In selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain suggests that women are commodities for political exchange.
John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running “mate” was both profound and perverse. By selecting a woman who is both unknown and unqualified to serve in national office, John McCain is not asking us to view his choice in terms of her own personal merits or any pre-existing attitudes we may have towards her known accomplishments. McCain’s “message” is that knowledge, experience, even temperament are not necessary qualifications for Presidential office.…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - David Black
Dave: I'm sure you already know this, but for the edification of others, it's fair to say that the thing that libs fear the most is to appear racially or culturally insensitive in front of their peers.
We all know that libs are, at the core, collectivists unable to think or speak beyond the will of the mob, which as far as this election goes, includes anything within the dailykos/moveon.org/Gen X/Y driven pop culture axis.
Yet, within their most private thoughts, are prejudices that would, if verbalized, make them look to the right of the KKK.
People are hard-wired to be xenophobic, that's fact. Only the truly honest among us are willing to acknowledge that.
27 - Lisa Solod Warren
Tarring all "libs" with the your same weird brush is absurd and ugly. Neither I, nor anyone I know well, no more harbor thoughts anywhere like what you profess to put into our brains, than do the more "conservative" persons--both friends and family--I know and love.
28 - David Black
I'm sorry, Lisa, but my 62 years of life and living indicate otherwise. A lib is a lib is a lib.
The fact is is that I prefer honesty and clarity over appeasement and "going along to get along."
Lisa, I'd like to know if you employ the "tarring with your same weird brush" comment toward those who attack Bush, Cheney, McCain, Palin, or anyone that has an (R) following their name?
Somehow, I think that what raises your ire depends solely on whose ox is being gored.
29 - Robert K Blechman
In my nearly 58 years of honest and clearly liberal ox goring I have learned that there are two types of people in this world: Those that divide the world into two types of people, and those that dont.
30 - Clavos
#29 gets my vote for best comment of the week...
31 - Baritone
David,
I am also 62 years old, and I am a leftie, a liberal, perhaps even a closet socialist, and I am proud of it.
All your years have done for you is to make you a total bigot without an original thought in your ntiny aal retentive mind.
As harsh as his words may have been, the Reverend Wright wasn't entirely wrong. He knows who the black man's enemy is. He knows that people such as yourself remain in this country.
B
32 - David Black
Pretty profound, Bob, however, please keep in mind that politics is not a spectator sport and it's better to strike first on offense rather than fall back on your heels in defense.
I learned that without having to read from a guy whose family made blue jeans.
"Children are the message we will send to a time we will never see."
When I read stuff like that, I think back to all those PhD pinheads i was subjected to in university... those closet Marxists whom every day extolled the virtues of socialism and Ho Chi Minh and took every opportunity to bash America and its leaders.
When I read quotes like that, I think of other intellectual folderol like "Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life" or "Tune in, turn on, and drop out."
I preferred the age when children were expected to act like small adults and accept adult responsibilities because that's what was believed to be the means to train them for a tough and demanding existence. However, since junk scientists like Dr. Benjamin Spock virtually ruined several generations of American children and turned them into mewling wimps, I can see how warm and fuzzy homilies can become so easily accepted in academe.
Thank goodness I was raised by no-nonsense Jewish immigrants chased from Europe after Kristallnacht who believed the Old World way was the best way.
33 - David Black
"the Reverend Wright wasn't entirely wrong. He knows who the black man's enemy is."
No he doesn't, otherwise, he'd cite the liberal minority leadership and their guilt ridden white liberal lapdogs who enable weakness by actually promoting irresponsibility and an entitlement underclass mentality among so many po' minorities in America.
The dirty little secret is that without a po' minority underclass, LIBS HAVE NO POWER. Without power, they have no real reason to exist.
That's the truth and I'm not afraid to say it.
You don't teach criminal scum a lesson by giving them third, fourth, or fifth chances to turn straight. You sentence them to long and harsh sentences that doesn't include watching TV, doing drugs, or buggering one another in shower rooms.
This is the reason black males comprise nearly half of the entire US prison system while blacks in toto comprise only 12% of the entire US population.
