The only ‘cross’ most westerners care about is the little cross hair in a laser guided bomb aiming unit used to send a 500kg cultural critique in your direction, from our technologically advanced culture to your dark ages one.
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Samizdata quote of the daySeptember 14th, 2014 |
 57 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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I thought your other comment in that thread was even funnier: “After many years of internet experience, Gibberish is like a second language to me. A Sdjalkm is the islamic version of a JDAM except it is made out of hummus.”
I’d stand you a beer on that one alone 😛
Perry,
Your comment about a 500kg cultural critique is more relevant than you might realise. Extrapolate how many rounds were fired during WW2 and how many perps killed and the massive cost of WW2. One perp, one 500kg bomb is fucking cheap.
And actually, my main criticism is that the crosshair is so damned muddy. We need better bombing videos!
Ok I’ve been going through a whole bunch of your other comments on VICE and fuck me, I thought I was a wind up artist. You love to send ’em off the deep end, hahaha
Holy molly! The creature your comment was aimed at in that thread seems like an honest-to-goodness ISIS crazy! So we are “cross worshippers”! Well yes, just not quite in the way he thinks as I was rather cross after I read that lunacy.
Bombs and bullets are not a belief system.
It is sometimes necessary to kill people – but one can not win an ideological conflict just by killing people (one must present an alternative belief system – and convert people to it).
Nor does a belief system have to be religious – although most have been.
It is profoundly depressing to see such a post on a site dedicated to the investigation of ideas (and the conflict between different systems of ideas). Particularly when the post is written by a person for whom I have the highest respect.
I repeat – YES it is sometimes necessary to kill people, but thinking that victory in this conflict of belief systems can be achieved just by bombing people is folly.
What is being suggested?
That London and every other major city in Britain be bombed flat?
The number of Muslims (and I mean real followers of Mohammed) is increasing daily – both due to their high birth rate, due to immigration and due to CONVERSION.
Trying to pretend that this is not a conflict of ideas with Islam (that the matter can be settled just by bombing places) is to put one’s self on the mental level of DAVID CAMERON.
Did you actually follow the link in the article Paul, to bother getting a little context and see who I was replying to, or was that just a random comment on your part?
No mate, they’re not. But we can flap our lips all we want about “belief systems” but the cunt this was aimed at needs bombs and bullets shot at him and all his lads. As as the full comment pointed out, if you’d gone and done read it, most of them bullets are going get shot at these fuckers by other muslims.
PersonFromPorlock: Perhaps, maybe, bombing videos released by the military are degraded a wee bit?
“one can not win an ideological conflict just by killing people”
In general, that’s true. But this comment was about ISIS specifically, and it seems to me that if you kill all of them you pretty much “win the ideological conflict” by definition. And that is what needs to be done with ISIS. A reminder: they are not a recognized state (let alone a signatory), so the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply to them. Just bomb or shoot them all, and take no prisoners. Solves the problem quite nicely.
Douglas Adams put it well in the Krikkit wars:
‘They care, we don’t, they win’.
I see little sign that those in the West who care about its survival will succeed in asserting themselves over the forces of destructionism that form the governing parties and main opposition in ever major western country.
I don’t see any intention to defeat ISIS in Cameron, Obama or others. Talk of a 3-year war is utter nonsense, a statement of intent to lose, it would have to be ‘No Quarter’, or nothing. It will be nothing.
I hope that their fanaticism is of the sort that is self-defeating, like Japanese soldiers in WW2. They wanted to die in battle more than they wanted to win the war. If we can encourage jihadists to do the same, they will win the war for us!
“one can not win an ideological conflict just by killing people”
Ahhhh……but it worked quite well in Japan. You’ll notice Shinto virtually disappeared from the face of the Earth after Colonel Paul Tibbets and Major Charles Sweeney visited Japan in August, 1945.
Paul Marks calls it right. If all of IS or whatever die by the sword–so what?. Is the Islamic threat over?. The 7th century cannot beat the 21st in a straight fight. But their real weapon is demographic. And nobody is doing a damn thing about that–it this or any other Western country. Indeed nothing can be done about it unless the left are first smashed.
