Stereotypes versus political correctness
Bookworm on May 31 2011 at 10:33 am | Filed under: Arabs, Muslim violence
My husband and I discussed the concept of stereotypes with the kids. What we were trying to get through to them is that it’s wrong to take ideas about a group, even if those ideas are complimentary or accurate, and to assume that they apply to an individual. The mere fact that Jews tend to have higher IQs doesn’t automatically mean that Joe Schmostein is smart. On the other side of the balance, merely because blondes are the butt of myriad dumb blonde jokes still means it’s a huge mistake to assume that a given blonde is dumb. (And, Z, because you’re very literal, let me say here that I realize that dumb blonde jokes are just that — jokes — but they’re still a useful rhetorical tool for discussing stereotyping.)
What both my husband and my children had a problem with was that, while it’s wrong to apply stereotypes to individuals, and while it’s wrong to perpetuate lies about an entire group to satisfy ones biases (e.g., those dumb blondes), that doesn’t make it at all invalid to look at group behavior and draw conclusions about the group. If the numbers show that Chinese people consume more rice more capita than other people (I’m guessing here, but it sounds reasonable), the existence of this data means that this statement isn’t a stereotype, it’s a fact. That fact’s existence doesn’t mean that any individual Chinese person should be assumed to like rice (ask first before serving), but it does mean that there is an operating truism about the group.
Mr. Bookworm’s confusion about stereotypes versus factual data about a defined group became apparent when the conversation in the car turned to war atrocities (my children are at the ghoulish phase), and my son raised the subject of genital mutilation. In a previous ghoulish conversation, I’d told him that the Japanese, during the Rape of Nanking, subjected women to genital mutilation as part of their torture and murder. I then mentioned that Arabs are well-known for castrating their enemies.
My husband was outraged: “That’s a stereotype!” “No,” I said, “in terms of the cultural norms of warfare, that’s a fact. I’m not saying that all Arabs slice off their enemies’ penises. I’m just saying that it is a typical and traditional Arab approach to war.” He subsided, unconvinced.
I doubt even this horrific story will cut through his PC, multi-culti world view to convince him:
Devotedly washed and sprinkled with rose petals, Hamza Ali al-Khateeb lies prepared for burial.
But the rituals of death cannot wipe away the horrific injuries that have mutilated his body almost beyond recognition.
Nor do they blot out that Hamza – riddled with bullets, kneecapped and with neck broken and penis hacked off – has the rounded cheeks and gentle face of a child.
[snip]
The teenager’s family were told not to speak of his terrible fate. But in a pitiful act of defiance, they posted the footage of his corpse online.
[snip]
An unseen attendant tenderly shifts the scarred limbs and head so that the viewer can see each injury, including two bullets which were fired through each arm and then entered his chest.
‘Look at the evidence of his torture,’ the narrator urges. ‘Take a look at the bruises on his face and his neck that was broken. Take a look at the bruises on his right legs
‘In addition there is worse. They did not satisfy themselves with all the torturing so they cut off his genitals.’
Savage cultures do savage things, and all the multi-culti pieties in the world won’t erase the fact that the savage Muslim/Arab culture is committed to male genital attacks as a sign of power.
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So I can get a normal distribution of Ashkenazi Jews’ IQ scores (those are the ones that are above normal, not the Sephardic Jews, by the way), and I can gather aggregate averages of rice consumption in China versus other countries. However, where do I obtain data on the frequency of genital castration by Arabs versus other groups, like the Japanese, in order to make intelligent comparisons?
Also, I select markets in which to sell food, so group-level analysis matters if I want to decide where and how much to invest in rice distribution assets in China versus India versus Mexico. But when does it make sense to make group level decisions for stuff related to individuals. I will select the more talented Mexican doctor over the Jewish one, even if Ashkenazi’s on average score higher on the IQ test than Mexicans. Now, perhaps we should protect our soldiers with iron cups in a war against Arabs, but not in a war against Germans, but beyond that, how does the group-level difference matter? And what data, beyond a single story, allows you to construct your distribution curve?? And if the observation at the group level about Arabs is not useful, then why are you raising it?
Don’t drag comparisons in, abc. I wasn’t saying that the Arabs are the only ones who castrate their enemies, or the most likely to castrate their enemies, when compared to other cultures. I merely said that they are well-known for doing so, and that’s a fact.
Let me just say that, while I appreciate your initiative in dredging up all sorts of stupid and irrelevant facts, you haven’t at all addressed my main point, which is that it is not stereotyping to observe group behavior accurately.
To my readers: please don’t let abc lead you down the primrose path. Feel free to debate him, but stick to the points I raised in my post. If I’m right and he’s wrong, explain why. If he’s right and I’m wrong, explain why. But don’t start challenging the individual factoids and statistics, none of which have to do with my thesis.
Don’t worry Book, I got something in reply.
The mere fact that Jews tend to have higher IQs doesn’t automatically mean that Joe Schmostein is smart.
I would say that it doesn’t even mean that smart is good. Being brave and risk taking also involves a lot of stupidity or what is known as dumbness. Not knowing a trap is there and falling into it can be judged ignorant or foolish. Knowing a trap is there and going there anyways, can be judged brave but also dumb. Thus dumbness often goes with not thinking and not thinking often goes with DOING risky things. Whether those risky things are good or bad, depends. But it just means courage and intelligence, are simply inherent characteristics of humans and there will never be a human with all virtues and no vices.
The Japanese have stereotypes but I have often found, from their sub-culture otaku media, that they often take people on an individual value. Evil villains, rich girls with pamphered lifestyles, drop outs from school, violent gang members, corporate executive sharks, none of it really matters to them compared to the individual qualities in front of them. There is class competition, but no individual envy, jealousy, or hostility simply because of the “group” a person belongs to. And that’s how it should be, in my view, even though the world disagrees by being otherwise. There is less class warfare as we see in the US. That would make sense, as Japan’s social harmony would not be what it was if it was invested in social instability like we are.
When Mr. Book-kun starts talking “it’s a stereotype” what he means is that “I’m not going to believe it about their individuals even though this is the norm for the culture”. The intention behind such, however, is a bit different as it involves the refusal to judge and be found wanting. He’s not judging individuals, he’s refusing to believe what is true. And that’s the same as false stereotypes that don’t apply to individuals. What matters is the truth. It doesn’t matter if this is derived from individual or group classifications.
Book: “I merely said that they are well-known for doing so, and that’s a fact.”
What is a fact? That there is a perception about them? If so, then where is the evidence? Or is the fact that the perception is true? If so, what is the evidence? Proving the former proves the existence of a stereotype, while the latter would reveal some underlying truth, like Chinese eat more rice or Ashkenazi’s have on-average higher IQs.
I am not dragging comparisons in. I am trying to understand how the statement about Arabs is true and, if so, useful. The facts that I raised were not “stupid” or “useless” in highlighting this key question.
Book: “you haven’t at all addressed my main point, which is that it is not stereotyping to observe group behavior accurately…”
How do I know that your observation that Arabs are more likely than average to castrate their enemies? You ASSUME it is accurate, but you have hardly proven it. I think I am sticking to the narrow focus of your argument and am certainly not trying to distract. But you cannot assert as fact something that you have not really established and then call my post “stupid” or “useless” for pointing it out. That would be bullying, and you are not a bully. Quite the contrary, you’ve been very patient with non-aligned-ideologically visitors, such as myself.
In short, it is not PC false beliefs that cause me to doubt you. It is your lack of evidence…beyond one single story, which we both can agree should not be enough to define an entire population.
I’m suspicious of words like ‘stereotype’ and ‘cliche.’ I find that most of the things we regard as being either of the two only attained such regard because they are, in fact, true. It’s a cliche to say the sun rises in the east, of course. But – it only became a cliche because the sun does in fact rise in the east. The ‘cliche’ part is that everybody knows it, it’s a given, so need not be pointed out. Stereotype may be a touch more slippery, but the same pretty much applies. ‘Drunken Irishman’ is a stereotype – but my grandfather was in fact a drunk. My grandfather does not constitute a sufficiently sizable group about which a generalization may be drawn – but he pretty neatly fit right in to one. (He was both a stereotype and a cliche – a two-fer!) But stereotypes only got to be stereotypical because they were,like cliches, to a greater or lesser extent, typical. Expressive of a truth. Somewhere in there there is, or was, a truth.
And I do not question, btw, that Arabs engage in castration more than anyone else. They are indeed well-known for doing so – which constitutes a budding stereotype – and in this day and age, does anyone else? It takes a seventh-century mind. They also indulge in chopping off heads – and they’re so proud of that they film it, and put it on TV. The headsman’s axe (or sword, if you’re Anne Boleyn or Daniel Pearl) is a tool that has mostly lost favor – to the point of vanishing – among other peoples. It is not wrong to consider it a cliche about this specific population, nor is it too far off-base to regard it as an old – and, apparently, on the way to revival, stereotype.
The Japanese, for example, believe Americans are arrogant in their self-proclamation of being the world’s police and justice enforcers. Given the conduct of Obama and Leftist wannabe slave masters, that’s not too far off the bullseye.
“Quite the contrary, you’ve been very patient with non-aligned-ideologically visitors, such as myself.”
Ay yi yi yi yi! A man who drips condescension toward conservatives and believers, who dismisses the atrocities of totalitarian states like China and Nazi Germany with a wink, is “non-aligned” ideologically.
Book, if you believe that (which I know you wouldn’t in a millon years), there’s a bridge between Marin and San Francisco I’d love to sell you.
jj, we might want to define our terms. Stereotype means that you apply the commonly held belief about a group to an individual in a group. The stereotype can be false for two reasons: 1) the stereotype is correct (e.g., Ashkenazi Jews on average score higher on an IQ test) but it doesn’t apply to the person in question (e.g., an Ashkenazi Jew with below-average intelligence); or 2) the stereotype is false (e.g., most Italians are in the mafia), which is then wrongly applied to even the average person in the group.