The difference between me and a lib is that unlike a lib, I'm not afraid to speak honestly and frankly about racial problems. Facts are facts, yet, libs wring their hands and utter more pitiful excuses for these problems that never address the real blame.
Thankfully, I'm not a member of a party that needs a dependent minority underclass for votes.
34 - Zedd
Dave,
@#1 Except Obama is smart and has practical workable solutions; will up our value and clout /respectability internationally. That sorta makes a difference.
35 - Baritone
Keep it coming, keep it coming. You are digging yourself a hole that once deep enough, few here or elsewhere will offer to pull you out. Helping hands are wavering and drawing back.
Yessir! You are the embodiment of the "straight talk express! Toot, toot...
B
36 - David Black
Sorry, baritone, you must have me confused with one of your collectivist friends who lives to "go along to get along" with the mob.
37 - David Black
"will up our value and clout /respectability internationally. That sorta makes a difference."
I see, zedd, that great international community that cowers before islamo-fascist terrorism and allows their countries to be overrun by muslim hordes who have zero interest in assimilating with the native country's culture.
Sorry, I'm not interested in being friends with a continent that will eventually become Eurabia.
Londonstan, anyone? But libs are OK with that, I know.
38 - Christopher Rose
David Black, how old are you? You sound like a bitter and grumpy old man to me, one who has long ago lost the ability to think critically anymore and prefers the soapbox to actual thinking. If you are actually under 60 I will be very surprised and not a little disappointed.
There are many reasons for liberals to exist, including to oppose the clearly hateful ideas you are supporting. Apparently you despise about half the entire US population.Just one tiny snippet from your tirades speaks far more illuminatingly than you probably intended:
Even if there was no poverty in the USA, which is a very long way from being the case, despite Republicans being in control of the levers of power for far more years than Democrats, there would still be liberal and illiberal positions on many other political and social issues.
Personally, I am liberal on some issues and conservative on others, as I suspect many people are.
39 - bliffle
David Black reveals the reason for his poor argumentation:
"A person is judged by the company they keep, at least in the world I live in."
A mistake in judgement: Judas kept excellent company.
40 - Cannonshop
#39 I don't know, Bliffle, I suppose the Pharisees and the Zealots were a bit more... respectable, and a Governor from the dominating empire certainly more prestigious than a guy who walked around with his drinking buddies preaching peace while MY ancestors painted themselves blue and scared the everloving dogshit out of that same empire. It can be typically said, however, that even among the best company, there is one or two that, for whatever personal reasons, will turn traitor if the price offered is right. The question of who that might be is one for speculation, but there are four corrupting forces that seem to work consistently.
Money
Ideology
Conscience
Ego.
Any one of those, any combination of those, and all of those can be used to turn most people. Make someone slip on any of those (usually by the first one-money) and if you document it right, you own them, they become pliable or destructable, depending on what you're after, and how they've positioned themselves publicly.
I count three on Obama- Money, Ideology, and Ego, and ONE on McCain- Money, and its hold is pretty weak, two if he's more egotistical than he pretends to be, or starts believing his own press.
Here's the most "surface" ones I've counted up on Obama:
Money: Rezko, Fannie-Mae, George Soros, Daly
Ideology: Ayers, Wright, Pfleger, ACORN, Daly, and there's the whole Thing about Hamas, Chavez, and Ahmadenijad liking him. When the enemy likes a politician-especially a Chicago Politician, that should probably set off some crash-alarms.
Ego:... oy, come on, read his speeches. The "United States of Obama" seal? Big, styrofoam columns and a stadium for his acceptance speech? the grandstanding in Germany, but he wouldn't visit wounded troops in the hospital because they wouldn't let him take his press people with him? Then, there's the whole trying to get the DOJ to witch-hunt his critics for him.
