An update to Darleen’s earlier post, featuring Melanie Phillips:
As Gould says, there’s now a positively medieval character to this frenzied hatred, which I have watched building up now for years in Britain as a direct result of two linked phenomena – the appeasement of militant Islamism and the toleration of its intimidatory and thuggish public displays; and the wicked lies, distortions and blood libels about Israel disseminated by broadcast and print media week in, week out. What we are witnessing in these repeated hate-fests, including the onslaught outside the Israel embassy, is the jihad erupting on the streets of London – aided and abetted by a fifth column of non-Muslim leftists and Jew-haters.
*******
It’s not enough to deliver mealy-mouthed and meaningless platitudes about  the need for both sides to pull back in Gaza. It is certainly not enough to tolerate ‘anti-extremist’ Muslim advisers who issue veiled threats of violence unless Britain stops supporting Israel. In view of the rising violence and intimidation on the streets in general and towards Jews in particular, senior politicians have a duty now to speak out in defence of Israel against the lies that are inciting this hatred and to deplore the incendiary and false media coverage. They have a duty to tell the British Muslim community publicly and in terms that they have swallowed decades of lies and libels about Israel and the Jewish people and that that sits at the very core of the extremism that has taken them over. They have a duty to say that while free speech is precious, intimidation and thuggery will not be tolerated. And mean it.
For silence is complicity, as once gentle, decent, civilised Britain changes before our horrified eyes into something very ugly indeed.
Please read the whole thing, and note that the police issued a warning to a pro-Israeli protester who had the temerity to pull out an Israeli flag, on the grounds of it amounting to a provocation of violence. At the same time, the young jihadis are permitted to wave the flag of a group whose stated intention is to commit a genocide against Israeli Jews. This is a de facto choosing of sides and the establishment of a governmental double standard regarding free speech.
These fools are living down to their expectations, and are flattered so to be permitted.
NSFW: HamT&A
Speaking of double standards, a Hamassacre.
Surely Britons can’t be surprised at these events and these outcomes. After all, they pay for the BBC. The de facto choosing sides of which you speak took place decades ago.
Turning the UK into simply an extension of the Arab street; where we no reason always preavails and emotion is never a factor…NOT!
America, witness what multi-culturalism in the extreme hath wrought! An immigrant population that will not assimilate into the prevailing national culture. The stifling of individual expression, when it opposes the ideology of the Islamo-fascist thugocracy…
The rules of civility, as practiced in the west-particularly America, Europe, and the UK, depend upon people respecting others right to not only state their opinions, but to feel free to walk the streets safe from violence; either because of that stated opinion or just in general. To hold to amy less standard is to invite the local control of those that are willing to be the most violent; those that are willing to use whatever means necessary!
The state’s monopoly on violence, through the police force and juris prudence, is supposed to supplant this sort of riotous display. But instead, the police are essentially telling folks not to rile the Muslims any more than they are; forget about the fact that assaulting British Jews will have no effect on events in Gaza…
Just as we have seen the race card trump all here in America of late, so it is overseas. It is an outgrowth and consequence of multi-culturalism, moral relativism, and identity politics. Those who have used these connivances for their political gain should take note of these events carefully, because they are taking us down the same road. The road where favoring a monority for seemingly noble and just reasons simply leads to the rectitude of dis-favoring any group that the most demonstrative or violent tribe disapproves of…
OT, but important…
All the PWers need to show up and show out! for the 2008 weblog awards. Just go to this site:
http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-very-large-blog/
And vote for our site. Right now Pandagon has twice as many votes!; so let’s get cracking…
You can vote once every 24 hours from each computer you have access to. Voting will be open through the 13th. Let’s give Jeff G a nice happy new year! present from all of us, and show those PJM guys what for!
That is all,
Best Wishes
[…] Protein Wisdom cocks an eye at Jimmy’s interpretation of current events and has your double standards re Jews and Jihad in al-Britainiyah. […]
Oh, and the Jawa link just goes to show that blondes are beloved the world around, though not to the exclusion of brunettes thanks Allah.
Warning people against holding/possessing Israeli flags because it could “provoke” violence is the FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENT of blaming a rape victim because [look at that slutty dress she was wearing].
I fear for England.
the police issued a warning to a pro-Israeli protester who had the temerity to pull out an Israeli flag
I can just see the Commiecrats reading about that and sighing, wishing that they could bring such a policy to our shores.
England is lost.
Every few months right wing extremist pundits predict Europe is going to fall to the Caliphate.
Being wrong dozens of times before never stops them from doing it again like clockwork.
Nice work if you can get it, but it does tend to devalue the product just a bit.
It’s already gone, Parsnip.
An eyewitness disagrees:
jihad watch
Every couple of days the best minds on the left remind us of their inability to imagine more than a couple of weeks in the future.
Is that kinda like how the dark spectre of fascism is forever descending over America, but always manages to land somewhere else, alphie?
BoogaBoogaBoogah, BOOOOSHitler will, TAP YOUR PHONES, RENDER YOUR ASS EXTRAORDINARILY, CANCEL YOUR ELECTIONS, SILENCE YOUR EPIC DISSENT, SPEAK POWER TO TRUTH, KICK YOUR DOG, JAYWALK, TAKE TOO MANY PENNIES FROM THE “TAKE A PENNY, LEAVE A PENNY” JAR AT THE 7-11, BOGART ALL THE DORITOS, PWN UR AZZORS ON X-BOX(hEUG)LIVE, and the like.
It’s already gone, Parsnip.
That will come s quite a surprise to the people actually living there, Sarah.
Can you give us a list of all the countries in Europe you’ve visited over the past couple of years?
Dan, can you, too?
There won’t always be an England.
When they talk about actions farther into the future, ones they will do, they always talk about them as actions they fantasize Right is doing now.
It’s a shell game.
If you say no, then even if you read AFP/IHT/BBC reports about burning Renaults, “no-go” zones, demands for official recognition/special privileges, then you are an ignorant chickensomething. (Chickentourist? Chickenexpat?)
If you say yes, it will invariably be less then the nations that paralphie has graced with his presence, and besides, it sees with eyes unclouded by hate, you dumb Rethuglikkkan.
Hell, if some of our posters are FROM Europe, they are likely “inauthentic Europeans” and probably stooges of the Chimpy McBushitlter’s and Darth Rove’s crack squad of reich-wing internet posters.
When is last time you were in Gaza, tuberhead?
Scotland, Ireland, England, Wales, Mexico, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania, Belgium, France, Germany.
