Pogo
Diamond Member
- Dec 7, 2012
- 123,708
- 22,748
"Call you names"? What do I look like, Quantum Kazbag?
Thought you might ask me why I said that. I'll tell you anyway.
Wherever you got this idea that 9/11 was some kind of "religious" attack -- and I know somebody out there fed it to you -- you need to understand the reason it was characterized and revised that way.
The actual horrific events of 9/11 are in no way uncertain or in question. We know what went down. What's malleable is the "why". Shifting an act of political terrorism into the realm of the religious has a specific manipulative purpose.
A political act results, predictably, out of a political history - international politics in this case. Understanding that background requires a great deal of study of contexts and history. You have to navigate all kinds of complexities including your own country's part in that history, and what it means here, and what it means there, and third parties, and fourth parties, in order to grok the "why" of it. That produces a large swath of POVs and contingencies and mitigating factors. It can make the brain hurt.
But convert the same political act into a religious one, and eeeeeverything suddenly gets much easier. Now you can sell the despised religion as the enemy -- no matter if the perpetrators weren't even religious people if you can sell them as adherents to that religion, you sell the idea of "Evil". Evil is a base emotion, divorced from the rational, and serves as a tool to open up the can of Rabid that you want from the populace.
The Rabid that you want, that is, if you're trying to sell a war. You can't start a war with rationality. The concept "Evil" is an advertising tool, just as fast food stores paint their environment red because it makes people hungry. As an emotion, fear is a gut reaction. It shoots first and asks questions later (if at all). And that's what the advertiser wants -- the image (perception) of the Emmanuel Goldstein entity as the embodiment of pure Evil, to be despised and eradicated from the planet.
And it begins with simple terminology -- truth is always the first casualty in warmongering. You don't have to sell 9/11 as a "religious" basis --- it's already been sold to you in the phrase "Islamic militants" and you dutifully ingested and did what you were expected to do --- passed it on to the Grand Meme. That serves as one more affirmation.
And that's what they want.
So carry on.
Don't lecture me. This isn't Political Correctness 101, this is reality. Liberals like you have to rationalize your own passivity because you have no real basis to justify why you are. You have to twist the meaning of what 'evil' is to fit it to your own concept of evil. "Don't call them radical Islamists" or "those people aren't religious" or "evil isn't evil" is preposterous. Spare me this PC nonsense. I am a libertarian and I hate unjustified wars, but even I see the danger this group poses to the world. You? You simply disagree just to disagree. War is always bad and never will work to solve anything.
So, people who do harm to us and others in the name of Islam aren't religious? Is that what I'm getting here? That what ISIS did was a political move? That those radical Islamists flew three planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon for political reasons? What? Are you insane? "You can't start a war with rationality" you say. Nor can you start one with a red line, either. So, for example if a political act in America involved killing people, then we would all be dead. Correct? There went the entirety of your argument, right there.
Pogo, let me let you in on a secret. When people behead two Americans, that's evil. When they purposefully kill Christians who don't convert to Islam, they are evil. When they rape and force their women into unwanted marriages, that's evil. Evils like that only exists once in a generation with Hitler, Pol Pot, and Mao being a some examples. Also, look at their name: Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/Libya. They invoke the name of Islam in their very name! Listen to yourself!
For the record, they turned this into a religious issue when they started on a genocidal campaign against Christians in Iraq. They are indeed radical, simply because another radical group, al-Qaeda disowned them. When al-Qaeda disowns one of it's offshoots, you just how evil they really are. You sound like you don't want them to be killed. I can only take it that you are defending them. For your sake, I hope you aren't. There need not be any historical context to know that ISIS/L is the manifestation of pure evil in this world.
You have a very funny sense of what evil is, Pogo. So what exactly is evil in your eyes? You simply don't understand the gravity of this situation. Your rationale is quite frankly disturbing. Your generalizations of evil are easy to see. I call them what they are. Radical Islamists. Looking for the gray area between the black and white is not always a good thing. Now, go report to the Chief of the PC Police, tell him you failed to catch the bad guy who called them Radical Islamists. I will say what I want, however I want to. It does not mean I swallowed anything anyone else said. Only blind people hang on every word the establishment says.
I don't blithely follow any political party. I follow my own path, you had better understand that. I stopped playing the lemming a long time ago.
Good. Good. Let the emotion flow through you. That's what they want..
Need a hand with that?