I believe that Bookworm’s comment about Arabs falls into #2. I am waiting for information that it doesn’t. Her story, and your opinion about not doubting her comment, do not constitute the kind of information that I am after. Perhaps someone will supply the required data to make intelligent statements about a group, which usually entail some sort of distribution, like a bell curve. Or at least a multiplicity of data points to begin to sketch one out.
It’s a very pretty bridge….
I’m breaking my rule and commenting on Martello’s incorrect post…
Non-aligned means non-aligned with Book’s ideology, not unaligned with any ideology. And, for the record, I didn’t dimiss the atrocities of the Nazi’s or the Commies in the PRC; I merely didn’t express my outrage in the terms that you would. One doesn’t need to believe in your God and in your way to feel outrage, afterall.
Now, I’ll resort back to ignoring his misinformation campaign.
I believe abc’s expression of “outrage” is to characterize mass murder as a “tragedy.” As to what a tragedy is, he will never define it because he is extremely uncomfortable navigating waters where he might have to come face to face with his own moral squishiness.
I’ll continue to point out abc’s inconsistencies. His previous responses to me about moral matters were distressingly hostile, irrational spews that I think alerted most readers here to his great, lovingly tended, blind spot. As the Catholics say, when you run into “invincible ignorance,” especially with regard to matters of good and evil, there is nothing you can do. A man who is his own god will never learn to see anything bigger than himself.
I do want to compliment abc on taking the advice of the many better writers and correspondents than he on this site: He is writing in shorter paragraphs and attempting to better control his apparently congenital impulse toward displaying elitist disdain. I applaud him for it. The boy is becoming a man.
My only misgiving is that as a probe by “non-ideologically aligned” Brights designed to test the arguments and resilience of conservative blogs like this, abc may have picked up some tactics that can work against us: civility, concision in writing, and a valiant attempt to hide his permanent sneer.
Now, if we could only get Zach to act like a human. . .
Charles Martel: Now, if we could only get Zach to act like a human. . .
Remember Zach posted on the Coolidge Effect joke? That post was entirely to give us the joke! A crack in the edifice! A tentative first step. Look out below! From such seeds do plants sprout, and next thing you know, the fallow field is fertile, and entirely in bloom.
It’s possible that Zach might feel some frustration with us… Because, having thought a great deal on the issues and made up our minds, we’re awfully resistant towards changing our minds. Ours are not surface-level, shallow opinions; and we don’t change em overnight, or with the direction of the wind. Must be frustrating.
And yeah, we’re human here. We’ll sneer sometimes, we’ll joke when someone would rather we be dreadfully serious, we’ll even gangpile (avoiding the dreaded n-word there). I think Zach sticks around here, not because Zach is on a mission, but because Zach actually… sorta kinda… likes us.
Mike, I agree with your take on Zach. I think he feels comfortable here, as a regular, even though he has yet to make a convert. He reminds me of those guys who carry around signs in every city’s main public square proclaiming the end of the world and backing it up with dozens of scribbled scriptural citations on a cardboard sign.
When you try to talk to them, they kind of look through you. But every once in awhile, there’s a smile or a glimmer of person-to-person humanity. (Yes, that Coolidge joke was a good one.)
As for changing my mind about something, I’m willing to when the person who is trying to persuade me does so without snideness or assuming that his superior intellect automatically entitles him to become my liege. Danny has pointed out—and I have no doubt that almost everybody here has experienced the same thing—that in life you run into many highly intelligent people who are not so smart (Marxists come to mind). The thought that people like that run things is appalling. I suppose that if somebody might overcome our appallment once they prove their fitness to lead us.
Not too likely, eh?
It’s a very pretty bridge….
It’s a troll bridge.
ABC is correct in his assessment of true/false paradigms with regard to stereotypes.
However, stereotypes are useful defense mechanisms in that they allow you to make snap decisions about people (or animals or situations) that dictate your behavior.
So, if I am wandering in the desert and I run across somebody that looks like a Comanche warrior or Jihadi on the warpath, I will stereotype them as somebody to avoid rather than run to them with questions. Ditto for swimming in water where shark fins abound or staying above ground if it looks like a tornado is forming.
As they say, stereotypes don’t grow out of nothing. Sometimes they can save your life.
Mike,
First of all, Bubba, could I send you some vowels? I remember when the Irish were collecting vowels for Yugoslavia. Very generous folks, the Irish, and they did have a lot of vowels lying around that they no longer used. Devx would be so much easier to pronounce, dontcha know?
As to the lack of converts in the direction of the young Mu’ad Dibs, (“The mouse that points the way” Remember?) Yeah, they do seem unable to grasp that we used to believe as they do, did not change to something that we found less valid, and are really unlikely to change back.
The drunken Irish stereotype might be a little mean-spirited, but the high propensity toward alcoholism among Irish and Indians is pretty well known, and we just see it as public health data. Since I am some of each, the majority of my alcohol consumption is limited to between ll:50 and 12:00 on Sunday. My children are also pretty nearly teetotal, not because I was obsessive about it, but because I explained how the odds looked, that the odds had run even more strongly against several family members, and that no one really needs to make a special effort to be dumber than he was born.
As for smart Jews, I know the stats, and they conform to my experience, too. However, Austin of yore was not such a big place, and the Jewish community was even smaller. As a nurse, I have seen most of them naked, a fact I do not hesitate to share, as it relaxes them when I say, “OK, turn over while I give you this suppository.” Being forced into more intimacy than we would have otherwise chosen, we also share a good bit of decades-long gossip, such as “Just how dumb was Morris H.?” The stories about him have had many hospital halls roaring with laughter.. He once lost money betting on the instant replay of a baseball game on the radio. Most of those old folks are gone, so it makes me sort of wistfully happy to remember them. Thanks for calling them to mind.
Just to show you how misleading stereotypes can be: most Jews are smart but most vote Democrat. Oy veh!
What? No blond jokes?
Lawyer meets blond on plane and decides to have some fun.
L: Let’s play a game. I ask you a question and if you can’t answer you give me $5. You then ask me and if I can’t answer I’ll give you $100. First question – who was the last monarch of Lithuania?
B: Frowns. “I don’t know”. Hands him $5. “OK, what’s green and orange, walks on 4 legs and has one horn?”
L: Frowns. Pulls out his phone and calls friends. Tries the internet. “Ya got me, here’s your $100, but I have to know the answer”.
B: “I don’t know” and hands him $5.
p.s.,
Book, I bought the kindle edition. About 3/4 done. I love it.
Danny, as a German SADIE might say, “You can lead a Jew to Vassar, but you can’t make her denk.”
Danny,
Walter Russell Mead has a pretty good answer. He says that civil service is a mainstay of black society. They’re voting their pocketbook.
Roy
Roylofquist: Thanks so much for buying the book. Yay!
And here’s a joke for you:
There’s a magic carpet at the school. If you stand on it and tell a lie, you’ll vanish.
A brunette stands on the carpet and says, “I think I’m the prettiest girl in school.” She vanishes.
A redhead stands on the carpet and says, “I think I’m the most popular girl in school.” She vanishes.
A blonde stands on the carpet and says, “I think….” She vanishes.
They used to drink alcohol instead of water because water was bad for you while alcohol was pure and contained nothing inherently poisonous. It’s just that in the 21st century, the Irish still behave as if water is bad to drink. Which may be true given European infrastructure. I was always warned not to drink European tap water from Navy personnel in the 80s and what not.
Danny,
Whoops. Shouldn’t be posting after cocktail hour.
Two of my wives were Jewish on their father’s side. I did quite a bit of business in NYC with Jews. I’ve been to Mitsvahs (sp?) and attended both Reformed and Conservative services. The Jewish people, very understandably, depend upon group solidarity. Dissension is frowned upon. Everybody votes Democrat because that’s what Jews do. Ideology has very little to do with it.
Roy
Roylofquist: Danny,
Whoops. Shouldn’t be posting after cocktail hour.
Two of my wives were Jewish on their father’s side.
OMG – you’re either Muslim or Mormon!
>>OMG – you’re either Muslim or Mormon!>>
Or _definitely_ shouldn’t be posting after cocktail hour…!
Danny writes:
“ABC is correct in his assessment of true/false paradigms with regard to stereotypes.
However, stereotypes are useful defense mechanisms in that they allow you to make snap decisions about people (or animals or situations) that dictate your behavior.
So, if I am wandering in the desert and I run across somebody that looks like a Comanche warrior or Jihadi on the warpath, I will stereotype them as somebody to avoid rather than run to them with questions. Ditto for swimming in water where shark fins abound or staying above ground if it looks like a tornado is forming.
As they say, stereotypes don’t grow out of nothing. Sometimes they can save your life.”
Right. I agree. Modern psychology basically says that people reject rationality for the irrationality that evolved in nomadic tribes. They prefer group think to independent thinking since, if you see a bunch of people running and you stop to ponder, you were eaten by the bear.
Today we find a derivative of this behavior in quick decisions cabbies make about which riders to pick up at night. Or the funny situation I saw in a recent film… George Clooney’s character in Up In the Air cautions his colleague to follow Asians in an airport security line since they are more likely to have on slip-on shoes. He quips: stereotyping is faster.
But here is the question: what bear or Comanche warrior was Bookworm running from that caused her to employ a false stereotype in the case of Arabs?
Neither. Three grandparents born in Sweden. Somehow an Englishman got into that mix. Grampy Jones was an aide to Blackjack Pershing. He awakened him to inform him of the 1906 quake in SF.
Michael Adams wrote,
Mike, First of all, Bubba, could I send you some vowels? I remember when the Irish were collecting vowels for Yugoslavia. Very generous folks, the Irish, and they did have a lot of vowels lying around that they no longer used. Devx would be so much easier to pronounce, dontcha know?
Yeah, the Yugoslavia vowel crisis was ongoing when Book was forcing me to choose a name. I tried afterwards, again, but there was another vowel crisis surrounding Herzegovina and Montenegro.