England is lost.
Not to mention Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, SarahW. I’m afraid it’s national – there’s very little difference in the way those rallies would have been policed in the various home nations, and the “incitement” catchall would probably earn you a caution in Cardiff & Edinburgh as well as London. Although, saying that, Belfast would probably be less of a problem, as the threshold for “incitement” is that bit higher.
OH DAN. There you go ruining one of those stereotypes snippy has of conservatives. The correct answer is:
If it AINT in AMERiCA, than I ain’t visiting it! [waving flag pin!]
Well, ashen tuber, I haven’t been to Europe in the last couple of years but my best friend’s son-in-law is a Commander in the British Navy. He and I had a nice hourlong talk about the Muslim situation in England and he is very, very concerned his greatest issue is with the ongoing talks to allow sha’ria law to be used in Muslim areas. He fully expects some kind of an popular immigrant backlash within the next couple of years but also worries that the present government will continue to try and accommodate rather than demand that Muslims live in England under English law.
But, I suppose, he had no credibility being a part of a make-work welfare system, does he?
All those places Dan mentions, with the possible exception of Romania (about which I know next to nothing), I notice, happen to produce reasonably good beers and ale. Just saying.
I wonder if the Hamas-TV girl is one of the 77 virgins that the faithful recieve for martyrdom?
A little music for Mr. Chickensnip
Damn it, Dan! Don’t you know we’re not even supposed to have passports?
I figured alphie burned his passport, since the new ones are supposed to be all JINGOISTIC and UGLYAMERICAN.
J’etais la aussis, SarahW, et votre amis M. Panais est plein de merde.
I was in G.B. 4 years ago. Didn’t see too many Muslims on my short trip. But, didn’t they stage a horrible terrorist attack in London not that long ago? And here they are bullying people? You would think that they’d learn that they’re not in the middle east and that not everybody is so happy to have ‘exotic’ people around, and that they should shut the F**k up for a while. Don’t like the Govt. in England?
LEAVE.
England want’s it’s guns back. It’s a fact. And why wouldn’t they? They’ve been attacked, and their govt. won’t let them defend themselves.
xerocky,
I’m quite happy that there should be “exotic” people around. I’m also happy that they should spew in public whatever noxious sentiments reside in their heads. I cannot, however, tolerate their intimidation of and violence towards equally legitimate protestors.
And yes, I want my guns back, but I doubt if the majority do.
Haha, BJT,
Let’s sum up the current wingnut thinking on this issue:
Driving a bunch of tanks through a densely populated civilian area lobbing shells into schools, apartment building, store, etc. = “a reasonable and justified action.”
Waving a sign protesting this = “a long term insidious plot to overthrow society.”
Is it any wonder your fools have been laughed out of office for years for spouting such nonsense?
Not getting the answer the strawmen in its head prepared it for, the tuber moves on to another subject.
Maybe if Hamas didn’t base itself in civilian centers, they wouldn’t have to go there, eh?
oh, and you’re “waving a sign” is an interesting way to describe what the story reported as holding back a mob looking for blood.
Jew blood. Gets you all tingly, don’t it?
Thus the radical new Obama! policy.
Heh. I can hardly wait until Obama gets into office and ushers in a BRAVE NEW WORLD of ME policy.
I wonder what changes he’ll implement first?
#Comment by parsnip on 1/8 @ 11:26 am #
Oh, alfie’s back.
Work release program?
History can’t be right because I wasn’t there.
Melanie Phillips can’t be right because she is not me.
Etc., = root-think.
I’m looking forward to the first radical Muslim assassination attempt on Obi Wan (but hoping it fails, of course).
Techie,
I think these phony stories get you guys “all tingly.”
I showed yesterday that the story about this topic Darleen linked to had been snipped and edited by Breitbart to make seem much more dramatic and sinister than it really was.
I think the world has tired on you crazy drama queens.
Time to get a new shtick.
That’s an interesting variation on the “chickenhawk” smear — “if you haven’t had the free time and money to travel the world, you’re unqualified to hold an opinion!”
It would be interesting to take all the lefty “arguments” about what allows someone to have an opinion and plot them all on a Venn diagram. I suspect the set of people actually permitted to express a judgment would be quite small.
I’m not. I want him to have a safe term in office and to retire to a long life afterwards.
My daughter spent an entire semester at Imperial College in London a year ago. When I asked her how she liked the British, she said, “I don’t know…there aren’t any in London. It’s all Muslims, Asians, etc.” She did get to go to the Cotswolds and other places and meet some traditional Brits, but they were few and far-between in Londontown.
And yes, Snippy, all six of us have passports.
Rob I think he is talking about wanting to see the reaction of the leftwing aka parsnips glue sniffing bunch who have been defending radical muslims for the past 8 years because they only hated the evil BushChimperror.
Parsnip would you consider Israel a stratetic ally of the United States?
Rob,
Don’t you find it odd that the only people claiming that Europe is “being taken over” by the Museelmen are insane right wing extremists?
They know none of their audience is ever gonna actually go their and see they’re lying…the perfect scam.
A little O.T., but the shameless plugs here for PW for this year’s web awards seem rather thin:
http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-very-large-blog/
What’s up, I can’t win it for PW on my own?
Come to think of it, paralphie hasn’t yet graced us with it’s European Adventure.
We’re waiting to hear about jaunts on the Amstel River, reconnoitering the Mer de Glace, discussing fiscal policy over torte at Das Hotel Sacher, reflected on Man’s place in the universe from the shores of Capri, engaged with wandering political debates whilst traversing Northumberland on cycle, invested in Malden, beheld the North Sea in the cold concrete structures of Bremerhaven, sampled oysters freshly plucked from the Gironde estuary, etc….
Comment by parsnip on 1/8 @ 10:38 am #
How about you, alfie, how many countrie have you been kicked out of?
This is technically a “very large blog?” Huh.
Anyway. I’ve been to Scotland (gorgeous; if you haven’t been, do yourself a favor and bring a camera with a lot of memory). And done a week in London and environs. It’s awful PC over there, and this does annoy a large cross section of the populace to no end, but there wasn’t much in the way of street riots. Not to say there aren’t problems (God knows the intelligence community thinks so) but it’s a bit premature to call it “lost to the caliphate.
That said – instant coffee = wildly popular.
Don’t you find it odd that the only people claiming that Europe is “being taken over†by the Museelmen are insane right wing extremists?
Bruce Bawer is an “insane right wing extrmist”? Tell us more, Snippy.
