I’m a liberal – I make no bones about it.  I believe women are my equals and that people of all shades and sexual proclivities have the same rights that I do. I believe that governments should exist to serve their people and not merely to maximize opportunities for Capitalists.
In short, on most questions, if there’s a liberal and conservative axis, you’ll find me on the liberal end of things.
But, I have some exceptions – places where liberals might shun me.
If an individual’s committed violent crimes repeatedly and is obviously incorrigible, I see no point in the state locking them up and feeding them for the rest of their never-to-be-paroled life.  Terminate them – and let’s move on.  When you’ve got a cancer, you cut it off.
Guns?  I’m not at all sure that we all need military assault rifles.  But, I do like what the U.S. Second Amendment says … and why it says it.  When governments lose their way, citizens need a way to have their say.
Nanny States?  I think they go way too far sometimes.  As the Buddhists say, ‘Everything in balance’.  Laws should be balanced and mete out the same punishments to both the rich and the poor. And victim-less crimes should be recognized as the oxymorons that they are.
And I’m all for cultural diversity – to a point.  If your culture believes that you are one of the chosen or the saved and you also believe that I’m not, or if your culture believes that women belong to men, or if your culture believes in slash and burn agriculture, or female genital mutilation, or in casual and needless cruelty to animals, or that some men are just better than others and thus have a right to rule them, then I think it’s probably time for for your culture to go – sorry.
But, if you like to wear a small square hat and dance outside at the new moon, or paint your house bright red, blue and gold, or if carrying a dagger and wearing turban are your thing, or if you are a strict vegetarian or anything else that doesn’t mess with our common biosphere or with other’s folk’s rights, then good on ya, I say.
We all need to live and let live, honor and respect each other and realize that this small planet belongs to all of us.  If your cultural beliefs deprives some people of their freedoms, if your cultural beliefs are messing the with common environment we and all of our descendants are going to have to share, if your cultural beliefs are all about trying to corner and monopolize money, knowledge, political or military power over the rest of us – then bugger off.  How can I make it plainer?
, , , , , , , , , , and are all examples of what I’m talking about.
What’s this rant about?
So what, you wonder, is this little rant about?  Well, it’s about a couple of things that have come together in the last few days.
Just the other day, The U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, pointed out that the government of Pakistan is buckling before pressure from the Taliban.  The most recent and telling example of this was when the Pakistan government ‘allowed‘ the Taliban, who control the Swat Valley and, indeed, much of the northwest of Pakistan, to practice Sharia Law there.  And they, of course, did this hoping that it might result in peace with the Taliban.
Then, just days later, we hear that the Taliban are now taking over areas adjoining the Swat Valley and forcing the people there to adopt the Taliban’s rules and killing or driving off anyone who opposes them.
Mortal Threat
The Pakistani government, in deep denial, is losing ground against the Islamic insurgents and it badly needs to decide which side it is on and get focused.  Clinton said, speaking to U.S. lawmakers, that Pakistan’s government has abdicated to the Taliban in agreeing to impose Islamic law in the Swat valley and the country now poses a “mortal threat†to the world.
I don’t think she’s exaggerating the ‘Mortal Threat’ business.  Pakistan has nuclear weapons (are you paying attention here?) and Pakistan is a weak state literally crumbling before strengthening Taliban insurgent forces.  If that’s not the definition of ‘Mortal Danger’ for the rest of us, I don’t know what is.
Then, finally, a friend of mine sent me the a link to the following video.  I encourage you to stop now, click on the video and then return here to continue reading after you are done.
Click here for the video:Â
Got that? A suitcase full of four pounds of Anthrax?  This guy has very little idea of how to try to get along with other cultures.  And, as someone who considers himself pretty liberal and tolerant, I find myself seriously wondering what we should do about people and movements like this.
Yeah, right!
I have a little movie of my own that plays over and over in my head when I think about this stuff.  It involves a time in our not too distant past when other tyrants were on the loose and wanted to take over the world. Back then, a lot of time was spent trying to appease the beast, trying to see their good side, assuming that if we were nice, they’d be nice to.  And in my little movie, I see Neville Chamberlain getting off the plane from Germany over and over again and proclaiming, “Peace in our Time“.