To stay off-topic a bit, I was on a project with four Mikes in close proximity. You couldn’t yell or say, “Mike”, so we all got named. At the time devx,com was a somewhat popular web-site, so there ya go. I got tagged.
Fellow developer to me: “Hey Devx! Your latest software bug just brought down the entire South Central electric grid!”
Me, chowing down at my desk: “Man, I’ll get to it in a minute. Why can’t I just eat my waffle?”
ABC” “Today we find a derivative of this behavior in quick decisions cabbies make about which riders to pick up at night”.
I can make a good guess (see, I’m stereotyping you) that you’ve never been a cab driver, ABC. Fact is, such decisions CAN save your life. This kind of stereotyping is a learned behavior.
ABC digs deeper: “But here is the question: what bear or Comanche warrior was Bookworm running from that caused her to employ a false stereotype in the case of Arabs?”
And just what base of experience let’s you make a statement such as this? What is your experience with false stereotypes about the Arabs that would let you make a statement like that? Please share.
Here’s an example of a fine woman who had no stereotypes about Arab behavior on the street. In real life, we refer to this inability to “stereotype” as Darwin’s Law.
http://watching-tv.ew.com/2011/05/01/lara-logan-60-minutes-rape-assault/
Maybe off topic, maybe not.
I just finished the mini-essay in Book’s book that uses, as introduction, her youthful interpretation of “Hogan’s Heroes”. This television series was a take off from the 1953 movie “Stalag 17″. HH portrayed the Germans as bumbling incompetents. S17 is much darker and also way funnier than the TV series. The Germans in the movie are certainly not either lovable or friendly. They are real Nazis – evil.
The same goes for MASH. The movie was cynical and funny. The TV series was smarmy. I don’t know what accounts for the banality of TV series. Perhaps it is impossible to sustain the intensity and quality of dialog of a two hour movie over a long time.
They both reflect stereotypes of their times. The movies were made shortly after we had been in major shooting wars. They tend to make folks a bit tetchy.
Speaking of taxi drivers’ snap decisions, remember what the famous white racist Jesse Jackson once said: ”When I’m walking down a dark street at night and hear footsteps behind me, I find myself hoping that it’s a white person.”
Seriously, why would America’s most enlightened, progressive black man deal in a stereotype like that?
Charles,
Jesse Jackson does not walk dark streets alone at night. The remark is enigmatic. Probably taken out of context in a contentious debate. Much like the Juan Williams’ remark about Muslims on a plane.
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men. The Shadow do.
Roy
Roy, what you said reminded me of my favorite Fats Waller saying: “One never knows, do one?”
Charles,
Googled Fats Waller. Quite an extraordinary guy. My reference, as obscure as it could possibly be. is a joke circulating in my youth. The regular announcer for the “Shadow” radio show has laringytis. The janitor has a deep, resonant voice so they ask him to sub. “The Shadow do”. Like I said, from my youth. Guess you had to have heard it. The Shadow was Lamont Cranston as I remember.
Roy
Each new wave of immigrants has moved through a progression, from most objectionable jobs to merely menial to minor civil servant to professionals. For the Irish, at least those who landed on the East Coast, it was cleaning privies, then domestic service, then police officers (and immigration officials, who were responsible for changing the Papapolychronou family to Pappas) then lawyers and politicians. Along the way, as the family rose economically, some strayed into crime. Late nineteenth century crime novels in England and America had the cops and the crooks with Irish names. Jews, Italians, and freedmen have followed a rather similar progression.
There’s more talk in Austin, again, about police brutality, because a couple of cops on bicycles shot at a car trying to run them down, killing the passenger. However, I remember when I worked in the city’s central ER, the most consistently brutal cop was a Black guy. Everyone knew him, and his proclivities. His collars were always “falling”, several times. Everyone knew, but no one could make a case. Americans of African descent are at that stage, more civil servants, more and more cops, and an unfortunate subgroup who fall into crime. This simply does not fit within the Marxist paradigm, so it is invisible.
The parallels are imperfect, of course, but, broadly speaking, familiar. Our only problem is that we have allowed something that we very broadly call political correctness to make it sinful to notice, and we are probably sticking ethnic groups in place, instead of allowing the progression to work its way along. Here’s a hint about what we are doing, our adamant insistence on seeing people in groups, rather than as individuals. Our insistence on seeing racial overtones in an incident of men in the dark inside a car with tinted windows, whose only visible color was menace, it’s just another case of police racism, and another message to young people of African descent that they are hated and locked in a hopeless struggle with “The Man.”
OK, I’m already hating myself tomorrow for my lack of sleep tonight. Enough!
Everybody stereotypes. The most difficult stereotypes are those indulged by people who believe that they don’t stereotype, especially Liberal Progressives.
Why, because they believe fervently that they don’t stereotype. Yet, it is they who equate “code words” like food stamps or poverty with being black, or illegal aliens with being Hispanic Americans. We’ve had a couple of commentators at this blog treat us to hysterically funny caricatures of conservatives and their belief systems.
Everybody stereotypes.
One of the most common forms of stereotyping in our society these days is that based on speech patterns. If GWB and Sarah Palindrome sounded like George Will or William F Buckley, the Left’s rage at them would be much less strident.
David, there is some truth to what you say. British accents have helped students at business schools, where grades are largely determined by comments in class rather than just written tests. But let’s be honest. Sarah Palin and GWB are not nearly as smart as George Will or William F Buckley. The former talk in broken sound bites that do not make sense a good deal of the time, while the latter write compelling books with systems of ideas. Experts matter. Will and Buckley are/were experts. Or do you think that you golf as well as Tiger or play hoops as well as LeBron. Your comparison is beyond stretched…
Danny, while I haven’t been a tax cab driver, that was my point. To avoid being shot, which is a real risk for cabbies, they stereotype and ignore wealthy black actors waiving a cab in NYC. That is analogous to the bear or Comanche warrior. But you have decided to demur on the question of what the bear or warrior is that causes Book to stereotype. As for your question, I have enough Arab friends to know that Book’s claim applies to only the slimmest minority of Arabs and, therefore, doesn’t apply to the group. It is at least as false as the idea that informs NYC cab drivers. At least they have the excuse of fearing for their lives. What is hers? Lastly, I never said that liberals do not employ stereotypes. But if we define the mistake of stereotyping more broadly, as employing a false assumption, then you are making one about liberals when you say that they wanted to enact food stamps for racist reasons. Many liberals want to set up a safety net because that is the society that they believe is best to live in.
ABC – interesting!
You have a lot of Arab friends (so do I, btw). However, I suspect that your friends represent only a tiny sub-sample of the Arab world. Yet, on the basis of that very limited sample, you thereby draw a “stereotypic conclusion ” about Arabs by saying that such mob violence and the cruelty to which Book was referred is not typical of the Arab world.
But if we define the mistake of stereotyping more broadly, as employing a false assumption, then you are making one about liberals when you say that they wanted to enact food stamps for racist reasons.
You completely misunderstood my point. Here’s a link that illustrates my point more succintly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsH5W8jd4sI
Do you now get it?
“Sarah Palin and GWB are not nearly as smart as George Will or William F Buckley”
And you know this…how?
Danny, there they go again. Intellectual midgets attempting to prejudge those successful and over achievers of ours.
And you know this…how?
A has super mental powers, Danny. He can just tell…
Bookworm: I said, “in terms of the cultural norms of warfare, that’s a fact. I’m not saying that all Arabs slice off their enemies’ penises. I’m just saying that it is a typical and traditional Arab approach to war.”
It can’t be too much the norm as we can see by the large numbers of outraged citizens.
Michael Adams: Our insistence on seeing racial overtones in an incident of men in the dark inside a car with tinted windows, whose only visible color was menace, it’s just another case of police racism, and another message to young people of African descent that they are hated and locked in a hopeless struggle with “The Man.”
Tinted Windows
http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2011/05/31/232229/warrick-dunn-pulled-over-racial-profiling/
aBC…the point is that *holding expertise constant* there is a prejudice in terms of certain accents and speech mannerisms. For example, I remember a study in which people with Southern accents, applying for jobs over the phone, got many fewer callbacks than those without.
People who talk slowly and carefully/pompously, using unnecessarily complex language, often impress others with their profundity–until they become better known?
Is there no end to the friends, experts and insiders that ABC knows about every subject?
Love it.
Spiff
Many of the people here know more people in high ranking positions than A through Z combined. They just don’t mention them in their arguments because they place much less importance on the value of other people’s judgment compared to their own. When a person starts talking about 10 other people and what they think, it’s very easy to conclude that that person has no confidence in their own ability and experience so they are relying on those 10 others. Lawyers do this too.
Conservatives are much better trained in violence studies and the field of physical actions than Leftists. Thus people Like Prof Gates often have delusions ontop of their illusions and utilize ideological prejudice as the foundation of their stereotyping. Conservatives utilize something much more accurate as the basis of their judgment: experience, recognizing reality, and assessing risks and avoiding high risk behavior.
There’s nothing in violence that is helped by a Leftist having an ideological prejudgment on “institutional racism”. But when a conservative knows H2H, has firearms training, and understands the criminal psychology, they have a much better basis, instinctual, intuitively, and experience wise to judge correctly the actual risks at work.
The Left always finds enemies at home domestically while the right looks for enemies abroad. That’s because there are actually 10X or 100X more enemies abroad than inside the US.
Besides – if you eliminate stereotyping, half our humor would disappear with it. I think that’s why Liberals have no sense of humor – they don’t dare laugh at the stereotypes…they might offend somebody.
The alternative is to say to heck with it – offend _everybody_! Everybody fits into _some_ stereotype!
I was talking to my friend Rashid bin Mohammed Al Maktoum—he’s the heir apparent of the UAE—and I said, “Rash (he loooves the nickname!), what’s this I hear about Arabs deballing people they don’t like?”