That might be amusing — if I had any reason to believe they’d actually blame Muslims.
We’re talking about the “reality based community” — who took that name based on an un-sourced (and likely fictional) quote, and whose intelligentsia have, for example, blamed the Bali bombings on Operation Iraqi Freedom.
I have been to London, Ireland, China, Iraq, Kuwait, Mexico, Mongolia, Brazil, Puerto Rico(if that counts), and had a stopover in Amsterdam where they would not allow me out of the airport to cause some damage. Piccadilly circus is a tourist trap do not go there unless you like that sort of thing.
“invested in Malden”. Heh.
Haven’t been in Britain, just served alongside a bunch of Scots. They muttered about starting to feel like second-class subjects in their own realm.
I was in the Netherlands a couple of times before things got violent, so no firsthand experience there. In Switzerland, and Germany – I saw growing resentment of Turks mostly, not Muslims per se. When in the Federation, the Bosnians were Muslim (nominally) although the Croats and Serbs were none too thrilled with ’em. In Hungary, no big immigrant population that I saw – just a little bit of good old fashioned Gypsy hatred (in the Czech Republic too).
Matt the Marine (you know, that member of an unregulated militia) was at sea for 6 months last year. Visited 12 countries.
Guess what?
He didn’t need a passport.
He had this little green card, you see…..
Parsnips has traveled to such exotic locations such as his local SuperWalmart, his mothers basement, and frequent backpacking forrays into the dark underbelly of Gamestop.
Oh, and if you think I’m ever going to forget how you personally insulted a member of the United States Armed Forces, my son, Matt the Marine, alfie, you got another think coming.
From the “Gaza Conflict” thread:
Comment by parsnip on 1/7 @ 3:08 pm #
Look at the pictures at the bottom of what a sick, sick culture the Arab children live in.
Kinda how I picture the upbringing you provided to your kids, No Brain.
Did they join a violent militia, too?
I think they did.”
PS never go to Sao Paulo unless you are in an up-armored HMMWV with mounted .50 Cal. I swear 10 year old kids there will slit your throat for a penny.
Everyone should go to Sao Paulo, Mr. Pink. It’s good practice for Rio, in a less-threatening environment.
Regards,
Ric
PS never go to Sao Paulo unless you are in an up-armored HMMWV with mounted .50 Cal. I swear 10 year old kids there will slit your throat for a penny.
Depending on the neighborhood, it wasn’t all that safe when I lived there. Lotta problems with kids huffing glue, gasoline, etc. Bad scene, though I never had problems in either Sao Paulo or Campinas, my “hometown” there.
Let’s just design us an alphie/monkeyboy/sniggles/parsnip template. It’ll save us both time and transcendent boredom:
BLAH BLAH BLAH right wing extremists BLAH BLAH BLAH losers of last two elections BLAH BLAH BLAH fringe wackos BLAH BLAH BLAH country rejects failed ideas of extremists BLAH BLAH BLAH Israel not proportionate in response BLAH BLAH BLAH VA Tech deaths not even one day’s worth of Iraq civilian casualties BLAH BLAH BLAH the military is just another make work welfare program BLAH BLAH BLAH Balloon Fence BLAH BLAH BLAH Mile High Dirt Berm BLAH BLAH BLAH Russia won WWII BLAH BLAH BLAH Chinese Troops invading in shipping containers BLAH BLAH BLAH Panetta never authorized torture BLAH BLAH BLAH Iraq money spent could have cured childhood diarrhea in Africa BLAH BLAH BLAH Marines are kind of a violent militia BLAH BLAH BLAH Europe is still here despite you wingers trading on Islamophobia BLAH BLAH BLAH I’m more worried about Avian Bird Flu than terrorists BLAH BLAH BLAH Hamas really won’t try to drive Israel into the sea BLAH BLAH BLAH Israel kills civilians because going after the rockets is too hard BLAH BLAH BLAH ……..
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Are you two saying Rio is worse? Holy hell. I honestly felt safer in Baghdad than I did in Sao Paulo. At least in Baghdad I was armed.
Should someone tell tuberhead that Silver Whistle is British? Or should we just let him go on making a fool of himself?
Be vewy qwiet, B Moe, we’we hunting wabbits.
BMoe: See template above.
Hmm, this is interesting, from the Sacred Text of Teh Fourth Geneva Convention:
“Art. 28. The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.”
Do you think, maybe, that Hamas is ignoring this protocol and are, therefor war criminals?
Sorrt, that’s from
http://snappedshot.com/archives/3369-On-the-Killing-of-Civilians-in-Gaza.html
Speaking of double standards, you may have noticed that over 500 Palestinians, a lot of them small children, have been killed to something like five Israelis.
Yes, Al, that’s been noted along with the reasons for it. Where’s the double standard?
How’s that a double standard? Oh wait, you mean we haven’t filtered out from those 500 dead you cite the Palestinians killed by other Palestinians, I guess. Someone should look into that.
Moral equivalency as double entry accounting. Just count the casualties and ignore every other aspect of the conflict.
You’ve won the daily double, Al! Simple and feeble minded.
Dear Mr Green,
I think that your best period was in the Willie Mitchell years, before the boiling pot of grits down the back. International politics was never your forte, was it?
Should we start counting up the hundreds and hundreds of Israelis killed by suicide bombs? How far back do we go to get missile casualties?
Are your critical thinking skills at the level of a local business bookkeeper, Al?
Sadly, yes!
Hey Achmed (et al) – if you animals don’t care about your wives and chilluns lives, guess what? I don’t either.
Choke on it.
Here’s another question, Soul Man:
If an implacable enemy dedicated to causing the maximum amount of damage to civilians and has as part of its charter the stated goal to drive Israel into the sea; if after all that and they knowingly as part of their “strategy” store weapons and execute military operations in heavily civilian areas does that make them immune from retaliation based upon a simple arithmetic calculation meme?
Take your time, Soul Man. I know this one is a toughie. Now carry the two and add by columns…
The only double standard that I can see is all the screaming about Israel being cruel and hardly a word for as long as the damn rockets have been fired into Israel — even going back before when the rockets were basically home made!!!
I guess the worlds’ opinion is that rockets fired INTENTIONALLY TO HARM CIVILIANS is bad…. Oh… except when they are fired at Israel.
Way too many people feel that the vast majority of Arabic communities/contries are being oppressed all because because these communities/countries keep crying out to anyone who will listen that they are oppressed.
