RoR: Forum

Michael,

I'm not sure the point was refuted very well. There was one comment about 6 million Jews dying because we didn't drop comic books and jazz records fast enough. Ok, point taken. I never said this idea was the recipe for an overnight victory. I said it would work better, faster, and cheaper than the carpet-bombing and genocide which is the only other true option.

There is also another factor in play here that didn't exist in the late 1930s. We have the internet. Dropping comic books that acquaint foreign cultures with our culture is a good tool. Putting the kids from foreign cultures in actual real time contact with kids from our culture raises the bar by whole orders of magnitude. This won't prevent violence from the Muslim world for a generation or two. In fact, it would probably increase that violence somewhat in the short term. They can't fight us on the culture front - the majority of their kids WILL like Western culture if they're exposed to it on the internet. The only way for the parents and grandparents to fight back against us is through violence. We'll still need a few of those 500 pound bombs and destroyers. The idea is that the kids grow up to see the people fighting against this Western culture as moldy old conservatives who are wasting lives fighting ideas that are inevitable, and that they want to accept anyway.

The normal, "man on the street" Muslim (at least the ones I met in Iraq) are mostly afraid of Western culture for the same reason I hate going through a grocery store checkout with my kids. When my eight year old daughter asked me if I wanted more orgasms and helpfully pointed out that the Cosmo on the shelf had 20 great tips to get them, I had my own little moment of contemplating jihad. Instead, I bowed to the inevitable and accepted the fact that my kids would grow up in a culture that allows them easy access to ideas that would have given my parents and grandparents heart attacks. My great-grandchildren will probably grow up looking at 20 foot tall erect penises on billboard advertisements for whatever replaces Viagra. So it goes. You can't fight the progress of culture.

You can try. The Amish do a fair job of it. The North Koreans do an even better job. However, I'll maintain that Kim Jong-un would be out of power in a hurry if his people were able to make contact with the outside world and be exposed to all those new ideas. A big part of the impact is uncovering all of the lies that are told about other cultures. Iraqis were floored when I showed them a picture of my family; one picture showing me with my father and mother, my wife, my son, my brother and sister with their spouses. They thought that nobody in America knew who his father was, that every woman was a worn out whore, that the concept of family didn't even exist. Some were innocently surprised and apologetic when we took offense at them asking for a few minutes of "feeky feeky" with our female soldiers. They didn't understand why we would be offended because they thought that's how we actually regarded "our women." Imagine what North Korean people are told about us. For that matter, I believed a lot of things about the Iraqi Muslim culture that turned out to be gross exaggerations as well. This is where carpet bombing them with laptops and tablets and placing communications satellites with free internet service over their airspace turns into a cost-effective and humane way to wage war.

(on an unrelated note, I have a lot more respect for the Amish than for the N. Koreans- the Amish actually insist that their kids go out into the world in their late teens to experience what it's like and then make an informed decision about whether to rejoin the Amish community after a few years)

Post 21

Monday, September 17, 2012 - 9:11pm

PMH:

The other half of our 1st Amendment, our free speech, makes it easy for their religious politicos to cherry pick the worst offenses of our self-abuse of freedom and point at us and say "See what these fools do with their precious freedom?"

We do all their work for them, in regards to that anti-PR campaign. Instead of picking the mice droppings out of the granola and focusing on the granola, they pick the mice droppings out of the granola and focus on the fact that ... we have mice droppings in our granola. We DO have mice droppings in our granola-- they aren't making that up. And sometimes it isn't mouse droppings. Sometimes it is dog droppings as the credits roll in "Pink Flamingos," as in the name of free speech and art, a 300 lb transvestite named 'Divine' bends down on the sidewalk and celebrates American freedom.

Sometimes it seems like we're not picking mice droppings out of granola. Sometimes it seems like we're picking the peanuts out of the turds.