There’s a nice biography/documentary around about the life of Winston Churchill and it makes your skin crawl to see how very long and hard the British tried to ignore the Nazi monster and how, in the end, it almost cost them their freedom.  And without a doubt, it did cost them the loss of a lot of British lives that were lost unnecessarily because of how trusting and unprepared they were when the German Nazis finally took of their ‘Nice Mask’ and showed the world who they really were.
And here in the U.S., we refused to get involved until the Japanese literally brought the party to our shores and, like the British before us, we then suddenly had to get over our idealism and isolationism and start a massive and desperate game of catchup.
Islam is OK
So, what am I saying here?
First, let’s be clear.  I am not anti Islam.  Of the many millions of Islamic people in the world, it is only small fundamentalist core which wants to push their agendas by any means possible, who believe that terrorism is a valid tool in their struggle to make the world over in the image they want and who believe their every action, no matter how reprehensible, is blessed by their God. But, I believe that the vast majority of Muslims in this world would simply like to live and get along just like we would.  So understand, please, that it is only these intolerant crazies that I am on about here.
Weapons of mass destruction have changed the face of warfare forever.  The leverage that can be exerted by the use of a biological or nuclear weapon can be totally out of proportion to the size of the group wielding it.  We’re not in the world anymore where we need large armies to fight our conflicts.   We’ve all been very lucky since the end of the Second World War.  Because, in spite of our many conflicts, we’ve managed to keep the nuclear and biological genies in their bottles so far.
But ask yourself, if the Taliban take over Pakistan and gain control of the weapons there, do you think it is going to turn out well for us?
Yes, I’m a liberal – but I have limits and I think for our own survival, we all should have limits.
If we think we can cure the cancer of radical Islamic fundamentalism, then by all means, we should try.  But, if we don’t think we can cure it, then we are only wasting valuable time while it spreads and becomes more and more intractable.
What should we do?
That’s a tough question. But, while we think about it and consider various half measures, those who want to destroy us and make the world over into a prison of intolerant fundamentalism, wherein women are property and human rights are irrelevant and where we all have to worship as they tell us or die, are moving inexorably forward towards the possession of nuclear and biological weapons.
This is not a place we can allow history to go.
Their culture is toxic to our future and to the future of a world based on multiculturalism, tolerance, sustainability, science, democracy, religious freedom and human rights for everyone.  They want to take us back to the 7th century – and I, for one, don’t want to go.
In truth, I don’t know what we should do nor when we should do it.  But I see what some have called a ‘clash of civilizations‘ coming.
Some folks think that there must be something more we can do to defuse their animosity.  But, when I look at the deep roots of why they do what they do, I despair that there’s more we can do – save move forward to the final chapter in this story of human history. The chapter in which we realize that there can be no reconciliation with a blind faith determined to convert the world to its vision or die trying.  A chapter in which we see, finally, that they will keep coming at us relentlessly until they have either won or until their vision of Islam is extinguished from the world.
We are too nice for our own good.  We will wait and wait, hoping for a way out of this quandary, and all the while we’ll be risking that they will acquire deadly weapons of mass destruction.  We may, in our tolerance and goodness, wait too long and suddenly find ourselves in a very desperate world.
But if they cannot be turned from their course, in the end, we will, we must, use whatever force it takes to eliminate their threat to our survival.  In the end, we’ll recognize that if human civilization has a cancer and we want to advance rather than regress, then the cancer must be cut off for the greater good of the whole.
These are tough thoughts for a liberal to espouse.  But, if you’ve got better ideas, I’d love to hear them.
in the first moment your thoughts seem logic, then i have a few things to object.
on death penalty, those that really fit in your description are a few hundreds that certainly would not represent a burden for society. the big obstacles are on the practical side – many detainees have been freed after establishing dna proof, theyd never seen their case revised.
as to arab extremism i want to remind you of mcviegh. all over the world there are people that lost reality and arab countries too are dedicated to pick up and resocialize where it can be done.
further i question western legitimacy in directing human development. countries that put in danger global ecosistem!
best prevention of violence is giving people a reason. things they dont want to lose.
afghanistan has lived through a 30 yrs nightmare of war which was heated up in the very beginning by american financing.
reconciliation needs looking at history and apologizing for mistakes.
i feel your concern and i am truly sorry i cannot give you better advice.
in forseeable future missiles will not be able to reach the us and im confident they never will because we will have to unite to reach common goals which are peace and prosperity.
Daniel,
Thanks for your comments. And I understand what you are saying when you say, “i question western legitimacy in directing human development. countries that put in danger global ecosistem!”.