I am completely sick and tired of the simple minded moral concept that the only measurement worth applying to this or any other conflict is how many “civilian” lives are lost. When do we start to recognize the inherent evil of an organization that states as it’s MOS the advantage of hiding behind innocents, including children, while they engage in military operations?
People like Al and AJB just piss me the hell off with their linear, short term touchy feely. civilian deaths are always an important consideration but there are other things that belong in the decision matrix.
The trolls aren’t going to change. They are incapable of it.
Comment by Al Green on 1/8 @ 2:05 pm #
Shut up and sing.
Speaking of double standards, you may have noticed that over 500 Palestinians, a lot of them small children, have been killed to something like five Israelis.
So the Israeli’s should start hiding behind children too, just to make it even?
What? Al? AJB? Did you guys lose your ledgers or something? Calculator missing a percentage key? Time to do an audit!
Remember: Debit the Israeli casualties and credit the Palestinian ones.
Hit the total button and … Voila! Moral equivalence! Awesome!
I’m of mixed opinion. This dude the Israelis sent to Allah, Nizar Rayan, was supposedly the spiritual leader to Hamas’s suicide bombers. That his 4 wives and 9 of his 12 children were also sent to Allah doesn’t seem to bother me.
At the same time you can get carried away with the kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out redumblican hicktard BS. Consider the atrocities committed in America’s name in central and south America and, if you’re rational, you can easily conclude we did ourselves no favors funding death squads and contras. We are not always innocent bystanders with admirable intentions.
Avoiding civilian deaths should always be a high priority in the matrix, obviously.
Avoiding civilian deaths should always be a high priority in the matrix, obviously.
So should judging each situation on its own merits. The United Fruit Company has jackshit to do with Israel and the Middle East.
#Comment by thor on 1/8 @ 3:24 pm #
Take your meds and go have a nice long nap, ‘mkay?
F.t.r. — Israel notes that 10 of its soldiers have died since this operation began, 4 of those in two separate friendly fire incidents.
Thor: We are a long way from making cogent comparisons between the IDF’s response to Hamas and the South American Death Squads of the 50’s and 60’s. That’s a specious argument at best. There were death squads operating through out the continent for both left and right causes. This isn’t an indictment of American foreign policy of 40 years ago but a moral equivalence argument being presented simply by tallying up each sides casualties.
Also, if you want to respond to me as one of the guys you’ve self identified as “willing to listen” then knock off the “redumblican hicktard” crap and you’ll be listened to and debated.
So that’s what, 500 dead jihadis to 6 Israelis?
WTG, IDF!
BJ, thor can be safely ignored, like you’d avoid a raving streetcorner lunatic.
Funding Congtras a bad idea? Hardly. Unless of course you are somebody like Thor, who is still digesting all the Sandinista Semen he fellated.
What thor said about your son was way over the top and ego maniacal to the max. It should have resulted in a summary banning but for thor’s tunneling skills and Jeff’s absence.
Contras that is. Anyway, watching these former Commiecrat cocksuckers still go on about Central America is laughable.
What’s infuriating is the blithe assumption that it isn’t, based on a bigoted, stereotypical caricature of “teh military” that didn’t have much applicability with respect to American and Israeli forces in the late Sixties when it took hold, and today has about as much to do with any Western military as it does with the slime molds of Alpha Centauri A IV.
And even if you think of it in caricature “militaristic” terms, dammit, blowing up civilians and noncombatants is at best a waste of ammunition. I was nearby in 1973 when the technology that ultimately became JDAM was first field-tested (though I didn’t get to see the actual test), and since then the US and other Western militaries (including Israel) have spent lots of money trying to eliminate that waste, and greatly succeeding.
Regards,
Ric
Amore concise Snippy:
All those stories of rioting muslims in Europe are not true! I choose to ignore news reports and make my own reality!
And all you right wingers have been punished at the ballot box for these repeating these same lies! You are cast from power FOR-EVAH!!!!
(I wish I had a friend in real life so I didn’t have to troll the conservatives on the ‘net for some attention.)
LC: Just go to the Tuber Template:
Wash, rinse and repeat. I consider it a service to humanity.
It’s too cogent and necessary to be specific, sorry BJ. I’ll let you know when I think you’re worthy of being my editor or if we’re dating.
Consider P’brain’s posts and realize I can’t continually insult the mentally retarded by describing P’brain as such.
Nicaragua, El Salvador, more recently in Columbia, Wikipedia can help you with the correct dates.
An aside, Juan Cole and Mike Totten have evidently gotten into a pissing match over the weblog awards voting dealio. I ran into this at Israellycool.
Getting away from HighSchool was such a relief back in the day, I can’t see why these people want to go back. Or maybe they never left?
“Avoiding civilian deaths should always be a high priority in the matrix, obviously.”
And it is. So, there’s that.
“At the same time you can get carried away with the kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out redumblican hicktard BS”
Wow, who says that? I mean other than the Islamists. But, I don’t think they’re “redumblicans”. Culturally uber conservative, but pretty socialistic in their economic policy.
“Comment by thor on 1/8 @ 3:49 pm #
{smiles and nods}
That’s nice, son, now be a good boy, go take your meds and have a nice long nap.
Doctor says you have to be a good boy.
Well, I happen to have met, personally, a member and financier of a Colombian “death squad”.
He got involved when the glorious, peace-loving, independence-minded Leftists invaded his brother’s house in company force, killed the brother, and kidnapped his wife and three children for a ransom that later turned out to be just under a million bucks. I don’t mind at all seeing my tax money go to subsidize his response.
Regards,
Ric
Comment by Ric Locke on 1/8 @ 3:54 pm #
What, thor is supporting reactionary leftist thugs?
Quelle suprise!
More recently in Colombia? Did thor kneel down and bend over for FARC too? Something about that Latin Look among communist goons just gets you political whores of the Left going.
Hey, let’s have a hostage swap–thor and the other leftists for whoever FARC is holding now. FARC would get free blow jobs.
If he were capable, thor’s Che poster would give him a woody.
Do the people worrying that the US doesn’t avoid unneccesary civilian death really not understand that IF the US didn’t try to avoid civilian death, the death toll would be far greater? Exponentially greater. Are they that ignorant as to the firepower and ability of the American military? And I’m not saying that Thor thinks that, but there are morons out there that do (code pinkers, alphies of the world).
Fine thor, fuck off then. I’ll remember in the future that disagreeing with you is equivalent to editing and dating.
You are tiresome to the max despite being a legend in your own mind. Do you get some kind of a woody hanging out in a place where you contribute nothing but snark, vulgarities and Celine references? Is your ego so dull as to need the vacuous and specious polishing of creative insults and downright disgusting personal attacks?