He reassured me that that was a stereotype. “However, Chuck,” he said with a twinkle in his dusky eye, “I’d prefer that you not bring up the topic again. Otherwise I’d have to relieve you of a couple of your family jewels!”
We laughed and laughed into the night, then got up early to witness the Friday adultery and homosexuality executions.
To spiff580,
Hello, Batman!
Hope to see lots more from you here, I bet we will!
Hey Y,
Off topic: do you remember Starblazers (“Battleship Yamato” in Japan I think)? Well, Sci-fi Channel is showing the original (English version) Thursday evenings. Thought you might enjoy the nostalgic anime from the 70′s-80′s. That and “Battle of the Planets” were my introduction to anime.
On topic: well in defense of ABC, I base a lot of my understanding of issues on the experts, friends and colleagues I work and associate with. But it is a very narrow group within the civil engineering related to flood fighting/protection within the Sacramento/San Joaquin river system.
I just find it fairly hard to believe that he just conveniently knows an expert in every single topic; in fact I find it so amusing that it defies statistical probability (no, I won’t do the math or provide proofs for you ABC – you will just have to be satisfied with my engineering judgment).
As far as stereotypes go, this is where I agree with ABC on some level here. I agree with Book’s stereotype about Arabs; but I too would like to see the evidence one way or the other only to reaffirm or disprove what I believe. Since beheading seems to be a common theme/strategy in warfare with Arabs, I don’t think it is too much of a leap that genital mutilation would also be among the savage tools they use. It is a logical leap, not necessarily accurate, but logical nonetheless in a vacuum.
That said, since Book is not satisfying your need for proof, why don’t you provide the proof that the stereotype is not accurate? And having Arab friend(s) hardly makes your case?
Spiff
I remember Battleship Yamato, but I was not of the generation that watched video taped (and secretly traded dubs/subs) of anime in the 80s. The animation style is greatly outdated. The only 80s anime I recommend is Legend of Galactic Heroes. Best of a great era/breed.
Thanks for the notice. Of course, I don’t have cable ; ) I mostly will have to download it if I want to watch it online.
Anime has evolved over the last 30 years. A lot of original material which covers the whole panoply of literature and artistic creativity.
@Y: Agreed… it has not aged well since the 70/80′s – and it may be hard to watch if you enjoy modern anime. I watched it when I was 7-10, so my memories of it are far better than reality. But considering the time it was made and once you get past the silly dialog and acting, the story itself is actually pretty darn good. And hell, who can’t say a giant WW2 battleship in space isn’t cool…lol.
I would have to say my favorite anime would be Cowboy Bebop though. Some of the best anime sci-fi I have seen. But I don’t watch a lot of anime anymore though.
Spiff
On topic: well in defense of ABC, I base a lot of my understanding of issues on the experts, friends and colleagues I work and associate with. But it is a very narrow group within the civil engineering related to flood fighting/protection within the Sacramento/San Joaquin river system.
In those situations, it functions much like a military staff room with a CO. Meaning, the staff officers present solutions and ideas to fulfill the mission objective set by the CO. If people have disagreements, they must offer a better alternative or keep quiet. People are to work together to produce the best solution, in the shortest amount of time, for the most feasible method that can be achieved for the completion of the mission goal.
This means that people’s ideas are melding, then being generated as One Plan for the CO to authorize and for the staff to implement or polish.
The thing A has been doing, from my observations (Danny and others have more concrete experience actually dealing with A), is not synthesizing anything or aggregating the views of other people into his own view. He’s simply splicing and pasting other people’s opinions and they aren’t necessarily consistent with each other. Part of this is because A hasn’t worked with the people he has mentioned, in creating a Plan for implementation of a policy. If you haven’t worked with someone, then it doesn’t matter if their ideas agree with yours. They aren’t together with you on a policy yet, so there will be inconsistencies and potential misunderstandings.
When A mentions his experts, his experts are not here making an argument or defending themselves. Nor are they defending A. A just says they are, but that’s not determinative. Right now I don’t think any experts A mentions actually supports A’s views. And secondly, A’s views don’t necessarily bolster the statements of the experts either.
@Mike, I am a regular lurker but sporadic commentor, been reading Book for years. I usually dont have much to say. But I enjoy the dialog.
Thanks,
Spiff
I never watched Cowboy Bebop because I didn’t get it. And I thought it was made by Americans.
Right now I have a backlog of anime shows I haven’t yet watched. So things are on the back burner right now.
http://thenullset.wordpress.com/
I use this guy’s blog as a review guide to new anime shows. His tastes and mine are relatively close. For example, Steven Den Beste’s tastes in anime are like 180 degrees away from my own. He doesn’t like tragic deaths of heroines, even though I find the Japanese do poignant, tragic, and sublime quite well, regardless of who dies or doesn’t die. Air, Kanon, and Clannad are the best examples for the mainstream.
The Japanese have stuff that can make men cry for entirely different reasons than males cry in America or women cry in chick flicks.
I watched the original Macross that was made into Robotech (when it was translated, shifted, the plot was rewritten). I got a little bit confused later on since I thought they were 3 different stories, when in fact it was 3 different time periods in the same universe. Regardless, my memories of those Robotech shows are very nostalgic. I also read the Robotech novels, which explained a lot of the stuff I was, when i was a kid, confused over.
I watched a couple of the newer Macross anime/movies, and the music and fighter transformer fights were pretty exciting. Same blend of great action and music, different characters, timeline, and story.
When people grow up, they mature and their sense of artistic aesthetics can change. I still like Naruto, but for different, more mature reasons, than the 13-21 year old demographic Naruto is geared towards. Anime has had a couple of pivotal scene changes. In the beginning, it was pretty obscure, built for adults. It was true “otaku” sub-culture, a sort of underground culture limited to those in the know. Then a decade later, anime became mainstream in Japan through shows made for adolescent teenagers. So called “shonen” demographic. Then after 2000, the people who watched Dragon Ball Z grew up and started starving for more mature shows. So now we have a lot of more complicated, more literature heavy comedy/romance shows. Which is awesome for laughs.
I have to tell you, judging from the comments, people who watch Ore no Imouto who expected a shonen like show like Bleach or Naruto, were horribly disappointed and they hated it. But I found it DOWNRIGHT hilarious. That’s because I’m not in high school so I don’t feel the “testosterone angst” when the main characters embarasses himself. It just, as it was intended to be, is incredibly funny.
www nyaa.eu/?page=torrentinfo&tid=182100
That’s the first volume and you pretty much know whether you’ll enjoy it from spending a movie equivalent time on it.
Spiff, did I ever mention Heroic Age to you and did you ever check it out if I did?
Danny writes:
“ABC – interesting! You have a lot of Arab friends (so do I, btw). However, I suspect that your friends represent only a tiny sub-sample of the Arab world. Yet, on the basis of that very limited sample, you thereby draw a “stereotypic conclusion ” about Arabs by saying that such mob violence and the cruelty to which Book was referred is not typical of the Arab world.”
Actually, Arabs are a larger group in the US than Jews, so it is not as small a sample as you claim. More importantly, I have looked at the percentages of people in the Arab world that are involved or support terrorism and violence, and the numbers suggest that the behavior that Bookworm claims is viewed as normal is not viewed as normal in the Arab world.
But let’s work through some numbers. There were 11,000 terrorist attacks in 2009, according to the US State Department. Let’s assume all of them were committed by Arabs (which is not true, but let’s just assume), and let’s further assume 10 people involved uniquely in each act (a number that seems high, and thus conservative for my purposes of putting Bookworm’s argument in the best possible light). Tis implies 110,000 people on a population of 1.57B (Muslims) or 340M (Arabs). This works out to .03%. That is a smaller share of Arabs than my US Arab sample that you claim is too small to generalize to all Arabs. Interesting. Care to explain the contradiction?
Also, here is an interesting piece that studies the correlation between those that hold negative (and false) stereotypes of American Arabs, and their views on the War on Terror: the more conservative the person, the more likely they are to negatively stereotype Arabs:
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:02VwCgSupMQJ:home.gwu.edu/~jsides/muslims.pdf+percentage+of+arabs+supporting+terror&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShG48uwqOkNh3wB6izFjQvb-1wJn80BfUDHexGZlqrfxacMcFX_PYxwM_Qqw81Zu2W0_M9ExkF85C9sz6UN-Ndeb4NyTIO4IyytZ6EPpHlp57PPO1iv0loXaFXYzJSPjgxT1Zq5&sig=AHIEtbRp2v2Tq3q7_n0Pc8so5pDHavUitg
Danny continues, first quoting me:
“But if we define the mistake of stereotyping more broadly, as employing a false assumption, then you are making one about liberals when you say that they wanted to enact food stamps for racist reasons.
You completely misunderstood my point. Here’s a link that illustrates my point more succintly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsH5W8jd4sI
Do you now get it?”
Not really. Can you put it into your own words?
Danny again, first quoting me:
“Sarah Palin and GWB are not nearly as smart as George Will or William F Buckley”
And you know this…how?”
Knowledge is probabilistic. If I see someone is on the pro tennis circuit, then I draw the conclusion that they have above average athletic ability. If I see someone who has written influential columns and books, then I draw the conclusion that they have above average intelligence. I also know that Buckley got better grades than GWB and went to tougher schools than Palin. Short of obtaining their IQ scores, one cannot know for sure–although you might contest the validity of the scores. But the power of their ideas is on display, as four public figures, and the ideas and quality of how they are argued is definitely stronger in the case of Buckley and Will. That is why they can publish books without being famous for other reasons (e.g., having been President or Governor).
David writes:
“aBC…the point is that *holding expertise constant* there is a prejudice in terms of certain accents and speech mannerisms. For example, I remember a study in which people with Southern accents, applying for jobs over the phone, got many fewer callbacks than those without.
People who talk slowly and carefully/pompously, using unnecessarily complex language, often impress others with their profundity–until they become better known?”