There is plenty of blame to go around for everyone. And the United States certain has a big share. But, when we get down to the end game and it is kill or be killed, then all the discussions of who did what to who, become irrelevant. Simple survival becomes the primary concern.
I would like to see this world working well enough for us to be able to grow out of our adolescence. To stop using each other, stop exploiting each other, stop ruining the biosphere, to see human rights spread everywhere, and to see the planet’s wealth shared better between all peoples. I would love to see those things and would hope that humanity could stumble its way forward through its future history to a better world.
But, there’s a group intent on taking us back to the 7th century and they don’t care if we want to go or not and they are actively seeking nuclear and biological weapons.
I don’t think there’s any way that we can all walk into a room and try to talk and get along – if one fellow in the room isn’t interested in talking and has a sword and wants to kill us all.
I want to be fair and understanding – but I want to live more.
If it’s “Kill or be killed,” then we have failed as human beings. There are many pauses along the way before we reach a state that prompts such a choice. One is determining the value – that we do hold – in Western cultures of blind materialism. Rather than focusing on enriching internal, spiritual, and intellectual lives, the consumer society is based on the external acquisition of things, and the pecking order is based on who has the most things. That’s pretty empty, and does not contribute to solutions that discourage violence and nuclear annihilation.
Jails are proof that we have failed in giving children the basics – as a society. All families are, to some extent, dysfunctional, and society has to provide the means to fill in the holes. The death penalty is proof that those in power are just as violent and amoral as those they condemn to die – and then execute. To waste endless resources on group hatred of single individuals (criminals) rather than preventing crime w/ adequate educational and social programs, is ABSURD. That hatred and lust for revenge is simply a means of ignoring and displacing our own failings.
The best way to fight the insane fringe of Islam is to educate women and children. Another really helpful tactic would be to eliminate drug use in our own societies, because illicit drug use funds Taliban arms procurement – and the West is the biggest producer of arms. The internet is a means of diluting any kind of extreme thinking – because it gets ideas out there – and that weakens the resolve of fringe group members (individually as they encounter other ideas), whose leaders are mentally imbalanced. To commit ourselves to violent courses of action, to me, only seems to lend credence to fundamentalist outpourings against us and our supposedly evil ways.
But of course, violence is simple, quick, and leaves winners and losers. It alleviates the need for long-term planning and living everyday life thoughtfully and through commitment to social and environmental equity and deep spiritual convictions.
That said, provocative post. Thanks.
Linda,
You might be surprised at how very much I agree with all you’ve said. Humanity does need to grow up and find better ways to do things. I’ve written and thought on this subject a lot.
But, unfortunately, there are times for reflection and planning and there are times for triage.
If you are on the bridge of the Titanic and it is five minutes before the fateful collision with an iceberg, then is not time to call a meeting for a dispassionate discussion on how the science of iceberg detection might be improved for future mariners.
Triage: strategies that are appropriate to the current situation.
The idea that ‘the ends do not justify the means’ is one of those deeply intuitive things that rarely fail us in actual practice. But, put 10 people in a life boat meant for six with a storm rising – and things suddenly shrink down to a few diamond-hard calculations.
I don’t like it. I don’t want it. I rail against it all the time in what I write. But, in the end, if a tough choice comes to me, I’m going to take a good look at it and make the choice that I believe is for the best.
The refusal to make a tough choice is, itself, a choice and has its own survival value.
I believe that what western civilization has achieved, not withstanding its many many flaws, is still far better than the 7th century that radical Islam wants to take us back to. If we come down to an unavoidable confrontation, I know which way I’m going to go and I think the future of mankind will be the better for it.
The post was meant to be provocative and to inspire conversations just like this one.
Best wishes,
Dennis
samadhisoft.com
Dennis,
Point taken. I know that I am fully capable, being hard-wired as a human being, of pulling the trigger if confronted w/ a life-or-death situation. Five minutes before the collision, the Titanic was doomed anyway, which environmentally-speaking, I think is a great metaphor for our current position. Does that mean I will stop my green efforts; does that mean I will sink to the barbaric level of a few other equally-doomed souls? If so, then all the beauty, accomplishment, and love that has gone before is meaningless and I am claiming a world beyond all hope.
