On 30 Jul 2002 at 6:33, rhinoceros wrote:
>
> [Joe Dees]
> It has been recently been graphically and blatantly illustrated that
*some* members of this list are as enthralled to knee-jerk extremism as
is
this woman, just in the opposite direction.
>
> [From the article quoted by Joe]
> This is no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals
directly involved in this particular terrorist attack Those responsible
include anyone anywhere in the world who smiled in response to the
annihilation of patriots like Barbara Olson.
>
> We don't need long investigations of the forensic evidence to determine
with scientific accuracy the person or persons who ordered this specific
attack. We don't need an "international coalition." We don't need a
study
on "terrorism." We certainly didn't need a congressional resolution
condemning the attack this week. The nation has been invaded by a
fanatical, murderous cult. And we welcome them. We are so good and
so
pure we would never engage in discriminatory racial or "religious"
profiling.
>
> People who want our country destroyed live here, work for our airlines,
and are submitted to the exact same airport shakedown as a
lumberman
from Idaho. This would be like having the Wehrmacht immigrate to
America and work for our airlines during World War II. Except the
Wehrmacht was not so bloodthirsty.
>
> <snip>
>
> We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to
Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only
Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed
civilians. That's war. And this is war.
>
>
> [rhinoceros]
> I would think one should be happy to run to the "opposite direction" from
this article, whatever that might be. Except if it is meant as material for a
psychological study. Anyway, what is the opposite direction from
hysteria?
Or the opposite direction from "I don't want to know -- someone is
upsetting my life and should disappear." And what would be a "rational
direction"?
>
> This is along the lines of a well tread path of illusion: (a) "The enemy is
there, and if we kill them the'll be there no more." (b) "Their kind act like
that because Muhammed (or Jesus, or Veelzevul, you name it) have
told
them to act like that, and this has nothing to do with any of us." (c) "We
are right to eliminate 'them', because our own rationale, unlike theirs, is
justified." Again, if my interpretation is acceptable, what would the
opposite direction be? A rational direction?
>
Rationality is most typically found at the mean between two extremes.
When people are as irrationally extremist as this woman, just on the
other extreme, their stance is equally deplorable.
>
> As an endnote, would it be extreme to take into account the fact that the
presence of Americans at some parts of the world is a source of death
and
distruction?
>
Like in Bosnia-Herzegovina and kosove, where we libnerated a Muslim
people being butchered by a neonazi thugocracy? Like in Somalia
where we were killed for attempting to feed a people and defend food
supplies against warlords who seized them in order to use hunger as a
terror weapon? Like in East Timor, where we applied the pivotal
pressure on Malaysia to halt the religious pograms and allow secession
and free elections? Like in kuwait, where we repelled a foreign invader
and restored a country to its inhabitants (although not to democracy -
that will, I hope, come in time)? Like in Afghanistan, where we have
wrested a country from a fundamentalist theocracy allied with an
international terrorist conspiracy and made representative government
possible once again? The US has restabilized much more than we
have destabilized, but they receive no credit and copious blame. This
is hardly balance.
>
> ----
> This message was posted by rhinoceros to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS.
> <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=25860>
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