Teejay,
Gandhi and King had good ideas and I will never demean the non-violent stand they took in the face of genuine, unmitigated evil. I just couldn't do it myself. One of my main personal philosophies is: pick your weapons wisely. Not any tool will work all the time in every situation. When you're in the jungle, don't be stupid and try to sit and reason intelligently with the cute little animals with the strong teeth and sharp claws. You better be f**ckin' on guard. You better be willing to talk to them in a language they understand. There are some human beings walking around that I equate to unreasoning animals, and I'm not trying to "understand" them, either.
I agree that it is best to choose tools best suited to the task at hand. A weapon is not my first choice as a tool. “Unreasoning animals” with strong teeth and sharp claws can also be outsmarted, trapped, and caged. Then perhaps they can be studied to find out when they attack and why.
Very good... most excellent! We agree. With this definition in mind, and knowing that you are no "arbiter" of anything (we're just talking here, right?) what is bin Laden? Terrorist or vigilante?
Only Osama bin Laden knows his true intent. I see him as a mixture of both terrorist and vigilante. He is trying to intimidate and coerce with fear to accomplish his aims. He also sees himself as meting out justice by returning evil for evil. What makes him especially dangerous is his fanaticism. While he has some valid complaints, many of them are exaggerated. He falls prey to the cognitive error of mind-reading, claiming to know why the U.S. does this or that, claiming that some U.S. actions are evidence of a conspiracy to help Israel conquer the Arabian peninsula for “Greater Israel.” He also thinks in black and white—all who do not believe as he does are infidels; believers like him are righteous and backed by Allah.
"Just" is a big word and can mean many things?right, fair, righteous, upright, deserved, merited, lawful, proper, fitting.Never even assumed that you were an "arbiter of justice." I was just asking your opinion. I will take your definition of 'just' as an answer, but please know that I own several good dictionaries and could've looked it up if I'd wanted the answer you gave.
I understand that you have access to dictionaries; I wanted to clarify the term "justified." In my mind, your meaning was hazy. Did you mean, "Did the father have a good reason to react as he did?" or "Did the father do what was morally right?"
While I can understand why the father reacted as he did and feel he had good cause to be upset, I do not think his behavior was morally right.
Well, in my scenario, the innocents were only innocent of my daughter's rape. Considering that birds of a feather flock together, I would feel comfortable assuming that they were probably guilty of other, equally heinous crimes... just hadn't got caught yet. Trust me... I'd sleep peacefully. I'd consider my act a genuine public service, but revenge/justice would be my primary motivation.
So, do you judge people collectively? If I am a friend of Kent's, and he commits an act you consider heinous, am I deserving of equal punishment? If Bigboi or Dannybear commit crimes, should I judge you guilty by association?
When I asked if there were other people in the house who had nothing to do with the raping, I imagined a housekeeper and a cook. Would your feelings be different if these were the innocent people who were killed along with the guilty?
I was working on your premise that someone should be big enough to say, "hey, this is enough." It's my position that the 'someone' to reach that point would be those who suffered the loss of their criminal family members/friends who died in the building.
When I said that somewhere, somehow, someone has to be big enough to say, "This is enough," the "this" I had in mind was the cycle of vengeance and revenge. If I understand you correctly, you propose to control violent crime by punishing the guilty with equal or greater violence. I can't help but think of the Hatfields and McCoys. I also think about the cycle of vengeance started by the rape of Dinah in Genesis and by the rape the concubine in Judges 19-21. From what I have observed, violence begets violence. Your comment also reminds me of the Old Testament god who says, “"I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.”
When you are considering what is just in such a case, I think it is important not only to consider, "What would I do if my daugher were raped?" but also, "What would I want to happen if my daughter raped someone?"
Anger doesn't work all the time in every situation. Only a psychotic sociopath acts on their anger all the time. Most people use many anger management techniques everyday. Going with the feeling *is* the right thing to do sometimes, though.