I agree and observed this at b-school. I think I said as much in my last post. My issue is that you are not holding expertise constant when you compare Palin to Will or GWB to Buckley. You might compare that English speechwriter now at the Washington Times to Laura Ingraham to make your point, but the comparisons you’ve made are insulting to Will and Buckley, frankly.
Uncertainty is derived from probabilities. Knowledge is certain, otherwise it isn’t knowledge.
If I see someone is on the pro tennis circuit, then I draw the conclusion that they have above average athletic ability. If I see someone who has written influential columns and books, then I draw the conclusion that they have above average intelligence.
None of them are knowledge. Epistemologically, the observer neither knows whether someone on the pro tennis circuit is X or Y, nor does the observer know whether the writer has above or below X or Y.
Spiff, another thing I noticed over the years was that regardless of how strange the animation looked, eventually my human social perception started to recognize them as human: people. Once that happened, it didn’t matter what they looked like as the brain automatically translated the images into facial expressions.
It’s a sort of self-hypnosis in that one goes along with the suggestion that the characters on screen are people. It’s one form of “suggestion” that I never blocked out intentionally. Unlike Main Sewer Media suggestions, this one was beneficial, not harmful.
If I see someone who has written influential columns and books, then I draw the conclusion that they have above average intelligence. I also know that Buckley got better grades than GWB and went to tougher schools than Palin. -abc
Talk about sterotyping. Here I thought you were a smart guy, and you say something dumb like this.
Drawing a conclusion that someone is above average intelligence because they’ve written an influential column says nothing about the person who hasn’t.
I wasn’t aware that being less than average intelligence was a pre-requisite for attending State U.
So who’s smarter– George Will or Paul Krugman?
“Actually, Arabs are a larger group in the US than Jews, so it is not as small a sample as you claim.”
Estimated number of Arab Americans: 3.5 million
Estimated number of American Jews: 5.2 million
@Y: I’m sure you have suggested it… but I have not looked it up yet. My wife is not a fan of anime so the problem of finding time to watch stuff like that when she is not around is a solution that has escaped me for quites sometime.
“I then mentioned that Arabs are well-known for castrating their enemies.”
Yes. I have read numerous sources over the decades that recounted such incidents and discussed the Arab propensity for mutilation, so presumably abc’s reluctance to accept this is due to not being very well read on the subject.
David Foster #37 “One of the most common forms of stereotyping in our society these days is that based on speech patterns.”
Thomas Sowell recently wrote: “As for reading the classics, President Harry Truman, whom no one thought of as an intellectual, was a voracious reader of heavyweight stuff like Thucydides and read Cicero in the original Latin. When Chief Justice Carl Vinson quoted in Latin, Truman was able to correct him.”
and in contrast:
“Adlai Stevenson was certainly regarded as an intellectual by intellectuals in the 1950s. But, half a century later, facts paint a very different picture. Historian Michael Beschloss, among others, has noted that Stevenson ‘could go quite happily for months or years without picking up a book.’ But Stevenson had the airs of an intellectual — the form, rather than the substance.”
George Will, Charles Krauthammer and all of the talking heads are in show business. They have refined their acts over the years to please a particular audience. A very important part of that audience is the people who book them on TV. Another important audience is those who throw the parties where they get “inside” information – they get spun like tops. They are not so much intellectuals as they are whores.
They are phonies and project their own motives onto others. We see this in the accusations thrown at Palin and others that they are publicity whores. They’re in it for the money and have a good act to that end. All of them, with a few exceptions, care not one whit for you and yours or me and mine. They’re looking out for number one.
The talk about speech patterns reminds me of My Fair Lady:
pst314, it’s said here in Illinois that when the “intellectual” Adlai Stevenson passed away, the only book found in his possession was the Social Register.
If I see someone who has written influential columns and books, then I draw the conclusion that they have above average intelligence. I also know that Buckley got better grades than GWB and went to tougher schools than Palin. -abc
I know plenty of people that got lousy grades and were extremely intelligent and I know a lot of people that got perfect grades that were uni-dimensional morons. I also know there are many kinds of intelligence, but that none has anything to do with what kind of school you could afford to when you, as a teenager, had to pay 100% of the tuition.
Just out of curiosity, what percent of your tuition were you required to pay, ABC?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsH5W8jd4sI
DLemieux: Do you now get it?”
ABC: Not really. Can you put it into your own words?
DLemieux: OK…conservatives got it but I understand why Liberal-Progs didn’t. The point was that it was Schultz and Dick Gregory that stereotyped the “code word” association between food stamp recipients and black people. It is they who promote the “soft bigotry of low expectations” with regard to black people. Conservatives know that poor people come in all colors and all ethnic backgrounds.
Danny Lemieux 66 “pst314, it’s said here in Illinois that when the ‘intellectual’ Adlai Stevenson passed away, the only book found in his possession was the Social Register.”
Ouch!
Do you happen to remember where you read that anecdote? I cannot recall the source.
When I first read that some years ago, I discounted it as not fully persuasive because it was not accompanied by any other data and because I knew from personal experience that sometimes when people are dying they dispose of just about all their possessions in an excessively zealous effort to leave no “cleaning up” burden on their survivors. But subsequent reading about Stevenson persuaded me that the characterization was correct.
ABC – “Actually, Arabs are a larger group in the US than Jews, so it is not as small a sample as you claim. More importantly, I have looked at the percentages of people in the Arab world that are involved or support terrorism and violence, and the numbers suggest that the behavior that Bookworm claims is viewed as normal is not viewed as normal in the Arab world. “
Goodness, ABC, you certainly give us a lot with which to work. First, your demographics are all wrong, as Charles M points out. Not only that, but you assume that every Arab in America is a Muslim (stereotype #1).
Then you take a tiny sliver of Muslim Arabs that you know and use your experience to stereotype the entire Arab population in the U.S., including Dearborn, Michigan (I presume, although I allow that it is conceivable that you know each and every Muslim Arab that lives in the U.S.) – stereotype #2.
Then you try to estimate the number of jihadi terrorist attacks worldwide and presume that it is only those jihadis that support terrorism and violence in the Muslim world (stereotype #3). But, that assumes that they are lone wolves, instead of being supported by large percentages of the population. If you knew anything about the Qu’ran, you would know that these jihadis are only living up to the dictates thereof: they are the TRUE Muslims! There have been several surveys of Arab Muslim cultures which reveal a very deep level of support of the radical Islamicist movements.
Also, it may be that only a minority of Arab Muslims believes in the values of violence and mutilation that we’ve been talking about, but the fact is that in many countries, it is these mentalities that rule (Saddam’s Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan and, soon, Egypt and Yemen). So, the stereotype applies.
Finally, you overlook the whole point of this discussion, which is not that stereotypes apply to all members of a group, but that they represent enough members of a group to represent a useful truism that can save your life, be it picking up fares late at night or wading into Arab mobs in Egypt as a blond, woman reporter. The fact is that a significantly high enough percentage of Muslim Arabs believe in the values that Bookworm referenced to raise a warning flag for anyone that would find themselves having to confront such a group.
Danny, I’m sorry, but what is a “social register?” Don’t tell me the swells have a breeding program! They’re not tracking pedigrees, are they? What do they do with weak chins?
If so, do they have anything like the American Kennel Club’s AKC/Eukanuba National Championship (to be held this year in very prestigious Orlando)?
Here’s a stereotype. Let’s see if it resonates with anybody here:
A battalion of 300 Hamas soldiers is pinned down by Israeli gunfire. The commander sends 40 men to encircle the Israeli position and destroy it.
The men do not return.
The commander then sends 80 men to destroy the Israeli position.
They, too, fail to return.
Finally, he sends his remaining 180 men to oveerun the Israeli guns.
They don’t come back.
Panicked, yet angry, the commander crawls over a small rise to look for his men. He is astounded to see Hamas corpses everywhere. Finally he finds a soldier who still is breathing.
“In the name of Allah,” he implores, looking at the carnage around him, “how did 300 of my crack troops come to this?”
“It. . . it was the Israelis,” gasps the man with his next-to-last breath on earth. “There. . . there were two of them!”
pst,
“Yes. I have read numerous sources over the decades that recounted such incidents and discussed the Arab propensity for mutilation, so presumably abc’s reluctance to accept this is due to not being very well read on the subject.”
No sources. No data. And I am criticized for being reluctant to accept the argument that has yet to be founded in facts.
“Thomas Sowell recently wrote: “As for reading the classics, President Harry Truman, whom no one thought of as an intellectual, was a voracious reader of heavyweight stuff like Thucydides and read Cicero in the original Latin. When Chief Justice Carl Vinson quoted in Latin, Truman was able to correct him.”
and in contrast:
“Adlai Stevenson was certainly regarded as an intellectual by intellectuals in the 1950s. But, half a century later, facts paint a very different picture. Historian Michael Beschloss, among others, has noted that Stevenson ‘could go quite happily for months or years without picking up a book.’ But Stevenson had the airs of an intellectual — the form, rather than the substance.””
Thanks for proving the point.We judge intelligence by what people do with their brains. Will and Buckley wrote in newspapers, while Palin cannot even name one. But we are debating whether Palin might be smarter than Will or Buckley? Please.
Danny,
“I know plenty of people that got lousy grades and were extremely intelligent and I know a lot of people that got perfect grades that were uni-dimensional morons. I also know there are many kinds of intelligence, but that none has anything to do with what kind of school you could afford to when you, as a teenager, had to pay 100% of the tuition.”
There are exceptions to every rule, but I don’t know any columnists with 40 year careers at leading newspapers that were illiterate or potentially well below average in intelligence, do you? Look, Palin took 5 years to finish a communications degree at a small, uncompetitive (as measured by acceptance yield) college; she also bounced around 5 schools in those five years, which might be an excuse for the extra year, or might signal someone who couldn’t make the grade and was asked to leave…repeatedly. To compare her intellect to Will or Buckley seems crazy to me.