Nope. Paul Marks calls it wrong on this one and so do you. Firstly because the comment is actually directed at an ISIS supporter claiming people in the West are ‘Cross Worshippers’. But you knew that because you, like Paul, followed the link before replying, right? Right? No, didn’t think so. Secondly…
Nope. Wrong. Utterly completely and total wrong, and you know why you are wrong. That is because…
Finally some insight as to what the real problem is. Islam is trivial. It is primitive and the more rigorously it is followed, the more intrinsically inept a culture becomes. To think it is about muslim demographics is like thinking that when someone with AIDS dies from a common cold, the problem is they had a common cold. No, his problem was he had AIDS and thus could not defeat what is actually a trivial problem. Western Civilisation has AIDS and the name of the disease is multiculturalism. Civil society is actively prevented from rejecting or adapting the virus that is Islam, not by Islam but by home grown secular statists. THEY are the problem, not demographics. Remove the suppressive force backed multiculturalists and Islam in the west either withers away from assimilation or simply goes away back to the shit hole it came from when it is not longer subsidised. And at that point, their demographics become our demographics.
And overseas ‘muslim problems’ can be dealt with via judiciously dropping bombs when needed and supporting local non-lunatics, including non-lunatic muslims who are perfectly happy to shoot at the lunatic ones (such as the largely secular Kurds who mostly just happen to be muslims but with whom political Islam has little traction and who are robustly tolerant of other religions).
First of all–I did indeed follow the link. The comments were a collection of fatuous back and forth insults typified by some moron who sent in a picture of his dick. Why you thought such a location to be worthy of one of your superior insights remains a mystery.
You may indeed be correct in your contention about what will happen to islam here– sans the left. However, your scenario is not happening and not likely to in any foreseeable future. Given the entrenched nature of leftist scum in this nation and the West generally, demographics will indeed matter. Your insights into the possible fate of islam over here are of zero practical value.
Actually that was my view of your view that demographics are the problem when in fact multiculturalism is the problem. It is of zero practical value as ‘problem demographics’ are at best an effect of the actual problem, not the problem itself.
Indeed worrying about ‘demographics’ just plays into the hands of the multicultists. They are the source of the problem, not the flies buzzing around the suppurating wounds they keep causing.
Sorry Perry, but I’m with Paul on this. As usual, you approach these things from a secular atheist POV of a person who has no need for a belief system. In that you may well be similar to most Westerners, and your comment there is correct as far as that goes. But in any society there is always at least a minority of people who do feel the need to fill “the void” with some sort of a belief system, and it does not have to include an actual deity. And such people, even when they are a minority, are usually the ones who cause “troubles”, seek change etc., for better or worse. It is no secret that over the years, the Left has tried – and largely succeeded – to either eliminate Christianity and Judaism, or to co-opt them. It is not surprising either, because they rightly hoped and expected for their own belief system, the Leftism (which of course includes that same multiculturalism you mentioned, among other things) to replaces these ancient belief systems.
On a lighter note, I actually did get a kick out of the Viking penis :-O
Ask a Cathar.
‘Convert or die’ is the alternative belief system, and it works regardless of which alternative is chosen.
A possibility, but having worked with similar (albeit earlier) equipment back in my military days, ‘lowest bidder’ performance is also a distinct possibility.
When this question of Islam pops up, in the libertarian blogoshere, it should be discussed in the fictional world of Libertopia. How would a secular Anarcho-Capitalist planet deal with Religious collectives?
Well you would have to ask a secular ana-cap, as I am a secular minarchist.
I have no problem with ‘religious collectives’ per se, as I have never felt very threatened by a kibbutz or an ashram or a monastery. It is really only when members of some group start blowing themselves up on buses and hijacking aircraft and trying to impose their views that I start to worry… at which point I favour shooting people and dropping bombs on them generally. Indeed that is the main reason to have a minimal state.
I find most non-loony-toon libertarians are less quick to advocate the use of force but then they do, they are often willing to countenance much more ruthless use of force than tends to be fashionable these days. I certainly fall into that category.
People forget that Islam tends to break up by itself. Mohammed, taken as a perfect man, was a warlord who fought those who opposed him- so mohammedans tend to do the same.