Well, I’m done. No more “editing” and “dating” for me. Fuck off.
Feel free to respond with your usual tiresome and repetitive attempts at creative gross insults. You’ll be ignored.
BJ, thor’s an asshole. That’s all you need to know. He doesn’t care that he’s an asshole. He bathes in it. He would care if you thought he was stupid, though. He’s not as bright as he believes, but he’s no alphie. At times, in between bouts of his chronic personality disorder, he does make a point. Cherish, or not, those points and hope to God that he continues on that path. But, really, all he is is a reflexive reactionary asshole hoping to get a rise out the cartoon characters in his head. I give him some quarter at times because let’s face it, relative to the group of truly pathetic know nothing morons that troll this place, he, at times, does help to foster a conversation as a counterpoint. The other dumbfucks? Never.
Sad to see the blowhards who think their constant stream of childish insults somehow adds to the conversation here at PW are out in full force today.
alphie: See #60.
If you’d stay away, alphie, that would be one less “out in force”.
Well parsimp, the insults have a point. You and the other simps/symps/dupes showed such fawning obediance to the FMLN and Sandinista thugs then, and continue to show such fawning obediance to the FARC thugs and the goon regime of Hugo Chavez today. It was and is political fellatio, political sodomy, I would even call it political BDSM.
You’re not just a parsimp, you’re a pargimp.
Yeah! I’m a blowhard. At least to a fucking moron. Alphie, if you had any utility, ANY at all, I’d ease up. But the truly sad thing is you don’t. IMO, at times thor does. Sorry, little guy. You don’t make any grade.
#68 Pablo:
It means that Hamas sees Jewish lives as more precious than their own children because they will force their children to run any danger so long as they can kill Jews. 100 Palestinian deaths – men, women, or children – is worthwhile if they can only kill one Israeli, one Jew.
Comment by parsnip on 1/8 @ 4:13 pm #
WA-WA-WAA-WA-WA.
WA-WA-WA, WA-WA-WA-WA-WA.
WAAA-WA, WA-WA!
[h/t to Charlie Brown]
“100 Palestinian deaths – men, women, or children – is worthwhile if they can only kill one Israeli, one Jew.”
Sounds just like the Japanese fighting on Okinawa.
#73 mojo:
Fighting behind the skirts of their women and the primers of their children shows the manliness of the Jihadic warrior.
Not much knightly courage there – but plenty of bravado and machismo! That is “I will fight to the last drop of blood – I order my Baby Brigade to attack! (Please don’t hurt me! I just had my beard washed!)”
“100 Palestinian deaths – men, women, or children – is worthwhile if they can only kill one Israeli, one Jew.â€Â
Which is why we must call the bogus doctrine of “proportionate response” what it REALLY is: Holocaust by Attrition.
The muslim savages don’t mind losing 100-1 or even higher, as long as those Jooos die.
A wingnut template is much easier to construct, BJT:
BLAH BLAH BLAH the scary brown people are taking over!
Snippy sure wins lots of arguments against that cartoon in his head, don’t he?
MikeyNTH, #112: Interesting way to put it.
Parsnip, #117: Really not interesting at all. Some of us wingnuts are in favor of defending brown people you’d consign to a hideous fate in the name of your self-righteous moral purity.
#92 Ric:
You are correct about the cost/benefit ratio. Who would want to send a big aircraft like a B-17 or B-24 to drop its load and maybe not hit the target, a thousand of those bombers just to be sure, when you could send in a dozen B-26’s or Mosquitos at night and have them place their bombs right on the target?
The Germans pioneered with the FX-1400, a radio-controlled glide-bomb. They sank the Italian battleship Roma and crippled the light cruiser USS Savanah*. Jamming dealt with the threat.
*The bomb penetrated a turret and exploded in the handling room. The resulting flooding filled the magazines, preventing them from exploding.
#119 JPS:
Think of it as a counter to this argument: “Why did the Israelis bomb that school and kill all those women and children when they could have sent their nearby soldiers to clear the school of Hamas fighters room by room?”
The counter is (as I read here, I think): “Why didn’t the Hamas fighters sally from the school and engage the nearby Israeli soldiers when they knew women and children were in the school and they could get killed in the fighting?”
The answer to both questions is clear – the Israelis care more about their lives than the lives of their enemy; Hamas does too.
Lobbing shells into schools packed with children is sooo 5 minutes ago, Mikey.
The IDF has moved on to gunning down unarmed U.N. and Red Cross workers.
Quite a banner adventure for the brave soldiers of “the region’s only democracy.”
Can’t wait to see the medal they’ll get for this one.
On the other hand, Hamas may have made a simple calculation: The maximum gain for Hamas is to sacrifice women and children while keeping their fighters alive. Dead fighters can’t fight, so have to be protected at all costs. Dead women and children can be used for propaganda, while live women and children can’t fight without demeaning the manliness of their fighters.
If the fault for dead women and children fell where it belongs — those who seek to use them as shields — and the propaganda war shifted against them, they might change their practices. At the least, it would remove their incentive for putting women and children in the line of fire.
But the odds of the useful idiots waking up and removing that incentive are near zero.
The latest Hamas lies and propaganda right on time, served up for the gullible by UNRWA and Jew-hating foreign correspondents. Always make sure you get it out there before anyone knows what really went down. Never wait to have the “story” confirmed before you accuse Israelis of intentionally killing innocents. Generally the bigger the lie the better. Say it loud and say it often. Bandwidth is so cheap and lying so easy.
Are you calling Catholic reporters “Jew-hating foreign correspondents,” Sdferr?
http://ncronline3.org/drupal/?q=node/3071
Talk about burning bridges.
#123 Rob:
You have the information war down right. That is what Hezbollah did in 2006, and what the Israelis are trying counter today.
The information war is a major part of any operation. Think of the pirate attacks off of Somalia – if it was just print, it wouldn’t mean anything – operations could be done to reduce the pirates and their bases without anyone caring about the pirates. But as soon as you get cameras in and show the poor Somali pirtes struggling against superior western forces? Well, the anti-pirate campaign ends because the PC sliding scale of morality kicks in and ‘poor, brown pirates are being oppressed by rich, white navies! Stop those evil navies!’
Pictures are emotion, and emotion is the basis of PC – it is easier to employ the PC sliding scale than to actually think about what the different parties have done and then make a judgment.