“Just out of curiosity, what percent of your tuition were you required to pay, ABC?”
For undergrad, 50%. And for grad school, all of it. I got a JD and an MBA from Harvard in four rather than five years, all while working 30 hours per week for a consulting firm run by Wharton professors. What about you? Did Daddy pay your way???
Well, Palin is flummoxing the hell out of the geniuses in the press. Funny how a stupid broad from the wrong side of the tracks is able to do that. Reminds me of the Reese Witherspoon character in “Legally Blonde.”
Danny:
We had some alum friends over last night for dinner. As we were sipping a 1971 Gevrey-Chambertin Clos de Beze, an exquisite little burgundy that reminded me of a townie I used to fornicate with in Cambridge—I thought of you and the amusing little ripostes we have been exchanging.
I was reminded of that wonderful scene in Good Will Hunting where the precocious, but un-degreed, Will intervenes on behalf of one of his witless friends in a bar. It seems that a graduate student has pretty much demolished the imbecilic intellectual pretensions of Will’s townie chum. The Hunting chap’s interposition seems to be going swimmingly as he refutes and mocks the graduate student’s knowledge of some obscure point of early American history.
But the grad student makes a stunning recovery when he points out to Will that many years hence, while he and his family are driving to their annual ski vacation at a posh resort, it is Will who will be accepting his tariff at the toll booth.
Game, set, match! Just when I thought that the natural order of things was about to be upset, the wily grad student strikes back as stunningly as the galactic empire did in that silly George Lucas serial about the near-incest between the blond fellow and the Edward Fisher girl.
So who’s smarter- George Will or Paul Krugman?
Krugman is by far. As has been pointed out by his supporters, he has successfully predicted 17 of the last three recessions.
Danny,
“It is they who promote the “soft bigotry of low expectations” with regard to black people. Conservatives know that poor people come in all colors and all ethnic backgrounds.”
What about a safety net? Should we not be paying out food stamps to people who have gone through the worst economic downturn in the last 100 years? Why do you choose to address food stamps when they really are needed? Should we jettison the safety net? Do you think the job numbers reflect laziness or a dearth of jobs? If you say the former, then you are in a very small minority of economists, but a large number of ideologues.
“Goodness, ABC, you certainly give us a lot with which to work. First, your demographics are all wrong, as Charles M points out.”
Actually, Arab populations are growing rapidly (40% in Cook County for example), and they are systematically under counted in the census data because there is no box to check, unlike for the Jewish population. I’ll concede the point, although relying on figures from a poll hardly are a definitive way to estimate the Arab population. Still, my point stands. The vast majority of Arabs do not commit terrorist acts, by any measure you want to use. Yet folks here continue to malign them without providing any data. How about supplying some data before making the sweeping accusations that don’t stand up to scrutiny, as my other numbers clearly show?? Fantasy over facts. It’s always the same.
“Not only that, but you assume that every Arab in America is a Muslim (stereotype #1).”
Bookworm was talking about Arabs, not Muslims. I am going off her comment.
“Then you take a tiny sliver of Muslim Arabs that you know and use your experience to stereotype the entire Arab population in the U.S., including Dearborn, Michigan (I presume, although I allow that it is conceivable that you know each and every Muslim Arab that lives in the U.S.) – stereotype #2.”
The stereotype is false. Even if you assume that all terrorism in 2009 was committed by Arabs, you have a tiny part of the population. You ignore math and rely on perceptions that no one here has sourced. Why do you do that? In actuality, 94% of US-based terrorism was committed by groups other than Muslims (http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/01/not-all-terrorists-are-muslims/), but we freak out when we see Arabs praying on a plane. What irrationality.
“Then you try to estimate the number of jihadi terrorist attacks worldwide and presume that it is only those jihadis that support terrorism and violence in the Muslim world (stereotype #3). But, that assumes that they are lone wolves, instead of being supported by large percentages of the population. If you knew anything about the Qu’ran, you would know that these jihadis are only living up to the dictates thereof: they are the TRUE Muslims! There have been several surveys of Arab Muslim cultures which reveal a very deep level of support of the radical Islamicist movements.”
Claims of support for terrorism are different than being a terrorist. A large percentage of Americans say that they are anti-government, but that doesn’t make them anarchists. And I know enough about the Qu’ran to know that it has violent passages, just as the Bible and Torah do. So what? You draw a lot of assumptions on NO data. At least I provide numbers for my analysis. You are really showing yourself to be fact-challenged here.
“Also, it may be that only a minority of Arab Muslims believes in the values of violence and mutilation that we’ve been talking about, but the fact is that in many countries, it is these mentalities that rule (Saddam’s Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan and, soon, Egypt and Yemen). So, the stereotype applies.”
Please show data on these “mentalities.”
“Finally, you overlook the whole point of this discussion, which is not that stereotypes apply to all members of a group, but that they represent enough members of a group to represent a useful truism that can save your life, be it picking up fares late at night or wading into Arab mobs in Egypt as a blond, woman reporter. The fact is that a significantly high enough percentage of Muslim Arabs believe in the values that Bookworm referenced to raise a warning flag for anyone that would find themselves having to confront such a group.”
No, I said that part about picking up a fare as a cab driver. And you have not shown any data to support the claim that Bookworm made. You are making excuses rather than showing data. And you haven’t explained why making a snap, but flawed judgment about a group avoids harm in Bookworm’s case. She is not the cabby in the car. She is teaching her kids to distrust Arabs with apparently no data in support. To make generalizations about a population based upon the behavior of a fraction of one percent is ridiculous. The incarceration rate in the US is 0.8%, which on an average sentence length of 29 years, translates to an annualized rate of 0.03%, which is the same as the inflated estimated terrorist rate amongst Arabs. Hence, an American is more likely to be a prisoner than an Arab a terrorist. Why isn’t Bookworm teaching her kids about the violent criminal nature of Americans??
I thought the original context was warfare as Book made a comparison to similar acts by the Japanese. Is abc trying to take the statement out of context and suggest the stereotype exists for any Arab? My take was that it is a practice taken by Arabs when enemies are captured and killed.
Book wasn’t suggesting that all Arabs mutilate, but that in warfare, Arabs practice some savagery.
No?
ABC…”
“Not only that, but you assume that every Arab in America is a Muslim (stereotype #1).”
Bookworm was talking about Arabs, not Muslims. I am going off her comment.”
Point conceded!
Speaking of Danny Lemieux’s comment about the leadership of Arab Muslim countries, ABC throws down the glove, with “Please show data on these “mentalities.”
I have a suggestion: look up the human rights records of the regimes in charge of Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Gaza, West Bank, Yemen, Saddam’s Iraq and Syria (I’m being easy on the Gulf States).
ABC…”And I know enough about the Qu’ran to know that it has violent passages, just as the Bible and Torah do”
Then you don’t know very much about any of them. There is no (i.e., zero) passage in the Christian New Testament that advocates doing violence to others. There are plenty of passages in the Qu’ran that advocate in graphic detail the violence, rape and mutilations that are required to be done to others.
Here’s a primer from a “true Muslim” (i.e., one who follows the Qu’ran to the letter, as is required by the Qu’ran).
http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/2953.htm
ABC: “Why isn’t Bookworm teaching her kids about the violent criminal nature of Americans?”
Why do you think that these are mutually exclusive issues?
Seriously, I worry about you ABC.
You seem nice and well-meaning enough, but your mind seems to be so open that your brains are at risk of falling out. I would not recommend that you go into the world at large.
One word comes to mind with regard to people who resolutely fail to be able to make generalizations about the world: “prey”. Ymarsaker has written quite extensively about these kinds of dynamics on this blog.
You should take notes.
“A large percentage of Americans say that they are anti-government, but that doesn’t make them anarchists.”
Strawman and false dilemma. The strawman is the assertion that a large percentage is “anti-government,” as opposed to the more accurate “anti-large government.” The false dilemma is that being against government makes one, ipso facto, an anarchist. I’m sure libertarians and the Amish will be pleased with their new category.
“And I know enough about the Qu’ran to know that it has violent passages, just as the Bible and Torah do. So what?”
Actually, you don’t know much about the Qu’ran if you aren’t familiar with abrogation. Also, since you seem to think the Bible and the Torah are two different books, you might point out to us where in the Bible (New Testament) you find violent passages.
With regard to DLemieux’s comments about “soft bigotry of low expectations”, ABC responds with:
“What about a safety net? Should we not be paying out food stamps to people who have gone through the worst economic downturn in the last 100 years?”
We weren’t talking about either the merits of the food stamp program or about safety nets.
Thanks for the reminder, Charles M. I had forgotten about “abrogation”.
As far as I know, Islam is the only religion in the world that requires that those that leave it be killed.
Danny,
““Not only that, but you assume that every Arab in America is a Muslim (stereotype #1).”
Bookworm was talking about Arabs, not Muslims. I am going off her comment.”
Point conceded!”
How so?
“Speaking of Danny Lemieux’s comment about the leadership of Arab Muslim countries, ABC throws down the glove, with “Please show data on these “mentalities.”
I have a suggestion: look up the human rights records of the regimes in charge of Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Gaza, West Bank, Yemen, Saddam’s Iraq and Syria (I’m being easy on the Gulf States).”
So the presence of brutal dictators implicates the oppressed population beneath them. Nice.
“ABC…”And I know enough about the Qu’ran to know that it has violent passages, just as the Bible and Torah do”
Then you don’t know very much about any of them. There is no (i.e., zero) passage in the Christian New Testament that advocates doing violence to others. There are plenty of passages in the Qu’ran that advocate in graphic detail the violence, rape and mutilations that are required to be done to others.
Here’s a primer from a “true Muslim” (i.e., one who follows the Qu’ran to the letter, as is required by the Qu’ran).
http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/2953.htm”
I know multiple Qu’ran scholars that do not believe the book requires the interpretation that you suggest. Just as I know many reasonable Christians that deny the fundamentalists’ claim that one must interpret the Bible literally. And the Bible consists of the Old and New Testaments, with the Old comprising much more than 50% of the total. And the Old has loads of passages that are violent, as you likely know better than I do.