I am a minarchist, so I can’t say what an anarcho-capitalist land would do, but I advocate time-share citizenship, meaning that there could be a lot of militia and police to combat any outbreaks of compulsion. And I suppose that Libertopia would have lots of private clubs, to voluntarily protect all their private properties from invaders.
On the subject of Libertopia, let’s also not forget that fascist Islam is motivated (or at least rationalized) in no small part by colonialism, and by more recent activity that they regard as equivalent to colonialism, which would not be practiced by Libertopia. Having said that, some of what they regard as colonialism is just normal business, so those mal-criticisms could equally well be applied to an anarcho-capitalist entity. (I almost said “anarcho-capitalist country,” but I guess that would be an oxymoron.)
Tedd, let’s not forget that when they do it, it is called Jihad and is alright, mate! If anyone else tries to have an empire, or break up the mohammedan Caliphate, that is cosmically not alright- in fact it’s blasphemous to even suggest it could happen, ever! Therefore, Israel can’t exist since that was once Muslim land, and therefore must always be muslim lands, forever.
If you can talk about ‘entity’, you can talk about ‘society’. An Anarcho-capitalist society would be a land where everything has a private owner, and ‘Public’ would be another word for ‘customer’.
These people are rampaging across the region killing indiscriminately and with wholesale exuberance.
This is no ideological debate to be won or lost.
The slaughter of innocents will be stopped. If it takes the slaughter of all of ISIS, so be it. That’s ISIS’s choice.
Once that’s finished and their eager slaughtering has ended, we’ll open a bottle and have an ideological debate.
Would you like to be placed on the announcement list for the debate?
“I find most non-loony-toon libertarians are less quick to advocate the use of force but then they do, they are often willing to countenance much more ruthless use of force than tends to be fashionable these days. I certainly fall into that category.”
Thank you. Symmetrical warfare is an idiotic concept. You only have a goat and six hand grenades? We have JDAMs. Throw a goat at us and see what happens.
Vinegar Joe @ September 15, 2014 at 8:29 am
I don’t think so. State Shinto, which was harnessed to the militarist regime, was abolished after WW II. But Wiki sez there are about 100,000 Shinto shrines and 20,000 Shinto priests in Japan, including dozens of lavish temple complexes dating back hundreds of years.
Rich makes a useful and relevant distinction. State Shinto was the problem, not Shinto per se. Indeed the problem with Islam is political Islam.
In my conversations with a couple largely secular Kurds I know who live somewhere along the road from Kirkuk to Erbil if I understand correctly, it is the sort of distinction they always correct me on. They take the view that political Islam must be crushed and that Salafists should be shot rather than reasoned with. They regard any religion, including Islam, as little more than “cultural artifice that only a madman would allow to be the basis of a political world view” (their words, not mine). Perhaps that attitude is widespread in Kurdistan (and I really cannot say, I just don’t know enough about modern South Kurdistan. My chums are Gorran movement supporters and I imagine Samizdata’s only Kurdish readers), but judging by the near electoral irrelevance of the Islamic parties in Erbil, maybe it is true.
Perry, before you get too misty-eyed about the Kurds, remember they are prone to FGM and honour killing of wayward women, somewhat more enthusiastically than their neighbouring Turks and Arabs, despite tending to more Sufi flavoured interpretations of Islam or outright atheism.
I am not misty eyed about them at all, Ljh, and the Yazidis are very prone to ‘honour killing’ I am told. But case in point: my two Kurdish chums are a married couple, one Christian and one Muslim, but both very secular. The fact they can still live in Kurdistan openly does say something. Likewise it is perfectly viable in Kurdistan, at least Rojava and South Kurdistan, to be an open self declared atheist. Try that most places in the Middle East.
I’m with Paul Marks on this.
I know this will be pretty unpopular with Samizdata readers, but I’m going to write it anyway. From a Quakerish point of view, if every person is redeemable, we should work for every person to be redeemed (in whatever way you want to take it). Now there is no doubt that the head-hackers of ISIS are glorying in monstrous acts, and to my eyes they look like the very embodiment of evil. Indeed, ISIS looks like an outbreak of mass psychosis we’ve not seen since the Ostfront. But . . . .
