...BUT, I Actually Live for Moments like THIS!
First, I would humbly ask all who like me (yes, BOTH of you) to please indulge me this particular vice of mine. Secondly, this post was delayed a couple of days, due to a good friend and former professor requesting that I re-consider “humiliating” another blogger “merely for disagreeing with me.”
I did that (carefully considered this action) and I’ve decided to go forward with it because (1) I am not doing this to “humiliate” or embarrass anyone, and I’m not taking this extraordinary step merely because another person “merely disagreed with me,” (2) I DO NOT believe, as my friend offered, that this other person may be a juvenile or perhaps even “someone with some clinical emotional issues,” the blogger in question has been online since at least 2000, so I surmise they are at least in their late 20s and even IF he did suffer from some emotional issues, I don’t believe that requires that such views not be confronted and finally (3) during the time I was re-considering this action, that blogger chose, instead of deleting my comments to edit them instead...that seemed to invite and even necessitate this response.
I love to exchanging views and opinions and so I routinely do so both here, also in a vigorous email exchange with various people and in numerous other venues around the worldwide web.
One of my favorite things is going around to various sites and challenging views that I see as naïve, wrong-headed, misguided...or even evil. I do that fairly often and I'm always very open to hearing why certain people believe the things they claim to, whether I agree or not.
As background to all this, on the day after the worst jihadist terror on American soil since 9-11-01, a “Kos Kid” (my less than affectionate nickname for the army of misfits that Markos Moulitsas Zúñiga has gathered over at the D-Kos) who goes by the name of BlueWind (BlueWind at Blue and White Blog:
http://blueandwhite96.blogspot.com/) blogged about a BBC report about a Muslim couple sentenced to death by stoning in Somalia ...not a single word, let alone entry about the Fort Hood
That wasn’t a mere oversight or affront, in my view, that was pure and unadulterated America-hatred demonstrated by a reflexive disdain for the U.S.
BlueWind’s (BW) entry went like this;
From the BBC link above:
"Islamists in southernSomalia have stoned a man to death for adultery but spared his pregnant girlfriend until she gives birth"
and then the article continues:
"Abas Hussein Abdirahman, 33, was killed in front of a crowd of some 300 people in the port town ofMerka
"He was screaming and blood was pouring from his head during the stoning. After seven minutes he stopped moving," an eyewitness told the BBC.
That is an example of how horrendous and criminal theocratic beliefs can be. The criminals who killed this man probably believe they were acting in "gods will".
But where it gets even more scary and chilling, is this part:
"An official from the al-Shabab group said the woman would be killed after she has had her baby."
This is pure horror. An innocent woman is waiting to be killed after she delivers her baby, in the hands of a bizarre group of criminal theocrats. What is the civilized world doing to stop this? I hope that the United Nations and groups for civil liberties will do something to save this woman.
I also hope that the Obama administration and governments of other civilized parts of the world will try to interfere to stop the completion of that horrendous crime.
"Islamists in southern
and then the article continues:
"Abas Hussein Abdirahman, 33, was killed in front of a crowd of some 300 people in the port town of
"He was screaming and blood was pouring from his head during the stoning. After seven minutes he stopped moving," an eyewitness told the BBC.
That is an example of how horrendous and criminal theocratic beliefs can be. The criminals who killed this man probably believe they were acting in "gods will".
But where it gets even more scary and chilling, is this part:
"An official from the al-Shabab group said the woman would be killed after she has had her baby."
This is pure horror. An innocent woman is waiting to be killed after she delivers her baby, in the hands of a bizarre group of criminal theocrats. What is the civilized world doing to stop this? I hope that the United Nations and groups for civil liberties will do something to save this woman.
I also hope that the Obama administration and governments of other civilized parts of the world will try to interfere to stop the completion of that horrendous crime.
http://blueandwhite96.blogspot.com/2009/11/pure-horror.html
His previous blog entry was two days earlier on Wednesday when he commented about Tuesday, November 3rd’s Election Day results...nothing on Thursday or Friday about the terror attack at Fort Hood.
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So, I responded like THIS;
“There’s an irony in your naïve ignorance BW.
