Saturday, August 26, 2006
Why We Should Listen
I bring up the Principle of Charity for three reasons. First, too often political arguments caused by people being determined to see the worst in others rather than the best. For instance, on Friday, August 25, 2006, Jeff Goldstein in his Protein Wisdom blog attacks Greg Mitchell’s editorial attacking right-wing bloggers for exposing fake war photographs by muslim reporters in Lebanon. Jeff and his readers attempt to turn an unimportant story about a nineteen year old Greg Mitchell slacking off on the job into some cosmic statement about how the MSM is biased. A careful and respectful reading of Mitchell’s 2003 account is that Mitchell is struggling with how to combat media bias even on unimportant issues. If Jeff had only used the Principle of Charity in reading Greg Mitchell, he could have used the time devoted to his post on Mitchell to something more convincing. Why is it bad if people make bad arguments? The more bad and pointless arguments people have to read through, the less time they will have to ponder the good arguments.
The second reason I bring up the Principle of Charity is that it is a formula for paranoia free political discussion. Let me suggest to the Political Left and the Political Right places where they exhibit paranoia. The Left pervasively views George W’s foreign policy through the lens that it must be evil. For instance, we are told the wars in the Middle East are wars for oil—which is as patently absurd as it is popular. If we just wanted oil from Iraq, it would have been much cheaper to just end the Oil for Food program. Of course, the Right was equally insane about President Clinton when he was president. I don’t how many people remember the lunacy about the President (or Hilary) actually murdering Vince Foster. I kept thinking then that if the Republican would just channel their anti-Clinton hate into explaining why minimum wage laws are bad ideas—just taught basic economic common sense—we could have gotten rid of those evil laws ten years ago. Instead, Clinton was impeached, which advanced no rational right-wing interest. If the Left and the Right were to apply the Priniple of Charity we wouldn't have to listen to these paranoid attacks on these two presidents. This would free up our time for more rational political discussion.
The third reason I bring up the Principle of Charity is because if you apply the Principle of Charity and what you are intrepretting still seems to be up to evil, then you are probably onto something. Let's remember here that active, open listening does not guarantee that agreement will be reached. The parties to disagreement may have interest that too far to reach agreement. Consider Hamas and Hezbollah versus Israel. Haman and Hezbollah want the utter destruction of Israel, while Israel, for some reason, opposes that.
In this regard, I do wish to assure the reader that I try to follow the Principle of Charity in everything I do including the study of Islam. As far as I am able to determine, my understanding of Islam is the same as 95% or more of muslim religious leaders. It is quite likely that my understanding of Islam is similar to the understanding of the leaders of your local mosque. I suggest looking at random muslim websites to get an understanding of what Islam is all about. There are a few websites by organizations created by Saudi oil money that pretend Islam is a warm and fuzzy little puppy, but these websites are pretty obviously intended not for muslim consumption but for non-muslim consumption. Look for website by muslims for muslims. I won't suggest any because you could say I'm giving a biased sample. If you look for Islamic websites yourself, you can't blame my biases for the viciousness you find. Let muslims make the case for their genocide by speaking in their own fascist, barbaric words, and doing their typical evil acts like stoning, slavery, and honor killing. It ultimately lies not with me, but with them, to make the case for why we must slaughter them. And, as always, keep in mind their words and actions exist in a world in which weapons of mass destruction are become more easily available.
I will suggest a few good websites that explain Islam for what it is:
Islamic Evil
Jihad Watch
Hot Air (not always about Islam)
LittleGreenFootBalls(not always about Islam & some of the contributers have rather unreflective understandings of the world)
Infidel Bloggers Alliance(my favorite, but some contributers have greater intellectual subtlety than others)
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
The Morality of Slaughter
There are several reasons to suspect that this won't work. First, how do we subdue the Islamic countries to attempt this? Would it not be much easier and much less costly of terms of our own soldiers if we just committed slaughter rather attempt to subue the enemy? Second, occcupation after our conquest would be make Iraq now seem a peaceful place. Third, pre-Hitler Germany had many people of diverse views about the Nazi issue. The opposition to Hitler was a firm base of support for de-Nazification. There simply is not that base of support for de-Islamification in the Islamic countries that there was in the de-Nazification of Germany. Fourth, to successfully de-Islamify we would need at least thirty years of Inquisitorial courts to make sure the effort was successful. I can't see decent societies being able to sustain such an effort, and I believe it is less of insult to human dignity to simply kill people than to create courts that rule about belief and that would probably have to resort to torture. On the other hand, after a slaughter we can just get back to normal.
