The Gaza Tunnels
Will Saletan writes on “How to Close the Gaza Tunnels”. But as Blake Hounshell explains, “It’s really terrible advice — almost a parody of the worst sort of technocentric thinking that military reformers like H.R. McMaster have been fighting against for decades.” Blake recommends this piece from Michael Slackman on the Gaza smuggling issue.
Common sense works here, too. It’s just clearly not the case that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is primarily a technical problem related to the difficulty of preventing smuggling. Implementation of a political solution would entail technical aspects, but the idea that a political solution needs to wait for a complete and total resolution of all the technical aspects of Israel’s security problems just ensures that neither the politicsl nor the security issues will ever be addressed.
86 Responses to “The Gaza Tunnels”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
January 17th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
It’s not a technical issue: if Egypt wanted to, it could end smuggling to Gaza tomorrow. The issue is that Egypt has no incentive to do so. It’s only value to the U.S. is as a mediator in the Israel-Gaza conflict. That value goes away when the conflict goes away. Egypt has no interest in seeing that happen, so it continues to allow smuggling.
January 17th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
The issue is that Egypt has no incentive to do so.
The Egyptian government has a serious, existential, problem with walling out the Gaza strip in a way even Israel doesn’t. Hamas sister-organization is the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian government does damn, little else than operate a massive police state against them. When Mubarak moves literally, tens of thousands of Mukhabarat move with him.
A friend of mine knows people in Gaza that grow pot and they sell it both in Israel and the resorts in the Sinai (mostly to Israelis). Nothing has ever stopped them, there are other ways than tunnels to.
January 17th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
“if Egypt wanted to, it could end smuggling to Gaza tomorrow.”
Really? Israel really wanted to end the smuggling, and they couldn’t do it when they controlled the border. You think the Egyptian government is more capable than the Israelis? If the economic incentive for smuggling is high enough, nothing will stop it. And the more you slow down the smuggling, the greater the economic incentive becomes. The only way to end smuggling is to open the borders to any and all goods. Then it’s called ‘trade’ instead of ’smuggling.’
January 17th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
What fallacious argument by Blake. If you increase economic development in the Northern Sinia how exactly will this reduce the incentive to smuggle? It is like saying the Madoff’s or Mafia would stop their criminal activity if only there were a higher minimum wage. The problem is your not changing the incentive for this illegal activity. And for this liberal fantasy to work you would have to pay these smugglers (and a lot of other potential smugglers) a higher wage than the value derived from smuggling.
A better idea, like Blake also suggested, is to reduce the incentive to smuggle. And here Saletan’s advice is just as good as Blake’s idea to improve Egyptian officials.
January 17th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
It is like saying the Madoff’s or Mafia would stop their criminal activity if only there were a higher minimum wage.
Uh huh. The paramilitaries’ stranglehold on the council estates of Northern Ireland was perpetuated by unemployment, poverty, and young men with fuck-all to do. The standard first job for yer Belfast teenager was “take this parcel here”.
And Lord Saletan is just engaging in the usual semi-contrarian Slatewank.
January 17th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Reduce their incentive to smuggle food, fuel, and medical supplies. Uh huh.
January 17th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
pseudonymous in nc,
It is entirely possible to prevent a war or illegal activity by giving the actors involved a greater incentive to change their behaviour. However it is specious to say that if we create a few jobs these smugglers will stop smuggling. First there are a lot of unemployed people in this area. Secondly I highly doubt the new jobs would squeeze the market for smugglers making the whole smuggling operation unfeasible.
It would at best raise the wages of the smugglers and maybe reduce smuggling a bit. But even that is highly unlikely given the current north Sinia labour market.
January 17th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Related, here is Noam Chomsky’s take from a lecture at MIT a few days ago.
January 17th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Re Ziad
Noam Chomsky, fellow traveler of Holoaust deniers. Prof. Chomsky is about as reliable a source of information on Middle
Eastern affairs as his counterparts on the extreme right at stormfront and rense. Mr. Ziad can do beet then that.
January 17th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
I shudder to imagine how impovershed Gaza would be under current circumstances but with the tunnels shut down.
January 17th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
”
Noam Chomsky, fellow traveler of Holoaust deniers”
Not only is he not a Holocaust denier (what the fuck?) he is Jewish and was frequently faced with antisemitism as a child growing up in 1930’s America.
January 17th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Matthew Yglesias mentioned by name in Ha’aretz:
And Ezra Klein recently had an op/ed disputing Jamie Kirchik’s attack on J-Street.
And no matter how much lunatic anti-Arab racists and anti-Muslim fanatics like SLC may hate it, Chomsky’s pretty spot-on, and it’s just their shriveled little gonads which make the nut brigade try to repeat the slur that Chomsky does any more than defend Holocaust-deniers the right to free speech — lord knows I’d never want free speech denied to SLC so that he couldn’t obtain sexual release by screaming out “Hama Rulz!” in the night, however disturbing it might be to sane people.
January 17th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
The only problem with Chomsky is that, in the end, even he can’t keep from being too much af an apologist for U.S. behavior.
January 17th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Ah, SLC, fellow traveller of Kahanist murderers, and a fucking coward to boot.
January 17th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Matt says:
“It’s just clearly not the case that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is primarily a technical problem…”
Remember all the suicide bombers blowing up dozens in Tel Aviv pizza restaurants early in the decade? That barely happens anymore, largely because of a technical solution: a border fence.
Now, compared to 2002, Israel’s problem is flying pipe bombs being lobbed at the one Israeli town within reach of Gaza rocketeers. That’s a big improvement in life for Israelis due to a technical solution.