Have you read Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence? Anger originates in the amygdala, a small structure in the limbic region of the brain. The amygdala plays the role of sentry and reacts very quickly to perceived signs of trouble and charges into action without regard for the consequences. Goleman calls this an emotional hijacking, because it occurs so fast that the thinking brain has no opportunity to grasp what is occurring and decide on the best course of action. Emotional hijackings produce astonishing feats of bravery, hideous acts of violence, and everything in between.
If I have the luxury, I prefer not to act in the initial flush of anger while my reason is hijacked.
An appropriate read, in light of the events. I wish those in charge were more interested in the subject. Care to share any insights you've gained that may shed light on the reason behind recent events?
I think Richard Dawkins is correct when he pinpoints Abrahamic religion as the cause:
Religion is also, of course, the underlying source of the divisiveness in the Middle East which motivated the use of this deadly weapon in the first place. But that is another story and not my concern here. My concern here is with the weapon itself. To fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used.See http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=12072&site=3#144819
The Crusades began when the Seljuq Turks took Jerusalem from the Fatimids in 1070. Christian pilgrims brought home tales of oppression and desecration. While there were also political and commercial concerns, the primary motivation was religious.
Pope Urban was savvy in knowing that nothing unites like a common enemy. Will Durant says:
Probably he [Urban] longed to channel the disorderly pugnacity of feudal barons and Norman buccaneers into a holy war to save Europe and Byzantium from Islam; he dreamed of bringing the Eastern Church again under papal rule, and visioned a mighty Christendom united under the theocracy of the popes, with Rome once more the capital of the world.
This sounds very similar to Osama bin Laden’s wish to bring the world under the righteous rule of Islam:
It all goes to say that Muslims should cooperate with one another and should be supportive of one another, and they should promote righteousness and mercy. They should all unite in the fight against polytheism and they should pool all their resources and their energy to fight the Americans and the Zionists and those with them. They should, however, avoid side fronts and rise over the small problems for these are less detrimental. Their fight should be directed against unbelief and unbelievers. ...
Here are parts of a speech given by Pope Urban at Clermont in Auvergne in November 1095. I find it interesting to compare his statements with those of bin Laden from the John Miller interview in 1998:
Urban:
O race of Franks! Race beloved and chosen by God! . . . From the confines of Jerusalem and from Constantinople a grievous report has gone forth that an accursed race, wholly alienated from God, has violently invaded the lands of these Christians, and has depopulated them by pillage and fire. They have led away a part of the captives into their own country, and a part they have killed by cruel tortures. They destroy the altars, after having defiled them with their uncleanliness. . . .On whom, then, rests the labor of avenging these wrongs, and of recovering the territory, if not upon you—you upon whom, above all others, God has conferred remarkable glory in arms, great bravery, and strength to humble the heads of those who resist you? . . . Let the Holy Sepulcher of Our Lord and Saviour, now held by unclean nations, arouse you, and the holy places that are now stained with pollution . . .
Let hatred, therefore, depart from among you; let your quarrels end. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulcher; wrest the land from a wicked race, and subject it to yourselves. . . . Undertake this journey eagerly for the remission of your sins, and be assured of the reward of imperishable glory in the Kingdom of Heaven.
I find it ironic that Urban wants hatred to depart "from among you," only to be focused on an "enemy of God." Once again I think of Sam Keen's "To Create an Enemy."
bin Laden:
The call to wage war against America was made because America has spear-headed the crusade against the Islamic nation, sending tens of thousands of its troops to the land of the two Holy Mosques over and above its meddling in its affairs and its politics, and its support of the oppressive, corrupt and tyrannical regime that is in control. . . . They rip us of our wealth and of our resources and of our oil. Our religion is under attack. They kill and murder our brothers. They compromise our honor and our dignity and dare we utter a single word of protest against the injustice, we are called terrorists. This is compounded injustice. . . .