Permit me to stray here slightly from my topic, but it's important here to consider "getting back to normal". Normal in the future won't be normal now, because the ease of access to technologies of mass destruction is going to continue to increase. We are going to have to think more clearly about how humanity can survive technological progress. I suspect some genetic engineering of homo sapien will be required to prevent the success of people who will release diseases deadly to our current genes. But will that be enough? Will nanotechnology be death of us all? The answer is beyond my knowledge.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Like a Monotone Policy Wonk In Love
I can sound at least as out there and as annoying as Ann Coulter or Eve Ensler, the author of the Vagina Monologues. Thanks to the anonymity of the internet I can claim to be a gay Jew and talk about my hopes to parlay my attempted political extremism into hot sex with muscular skin head boys. It's like that Dead Kennedy's song, Nazi Punks Fuck Me. My more boring friends have sneered at my plan for Nazi dick. They say that claiming to be a gay Jew boy isn't the way to get fucked by Nazi punks. I beg to differ. My trouble isn't the Nazi punks, it's finding the Nazi punks. They're quite elusive if you hunt them. If one listens to the left, one would think Nazi racists are everywhere: the house next door, the trucker bring the microbrew beer to your local bar, the boardroom of Walmart, but no! When you want hot fascist sex, it's harder than hunting leopards in Central Park. When I encounter racism in America, it leftist anti-Semitism
I'm reading the right-wing blogs because the right-wing has good ideas about Islam and terrorism. The left is clearly wrong on these issues, because the left concocts a fantasy Islam that has nothing to do with any Islam that anyone actually believes, ignores what muslims have to say, and ignores what the right has to say. But the right-wing listens to muslims! It's always good idea to listen to people. If you listen, then you can attack fair and square.
I suppose my next post should be to attack the right-wing, as I am listening very carefully to them. There are some serious right-wing intellectual tics that annoy anyone as hopelessly moderate and dull as myself. I feel a little guilty attacking the right as I hate the left more than the right, but it is moderate way to attack those with whom you believe there is a possibility of serious dialog. The left really lacks anything like a sane idea on the threat of Islam.
Excuse me, I'm off to eat a small serving of vanilla ice cream.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Challenging the Patriotism of Muslims
There are, of course, many ways that article attempts to make us identify with the muslims starting with the good photography. Sadly, I can't address all of them, but wish to address the intellectually most difficult one for many people. The article appeals to the rule we've been taught that a person's religion doesn't matter--which certainly is a valuable way to help people get along in the workplace and in social situations. We may even feel noble about protecting this rule as one of our civilization's greatest treasures, our learned habits of religious tolerance. We are thus left defenseless when we should be combating an evil imperialist religion like Islam. We must reflect deeply on our Western practices of religious tolerance and see how they apply in the case of Islam.
Let's revisit how we came to value religious tolerance. After a long period of religious warfare, Europe was exhausted. In England, John Locke wrote the foundational essay on religious diversity and tolerance, A Letter Concerning Toleration. Locke explained how permitting religious diversity can prevent civil unrest. A part of his essay that has received less attention is the part where he argues that Catholicism should not be tolerated because Catholics are "soldiers against his own Government." Locke's argument was right at his time, but Catholicism has changed since then. Islam is like Catholicism back then. As the Islamic community has made clear over and over again, for Muslims in Western countries, the Muslim loyalties lie with the Ummah (Islamic community), and not with Western Civilization.
At this point, there will some readers who will if Catholicism can change, why can't Islam change? They hope for an easy way of our current war. Sadly, there is no way Islam can change quickly enough. One muslim country already had nuclear weapons and other crazier muslim countries are seeking nuclear weapons. Catholicism's changes took a long time and we don't have a long time. There is also the detail that muslims kill people who try to reform their religion with much more ferocity than Christianity has usually shown. These murders greatly slow any process whereby Islam could grow to be more peaceful--if there is any such process.
