Food for thought — and an open thread
Bookworm on Jul 12 2009 at 9:46 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
Yesterday was the huge county swim meet that closes out the season. At the end of the day, my daughter pointed out that, according to her admittedly informal information gathering, one of the lanes in which she swam had better outcomes than did the other lanes. “I think it was the timer there. He was so nice and cheerful. The other timers are really grim. People in his lane dove in happy.” She may be on to something.
We’re heading off, so I’ll be in touch much later in the day, if at all. Enjoy this open thread.
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17 Responses to “Food for thought — and an open thread”
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The power of positive thinking! Very astute observation by your daughter.
One of the reasons why the left is so furious at Sarah Palin. She’s just so doggone cheerful!
The left is never cheerful. Their emotions start at sullen, move to anger and peak at rage.
I used to work at a trade magazine where the ad manager was a fire-breathing leftist. The rest of us, including some pretty liberal people, developed a shorthand for describing her mood of the day:
—hemi-demi-semi snit = grumpy, but civil
—hemi-demi snit = glowering, grumpy and barely civil
—hemi snit = uncivil, angry and loud
—snit = ragingly livid, abusive, explosive, shrilly bitchy and uncouth (usually if somebody defended Reagan or advocated closing down gay bath houses to prevent the spread of AIDS. Also if somebody asked her sweetly to STFU and get some work done.)
People will only work hard for something they believe in. For almost all of humanity, this tends to be something positive.
Even for the “death loving” jihadis it is paradise of one sort or another. That’s positive. They ain’t killing themselves or us for the privilege of suffering eternal damnation and torture (my creative brand of torture even), you know.
People kill, fight, and die for what they perceive to be good things. Something worth it. Something positive enough, worthwhile enough, for the cost.
And this belief is reinforced when others believe the same things.
You really can’t recruit jihadis when they are surrounded by people like me. In their birthdays, their weddings, their communities, their neighborhoods. What are they going to do when we start objecting to their terrorist ways? Yeah, they could kill me, burn my house, and behead my loved ones. But the first thing I’d do would be to pop out their right eye orb, get me some of that cornea. And assuming that’s the least I get done in the fight, there will still be dozens of people like me that are still surrounding the jihadis. Terrorist kills me, fine, but how many eyes is he gonna have? By the time we’re done, he’d be lucky to be a paraplegic that’s awaiting sex change operations.
No, you need like minded people to fuel a movement. People will get help in their beliefs if they get encouragement, support, etc. Being in a constant drive to survive is, contrary to popular opinion, not something terrorists want. They want conformity.
Google Patricia Hearst and analyze the torture techniques used on her in the 2 months the Leftist true believers kept her. Did they introduce “diverse points of view” to break her down? No…
It’s always consistent philosophy, repeatable ideological points, and endless propaganda that shapes people’s beliefs and behavior. This can be good or bad, as we have already seen. Stay in a Jim Jones cult for too long and I can’t guarantee what you will be doing.
Stay in the US military for too long and you may start becoming truly bizarre, to civilians at least.
One of the weak points of any religion or ideology is when the person starts questioning their faith, that is when they have doubts and when they can be converted or turned against their former beliefs.
But I believe in military necessity, not just in philosophical points of view. And military necessity requires one to see things from the enemy’s point of view in order to better annihilate the enemy’s point of view.
Most fanatics are single point of view holders. They can only hold a single point of view at a time. They are either unwilling (through denial, self-deception, and doublethink) to consider other people’s views as being valid in their eyes or they are incapable of such.
To be able to analyze your own side’s philosophy as well as objectively and subjectively (to see it from the enemy’s point of view) the other side’s philosophy, requires the opposite of fanaticism. It doesn’t require fervor. It requires flexibility. Fanatics, by definition, cannot be flexible. That might violate their faith, so to speak. And a fanatic that believes in maximum flexibility is a bit of an oxymoron.
True believers are just that, they believe, they truly believe. Now this may be because they are fanatics, true, or it may be because they converted to this belief because they saw the horrors and evil of their former beliefs. Either way, whatever motivates the true believer, it is strong.
The fervor of a zealot, the fire and damnation of a fanatical prophet (like Mohammed), is also strong. But its strength is less like steel (flexible and bendable to a point) and more like cast iron (brittle).