Likely avenues of Corruption: Obama's got so many, it's hard to pick a primary direction, but based on the thumbnail list, I choose... Ideology. When Hugo Chavez and Ahmadenijad think you're a nifty guy, and the surrender-monkeys of the European Union think you're going to play THEIR ballgame, AND you're thoroughly connected into the Daly Machine in Chicago, Ideology slips Just past Money or Ego. That's not even counting associations with guys like Bill Ayers and Jerry Wright. (one might suppose MISTER Obama slept through Jeremiah Wright's sermons for twenty years-which would indicate either a hearing difficulty as the man is loud in the manner of a Charismatic preacher, or a very good set of earplugs not noticed by his wife or the other parishioners, AND three years working on the Annenberg challenge with Bill Ayers, plus starting one's political career in mister Ayers' house COULD just be coincidences...)
Ideology is the most likely candidate for corrupting Barack Obama. Second most likely being Ego, with Money a third (after all, he's only a Single-digit Millionaire, and the finoodling of state finances to get his wife a pay-raise and promotion could be coincidental as well...)
McCain:
Money: EADS, some former CorproRAT scumbags from Fannie Mae, some Lobbyist scum from Northrup-Grumman. Notably, no felons. (I don't include the Keating business because even the Democrat in charge of the inquiry admitted McCain was included to "balance the ticket" on the charges as a token republican until he was cleared. False accusations directed against one do not constitute a vulnerability), his Wife's houses-(big deal, he's rich. Name a Senator that isn't at LEAST a millionaire or related/married to one).
(possible) EGO: Hmmm... um... "I was a POW." (oh goodness, I need to go to Dailykos or someone to find some really juicy charges here...)
For shits and giggles (and to balance the tickets, as they say) we'll add Palin...
Ideology: Doesn't like Gay Marraige (vetoed a bill blocking benefits for Gay domestic partners), doesn't like Abortion (okay? half the country doesn't like Abortion, so what?), Accusations of Book-Banning (didn't happen. The list either implies after-the-fact false accusation, or Significant Precognitive ability-I don't believe in psychic powers, so...) Pregnant teenage daughter. (gee, what a scandal...yawn).
Addressed the AIP convention one year in Alaska (AIP-Alaskan Independence Party)-okay, so? she hasn't denied it, and in Alaska, they're legal.
Ego: Troopergate (Honestly, now, what would you do to a State cop who drives his cruiser while drunk, tasers a ten year old under his care, threatens his wife with a gun, and may well be a beater? All but the "may well be a beater" is documented, the guy still has his job, but his boss was fired for not firing him... strikes me as almost supernatural self-control, and a fair realistic view of how bent cops manage to grow-lack of action by their superiors. In the same situation, I suspect most of the posters here, Liberal or Democrat, would have taken far more... extensive... measures.) Had the gall to go after senior members of her own party for taking bribes and being unethical. (Hey, it TAKES a massive ego to do that-you GOTS to think you're bulletproof teflon to pull it off. Humility doesn't serve as a virtue in battle against entrenched and powerful foes), and accepted the offer to run for vice president with only a few years' experience in big-league politics, and it takes a certain amount of arrogance to not fold under the shitstorm of attacks launched since she was announced, too.
Most likely avenue of corrupting Sarah Palin: Ego or Ideology, though her actions on the Ideology front indicate a more pragmatic view, all that would really be necessary is to have the press go all good-doggie for her (which ain't going to happen. Luckily, she's the sort that most Journos despise on sight with the kind of irrational hatred you normally see reserved for guys named "Bush".) As long as the Press and the Opposition remain loudly hostile, Palin will likely remain about as 'honest' as any politician CAN remain with regards to her office. AS this is the right-and-proper relationship (that is, the opposition party should be...the Opposition and a watchdog to limit power and expose misdemeanours and crimes, ditto for the Press. No Politician, whether running, or in office, should be given a 'pass'.)
The second path I see is also tied to Ego-that is, the natural corrupting influence of the lickspittles that inhabit the Beltway, and the major parties. Bootlickers and office-seekers, combined with Lobbyists and their shiny offers have proven the failure of more than one politician on the national stage. When too many people are sucking up to you, you tend to lose perspective, and start believing your speechwriters and brown-nosing subordinates over less flattering sources. I believe this may have infected Bush2, but have little proof of it beyond basic suspicions.