The Taliban is full of folk who see the world in good (them) and evil (us), but they certainly do not represent an entire religion, or even a majority of a population. I know: neither did the Nazis. It looks to me like Obama is working Pakistan/Afghanistan on all levels. To the extent that killing good, well-intentioned people can be avoided, I think that we should make extra efforts. Therefore, we cannot eliminate a country or a people, though I would shed no tears over the loss of Mr. Anthrax-through-Mexico. BTW, there are sects in the US of A who would also take us back to the 7th century, if given the chance, and they tend to reproduce at alarming rates.
I guess that I see the world as more of a mix. The crazies, in a “free” society, tend to balance themselves out and they lose members along the way. Nonetheless, we must be aware of them and remain vigilant against their brands of ignorance. In a world of massive inequalities, there will always be terrorists, and always be mass killers; they represent the dark side of human nature that exists in all of us – they simply choose to exercise it in single-minded ways. So, you are saying that the terrorists now have nuking ability, and we need to stop them. IF you think that we are at a more precipitous moment than I do (I had nuclear nightmares 30 years ago when in college, when those w/ nuclear capability were entire nations), then are you suggesting that we push the nuclear button first? I feel like I have lived on the edge, in the nuclear sense, my entire life, so I have decided to simply enjoy what I have now with the full realization that it could end instantly. Regardless of who pushes first, the world as we know it ends w/ nuclear warfare.
Sub topic: I choose NOT to exercise my dark side, and encourage others to do the same – therefore: nix on the death penalty, which I see as nothing but vengeance disguised as righteousness whose primary accomplishment is to create a society that legally condones killing.
The Sietch blog rocks; I often forward it or post pieces on Facebook. THANK YOU!!
Linda
@Dennis
1)”But, put 10 people in a life boat meant for six with a storm rising – and things suddenly shrink down to a few diamond-hard calculations.”
If you don’t mind…walk me thru this a bit. If the other nine are all strangers is your calculation different than if the othe nine are from your school, or friends, or family?
2) Also I wonder how much you know about the “group intent on taking us back to the 7th century”? How big is this group? (2,000 or 50,000 or 1,000,000? more?) How do you know what their intent is? How do you know that we cannot “defuse their animosity”? Do you think we have even tried yet?
3) “If an individual’s committed violent crimes repeatedly and is obviously incorrigible”
How do you know when someone is obviously incorrigible?
4) “But, I do like what the U.S. Second Amendment says … and why it says it. When governments lose their way, citizens need a way to have their say.”
Is that right worth 50,000+ intentional gun deaths and 20,000+ accidental gun deaths in the US per year (the rough tally in 2000 per wikipedia)? If it is, then how many deaths would be too many?
Sorry for the stream of questions, but I’m trying to get a better sense of where you are coming from.
Disdaniel,
Interesting questions. I think there’s a name for these kinds of questions that one learns in debating class. Unfortunately, I’ve never taken debating class. But none-the-less, I can see a setup as well as the next fellow.
So let’s pass over the actual questions for a moment and talk about your technique here and ask if it is really helpful in a discussion like this?
Each of your questions takes the proposal for a general solution and finds a particular situation in which it can be shown to fail and then asks, ‘How can we possibly go forward with this flaw existing?”
Questions like these work because they sucker folks into thinking that if there’s *any* particular case where the general solution fails, then we cannot possibly go forward until we find the *perfect* solution in which no failing case can be found.
People who tend to be the bane of committee meetings ask questions like this.
Question 1 – Sure, if the main decision makers have personal relationships or vested interests, yes, unfair decisions can well result. So, should all the folks in the boat just decide that since there’s no guaranteed way to proceed that will be fair, that they should all just resign themselves to drowning? Everyone should perish because we cannot guarantee a perfect solution? Watch the 1957 movie, “Abandon Ship!” to see how this all works out.
Question 2 – Great but unanswerable questions. How much would I have to know about these groups before you would judge it enough? And even if you, personally, said it was enough, what if the fellow next to you said it was not? Is it that I will never know enough to make this judgment until no person can be found who doubts that I know enough?
“How big is this group?”, you ask. I would submit that even a few fanatical individuals with access to weapons of mass destruction are more than enough to necessitate a defensive response.
“How do you know what their intent is? How do you know that we cannot “defuse their animosityâ€? Do you think we have even tried yet?”
These are all questions that I will always fail to answer to everyone’s satisfaction. No matter how much detail I would provide, someone will always say, “But, what about this particular situation?”