Terrorizing those and punishing them are necessary measures to straighten things and to make them right. Tyrants and oppressors who subject the Arab nation to aggression ought to be punished. . . . ... Allah has granted the Muslim people and the Afghani mujahedeen, and those with them, the opportunity to fight the Russians and the Soviet Union. ... They were defeated by Allah and were wiped out. . . . We are certain that we shall - with the grace of Allah - prevail over the Americans and over the Jews, as the Messenger of Allah promised us in an authentic prophetic tradition when He said the Hour of Resurrection shall not come before Muslims fight Jews and before Jews hide behind trees and behind rocks. . . . We are a nation whose sacred symbols have been looted and whose wealth and resources have been plundered. It is normal for us to react against the forces that invade our land and occupy it. . . .I am one of the servants of Allah. We do our duty of fighting for the sake of the religion of Allah. It is also our duty to send a call to all the people of the world to enjoy this great light and to embrace Islam and experience the happiness in Islam. Our primary mission is nothing but the furthering of this religion. ... Let not the West be taken in by those who say that Muslims choose nothing but slaughtering. Their brothers in East Europe, in Turkey and in Albania have been guided by Allah to submit to Islam and to experience the bliss of Islam.
In reading about the Crusades, I wanted to know what ended them. I posted this in Wasasister’s “Rabbi’s Rosh Hoshanah Sermon” thread:
The Crusades spanned two centuries. They began to collapse after defeat in the Third Crusade and a scandal in the Fourth. Thinkers were hard-pressed to explain why God had allowed the defeat of His defenders in so holy a cause, and had granted success to Venetian plunderers. More questions were raised when Frederick II, who had been excommunicated because of delay in joining The Crusades, signed a treaty with al-Kamil in which al-Kamil ceded Acre, Jaffa, Sidon, Nazareth, Bethlehem, and all of Jerusalem except the Dome of the Rock. Christians in Palestine had shunned Frederick as an outlaw from the Church, yet he succeeded where "holier" men had failed.From http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=12302&site=3#147472
Understanding seemed to win the day:
Al-Kamil replied courteously; and the Sultan’s ambassador, Fakhru’d Din, was impressed by Frederick’s knowledge of the Arabic language, literature, science, and philosophy. The two rulers entered into a friendly exchange of compliments and ideas; and to the astonishment of both Christendom and Islam they signed a treaty (1229) . . .
Now the tables are turned, and radical Islam is beginning a crusade against Christianity and Judaism. If history repeats itself, I predict that the crusades will be ended when a leader from the radical Islamic world emerges who understands the language, literature, science, and philosophy of the Western world and calls into question the image of the West as a barbaric infidel enemy.
The statement "people who resort to violence" in your statement above is a little too broad, imo. Not all violent people are the same; said another way, not all acts of violence can be characterized equally. For example, I've read accounts of special forces during wartime. When the situation called for it, they were very violent, but the violence stemmed from introspection, a clear understanding of the task at hand and what they needed to do. Rather than denying those impulses, they recognized them and tapped into the energy those impulses were able to provide.
Perhaps I should have phrased my statement more carefully. I see a difference between people who choose violence first and those who use it as a last resort. I also believe that intent makes a difference. Much as it grieves me to admit it, there are times when killing is necessary. Perhaps it makes no difference to anyone else, but I think it is much better to kill with compassion.
Rather than make the general statement that violence is a primitive language, I believe that at times it is the absolute proper language, it being the perfect channel of communication at specific times. Then, too, what may appear to be violence isn't violence at all. It depends on the viewer's perspective. I hate to presume, but I think you know that anger and shame are but two of the many sources of violence.
Is violence a perfect channel of communication at specific times? I would need to give this careful thought. How do you define violence? It would also help me to understand if you gave specific examples of cases in which you think a violent response is the best response.
Certain parts of it I agree with. I like the harem part. And the Next of Kin provision when a family member has been murdered. Yeah, you could say that I'm at home with stuff like that.
I’m a bit surprised. I thought the futility of eye-for-eye retribution was apparent to most people these days. Obviously, I’m wrong.
Many look at it that way. I happen to think there's more than one possible scenario. Perhaps it's the man who has acted in behalf of his daughter (or mother, to be more specific) who has been raped repeatedly.
Bin Laden and his followers apparently perceive it that way. Some of their perceptions are valid; others are not. For example, I do not think U.S. presence on Saudi soil was intended as an act of rape.
Still, the problem remains. Assume he’s right. The U.S. raped the Islamic world. The Islamic world raped the U.S. What’s next?
Ginny