The problem with being flexible is that it also opens the way to temptation, to corruption. If you are able to see things so clearly from both the enemy’s point of view as well as your own, this necessarily means that you empathize with the enemy. This can be dangerous at times, whether because the enemy doesn’t care or your own side cares all too much about where your sympathies lie. This is not necessarily a good thing, meaning to empathize. I’m not a Leftist or a Democrat useful idiot repeating their propaganda about diversity and social harmony (after the race and class wars get rid of the undesirables, that is). Serial killers empathize with their victims. That’s why they enjoy killing humans, and don’t just pick on animals. Cause they know exactly what the fear is like for a human. Sure, they start on animals, but they get dissatisfied soon. They want more. They want more emotions. They get a positive feedback from their victim’s reactions, body language, speech, etc.
Thus the problem with being too flexible isn’t that you empathize with the enemy. It is that you may start thinking that it is better to be on their side, rather than your own side.
That is always the danger of a sentient weapon, that it may suddenly decide it will turn on you. So why do we continue to seek individual initiative in our armed forces? Why don’t we advocate, like the Left, that the best killer/soldier is a myrmidon with no conscience, no free will, and only able to follow orders to the letter? Because a sentient weapon is more powerful than a non-sentient weapon. It’s why computers don’t control the launches for our ICBMs. Their loyalty can be re-programmed more easily and secretly than human leverages can be applied and their decision making ability is still poorer than a human’s.
Of course, the real problem for kings and emperors with a weapon that can think for itself was always this. You would have to actually convince such a person that your cause was just. That your side was right, at least enough to deserve the services of the weapon. Because the weapon gets to decide whether it’ll fight or not.
And thus that’s why armies of volunteer citizens from a republic often were able to rout the slave dog soldiers of an Empire like Persia. The ability to fight, the morale component, is naturally superior for those that sought of their free will the battle rather than those that were coerced into the fight, those that fight only from fear of what they will lose.
And that’s (one reason) why the Left hates the military. The idea that the US Marines, to use one example, could make their own decisions means that when it is time to pull a Chavez or Zeppy, that the military may not obey like the mindless dogs and myrmidons that the Left paints them as.
The best military strategists are those that have fought for both sides, because they know the strengths of both and the weaknesses of both. Not because he ‘read it in a book’. Not because he was told the Truth by Paul Krugman and the “smart power” of Obama. No, because he risked his life on his decisions, his analysis of the enemy and of his allies. The fact that he still survives, is proof of a couple of things.
This doesn’t apply to everyone that changes sides. The soldier that changed sides because one army paid better than the other one, is a changer. But his change is meaningless in war.
A defector like Yuri Bezmenov, who was a KGB operator that escaped and defected to the US, is another example. He saw first hand the horrors and actual plans of the KGB in India. He decided what was what. And some may never have wanted to leave their nation, whether it was Russia or another country. But totalitarian nations like Russia eventually make it so that these people with sympathies for justice MUST defect. Because the Soviet Union could not tolerate their existence and would eventually seek to extinguish it.
Link
Listen to him again and ask yourself why your political ‘leaders’ never said a word about him or those like him when they attacked the Democrats. Listen to what he predicts for America, and ask yourself why the media and the history books and the ‘intellectuals’ never mention any such thing.
America was warned decades ago. Continuously. People went to sleep on their golden pillows, instead.
The people who kept talking about how Bush wouldn’t name our “true enemy”, which is extreme Islam, need to look at the ground on their feet and realize how many decades they have ignored the domestic enemies of the United States Constitution.
The mighty US military couldn’t beat Al Qaeda without the help of Arabs and Sunnis. What makes anyone think that we can beat the Left without the help of former socialists? I’ll tell you who. Sarah Palin has done us all the favor of exposing certain individuals in the Republican party that would rather maintain their hold on power by helping the Left’s ascendancy, than to expose the true nature of the Democrat party.
Popular culture right now makes fun of the “Red Scare” as fear mongering. Heck, I thought it was a little bit hysterical at times. But that’s cause I read history from an approved US history textbook.
America will have nobody but themselves to blame come the end. Cause the Soviet Union ain’t around anymore. But their weapons are still around. Their mines, their poisons, their boobytraps.
The reason why people tend to see Republicans and Democrats as the same thing is not because there isn’t a real difference. It is cause there has been infiltration. And the solution to infiltration is the purge. This is not about political purity. This is about strategic variables. And war don’t care what you like or don’t like. Your chain of command riddled with enemy spies and saboteurs is not going to win any damn war. But people complain about “Republican purity” any ways, as if it was a bad thing. As if this was about politics and political diversity vs homogeneous agreement. The Democrat party is not about politics. It is about power. There is a difference there.
Speaking of empathizing with the enemy, check out this very good example of the phenomenon.
Link
MJT: You have talked to Hamas people. Should the Israelis or Americans talk to them?
Goldberg: I don’t know what they’d get out of it.
MJT: What did you get out of it when you did it?