Tertiary is Ideology-this presupposes that she actually winds up in the White House with a friendly (or pliable) congress at a time when she is able to appoint SCOTUS judges, and isn't legally able to run for re-election. It also assumes there are not more pressing matters that require more immediate attention (such as a war, major national financial crisis/Depression, international incident, protests outside the white house, rampant corruption in her own party, or other crisis that requires her to wear the 'pragmatic' hat.) SHOULD she wind up President, the prescription for limiting damage is just to keep her too busy with more important matters to even consider what her pastors may think. Again, an opposition congress, and Media hostility work well here (after all, it worked on Reagan, and MIGHT have worked on Bush had the Dems not seen a hot=and=juicy opportunity in the Patriot Act.)
41 - David Black
bliffle: so you have to to cite a character from an ancient book of Hebrew folk tales to refute my statement?
That's rich.
42 - David Black
Christopher Rose wrote: "There are many reasons for liberals to exist, including to oppose the clearly hateful ideas you are supporting."
I know there are and they all connect to one basic thing ... po' and dependent underclasses with no power. When they go crawling to a lib who has it, they'll trade a vote to dip their bread in some of that gravy.
What a pity that you have to deem honesty and clarity as "hateful, but that's what libs do when one impugns their holy mission on behalf of society's bottom feeders or if one's heart doesn't bleed as profusely as theirs.
"Apparently you despise about half the entire US population."
Apparently so, if indeed half the US population are libs.
There's no reason to have to like everyone. Certainly a great number of libs despise conservatives and Republicans, so what's the problem here?
Libs have to grow some thicker skins.
Another dirty little secret is that the moment that the po' minority underclasses stop playing the stooge for libs and learn self-reliance, they eventually pull themselves out of whatever muck they were mired in from the beginning.
Libs perpetuate the poverty cycle.
Hundreds of billions in taxpayer money has been spent since the Civil Right Act of 1964 and guess what, poverty and crime among minorities still exist.
The number of minorities (primarily black males) per capita in prisons is alarming.
What is the stat, one out of four black kids have no father at home?
Wow, that's some ringing endorsement for that grand lib social engineering project.
When does America start seeing a return on that investment?
45 years and counting!
43 - Lisa Solod Warren
Cannon.... Please stop with the surrender monkey bullshit.... just because they chose not to engage with us in the Iraq "war?"
And the rest of your argument for and against the Dems and Repubs can be as easily dismantled....
44 - Lisa Solod Warren
David, I hope your kidding about the whole Levi Strauss thing, yes? You simply cannot be that ignorant.
45 - Lisa Solod Warren
David, how sad your life is. Honesty and and clarity are not an anathema to getting along with people. Can you even be in the same room with someone who does not share your particular brand of "honesty and clarity?"
What I see is hatefulness and excrutiating ill will toward many of your fellow men and women.
46 - David Black
By the way. Christopher Rose, I am 62 years old. I grew up in the golden era of the 1950s then witnessed this nation's decline starting in the 1960s when the counterculture and their Marxist quislings began tearing down every institution that made this country great.
While my peers were drugging and fornicating themselves into oblivion, I was working hard and trying to make something of myself. I was taught to respect authority and our leaders, so I never called a cop a "pig" or threw bottles at National Guardsmen trying to do their job of restoring order.
47 - Zedd
David Black,
You watched the world decline for who? Women? Blacks? Hispanics? Asians?
Perhaps you now see why your perspective is considered to be rather confined.
48 - David Black
"Can you even be in the same room with someone who does not share your particular brand of "honesty and clarity?"
Truthfully, no. I gave up trying long ago. I believe I have the freedom to keep whatever company I choose, do I not?
49 - David Black
"You watched the world decline for who? Women? Blacks? Hispanics? Asians?"
Foolish attempts at social engineering with tax payer dollars in the form of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has created as much crime and poverty among the minority underclasses as before. Nearly half of the US prison population is comprised of black males. One out of four black kids have no father at home.
This was not the case prior to 1964.
All this after hundreds of billions of dollars spent after 45 years.
When does America start seeing a return on that investment?
I'd say it was money invested in losing stock. That's my opinion.
