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Empty, Silly Platitudes

by | 11:25 am, November 6, 2009 | 24 Comments

From the Colorado Springs Gazette article titled, “Fort Hood shooter wanted U.S. out of Iraq, Afghanistan,”

Lee said Hasan had hoped Obama would pull troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq and got into frequent arguments with others in the military who supported the wars.

But…. I thought they hate us for our freedom?

Not convinced?  Perhaps you should read Bin Laden’s own words in this Fatwa issued in 1998.  Notice there is no mention of bikinis, booze, pornography, freedom, women drivers, or voting.  Just a lot of talk about American (western) occupation of their land and killing millions of their people.

I would argue that there are massive unintended consequences with our interference abroad, just as there are massive unintended consequences every time we interfere with the economy.

“They hate us for our freedom” is just another platitude as empty and silly as “hope and change.”

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Category: Sheeple

Comments

  1.   mrx
      November 6th, 2009 @ 3:44 pm

    You sir are a silly anarchist hell bent on pushing our great society into chaos. And I’m sure your proud of this. Are you not? Can I not watch my pro football and drink my once american owned / produced beer and with out fear of your kind forcing me think.

  2.   travis
      November 6th, 2009 @ 9:34 pm

    Absolutely right. If we weren’t meddling in the Middle East, supporting Israel, and otherwise provoking them, Arab and Persian Muslims would have no beef with us.

    They are rational actors, exactly like AnCap – without this constant unjust provocation by the U.S., they’d leave us alone too, to live and let live.

  3.   JustinAC
      November 7th, 2009 @ 10:02 am

    Let me guess Travis. You are one who doesn’t like people from foreign countries (mostly Mexico) coming into our country and simply taking jobs… yet, you cannot possibly understand why people from the middle east do not like foreigners coming into their land – not to take jobs – but to occupy and kill people. Yeah, makes sense.

  4.   travis
      November 7th, 2009 @ 12:24 pm

    Which doesn’t address the point at all. Focus, Justin.

    If the US had never had any involvement in the Middle East beyond voluntary and mutually beneficial trade, do you expect that they would have no beef with us whatsoever?

    I know you think you’re defending the non-initiation of force with your "we had it coming" argument here, but your dogma is blinding you to the nature of radical Islam to the point that you are actually defending it – which I don’t believe is your intention.

    But if you believe on principle that Muslims are justified in using violent force against the US in response to our use of force and other intervention in Muslim countries, on the basis of self-defense, what is your specific definition of legitimate self-defense? What are its boundaries, beyond which it becomes a transgression in its own right? And according to what standard or rule-of-thumb do you decide where along the line of cause and effect to draw a line and "begin history", as it were, for the purpose of deciding "who started it\"?

  5.   travis
      November 7th, 2009 @ 12:26 pm

    And another part of my original point that your dodge avoided, Justin, was the question of rational actors. Do you believe that radical Muslims are rational actors, who are only radicalized by OUR actions, and who only use force against us because of OUR initiation of force?

  6.   elpresidente
      November 7th, 2009 @ 12:42 pm

    I’d begin that history at around 620 AD (or CE for anal-retentive folks).

  7.   Chris Maj
      November 7th, 2009 @ 1:31 pm

    Travis is right. Obama is doing a great job keeping up the neo-con work in Afpakiraqistan and showing those 5-10,000 year old societies what civilization is all about as their recently US bombed bridges are rebuilt by throngs of cheering US taxpayers. May Nobel Peace be upon Our Dear Leader and his Justice Cannons!

  8.   travis
      November 7th, 2009 @ 2:25 pm

    And you’re doing the same thing as Justin, Chris – ignoring the question because you don’t have the depth to answer it.

    You might want to leave snark to the big boys. You try, but you just come off sounding like an over-earnest middle-schooler whose grasp of the issues extends no further than buzzwords and platitudes but whose self-importance and sense of intellectual infallibility is unbounded.

  9.   elpresidente
      November 7th, 2009 @ 4:28 pm

    At least the title to this post was accurate, though not in the way the author necessarily intended.

  10.   AnCap
      November 7th, 2009 @ 11:47 pm

    Travis – read all of Bin Laden’s and others in Al-Qaida’s writings and official releases. All grievances have to do with our occupation, meddling, and killing of arabic people. Do you think they hate Israel because of their freedom? No, it has nothing to do with any country’s democracy or civil liberties. All I’m asking you to do is read the Fatwa’s. It’s as plain as day. And to answer your question, yes. Not occupying their land and killing their people means not creating large masses of people that hate us. As for rational actors, of course they are rational actors? Is hating foreigners who occupy your land for decades not rational? Does being Christian make someone rational? Is that your idea of rationality? I point out once again that you and your neocon ilk are the same folks who can’t stand foreign born people coming to America simply to take jobs, yet you can’t understand how people in other countries don’t like foreigners invading, occupying, and murdering on their land. Lastly, since you’re a good ol’ conservative, you’re probably all riled up about the health care socialism. Well guess what’s more likely to bankrupt and destroy America? Playing the role of thuggish policeman around the world. Now put down the Coors and read Bin Laden’s writings.

  11.   travis
      November 8th, 2009 @ 12:41 am

    I see. You can’t answer a simple question about your own principles. I win.

  12.   JustinAC
      November 8th, 2009 @ 9:41 am

    Again, because Travis cannot read: Yes, radical Muslims are rational human beings like the rest of us, i.e. respond to incentives. The incentives they are responding to are continual occupation and killing at the hands of the West. Which is what happens to be what they constantly write and speak about if you ever bother to look. I look forward to see Travis’ reaction when someday China decides to invade us, occupy us, and kill us because we owe them money. I wonder if neocon Travis will just sit there and take it, or stand up for himself and his people. My guess: like all neocons, he’s all tough when it’s other people doing the killing, but won’t lift a finger when it’s his ass on the line.