“I know multiple Qu’ran scholars that do not believe the book requires the interpretation that you suggest.”
Please name two of them. Also, what do they say about taqqiya?
Danny,
“Seriously, I worry about you ABC…You seem nice and well-meaning enough, but your mind seems to be so open that your brains are at risk of falling out. I would not recommend that you go into the world at large.”
Thanks for your concern. I think I already am out in the world at large, and doing rather well. An open mind is the only way it functions properly. You and others seem to believe that unless you hold fast to wrong-headed beliefs, your world will end. I find that mentality too constricting. I’ve never seen you concede a single point, even when the facts and logic compel you to do so. That is really strange. You need to be correct, apparently. I hope to be correct, but am willing to change my mind with enough facts. That is a sign of strength, although you think it is a sign of weakness. Your mentality is closer to those who resist progress, than those who have made such progress happen.
“One word comes to mind with regard to people who resolutely fail to be able to make generalizations about the world: “prey”. Ymarsaker has written quite extensively about these kinds of dynamics on this blog….You should take notes.”
I don’t think I’ve been preyed upon as much as you fear. And I would gladly take notes, if you and other conservatives would start producing enough accurate facts to make it worth my time to uncap the pen. I’m still waiting for actual data on those castrating Arabs…
ABC’s reply to DLemieux:
Point conceded!” How so?
I’m agreeing with your point, ABC.
OK, ABC…next time you walk out into an Arab Muslim mob, I shall wish you well. Inshallah!
“I’ve never seen you concede a single point, even when the facts and logic compel you to do so. That is really strange. You need to be correct, apparently.”
Pot, kettle, black. Reminds me of abc’s desperate attempt to continue selling us the notion that 90 percent of U.S. forests have been wiped out since 1600, even in the face of overhwelming evidence that his statistics and conclusion were dead wrong.
Approaching 100!
But who’s counting?
That reminds me Danny. How do you concede a point? Isn’t that something Leftists never covered and thus they get stumped by it?
Btw, it’s not just poor and homeless people on food stamps. The wives of various US military enlisted personnel are ALSO on food stamps. That INCLUDES the lower tier officer families as well.
The world does not work the way ideologically driven Leftists think it does. It’s more complicated, it’s more majestic, and it’s greater in scope than the limited imagination of a Leftist ever could be.
The food stamp program is not a social safety net, but a government rewards program for their zoonies.
U.S.-Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908746.html
U.S. Department – What a bunch of stereotypers and racists, too!
To Danny’s 83:
People like Marc McYoung, who comes from a violent or poor neighborhood background, call people like A the “yuppies playing at cutting amongst the exciting barbarians”. Meaning, A thinks his social rules apply to the entire world, instead of recognizing that other people’s rules apply where other people live and your rules only apply to where you live; those are not necessarily the same rules. So often when higher class youths come to play at lower class bars and neighborhoods, they are doing so seeking excitement, but assuming that their social status will be respected by the barbarians the same way it was respected back where their mama and daddy had millions and owned the companies employing the servants they could use, abuse, and talk down to.
When they realize, too late, that this is an entirely differently world, with completely different rules in effect, they get this shocked look on their face. Assuming they’re still breathing in mama and daddy’s exquisitively (that is a word even though SP says it isn’t) expensive clothing.
The elites of Harvard, the Leftist intellectual class, the government bureaucracy, the academic (Prof Gates arrogant posturing) class, all belong to the “bubble”, Danny.
This is the “bubble” of people who think the world revolves around them and their comfortable rules.
There’s no way out, other than violent birth. They cannot think differently until they remake themselves and become reborn in the real world. For Robin of Berkley, that required getting assaulted by a black mugger. For Neo-Neocon, it was constant contradictions between what she knew to be the truth and what the Left were actually doing/saying. For Book, much of the same, with 9/11 factoring in to an incredibly great extent.
As Leftists and anti-Iraqi Americans once said, it takes a kick in the teeth to make their enemies (us) realize Leftism is right. If it’s true that it takes a kick in the teeth to teach a US family that lost their son in war that the Left is right, my response would be this. It takes me cutting off the Left’s fingers for them to realize what the reality truly is.
While studying Book’s main link in her post (the symposium of four panelists), I was struck by some things.
Are we discussing sexual mutilation as the desecration of a corpse, or as the torture of a living human being? They seem to me to be two very different things.
The panelists were mainly discussing the Mumbai terrorists. They lamented (intellectually) the lack of forensics, as they couldn’t draw conclusions, but the evidence from local doctors seemed to indicate a ferocity of torture that they literally were incapable of describing, it was so horrifying. The worst ferocity, and the earliest, was reserved for Israelis. Now these terrorists’ political grievances centered around the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, so their frenzy towards Israelis as their focus can’t be explained in any rational sense. Given what you would expect by the horror of the doctors, it would seem that sexual mutilation as torture was a part of it, but by no means all of it.
One panelist said of the 1948-49 Israel-Arab war that the IDF warned its Israeli soldiers to not be taken alive because of what would happen to them. One senses this is not mere stereotypical propaganda. The only conclusion is that they would be tortured before being killed. But, no specific mention of sexual mutilation.
The panelists kept referring to the helpless rage underlying the sexual mutilation. (The panelists had no objection to the prevalence of sexual mutilation in honor-shame societies, by the way.) Three of the four kept pointing to psychological explanations that I couldn’t tie down into a coherent explanation, but they may have just been speaking “above me”. Based on a prior study by a woman studying very young children in which, at a particular stage of development, when given dolls, those very young children would *all* (?) sexually mutilate the dolls. My personal reaction (“How could I never have heard of this study?”) still resides mostly in disbelief. Helpless rage triggered by a psychological disorder involving being trapped in arrested development at that young an age due to some aspect of the honor-shame society… hmmm…
Now, the desecration of a corpse is a different thing. To me it appears an act of almost clinically quiet ritualuzed disdain. I just don’t see “frenzied rage” involved here. Moving from corpse to corpse to corpse in a steady, determined manner. I could of course be wrong. I do recall repeatedly encountering this kind of sexual mutilation – desecration of the corpse – in war stories. Where those who have been there on the ground for the aftermath simply state, “Oh, yes, of course. Happens all the time in certain cultures.”
I guess when it comes to stereotypes – things you can state about general populations that you can’t state about individuals within that population – and the honor-blame culture, I’m more muddled now than I was going in.
Evil does what evil does, Mike. Pretty simple to me. And evil must be exterminated with due prejudice.
Ymarsakar, it’s not, “Of course I don’t have cable.” It’s,”Of course I don’t have cable, I’m an intellectual” 0) I would never squander money to watch television, If I have some to spare, I buy books.
Ymarsakar, “evil” is a silly term used by primitives who believe in a sky fairy and who are not man enough to do good—whatever that is—as its own reward.
Regarding Arabs’ mutilating bodies, I came across an interesting passage in Michael Totten’s article on his visit to Hebron in the West Bank. A Hebron resident is discussing the 1929 massacre of Jews in Hebron:
“The killers did horrible things to people,” David said. “They castrated men. An Arab working at a bakery put his Jewish boss into the oven and baked him. They cut off women’s breasts and horribly raped them. These are the easy pictures to look at.”
While mutilation is not an everyday occurrence, not something one would expect with the frequency of being served hummus in the Middle East, it appears that corpses are mutilated more often when they are the result of conflict with Arabs than when there is conflict, for example, with Americans.
Similarly, while the odds of being murdered in Detroit in a given year are small- about 40 per 100,000- the odds of being killed in Detroit are much greater than they are in Lake Wobegone- or New York City, for that matter.
http://pajamasmedia.com/michaeltotten/2011/05/31/darkness-in-palestine/
This gives more support to my view that the Israelis simply lack the hate required to destroy the Palestinian problem once and for all. They have warriors and statesman like Sharon of the past and Bibi of the now, but it is the nation and its people that do the fighting, not the leaders. Without the requisite hate in their hearts, they lack the will to carry the fight to the finish, which in this case means using nuclear weapons.
We saw a couple of these things during the Apache-American war and the Comanche-American war. The Native American tribes of warring raiders were chased to oblivion and almost wiped out. There was no “nation-state” plan for them until they ceased hostilities, then reservations were offered.
If the Americans had reacted with the “moderation” of the Israelis of 1950, 1960, and 1990, we would still be fighting Indians in Texas and raiders across the Mexican border.
Leaders and national resources are important, and Israel seems to be getting both at once. But a nation that lacks the ruthlessness to destroy their enemies, cannot win.
There’s no way about it. You need people to fight in war. Those people have to come from somewhere and are motivated by something. The Israelis, predominantly, are motivated by kindness, their religious guidance, compassion, and love of human life.
American strength came from boundless ambition and unlimited personal courage. A courage to say that their way of life is superior and worth defending and killing for. Until the Israelis decide as a nation that their continued survival is more important than the lives of every single Palestinian on the earth, Israeil will continue to lack the fire required to put an end to this conflict decisively.
Ymar, did you read the second half within Book’s link to the symposium panel? The second half dealt with the problem: What can you do when a nation or organization deeply based on honor-shame has targeted you as “the other” that is shaming them, and have dedicated themselves to your destruction?
Three of the four – and perhaps all four – saw no recourse except one: You must defeat them utterly and completely. The surrender must be total – not just militarily, but a complete cultural, nationwide recognition of defeat, and of surrender. Only then can you do what the USA did – if you wish – which is to rebuild them back up, as was done with Japan and Germany.
It makes the whole concept of “land for peace” for the Israelis a bitter joke.
It explains Sadat’s assassination after signing a peace treaty with Israel.
It explains why Arafat was unable to proceed at Oslo… so close? and yet so far away. Come the Intifada instead!!
