Hand_Rifle_Guy
Member
My mind got to boiling today. I agree with a lot of the reasoning on the "Anyone NOT against the war?", and I certainly don't DESIRE a war.
BUT...
I have run out of patience. I am having a difficult time keeping emotions (Outrage, disgust, contempt, etc.) from dragging my head around in less-than-enjoyable ways while I try to sort out heavy issues. Makes my reasoning all nebulous. Undermines my certainty. I hate second-guessing myself, but I ALWAYS second-guess emotionally-influenced conclusions. Keeps me sane.
The war is a Big Swirly. I'm muddling along in what I regard as the ways that Liberals decide issues: by what FEELS right.
Whoa! hey! Brakes! I HATE liberal thinking. It's imprecise, misleading, selectively blind, disengenuous to inconvenient facts, and often based on purest fabricated ignorance. It also is subtlely insinuating, hard to discount, stubbornly persistant, and stands up and squeaks louder in the face of attempted dismissal. I have no faith in this type of reasoning. Thinking up reasons to fit one's desires, regardless of the relative merit of the suggestion gets us things like Zero Tolerance and Gun control. Most times I give Sheeple-thought the bum's rush in short order, and stop it before it starts.
Some things, however, never can shake the grip of the corrupting influence. Relations with females, for instance. Women can utterly destroy rational thinking for me. (Take a number and sit down, Colin. Yeah, I know. ) But THEM I can avoid. (No offense!) The war, or I should say, the Protest here in the PRK is everywhere, so I can't help but mull on it occaisonally.
In attempt to get it straight in my head, in some sort of compromise fashion since it won't leave me alone, this is (Sort-of.) why I support the war. I've put it up to see what the respected minds of The High Road think. I'm just fishing for opinions on an opinion really, 'cuz this one's fast and loose by my standards, but rather firmly entrenched. If it hangs together, super! If it's a bag of wind, feel free to say so. Got my Nomex longjohns at the ready, 'n everything. Remember, I live in Korny Kaliforny, and SOME of that liberal brain poison lives in me just from environmental exposure. Try not to hold it against me.
[rant_against_the_region]
Irritated, I am. At Saddam, at the whole of the Middle East, really. ( I don't like the actual LAND! No racism here! It's the dirt, I tell you! ) We TRIED leaving 'em more-or-less alone, and in control of one of the biggest energy reserves on the planet. That's more or less American style, we'll give you an opportunity to let you help yourself. We bought their petroleum, giving them a huge stack of resources (cash) to upgrade their standard of living on a national scale, so they could GIVE UP on all of those nasty little regional conflicts 'mongst the scattered groups, and live like civilized people in the modern world with attendant benefits. We (Meaning Western civilization, mostly.) tried to mediate, negotioate, and defuse what ammounts to TRIBAL disputes so they would stop slaughtering each other. (Pesky Americans!) This has, with a few notable exceptions, completely failed.
These people seem to LIKE killing each other. They've been doing it since before history. They don't seem inclined to want to learn how to stop. I don't know about the rest of the world, but to me that's a barbarian mentality. Most of the rest of the planet doesn't subscribe to violence as a cultural enhancement, or holy war as a means to covert the masses, at least not in this day and age.
We tried to play the light touch. Treat 'em like reasonable human beings. Keep it all running smooth so's we can buy the petroleum we need, without radical diplomacy, for everyone's mutual benefit.
All that seems to have gotten us is carefully nurtured resentment, and 9/11.
O.K., that's IT.
Failing to upgrade their living standard, and failing to improve the relative civility of their culture in the face of planetary-scale cultural evolution (And slaughtering 3000 people. Cue picture of folks jumping out of the Towers.) has cost them their freedom to evolve the way they might have chosen. If they're not going do anything except squabble and throw sand, I'm for kicking 'em out of the sandbox, and assigning a full-time yard monitor. Putting a brick like 9/11 through the window of a passing car earns arrest and jail. Dragged off shrieking by the ear to talk to the Truant Officer! Deprived of choices that we would never want to lose ourselves.