“You deride these people for following their own moral dictates, their own strictly codified “morality,” such as it is, while you do the VERY SAME thing they do - “you assert that YOUR OWN “morality” (such as IT is) as “the only right one” ”.
“The fact is, ALL conventional moralities are arbitrary, capricious and ultimately, fictitious. The very concepts of “right and wrong” are religious concepts. With the West’s view rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and the Muslim world’s rooted in Islam’s Sharia (moral) laws.
“In ALL cases, however, as the great Robert Anton Wilson (RAW) so presciently said, “Reality is what you can get away with.”
“Since I’m not possessed of the lyrical gifts of RAW, I put it simply, “All morality is optional, as all morality is based on an arbitrary and capricious set of standards that serve those on top most of all.” And THAT works....for ALL of us!
“The Muslim world defends its moral strictures and its strict proscriptions against sexual indiscretions as serving to protect WOMEN.
“Their view is that an adulterer (male or female) puts their spouse/partner at risk for a myriad of STDs and other illnesses. Winking and nodding at such behaviors can be said to “weaken the familial bonds.”
“Whether we in the West accept that, or not, they ultimately, they have a right to interpret their morality as THEY see fit, just as you and I do ours.
“But you are really not all that different, at least not any less dogmatic and wrong-headed than they are, as you seem to believe inane things like, “violence never solves anything.”
“Worse yet, you naively seem to think most in the West share that view.
“I can assure you, they most certainly do NOT.
“As you probably already suspect, I don’t share that view at all.
“I KNOW that violence solves a myriad of problems.
“Our own moral conflict and Fort Hood
“I favor the latter, folks like yourself the former.
“The former (YOUR way... trying to “win hearts and minds” ALWAYS results ion failures like the one at Fort Hood
“See the difference?
“Much as I disdain your pseudo-morality, I accept your right to choose that (for YOURself)...not to foist it on others, of course, and NOT to even proselytize it to others. I accept that in the same vain that accept these Somali’s right to their own morality and moral dictates, as well as the Saudis, who recently sentenced a man to 50 lashes for merely “boasting about his sexual exploits in public,” and even more recently sentenced a pedophile to beheading, followed by his remains being crucified and put on display thereafter.
“That harsh, swift and merciless morality is simply, “their way,” just as your soft-jelly centered “let’s all just get along” morality is “your way.” Neither of you can be anything different than what you are.” (JMK)
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“I would not expect any less idiotic comments from you JMK. You are doing fine in your classic tradition of total idiocy.” (BW)
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I didn't just give you an opinion BW, I gave you a set of fundamental truths; the first is that morality ALL morality is rooted in religion....our Western concepts of "right" and "wrong" are rooted in the Biblical principles n which they are found.
There is NOTHING that anchors those concepts other than......religious traditions.
The second is that such traditions differ widely across cultures and yes, between INDIVIDUALS, as well.
No one should hold an opinion on human affairs, politics, economics, etc. without first understanding such a basic truth. Which is why I've said, nearly since I've known you, YOU should not be putting forth your views, they are too naive, too thoughtless, too devoid of reason and divorced from how the world operates to have any value.
That's not a criticism, it's an objective assessment. The fact that you have never been able to defend any of your views, indicates you haven't even really thought about them, let alone thought them through.
Suffice to say, the Muslim world's "morality," codified in its Sharia Laws IS the established "morality" for about 20% of this planet.
Just as we would not want Sharia Law foisted on the West, we have NO RIGHT to foist our own (and especially YOUR OWN...you hold to a pacifist morality that is a tiny minority within the Western tradition) moral dictates upon them.
Your "control freak" tendencies (your desire to control others who "have too much," don't act as you like," etc.) SHOULD BE incompatible with your professed affinity for freedom, but then again, you don't really understand that "freedom" is only SELF-OWNERSHIP, nothing more....so maybe that's part of the problem. (JMK)
"Self-ownership" is freedom? Do you really think you just made an intelligent point? You think you just had a unique idea? How does it feel being an idiot? Just curious.” (BW)
Again the main point isn't what you don't understand (that's virtually everything), but that you're sense of "We should STOP them from following their moral code," is the SAME view that THEY hold! You see, they want to "kill the infidel" precisely because we don't subscribe to their moral code.That, in a nutshell, is what makes YOU and THEM the same.
