerily similar.
To overturn the Rule of Law and replace it by the Law of Rules, and they seek to make the rules by fiat on their own.
They are Barbarians.
They can either be civilized or killed. There is no third way of it. I would prefer the former, but they choose the latter.
So be it.
THAT we can give them in fair measure. And then some.
To me his situation is analogous to Europe and the US vis a vis the wanabe caliphate. While talking big about human rights, old Europe hinders our efforts to democratically transform the middle east, all the while accusing us of torture and oil-greed, and even worse while simultaneously paying randsom to these murderers. In the end probably they too will end up with a bullet to the head.
Four times the US has bailed out Europe, and the US is being backstabbed again while doing it a fifth time (WWI,WWII,Cold War,Serbia, and now Caliphate Wars), all in the last 100 years. In every case the pacifists have have abetted the enemy, even when after every victory they were prooved wrong yet again, and yet they always come back to help the other side the next time the use of force is required.
I say they have long lost their credibility, and also their right to be protected. I am only glad that no US forces risked their lives trying to save this fool.
His death was heartbreakingly futile. Two quotes sum it up:
"It is hypocritical to label Muslims as terrorists when our own countries have been the greatest perpetrators of terror and violence around the world" (from Christian Peacemaker Teams website. This was Tom Fox's group).
And, from (Qu'ran 4:171) "O people of the book! Commit no excesses in your religion: and say nothing of God but the truth. Jesus Christ, son of Mary, was indeed an apostle of God...therefore, believe in God and his apostles, and do not say 'Three'. Desist, and it will be better for you, for indeed God is one God, exalted above having a son..."
Desist, and it will be better for thee.
Once again the "freedom fighters" of the islamic world show the depth of their commitment to utter insanity...
they murder a anti-west, anti-jew, pro arafat, pro-arab moron..
I am SO mad i think i will draw a cartoon.....
In 1940 Orwell said that to be pacifist was to be objectively pro-facist.
The Nazis were uninfluenced by pacifists, and so Great Britian and the other democracies could not be.
The same is true today.
Fox was objectively pro-Jihadist. In fact, he was rather more than simply objective about it.
It is always instructive to heed Machiavelli, no matter what the times. As I've noted time and again, lesser evils must often be committed to prevent even greater ones.
Fox reminds me more than little of the Hindus Sadhus. The terrs that murdered the holy fool would probably also torment small animals and children for laughs, and deserve no mercy whatsoever.
What to do when the terrs come to cut the moonbeam's throats? As always, stow the philosophy, follow the ROE and whatever laws one is sworn to uphold. If the law says protect moonbeams (*sighs*) then ....
Grossmans "On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs" is relevant here, but what do with sheep that try to all bar stuff themselves down the wolves gullet? And badmouth the sheepdog for interfering?
Product Alert:
Return as defective any Moral Compass that points only to S for suicide.
k.pablo
nice citations indeed.Nicely removed for purpouse from Quran.There are many different ones.
Imagine junction of many roads.If you chose any of those roads you get to one,only one particular place.That place stinks from blackened blood of victims.This is valid of islam,Aztecs,Inkas, and many other different cultures of history.World according to such citations must go through those victimized experiences to reach what?To became that stinking blackened piece of blood and meat?To protect oneself is sin?Against whom?I saw hundreds of pictures from WWII taken by mine relative fighting on side of Russians.If guts hanging from tree were those of German or Rusian,what difference it made?World has no right to protect itself.Religion of "peace" was kiling its victims for almost 400 years before came force trying to protect this world.Were those men siners?I understand every mine arg.can be overturned and used against them.1400 years protectors ours way of life went and went and
fought.What could happen if those guys read Quran and dealt according to those suras and fatwas.If they became Sunnis,they were killed by Shiites.They stayed christians and fought every kind of islam,because every kind of islam decided to kill them and those who were protected by those long time forgoten by history.
Fight is fought all that time,be it for belief,oil,piece of soil or whatever.Maybe all that time there were forces steping into way of those fighters as they are today.
Are we thinking what will happens if all of us shall do as those Peacniks
would like us to do and to have us there where our enemies want to have us.
"......and everybody took day off.."
Bradbury.
That is not thinking of Cindis Sheehans of this world,but thinking by seemingly reasonable people.
God help us.We are trying.
The question, "what if the suicide bomber is making for a group of children?" overides all others, I think. Tom Fox''s prescription is for before the emegency, or after it; not during it.
He also left behind a family (including two kids--tho they may be grown, I don't know)--which presumably needed him in particular--while the world needed him only in general.
Against all that, he did expose the evil (he was beaten with electric cables before he was shot dead) for the eyes of his fellow pacifists, who may be a little sobered, a little more attentive, today.
Many good points made here. Many contradictory and all true, paradox in spades. Horse-laff at the otherworldliness? Contempt for pacifism's benefiting from those willing to sacrifice their own 'purity' in order to defend that pacifism? Respect for Mr. Fox going all the way with his convictions? Yes, yes, yes, all true.
Doug, re Hamas and UAE--I don't know the details, but keep in mind that that relationship could be better influenced from the inside than the outside.
The Gulf States are laboratories--let's not be PETA outside with spray paint. Let's be inside, making the curing medicine.
I'm bound to say that the CPT has made a caricature of Christianity, which is not a suicide pact, any more than the Constitution is. It does not instruct you to stand, with arms folded, while evil runs amuck, like a pedophile runs through a pre-school. Forgiveness isn't equivalent to passivity.
Neither blindness nor a lobotomy is a prerequisite to following the teachings of Jesus. There's something intrinsically evil about demanding dehumanization, as these activists effectively do, as the price of entry into the CPT paradise. It is as false a mode of salvation as suicide bombing, which in a way it is, as practiced on oneself. That said, the civilizational compact is that the nonmoonbeams protect the moonbeams.
The Ismaili killed Fox in order to demoralize his pacifist organization, and others like it. These organizations are trying to help the Iraqis, and despite their anti-west propaganda statements the Iraqis probably like the West more rather than less because of the help people like Fox provide - physical help with food medicine blankets, or whatever (guessing here). So the Ismaili want to destroy that link in order to drive a bigger wedge between the Iraqi people and the West. Thus they kill and torture the guy in order to convince those like him in the pacifist organizations to go home. It might work, too. On the other hand it might do for the Pacifists (who are after all Idealists) what the Cartoons do for Mooslims. Make them mad and get them pumped up to do more... good. So despite his rather pathetic rhetoric, I would say there is some good that may come from Fox's activities, and the activities of the Pacifist groups in Iraq. After all, it is highly probable that their motive is to cause the Iraqi people to see that not all Americans (Westerners) are "tyrants" or "satan's people". Thus, the effect may be what they intend after all - that at least some Iraqis (and others in the ME) may look at their activites and say "These are not all bad people" and that may lessen the edge of hate from the Islamic world toward our own. Therefore, despite his pathetic death at the hands of vile pigs, he may have produced a positive effect somewhere in Iraq - maybe one less Jihadist who now looks at Fox as a "martyr". Maybe even a conversion. While it might not make sense, it still may be true. I don't revere Mr. Fox because I think his logic was rather poor, but even so, I admit he may have done some good that we will never know about.
The highest moral imperative is survival. Every Sophie's Choice to attain that goal is the correct choice. This of course also applies to Jihadis as well.
I agree, Wretchard--and 'dehumanization' is Mr. Fox's own theme (according to his published manifesto).