January 17th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
“Remember all the suicide bombers blowing up dozens in Tel Aviv pizza restaurants early in the decade? That barely happens anymore, largely because of a technical solution: a border fence.”
The suicide bombs ended because Hamas renounced the tactic after winning the elections, not due to a fence. The bombs usually came in with Palestinian laborers, they weren’t snuck in.
January 17th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Yeah, the suicide bomber thing is bullshit. It’s actually not that hard to sneak out of Gaza. You can jump the wall at a bunch of points and everyone knows it. You don’t get caught escaping, you get caught at random in Israel and wind up in jail. If all you want to do is blow yourself up, that’s not a problem.
January 17th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
It’s even more ridiculous to claim this is what is stopping Hamas in the West Bank from operating. Talk to anyone who has traveled there about how taxis operate. You will get where you want to go.
January 17th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Ed,
Could you talk more about that? I’m genuinely interested.
January 17th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
MY – “the idea that a political solution needs to wait for a complete and total resolution of all the technical aspects of Israel’s security problems just ensures that neither the politicsl nor the security issues will ever be addressed.”
And hence we can be sure that the focus on technical aspects of peace is going nowhere.
January 17th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
About what?
January 17th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
“You will get where you want to go.”
You pay enough money, and you’ll always get to where you want to go. There is an exception, though. In the Buddhist world, if your Karma is right, you don’t need money. I’ve been taken to many places where nobody ever gets to go. I’ve done some bad things in my life, but I’ve done many more good things. The monks seem to know that.
January 17th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
If it’s West Bank taxis, they don’t use the roads. People in America have no idea how both simultaniously empty and crowded the West Bank and the settler areas are. The settlements are dense and the cities and villages of the West Bank are dense.
The rest of it is nowhereland and that’s where the taxis go. They are busy people and they don’t deal with checkpoints. They have their own little cellphone network, they know where the Israelis are and if it means driving through a field or even over a mountain you wouldn’t look at and think possible, that’s what they do. You want to go from Ramallah to Tel Aviv? That’s probably not going to happen, but to get over the green line? That’s totally doable.
Part of making facts on the ground are these Ag operations that straddle the green line. These are big operations and if you think the players that be let some wall get built in the middle of their operation, you would be mistaken.
The wall and checkpoints are a joke. It’s a serious inconvience to poor people trying to get around and work. It’s not an impediment to anyone with any sort of budget.
January 17th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Israelis, Zionists, Christians in Iraq, Muslims in India, Buddhist in Thailand, unbelievers everywhere; the big picture is that the Islamic Reformation is over and the Wahhabists won. Muslims are aggrieved and it is not their situation, it is their religion. They will use any excuse, anywhere, to incrementally defeat others. The West is going to allow its civil liberties to cut it’s own throat. The new, improved believers are not your average Methodists or Catholic neighbors down the street. It is the conflict of the 21st Century and we are witnessing the opening rounds. Fascism and Communism in the 20th Century; the new “ism” is Islam. You heard it here first.
January 17th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
I really hope after that hit of crack wears off, you take a look in the mirror and do a moral evaluation of your cowardice and feel ashamed, goats.
I’m embarassed for you, pull yourself together tomorrow.
January 17th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
“I really hope after that hit of crack wears off”
Who is is that comment aimed at? The word ‘you’ doesn’t really say much, does it?
January 17th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
I thought I made it specific with the comma followed by “goats”.
Maybe I should have typed out danceswithgoats, but it seemed at the time like an extravagence.
January 17th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
“and the Wahhabists won”
We should be careful about equating Salafi with Wahhabi. They come from the same perspective in Islam, but they don’t always agree with each other. And that perspective is not always contrary to peace. In fact, Wahhabism can be quite peaceful. But Hamas is neither, they are more nationalist, but with an Islamic perspective that is neither Salafi nor Wahhabi. It’s much more open minded, but much more removed from Islam. Even the Wahhabis are disturbed by the methods of Hamas.
“They will use any excuse, anywhere, to incrementally defeat others.”
No, they won’t. These issues are about the negative effects of Colonialism, a distinctly Christian philosophy. Islam seeks to enlighten people. I’ll agree that their philosophy is misguided, but I’d say the same about Christianity. But most Christian and Muslim scholars believe that the conversion must be willing. Now, history has shown that Christianity has been much less likely to allow those conversions to be voluntary. In fact, when we look at the history of Christianity, forced conversion has been the norm. They have come around in the last fifty years, but I’m not convinced that they won’t go back to their old ways. In such a case, I’ve got an AK-47 for them.
As for the Muslims, there are plenty of radicals, but that certainly isn’t the nature of Islam. It is the nature those that would manipulate people using Islam. It’s still a stupid religion, but hey, they all are. And I’m not criticizing anything that any of the great profits said, I’m only criticizing their followers.
So if God really does exist, please protect me from those who claim to follow you.
January 17th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Why is so-called smuggling the problem. The real problem here is that Gaza isn’t sufficiently armed. It needs some advanced anti-aircraft systems and anti-tank systems and well-armed forces that can make sure that Israeli invasions are deterred. With that accomplished, Israeli violence could cease and peace and quiet will result. Israel would continue to be rocketed if it maintains a siege so, the siege would have to be lifted, that act of war ended… and with it trade and normality… a deal would ensure non-aggression by both sides acceptable to reasonable people. Unfortunately, Israel, that refuses to accept Palestine’s right to exist, and wants to wall the Palestinians off in cells within Greater Israel, refuses this. That’s where the arming of Gaza comes in… to change its calculation.