50 - Robert K Blechman
I appreciate all the comments and only wish that I were paid by the word for the responses my article generates. Hell, I wish I was paid anything at all so that I could devote the time to write more clearly and at greater length. However, one thing about the comments strikes me as unusual.
I once read a science fiction story where the techniques of brain washing had achieved such perfection that people could be conditioned not to thing about certain topics. Every time a forbidden topic inadvertantly came up, a person would suddenly find himself out in the garden digging weeds, or taking a long walk in the park. It was a type of "thought aversion." I can't remember the story that contained this idea, but if it comes back to me, I'll post it here.
I know that comment sections are an unstructured free for all, but this one is interesting in how it has avoided, for the most part, the original topic of my article, that is, the way women are used in many cultures, past and present, as objects for exchange, and how a certain percentage of modern American voters are perfectly fine with that. In fact many of them are energized when the idea is brought to the foreground, as in the case of McCain selecting Palin as his running mate.
My article isn't about liberals or conservatives, nor is it about our country's sad racial history nor crime statistics nor who makes the best blue jeans. It is about a topic which, while potent, we prefer to leave unspoken. This itself speaks volumes.
I can understand why David Black thinks that quoting various scholars is an intellectual crutch. Given limitations of space and time, my use of such quotes is actually a kind of shorthand, letting those who are familiar with my references make associations that I don't have time in the posting to make. This can exclude others, and for that I apologize. But it is also a way of saying that my ideas are built upon the foundation of the work of others far more intelligent than I, and that there is value in knowing what they said. I heartily recommend reading Levi-Strauss, although I wouldn't suggest starting with his "Mythologiques." Also, Neil Postman is always enlightening, if perhaps a bit dated now, and I bet Mr. Black would find that he and Dr. Postman actually agree on many topics. I would start with his book about the way television degrades our political discourse, "Amusing Ourselves to Death."
Thank you all for your comments, and if you ever do feel like sending in a little something to promote further discussions, I'm not proud.
51 - David Black
"David, I hope your kidding about the whole Levi Strauss thing, yes? "
Well of course, how could I resist with a name like that?
I know Levi-Strauss from his Marxist associations at the old New School for Social Research and at Columbia University, two hotbeds of Marxist sympathies if there ever were ones.
His egalitarian belief in cultural non-superiority makes him and his work laughable to me. Sorry, a culture that forges in the earth with sticks and stones is inferior to one that uses computers. That's common sense.
52 - David Black
Well, Robert, for starters, I have a problem with holding up a person with Marxist associations as a model of intellectual credibility.
Clearly Levi-Strauss's egalitarian belief in a classless cultural equity has Marxist undertones to it.
Too many misguided intellectuals embraced Marxism starting in the 1930s and sadly, many of them ended up on university facultiies starting in the 50s and 60s. Even today, their most vile adepts infest many university faculties, still clinging to their outdated counterculture mores and whimsy about "revolution."
Does not Martin Luther Kennedy (Barry O.) represent a symbol as well?
Libs certainly aren't responding to him because of his vast experience and knowledge of the world.
They are voting for him because they see a means to assuage their guilt over slavery, plus the fact that he's not threatening in a baggy pants hip hop thug kind of way.
He's also skillfully chanelled the lib's most beloved 60s icons, hence the name I have given him.
The funniest part about his candidacy is that Barry O. isn't technically black. A person is defined racially through their mother's side.
Barry O.'s mother is, as we all know, white.
So he's using his half black lineage as leverage to access the Dem party power base who lines up like lemmings before any reasonably articulate and good looking minority candidate.
Sorry, Robert, the symbolism behind the MLK candidacy is even more striking and bizarre.
53 - alessandro
#13 - Thanks for that Dan. A great read and one in which, along with you, I concur.
54 - Lisa Solod Warren
David, I hope you have a wife who stays home and cooks for you in high heels and says Yes, honey, to whatever you say.
I hope all the black people you come in contact with cast their eyes down and greet you with Yassuh, Mastuh David.