Goldberg: A first-hand understanding of how they think. People in the United States find it hard to understand how people in Hamas and Hezbollah think. It’s alien. It’s alien to us. The feverish racism and conspiracy mongering, the obscurantism, the apocalyptic thinking – we can’t relate to that. Every so often, there’s an eruption of that in a place like Waco, Texas, but we’re not talking about 90 people in a compound. We’re talking about whole societies that are captive to this kind of absurdity.
So it’s very important – and you know this better than almost anyone – to go over there yourself and tape it, get it down on paper, and say “this is what they actually say.”
[[God Bless Hitler.jpg]]
MJT: It’s shocking to hear.
Goldberg: Of course it’s shocking to hear.
MJT: Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if they really even believe it or if they’re just saying it.
Goldberg: I was in Afghanistan in 1998, a week after the first fatwa to “kill all the Jews and Crusaders” came out. I was with a bunch of Americans. They were making light of it because it seemed so ridiculous. They were making light of it, I suppose, partly as a psychological mechanism to allow us to continue staying in Afghanistan.
MJT: (Laughs.) Yeah.
Goldberg: People also made fun of it because it seemed so ridiculous. But it’s not ridiculous. Just because a belief sounds ridiculous to you doesn’t mean it’s not sincerely held.
MJT: Yeah. I know it.
Goldberg: So I think it’s best to err on the side of taking people at their word. That doesn’t mean you can’t analyze it and break it down on the politics, break it down on the psychology, and break it down on the religion. But take them at their word. I believe Hamas when it says it wants to eradicate Israel. Why shouldn’t I believe them?
MJT: They act as though they’re serious.
Goldberg: Yeah. I understand their world view. I obviously don’t accept it, but I understand it. In their world view, this makes perfect sense. So, why not?
Palestinians, over the years, have proven that they’re willing to sacrifice generations of people to achieve their goal of a Jewish-free Palestine.
There is always hope.
Palin to Campaign For Democrats
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/12/palin-will-campaign-for-d_n_230226.html
LOL
Be careful what you hope for, Helen. Supposing Palin were to campaign for ultra-leftists like Nancy Pelosi or Barney Wectum? How would you peace-love diversity types treat her then? Make her prove her change of heart by demanding she euthanize Trig?
Helen,
Are you laughing because you think she put one over on conservatives or because it’s preposterous that any Democrat would want her to campaign for them?
I think there might even be some Democrats that don’t think the country is headed in the right direction.
Here’s a question that I was asking last year. It didn’t get much consideration by the MSM.
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/3664
Anybody wonder why oil prices started rising recently even when the US economy was still retracting?
We need a grown-up energy policy in this country more than ever. Rome is burning. We’re fiddling.
As Joe Lieberman proved, any Democrat that gets too big for their britches is going to get excommunicated from the church. The same one Helen is also apart of.
Whoever Sarah Palin ends up helping get elected, won’t be a Democrat for long, Helen. Because people like you will be given orders to shun them, at the cost of your soul. And who wouldn’t you sacrifice for your soul, Helen.
Rome is burning. We’re fiddling.
That’s cause Nero, the guy said to be fiddling, was the one that ordered the fires set.
He needed a catastrophe to buy up the property for himself.
Obama could learn a thing or two from that manufactured crisis.
For those not following the Honduras situation, here is a blog from an American expatrate living there. Good information both about the political situation and Honduras in general.
http://lagringasblogicito.blogspot.com/
Helen L #6:
There is always hope.
Palin to Campaign For Democrats
huffingtonpost: 2009/07/12/palin-will-campaign-for-d_n_230226.html
LOL
Well… What to say? This *is* an open thread, after all!
In trying to divine why Helen is LOL’ing herself into silliness, I thought she must have read something at that link that gave her hope. So I read it, too. And I found that Ms. Palin *would* in fact campaign for democrats.
Or, as she put it:
even Democrats who share her views on limited government, national defense and energy independence _ and build a right-of-center coalition.
I believe this means that Helen wants:
- limited government
- a strong national defense
- energy independence, to include coal, nuclear, oil, and natural gas
- the emergence of a right-of-center coalition
Welcome Home, Helen! Indeed, there is, always, Hope.
BrianE…”We need a grown-up energy policy in this country more than ever.”
Instead, we have a Speaker of the House who believes that natural gas is not a fossil fuel.
Or, did you mean to say that we have an unnatural fossil of a Speaker of the House who emits natural gas? Never mind…
Nice one danny. The PillowCs. Our natural renewable resource of greed and corruption.
That’ll power hope and change in this country.
Yeah well, it looks like the Obama gas tank blew up due to too much ethanol starving children. After 2 years of “waiting”, I think the Left has some explaining to do.