Unfortunately, the Western powers, with their demands to end this so-called smuggling and leave Palestinians defenceless, believe in the fulfillment of Moshe Dayan’s promise to the Palestinians, made in 1967, “The situation today resembles the complex relationship between a Bedouin man and a girl he kidnaps against her will. You Palestinians as a nation don’t want us today, but we’ll change your attitude by forcing our presence on you. You will live like dogs and whoever will leave will leave.”
January 17th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Dances with goats,
You’re absolutely right. Pope Benedict was right, too, in his brilliant and perceptive analysis of Islam in the Regensburg address. Islam’s basic problem is that it denies the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit, therefore it cannot understand that God is a community of persons, and that His nature is love. For these doctrines are irrevocably tied up with the Trinity and the Incarnation, and to deny one is to deny them all.
“Gravely deficient” is exactly right.
January 17th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
“In such a case, I’ve got an AK-47 for them.”
I should note that when the Christians come to my door, I let them in and try to convert them to Islam, because that really freaks them out. But when they want to use guns to do it, I have better guns. When the Muslims come, they’ll face the same guns. But they never come. They don’t try to convert. They just assume you’ll come to them. That’s kind of nice. I had to buy my own Quran. My first Bible came from the Gideons. I didn’t buy it, and I couldn’t even steal it. You cannot steal a Gideon Bible because it’s your’s for the taking. They want you to have it, and the maid will replace it. For that, I will give the Gideons credit.
January 18th, 2009 at 12:19 am
Ed: “It’s not an impediment to anyone with any sort of budget.”
Nice to know. See, this is why I don’t understand why the Palestinians aren’t killing Israeli leaders daily. Nobody in the public eye really has decent security. How many Presidents have we lost despite the most massive security in the Western world? You can kill any public figure if you plan it well – and get away with it.
Instead of blowing up civilians in a bus, blow up the fucking Zionists running Israel. Israel will run out of Zionist fucktards before they run out of civilians.
Meanwhile, Hector the fanatic Christian doesn’t comprehend that Islam is a far more “rational” religion (if that adjective means anything when applied to bullshit belief systems) than his pathetic joke of a religion, which was made up by a Roman double agent who was rejected by Jesus (a good Jew who had no intention of creating a new religion, still less one that would persecute his own people for two thousand years) own followers, and subsequently developed by the most ignorant motherfuckers to be found in the Middle East and elsewhere.
As Tim Leary used to point out, Saint Augustine was an ignorant, fanatical Libyan.
Hector proves this was not a mistake and these are precisely the sort of people who buy into this ruminant evacutation.
January 18th, 2009 at 12:49 am
“Islam’s basic problem is that it denies the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit, therefore it cannot understand that God is a community of persons,”
You really want to make me puke, don’t you?
And then there’s this:
“Pope Benedict was right, too, in his brilliant and perceptive analysis of Islam in the Regensburg address.”
That was the most inflammatory comments I’ve heard in my lifetime. Granted, Hitler died before I was born, but this Pope was one of Hitler’s boys. That you would even accept him is disgusting. I used to think you were just crazy, now I know you are evil. I know damn well what the Book of Revelation says about those of us who aren’t Christians, and I know damn well you want to commit genocide against us. Maybe you can do it. But you will face a very bad Karma for doing it. But I will fight you, I have no choice. As a Buddhist, you will try to kill me first. And that’s why I have a kick-ass arsenal. Plan on that first bullet going through your medulla oblangata. I wish only a peaceful death for you. And it will be quick and peaceful. But this only happens when you Christians want to act out the Book of Revelation. I’m peaceful until then. You try to pull that crap, I will too. And it will surely be your death if you do.
And it probably will happen. The Christian prophesy says that this is the last Pope. And the Christians have more power than anyone. They are so insane that they will destroy themselves to fulfill the prophecy. And they will destroy everyone else along with them. The Muslims are surely crazy, but they don’t have nuclear weapons, the Christians do. The Christians want to fulfill the Book of Revelation, and they have the means to do it. So who are the scary people?
January 18th, 2009 at 1:44 am
I see that Fostert can’t actually refute the points that Pope Benedict made, so he resorts to hipster nonsense about all religions being equal, and some stunningly ignorant interpretations of St. John’s Apocalypse.
I wonder if Fostert would like to try refuting the Chesterton quote below? oh I forgot, hipsters don’t do reasoned argument.
“The complex God of the Athanasian Creed may be an enigma for the intellect; but He is far less likely to gather the mystery and cruelty of a Sultan than the lonely god of Omar or Mahomet. The god who is a mere awful unity is not only a king but an Eastern king. The heart of humanity, especially of European humanity, is certainly much more satisfied by the strange hints and symbols that gather round the Trinitarian idea, the image of a council at which mercy pleads as well as justice, the conception of a sort of liberty and variety existing even in the inmost chamber of the world. For Western religion has always felt keenly the idea “it is not well for man to be alone.” The social instinct asserted itself everywhere as when the Eastern idea of hermits was practically expelled by the Western idea of monks. So even asceticism became brotherly; and the Trappists were sociable even when they were silent. If this love of a living complexity be our test, it is certainly healthier to have the Trinitarian religion than the Unitarian. For to us Trinitarians (if I may say it with reverence)–to us God Himself is a society. It is indeed a fathomless mystery of theology, and even if I were theologian enough to deal with it directly, it would not be relevant to do so here. Suffice it to say here that this triple enigma is as comforting as wine and open as an English fireside; that this thing that bewilders the intellect utterly quiets the heart: but out of the desert, from the dry places and, the dreadful suns, come the cruel children of the lonely God; the real Unitarians who with scimitar in hand have laid waste the world. For it is not well for God to be alone.”
January 18th, 2009 at 2:08 am
Yeah, the suicide bomber thing is bullshit. It’s actually not that hard to sneak out of Gaza.