I hope your children grew up to be the kind of accountants who boogered the numbers at Lehman Brothers and took home enough funny money to eventually keep you in the nursing home where you can rail at the rest of the old men (and I hope they remember to take out their hearing aids before you wheel yourself down the hall.)
Life moves on, kiddo; the 50s were certainly not all fun and games, just because some black kids had their daddies at home and no one talked back to you and professors professed one mode of thought you happened to agree with.
I suggest you be sure and take your blood pressure pills today and every day, learn to meditate a half hour each morning and stop "entertaining" us with your screeds about liberal guilt and PLEASE stop telling me and other people who write for this site what is really in our minds, as though what we say is not what we mean.
I refuse to defend myself to you or anyone else. But more importantly I won't let you beat your chest about your superiority as a WHITE MALE just because your race and gender has managed to grab power for the past umpteen years and you think that makes you better. I can't imagine anyone on this list with half a brain (and I happen to have one in its entirety) enjoys being lorded over, insulted, and second guessed, which is all I see from you with every post.
Since you only hang out with the like-minded, what on earth are you doing wasting your time with the likes of a diverse group like us?
55 - David Black
Liberals and liberalism beg to be ridiculed.
My wife Tirzah is an attorney and an IDF veteran. She's tough as nails and is even more conservative than I am.
We were both raised by no-nonsense and very conservative immigrant Jewish families who raised their children the old world way of absolute discipline and personal accountability.
Both of our families lost relatives in the Holocaust.
My wife and I don't have the inclination or the patience to contend with freaks, malcontents, radicals, dissidents, progressives, liberals, collectivists, peaceniks, tree huggers, bleeding hearts, and anyone that doesn't view life as a zero sum gain.
We live for our own sake and the sake of our own flesh and blood. Everyone else can go f- themselves as far as we're concerned.
No one seemed to give a sh-- about our relatives when they were being starved and worked to death in the concentration camps.
We've both witnessed death and destruction caused by Islmo-fascist terrorists on Israeli soil, so we know what score is in this world.
Being a resident of NYC, I still vividly remember 9/11/01 as if it was yesterday.
These lessons and the reality of their aftermath make most of what others deem important rather trivial in comparison.
Besdies, if you libs really cared about women's rights and equitable treatment, you'd be on the front lines taking up arms against Islam and condemning their treatment of their own women.
But you won't, because libs are cowards when it comes to confronting Islam, the so-called "religion of peace."
That's fact.
56 - Lisa Solod Warren
Why your selfish b--------. I know tons of actual holocaust survivors who don't think like you do, never mind just relatives of them. My family survived the pogroms AND I lost family in the holocaust and still, we don't only think of ourselves or put ourselves first.
If you were so considered about Islamofacism as you call it, you would leave the U.S., make aliyah and join the Likud party and fight to the death for Israel's right to bomb whomever they pleased (which is not my particular point of view).
Isn't it easy to sit in the U.S. and spew your venom, in a free country where you can do so? Isn't it easy to sit back and just spread hate at will? Why aren't you on the front lines?
57 - Jordan Richardson
But you won't, because libs are cowards when it comes to confronting Islam, the so-called "religion of peace."
And Republicans are woefully ignorant when it comes to understanding Islam. Islam does not need to be confronted. Terrorism does. They are not synonymous.
But you knew that, right?
58 - Lisa Solod Warren
Right. ALL Muslims are evil. Hmmmmm, I once knew of a man who felt that way about the Jews. He almost got rid of us, too. Actually, that has happened several times in history.
Thanks, Jordan, for once again pointing out the effing obvious, sigh.
59 - Daniel Miller
Lisa,
I have often wondered about the "liberal," "feminist" view on such matters, and was hoping to hear from you or perhaps someone else. I of course don't expect anyone to take up arms, but a hint of disapproval would be refreshing. Let's leave aside foreign countries, in which we perhaps should not interfere. Are "honor killings" of raped women, or even those who (gasp) commit adultery, OK in the United States? Seems rather uncivilized to me, but then so many things do.I was rather hoping for a response to Mr. Black's comment,
Dan(Miller)
60 - Baritone
DB is the epitome of the kind of person against whom the civil rights and youth movements in the 50s and 60s were begun. What a narrow, wretched, condescending, arid and hateful life view he, and apparently his wife, have. Although apparently not of the small town midwest these New Yorkers have come to be what Obama aptly described as "bitter" - "clinging to guns and religion." They look upon everyone not in harmony with their mindset as "scum" and "hoards," etc. They have no art. Rather, they simply bundle any and everyone with whom they disagree into one big lump of humanity. It is just that mindset that may one day lead us to another holacaust, perhaps, of even more epic proportions.