So there's the kernel paradox responsible for all the spin-off paradoxicals: Mr. Fox's beliefs about dehumanization are themselves dehumanizing.
You touch on something very deep, and probably what got early Christians featured in the Coliseum in the days before Constantine had his vision.
Sardonic-I do hope you're right. If every pacifist had Fox's convictions, we should supply them with food, medicines, and whatever to go to Iraq and Iran to preach their peace and foster reconstruction of the country. Hell, we'll foot the bill!
The one thing we will not provide, of course, is bodyguards. Unless they ask for it.
It's a win-win-win-win situation. The West gains even more favor with the Iraqis, the pacifists get to demonstrate the depths of their convictions, the islamists get their quota of infidels to kill, and we reduce the numbers of bleating idiots in our midst.
What's not to like?
"That said, the civilizational compact is that the nonmoonbeams protect the moonbeams."
I'm sorry, but the nonmoonbeams will not protect the moonbeams who feel that they do not require the nonmoonbeam's protection.
Freedom of choice includes the freedom to forgo protection by the non-pacifists. Even if there are soldiers sworn to their defense.
It's a free world. People should live and die on their own choices, their own responsibility. Fox did so for his choices.
Milan Oskoryp Sr.,
You're only telling half the story. Why not tell the story of Roman barbarism that preceded Islam.
She cheapened Fox's killing with a diatribe..
Mr. fox did this already all by himself.
If the moonbeams would only look at this war (at least the modern incarnation) in its fullness.
It began under President Carter, who shared, early on, Mr. Fox's ideals.
Those ideals opened the door to a great leap forward for the forces of evil ('evil' in that they hurt people in the here and now).
And then even Mr. Carter was fast abandoning those notions as time ran out on his term (and practical experience bore down on him).
Mr. Carter. of course, has re-regressed since then, being unable to shake the sting of personal rejection, and being at heart a "rule-or-ruin" cultic.
What I'm getting at is--as Wretchard remarks on the faint odor of sulphur about the cross-armed passivist refusing to stop the killer at work, Mr carter's pacifism and soi-disant enlightened spirituality may've gotten us into another world war.
Passivism/pacifism creates violence--ergo, it *is* violent.
It's the same paradox of the anti-nuclear protesters (the real pacifists as opposed to the Reds-pretending) of the late cold-war, trying to unilaterally disarm.
What about the other guy? What happens during that chunk of time *after* we go passive, and *before* the other guy similarly "evolves"?
And why is that even a question that needs asking? It's not like it's a complex thought, for crying out loud.
The bastards killed Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
Somewhat OT but interesting.
The little Danish paper that could is reporting that the Koran is being indicted in 5 or more German states as incompatible with the German Constitition.
I'm not sure if the translation is accurately capturing the legal terms of art but at least some Europeans are trying to change the Conversation.
I think we're seeing a blowback. The reluctance of the EU and USA media orgs to report the Motoon infitada in an adult fashion is resulting in grass roots opposition to Islam as a whole (the ports). All we need now is some particularly skillful demogogary and hello fascism.
Here's the link Agora
Maybe it'll be just a task-oriented temporary fascism. You know, to enforce the culture's legality, and not to dredge up another 'ein volk' blood-and-soil ideology.
Fox died for being naive. His Islamic killers will probably never be brought to justice. There will be no Islamic protest, not a whisper of it. In Europe a trial of Milosovic has been going on for four years! The EU court effectively gave Milosovic a life sentence without ever convicting him of anything. Sounds like Guantanamo. A court in the Hague gives known terrorists, the 'Hofstad Group' a pass. The German courts free a convicted killer of a US serviceman and can't make stand a conviction of known terrorists. The Austrians convict a holocaust denier to three years in prison for saying stupid things. We should join the "World Court" with the caveat that it include Judge Ito. It is time to put our collective legal system on trial.
I'm bound to say that the CPT has made a caricature of Christianity, which is not a suicide pact, any more than the Constitution is. It does not instruct you to stand, with arms folded, while evil runs amuck, like a pedophile runs through a pre-school. Forgiveness isn't equivalent to passivity.
I am bound to agree with the idea that CPT has made a caricature of Christianity. Some time ago, I read a book by a Spanish priest written back in the 1950's called Man, The Saint and his argument was Christianity was being feminized and how the priest instead of being a bold advocate for justice and right was turning into a limp-wristed sentimentalist afraid to take action, lest being accused of not being a "nice" guy.
Tom Fox's compatriots in (and Mr. Fox in his time) kidnap-victimhood are straddling the divide I describe above. They combine the two in such a way that creates a suicide machine. Boldness with no sense of justice and the fear of not being called a nice guy.
What's your game, Cedarfard. Why is it that I find myself in agreement with you.
Tom Fox, Tuatha’an. RIP.
This man was one of us, folks. He did not deserve what he got.
Today's WSJ has an interview with Thomas Wolfe, which throws light on the topic at hand:
"All of us are products of this vast plane called the social reality, the weight of the time and place we live, intersecting vertically with the individual psychology, or our impulses. And a person's psyche, to use a vague term, is the result of the intersection."
"I think every living moment of a human being's life, unless the person is starving or in immediate danger of death in some other way, is controlled by a concern for status."
We're pretty hard up if all we give this man's torture and death is a dismissive sniff. So he was a moralistic scold. So what?
And the idea that this man was giving aid and comfort to the enemy is ridiculous. He was a lamb, eaten by wolves. He may have been wrongheaded to enter their lair, but it wasn't he who made them carnivorous.
And a person's psyche, to use a vague term, is the result of the intersection.
Substitute the term elected identity for psyche, and you are in the realm of cognitive science.
I always enjoy Tom Wolfe. Thanks for the link, Buddy.
Today is the 2nd anniversary of the Madrid Train Bombings. Spaniards are laying wreaths at the picturesque nearby memorial, named "The Forest of Remembrance".
I can't help but wonder at the incompleteness of it all, given their government's reaction to the attack.
FoxNews had some video of the Spanish event, and some minutes later some video of disabled US soldiers, looking like high-school kids, in hospital therapy rooms, learning to make do with missing limbs. Fox drew no connection, but a viewer might, and feel a little bitter at Tom Foxism--regardless of much else.
We should be "hard up," if we believe our own propaganda on the scope of the threat. These days there's plenty of other dying people to focus on, as opposed to this guy.
That he's "one of us" [I presume you mean a "Westerner"] is all the more reason to have less compassion, not more. It's evidence that he should have known better. He chose to be such an ascetic, willful dupe. I'd give more benefit of the doubt to a jihadist who was indoctrinated in a Madrassas.
The Oxford pledgees were even younger and more naive, yet few doubt today that they gave aid and encouragement to the enemy. Weakness does not create evil, but it often allows it to spread by inviting aggression and testing of the limits.
Yes, very disconcerting, an oil-and-water mix of fatalism and secularism.
In a relativistic world where truth cannot be pigeonholed,what do we fight for? If nothing is evil,is anything good? If all belief systems and cultures are morally equivilent then why not turn it over to the Wahhabis if they have the drive to take it?
That is quite beside the point, though I wonder if you meant to implicate me in these questions.
If these are meant to summarize my philosophy, I would strongly suggest rereading everything I have posted on Wretchard's blog for the past year.
As for Tom Fox, yes, he is a prime target for substantive criticism. What I wondered at was what I perceived to be a callous response to his torture and death. Surely one can be wrong, dead wrong, about one's human philosophy, and still not deserve such a gruesome end.