Because they cannot be trusted to act like civilized adult human beings. They've demonstrated it ALL OF MY LIFE, and long before. I'm sick of hearing about it. I'd be inclined to LET them fester in the desert, but unfortunately, they're sitting on the energy source that powers much of civilization. As they're idea of progress seems to be killing larger amounts of relatively innocent people at a time, those people now being US, I am no longer willing to try and deal with the situation using the existing culture. They've done nothing but abuse the position of Keepers of the Oil, most lately directly against us, in a manner that'd be hard to surpass for bloody barbarism.
Nope. No deal. I no longer care if your ancestors lived there continously from 5000 years ago until now. Get in the truck. Move!
This is the new Century. Heck, this is the new Millenium, if you can abide the calendar. I DO NOT SEE A PLACE FOR VIOLENT SLAUGHTER OF 'NON-COMBATANTS' IN TODAYS WORLD! Didn't we learn that in WW-II? Getting rid of the "Jihaditude" is going to need some heavy-handed cultural re-engineering. The hands-off approach isn't working, so it's time to get the hands dirty before things get REALLY out of hand.
We need to conquer, and ANNEX, Iraq, right now. Set it up as a colony, or even a state. Secure our future petroleum interests. Infiltrate and corrupt the existing culture with our own to dilute it. Take over the government, resources, and population. Set-up American-style schools, and teach 'em in english, about the benefits of being an American. Establish PERMANENT holdings and settlements there. Establish a nice military presence to "stabilize" all the surruonding countries, and make a safe-haven for busineses. It also makes a fine mallet to wop-up-side of some princes head if he decides he's had it with American imperialism. I don't CARE what they think anymore. They just get to like it or lump it, as they set the standards, and by those, migrating folks is being polite!
To get consideration as a human from me requires demonstration of the ability to extend the same consideration to those you disagree with. 9/11 was a not a very palatable consideration. Heavy-handed tactics ellicit heavy-handed reasponses. Saddam's continued belligerence has earned him a swift kick. He and his idea of a culture should be destroyed, and rather than support some fanatical fudamentalist replacement, we should just set-up and control our own qovernment, and hang the oppositional opinions! It'll save time effort, and lives in the long run, and we get to save some gas money. Then we can go about "gentrifying" the whole region, and putting paid to the fanatically-minded, jihad-driven mentality that so permeates the whole culture.
So it won't get pointed HERE again. Cultural survival of the fittest. If a culture cannot co-exist with other cultures that it trades with, then it gets destroyed as not being a viable attempt. Human History is full of failed attempts at cultural systems. I have no worries about adding to the pile of discards. The merit of preserving a culture because of it's historical value has taken a sorry backseat to pragmatic cutural competition. The history buffs can suffer, or get busy writing the chapter about the demise of current Middle Eastern culture. (NOTE: This does not have to mean "Islamic Culture". But sorting out the preservation of the desirable aspects of the religious structure is way out of my field of knowledgde. Suffice it to say I don't want to destroy the Church, just arrange for better relations.)
ANNEX 'em! They aren't doing it right. We need to install someone who gets it. A desire to bring about my servitude in the afterlife by taking a personal hand in my demise doesn't win any points either.
[/rant_against_the_region]
As prefaced by the 'rant' brackets, this post isn't particularly well aimed. It's based on a stack of generalizations, which means that it's a given that many things involved will be diferrent than the premises I offer when anylyzed on a case by case basis. "Generalities apply to groups, not individuals. The bigger the group the better."
Generalizations also lend themselves to emotionally-driven dissertations like this one, as painting with a broad brush lessens the need for accurate detail, which this post somewhat lacks. What can I say? This is just an attempt to hang definitions on a life-long sense of exasperation. The events around 9/11 have sharpened that exasperation into a dagger of bitter resolve. I don't like this attitude, but it's what I have to live with. I cannot STAND this touchy-feely, liberal-bias-flavored, "do-it-'cuz-it-FEELS-right thinking. I fundamentally distrust the credibility of such conclusions, and having powerful convictions like these disturbs my sense of my own rationality. That, I find no fun at all.
It amounts to learned, or created, prejudice. It wasn't tought to me when I was young, it's just unhappy revelations. Mostly, I keep it under wraps, as it's not very PC here in the Bay Area. Most of the people who might actually see this resentment probably aren't going to be the ones who earned it, and I don't want to be villified by a raft of overwrought political protest-whiners. I wish they'd let me write a thank-you note on one of those high-tech bombs.