The fact is, very few suicide attacks were ever launched from
Gaza which has been fenced off for over a decade. Most suicide attacks came from the West Bank, before the barrier was built. Hamas and other terrorist groups have acknowledged that the fence has been an effective technological solution.
January 18th, 2009 at 2:58 am
“I wonder if Fostert would like to try refuting the Chesterton quote below?”
I could not possibly refute it, it is simply pure nonsense.
So I would ask you to refute this:
345723905613458139456=9-13486=-138`2.
“he resorts to hipster nonsense about all religions being equal”
Well, almost all religions are pure nonsense. And in that, they are equal. They almost all ask us to accept something that cannot be proven. The existence of God is so irrational that it’s impossible to believe unless He shows his presence. And He hasn’t yet, has he? He surely hasn’t to me. And until He does, your argument means nothing because it’s based on His existence. So it’s pure bullshit. The only religion that makes any sense is Buddhism, but that’s because Buddhism accepts the concept that you can accept Buddhism through pure rationality. In in other words, if you simply accept rational thought, you are practicing Buddhism without even knowing it. It requires only rational thought. Now, the Buddha did accept the concept of faith, but that was only meant for weak people like you. He did believe that lesser people could simply have faith in him, but hat they would eventually have to find their Enlightenment through rationality. You cower in in your faith by simply accepting Jesus with no thought at all. But you will learn how misguided you are in your next life. Only you can affect your Karma. Jesus can offer you very valuable advice, but he can’t save you. Only you can save yourself. You are pathetic to think otherwise.
Read the Bible, there is very good advise in it. I read it all the time. Read the Bhagavad Gita, too. And read the Tao Te Ching. And, as crazy as it might seem, read the Quran. They all offer great advice, but none of them offer God. That’s because He doesn’t exist. Get over it. And when you get over that, then read the Nakitas. The Buddha has no attitude (unlike me), so he can tell the real things.
January 18th, 2009 at 3:23 am
“They almost all ask us to accept something that cannot be proven.”
I guess I should ask you this question: Who created God? Someone must have done it, He couldn’t have simply evolved, right? Evolution is impossible, right? And then who created the entity that created God? And then who created that entity. We can go on forever with that concept, so tell me where it ends. Christianity’s explanation for reality’s existence is really weak. Only Buddhism and Science offer a better explanation. Strangely, Buddhism’s explanation is better. And I’m a scientist.
January 18th, 2009 at 5:38 am
I suggest you don’t tease Hector with religious question challenges, as he is likely to respond in earnest. And the benefit will be another set of comments bogged down in silly debates about supernatural magic men.
January 18th, 2009 at 6:09 am
“Strangely, Buddhism’s explanation is better.”
The concept is consistent with the Big Bang, but it’s difficult. It starts with duality. Now, Zen says duality doesn’t even exist, and the Buddha said that too. Avalokiteshvara was said to have originated the concept that duality doesn’t exist, but there is no evidence of his existence. This is the most fundamental concept of reality, and it is so simple that Western thought didn’t really contemplate it. It is the concept that if there is one thing, then there is another. Simply, that there could be two things. In Western thought, it was simply assumed. But if it doesn’t exist, neither do we. In Eastern thought, our existence is in question.
But if we assume duality, then we get to the concept of Dependent Origination. If there is Duality, then if there is one thing and another thing, then something else arises because there can be something that is neither that one thing or the other thing. That cascades into so many things that they eventually coalesce into groups that become particles. And they explode to become a universe. But those particle have different properties. Is this starting to sound familiar? Eventually, such particles form into groups, and those groups form redundant patterns. And that is life. Eventually, those groups become aware of themselves, and that is consciousness. The Buddha understood this when the Bible was being written. But he understood that the world was very old. Not surprising, because the Hindu gurus of the day thought the same thing. They thought the Earth was about 4.3 billion years old. They were a little off, but not by much (less than 5%). Abraham was off by so much that God must have been playing a really funny trick, or Abraham was just tripping his balls off. I’m guessing the latter for Abraham, but that that doesn’t make him a bad guy. Regardless, the Buddha recognized the most important concept ever. That everything could be determined by rational thought.
He was quite coy about it, so he did accept that there might be a God or maybe many gods. He was already challenging the concept the caste system, so he had to be careful. Jesus went to Jerusalem and got his ass killed. The Buddha never went to Varanasi and lived a long life. There’s some priests you just don’t want to fuck with. I don’t mean this to denigrate Jesus, he had to do what he had to do. And the Buddha did the same. But the Buddha did a good thing. His sermons comprise a larger body of work than the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament combined. And that’s just his words alone, the stories about him are a much larger body of work. The Pali Canon is so large that almost nobody can read it in one lifteime. And most Buddhists don’t even bother to concern themselves with it. I suspect His Holiness, the Dalai Lama may have read the entire Pali Canon, but he’s had fourteen lives to do it.
January 18th, 2009 at 6:15 am
“I suggest you don’t tease Hector with religious question challenges”
Oh give me a break, I love pushing Hector’s buttons. And he doesn’t know shit about any religions beyond Christianity and his mother’s Hinduism. I’d be surprised if he’s even read the Bhagavad Gita. He certainly hasn’t read it as many times as I’ve had.
January 18th, 2009 at 7:04 am
“Avalokiteshvara was said to have originated the concept that duality doesn’t exist, but there is no evidence of his existence.”
That’s a weird thing to say about that. His Holiness, the Dalai Lama is considered to be in an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara. But he’s just one of them. Avalokiteshvara is said to reincarnate himself a thousand times at any given time. The Dalai Lama is always only one of them. But not the only one. You know that old black lady that works as a nurse in your local hospital? She might be Avalokiteshvara as well. Avalokiteshvara is everywhere, but there’s one thing consistent about him, he helps people. He may be a woman at times. But who knows, he may be Barack Obama. Whatever. He’s the Bodhisattva of Compassion. And he’s more powerful than the Buddha. Although ‘he’ isn’t really a real concept. He transcends the concept of sex.