We know to change the channel-- when we can. But even we can't always do that, just like your example in the supermarket with your child, or just walking down a public street.

They have a point. It isn't a fair point, but it isn't a totally made up point, either; it is a cherry picked point. It is easy to paint the Great Satan as the Great Satan. It is a cliche in their political context, a given. They are taught it from birth; America serves the role of 'the rich' in their version of politico class war, much to the relief of their local modern-moderates who would otherwise bear the brunt of that always used politico shortcut to power.

But -we- do their PR work for them, with every abuse of our own freedom.

And this conflict -still- comes down to America being willing to defend its freedom from those who criticize it...aided by our own who abuse it.

Are we really willing to give up the entire 1st Amendment, just to no longer be seen as a threat to those Old Men in Robes in their local power struggles? Are we willing to give up free speech in order to make their PR campaign harder for them? I'm not. I doubt many in America want that. But what are we willing to do to prevail in this conflict, because it is intractable for as long as we claim to cherish both parts of our 1st Amendment. If not give up our freedom, then like always it must be defended. America is not fully behind this conflict in those terms, and yet they are exactly what is at stake. Because we don't fully recognize that as a united nation, this conflict rages at the pointy end of the stick but is muddled and incoherent at home.

The folks around here still ask questions like that, and discuss them respectfully. But this seems a quiet backwater; for whatever reason, questions like this don't seem to ever enter into the national debate on this issue, even though, in this latest incident, the door is wide open with regards to this silly video(have you seen it? It is truly pathetic...) But instead of framing the debate, the issue is shredded by campaign sensibilities, and it is all about manufacturing indignation at the other campaigns sloppy/inartful soundbites. This kills all serious public debate, it's just a pudding fight. That adds to the overall sense of resignation, sadness, that our process is severely broken and we are being led by politico fools.

regards,
Fred

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 9/17, 9:29pm)

Post 22

Monday, September 17, 2012 - 10:19pm

Fred, let me offer a slightly different perspective on one of the points.

Technically, we don't ever abuse our freedom - that's not a possibility. That nasty, 300 pound transvestite you mention is just a bit of the current culture... or more accurately, a subculture. And that's a separate thing. We either have the freedom, or the government violates it, but we can't abuse it, only the government can do that. It just gets used by some individuals in some ways that are less than appetizing, but that's a cultural/educational thing.

This distinction is a minor point, but it cheers me up a little. Think about it; the people that we might mistakenly think are abusing our rights are actually proving those rights still hold strong.

Anything that misdirects our attention to those unattractive bits in one of our subcultures when the focus should be on barbarians that chop the heads off of innocents for no purpose but the expression of their hatred needs to be put aside.

Someone mentions mice-droppings in our granola, but if it is the Taliban, or Al Qaeda, or one of their sympathizers I'm not going there. Screw the granola. I'm going to talk about barbaric idiots who have no right to discuss morality while they behave like rabid dogs. And with discussions of Islamic terrorists, there will never be any examination of moral comparisons they offer up - they have no standing in that arena - and I won't offer them even the illusion that they might have that standing.

Apart from this detail, I agree with all that you wrote.

Post 23

Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - 5:27am

Steve:

I actually agree with you on this-- the choice is clearly give up our freedom, or defend it--warts and all. We don't defend it by becoming the Taliban, or conceding their point.

And for sure, not by having our embassy personnel join them in an official state criticism of American freedom, as a weak-assed sign of propitiation which, if these Ivy League effete clowns in DC had the first clue about the Muslim street, would serve only to inflame and enrage them--- which it did.

We have folks steeped in the culture and tradition of gentile Georgetown Bistros and Prospect Street Dining Clubs sipping their Manhattans and posing around the crab spread at Renaissance Weekend events making policy aimed at the Muslim street by way of DC sensibility PR statements.

No wonder the Muslim street is enraged I've half a mind to torch these idiots myself.

regards,
Fred

Post 24

Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - 11:46am