Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
When the Angry Left directs us to worry about global warming instead of terrorism, it’s an implication to me that they know what to do about terrorism. And yet they don’t act like it. I’m not sure at all what they think we should do about it. Show tolerance? I heard Michael Moore himself say one time “there is no terrorist threat” or words to that effect…so do they mean to challenge the idea that there are terrorists? Does the Angry Left have some fastening to the “9/11 was an inside job” crowd?
Or do they think it really happened, but want us to do something else about it…without telling us what that something-else is. They seem to show a lot of unity when they discuss what we should not be doing. When it comes to alternatives, the unity suddenly vanishes.
Well, the time has come again to gather yet another tantalizing, but by no means sustaining, morsel as we try to noodle this out.
Glenn Beck’s simplistic view of the war on terror and radical islam reared its ugly head once again tonight.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0702/09/gb.01.html
MANJI (voice-over): Ahmed has a son, Habib.
(on camera) Would you be proud to have Habib become a martyr?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It would be my wish for him to die as a martyr, because if I don`t fall as a martyr then he will be able to intercede for his family with God.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: Back with Irshad Manji. That kind of stuff I don`t understand. America doesn`t understand, how do you defeat that without killing them?
First off, the man in the video (at least to the viewers at home) wasnt identified as a “terrorist” or anything of the sort. All we know is that he is a muslim and said what he said. Glenn Beck, who may have seen the documentary and knows that the man is an actual terrorist, jumped to the conclusion that he was one.
In Glenn Beck’s world, the only way to defeat terrorists is to kill them. How many “terrorists” is he willing to kill? A thousand? A million? 50 million?
And someone please tell Glenn Beck that killing terrorists is not the answer. For every “terrorist” you kill, you probably create 10 more.
Chris
You see what I mean. Don’t kill the terrorists…and oh by the way, you are wrong to call them terrorists.
I read the transcript. I missed the part where Beck specifically called this fellow a terrorist. But why should I have any objections if he did? The intent is certainly there.
But I wish to inspect something else for a spell. I wish to inspect this thing about killing one terrorist and creating ten more.
Not that I have doubts that this happens; I’m sure it happens. Heck, I’ve seen it happen in comic books an awful lot. I have no doubt the effects are there. But is this 10:1 statistic to be read literally, or in the figurative sense? Ten-to-one is a whole lot. That would make it an utterly hopeless scenario. And I guess that’s the point — to illustrate the killing of terrorists as a hopeless scenario.
I can see why that’s necessary. Anyone who pays even a passing glance to the situation-at-hand can see leaving the terrorists alive is quite hopeless. It’s obvious. When you leave them alive, they kill people.
So if you want to disuade people from supporting that, I guess you have to illustrate the killing of terrorists as equally hopeless. Whether the facts support that, or not.
Now what exactly do the facts support? Could it be this has some merit to it, but is an exaggeration? Or could it be an understatement? We kill one terrorist…and twenty new ones pop up? Maybe a hundred?
Uh…do we even care?
I find this argument to be breathtaking in its disingenuousness. It isn’t something that applies to a situation in which the observer genuinely cares about the outcome. Think about a terrorist putting a plan into motion that will kill…YOU. Or your parents, your kids, your wife, your dog. The authorities ponder the prospect of neutralizing the terrorist before he destroys you and all you hold dear…and then the authorities say…well, shit, we kill this guy we’ll make ten more.
Does that make sense to you?
Sure, only if you don’t have a stake in the outcome. If you think for just a moment that the terrorists are laboring toward the destruction of something important, the answer is obvious. Kill the one, wait for the ten to pop up, then kill them. If you get a hundred after that, then kill them too.
We play whack-a-mole…so we don’t play sitting-duck. I do like whack-a-mole a whole lot better. As to the perennial M*A*S*H question, lordy lordy, where does it ever STOP? Hell, I dunno. Go ask the terrorists that.
It’s not a “neocon” talking point, and it’s not bloodlust, and it’s not empty-headed machismo. It’s common sense. It’s a sensible response to a demonstrated threat. If we want to live to see tomorrow, the force-of-evil is put in the position of wondering when things stop. The unstoppable, unthinking, force-of-nature that dishes out a predictable response to a stimulus that was contemplated by someone else — that’s left to us. Do X to our people, and Y will happen. A cost-benefit analysis will reveal X to fall short of justifying Y…and that is when it stops.
“Chris” says that’s not the answer. He fails to say what is. Hope he’s got something better in mind than just “ignore them they’ll go away”…
I hope that.
But I doubt it.
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