It certainly explains Hamas. And Fatah climbing into bed with them, destroying any hope for any deal.
It explains why an Israeli passport is illegitimate in so many Muslim countries. ”What is this worthless piece of trash paper?!?!”
We over here can scarcely comprehend the depths of the problem. You wonder if the lefties over there in Israel get it… how could they not? But they don’t seem to get it.
Perhaps the panelists overstated the case; perhaps the key requirement is they must all, first, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and accept publicly, via treaty, that Israel is a defined and defensible nation. Maybe that would be enough to break the honor-shame rage and vengeance. I have my doubts.
But land for peace? It is a dead idea.
Ymar and Mike – Are the two of you are channeling Daniel Greenfield.
-snip-
You don’t achieve regional normalization by signing a few accords and turning over some land. Instead you do it by turning your presence into an indisputable fact. And if you work with that regional reality, then the regional reality will work with you.
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2011/05/great-error-of-israeli-normalization.html
Have you guys noticed yet that while Z spoke much concerning American “torture” with DQ, Z hasn’t spoken much about the Arab/Palestinian/Islamic torture talked about here by Book? In fact, I don’t think I saw him post one comment here.
A little denial perhaps, to go with the intellectual arrogance of course.
Z will go off the rails quoting me or quoting Bush or quoting Martel, on the environment or WMDs in Iraq, but curiously leaves the reality of Islam alone for the most part. Perhaps the reality is too uncomfortable and harsh for the idealist in vogue.
Japan also has and had a shame culture and so did medieval Europe, partially. The Japanese had ritual suicide, the cutting into their bellies and guts, in order to produce pain and test their endurance and denial of earthly sensations for the divine and sublime. The Islamos, however, are content with torturing other people and utilizing the weak for their sustenance. That’s why Japanese economy is booming and Islamos are too busy hacking off dicks to worry about doing anything constructive. There’s a difference there, seemingly. A difference in motivation and societal influence on constructive/destructive behavior.
Mike, no, I skipped that article primarily because whatever they say, won’t surprise me since I’m not new to it and not much of what they (can) write is new to me. IT’s just worded in a fresh fashion by some on the panel.
We over here can scarcely comprehend the depths of the problem. You wonder if the lefties over there in Israel get it… how could they not? But they don’t seem to get it.
The Israeli settlers the Israeli government forcibly relocated got it. The only way to remake Palestine is to take over their land, colonize it, and take over. They’re not going away. Unless they use my suggestion and use nukes to clear the way. People can’t live in irradiated ground where the background radiation is in thousands, after all. Tough on the environment and it can blow over into Israel with the change of the wind, but a barrier of nuclear retardation is much more effective than whatever deals israel thinks it can get via giving up land.
The only way to convince Palestinians that our way is the better way is to keep killing them in job lots until the corpses rise to the height of the moon. And then wait a while for their response and if their response isn’t to our liking, to continue piling up the corpses.
Medieval minds in this Western world of ours isn’t “many” to begin with. But there are some. There always is.
Sadie, I believe in negotiation through superior firepower. It doesn’t matter what the Palis want. It matters how many of them they want to see killed and blown up before they become reasonable with us.
If they think torturing our soldiers will make us think twice, I’ll tie together 50,000 Palestinian prisoners, hack off their legs and arms, put grenades in them, and throw them into the sea and drop a nuke on them in the bargain while video taping it.
Let’s see whether they think they can trump that.
Ymarsakar: The only way to convince Palestinians that our way is the better way is to keep killing them in job lots until the corpses rise to the height of the moon.
Ymarsakar: If they think torturing our soldiers will make us think twice, I’ll tie together 50,000 Palestinian prisoners, hack off their legs and arms, put grenades in them, and throw them into the sea and drop a nuke on them in the bargain while video taping it.
I don’t have Ymar’s way with words, but I can try my own.
The United States was last engaged in an existencial war for its survival in WWII, against primarily Japan and Germany. Some notable events in this existencial war with Japan:
- The firebombing of Tokyo : At least 100,000 dead. More likely far higher than that.
- The atomic bombing of Hiroshima: At least 120,000 dead within days
- The atomic bombing of Nagasaki: At least 60,000 dead within days
Real war is hell. It’s been generations since we faced real war. It does no good to hide your face from its reality – SHOULD it happen.
Israel rightly believes it is not yet facing an existencial threat to its very existence. The Palestinian refugee organized people – let’s go ahead and call them a “State” under Hamas/Fatah – are utterly dedicated to their destruction, and would wipe Israel off this earth at this moment if only they could. The surrounding Arab countries are also dedicated to Israel’s complete destruction, but at this point do not act, for a variety of reasons.
Iran will be the trigger point for the existencial war crisis for Israel. Israel will have no choice but to respond, and will have every legitimate right to do so, with every capability at their command. It will be a real war.
And let me repeat:
Real war is HELL.
(It would be a very good idea to stop Iran, then, by the way, before they get to where they want to go.)
Ymarsakar, now you’ve done it. You’ve just given Zach permission to get on his moral high horse and tsk tsk at the horribleness of your suggestion about the Palestinians.
This will be followed by days and days of irritating calls on the rest of us to support him in his ostentatious moral repugnance. This from a man who is totally inarticulate when it comes to describing the basis of his morality.
Oh, boy!
The journey of a thousand li starts with one step, Grasshopper.
Mike,
“The United States was last engaged in an existencial war for its survival in WWII, against primarily Japan and Germany. Some notable events in this existencial war with Japan:
- The firebombing of Tokyo : At least 100,000 dead. More likely far higher than that.
- The atomic bombing of Hiroshima: At least 120,000 dead within days
- The atomic bombing of Nagasaki: At least 60,000 dead within days
Real war is hell. It’s been generations since we faced real war. It does no good to hide your face from its reality – SHOULD it happen.”
Although I disagree with them, many would heavily discount your claim that we were engaged in an existential war for US survival during WWII. Even the conservative Pat Buchanan believes we didn’t need to enter WWII. We were attacked by the Japanese, but with the war build-up the US could repel any further attacks on US soil. More importantly, the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not necessary, nor was the bombing of Dresden by allied forces. War is hell, but some of what you are pointing to are losses that could have been avoided. Too often, the victors get to justify as necessity wounds on enemies inflicted as a part of revenge or as a part of a race against the Soviets to divide up the spoils of WWII. I agree that we shouldn’t hide our face from reality, but I wonder whose version of reality?
“Israel rightly believes it is not yet facing an existencial threat to its very existence. The Palestinian refugee organized people – let’s go ahead and call them a “State” under Hamas/Fatah – are utterly dedicated to their destruction, and would wipe Israel off this earth at this moment if only they could. The surrounding Arab countries are also dedicated to Israel’s complete destruction, but at this point do not act, for a variety of reasons.”
The US State Department, I am told, has produced reports arguing that Israel cannot survive 30 years, given the technological changes in weapons capability that will be in the hands of Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as the great differences in birth rates of Palestinians versus Israeli’s. I would not assume that Israel has the security view that you claim.
“Iran will be the trigger point for the existencial war crisis for Israel.”
Why? Israel has nukes and other WMDs, while Iran lacks nukes and has smaller stockpiles of other weapons. Getting nukes would seem to neutralize Israel’s advantage, or am I missing something… Ahmadenajad talks about wiping Israel off the map and denying the Holocaust, but Reagan talked about nuking the Soviets. Do we really think that leadership in Iran (and he isn’t the real power anyway) will risk total annihilation on the basis of a populist’s comments? I think MAD keeps even a nuclear Iran in check. And while I’d prefer fewer nuclear players to more, I don’t believe the cost the world should bear to keep that number low is unlimited.
“Israel will have no choice but to respond, and will have every legitimate right to do so, with every capability at their command. It will be a real war.”
“Legitimate right” is not a blank check. If Israel nukes all of Iran tomorrow, they will not have had a legitimate right to do so. You give your bias away when you make comments like this.
Ann Coulter also has a way of phrasing her arguments in ways that drives them absolutely bat-crazy.
Sputtering with complete outrage: “You can’t say that!”
Ann, with her usual buoyant laugh: “I just did.”
Mike,
“(It would be a very good idea to stop Iran, then, by the way, before they get to where they want to go.)”
And where is that? According to what Seymour Hersch has dug up, there is no evidence of an ongoing, but hidden nuclear weapons program. (http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/69-69/6128-seymour-hersh-no-evidence-of-iranian-weapons-program) Of course, that was the story with Iraq, but it didn’t stop Bush from invading anyway. History repeats itself quite often apparently.
Y quoting Mao. Now I’ve seen everything…
“According to what Seymour Hersch has dug up. . .”
This from a man who also thinks Paul Krugman is a great economist and Jean Paul Sartre was a great philosopher. Oy!
Back to the essentials of Book’s post:
It is a stereotype that the Palestinian Hamas/Fatah refugees, the Arab States, and Iran want to completely destroy Israel. This is a stereotype grounded in truth. But there are certainly individual Muslims out there who do not want this.
The stereotype is the driver of the reality.
abc,
Another commenter complimented you on your change in commentary style recently, in another thread.
I just wanted to say I’ve noticed what I see as a change in your commentary style, too, and I like it. A lot. Just thought I’d say that.
Mike, thanks for the compliment. Who says I don’t change when the facts merit it?
I know that stereotypes are the driver of subjective construction of reality, which is faster and sometimes safer than trying to be more deliberate about it. In the case of Iran’s weapons program, I hope that we won’t shoot from the hip again. Stereotypes are often wrong, and the costs are too high in war to rely upon them.
abc: History repeats itself quite often apparently.
“History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” — Mark Twain
Mao stole that from Chinese philosophers, whom coincidentally he wanted to displace and kill off to pave way for modern economic progress. Z’s inimitable “mixed economy”.
In the case of Iran’s weapons program, I hope that we won’t shoot from the hip again.
Too late, look at Libya.