NOTE: This post completely fails to address N. Korea. That's a seperate subject.
BUT...
I have run out of patience. I am having a difficult time keeping emotions (Outrage, disgust, contempt, etc.) from dragging my head around in less-than-enjoyable ways while I try to sort out heavy issues. Makes my reasoning all nebulous. Undermines my certainty. I hate second-guessing myself, but I ALWAYS second-guess emotionally-influenced conclusions. Keeps me sane.
The war is a Big Swirly. I'm muddling along in what I regard as the ways that Liberals decide issues: by what FEELS right.
Whoa! hey! Brakes! I HATE liberal thinking. It's imprecise, misleading, selectively blind, disengenuous to inconvenient facts, and often based on purest fabricated ignorance. It also is subtlely insinuating, hard to discount, stubbornly persistant, and stands up and squeaks louder in the face of attempted dismissal. I have no faith in this type of reasoning. Thinking up reasons to fit one's desires, regardless of the relative merit of the suggestion gets us things like Zero Tolerance and Gun control. Most times I give Sheeple-thought the bum's rush in short order, and stop it before it starts.
Some things, however, never can shake the grip of the corrupting influence. Relations with females, for instance. Women can utterly destroy rational thinking for me. (Take a number and sit down, Colin. Yeah, I know.
) But THEM I can avoid. (No offense!) The war, or I should say, the Protest here in the PRK is everywhere, so I can't help but mull on it occaisonally.In attempt to get it straight in my head, in some sort of compromise fashion since it won't leave me alone, this is (Sort-of.) why I support the war. I've put it up to see what the respected minds of The High Road think. I'm just fishing for opinions on an opinion really, 'cuz this one's fast and loose by my standards, but rather firmly entrenched. If it hangs together, super! If it's a bag of wind, feel free to say so. Got my Nomex longjohns at the ready, 'n everything. Remember, I live in Korny Kaliforny, and SOME of that liberal brain poison lives in me just from environmental exposure. Try not to hold it against me.
[rant_against_the_region]
Irritated, I am. At Saddam, at the whole of the Middle East, really. ( I don't like the actual LAND! No racism here! It's the dirt, I tell you!
) We TRIED leaving 'em more-or-less alone, and in control of one of the biggest energy reserves on the planet. That's more or less American style, we'll give you an opportunity to let you help yourself. We bought their petroleum, giving them a huge stack of resources (cash) to upgrade their standard of living on a national scale, so they could GIVE UP on all of those nasty little regional conflicts 'mongst the scattered groups, and live like civilized people in the modern world with attendant benefits. We (Meaning Western civilization, mostly.) tried to mediate, negotioate, and defuse what ammounts to TRIBAL disputes so they would stop slaughtering each other. (Pesky Americans!) This has, with a few notable exceptions, completely failed.These people seem to LIKE killing each other. They've been doing it since before history. They don't seem inclined to want to learn how to stop. I don't know about the rest of the world, but to me that's a barbarian mentality. Most of the rest of the planet doesn't subscribe to violence as a cultural enhancement, or holy war as a means to covert the masses, at least not in this day and age.
We tried to play the light touch. Treat 'em like reasonable human beings. Keep it all running smooth so's we can buy the petroleum we need, without radical diplomacy, for everyone's mutual benefit.
All that seems to have gotten us is carefully nurtured resentment, and 9/11.
O.K., that's IT.
Failing to upgrade their living standard, and failing to improve the relative civility of their culture in the face of planetary-scale cultural evolution (And slaughtering 3000 people. Cue picture of folks jumping out of the Towers.) has cost them their freedom to evolve the way they might have chosen. If they're not going do anything except squabble and throw sand, I'm for kicking 'em out of the sandbox, and assigning a full-time yard monitor. Putting a brick like 9/11 through the window of a passing car earns arrest and jail. Dragged off shrieking by the ear to talk to the Truant Officer! Deprived of choices that we would never want to lose ourselves. Because they cannot be trusted to act like civilized adult human beings. They've demonstrated it ALL OF MY LIFE, and long before. I'm sick of hearing about it. I'd be inclined to LET them fester in the desert, but unfortunately, they're sitting on the energy source that powers much of civilization. As they're idea of progress seems to be killing larger amounts of relatively innocent people at a time, those people now being US, I am no longer willing to try and deal with the situation using the existing culture. They've done nothing but abuse the position of Keepers of the Oil, most lately directly against us, in a manner that'd be hard to surpass for bloody barbarism.