In your case, your own "morality," such as it is, seems to be dependent on your whim at the moment.
After all, you didn't cry out that we should've stopped Saddam Hussein's regime when he was routinely putting people through plastic shredders, or filling mass graves with upwards of half a million bodies. No, then it was, "
And I agree that we had no right to stop practices we feel are barbaric, merely because we feel they are.
We DO have a right to protect our own interests, geo-political and economic, wherever those interests are, which is what we did later on, of course.
Almost typically, in the wake of the worst act of Islamic terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11/01 (Fort Hood) your sympathies go half a world away to two people who knowingly and willingly violated the moral precepts and laws (Sharia Law is the law of that country) in Somalia....NOT to the American service-people and their families impacted by this latest bout of Islamic terror. Perfectly "liberal," of you. (JMK)
JMK,
Keep up the idiotic comments. You may eventually brake the world record of idiocy (currently shared by your idol George W. Bush and by the woman of your dreams, Sarah Palin). (BW)
Yikes!
I guess you don't realize that it's always "the idiots" who can't defend what they believe in (hint: in this case, that would be YOU).
I've shown that morality is (1) fluid and continually open to change, (2) ALWAYS rooted in religious traditions and (3) relative, that is to say, differing widely across cultures and often between individuals as well.
Moreover, and this is the MOST ironic thing of all, YOUR assertion that We should go in there and stop these people from following their own moral dictates and their own moral code (Sharia law) is really functionally NO DIFFERENT than that which makes radicalized Islam so dangerous - their refusal to accept others following their own moral dictates.
In the end, BOTH YOU and the radical Islamists want to force your own morality on a group of unwilling others.
That's undeniable, given your initial statement "I also hope that the Obama administration and governments of other civilized parts of the world will try to interfere to stop the completion of that horrendous crime."
YOU want to enforce your own morality on these Sharia adherents, just as THEY want to enforce theirs on YOU and everyone else in the West.
I understand why you haven't made a single argument to defend your viewpoint....it's because you CAN'T. (JMK)
JMK,
I have been tolerating your incoherent rants, but I am getting tired of them. Next time I may ban you altogether. (BW)
Look, THIS is all I’ve wanted from the start, that you simply cede this argument and acknowledge that I’m right on this. Yes, you’d pretty much done that from the beginning by not defending what you claim to believe, but this is a much more clearer surrender.
I didn’t offer you an opinion here, BW, I explained some very basic facts, (1) that all morality is rooted in religious traditions, (2) that morality is fluid and differs widely across cultures, as well as between individuals within the same culture and (3) that people have a right to follow the moral precepts of their own innate culture.
On the day after the 2nd worst jihadist terror attack on U.S. soil, your heart goes out, not to America’s service-people gunned down by a jihadist in Fort Hood, but half a world away to two Muslims, who THEMSELVES adhere to the Muslim moral code, ensconced in Sharia Law, who are being punished, albeit in a most draconian way, to Western eyes, for violating their own culture’s moral precepts.
The irony in all this is that YOU then assert the SAME thing the jihadists do – that “All others should live by YOUR moral code.” The Islamists want the entire world ruled by Sharia and folks like you demand that the entire world live by your own version of Western morality.
You "think" of yourself as a caring person," but you're really a self-centered, mean-spirited control freak at heart. You don’t care about these victims of Sharia Law any more than you do the 13 dead soldiers at Fort Hood
The only odd thing about all this is that you don’t even get that irony. (JMK)
A day later, BW deleted all of my comments from his blog.
I took that as his surrender, at least his willingness to accept that he couldn’t defend what he claimed to believe (same thing).
In an email to my former teacher, I mentioned this and talked about blogging about this relatively minor “triumph” – getting a Leftist to openly admit, openly DEMONSTRATE that they don’t believe in dialogue or the free exchange of ideas and opinions, that they actually believe in stifling dissent and silencing all who disagree with them.