This man was one of us. He was wrong, but he was one of us. He was not a turn coat. He was one of us.
I do not know what your metric is for measuring the dispensation of tears. I myself have shed none. What I feel, more than anything, is sheer, unadulterated rage that the barbarians killed another American. For that alone, they deserve to die.
So Mr Fox is off to Heaven, where he will be cradled, forever, in the arms of his Lord. He was after all doing his Lords work, here on Earth
The Mohammedans are off to recieve their 72 Virgins in Paradise, to recieve all the Earthly Pleasures denied them in Life. They are after all doing allah's work, here on Earth.
Both ideas seem to be different forms of the same insanity.
I have friends, colleagues, and family who think the way Tom Fox thought, people who, even after hearing of this story, will never disbelieve in the potential for peace on earth and goodwill towards men.
Our disagreements on this point are about as intractable as you can imagine, but neither camp, neither me nor them, has ever thought to impose their beliefs on the other on pain of death.
That is the baseline, and it bothers me that some here do not see it. That is the line we're defending, the point of demarcation where tolerance wins out even when one must tolerate a blasphemy. Tom Fox stood with us above that line. For that, I mourn his death.
Aristides,
I don't think it is that people here do not see the potential for peace on earth, it is that people here (including myself) completely disagree with Fox's methodology. We see it as counterproductive to his own ultimate goal, and dangerous in its naivete.
aristide,
Mourn not for Mr Fox.
He followed his beliefs, to their natural end.
Mourn for the Iraqi civilians blown to bits by Mohammedan bombs. Civilians who only went to the market, for their daily bread.
Mr Fox knew of the dangers, and accepted them. He chose to Walk in the Valley of Death. He was not an innocent bystander, but an active particpant in the conflict.
One can only hope that his Faith did not fail him, in the end. Because if it did, he will be lost forever, won't he.
Mourn for his children, but not Mr Fox.
Ari,
A grown man who goes out of his way and deliberately sticks his finger into a live electric socket to get himself electrocuted.. and tries to teach others to do the same. Even a dumb animal knows better than that. There's nothing to mourn. The human gene pool is better off without his ilk.
Let's not confuse those who follow principle and belief with those who follow power. M Moore, et al. should not be considered the equal of Fox. They are cowards, he is dead due to his convictions. As much as I think that he's wrong he still gave measure. Muhammad Ali went to jail for his convictions, I fought in 'Nam for mine, I respect Ali and myself.
"This man was one of us. He was wrong, but he was one of us. He was not a turn coat. He was one of us."
"One of us"?
I reject that just because he was born in the place he rejected, it means he was "one of us," and therefore deserving of grief. It is irrational parochialism.
"Mourn not for Mr Fox.
He followed his beliefs, to their natural end.
Mourn for the Iraqi civilians blown to bits by Mohammedan bombs. Civilians who only went to the market, for their daily bread.
Mr Fox knew of the dangers, and accepted them. He chose to Walk in the Valley of Death. He was not an innocent bystander, but an active particpant in the conflict."
Agreement.
Forgiveness isn't equivalent to passivity.
Too often, the well-meaning confuse forgiveness (whose active application requires repentance from the "sinner" as a prerequisite, regardless of when it is offered) with "turning the other cheek" (which is done, either actively or passively, in the face of ONGOING injustice), extending the "seventy times seven" mandate for forgiveness to cover this activity.
However, the same Creator whose Son told us to "turn the other cheek" equipped us with a total of only four cheeks.
He also equipped us with a brain ... and expects us to use it before we run out of cheeks, in the face of an enemy who seeks neither their own repentance ... or our forgiveness.
------------
Desert Rat ... it is my hope that the copies of the Koran these thugs use has a typo ... and that they are in fact meeting with some VIRGINIANS (in the Patrick Henry mold) as we speak.
I think people have private opinions on this event--as opposed to political opinions--because of the setting. Outside the killing zone, everything is philosophical, but having jumped into the fire, all bets went null--Mr. Fox could've gotten soldiers killed trying to rescue him. Neither his politics nor his actions are without consequences.
Look, my daughter has a friend whose dad cannot hear a child cry, or be near meat, without an immobilizing anxiety attack. He was one of our guys in the Central American shadow war, cleaning up after "Liberation Theology" had set the killers loose in the villages.
Ha! and after Patrick Henry gets through with 'em, there, Bible in hand and lightning flashing in his eyes, stands Stonewall Jackson!
Exhelo,
I don't believe in the potential for peace on earth. I absolutely do not. Not in the slightest. It is inconsistent with our biology.
Look, I feel sorrow for the manner of his death -- no one who has not committed some horrible crime deserves such ill treatment. I also feel anger that yet another American has fallen under the beast. And it is not a geographical identity I am talking about. It should be obvious by now what I mean.
Is Mr. Fox simply a man who stuck his finger in a socket? Is he merely the next candidate for the Darwin Awards?
Maybe. He was a moral innocent who believed a lie about reality. He was Tuatha'an. Did he place soldiers' lives in danger. Maybe, though I doubt their lives are models of safety in the first place.
I do not agree with his politics. I do not agree with what he did, and I think it was the worst kind of naivete to take such pacifism into Iraq.
Mr. Fox believed he could find goodness in the heart of darkness, and he perished for it. After all I said, I still consider such a man to be on my side.
I feel I have belabored this point. Perhaps it is because I am reading justifications of why we shouldn't care. It seems to me a far more healthy exercise to search for common ground with Mr. Fox, rather than insisting that his death matters not at all.
Bud,
Who's going to duel Satan on the Banjo?
Mika, for a Russian Jew Israeli Canadian, you gotcher Hillbilly transcendentalism down purty dang good!
"Look, my daughter has a friend whose dad cannot hear a child cry, or be near meat, without an immobilizing anxiety attack."
---
Every time my wife puts vegies in the disposal, I run into the bathroom, flush the toilet, and turn on all the water to drown out the vegiscreams.
Where that came from, I ain't tellin.
You're cold, Duke Kahanamouka.
It would seem that Tom was a bit of a naïf to say the least. But it is precisely this sort of muddle headed relativistic poppycock that has landed the West in the predicament we are in today. We are facing an implacable enemy who knows no restraint. Muslims by the millions are willing to die for their “faith” while your “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemy” brand of Christians are not only unwilling to fight for their faith they compound their sins by criticizing those that that are. Has Christianity and Christian civilization become so depleted and impotent that it can no longer successfully defend itself? I do not believe that the New Testament is a suicide pact.
The barbarians are not only at our gates but within them. And we must once again find the courage and confidence to make choices and think critically. There are civilizations, value systems, ideas, people, and cultures that are superior to others. Our failure to openly acknowledge and embrace this simple fact in deference to relativistic has rendered us defenseless in the face of an enemy who has no self doubt whatsoever and does not understand the meaning of equivocation. We’ve been living off the accumulated capital of Western Civilization for many years - taking for granted the contributions of giants upon whose shoulders we stand. But our time has come.
We can begin my making critical choices unburdened by cant and political correctness but based on the evidence provided by our own senses. Every single time we bow to political correctness we are contributing in no small measure to the destruction of our culture. What does our liberty mean if we do not have the freedom to stand for Truth?
1. Casebolt is right. You can't forgive someone who doesn't think he's done anything wrong, will not apologize and seeks no repentence.
2. I know bobalharb went to bed a while ago but:
a) I certainly don't need naifs like Fox to orientate my 'moral compass.' I'd argue his compass was defective on many levels, starting with the notion that his willful blindness encouraged aggression and violence.