. . . unless you are prepared to kill every one of them – commit genocide – then when this mass psychosis burns itself out, as it will, as it must, then you’re going to be left with a generation of people in the Middle East (and in Britain too!) which is permanently traumatised by the evil they have perpetrated, by the evil they have witnessed. Unless we’re prepared to commit genocide, it is not only right, but also in our interests, that we somehow prepare to deal with this.
In my lifetime, we have seen one country – Germany – overcome this mass psychosis/mass trauma. And we have seen plenty (Cambodia, possibly China) which haven’t. The struggle for civilization doesn’t end, it merely becomes harder, and less popular.
Then you are not paying attention. Paul Marks is sounding off about “OMG people in the west do not believe anything”… firstly actually he is wrong, people believe all sorts of stupid things, but more to the point… SO WHAT? Irrelevant to this particular article. Perfectly reasonable as an answer to some of my other remarks, but not this one.
The remark quoted was directed at an ISIS supporter claiming people in the west are cross worshippers. So bleating about belief is any broader sense is pointless when the only thing most people want is for people like that guy to end up dead.
Hence the remark about the cross hairs being all anyone really cares about.
This is not a ‘clash of civilisations’ that is going to be decided by who prays hardest or believes the most deeply. ISIS will be defeated by blowing up their vehicles and artillery from the air and then leaving the Kurds, or whoever else steps up to the plate, to get on with killing the soldiers on the ground… and then looking the other way when they then drag out and shoot anyone in the Arab communities who they suspect supported ISIS and pointed out who were the secular Kurds, Yazidis and Chaldeans. It will not be pretty and guess what, I really do not care one iota. Think of it as a return to ‘traditional’ and ‘community based’ counterinsurgency.
Every person? I do not believe for a moment.
Indeed, and that happened because we blew the living shit out of them, killing vast numbers of people indiscriminately, soldier and civilian alike, and then hanged their leaders just to emphasise how miffed we were with German political culture.
I think, Perry, that Paul is calling your remark as nothing to be pleased about, as he sees it as an inadvertent admission that in the long run, the West is doomed by a lack of belief in itself. Hence my Krikkit point.
From the ISIS pov, your distinction between crosses is no answer, as you have not submitted to his world view. He will just have to fight on, even if he becomes the Black Knight.
Yes I know that is what he thinks, and to the extent that the multiculturalists are currently in control, he is at least half way right. I do not think that will always be the case however, whereas he does. Moreover I take the view that the more florid versions of Islam need the ‘Cathar solution’. You just kill them, and ISIS is making that easier by coming out in the open and chopping off heads on social media*. I hope they do indeed fight on like the Black Knight because the current crop of idiots in command are stupid enough to let them surrender otherwise.
* = btw there is a hilariously snarky comment by a Kurdish commander in this video pointing out that ISIS was unable to defeat the Peshmerga “with social media“.
“From a Quakerish point of view, if every person is redeemable. . . .”
I’m not a Quaker, or even “Quakerish”, so I don’t accept that premise.
“unless you are prepared to kill every one of them – commit genocide. . . .”
Clearly you don’t understand what “genocide” is. Killing a few thousand psychopathic murderers isn’t “genocide”, even if they happen to be banded together into a single group and even if they happen to share the same (alleged) religion. If we executed every member of the mafia it wouldn’t be “genocide”, just housekeeping. Same thing with ISIS.
So yes, I am prepared to see every one of them killed. It won’t cost me any sleep.
What Laird said, and Perry too – genocide my eye. We can argue about beliefs systems etc. (and Ed makes a good point in his last comment), but all that is beside the point, which is that this is just a largish gang of murderous thugs, and they need to be exterminated, plain and simple. The West had in the past dealt with larger and no less murderous gangs, and more clever and sophisticated too. To hell with them and with the Toyotas they rode in on.
One is reminded of how Genghis Khan took care of the Assassin cult when he visited the Afghanistan/Pakistan area.
He turned his army loose on them, killed most and captured about 300 of their leaders.