January 18th, 2009 at 7:29 am
I tend to give believers of other religions or denominations a break because they intend no harm to me and mine. I don’t give Wahhabists a break because they do intend harm to me, mine and the West. I am Islamophobic because I fear Islam and it’s message. It says I have a choice to convert of live is a state of dhimmitude; and that’s the moderate intrepatation (sp?).
January 18th, 2009 at 7:41 am
There are funny consequences to interpreting Hindu beliefs of reincarnation.
For example, there’s a whole sub-genre of pseudo-science on human evolution boosted by Hindu (”Vedic”) creationists, which in this country was most famously represented by convert Michael Cremo, who uses fake and misinterpreted ‘fossils’ and unverifiable drawings to suggest that modern humans go back hundreds of millions of years.
It’s the opposite of Christian creationists, who seek to ‘prove’ that the Earth and humankind are very young in order to parallel the Biblical descent of named families and their lifetimes; Hindu creationists like Cremo have the opposite incentive to make human & Earth history match their estimate of how long it would be required to run certain reincarnation cycles.
From the National Center for Science Education:
Thus, although it’s very interesting that this age approximates the actual age of the Earth, it seems quite coincidental, and generally seems to arise in parallel with, but not out of, the ancient traditions of astronomy and mathematics which arose from the same Vedic cultures.
January 18th, 2009 at 7:45 am
There are all sorts of harmful and deadly forces in life; but to describe that you have a ‘fear’ of such a religious ideology which sounds as if that this sort of thing might imminently happen to you is simply mentally ill. I mean, assuming you’re living in the United States.
January 18th, 2009 at 7:56 am
“I could not possibly refute it, it is simply pure nonsense.”
I guess I should explain that. I could write a computer program that would simply take words and put them into sentences. If I did that, it would have as much meaning. That you think it means something says quite a lot about what you believe. That quote has a distinction in that it can barely keep a thought together in a single sentence. And then it continues to make that clear sentence after sentence. The author was obviously far drunker that I am. But in the end, I do get the idea of the Trinity, which is the single most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard in my life. If you have God and want to separate Him into parts, how could you possibly know how many parts there are? And if He is the ultimate, why do you have the right to divide Him? This is exactly where I prefer Islam over Christianity. They do not divide God into parts. They understand their humility. They would not presume to even define God, much less divide Him. But it’s no matter to me, if you want to take a knife to that which doesn’t exist, I will let you flail in the impossibility. In the end, I’m glad you rejected your mother’s back-ass Gita-rejecting Hinduism for some more enlightened thought, but you’re smarter than this. The problem with Christian philosophy is that it has nowhere to go. You are stuck with one self-conflicting book and a bunch of intellectual masturbation from 500 years ago. Do yourself a favor and find a new path.
January 18th, 2009 at 8:15 am
“It says I have a choice to convert of live is a state of dhimmitude; and that’s the moderate intrepatation”
Dhimmitude was rejected in Muslim thought 200 years ago. The idea that a non-Christian cannot hold a job was only rejected about 100 years ago. Dhimmitude involve paying higher taxes and certain building restrictions. Being a non-Christian involved being burned at the stake 300 years ago. So what’s your point? It’s obviously that Muslims have a traditionally more open minded approach, right? Unless you think higher taxes are worse than death.
January 18th, 2009 at 8:47 am
“it seems quite coincidental”
I’d agree, but there’s one thing that’s striking: they are in the right order of magnitude. The Jewish/Muslim/Christian tradition puts the age of the earth at about 6000 years. I’ve sen human built sites that are older than that. Whatever coincidences there might be with the Hindu/Buddhist tradition, at least they weren’t complete idiots. Being off by three orders of magnitude should put some question into your credibility. And the fact that many people still believe that crap is just crazy. I don’t advocate genocide, but those people are surely the right candidates for it. Willful delusion isn’t good for humanity. But the right approach is to make sure none of those people ever get into powerful positions. Fortunately, they will be removed very soon. But such people were in power for the last eight years, and that’s downright scary.
January 18th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Cid – living in the US didn’t help 3,000 people on 9/11, did it? Unless of course you believe it was an “inside job”.
fostert – trying building a church in Saudi Arabia and we will talk about dhimmitude dying out 200 years ago. Try being a Copt in Egypt and see how far you get. How about a Christian in Iraq or Indonesia or a Buddhist in S. Thailand – not a growth industry I assure you.
When the Wahhabist were a band of desert tribes in Saudi or Yemen they were no problem to the rest of the world. After we gave them a couple trillion dollars the calculus changed.
January 18th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Fostert,
It’s pretty clear you were unable to refute the Chesterton quote because you didn’t understand it. That’s fine, but I’m not clear why your ignorance should be allowed derail the conversation for the rest of us. So why don’t you sit in the corner with “My Pet Goat” while the rest of us try and have an adult conversation. As for your question about my knowledge of world religions, I’m acquainted with some of the major Hindu texts (including, of course, the Gita) and have some knowledge of Zoroastrianism as well- which I think is a fascinating faith, and one which has much truth in it.