#125 Sdferr:
It makes it much easier to get that photo or video shot when you are pre-positioned before the atrocity happens, no? Like when those election workers were murdered in Iraq a few years ago? Amazing that photographer was there with his camera in his hands and in perfect position to get the photos of the murders. /sarc off
If the fault for dead women and children fell where it belongs  those who seek to use them as shields  and the propaganda war shifted against them, they might change their practices.
Excellent point, I wonder how many women and children tuberhead has helped kill?
Hey, I’m still waiting to hear the litany of European nations Parsnip’s graced with his inestimable presence.
Excellent point, I wonder how many women and children tuberhead has helped kill?
Through my tax dollars that go towards the billions of dollars a year in welfare America sends to Israel each year, B moe?
I think we all have a little blood on our hands in that respect.
“Comment by parsnip on 1/8 @ 6:26 pm #
Excellent point, I wonder how many women and children tuberhead has helped kill?
Through my tax dollars that go towards the billions of dollars a year in welfare America sends to Israel each year, B moe?”
C’mon, alpo, stop lying.
You don’t pay no stinking taxes.
That muthafucka only talks about what he wants to talk about. And right now, he don’t wanta talk about no fuckin’ Europe. Even though he brought it up and tried to break serve with it.
Snip dog in the house. Yo!
Bill Whittle.
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bwhittle/2009/01/08/the-workshops-of-identity/#more-11613
G.
Read.
You’ll be better for it.
G. for “Go”…
Sheesh
#117 parsnip whines: (A wingnut template is much easier to construct, BJT:
BLAH BLAH BLAH the scary brown people are taking over)
Why are you scared of brown people snippy? No conservative, libertarian, or Classical Liberal I know is, in fact, several ARE brown people, including my fiancee. Should I be scared of her? (actually, I should, she could kick my ass)
The Jews who live in Isreal, native Jews called sabras, are brown people, well actually more like olive people, but you get the point. Am I scared of them? Hell no, I’m supporting them in fighting back against people who want them all dead, another group of “brown people”, the “Palestinians”. And I’m not scared of them either, rather feel pity for their innocents, and contempt for their “warriors”, who have to hide behind their own children, and under the skirts of their women.
#136 Celtic Dragon:
I wonder what would happen if every day a Hamas warrior would stand out and challenge the Israelis to send one man to face him, one on one, with knives? Two champions to prove whose God is greater.
It would have historical precedence. However, I can’t see that level of confidence coming from Hamas.
Mikey NTH:
They wouldn’t dare, the Isrealis have Zohan! ;-)
Two champions to prove whose God is greater.
Muslims, Jews and Christians all share the same god, Mikey.
It’s only the prophets that are in dispute.
For the record, our money to israel consists mostly of military aid. Hence the M4s and not the Galil, amoung other things. Egypt gets an enormous amount of money from the US as well, just not in the form of military weapons.
Don’t make large pronouncements about things you are profoundly ignorant of, monky.
Regards,
Ric
“Muslims, Jews and Christians all share the same god, Mikey.”
?
“Egypt gets an enormous amount of money from the US as well, just not in the form of military weapons.”
Except for the 1.3 billion/year in military assistance vs. the 500 million Official Development Assistance they have been getting.
Incredible. Whittle is in a class by himself. Many thanks for that link.
Whittle’s an atheist, so I can forgive him his one handed patriotism.
You’re an idiot, snippy, so I can forgive you your idiocy. But it would be nice if you’d quit pissing on the rug.
“Comment by parsnip on 1/8 @ 9:17 pm #
Whittle’s an atheist, so I can forgive him his one handed patriotism.”
And your MOS was….what?
“Comment by Pablo on 1/8 @ 9:33 pm #
You’re an idiot, snippy, so I can forgive you your idiocy. But it would be nice if you’d quit pissing on the rug.”
Pissing I can forgive.
It’s the stains on the wall that are so hard to get out.
Well, that and the shitty diapers.
PE Obama disses Rev. Wright – and the atomic parsnip, too!
In His Philadelphia speech, Obama straightforwardly disowned “a view [Wright’s] that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
Likewise, the atomic parsnip’s similarly antiSemitic human-shield death metric for evaluating Israel’s self-defense against this evil blames Israel and in effect condemns Israel to non-existence, while approving the perverse and hateful idologies and tactics of radical Islam.
Gotta give Him credit!
Parsnip’s an imbecile so I can forgive him for his one brain celled idiocy.
oops, close quote at “a view…radical Islam”.
I doubt that, seriously. With that Duuuh stamped on your gringo forehead Colombians know you’ll believe any tall tale of evil Commies instead of the truth, namely, that the Paramilitaries (they’re not called death squads, that’d be El Salvador) took over the Medellin drug business after Escobar’s death. Therefore it makes more sense that your friend lost his family in a drug turf battle rather than any conflict with FARC. Big hug for drug runners and baby killers! Gringo Ric’s got a friend!
The fuck are you still on you about? P’brain the pussy cramp uses a G.I. Joe as a buttplug, and I don’t believe you believe your P’brain-as-victim implication for a moment. Don’t tell me you haven’t seen that mental midget climb is imaginary golden throne and wag his son’s combat boots at anyone who’ll listen – “Thor see these combat boots, these mean your Dad isn’t a veteran injured in Korea! He sucks Commie dick! Parsnip, your daughters work as whores! Thor, all the women in your family are lepers and sluts! Lick my son’s boots everyone!”
Fuck Him, he’s what comes after a squat. I feel sorriest for his kid(s).
Let’s see, what did I do with Melissa who at my junior high prom said she was going to ignore me and then put her fingers in her ears and stuck out her tongue?
Oh yes, now I remember what I did to her, but you’re not built for that type of action, BJT. I’m the obliging sort, with zeal I wait to be ignored.
Ignoring the dickhead thor and his Russian child-lust,
Waiting for those EU nations, alphie…….
Here is a really good piece by Claudia Rosett in Forbes about UNRWA and Hamas, their partnership.
thanks for finally motivating me to look it up. ;D
thor genius, did you ever figure out that a web crawler is also a web robot?
And, no, I don’t believe that your dad’s a Korean War veteran unless he remarried when he was around 60 and spawned you about 12 years ago.
Comment by thor on 1/8 @ 11:06 pm #
There, there, thorg, take your meds and have a nice long nap.
Had to look up that Sean Penn article Whittle mentioned. Part II here.