I got my moral compass from men who'd been to hell and back on islands in the Pacific without losing their souls. THEY had strong moral compasses.
b) Being willing to die for one's convictions does not automatically make one noble in any way (e.g. suicide bombers, the 'courage' of the 9/11 perpetrators, etc.).
All Things Beautiful TrackBack Tom Fox's Natural Born Killers
Someone wrote:
They are Barbarians.
They can either be civilized or killed. There is no third way of it. I would prefer the former, but they choose the latter.
Actually there is an even more appealing third option, employed throughout history with good effect to deal with barbarians (including in Israel today):
Build a wall.
Figuratively or literally. Build a wall, put the barbarians outside (or inside, depending on your perspective), and leave them to simmer in their own 7th century juices. Adopt policies that effect an outflow of muslims from the West back to their historic lands, and do not allow them to enter the West.
The benefits:
(1) No more need to change our nations into police states, spying on all of us. Airports go back to the way they were before.
(2) No need to fear assassination if we write or draw something muslims find offensive.
(3) No need to try to change muslims into democrats, or kill muslims to punish them or eliminate their threat.
(4) Hugely reduced risk of further terrorism. They have no military means of hurting us in any serious way, and if we don't allow them to fly, sail, drive, or walk into our lands, they cannot hurt us. (If they acquire nukes, we make it clear that one nuke blown up in the West results in the annihilation of the nuclear muslim lands.)
Separation is not only workable, it is the only solution that is workable. We are not morally capable of exterminating them (thank God) and we cannot ever change them. That only leaves separation - and the Israelis are proving that works quite well.
I would even go a step further and say that if access to oil is a hindrance to this separation, then we should be straightforward and realistic and invade and take enough of the middle east to secure the oil we need, evicting all muslims within the occupied area, and reaching an agreement with the other major powers like Russia, China, and Europe to share the proceeds.
It seems events have caught up to us, again. The General President must have decided it was time to join the fight. The loss of Miran Shah, if only for a few days, has awaken our best ally in the 1st of the Mohammedan Wars.
" ... ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Mar 10, 2006 (AP)— Pakistani soldiers backed by helicopter gunships targeted a suspected militant hideout near the Afghan border, killing about 30 militants in a volatile tribal region that has seen repeated clashes in the past week, a military spokesman said Saturday.
The spokesman, Gen. Shaulat Sultan, said the attack was launched late Friday near Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan. ... "
Pakistani Soldiers Attack Suspected Taliban Hideout Near Afghan Border; 30 Militants Killed
" ... Pakistan has deployed 80,000 troops and mounted a series of military operations in tribal regions to flush out militants. Pro-Taliban tribesmen insist that most of the people killed in the army raids were innocent civilians, a charge the military denies. ... "
trish was right, once again, as well as being ahead of the News curve.
It may just be that Mr Bush's visit lit a fire under the General President. Better Paki troops than US, but that Pakistani aQ Sanctuary may be just be closing, aye.
ovdebdrThe nature of our enemy will reveal what we are up against: it is a consuming fire. The fire is not choosy: compliment it, fight against it, whatever; it will consume you if you throw yourself towards it. That is what makes hostage - and family of hostage - pro Islam declarations so pathetic. Because ultimately this whole thing is not about Islam; it's about fire.
"They are Barbarians.
They can either be civilized or killed. There is no third way of it. I would prefer the former, but they choose the latter."
Mark, I concur. Other than oil, there is little else we need from them. Of course, we have to have a president with the testicular fortitude to stop celebrating Ramadan in the White House. It would do wonders if we had leaderrship that would declare in ten years time, the US will use it's vast financial assets and technology to be a net exporter of liquid fuels. Of course we do not have a president that has the courage to seal our own borders, so let us not be think too large.
The Real Duke Kahanahomestar
Texas Luau
Pee on Their Fire
Looks like a big MS-13 roundup today, too. Somebody's been listening to ya, Rat. Even tho everytime I see "aye" I wonder where's Olive Oyl.
\:-D
I'll tell ya what, buddy.
I am of the FIRM conviction that there is a staffer at the White House assigned to read this blog.
It's as close to a "hot line" as any a citizen can hope to find.
But that's just an opinion, of mine.
2164th -
Undocumented Residents are a Growth Industry:
Invest Wisely.
MS-13
" ... Federal officials have identified 5,000 Mara Salvatrucha gang members in a database, but the number of gang members in the country is unknown, making it difficult to determine the impact the arrests have had on its membership.
However, David Brown, a Dallas assistant police chief who attended the Washington news conference, said the 149 arrests in his city since Operation Community Shield began had contributed to a 20 percent drop in the city's murder rate. ... "
nah, there is no need to secure US borders.
Doug,
I just sold Exxon and bought Taco Bell.
Think of the Prison Union Riots!
Some guy's getting busted by his boss for having an Ad on his weekend
Gardening Service Truck
that touts:
I Speak English!
---
A Diversity Crime, No Doubt.
I think Marlboro owns Taco Bell. So, 2164th, you hate clean air, eh?
'Rat 12:06 PM,
So that's the Anvil she refered to?
Bi-Lingual Education = bye bye, education.
Trangbang might better spell:
Ignoranus.
This good man died for his blindness. His blindness was typical of the fanatical pacifist beliefs of the Christian sect which he belonged to, re: Quakers, etc...
He was murdered by the followers of the depraved ideology of the Über-Faith. The mohammedan totalitarian warrior-cult has never produced any pacifist movement along the lines of Quakers or Hindus/Gandhi. Interesting fact! Originating in a fourth century Gnostic sect, the Docetics, and promoted by its megalomaniacal founder, it has spread mainly by war, threat of war, or war by other means.
Keep in mind that Christianity does not simply reject all war and is not generally pacifist. The Vatican, for example, formally accepts Just War, such as war for self-defense. Pacifism is not mainstream in Christianity.
Conclusion: If one wants to grow a beautful garden, one must not be afraid to pull out the ugly weeds.
Bi Lingual Has a whole different meaning in Marin.
Just ask Jamie.
I am of the FIRM conviction that there is a staffer at the White House assigned to read this blog.
If so, 'Rat, maybe they'll see this.
Trangbang -- I agree.
You guys hammering Mushareff for only going after Waziris after the Bush visit are forgetting the Taiwan and Jerusalem of Asia: Kashmir. If a wink/nod in the USA/India deal freed Mushareff from immediate concern over Kashmir, it will free him to start in on the Waziri Talibans.
'Rat predicted McCain for President, and today
McCain came out for President Bush.
would not doubt that, doug, not for a moment.
Check out over at threatswatch.org
Seems that a lot of nifty toys, to be used against Mr Morales supporters, now are in the hands of Mr Morale's supporters.
At the same time Ms Rice is seeking Mr Morale's cooperation, LOL
" ... Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to meet Saturday with Bolivian President Evo Morales, U.S. officials said, as the cordial relations promised by the Bush administration after Morales's January inauguration show signs of strain. ... "
" ... Morales lashed out at the United States for cutting off funds to a Bolivian counterterrorism unit after Morales named a controversial commander as its leader. He labeled the move "blackmail" and vowed not to return weapons requested by the United States after the program was discontinued. ... "
Bud 12:49 PM,
Maybe we could get some Joos to round up Zub?
Fox may have played the strong defiant one for his fellow victims in their futile efforts to apologize for America.