If you really want to know more about how theologicans have answered your questions, please see St. Augustine’s “De Trinitate”, in which he argues that God must necessarily be a Trinity, since love requires an object and a form. Or just see
my Christmas blog post below…
http://patriabolivariana2008.blogspot.com/2008/12/rumination-on-trinity.html
Danceswithgoats, you’re right to be fearful. Unfortunately, I think the fight against Jihadism is not one that a liberal, secular West can win. Islamic Jihadism appeals to people because it answers some of life’s deepest questions. Liberalism cannot answer those questions, because it doesn’t even see them as important: thus, liberal civilization must inevitably fall. The only way that societies can fight the Jihadist menace succesfully is by proposing their own ideological or religious answers that controvert Jihadism on its own ground. The only antidote to false ideology is true ideology, and the only answer to false religion is true religion. I have no fear that Brazil or Peru would fall to Islamism, but I cannot say the same of Brussels or New York.
January 18th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Unfortunately, I think the fight against Jihadism is not one that a liberal, secular West can win. Islamic Jihadism appeals to people because it answers some of life’s deepest questions. Liberalism cannot answer those questions, because it doesn’t even see them as important: thus, liberal civilization must inevitably fall.
Mm Hmmm? Yet, it seems to me that Liberal civilization did pretty darned good against the Nazis. And it seems to me that Liberal civilization over the last 400 years has some pretty impressive accomplishments.
Christian Theocratic nonsense? Not such a sterling track record. Let’s face it, during the periods of greatest Muslim expansion, Roman and European Christianity was at its heights. It seems that God to God, the devout Christians tended to lose out to the devout Muslims.
It’s only when Europeans transcended and began to reject Christian doctrines that they made headway. The works of Copernikus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler were not popular with Christians. Galileo was so profoundly offensive that he was condemned by religious authorities and this condemnation stoof for four centuries. Devout Christians consistently opposed advances in science, technology, politics and culture.
Even now the devout Christians sit there in the dark nattering bitterly about evolution and condoms, speaking of love but spreading ignorance and repression.
You say that ‘Liberalism cannot answer life’s deepest questions.’ Yet surely you must acknowledge that there is a historical record, and that historical record weighs hard against your thesis.
Does Christianity answer life’s deepest questions? If so, then why has Christianity historically failed against Islam? If so, why has Christianity continually been rejected in favour of Liberalism.
You feel that Liberalism’s ideology cannot compete with Islam. But surely you realize that Liberalism does not exist within most Islamic states. Neither monarchies nor secular dictatorships give much traction to liberal notions like Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Rule of Law, Uniform Civil Rights for all persons regardless of race or gender.
There are a few states where liberalism has put down some roots. In Indonesia, occasionally in Pakistan, imperfectly in Lebanon, in Turkey, these peoples have reached out for Liberal solutions. I don’t see any of them reaching out for ‘true religion.’
January 18th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Hector, I give you credit. Even for this blog, you are one weird guy. Yeah, the way to save ourselves from Jihadism is to make sure we begin to follow the true religion. This is a recipe for success.
January 18th, 2009 at 11:22 am
I’m no fetishistic worshiper of liberal democracy (as conventionally defined), but I think Islamic regimes have more to fear (and thus must work harder to repress it) from an outbreak of liberalism in their regimes than Western nations have to fear of an outbreak of jihadism.
That is, unless the right wing piss pants brigade is somehow again allowed to respond to jihadist attack by themselves attacking the central foundations of our liberal democracy by ripping up the Constitution and scoffing at the notion of Constitutionally protected rights.
What we really have to fear is Islamic jihadists being allowed once more as an excuse by the Constitution-hating right wing to attack our democracy.
The jihadists are less the threat than the catalysts.
January 18th, 2009 at 11:28 am
I am no fetishistic worshipper of anything.
But I can confidently assert that the track record of Liberal Democracy in terms of answering questions and meeting human needs, or in terms of naked power and potency, far exceeds ‘the one true faith’ or any other rival. That’s just simple history.
Is Liberal Democracy perfect? Hardly. In its own terms, it has often been quite brutal. But again, so have its rivals been.
January 18th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Yes! Lets disarm Hamas! that way, the next time an Israeli leader is afraid of an electoral loss, the so-called ‘IDF’ an massacre even more innocent people without any fear of reprisal whatsoever! I’m sure that will bring peace!
Skeptic, there are no liberal Democracies in that area. There are a few countries that pretend to be, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon; but none of them are actually liberal Democracies.
January 18th, 2009 at 11:42 am
“Unfortunately, I think the fight against Jihadism is not one that a liberal, secular West can win”
That is such a weird perspective about the West. At least the Arabs, who trace their prominence to the emergence of Islam, have some basis for the forlorn hope that more Islam will solve their problems. Western history hardly seems conducive to the conclusion that more Xianity = more success.
January 18th, 2009 at 11:49 am
“But I can confidently assert that the track record of Liberal Democracy in terms of answering questions and meeting human needs, or in terms of naked power and potency, far exceeds ‘the one true faith’ or any other rival. That’s just simple history.”
You’d think this would be particularly obvious to people living in the West, the heart of the whole enterprise. Ironically, I’d bet the “Jewish state” is keenly aware that its advantages over its neighbours don’t lie in its Judaism.
January 18th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Well, it looks like the Gaza war is over, and without a meaningful result. Hamas is still standing and still in control of Gaza. Apart from that, there is no other enduring result. Tunnels will be rebuilt. Rockets may fly. There will be more reprisals. The blockade will lift and then fall.
Admittedly, Soullite, Lebanon, Turkey and Israel are not perfect Liberal Democracies.
But then again, the United States for much of its history failed that test, labouring under slavery, jim crow and the genocide of indians. The European ‘liberal democracies’ were also aggressive imperialists.
On the other hand, Lebanon, Turkey and Israel all feature commitments to varying levels to electoral processes, the rule of law, an independent judiciary, a separation of church and state, a subordination of the military to the civilian, freedoms of speech and association.