In a major ceremony, with all the locals ‘invited’ to attend, he then had these leaders buried alive wrapped in pig skins.
The remaining Assassin foot soldiers then hastily departed for distant regions, and the Assassins were no more (except in our dictionaries).
Wrapping the leaders in pig skins was the genius action, as the leaders considered that this condemned them to hell. Maybe we should do the same …
First, to Perry – you’re right, I wasn’t paying enough attention, and was quite possibly irrelevant to this particular article. Apologies to those bored or annoyed by that.
But second, I find to my surprise that I want to return to the ‘Quakerish’ idea that every person is redeemable. Perry ‘doesn’t believe it for a moment, and neither does Laird. Both then escalate to systemic and targetted mass-murder (with a pointless quibble about the semantics of ‘genocide’). That’s a all-too explicable, and all too easy, step to take.
So here’s the question: if libertarians don’t believe that every person is redeemable (in a vague Quakerish way), what is the moral argument for libertarianism, and isn’t it prone to default to Hobbesian Leviathan pretty quickly – particularly if Leviathan has drones to do its dirty work. Because it seems to me that both Perry and Laird are precisely defaulting to that position. Answers please.
No, that is very far from pointless quibble: you used that word, and words have meanings. Give up the word ‘genocide’? Fine. Would you be so kind as to explain then how does killing off a group of murderous thugs qualify as ‘mass murder’? Your turn to answer, me thinks.
When it comes to war, it is a collectivist activity of the most objectionable kind, and libertarians are just terrible at that (which I totally understand and empathise with). But the fact is in a war you have to be prepared to kill ‘innocent’ people or you might as well just surrender to a more ruthless enemy who has no such qualms. That does not mean you should not try to avoid killing innocent parties when it does not inconvenience military necessity, but if your enemy is in the middle of a city… so what… bombs away regardless. If they sit 4 year old children on the front of their tanks to discourage you from attacking… bombs away regardless. Allow yourself to be played like that and you might as well just give up and start paying jizya.
My point? War is largely a matter of practicality in which civilised people try to minimise ‘innocent’ death, but they still need to be willing to kill innocents people as a matter of practicality. If an enemy says “oh you are right, you have blown the crap out of us and we give up… yes yes I know I was an enthusiastic supporter of aid worker and journalist decapitating ISIS, but I am going back to being a non-combatant now”.
Well, I take the view that is really not enough. It is not enough to simply lay down weapons.
Nazi Germany was defeated by being subject to near apocalyptic collective punishment, and then it was de-Nazified at gunpoint. This was not a precision process that was just targeted at the wilfully wicked. The equivalent process post war in the Middle East would involve blowing up every Mosque that was supportive of the Salafists and hanging a lot of Salafists with a rope made of pig entrails. And not getting all too overheated about any ‘frontier justice’ against anyone who was a collaborator. When dealing with tribal societies whose members view the world as all about interacting collectives, a westerner, particularly that distilled essence of westerner called a libertarian, is likely to find a profound non-meeting of the minds. Any genuine redemption is likely to come only after a period of violent collective ghastliness that pretty much destroys the target’s entire political order, notions and understanding of civilisation, downwind of the rotting corpses of the people they grew up with.
Then maybe we can talk about people finding redemption. Which I am all for, I might add.
Alisa. . .
“Would you be so kind as to explain then how does killing off a group of murderous thugs qualify as ‘mass murder’? ”
Er, what explanation would you require, beyond reading your own words?
Perry, believe me, I can understand the deep and urgent desire to eradicate these death-cultists from a great height, I really can. And in fact, almost all of the time I share it.
But, the problem remains – you default by the shortest possible route from being a libertarian to an energetic Leviathanista when you succumb to that temptation. I remain to be convinced that human redemption can only arise, Phoenix-like, from the glowing ashes of the guilty. If that’s the best humanity can hope for, we are all certainly doomed.
No offense Michael, but it is not me you should answer to – I have my answers, as you have noticed.