The message must have been, not “where is your god now?” But “show me the money” or “let my peole free”. Although I do not disagree with the vilification of the kidknappers, I can’t help but think in this case it was just a matter of business and this was merely a criminal operation. An operation that Fox, even denying that he was, a witting pawn.
“I walk the streets of Baghdad with a sign saying 'American for the Taking'?”
In the end they made fine hostages and became the hollow mouth pieces for the evil that they dared to deny.
Big John, doug, don't sell him short.
I don't like the guy, but he has skills, no doubt about that.
If I was betting man,
McCain / Rice '08
I'd put my money there.
That solution seems a bit extreme, ari.
Where would we find all the off shore drilling platforms we'd need?
Zub is Bengali, Doug. Was East Pakistan for awhile, now Bangladesh. You should get to know it, as Hawaii is speeding there @ an inch/year. Collision is immeniment.
"Encourage the establishment of democracies based upon the Turkish model"
I agree, tho this phenomenon is a big story out of Turkey lately (*sigh*).
...just google [ valley of the wolves ] if the link fritzes.
Well, buddy, more propaganda for their side, just $10 million USD for that piece of work. Bet the Producers turn a tidy profit.
Meanwhile, three months after the stringer for the Christian Science Monitor was kidnapped there is an ad on Iraqi TV. Mom pleading for her daughters life.
Should have had Shia and Sunni clerics in the ad, bad mouthing he kidnappers, but no, instead of using their own Civil and Moral code against the kidnappers, we beg for mercy.
I certainly feel for the mother and the family, and if the reporter dies, her life I will mourn. But their tactiics for the reporters return are misaimed, I think.
No good news out of Turkey lately.
To boot, increasingly unlikely they're getting into the EU. And plenty of possibilities for problems with the Kurds, were they to go independent.
Good chance in a few decades we won't be able to poin to Turkey, as an example of "getting it right."
And the irony, is once again, it is partially our fault. We [specifically the Euro's, as a way of preparing for EU membership] denigrated their military's role as the state's secular defender to the point that it is no questionable whether it would set things right were Turkey to go the Islamic path.
rat, if the WH read this blog you would be in Gitmo.
Those 'Up-to-No-Good' Americans: Germany's Weakness for Conspiracy Theories
But in this case -- stemming from a Monday New York Times article alleging that German agents in Baghdad had obtained Saddam Hussein's plans for the defense of Baghdad and handed them over to the Americans -- facts have been hard to come by. The Times, citing a US military report, says one thing. The German government categorically denies the allegations.
And Michael R. Gordon, the Times reporter who broke the latest story, based his allegations on a 2005 Joint Forces Command study he obtained long ago. The US government didn't just suddenly hand it to him over the weekend. It's also highly doubtful that some government hack phoned up Gordon to request that he please run the report on Monday.
If there's something to the allegations, they must be investigated. If not, one has to ask the question why such stories are systematically coming out of the US at sensitive points in time."
...and then there's the NY Slimes.
I doubt it Captain, the White House values honesty.
They need a little input from out side their echo chamber.
In the 14 months or so I've participated, here at the Club, the predictions have been more right than wrong.
But then I was never an Airborne Engineer Company Commander, just an Airborne Engineer.
Officers always were a little behind the curve.
Haven't seen this much of an outpouring of sympathy for a terrorist enabler since Bulldozer Girl jumped in front of that D9.
Bud, 1:11 PM
A Tiger is a Tiger, is a Tiger.
...Asian, to boot.
1:42 PM
At least she wasn't ugly.
Unless, doug, it's paper
1:36 PM On his knees Praying to Porto Potato.
1:08 PM Speaker,
Anyone who cites Dawkins is wrong, just ask Aristides.
MeMe not spoken here.
Here's a piece from the Weekly Standard.
The author from the American Enterprise Institure, he's honest. too.
Better get his cot a Gitmo ready also, Captain pb
" ... TAKE FOR INSTANCE the ethnic and sectarian composition of Iraqi army units. On several occasions in the past year, U.S. military spokespersons have claimed they are unable to provide a detailed breakdown of the respective percentages of Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds in Iraq's emerging security forces. In a recent email exchange I had with a public affairs officer at Multi-National Security Transition Command--which is responsible for standing up
the Iraqi military and police--it was acknowledged that, while the U.S. military has "some demographics" about the force it is creating, "it's not a database. Nor is it a management tool." ... "
" ... To begin with, both anecdotal evidence and common sense suggest that Iraq's security forces are internalizing some of the tensions pulling at the country's different communities. The issue here isn't just imbalance in the total force, but the proclivity of individual units to turn into partisan militias. An Iraqi brigade, for instance, that is overwhelmingly composed of Kurdish peshmerga or Shiite militiamen would seem significantly more likely to place its loyalties with political factions in Erbil or Najaf, rather than the official power ministries in Baghdad. Indeed, if we see overt sectarian purges of the army, it is a clear sign that Iraq is slipping into civil war.
The establishment of non-sectarian units, on the other hand, would offer some of the most tangible, visible evidence that Iraq really can function as a unitary state. More than just an economy-of-force substitute for withdrawing American troops, an integrated Iraqi army could help bind together the country's fissiparous communities in a genuinely national, representative institution.
Given the significance of the army's ethnic and sectarian makeup, why then has the Pentagon been uninterested in collecting and analyzing data about it? One possibility, of course, is sheer carelessness on the Defense Department's part. ... "
" ... FAIR ENOUGH. But in the absence of data--the very metrics that Congress has been demanding for months now--it's all but impossible for policymakers and the public to evaluate the administration's claims of progress. Just how unbalanced are Iraq's 10 divisions? What kind of movement in bringing Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish soldiers together has been made since the last report was issued in October 2005? Is the problem getting better or worse?
The Pentagon's reluctance to engineer the ethnic and sectarian composition of the Iraqi security forces is made all the more bizarre by the fact that it has displayed no such reticence when it comes to parallel efforts in Afghanistan. ... "
Data Points
I mean, Captain pb of the Airborne Engineers, are they going to need 200 million cots in Gitmo, one for every American that disagrees with Mr Budh?
Since my last comment I have been trying to come up with words to express my opinion on the debate on whether or not we should feel outrage on behalf of Mr. Fox. Perhaps you can not feel up to outrage but you should not completely unsympathetic.
A commentator at the Jawa Report sums it up for me nicely: I find this situation irreconcilable in my mind, but not the sympathy aspect.
I have already seen people criticizing this mans ideology and trumpeting how it got him killed at LGF, which is ironic seeing as one of their threads which has been mentioned a lot of times was the "screw 'em" post about the "mercenaries" (Blackwater) killed in Fallujah at dailykos. I do not find it any different to blame the victim. [emphasis added]
While I do not share his feelings, or reasons for going to Iraq, I can honestly say I cannot criticize his convictions, nor his feelings of wanting to be a part of something bigger than himself. Mercy was not afforded to him by his captors, I hope he is granted the peace he wished for in the next.
I pray for the safe return of the other hostages, this man was not singled out because of his beliefs neither religious, nor political but because he was an American, as such that affects us all.
Posted by: davec at March 11, 2006 02:04 AM
No, Mr. Fox was wrong and he paid dearly for being so incorrect, but it is a far thing from moral relativism to admire him for his stand. History is replete with stories of the condemmed soldier or spy moving their executioners to tears with their bravery and conviction.
Don't be a Kos-Head.
The day you find me on my knees, doug, I'll be fixing the sink, or dead.