Turkey has denied rights to Kurds, the military has too much influence and is always at risk of overthrowing the civilians, islamic extremists get too many votes, etc. etc.
Israel denies rights to Palestinians in the occupied territories, jewish extremists get too many votes, and the country is too dependent on war. But then, it’s hardly a local role model, or a role model for anyone.
January 18th, 2009 at 11:51 am
DJ, certain forms of Christianity share with certain forms of Islam a quality of relentless stone ignorance that is proof against all fact and reason.
The remarkable thing about Hector is that if you plopped him down in a Wahhabi Mosque, he’d find a hell of a lot of things to agree about, and he’d probably enjoy the company.
January 18th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Re: Mm Hmmm? Yet, it seems to me that Liberal civilization did pretty darned good against the Nazis.
“Liberal civilization”? Hardly. The Nazis were beaten (just barely) by a constellation of forces including a great many antiliberals. A coalition that included Stalin, Tito, the Greek partisans, Metaxas, Chiang, and a great many people throughout Eurasia who were motivated by socialism, nationalism, religion, or various other illiberal ideologies, can hardly be called a ringing victory for liberal civilization.
Without people like Stalin, Tito, and Chiang, the West would have fallen to the Nazi hordes. And again, if Hitler had been smart enough to take on his enemies one by one instead of all at a time, the Nazis would have won the war. Don’t be too cocksure in assuring us of the ultimate success of liberalism.
January 18th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Yeah, I can concede a point in respect of the Nazis to some extent. I’ve made that point myself. On the other hand, it has been pointed out to me that there is a very live argument that without substantial aid from the United States (a liberal democracy) the Soviet Union might well have fallen. Would it? I don’t know. But I’m prepared to concede that there was a major contribution.
I’m amused at your near tumescent excitement over the possibility that Hitler could have won his war. But I’m actually pretty dubious about that proposition. The Battle of Britain was over and Germany had lost by the time Hitler turned on Russia. So England was going to remain standing no matter what.
Hitler might have delayed invading Russia, but the Russians were rearming and waiting another year might have produced much less sanguine results. An earlier invasion was certainly not in the cards.
As for the war with America, that was precipitated by Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour. Not something that the Germans planned on or had knowledge of. Once it happened, they didn’t have a lot of choice in it.
David Brin makes the point that the Nazi’s only got as far as they did by way of an outrageous string of luck and coincidences. We *are* the alternate world where they got every possible lucky break. They still lost, much to the chagrin of all the closet Hitlerphiles.
On the other hand, noticeably absent from the battle against Nazism or Nazi philosophy was Christianity. Sadly, it seems that all too many ‘devout’ Christians were all too eager to kneel, or at least to take a pass on the fight.
That’s not to say that there weren’t many devout Christians and even Christian clerics who were committed to the fight against Hitler.
But on the other hand, Christianity and Christian movements fed Nazism as often as they opposed it, and Christian teachings seemed to carry no weight against Nazi or Fascist fervour. Had it been left to the Christ-boys, Europeans would still be goosestepping.
I’ve never argued that Liberalism was perfect. I simply note that its historical track record overall is far superior to your own fear-ridden raggedy superstition.
January 18th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Skeptic: I was simply just declaring my own avoidance of turning discussion of apparent strengths and weaknesses of liberal democracy into a praise poetry session; in no way did I intend to suggest such a perspective on your part. I’ve plowed through enough writers and social scientists who basically did trumpet liberal democracy as the likely end, highest stage of human development, that I just wanted to step apart from any possible “End of History” sounding tone.
Hector: Though its true that without the Soviet Union, for example, the West may not have defeated Hitler, it’s also possible that without the revolutionary Communist movements which produced a Stalin, the Nazis wouldn’t have arisen either. It’s a complex dialectic, this counter-factual game.
January 18th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Too much silliness above to write about, but the above quote particularly irked me (yes, I get irked about weird things). Hermits are hardly an ‘eastern’ idea, but more significantly, communal monasticism was not only invented in the East, but it has been much more important to the development of Eastern Christianity than it has been in the West. Moreover, every major Western European nation has, at one point or another, appropriated the property of its monasteries and effectively shut most of them down.
The rest of Chesterton’s statement is also gobbledygook, but that has been treated above.
January 18th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Skeptic,
You can make a case that organized Christianity in Europe was often pro-Fascist (in the sense of being sympathetic to Christian-corporatist movements like Franco or Metaxas) but not that they were objectively pro-Nazi. The Catholic church explicitly condemned the Nazis, and excommunicated the French precursor of the Nazis, Action Francaise. It’s certainly true that the Catholic hierarchy didn’t do _enough_ to combat the Nazis, but I don’t agree that they in any way actively _supported_ it. The explicitly Christian fascist regimes, of course, were not of the same degree of absolute evil as the Nazis, which says something about the dangers of secular power untramelled by restraint and inherited morality.
I’m amused by your insinuation that I’m a closet Hitlerphile. I think that Hitler and the Nazis came very close to world domination, because I hold to a perspective that this world is under the domination of the powers of evil, and that evil in this world is generally at least as strong as good. Too many hipster liberals today don’t get this, and that is why they are going to lose the war against the jihadists, just as they almost lost the war against the Nazis.
January 18th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
El Cid, I recognize your point. ‘End of History’ism is always embarrassing and something of a failure. Everything is transient and everything mutates.
I suppose that one could argue that various modern isms – Socialism, Communism, Nazism, Nationalism, Zionism, Capitalism are all aspects of a greater or consuming Western tradition, we could even call that tradition ‘Liberalism’.