That friend suggested for a whole host of reasons (mostly concern for the other party) that I not do that and I DID very seriously consider that...UNTIL....BW subsequently edited my comments, which, in my view, as I said, both invited and necessitated some response.
Here are the edits BW left up;
Edited By Siteowner
JMK
I understand why you haven't made a single argument to defend your viewpoint....it's because you CAN'T. (JMK)
Edited By Siteowner
JMK |
You "think" of yourself as a caring person," but you're really a self-centered, mean-spirited control freak at heart. (JMK)
Edited By Siteowner
JMK
JMK,I have been tolerating your incoherent rants, but I am getting tired of them. Next time I may ban you altogether. (BW)
All I've wanted from the start was for you to throw in the towel and cede the discussion, which amounts to tacitly accepting that you acknowledge I'm right. You'd pretty much done that by failing to defend what you claim to believe, but I wanted more than Edited By Siteowner
JMK
JMK
So, there it is!
I was able to get a far-Left “Kos Kid” to DEMONSTRATE his outright revulsion for the free exchange of ideas and opinions.
One of my friend’s rationales for not posting this was that BW’s views were “not Liberal ones at all,” but that’s untrue!
Sure, they aren’t traditional Liberal views, but they ARE very much in step with the bulk of those you'll find at the Daily Kos and the membership of organizations like MoveOn and MediaMatters. BW’s views are indeed VERY TYPICAL of today’s “far-Left.”
Bottom-line, I didn’t go out of my way to use BW as a weapon against illiberal Liberalism, he made HIMSELF one. I don't believe I've been at all unfair about this at all, though I'm open to any and all arguments to the contrary.
Moreover, I have no concerns about being challenged by BW or others of his ilk. I DO believe in the free and open exchange of ideas and opinions and of course, I CAN and WILL always defend what I believe in and confront that which I do not.
Come on! If BW didn’t confront me and defend his views on HIS site, he’s going to come here and find a voice to confront me on mine?
Hardly likely.
7 comments:
Well, you know how I feel about this.
I think your doing this is akin to a Chess Grandmaster gloating over demolishing an amateur.
When I knew you decades ago, you’d NEVER have done something like this (abuse a less articulate adversary).
I still feel very strongly that this blogger is not a true liberal. There’s nothing remotely liberal about seeking to enforce our own morality on another people.
But perhaps he merely mis-spoke. Perhaps he was considering the ramifications of such actions had they happened here in the West.
I also think it unfair that you unilaterally decided that his post, even in light of a lack of posting on Fort Hood, represented some latent anti-Americanism on his part.
Perhaps he had nothing to say about that horrific event, perhaps he didn’t have anything new to add or perhaps he doesn’t sympathize with the U.S. Military. That alone, doesn’t make one “anti-American,” merely anti-Military.
You know my stance here. I think you are being unfair and in holding a person who couldn’t hold up their end of the discussion to ridicule and to use them to bludgeon all of liberalism as intemperate and “opposing the free and open exchange of ideas and opinions,” is grossly unfair.
You were better than this not long ago, in fact I know you are better than this now.
I feel there’s no need for you to gloat over someone else merely being unable to discuss things rationally with you. I’ve always presumed that you felt everyone else shared the prodigious gifts you were given and that only laziness accounted for others not being able to analyze data and get through the minutia to deliver complex ideas in a remarkably clean, simple and straightforward way.
I won’t go into your background or how we met, out of respect for your wishes, but I will say that as a direct descendant of Goethe’s you should have more appreciation for the limitations of others.
I wish you would re-consider this boorish action and just take this down.
It does not become you at all.
Duly noted, Professor.
I do apologize for my gloating tone, I’ll grant you that and I’ll also grant you that it doesn’t become me...nor would it anyone. I am a flawed individual, as you well know.
Please don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that.
A few points in response;
(1) If BW had said that these Sharia adherents should’ve/would’ve been punished had they carried out those actions here in the U.S., I’d have fully agreed! If he’d even said that “within the confines of our Western morality,” these acts are atrocities, I’d agree with that as well, BUT he did neither of those things. He clearly lamented the innate right of such people to adhere to their own moral code as codified in the Sharia Laws they all follow. The “victims” in this case were themselves strict Muslims who adhere to Sharia Law and would, no doubt support the stoning of others in the same predicament.