I've long been a Emilio Zapata fan.
Better to die on your feet, then live on your knees.
'Rat,
The Data Mining they suggest would be profiling.
Shame!
Rat: Sorry, but I always forget to look it up before I forget it:
Could you name that enchanted Port one more time?
The Army does it Afghanistan.
I know it's un PC, but that's the Army for you.
Peter 2:10 PM,
All the bitchin and moanin he learned on the AQ Training DVD.
Puerto Bello, Panama
Henry Morgan, the Pirate, sacked the place on his first mission.
Ole Morgan the Pirate, sometimes Governor, he took decisive action against a numerically larger force and kicked ass.
Great natural harbour and lots of Canuks each winter.
I'll believe my lying eyes. Iraqi army units are not squaring off against each other.
Laura Ingraham attended Iraq military briefings. Participants were from all factions and she reported their surprise at even being asked the question.
Iraq clans/tribes have been factionally mixed for hundreds of years. It's a bigger deal to American writers than it seems to be to the Iraqis.
PB 2:16 PM,
And they surprised her by introducing her to female soldiers.
...but she and VDH are admin shills,
you know that.
Eve Ensler
Author
Jennifer Harbury
Director, Stop Torture Permanently Campaign
They could start by burning Eve's books and closing the Univ Social Science Colleges.
The Vagina Meets a Burning Monolog.
sic
I disagree with Lief, Bobhalbarb, and Kirk Parker, but that's just me.
I always thought that peace meant both sides stop shooting. Peace for Tom Fox and the CPT was more unilateral.
Probably this ground-shaker has already made the rounds. SO seldom we get a chance to give a reinforcing 'attaboy' to NYTimes and Al Jeez--musn't miss it.
Wafa Sultan, may peace be upon you.
Wafa Rocks.
Those who have not picked up on this one yet are being deliberately stupid:
"And there's irony, if not novelty, in the headline: "For Muslim Who Says Violence Destroys Islam, Violent Threats.""
Head explodes for having head portrayed as a bomb.
"Only liberal societies tolerate Pacifists. In the liberal society, the number of Pacifists will either be large enough to cripple the state as a belligerent, or not. If not, you have done nothing. If it is large enough, then you have handed over the state which does tolerate Pacifists to its totalitarian neighbor who does not. Pacifism of this kind is taking the straight road to a world in which there will be no Pacifists."
- C.S. Lewis in "Why I am not a Pacifist"
Last time I checked, Wafa's Video file could be downloaded.
Speaker:
That's just a Fluke of Nature.
from my Alma Mater:
But still...
the idea that parasites are tinkering with humanity's personality--perhaps even giving rise to cultural diversity--is taking over my head like a bad case of Toxoplasma.
Why is this parasite theory surprising? The Borg did it all the time. I saw it on TV.
One thing about Gitmo, though.
The Prisoners do not just drop dead, like the two deaths reported at the Hague in the last week or two.
Those Dutch, just cannot keep their prisoners, alive.
Unless of course, they're Mohammedans.
Those they find hard to hold, at all.
Ole Morgan, doug, in Puerto Bello when Morgan took the town,
the Spanish had a number of Strong Points. Morgan took the Spanish Priests and Nuns and forced them to carry the scaling ladders in the assualt on the main Spanish position.
Of course the Spanish troops were slow to fire on their own Priests. The Fort fell.
To this day Morgan's name is not held in high esteem in the Panama.
A great asymetrical warrior was Henry Morgan, the Pirate Governor of Jamacia.
No Pacifist, he.
Henry Morgan
So Panama is Secure enough for Canucks?
(maybe they tip for a change, just to be safe?)
Only change, of course.
---
Knew three wild brothers here, fishermen, 1 that moved down to Costa Rica with his family.
Had A beautiful place out in Hana, I never could figure that one.
Got busted for taking something in his boat (not drugs, but I forget if it was sea life, or what) down there.
Pirates all.
(H-T to Kirk Parker 2:26)
Absolutely!
This crime, along with the long list of similar ones, have one thing in common which even an idiot can understand: Namely, that those who (God forbid!) sympathise and appease the Islamic Moloch Baal, may actually be consumed by it - and without a second thought.
That's hardly a strategy designed to promote sympathy.
That's hardly what I would call good marketing strategy on the part of the Über-Faith.
What it shows is the incredible Hubris and arrogance of the Über-Faith. This is their Achilles Heel.
Even in the period shortly after the Civil War Robert E. Lee was admired as a great American general despite the fact that he expended his being trying to destroy the Union. Only persons of unusual character can attain that kind of of respect. General Lee did not equivocate his beliefs. He spoke plainly about his perception of duty and how and why he prioritized his obligations the way he did. At the end of the day he accepted the consequences of his decision and did no harm.
Tom Fox and Rachel Corrie may have billed themselves as peace activists but they chose sides as surely as any enemy combatant. They had convictions but they were supposed to be without consequence. Don't insult the integrity of a man'a family then demand to be fed at his table. Hypocrites never become heroes.
Outlawed Kite flying in Pakistan, due to lethal steel and glass-impregnated fighting lines.
Too bad ol Henry's not around:
Three Pakis could stump him on
"What's My Line?"
Noticed San Blas:
Last time we went to Mexico, San Blas Mexico was nice.
...but that was '74!
You nailed it, the Chrurch infiltrated by post-modern liberalism. Before long, it's no longer Christianity.
I got a good belly laugh out of this. Where do you people think post-modern liberalism got its ideals from? What modern moral thinker invented the notions of pacifism and self-sacrifice? Give me a break. Just because you have drawn a big X through the Sermon on the Mount and chosen to practice the militarized version of Christianity doesn't mean that that's what Christianity is. You can't sit there and pretend that the Early Christians, the Monastics, the Franciscans, the Quakers, and all those Christian sects that took the Sermon on the Mount seriously have "made a caricature" of Christianity! Christianity is a suicide pact. It is a decision to reject this world in favor of God's kingdom in Heaven. You can't twist it into anything else without turning it into a blatant contradiction.
You want a god who will support your right to live in this world? Then you're going to have to make him up. First, make Him a creature of this world, having a definite comprehensible nature, and operating within the laws of the universe--not some incomprehensible, indefinable non-thing capable of suspending the laws of the universe on a whim. Make Him someone who gave Man the Gift of Reason so that he could thrive in a bountiful world, so long as he relied on his own rational judgment. Make Him someone who would reject out of hand any belief in Him that was based on fear of death, fear of eternal torment, or anything other than devotion to the rational understanding of Nature's Laws. Make Him so benevolent, so desirous of the Good of Man that he would never suggest that Man suspend his moral judgment of evil, never suggest that he turn his cheek to his enemies to be struck again, never suggest that those who meekly subject themselves to the will of others will somehow profit in the end. Make Him someone who only looks for worshippers among those who exult in the heroic in Man--those who only seek to create, but will defend what they have created without remorse for the lives of the nihilistic destroyers who are their enemies.
Worship that.
Tom Fox was a nihilistic destroyer just as surely as the men who killed him. Both sought to destroy our will to resist evil, one through fear and the other through guilt. If you accept the moral code preached by Jesus, then you cannot escape the guilt. If you do not accept the guilt, then reject the moral code that preaches it. Let it go.
I have just read one of the most interesting articles, ever.
"The Framers and the Faithful"
A history of Religion, the State and the debate, amongst the Framers of the 1st Amendment, on it's meaning.
The varied positions of Patrick Henty, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.
