Posted on 11/29/2002 6:51:23 AM PST by Greg Swann
Jacob Sullum has been around for years. Libertarians will know his name from Reason magazine. In this column from TownHall.com he seems to me to highlight the worst aspects of squeamish libertarianism:
The answer to the question of why some Muslims consider it their religious duty to kill nonbelievers cannot lie in the Koran, the authority of which is accepted by all followers of Islam. That is the point President Bush was making when, soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, he declared that Islamist terrorists twist their religion into a justification for their vile crimes.First we have the obligatory quibbling equivalizing. Then we get to a fancied significant difference between peaceful and violent Muslims. No doubt there are many doctrinal and personal differences between Muslims who simply live, work and play and those other Muslims who slaughter non-Muslims as they live, work and play. Who could object to such a claim? The question is, what do non-Jihadi Muslims do about the slaughterers among them? Do they cheer them? Do they finance them? Do they silently support them? Do they silently oppose them? Do they actively oppose them? Or do they just turn away and declaim again and again that the Islam in evidence is not the true Islam, the Islam of contemplation, the Islam of devotion, the Islam of peace? (Where have we heard that one before?)Robertson is not alone in arguing that Islam is especially prone to such twisting, but surely it is more productive to focus on the beliefs that distinguish peaceful Muslims from terrorists. Such an inquiry would highlight the principles that prevent religious differences from escalating into violence without tarring all Muslims as potential murderers.
The Jihadi are not twisitng the Koran. They are quoting it chapter and verse. Muslims know the Koran like only fanatical Christians know the Bible--which should tell us something just by itself. A more reasonable explanation for Sullum's conundrum is this: Just as American leftists decried the not-the-true-Communism yet did nothing to stop its atrocities, so peaceful Muslims are doing nothing to stop the atrocities of the not-the-true-Islam. I think for the same reason: Because they share the root premises but for whatever reason are not willing to pursue them to their logical conclusions. Is it possible that "the beliefs that distinguish peaceful Muslims from terrorists" are really just a matter of inches and hours? If so, then we are safe from peaceful Muslims (and peaceful leftists) only as long as their more ferocious brethren seem unlikely to succeed...
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http://www.presenceofmind.net/ (last updated 11/29/02)
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Interesting thought...most "modern" Christians have progressed beyond the ideas espoused by, for example, "the Grand Inquisitors"...and not that those folks would exactly be considered "true Christians" either (?!) but, interesting point you make nevertheless!
The question of the day.
Ya THINK!?!?!!!
'Twas ever thus. You don't root out any ideology, religious or otherwise, by main force. (Unlike the illusion behind what other conservative Catholics admire, but perhaps not Swann, the tactics of a Torquemada.) You keep your ammo dry, defend what needs to be defended, clarify the issues in any appropriate forum.
And you look to the rising generations to perceive more of the facts, and to create more of a rational take on the important matters of a civilization. Because in the final reckoning, no one really persuades people to become individualists. You nurture them that way from intellectual seedlings, or they don't become such at all.
I don't know what this latest installment of Swann's bloviating is accomplishing, but it's not, on its face, anything more than pious posturing. He apparently wants some sort of a Christian Jihad, like most of the kill-all-the-Muslim-scum types around here. Let him call clearly for it.
(Oh, by the way, Greg, fix your damn Blog link, it's been four-oh-four for weeks. And you've far overdrawn your quota for using the ellipsis as a substitute for rhetorical pauses.)
Not sure what you're asking me, NAV (do I think what?!) but while the above quote from the article is true, in that theoretically it's possible there's little if any distinction in the beliefs of all Muslims, that's kind of like saying there's little or no distinction between the beliefs of the Pope and the beliefs of, say, James Jones, or the Heaven's Gate cult (who were at least peaceful, if I recall, but you get my point!)...
That said...I don't know!! Certainly I think all those peaceful Islamists out there had ought to be taking a bit more pro-active of a stance in denouncing all "fellow Muslims" who are murderous terrorists, and I'm not quite hearing that loud and clear, either...
If so, seems there are much fewer murderous terrorist Christians, no matter how radical some's beliefs may be, than there are Islamists...but I could be wrong. ("the troubles" come to mind..)
Yes, as long as we can keep the contest within the rule of law and the arena of ideas. To circumvent that force will be necessary.
I liked Greg's essay on Condaleeza Rice but this and the other stuff of his I have read seem to fit your description. At times he seems to get tangled up in his own string.
I am a libertariam in the way the word is used here. More properly an anarcho-capitalist. Someone here called me an Objectivist, and, while that's not true, it's a much smaller error than this one.
>Catholics
I am an atheist. Have been since I was a teenager, but I think the oldest public mention of my atheism is 1988. If it's any consolation, I go to mass every week and I can hold my own in Latin.
>I don't know what this latest installment of Swann's bloviating is accomplishing
But you missed me yesterday. Readers here were deprived of the opportunity to see you misuse the colloquialism "bloviating" yet again.
>He apparently wants some sort of a Christian Jihad
To the contrary. My objective is cultural conquest.
>fix your damn Blog link
What is broken? Working for me.
>it's been four-oh-four for weeks
Brand new as of last Friday. But accuracy is not your strong suit.
>And you've far overdrawn your quota for using the ellipsis as a substitute for rhetorical pauses.
I understand the difference between oration (where bloviation is possible) and discursive prose (where it is not). But I also see discursive prose as a sort of musical notation of oration, and thus I think it is importamt to pace the reader as though he were hearing speech. Do you disagree...?
You might write to me privately. I'm interested to know who you are, but I'm only responding to you to correct misapprehensions others may get about my being Catholic or conservative.
Providing windless discursion for over 25 years,
Yeah, I followed a link earlier to THAT meandering piece. Not only do you use the ellipsis as a crutch for avoiding conversational prose, you seem to capitalize every noun -- and adjective, and nearly every conjunction and every preposition. Are you German in heritage? Even they don't go THAT far.
If it's any consolation, I go to mass every week and I can hold my own in Latin.
You go to Mass every week (no capital letter when you DO need one), yet you're an atheist. Hoo-kay. If you say so. I guess I wasn't seeing things when I looked you up on Google Groups, out of curiosity, having seen your name before. Apparently you even bring your son along. Does your wife provide a bit less confusion to him? I was nearly scarred for life figuring out what made my father tick.
"Bloviate" is a perfectly good verb, and it was popularized by Warren Gamaliel Harding, along with his neologism "normalcy." Your writing around here has been pretentious enough to ferment and give off rhetorical gases ever since, at least, some impeachment-era piece called "Roar," where you called for bypassing reason in favor of street theater. (This last makes it unlikely that you are to any degree an Objectivist, despite your newsgroup traffic.)
--GSS
The lie exposed. You always [embarrass yourself] with a jade's trick. I knew you of old.
Your behavior is self-destructive...
--GSS
And the weasels... what a fantastic collection of characters it all was.
Having obsessively lurked a.c-e.c.w. through the Clinton years, I almost feel like someone who got to sit through meetings of the Continental Congress or something firsthand ;)
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