Dan. Do you imagine that American feminists and their sympathisers aren't horrified by the treatment of women in many Islamic states? Do you suppose that they/we are unaware of the similar treatment of women found in Kurdish, Hindu and even radical christian societies among others? Hell, just sit down with a southern baptist. These situations are hardly overlooked or in any way found acceptable. While there have been a number of efforts made to institute change for women in such societies, the reach of outsiders is limited and many of those women live in such fear that they dare not reveal any dissension against the status quo.
I will no longer engage Mr. Black in any "discussions" in that it amounts to nothing. He obviously lives in his own little world where he seems to be quite bitterly happy with himself. I'm not sure that he doesn't live on another planet, and I can't help wishing that he did.
B
61 - David Black
Let's see, the "religion of peace" has a majority faction of moderates who are too cowardly to mount a counter-jihad to stop their fundamentalist minority from torturing and murdering in the name of Allah.
Comparing this to Hitler's treatment of Jews is laughable.
The Jews were legal citizens in their respective countries and committed NO violent acts of terror against people of other religions to warrant revenge.
The European Jews in the 1930s weren't flying planes into buildings and murdering thousands, were they?
The European Jews in the 1930s weren't kidnapping people of other religions and beheading them in public, were they?
I also don't recall of any European Jews in the 1930s raping and murdering school children in Russia and Indonesia, do you?
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but did European Jews in the 1930s start a holy war and declare that anyone who didn't pledge their allegiance to God would be beheaded?
I also didn't read in history where every day, rabbis were telling their congregations that people of other religions were descendents of pigs?
The truth is there was no justification for Hitler to kill Jews. They didn't do anything wrong.
But islam does LOTS of things wrong that only warrants violent revenge.
Talk to any Israeli living near Gaza who STILL suffers from rocket fire from the very same Pally creeps who were just given back that land!
So how about that Islamic so-called "religion of peace"?
Seems to be that any Muslim not making an effort to publicly denounce fundamentalist terror is just as guilty as the terrorists.
Let me remind everyone that when Christian fundies were blowing up abortion clinics, US law enforcement tracked them down and arrested them all. These creeps were prosecuted and jailed for life.
Such a thing doesn't happen in the Muslim world, does it?
Where are the moderate faction tribunals prosecuting the fundamentalists for their crimes?
"Religion of peace" my ass. This is why you libs disgust me with your cowardice. You only attack religions you know won't possibly kill you in retribution.
You just make excuses for them, just like you do for the black males currently clogging our judicial system.
62 - Cindy D
Sorry Jordan,
Black is too full of sweeping generalizations to actually know anything.
Dan,
Are "honor killings" of raped women, or even those who (gasp) commit adultery, OK in the United States?
You mean is that okay as far as American feminists or liberal American women are concerned? Of course not.
Subjugation of and brutality against women (or anyone else) is abhorrent.
One thing to remember, when you are talking about Islamists, you are talking about women. It isn't Islamists vs women as David Black suggests.
The best thing I can advise is to visit some site that pertains to Islamic Feminism. You can get their take on Islam for yourself. Apparently, some feel that it isn't Islamic teaching that causes the problem.
Personally, I'm no fan of what other people imagine to be reality. But, they have the right to their beliefs. If subjugating others are part and parcel of those beliefs then I would be opposed.
63 - Clavos
Do you imagine that American feminists and their sympathisers aren't horrified by the treatment of women in many Islamic states?
Hard to tell. They don't speak out. They don't demonstrate. They don't, in fact, seem to be doing anything about it.
64 - Cindy D
Even the male ones apparently.