Mr. Taylor, you seem to have a problem with definitions. When I objected to your incorrect and thoughtless use of the word “genocide” you retreated to the equally incorrect and thoughtless word “murder”. Murder is the unlawful killing of another human being. Killing combatants in a war, or in self-defense, is not unlawful and hence is not murder. Killing them en masse does not make it “mass murder”. You need to retreat even further and simply use the non-judgmental phrase “mass killing” to describe what we’re talking about here.
As to the philosophical libertarian aspects of killing off all of ISIS, libertarianism is not a mutual suicide pact. A core libertarian value is the non-initiation of force, but that does not mean that we forswear all use of force. Self-defense is the principal example of the proper (from a libertarian perspective) application of force, and there is nothing inherently “un-libertarian” about collective self-defense. If ISIS is an existential threat (which I believe we all agree is the case) then replying with force is entirely proper.
So again I find myself disagreeing with your premise: libertarianism is not “prone to default to Hobbesian Leviathan pretty quickly”. Collective defense does not require Leviathan, let alone “default” to it. As Perry has previously noted, libertarians are not quick to resort to violence. But once provoked to it, many of us believe that the force applied should be overwhelming, both to minimize our own losses and pour encourager les autres. “Proportionate” response is irrational (that’s the polite description).
“unless you are prepared to kill every one of them”.
I am.
Anyone who gives the slightest air to the “multicultural” denigration of “islamophobia” should be sent for a six month tour of the islamic nation of their choice, without protection. We’ll see who’s scared of “muslims” then. I am not phobic of Islam, I oppose it. I am willing to win in any of the modes standard Civ 5 allows, but if there is no option but military, and there will be no end as long as one is alive…….so be it.
Laird,
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I’m quite happy to retreat from ‘mass murder’ to ‘mass killing’, but find it difficult to agree that this is ‘non-judgemental’. Once you start killing people by the score, it’s going to be difficult to avoid confronting judgement about what you are about.
Although ‘Quakerish’, I find I cannot be a pacifist. But I do think that those who are happy to support significant armed forces are a) begging to be enslaved by Leviathan, and b) are more likely to be enthusiastic in their use of it to kill other humans.
And it is in that light that I honestly deplore the enthusiasm and indeed lust that Perry and others disclose when it comes to the mass killing of anyone. And yes, that includes ISIS, however evil their current actions. But as I say, to get to that position you have to be inclined to believe that the terrible crimes committed by ISIS jihadists are a) committed by humans and b) all humans have the possibility of redemption, even after they have so damned themselves with their terrible crimes. It’s a hard ask, and normally I don’t feel it. But I do when confronted so unexpectedly with Perry’s surprising bloodlust.
Once again, to anyone I’ve offended – including Perry – I apologize. I’m not trying to provoke or upset, just point out that the slide from libertarian to leviathan can be horribly quick, and extremely tempting.
@ Michael: “But I do think that those who are happy to support significant armed forces are a) begging to be enslaved by Leviathan, and b) are more likely to be enthusiastic in their use of it to kill other humans.”
That is not an unreasonable opinion, and it might actually be correct with respect to a large percentage of the populace. But I think it is less likely to be the case among those of a libertarian persuasion. You may disagree. But I know a large number of libertarians and I think mine is a fair assessment of them as a group.
I can’t speak for Perry (although I think he’d agree), but personally I don’t approach the idea of mass killing lightly. But in some cases it is simply necessary, if distasteful, and in my opinion ISIS is one such case. Again, you’re entitled to feel differently about that. And if you think they are capable of redemption, well, perhaps you’re just a better person than I am. I’ll leave it at that.
Incidentally, I can’t imagine that anyone here is offended by your remarks. We enjoy a good debate, and you’ve been entirely civil throughout. No one can ask for more.
‘Enthusiasm’? ‘Lust’? Where did you see those, Michael, and what does it have to do with any rational argument on anyone’s part here?
Don’t really want to go finger-pointing (probably shouldn’t have singled out Perry, but it seems he was a thought-leader on this one), but you can go through the threat and judge for yourself.
As for what it has to do with ‘rational argument’: enthusiasm can quite often cloud judgement, and possibly the more so when there is such a heinous and above-all easily identifiable enemy upon which to focus.
Well, that’s it from me. Take care all.