How the "Great Awakening" influence the Revolution and the Bill of Rights.
Perhaps this is a story known to most, but it is a story totally new to me, and quite interesting.
I did not know for instance that Mr Franklin built a nondenominational Church in Philidelphia. Never would have thought.
" ... When local clergy stopped giving Whitefield a place to speak, Franklin helped build a new hall for him—and for clergy of any other religion. Franklin boasted that it was “expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious persuasion who might desire to say something to the people at Philadelphia; the design in building not being to accommodate any particular sect, but the inhabitants in general; so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.” For Franklin, evangelicals represented the democratic spirit railing against authority and insular institutions. ... "
Religion and the 1st Amendment
A history I had never known of.
If you want a very interesting discussion of where postmodernism might have come from scroll down to Gramscian damage and follow through the subsequent threads.
Trangbang,
Atta was far from a dummy, but didn't he go through the whole shaving thing at the last minute?
Genius/Madness like that Rock Guy that went Mohammedan on us.
I take it your point is the world would be alot better place if we were all secularists.Tell that to the 100 million victims of Stalin,Mao and Pol Pot.
Atheism is not a belief system. It simply means one does not believe in God. It says nothing about what one does believe in. Obviously, I don't believe in the same things as Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot. I'm a Godless Capitalist, not a godless communist. As such, I believe in individual rights, including the right to property, which the aforesaid dictators did not.
Ardgaine,you take Christian pacifism and extrapolate it into the whole of Christianity.
No, I just attribute its source to Jesus himself, which means that anything added to it or taken away is inconsistent with what he preached. I don't deny, though, that there is a militarized version of Christianity, which is what became dominant in Western Europe in the Medieval period, and even what I would call a paganized version of Christianity, which is what arose in the West after the Renaissance and Enlightenment. What I deny is that the pacifist form of Christianity is a "caricature" of Christianity. It is Christianity. And what I am saying is that if the teachings of Jesus cannot be practiced consistently in this world without committing suicide like Tom Fox, maybe it's time to drop them and find something that does work.
Sounds pretty pat n' easy, there, ardsgaine. I've never understood 'turn the other cheek' either (not having been a Rabbi under Roman occupation), but i don't criticize it in any serious way on the basis of there having been so many finely-wrought beings who have understood what I can't, and have lived by it. Innocence-by-association, I guess you could call it. But on the twinning of the demoralizing messages of both Mr. Fox and his killers, I agree.
Cedarfad: China.. destroyed industry after industry in America..
Please name those industries.
Fox was in the Marines, by the way.
A Vietnam-era Quaker Marine band player, mind you, but was in the Marines. For quite a while. None of his CPT literature mentions it. Might be some telling and publicly unknown details that would be key to understanding why they killed him first.
Sort of complicates the issue, doesn't it.
Wretchard, roger your respect for someone putting their life on the line. I submit that unlike others, this was not a stand so much as a waste--against nihilists, dying doesn't do that much even symbolically.
I will keep thoughts of Fox's family and offer my condolences.
"Don't be a Kos-Head."
If Kos had been right on the nature of the merc force in Iraq, a sleazy group of gunhappy cowboys who just want a buck to help tear apart the country, screw'em would never have provoked so strong a reaction.
To emphasize, I do not see them that way, but the Kossacks do.
Strong emotions should not be apologized for, strong emotions based upon fantasies should be, however.
"Atheism is not a belief system."
BWHAHAHAHAHA
Bob, there IS one solution--ban foreign goods. The unions would approve.
We could get back to those 70s cars and "planned obsolescence" (AKA "deliberate junk").
Bob, another thing that can't be legislated is the luck of the draw. I know it's easy to tell a family long-rooted in Michigan to just 'move to Florida', but for several generations Floridians tired of scratching the ground moved to Michigan. softening those edges is nice and there are plenty of adult re-education programs about. Past that, I don't know what can be done. You yourself observe that stopping these forces ain't possible--and even if we did stop these forces--which are always toward efficiency and productivity--who's gonna pay for *that* different form of dislocation?
WalMart is a major inflation-fighter, and inflation hurts the most vulnerable. Does patriotism mean buying American in areas where Americans are frankly no-longer competitive, in order to kick the can down the inevitable road awhile longer?
Bob said,
"I also believe that the debate is being deliberately skewed to leverage the public relations derived from benefits while minimizing the liabilities that parallel the globalization track."
---
This is central to how I analyze things political:
It is good to be informed on mechanisms and specifics, but that can be argued forever, and when it comes to matters financial, Buddy will generally win due to his grasp of the subject.
OFTEN, however the "deliberate skewing" of the debate often dwarfs everything else by comparison.
My biggest complaint with the WSJ usually boils down to exactly that:
What could be more obvious than their deliberate blindness to the dangers and damage being done to our country of an additional 6 - 8 hundred THOUSAND illegals every year?
The advantages are obvious and they tout them ad infinitum.
The COSTS now dwarf the advantages, but far be it from the WSJ or GWB to ever do an HONEST cost/benefit analysis.
And I have to add Bud, that your tendency to start these arguments with the absurd extreme as you did above, isn't helpful, but it's what the WSJ constantly resorts to on matters like these, and the ports, as if there are no middle ways with compromises made for our security and our cultural survival.
Doug, starting with the logical end of an argument is for typing short posts, for economy of expression. I wasn't arguing for becoming a banana republic in order to keep bananas cheap and affordable (speaking of leaps). "Cost/benefit" and "risk/reward" are my reasoning (such as it is) lodestones. And I don't disagree with Bob--I was adding that the decline of the union manufacturing job admits of no amelioration not market-derived.
"no amelioration"
---
au contraire:
To the extent that politics can be kept out, the military can, as it could have with Dubai, if they had made arrangements for the Coast Gaurd or FBI to do checks on their employees instead of leaving it to the company/country.
...special circumstance when AQ are all about.
---
National security is special and apart.
...or used to be.
C-4,
Here an easy rejoinder to the Happy Talk is to compare the Australian Wine Industry to ours:
They use (Often UC Davis devised) technology and some decent paying jobs what we do with illegals, plus welfare, health, and prison costs OFF THE RECORD.
"the growing anxiety that the ruling elites have become more powerful that the American voter and are shoving illegal immigration down our throats,"
---
And their "nuanced" response is we're all a bunch of racist, protectionist, Arabaophobic, hayseeds, with NO economic smarts whatsoever.
(see Larsen) ;-)
Opps, I left out their favorite:
"NATIVISTS"
Not to mention closet vigilantes.
Free govt programs make "impossible" some of the market-driven reforms this country needs.
From health and education for illegals to free parking for the poor in NY City.
($70/year [was $5!] for a spot worth thousands!
Cedarford 12:51 said,
All that happytalk is clearly falling apart....
The first region to be massively screwed by globalization and the international moneyed elites was Latin America, ......leftist.....
-------
America will remain a great economy. As bad as we are doing we (USA) still 1. protect property rights (better than most), 2. encourage individual responsibility (better than most), 3. discourage corruption (better than most) and 4. permit individuals to create and be creative (better than many).
The reasons Africa, Mexico, South America, EUnuchstan, Russia, N. Korea etc. are failing is because they are more FUBAR than U.S..
Capitalism and property rights do wonders when laws are fair and enforced.