Or we could argue that ‘Liberalism’ is simply another component – a parallel tributary rather than a source in the Western tradition. Or perhaps we could argue it as the primary stream, with other isms being offshoots. One could argue that the original source is the European ‘Enlightenment.’ Frankly, that’s more philosophy than I need.
For myself, my ambitions are much more narrow. I’m simply asserting that on the basis of the historical record the Enlightenment tradition – call it ‘Liberalism’ ‘Secular Humanism’ or ‘Liberal Democracy’ has in its few centuries, done a far better job of identifying and meeting physical and spiritual needs of people, and of outcompeting other states and systems, than Christianity ever has. That’s not a matter of opinion, that’s simply how things turned out.
In any event, the discussion is somewhat silly. What is ‘true Christianity’. Is it Roman Catholicism? Greek Orthodoxy? Egyptian Coptic? At least these have the credential of advanced age and some sort of historical contiguity to original Christianity. Or is it Calvinism, the various Protestant sects of the Reformation? Anglicanism/Episcopalianism born out of some sordid power structure? Or the lunatic American Millenialist cults, the Southern Baptists who established their church in order to defend the institution of slavery? Is Mormonism true Christianity? How about the 19th century Tai Ping? Or the 20th century Moonies?
January 18th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I think the best response to Hector, a boy who appears to have been intellectually molested by the Church Fathers, is to quote reams of Asimov and ask him to refute that.
January 18th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I’m amused by your insinuation that I’m a closet Hitlerphile.
You’re not? Well and good. I simply had the sense that you were one from the way you wrote. But if you say you aren’t, I’ll take your word for it.
I think that Hitler and the Nazis came very close to world domination, because I hold to a perspective that this world is under the domination of the powers of evil, and that evil in this world is generally at least as strong as good.
So your foundation for this isn’t so much based in actual facts or history but your inchoate faith in evil as an animate force? Okay, well, there’s not much anyone can say to that.
Too many hipster liberals today don’t get this,
Yep. They’re convinced that Dungeons and Dragons is imaginary too.
and that is why they are going to lose the war against the jihadists, just as they almost lost the war against the Nazis.
As opposed to a victory strategy composed of ‘praying harder.’
Historically, that hasn’t worked out so well.
As I’ve said, the performance of the ‘Hipster Liberals’ in the historical record has been substantially better than your demon haunted, raggedy superstition.
I mean, simply in terms of dealing with Islam, it’s worth noting that between 600 AD and 900 AD, the Islamic faith successfully displaced Christianity throughout its heartlands in Palestine, Syria, Egypt and Anatolia, and pushed through north Africa into Spain. Following that, the Ottoman Turks through the middle ages pushed into Eastern Europe literally to the gates of Vienna. Through India, Indonesia and central Asia, Islam was able to penetrate and appeal as a worthy faith in a way that Christianity often failed to do. That’s hardly a bracing testament to the spiritual or secular abilities of Christianity.
Now please, don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m dissing Christianity. I’m just saying that Hipster Liberalism in comparison is proveably better, and better at everything and better in every conceivable way.
January 18th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Hector,
Re the Chesterton quote: If the Trinity is better because it’s a ‘divine society’, then wouldn’t Hinduism’s dozens (?) of gods be even better?
January 18th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
I am glad that Hector is a Christian. If you heaped this much abuse on a real “believer” you might have to worry about getting your head cut off.
January 18th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Guys like Hector aren’t really Christians. They just like to play one on TV.
January 18th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Fred,
No. (By the way, are you the same Fred who has been defending Israel’s right to exist against the hipsters in the other thread? Just asking….there are too many “Fred”s around to keep track of.)
Many Hindus would disagree with you of course that their religion is polytheistic. There are only three main Gods, and the other “gods” can be viewed as functional equivalents of Christian archangels or whatever. I do think that the Hindu trinity was in some way a foreshadowing and a dim glimpse of the Christian one.
January 18th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Hector – read “Our Oriental Heritage” by Will Durant to connect those trinity dots. Very interesting.
January 19th, 2009 at 12:56 am
Hector is the one true Stone Age man on this blog. Okay, maybe Bronze Age…
His mindset is a perfect demonstration how humans as a species can advance technologically and still have people who think like bugs.
January 19th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Did we ever find out which one was the “true religion”?
January 19th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Danceswithgoats, you’re right to be fearful.
HA! What a bunch of fucking cowards. Liberal society won the 20th century and it will grow in the 21st. How many people are leaving your churches? Liberals win because we’re more interested in helping people than convincing them that worshiping a profit is better. Obama is part of the ushering in of a new ideology; common-fucking-sense.
January 20th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Adrock,
Don’t be idiotic. When I condemn “liberal society” i most certainly include the Republicans, who are generally much worse than the Democrats. Capitalism is part and parcel of liberal ideology, and I condemn both.
February 13th, 2009 at 2:45 am
WzSKbc hi! http://msn.com my site
February 17th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
As a Newbie, I am always searching online for articles that can help me. Thank you
February 28th, 2009 at 6:03 am
I must say that you provide genuine, quality information. Thanks for this!
BTW, dpn’t you think your blog needs a better wordpress template?
February 28th, 2009 at 7:40 am
There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points in Features also.
March 1st, 2009 at 5:58 am
viagra
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
March 5th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
thanks !! very helpful post!
March 11th, 2009 at 4:50 am
It is the coolest site,keep so!
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:28 am
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
buy cheap viagra
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:19 am
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
cheap brand pfizer viagra
April 9th, 2009 at 6:45 am
I bookmarked this site, Thank you for good job! viagra
April 16th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Give please. The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
I am from Haiti and too bad know English, please tell me right I wrote the following sentence: “Tickets, airline discount tickets and airline discount tickets.”
Thank you so much for your future answers
. Vashti.