Let me return to the muslim Marines in the New York Times article. The reporter doesn't distinguish between someone who happens to born in muslim family and someone who is a devout muslim. The Koran is absolutely clear about the need to fight the infidels, and that would be us! As long as a muslim hasn't thought seriously about Islam, I'm sure he could make a fine soldier. But the moment he starts thinking about his faith and consulting his faith community, he becomes a potential traitor who is unsafe to have in the military. Just ask the parents of Scott Seifert, who lost their son to grenades thrown by muslim in the Army in Kuwait in 2003. We must challenge the patriotism of Muslims or there will be many more deaths.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Respecting Diversity for Our Victory
There is an issue deeper than gays being useful manpower for the Army. Gays, like Jews, Christians, atheists, women, Buddhists, Hindus, muslim apostates and so forth, are singled out for special hatred by the muslims. Gays have a human right to defend themselves and slaughter muslims like everyone else. Think of it in this way, the idea behind the Second Amendment is that we have a basic right to self-defense. The way we defend ourselves against a force hostile to our country is the military. This implies a Second Amendment right--and I consider a Second Amendment right to be basic human right--to join the military. Obviously, that right must be balanced against the cost of training a soldier to be effective. The military must be able to reject an eighty year old women with arthritis who wants to enlist, though an alternative would be to weed them out on the first day of boot camp. On the other hand, we know young gay men and women are effective workers in virtually every job in our society. We also know that many gay men and women have in fact made excellent soldiers in our military. The military leadership should overturn the ban on gays in the military because of these facts and to respect the Second Amendment. Unfortunately, the courts cannot do this, as it could be disastrous for the courts to second guess the military.
I admit I have strong feelings about this issue One of my neighbors is a young, black, Buddhist drag queen. I tell him about how the muslims kill gay people and kill Buddhists in Thailand. My stories fill him with the anger as they should. This strange fruit has had to defend himself against bullies in schools and understands Islam for what it is—a doctrine for bullies. He told me he would gladly join the military. I'm sure he's saying this partly because he knows the military won't accept him and partly to get back at his hippie parents—that most authentic behavior of the young. Still, I believe there to be a genuine core to his desire. Surely, we can find it in our hearts to tolerate him enough to permit him the glory of battle.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Let Me Commit an Act of Branding

I thought I'd put up an image for my responses to other post. One can't escape the pressures of branding. I thought I'd use a pretty flower, the winecup. It's a plant in the mallow family native to North America.
To point out the obvious, I'm not using a photo of myself. I have the suspicion that it would not be in the best interest of my health. After all, I'm advocating the slaughter of a humourless gang known for their delight in murder.
Friday, August 04, 2006
No New Dark Age Is Necessary
The good thing about my genocide solution it that it will work after much bloodshed and maybe Pakistan launching a few nukes. Better a few nukes now than the many more nukes that the muslims will launch later. One may be absolutely certain that Muslims will use nukes within the next thirty years because they decide someone has insulted their prophet or some equally ridiculous reason connected to honor. It's the way of thugs and muslims.
I remain optimistic in face of the current circumstances. We can get through this ok. I just read a blog A New Dark Age Is Dawning, about Islam in the West. The blog takes such a dour view that I feel the need to dissent. I want to help that dour blogger to turn his frown upside down. We have the option of simply slaughtering the muslims and getting on with life. People may whine that such a a slaughter will some way make our society more barbaric and unfit to live. That is false. Throughout history, societies have been guilty of all sorts of horrible crimes and still been in many ways fine. Consider the United States and the "benevolent assimilation" of the Philippines. The United States killed many Filipinos in 1900, though how many is the subject of debate, but higher estimates in the Wikipedia are more than 10% of Filipinos either directly or indirectly. Still America in 1900 was a fairly decent country for many people, and has became an even an better country.
So even if the slaughter of the muslims were a bad thing, we could kill all the muslims now and everything quickly return to normal. Decent human societies are resilient, but the overwhelming point here is that we should not feel the slightest guilt about killing off a gang of insane religious fanatics that kill their own sisters for having sex without parental approval and their own brothers for being gay or renouncing their religion. Let's just slaughter them all and be done with it.