Funny, Penn drags Hitchens and Douglas Brinkley down with him to meet Chavez (and then Raul Castro), but Castro will only allow Penn to interview him. I guess that’s ’cause Penn is special, huh? He entitles his piece “Mountains of Snakes” but of course he’s not referring to Castro or Chavez. You gotta wait until the end:
The term “spawned” is being too nice.
I suppose it is a waste of pixels to ask people to stop giving the trolls what they want – attention away from the topic of the thread (ie. engaging in insult trading with them. I hope Jeff will someday return and stop the slide downward here.
And so, we should hope, will go what remains of this, our mountain of snakes.
If you gave Penn enough thorazine to eliminate his “mountain of snakes”, he’d be one lonely dude.
I’m pretty sure that Sean Penn’s wife won’t be making any more trips to Cuba or Venezuela, unless it’s to collect on some back alimony.
Maj. John:
It is, but some get enjoyment from tossing the insults.
Belittling them is fine. Just don’t engage.
Maybe Maj P is afraid to engage the enemy!
Argue forcefully and enthusiastically, add some humor, share some insults and always ignore talking-telephone-pole-Maj P’s whelps to ignore others, unless you need Maj. P to tell you when to wake up, when to eat breakfast, when to take a shower, who to talk to, when to go to bed, etc…
Mikey and OI, if they would actually discuss, debate and stay on topic then….they wouldn’t be trolls. Instead we get, well, what you read here. Jeff often expressed revulsion at what happened to Balloon Juice’s comment section (before the author of the site went off the deep end) – why are we letting a junior version of that happen here?
If I just wanted vulgarity, nonsequitors and utter lack of manners or taste, I could go to Kos, DU or such on the Left and LGF or FR on the Right.
I agree with you, Maj. John. It is a shame that this happens. I have warned people to not engage the lamprous ones, but some like to do that. I think it is a grand waste of time as there is as much actual debate in engagement with a lamprous troll as is you get talking to a tree.
I just make it a general rule to avoid engaging them no matter what they say – the ‘cut direct’. It is all that they deserve.
So what “on topic” points have you been making with your last posts?
The truth is you’d like to hurl vile half-assed insults without being insulted in return.
The cocoon! So that we’re never challenged, we need a cocoon!
England is a free country. They handle things differently than we. Get used to it. The world is bigger than the U.S., and you, boyo, aren’t so special that England is in dire need of your opinion on how they handle their business.
How’s that, Mr. Topic?
England shouldn’t care what we think, because it’s none of our business.
So, why have we been so obsessed with what the world thinks of us for the last seven years?
And, by “we” I mean Democrats and the MSM.
Closed registration is a cocoon. But regardless, it’s kinda hard to hold a productive discussion if one person wants to piss you off and amuse themself more than really debate.
Your sensitivities should be protected! Not that you actually add anything to any debate, but you’re getting faced isn’t productive!
But geek, it shouldn’t. Just ignore. It’s really simple. When one of them makes a valid point, whether we agree or not, then engage.
As for vulgarity? Well, to each his own, I guess. I don’t mind it. The host doesn’t seem to mind it and sometimes youu just need to call a spade a spade. Ooops! I belong on the other thread with that one I guess.
Someone’s intent in coming here and communicating in a certain fashion has nothing to do with sensitivities. I try to keep from spitting invective for my own reasons, but I don’t expect other people to do so – so long as there’s actual content worth discussing amidst the hot air.
And was that supposed to be “your?” And if so, “getting faced?” You going all street on me thor? Come on man, I don’t speak jive.
Whatever occurs in the UK will become the fashion in the US ten years in the future. If I were Jewish I’d worry a great deal about what is likely as Arabs and Muslims gear up.
#176 Thomas Jackson:
I would say ‘stay vigilent’; and I would also note that the United States is not quite the same as the United Kingdom or any other European country. For example, intellectuals aren’t given quite the same level of deference here as elsewhere. Thank God.
#171 Carin:
It is a form of IO; attacking your beliefs with an emotional appeal, a form of ‘black propaganda’ as opposed to ‘white propaganda’, which generally plays to the intellect, not emotions. It is similar to the high school thing where ‘all the cool kids are doing this – don’t you want to be cool’?
Here is a little thing on propaganda that my brother wrote. It is a little lengthy, but I think it is good:
Propaganda
“Propaganda that looks like propaganda is third rate propaganda.â€Â
– Sydney Rogerson, British propagandist WWII
Perhaps we need to turn back the pages and resurrect the fine art of propaganda in order to help win the war that we now find ourselves fighting. As distasteful as this may sound one of the more interesting propagandists was Benito Mussolini, and in this day and age of global new services his views are worth reading. Mussolini had been a journalist long before he entered politics and right up to the end of the Fascist era in Italy the press (newspapers and radio) was still regarded as the most effective ways of influencing public opinion. He referred to the mass-media as an “orchestra played in concert, though on different kinds of instruments.†And broadcasting messages is relatively easy with Internet, cable and satellite television in a world where there already pre-exists a ready audience for any and all things anti-American. Although in many parts of the world the words chosen, level of subtlety used and means of communicating varies, but like Mussolini had implied, the song remains the same.
In the United States there seems to be more political warfare on the home front than there is against the enemy. Granted, censorship in a democracy is a dangerous road to travel, and therefore censorship of a free press one would hope would be voluntary, and that sober minded individuals would think that editors and media pundits would not publish, knowingly, information of military value to the enemy – but sadly this is not always the case. So what can we do to fight back an ever-increasing chorus of anti-American rhetoric?
Simply put we have three weapons that we can use against the enemy; white propaganda, black propaganda, and of course the most powerful of all – the truth.
White Propaganda:
This is a form of propaganda that is very subtle, and is often referred to as “the thinking mans propaganda†because it is not based on the lowest common denominator but instead appeals to the audiences intellect. This is a very successful form of propaganda for democracies and towards the element of a nation’s population that is not only literate but also has a certain degree of knowledge beyond ones own province or district. It is not a very successful form of propaganda in areas of the world where xenophobia is the rule rather the exception. It is built around true facts – if not embellished a little, and with the enemy we are fighting it is of little use since they are use to stories and themes that play to the more base emotions and prejudices. Where this method can be of use is within our own camp – the West – to remind the people of why we are fighting and what is at stake. It is open to the world to see, and makes much of ones own victories and the defeats of the enemy. Its goal is to increase morale with witness accounts of military and civilian success, while at the same time ridiculing the enemy to the home audience.