Nope. No deal. I no longer care if your ancestors lived there continously from 5000 years ago until now. Get in the truck. Move!This is the new Century. Heck, this is the new Millenium, if you can abide the calendar. I DO NOT SEE A PLACE FOR VIOLENT SLAUGHTER OF 'NON-COMBATANTS' IN TODAYS WORLD! Didn't we learn that in WW-II? Getting rid of the "Jihaditude" is going to need some heavy-handed cultural re-engineering. The hands-off approach isn't working, so it's time to get the hands dirty before things get REALLY out of hand.
We need to conquer, and ANNEX, Iraq, right now. Set it up as a colony, or even a state. Secure our future petroleum interests. Infiltrate and corrupt the existing culture with our own to dilute it. Take over the government, resources, and population. Set-up American-style schools, and teach 'em in english, about the benefits of being an American. Establish PERMANENT holdings and settlements there. Establish a nice military presence to "stabilize" all the surruonding countries, and make a safe-haven for busineses. It also makes a fine mallet to wop-up-side of some princes head if he decides he's had it with American imperialism. I don't CARE what they think anymore. They just get to like it or lump it, as they set the standards, and by those, migrating folks is being polite!
To get consideration as a human from me requires demonstration of the ability to extend the same consideration to those you disagree with. 9/11 was a not a very palatable consideration. Heavy-handed tactics ellicit heavy-handed reasponses. Saddam's continued belligerence has earned him a swift kick. He and his idea of a culture should be destroyed, and rather than support some fanatical fudamentalist replacement, we should just set-up and control our own qovernment, and hang the oppositional opinions! It'll save time effort, and lives in the long run, and we get to save some gas money. Then we can go about "gentrifying" the whole region, and putting paid to the fanatically-minded, jihad-driven mentality that so permeates the whole culture.
So it won't get pointed HERE again. Cultural survival of the fittest. If a culture cannot co-exist with other cultures that it trades with, then it gets destroyed as not being a viable attempt. Human History is full of failed attempts at cultural systems. I have no worries about adding to the pile of discards. The merit of preserving a culture because of it's historical value has taken a sorry backseat to pragmatic cutural competition. The history buffs can suffer, or get busy writing the chapter about the demise of current Middle Eastern culture. (NOTE: This does not have to mean "Islamic Culture". But sorting out the preservation of the desirable aspects of the religious structure is way out of my field of knowledgde. Suffice it to say I don't want to destroy the Church, just arrange for better relations.)
ANNEX 'em! They aren't doing it right. We need to install someone who gets it. A desire to bring about my servitude in the afterlife by taking a personal hand in my demise doesn't win any points either.
[/rant_against_the_region]
As prefaced by the 'rant' brackets, this post isn't particularly well aimed. It's based on a stack of generalizations, which means that it's a given that many things involved will be diferrent than the premises I offer when anylyzed on a case by case basis. "Generalities apply to groups, not individuals. The bigger the group the better."
Generalizations also lend themselves to emotionally-driven dissertations like this one, as painting with a broad brush lessens the need for accurate detail, which this post somewhat lacks. What can I say? This is just an attempt to hang definitions on a life-long sense of exasperation. The events around 9/11 have sharpened that exasperation into a dagger of bitter resolve. I don't like this attitude, but it's what I have to live with.
I cannot STAND this touchy-feely, liberal-bias-flavored, "do-it-'cuz-it-FEELS-right thinking. I fundamentally distrust the credibility of such conclusions, and having powerful convictions like these disturbs my sense of my own rationality. That, I find no fun at all.It amounts to learned, or created, prejudice. It wasn't tought to me when I was young, it's just unhappy revelations. Mostly, I keep it under wraps, as it's not very PC here in the Bay Area. Most of the people who might actually see this resentment probably aren't going to be the ones who earned it, and I don't want to be villified by a raft of overwrought political protest-whiners. I wish they'd let me write a thank-you note on one of those high-tech bombs.
NOTE: This post completely fails to address N. Korea. That's a seperate subject.