  13.   travis
      November 8th, 2009 @ 1:17 pm

    Still not seeing any definition of legitimate self-defense…

    Come on, Mr. Principle! You can do it!

  14.   elpresidente
      November 8th, 2009 @ 2:51 pm

    OMG NEOCONS! Definition please.

    So by this logic, Ward Churchill shouldn’t be condemned as a moonbat, but as a chicken who fails to resist US imperialism through “rational self-defense”?

    While Justin may feel that the epiphenomenon of religion does not preclude “rational action” among Muslims, he may have a tough time explaining all that rational stuff to the faithful. Good luck with that.

    Oh, and is it Istanbul or Constantinople? How far back do we draw the line? Was the Reconquista justified? I could go on and on and on . . .

  15.   T.L. James
      November 8th, 2009 @ 3:50 pm

    Yes, Justin, please explain how Constantinople got the works.

    Or is that nobody’s business but the Turks’?

  16.   elpresidente
      November 8th, 2009 @ 4:30 pm

    I distinctly remember all the rational action following the Mohammed cartoons just a few years ago. Totally rational–calling for beheadings, squelching free speech, riots, boycotting goods. Yep, nothing but rationality there.

  17.   travis
      November 8th, 2009 @ 5:58 pm

    That’s not what I was getting at with the “rational actor” part – I don’t think Muslims are innately any less capable of rationality than anyone else.

    What I was getting at was Justin’s evident faith in the perfect rationality of humans. In this instance, the faith he has that, absent any military intervention in Middle Eastern affairs, the denizens of those countries would have no reason to hate us and attack us. That they would be perfectly rational in their relations with us, despite any differences in culture and interests, and despite of the dictates of their own religion which mandate (to strict adherents, of which there are many) the conversion to Islam of everyone on Earth, and the subjugation or death of anyone who resists…a mandate laid down well before the US engaged in any military adventures in Muslim lands that might “explain” it.

    People are irrational much of the time, no matter what culture they come from. Take Justin, for instance – he attacks me as being a neocon (whatever that is in his mind) and a Christian with no proof whatsoever that I am either one. Clearly not rational.

  18.   travis
      November 8th, 2009 @ 6:07 pm

    On second reading, I think that last point could be better expressed as “Even the most rational people are irrational some of the time.”

  19.   Chris Maj
      November 9th, 2009 @ 9:57 am

    I’d venture that part of what defines you neo-cons is your inability to see that the expense of garrisoning the planet cannot be met indefinitely by taxing, borrowing or inflating money out of thin air. In that sense, you reject the ideas of the majority of the Founders, who warned against empire, entangling alliances and the fiat money required to support it all. At the most, you can only claim ownership of Hamilton’s statist conniving — a pale shadow compared to Jefferson’s principled defenses of individual liberty and freedom.

    Perhaps a better picture of y’all is somebody stuck in the pre-beekeeper mentality of honey production. Instead of working with the bees to get them to the flowers by way of mutually beneficial trade, you run around with sticks poking at random hives. And then when you get stung you force everybody else to bail you out. See: $1/2 trillion this year on the DoD, $1 trillion last year for the banks, etc.

  20.   Colorado Jones
      November 9th, 2009 @ 11:01 am

    Travis is right about the Koran and its call to kill or convert all kufars. Yeah, maybe poking the nest pisses off the bees more than they otherwise were Chris, but just because you didn’t poke the nest doesn’t mean the bees won’t sting you. After all, it’s a bee’s nature to sting. Sure the Jihadists may say that they’re only pissed off about western presence in their regions, but Al Gore says the purpose of his Carbon Credits are to save the earth, too. Justin and Chris, are you guys seriously buying the crap that Bin Laden put out in that Fatwa? If so, then your perspectives are not only naive, but dangerously stupid. When your enemy is encouraged to use taqiyya, how can you believe anything he says?

  21.   travis
      November 9th, 2009 @ 6:58 pm

    And once again, Chris demonstrates his irrationality for all to see, by calling me a "neocon" and attributing to me all manner of political believes that he has no evidence of my subscribing to.

    Strawmen are fallacies, Chris, and fallacies aren’t rational arguments.

  22.   travis
      November 10th, 2009 @ 10:51 am

    Still no definition of legitimate self-defense?

    I’m disappointed, Justin.

  23.   JustinAC
      November 10th, 2009 @ 11:09 am

    Because I’m such a sucker for pro-war trolls, I’ll answer your incredibly stupid question. If someone initiates or threatens to initiate force on you, you have every right to defend yourself using force. Now, we can get into playing semantics, but I would argue that it is quite intuitive to most people when they are being aggressed upon. If the question is, “do Islamic countries have the right to defend their land against intruders, occupiers, murderers, and so forth” then the answer is yes. The other question might be, does the land they currently live on in Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc legitimately belong to them… then we get to go back in history and see. However, that does not take away from my original point that you seem to disregard in its entirety. The point is this, and it’s really all I’ve ever wanted anyone to get from my post: do Islamic countries and peoples hate us because we have democracy and beer, OR because we invade them, occupy, and kill them? According to what they’ve said, written, and demonstrated to us – it is very obviously the latter. Therefore, the stupid platitude of “they us for our freedom” is untrue. But again I submit to you and your pro-war friends – IF China invaded us, WE would be the insurgents and WE would be the ones taking pot shots at their military.

  24.   elpresidente
      November 10th, 2009 @ 12:29 pm

    Despite your haughty tone, Justin, has it ever occurred to you that it could be both, even as a matter of degree? A proximal instigation–what you call an invasion–as the mask for underlying motivations?

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