Black Propaganda:
This is pure fabrication and gross exaggeration (also known as lies, and is currently indulged in by not only the Islamists but by those in West who are part of the Red/Brown nexus). However, this type of propaganda is geared strictly for enemy consumption – civil, military, all of it is to undermine morale and generate doubt (the use within the West by other Westerners tends to show the originators’ loyalties).
Black Propaganda is odd for people who have generally prided themselves on honesty and fair play who then have to become adept at double-dealing and misrepresentations at every turn in order to win. It is addressed entirely to the enemy exploiting all his highest held beliefs and emotions – such as sending an email or letter from an enemy combatant who has appeared on a list of known dead, missing or captured (detained) informing their family and friends that they are in fact very much alive and had in fact “defected†to another country, one far removed from the fighting in order to avoid the conflict.
Basically one obtains the name of an enemy combatant officially listed as dead and writes an email or letter or even a telephone call to that mans family from a “comrade in arms†or “friend†who reports that they had seen their loved one alive and in another country in which they had “deserted.â€Â
Perhaps a successful theme we could employ in order to increase the distrust between the families / people who are supporting the Islamist cause is by targeting the mullahs and their ilk (though their generally odious nature one would think would be enough). In this theme, though quite underhanded, a message is sent to the enemy combatant’s family, again from a “friendâ€Â, who had been with their loved one when he died and wanted his family to have a particular memento to be given to his family (a watch, medallion, or even an amount of money). In the story, a local commander had taken this memento (money) and the good friend assumed in the letter that it had been delivered and wished the family good fortune. Of course this memento never arrives (for it never existed) and it becomes clear to the dead man’s family that this commander and his subordinates are nothing more than common grave robbers. Another variation of the same theme is that the circumstances of their son’s death is not the same has had been earlier reported. Instead of their loved one dying in a typically melodramatic style so beloved by the Islamists, his demise is rather something less grandiose and far more sordid. What would the family’s reaction be if they “learned†that their son had been killed by his commander because it had been decided that his life was not worth the expenditure of medical supplies – or because there had been a falling out between the loved one and his commander and he had been killed when his wounds provided a convenient context in which to commit murder and get away with it?
Even though mass marketing is highly developed in the West, especially in the U.S., and the political component of propaganda is finely tuned for partisan politics, it has yet to be truly leveled against our common enemy. This can be partly explained because the American people are used to being bombarded by images and messages to purchase everything from cans of soda to lifestyles and therefore run cold whenever it is suggested that this marketing skill should be used solely for political ends.
In a democracy the people do not demonstrate an unflinching acceptance of their own government’s decision – usually these decisions are targets of severe criticism. Even though internal conflicts are the most dangerous in wartime they are impossible to suppress in a democracy. The best that can be achieved is to temporarily persuade the population to suppress their God given right to complain, to be pacifists, to hate any particular group, and all the other thousand and one things that those in democracy comment on without everyone thinking that it could be any other way. And it is the very element of our nature within a democracy that leaves us open to exploitation by not only our avowed enemies but by those in our own media for what ever reason – either they are the “useful idiots†that Vladimir Lenin talked about, committed fifth columnists and collaborators like William Joyce (“Lord Haw-Hawâ€Â), Iva Ikuko Toguri (“Tokyo Roseâ€Â), or even the modern equivalent of Michael Moore who referred to the gunmen in Iraq as being exactly like America’s own minutemen during the battle of Lexington and Concord. Then there are those individuals who are more concerned with getting the next “big scoop†that they are willing to place others in jeopardy in order to make a name for themselves.
It should be noted that anything that is an outright fabrication will be exposed and will do more damage to the government’s veracity that commissioned it than to the enemy. So the lies broadcasted by our enemy will usually not be called to account, those made by our own government will be so we must be very careful in what we do, because whatever we say WILL be turned back against us, not so much by our Islamist enemy but by those within the West who have made it a cottage industry to oppose everything that is done in defense of the West.
The enemy can be hopelessly beaten in psychological warfare not because of any particular adroitness on the part of the U.S. or our allies, but because we base our collective propaganda messages in truth – whereas our enemies, both internal and external, are unwilling to deal in the truth at all.
Well, I think it is more than just a message. I mean, it’s informative. An “If/then” senario. Too often, we’re told that this country or that does such and such, and why don’t WE?
What is happening in the UK, in regards to muslim sentiments, is informative. While part of me is concerned about their future, primarily I’m concerned about our future.
#179 Carin:
All messages are informative, though the information value may not relate to the content of the message.
An example from law school: A light aircraft crashes. The first person on scene sees the two passengers. The woman is dead, she had been decapitated. The man says to the witness ‘I am still alive.’ and then expires. Hearsay is an out-of-court statement being introduced for the truth of the matter asserted (the crash isn’t in court, the witness heard the statement, and his testimony is needed to prove who had died first – the man or the woman). How do you prove that the man survived the woman when you can’t get his statement into the record? Simple – ask the witness if the man spoke. The information in the message wasn’t what he said, but the fact that he spoke at all.
The little piece on propaganda is just to demonstrate the two types of propaganda and how they are used and who they are used against – friends for one, foes for the other. I think knowing what technique your foe is using against you is important because it gives you an idea on what he is doing and how to counter it.
#179 Carin:
Well, I think it is more than just a message. I mean, it’s informative. An “If/then†senario. Too often, we’re told that this country or that does such and such, and why don’t WE?
That is the emotional appeal of ‘black propaganda’, and every parent has heard it. The classic response is ‘If all of your friends were jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge would you do that?’ An appeal to popularity is ‘black propaganda’ (all the popular kids are doing it – don’t you want to be popular) as opposed to doing the adult, mature thing and do what is right because it is right, not because it is popular.
So what if the international community says this? A great nation is not to act like a high school girl afraid that the cheerleaders will snub her, a great nation is to do what it perceives to be correct and in its interest. The fact that the argument is to do what the cool nations are doing because they are doing it is enough to show that the argument is not in the target’s interest or an appeal to that interest would be used. That appeal isn’t being used, so the argument can be discounted.
No, I agree. But, I was merely addressing the original complaint that “we” have no position to critique the UK, because what do they care what we think?
Why do we analyze what other countrys do? So we can insure we don’t make the same mistakes.
#182 Carin:
We certainly are not disagreeing, but ‘analyze’ is different from the call to do what other nations are doing because they are doing it.
The difference between ‘do this because all of the cool kids are doing it’ and ‘do this because it is the right thing to do’.
Yes, but those analyzing and those advocating we adhere to other country’s standards stand on opposite sides of the isle. One is a valid strategy and one is a losing strategy.