There is also a potential environmental issue that the cheap gasoline resulting from the slaughter of the muslim could increase greenhouse gas, but the many environmental pluses of killing one billion muslims will no doubt make up for it.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Why We Need to Slaughter the Muslims
My inspiration for starting this blog was to consider how to deal with a militant Islam in the age of nuclear weapons. We may have to consider the slaughter of the muslims, as they represent too much danger with their perpetual intense anger and their apocalyptic bent. I prefer the ancient word "slaughter" to newer word "genocide", because "slaughter" was the word used by groups who had the courage to do what needed to get done. I’m aware that many people will think I’m not a nice guy for advocating such a course. Perhaps, I'll even be compared to Hitler. Sadly, I'm too much of a nerd to have Hitler's level of charisma, but I can be obsessive about facial hair grooming and do tend to eat a diet on the unhealthy side of vegetarianism. (Eating excessive cheese clogs the arteries.) In truth, I’m a nice, liberal guy with a desire to help oppressed people. I suppose that this blog will be labeled a "hate blog" by PC thought police, muslim apologists and assorted do-gooders. Strangely enough for a "hate blog" I will attempt to to appeal to a diverse audience: fundamentalist Christians and atheists, gay rights activists and pro-family activists, members of the National Rifle Association members and Buddhists. My appeal is based on the common self-interest of these groups and all other non-muslims to confront an imperialist Islam. Muslims are oppressors, not the oppressed, because Islam teaches that muslims should kill, enslave, or make second-class citizens out of everyone else. Muslims have a long history of doing exactly that. Nor do Islamic societies treat their own people well. It is hard to foresee any positive outcome of nuclear weapons in the hands of Islamic imperialists. It is better that we kill them off first, because our societies are so much more humane place to live. For documentation on the evil of Islam, I suggest these websites:
Religion of Peace. There are many other sites, as many people are catching on to Islam. Islam isn't subtle.
The evil of Islam begins with its creation of a culture where the smallest slight is a pretext for murder. Consider the death threats against the Danish cartoonists who drew the Mohammed cartoons. It is the muslim stewing over the slightest insult that makes them so dangerous to everyone else and even to themselves. Any decent religion and society attempts to discourage petty anger in people. I opposed the proposed anti-flag burning amendment to the US Constitution because it struck me as effort to encourage overreaction to petty provocation in American citizens. We certainly don't want to become like Muslims. We should be mellow. I advocate the slaughter of Muslims in as mellow a way as possible. Chill, dude. Chill, my gentle reader.
Petty anger is not the only psychological issue that makes Muslims dangerous in the era of easily available nuclear weapons. Islam encourages a deadly controlling attitude. Famously, muslims want to kill Salmon Rushdie who lives in the Anglican United Kingdom, but there is a long history of similar incidents that you can find in the blogs suggested above. And it is just non-muslims that are the victims of controlling behavior. Women and gay people are treated brutally. Daughters in muslim families often are victims of heinous forms of genital mutilation. If they still have normal human sexual desire after mutilation, they must fear that their family will kill them for the slightest sign of their sexual desire. One example is a thirteen year old girl who was killed for simply riding a bicycle with a twelve year old boy. And let’s not ignore the sickness of the controlling instinct that forces Islamic women to dress in clothing that so covers them that women in sunny areas have vitamin D deficiency. Women who don't want go along with this dress code that makes them anonymous in normal human interactions are harassed and beaten both by legal authorities and by male thugs acting independently of the law. Nor should we ignore that gay people are stoned to death. The stoning is meant to cause as much suffering as possible. Which isn’t simply sick in itself, but also teaches cruelty to the populace that commits the stoning. Nor should we ignore that Muslims who decide that they want to follow another religion, like Christianity, are killed. See Faith Freedom International or Apostates of Islam for more information.
If Islam only created horribly cruel societies and taught values that lead to anger and bitterness, it would be sufficient reason to refuse Islam the respect we accord other religions and secular values systems, but Islam also has a core tenant of Jihad or the violent conquest of non-Muslims. Islamic Imperialism : A History by Efraim Karsh is a good book on the subject. In the past, Western military might was able to keep Islam in check, but in the era of easily available atomic weapons that is no longer enough to guarantee peace.
Given that the muslims are evil imperialists and will use nuclear weapons at the drop of a hat, our moral fantasies of peace through international cooperation and laws against the slaughter of civilian populations fail us badly. We can no longer afford to be overly indulgent of a murder cult with a large following. We should admit that Islam is in the process of starting a world war and it followers will launch nukes. In making this claim, I rely on both the history of Islam and the statements of Iranian religious leaders. Muslims represent a clear danger to human survival, even if we are willing to overlook the daily acts of terror they commit. From our experience with communism, we know how hard it is to rid a people of their religion. The Soviet Union was a total failure in eliminating Christianity and Islam. If Islam is going to continue be a murder cult, we have no choice but to slaughter the muslims. (Perhaps the small Ahmaddiya Muslim sect should be spared as that sect uniquely doesn't preach conquest and slaughter of infidels as the core value of Islam, though they still treat women horribly.) Yes, Slaughter is a bummer, but nuclear Armageddon and living as second class dhimmis or even slaves in a muslim sharia society are both worst fates than us having to kill the muslims. We’ll get over the slaughter pretty quickly and have societies that are at least as loving and as pleasant as we have now. Normal people don’t sit around feeling guilt about what is necessary for too long.