C4, you oughtta look at the numbers before you base an argument on deteriorating conditions in Latin America. You're in the wrong era. The increasing populism and illegal immigration are emerging from increasing freedom of movement and expression. Check the changes in Latin GDPs, markets, income distributions, monetary and fiscal policies, over the last five years since this global boom has taken off. Please update your stump speech.
Doug, if I could figure out what you're saying, I could argue, or agree, or something.
Do you and C4 want some more government programs to guide folks to where the jobs are being created?
Economies are dynamic, it's not anybody's fault, it's supply and demand, and risk-taking to supply new demands--things the government can ruin, but not rule.
I'm all for our extensive safety net, and all against it becoming a garrote.
Where nobdy can fail, nobody can suceed, either.
And the genius of America is failure doesn't mean poverty--it means try again.
Poverty sucks and I wish we could end it--but some folks will not drink, no matter how led to water.
Bob, "... A market-derived solution will never arrive...." just makes *my* point--it has, every moment is a moving market-derived solution, in effect and moving on to the new.
What I'm getting at with my platitudinous gasbaggery is, there's no eassy way out of this--USA had two-thirds of world GDP after WWII and now, despite an economy several orders of magnitude larger, and a personal income the same, we have only one third of world GDP. But, we don't have to skip over those pg 16 reports of famine in the third world anymore, either--they're the exception now, not the rule.
The restive peoples around the world--that seem like a new phenom, and proof that globalism and free markets ain't doing the job, can be seen as proof of just the opposite, if you reflect on it. and, no Doug, that's not WSJ ledgerdemain, it's the truth--demoralized, kow-towed people don't bother--or gamble on-- complaining until the pressure boils over and it's blood-in-the-streets time.
And, corporate responsibility is to generate profits and invest them in the future. Us old warhorses may not like it, but the future depends on opportunity for the young horses coming up.
Corporate responsibility overdone has given us the 3rd-party-payer healthcare system that is familiarly unworkable for much longer, without resort to inflating the currency or raising the entitlements taxation on the young people. Ask a GM accountant where the bleeding-to-bankruptcy is coming from.
Bob, "I suggest some form of financial incentives to re-educate the corporate sector re employee value" --already got 'em, right there in the Tax Code, a comprehensive system of deductions for employee-education.
Bob, there's 300 million of us, unemployment is below 5%, long bonds are under 5%, we're growing @ 3 or 4 %, and people the world over are trying to get in here and get a piece. Sure, the various economic sectors are in flux--they always have been, and always will be (unless we go to a Gosplan and freeze everything in place while the people applu vodka to their ambitions). The future is uncertain, I agree. We have to keep innovating and plugging away at improving operations. There'll always be problems. Globalism rewards the low-cost producer--and that's a severe shock for the high-cost producer. But the muddle-through is the only option--anything else might promise a short-term solution and guarantee a real hell on the heels of it.
800,000 illegals/year are a result of our refusal to engage in meaningful enforcement.
Rampant corruption with the employment of millions of illegals, depressing wages in some fields and discouraging investing in technology to replace labor in others, or reforming education.
How all the words could have been written above without addressing that is beyond me.
As I said, the distortion of the system when 800,000 new illegals a year are treated to free medical care, free education, selective enforcement of our immigration laws, etc. is not insignificant, in addition what it and the lawlessness are doing to our culture.
Seems like quite a large elephant to ignore.
(as Buddy rattles on about the economy, as I predicted he would.)
Values used to be taken into account, by my recollection.
"Law and Order" honor, equal enforcement, and other such artifacts of when people cared about preserving aspects of this country that were once thought to be worth the effort, and yes, even the expense, when required.
But the Prison Guard Unions and the NEA love it, as does the administration, as evidenced by it's refusal to enforce the law, and its lobbying people like Limbaugh to get back on the streetcar called denial.
Accepting lower qualified workers while refusing higher qualified ones hardly qualifies as a free market dream in my book.
More like a nightmare of millions of bureaucrats "at work," diligently tearing the country apart, piece by piece.
Lower qualified and illegal as well, I should have said.
Oh, I'm just now catching on--we're not talking about the economy, but illegal immigration. Different subject, Doug, than what Bob and I were on. So, what do you want me to say? I deplore it? I deplore it.
Ha! "Addressing Employee Complaints" podcast is priceless--thanks!
Makes Bob's argument, for sure!
Ardsgaine: "Where do you people think post-modern liberalism got its ideals from?...Just because you have drawn a big X through the Sermon on the Mount...You can't sit there and pretend that the Early Christians, the Monastics, the Franciscans, the Quakers, and all those Christian sects that took the Sermon on the Mount seriously have 'made a caricature' of Christianity!"
Answers, in reverse, to your points (1) The Sermon on the Mount was aimed at the traditions of men, embodied mainly by Scribes and Pharisees. You point to all sorts of groups (Franciscans, etc.) and say they took the Sermon seriously. Where, pray tell, are monasticism and separatism called for? They contradict Matt 5:14. In this and many, many other respects these sects raise their own puffed up tradition above Scripture.
(2) Who is drawing an X through the Sermon? You are. Starting in Matt 5:17, Christ says "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven." So right after the beatitudes, Christ states that he came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. Theirs was often a message of judgment against decadent unbelief, and those who put the laws of men before God's. By isolating your reading of the Sermon to Christ's correction of the immediate offenses of the scribes and Pharisees, you are X'ing out Christ's overall purpose. Both the Old Testament wars and Revelation demonstrate when force is justified. The defining event of Christ's first coming, his torture death on the cross, shows that justice must be executed. Christ, innocent, paid for the sins of the guilty. Violent payment was made, not waived. (3) Pacifism is not unique to the West, there have always been superpious and self-righteous people who condemn those who act in self-defense. Real Christians, who love the Christ of the Bible, know He did not condemn the Centurion who requested a healing, nor did God condemn the Centurion (first gentile convert) to whom Peter was sent, nor the many warriors in the Old Testament. Read Romans 13:4 on the duties of the State, and of the Christian within it. Overall, you confuse passages urging individual reconciliation with a mandate for the State to withold the sword.
Peacemakers? True peace is only possible through reconciliation with God, and through Him, others. This is why Christians are called to witness to the World about God, not hide away in their own self-justifying schemes. Did Mr. Fox die confessing Christ, did he die for His sake? Or did Mr. Fox die confessing his own self-created morality? Perhaps Mr. Fox was neither a dog nor a pig, but he surely ignored the warning of Matt 7:6. It's too late for Mr. Fox, but perhaps you should re-read the whole Sermon, and think about it in context.
The environmental commons, for sure, Bob--makes your point. The limits of this form of talk, alas--I was thinking only in terms of economic dislocations, a much narrower take on the topic. I agree with the principle of the helping hand. It's a reenactment of the individual's life, almost ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny, I'm powerless to help myself early, and someone helps me, so that later I can help the next. Just that--this is a huge subject I address in cartoon leaps and bounds--government chases away the traditional forms of help, and we lose the richness of the community so evolved.
Bob--hope you catch this--not for the War on Poverty info per se, but for the more generalized indictment of programmatic (as opposed to organic) solutions.
Pay special attention to the actual new damage done to the most vulnerable, the gravity and perniciousness of it (rather than automatically entertaining the usual "convenient for conservatives" non-sequiter brush-off).
http://gcc.savvior.com/docs/Herbener_The%20Bad%20Effects%20of%20Good%20Intentions.pdf
Right-o...bad info is like going off the diving board without checking to see if there's water in the pool. There's so much work to do, and the barriers--many deliberate--are formidable.
Post a Comment
<< Home