“Analysis Paralysis” some folks call this endless search for perfect answers to imperfect questions.
Question 3 – “Common Sense”, “The Point of Lessening Returns” are two concepts that come to mind. You know as well as I do that no one can know absolutely when someone is irretrievably corrupt. And, yes, we really need to do our homework before we take the option of terminating someone. because, once someone’s life has been taken from them, we cannot give it back.
But, just take the logic of your question and apply it elsewhere and see its consequences:
What if I said that I cannot go out of the house because I cannot absolutely know that I won’t be injured if I go to the market and back?
What is I said that I cannot possibly eat any food that I haven’t grown myself because it might contain carcinogens and kill me?
Life is made of trade-offs. It is made of a lot of close but not perfect solutions. Perfect solutions are very rare.
I’m not saying that we should treat people’s lives lightly – I’m not saying that at all. But, it seems pretty crazy to me that we can have so many people locked up in prisons, people whom society has judged as too dangerous to ever let out again, and yet we cannot consider terminating them – because we may be wrong.
Consider this quandary: We have many people locked up that society considers too dangerous to ever be let out again. But one could pose your sort of impossible question and say, “How can we consign them to non-parole? Some of these folks may indeed be reformable.”
So, we should let them out again and again because we’re afraid of unjustly robbing them of their freedom? What then of the one time when we’re wrong – and someone we let out kills a family of good and innocent people?”
There are no perfect answers. There are just optimizations. The best balances we can come up with between risk and reward. And yes, selfish folks, cheating folks, and greedy folks, among others, will try to twist the system for their own benefit. That’s were we make the world a better place – by looking for better optimizations between risk and reward, systems of decision making which are less amenable to manipulation.
If we go looking for perfect solutions and refusing to go forward until we have one, we’ll all be living in the 7th century with a very surprised look on our faces because those who oppose us have no such qualms about making mistakes.
Question 4 – About the Second Amendment. So can you tell me how few violent gun deaths would be acceptable? But, I’m afraid if we cannot ALL agree on what that number is, then we’ll all just have to give up our personal weapons and put our destinies into the hands of those who govern us. I’m sure we can all agree that they are a perfect lot, eh?
Perhaps, you are sincere with your questions. If so, then you are deeply naive. Perhaps to many Walt Disney movies? On the other hand, if you like to go about posing impossible questions in forums where folks are trying to have real-world conversations, then there’s a name for that. On the Internet, we call it “Being a Troll”.
I’m sorry if I seem a bit irked but I’ve just spent twenty minutes answering questions that can really only be described as obstructionist. There is no way that taking such questions seriously can lead to anything but analysis paralysis and confusion.
Cheers,
Dennis
samadhisoft.com
Dennis: You ended your post with:
“In the end, we’ll recognize that if human civilization has a cancer and we want to advance rather than regress, then the cancer must be cut off for the greater good of the whole.
These are tough thoughts for a liberal to espouse. But, if you’ve got better ideas, I’d love to hear them.”
I asked a series of questions (serious questions–at least for my part) about various topics in your post…hoping that I might get a thoughtful response. After all YOU asked for OUR thoughts!!
You proceeded to pointedly NOT answer my questions (by number!), call me “deeply naive”, and call the questions obstructionist.
“where folks are trying to have real-world conversations”
Wow. I’m sorry Dennis, I thought I was participaing in a real-world conversation. Clearly my mistake, you are seeking “attaboys” and cheerleading, not thought provoking discussion–as I’ve just discovered.
I asked a few “follow-up” questions after reading your very provakative post. You don’t have to answer them (you didn’t) or explain your thinking (you didn’t). You can attack me and my motives (you did, although why? I don’t know), and call me names. But after doing all that, you cannot pretend that you are the adult and I am the child.
Sorry…it was my fault, I read your post and thought you were open to “better ideas”.
Disdaniel,
Asking poison-pill questions is not the way to have real-world discussions that might lead to better answers.
The exchanges I had with Daniel and Linda B. in these comments were ‘real’ discussions. Perhaps, you might want to go read them and get some idea how these sorts of things are done?
I had quite a bit to say at a meta-level about your questions in my response to you. I note that you haven’t engaged my criticisms of your questions. So, either you don’t see what I am on about with regard to your questions or you are being disingenous.
Either way, I don’t find this exchange with you to be helpful. Truculent trolls are not to my taste.