Ideas Have Consequence
Western civilization has a problem that could lead to not just its own death but also to the death of Asian cultures influenced by Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and other ideas and to the death of other indigenous cultures around the world. I label that problem "liberalism". The word “liberal” has been used in so many ways that I must be precise about what is this “liberalism” I denounce. By “liberalism”, I mean the value that no idea is to be taken seriously--which is fairly common among people who call themselves liberal and sadly among many people who call themselves conservative. One indication of this is that while there are histories of conservative thought, there is no liberal equivalent. Ask a liberal to name a prominent liberal intellectual from 1940 and you'll get blank stares. Even the brightest and most informed will be able to say Eleanor Roosevelt and leave it at that. (And does Eleanor truly count as an intellectual?)
As an example of this definition of liberalism, I offer the “liberal Christian", because he illustrates the idea well. (Before continuing, I must point out that I have no interest in taking a pro or con side on Christianity here as my goal is to defend the Western values that make freedom of belief and Christianity possible. I wish to argue in a way to appeal to both atheists and fundamentalist Christians and I don't want even to offend the few actual Christians who label themselves "liberal"). The most minimal definition of Christian that can be taken seriously is a Christian holds that Christianity is the truth and the best belief system. A "liberal Christian" avoids such a claim, because a "Liberal Christian" believes that you can't hold any religion better than any other religion or belief system. I have searched the Bible extensively for the quote where Jesus suggests that it doesn't matter what believe and have someway failed to find it.
To be a Christian, a Christian should be willing to say that Christianity is a force for good, and that it is possible for a non-Christian religion—which is, by definition, a false religion--to be a force for evil. "Liberal Christians" explicitly deny that an religion or belief system can be force for evil. (Of course, there is a slight contradiction in “liberal Christian” beliefs as Nazism in Germany and Republicanism in America are recognized as evil, but the "liberal Christian" seeks to avoid thinking and so such contradictions are inevitable.) Now, I am not saying that a Christian is required to hold that all other religions and non-religious beliefs systems to be evil. Most Christians do hold some other religions and non-religious belief systems are almost as excellent as Christianity. Christians are on the whole a tolerant people. (I know many Christians who think of themselves as fundamentalist believe everyone not saved is going to hell, but they are probably a minority among even fundamentalists.) On the other hand, “Liberal Christians” aren't so much tolerant as thoughtless. They deliberately misinterpret, “Judge not, that ye be not judged” into the greatest commandment that no one is allowed an opinion beyond the opinion that Republicans are evil. Because Liberal Christianity is an anti-intellectual view, it forbids us from talking about how to best improve the world or what threats we face, beyond a few environmental ones which they admittedly address more honestly than the right. I attribute their ability to deal more honestly with environmental threats to the large number of College professors who are both "liberals" and deeply knowable about science. (The world is a complex place and it is hard to completely demonize any group.)
Of course, there are also "liberal Buddhists", "liberal Muslims", "liberal Hindus", "liberal atheists", and so forth. Where all the forms of “liberalism” go wrong is their frivolousness towards leads them to ignore that ideas have consequences and some beliefs have evil consequences. For instance, Marxism, the champion evil belief system of the twentieth century, had many evil consequences and none good that I am aware of, though “liberals” overlook Marxism's evil because of some insane notion of power in relationships that is irrelevant to the current conversation. As I previously alluded to, “liberals” are willing to admit that Nazism in Germany and Republicanism Party in America are evil, but those are exception sfrom minds that don't care about contradiction. We should also defer to some other occasion discussion of the ridiculousness of the “liberals” considering the Republican Party to be one of the two avatars of evil in the twentieth century. The problem we face in the twenty-first century is that one major religion is pervasively evil and it could damage the human spirit for centuries in ways that Marxism didn't even come close.
The major religion I hold to be that evil is Islam. I will provide reasons.