Sorry Michael, but so far what I saw here has been as follows: you came to a post and a thread were people are supporting the fighting and the killing of barbarous head-choppers, and all you have offered so far is mud slinging and name calling, such as ‘genocide’ and ‘mass murder’. After having been called out on that, you took those words back, assured everyone of no intentional offense on your part, and immediately proceeded to accusing the same people of enthusiasm for mass killing and of blood lust. I’ll be charitable and assume that you have no complete control of your own keyboard.
I’m halfway between both points. I see nothing wrong with treating others as they are trying to treat me, but I think it would be a good idea to have something like the Nuremburg war crimes trials for the leaders of this devilish cult.
Perry – I replied to the post as written.
If it was “linked” to something else – the contents of that something-else should have been made clear in the post.
I will now (against my better judgement) “follow the link”, if there is an understanding of the key point (the need to convert Muslims to a different belief system) in the something-else, then I will apologise.
No – there was no understanding of the key point. Either in the “Vice News” article or in your comment.
Although you did say that the Kurds are mostly Muslim (which is true).
Of course Muslim Kurds in the West (say in Australia) cut-off from their clan structure (and local nationalism) have nothing but Islam to fall back on (as cultural alternatives, the foundational principles of the West, have been undermined).
Past history has shown that ethnic Kurds are not immune from the teachings and life example of Mohammed.
Most of the Muslim population of (for example) Birmingham (England) are not ethnic Kurds – but, even if they were, I do not think it would make any difference in the long run (over the generations).
Although in the short run it might make a difference – as at least first generation (and some second generation) Kurds in the West still have some ethnic nationalism, which makes them enemies of cosmopolitan Pan Islamic movements such as ISIS.
The same is true of ethnic Turkish nationalists – who are not happy with the cosmopolitan Islamic government of Turkey.
However, I am wary of ethnic nationalism – it, too often, becomes a form of racism.
I want a different alternative to Islam.
And that alternative has to be a belief system (a culture in the proper sense) – sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, will not do.
No Paul, you are wrong and indeed demonstrate a degree functional internet illiteracy with your comment (something shared by most newspapers who refuse to link outside themselves in their articles it must be said). Any article on the internet that does not link to what it is referring to is simply not comprehending the medium. Discourse on the internet is about linking to what you are talking about to provide both reference and context. This is the internet, not a book, learn how it works. Embedded links are going to be there for a reason, in this case it was in case someone found the remark interesting enough to critique and thus needs some context.
Let me deconstruct what you have just written…
Back in my day, I grew up reading scrolls, which presented their information in one rolling sequence, and so I sneer at these new fangled “books” youngsters read these days. But I will now (against my better judgement) “turn the page”.
If the discussion was on the topic I want it to be about, which is to say belief (crosses on churches), rather than about war (crosses in laser aiming units) I will apologise.
***
Paul, I understand, I get it. You think we have to be discussing belief systems as sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, will not do. Well yes and no. Yes sex, drugs and rock-and-roll is not good enough. Sex, drugs and rock-and-roll… and a free press (kinda) and a free-ish economy (kinda) and convenient affordable supermarkets, well that however probably *is* good enough. I would fight for that.
But belief simply is not the only thing to talk about.
I realise that is your idée fixe, and in the appropriate context it is even interesting, but not every tool is a hammer and not every problem is a nail and sometimes the topic just ain’t carpentry even if that is all you want to talk about.
Paul Mark’s initial comment was just silly on its face given that killing a huge number of people in Germany and Japan utterly destroyed the ideology in both cultures. Saying that “we need an alternative” when we have such recent counter-examples is intellectually dishonest, and no attention should be paid to such childish remarks.
Our culture though, is being eaten away from the inside at the same time as it is facing external attack. The internal threats are greater to our long term survival, but dropping bombs onto our external enemies will achieve any pacification aims we care to set, so long as we drop sufficient bombs to equal our goals.
I agree, but this is also why although I think Paul is somewhat missing the point, he is not *entirely* wrong either. We will only “drop sufficient bombs to equal our goals” once we deal with the purveyors of suicidal cultural values who work tirelessly to ensure military actions are violent enough to annoy but not destroy.