Morals do differ across cultures and that is a basic right that falls under that umbrella term – “self determination.” Apparently BW and his ilk believe in “BW-determination,” or some such thing.
(2) If BW had merely noted that any Muslim who sought to adhere to Sharia Law here, in the West, and engaged in such an act, or in an honor-killing, or the practice where a spurned man throws acid in the face of the woman who scorned him, such people would deserve a vigorous prosecution, followed by the most draconian punishment we mete out – life in relative comfort (compared to a 3rd world subsistence) and 3 squares a day – “Take that you blaggards.”
I’m betting many of them WOULD indeed take that!
(3) And if BW had, in any of his responses noted why THIS drew his sympathies and the Fort Hood jihadist attack did NOT, I’d probably have been less severe on that score as well.
Suffice to say, he did not.
(4) As to BW’s views “not being liberal,” I disagree at least insofar as they ARE very much in-line with those of today’s far-Left – the Daily Kos, MoveOn, MediaMatters, Moore-Gore-Soros Axis that is a cancer upon the West. BW, at least in my view, is no more or less intemperate than the typical Kos Kid or MoveOn maniac.
(5) I still take exception and umbrage to your innate elitism. In your praise for my “prodigious gifts” (a visually photographic memory among them), which have been more like a curse for most of my life, you sorely underestimate the incredible and innate common sense of “the average person.”
Yes, that bothers me! It does NOT take extraordinary intellect to defend what one believes, to challenge that which one does not and to articulate a personal worldview. In fact, the “average person” often does a far better job of that due to their “rooted in common sense” approach to that. So while you still seem to look down on the “common man,” I find myself looking up...of course, I’m not an elite. I never graduated from your fine institution.
And oh yeah, I am an INDIRECT descendant of Johan Wolfgang Goethe (some great-great-great-great-nephew or second cousin...probably “twice removed.” That didn’t impress me when Arthur found that out, and it doesn’t much impress me now...of course, I never liked Goethe’s writings much – The Sorrows of Young Werther notwithstanding.
I am leaving this up as a direct challenge to intemperate liberalism and its defenders. I welcome any and all responses via comments or email and will never stoop to deleting, let alone editing comments that I disagree with.
You are NOT part of the intemperate Left Professor, so why defend them or even worry about them?
THEY are a blight upon your truly liberal views. Why don't you see that?
Let them fend for themselves. Personally, I don't expect much "fending" on their parts, nor many, if any challenges directed at myself.
As I said, I think this is unfortunate and unfair.
You're using someone, who may have some personal emotional issues to slime all of liberalism.
As I said, this blogger may have simply mis-spoke, perhaps he wasn't as careful as he should've been with his words.
I can sense his personal animus with you, by why do you have top resort to this?
And again, being anti-Military (if he is even that) is not the same as being anti-American.
And your gloating over another person's inability to dialogue with you or "defend their views" effectively is, in my view, shameful.
It comes very close to making fun of the handicapped.
And yes, I am an elitist. I do think that the most elite minds should lead and look to benefit everyone else.
When I knew you, while you were studying physiological psychology, you were, for a time, quite enamored of Dr. B F Skinner and that's about as "elitist" as you can get - Beyond Freedom and Dignity, indeed!
You SHOULD'VE become a virtuoso or, in Chess terms a Grand Master, but you've become the equivalent of one of those chess hustlers every park seems to have....that amounts to reducing some great innate gifts to the equivalent of a mere novelty act.
I'm not using BW to "slime all liberals."
Not at all. In fact, I was careful to categorize him as a "kos Kid" and as such part of what I call the "far-Left."
And I'm NOT "gloating" over BW's inability to defend or even define his own beliefs....I AM happy to expose how anti-freedom he really is.....no wonder that far-left adores authoritarian tyrants like Chavez, Castro, Mao and Stalin!
Most of all I am happy to get the chance to expose BW's anti-freedom ethos to HIMSELF.
He seems to think of himself as pro-freedom and pro-democracy...as if those two things are at all related!
Hell, Adolph Hitler was DEMOCRATICALLY elected!
I do resent your statement about my reaction here being close to "making fun of the handicapped."
BW is almost certainly a naive and idealistic Kos Kid, but I have no reason to believe he has any of the emotional issues that you seem to think he does.
I grew increasingly appalled by the elitism I saw inherent in scholars like B F Skinner and as a result, I grew away from that.
You haven't, PROBABLY primarily because you never left that insular cocoon of the College Campus...I don't blame you for that, but I think it's limited both your view of how things really work and your ability to appreciate the wisdom of the common man.
You see my exchanges with BW as abuse, but it's not that at all! I really want to spur BW to THINK...to challenge his own lazy thinking and to really make affirmative arguments for the things he claims he believes in.
For me, the jury's still out on BW. He may well be a hopeless cause.
Who knows?
I certainly don't.
At any rate, I do appreciate both your advice and your input here, even though I didn't follow the former and take issue with at least some of the latter.
The phrase "making fun of the handicapped" was a poor one, on my part. I didn't mean that in any clinical way, what I meant was that, in this case, you've focused upon an individual who is either incapable or uncomfortable defending his own beliefs and used him as a weapon against "the Left.".
I have perused his blog and found a number of things that disturbed me greatly. One was this individual's complete lack of concern over another people's right to their own cultures, traditions and yes, morality. Another is how odd it was that an individual who lauded Hugo Chavez (who is both a tyrant and an ally of the radical regime in Iran) until documentation of Chavez' new-found anti-Semitism apparently became impossible to ignore, was able to so easily switch his position relative to Chavez virtually on a dime, not only without any reservations, but apparently without any real introspection or internal conflict, as well.
But, incredibly enough, he still, even now, he insists on defending Hugo Chavez' proxy in Honduras, and another notable anti-Semite, Manual Zelaya.
I think you've seized upon a very lazy thinker and used him to bash all of Liberalism and I really don't think that's at all fair.
I don't at all buy your "challenging his lazy thinking" view at all.
You've baited him and deliberately sought to humiliate his because of his inability to defend his own views.
I do see that as somewhat cruel and unnecessary.
Apparently, you do not.
RJB
I'm sorry...the professor's responses were as exasperating as BW's. We are all not equally articulate but the fact that the professor can read that BW can switch on a dime and not be held accountable for it is appalling. I have had my opinions and outlook clarified numerous times...sometimes because I "misspoke" but mostly because I was just wrong. I am hoping that JMK caused BW a lot of soul searching on what he thinks and believes.
"I have had my opinions and outlook clarified numerous times...sometimes because I "misspoke" but mostly because I was just wrong." (HHS)
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Me, as well.
It's vital for people to be able to articulate and defend their views, those who can't don't really hold any....at least that's what I've found.
I LOVE someone being able to prove something I believe in to be wrong.
As for my former instructor, I believe he sees BW as "embarrassing all of Liberalism," so he's trying to both disavow BW as a "liberal" while also rationalizing why he can't defend what he believes.
Personally, I think BW merely doesn't wish to defend what he believes.....one of his favorite statements is, "It's obvious"....of course, most "obvious" things are also wrong.
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"I am hoping that JMK caused BW a lot of soul searching on what he thinks and believes." (HHS)
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I doubt that severely HHS.
BW is not at all self-reflective.
In fact, very few Leftists are.
The Professor has been one of the few that I've met and it's probably been maddening even for him!
Far-Left folks like BW....no, not so much. In fact, I'm virtually positive that one of the primary reasons they're so poor at defending what they believe in is because they so rarely consider or even think about what they believe in....
Like I said, I probably shouldn't get as much of a kick out of holding up Leftist's myriad little hypocrisies to them, but for whatever reason....I just DO.
When you can get someone to just eradicate an entire discussion and, in the process, demonstrate that they really oppose the "free exchange of ideas and opinions" that they've claimed to champion....and to demonstrate that they really DO support censorship (the "right kind" - that which favors THEM) and thus oppose even the most basic freedoms they're always pontificating about, well, to me, THAT'S a great feeling!
I mean I can't remember having that much fun online before...
I'm beginning to think that I'm waaaay too easily amused.
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