65 - Clavos
"Feminist" is not a gender-specific term...
66 - Baritone
So Clav,
You believe that feminists support radical muslim treatment of women? What do you actually know of what various feminist groups are or have been doing in this regard? Is this something you follow? Do they have to come marching up to your boat waving signs and shaking their fists to get your attention?
B
67 - Clavos
You believe that feminists support radical muslim treatment of women?
Strange, B-tone. I've never seen stupidity from you before. Where did I say that feminists support muslim mistreatment of women?
What I did say is that there's little public evidence of any concerted efforts on the part of american feminists to fight muslim female discrimination.
That's a far cry from supporting it.
And notice I didn't say "radical" muslim mistreatment of women. Their attitudes toward women are a lot more widespread than merely the "radical" half of muslims. Honor killings, for example, are even happening in places like the uk and germany and even here in the usa.
Where is the outcry? Where is the rage? Where are the articles and public statements denouncing these and other atrocities committed all over the world against muslim women by their own family members?
Why don't we hear from NOW?
Wikipedia list 108 feminist NGOs. Where are their voices?
Strangely silent.
68 - Jordan Richardson
Without giving David Black's ludicrous comments too much credibility, here is a Muslim group against honour killings.
Here is a fairly progressive Islamic publication 'zine that also protests and aims to stop honour killings.
And finally, here is a group consisting of Muslims and Arabs that support the State of Israel.
David Black's comments, ridiculous and insensitively off-kilter as they are, remain compelling examples of the ignorance many Americans and Westerners have towards the religion of Islam. The Romney-esque way in which he uses the term jihad is silly enough, but his assertion that Islam should "stand up and condemn terrorism" is both shrouded in ignorance of the countless Islamic groups that have and shrouded in the ignorance of the actual structure of the religion. Again, there is no "top banana" for Muslims; no one group is going to deliver a statement against the fatwahs and the terror attacks because there is no one group.
The idea that several individual groups have, countless mullahs and leading Islamic scholars, and the fact that Islamic governments (the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers comes to mind, with the Kuala Lumpur Declaration on International Terrorism) denounced the 9/11 attacks and subsequent terror attacks ought to remind us that the Islamic world cannot and should not be simply and ignorantly equated with terrorism.
Stop spreading hate!
69 - Cannonshop
#67
Baritone, a Liberal Prof at the local community college once told me that "Silence implies consent" (this was in relation to a discussion about the anti-war movement, which at the time was opposing the action in Afghanistan). American Feminists aren't ignorant (or at least, they claim not to be), yet they are silent. Applying said prof's standard, then, what am I to infer? What's Clavos to infer? If it's not active support, then it's apathy, isn't it?
So the real question might be whether that Apathy is driven by bigotry-in-disguise. After all, apparently it's okay for Muhammed Jihadi to get his little girl's genitals mutilated ("Female Circumcision", and it's fucking horrible), or kill her if she's raped (Honor Killings), but it's not okay to make the doctors tell little susie christian's parents that she's getting an abortion, right?
To me, there's a not-so-small issue of consistency in standards here. I think some screaming fights and maybe a call to CPS if it gets really bad are a tiny bit less significant than mutilation and ritually sanctioned murder. Call me strange...
70 - Franco
Wow, well said Clavos and Cannonshop
The thing I’m wondering about is that seeing that Dan’s questions was directed specifically to women feminists is in this thread. When was Baritone made official spokeswoman (unless of course he’s a she) for feminists, and apparently as both of you point out, a bad one at that.
And then what’s with Jordan Richardson taking on the official spokemanship for Muslims (unless of course he is a Muslim) and trying to tell us some subterfuge about all the different groups and no one can speak for anyone else. Well if that’s true, what the hell is he doing speaking FOR them. He never points out that most groups, (and I know I am using the word “most”), when speaking of denouncing terrorist attracts they do so carefully in saying “we denounce killing of innocent people”. So the question really is, what is an “innocent person” to most of these Muslim groups? I believer the answer to that question will clear a lot of this up, and I believer it is an answer that Jordon will find too distrubing to except.
What is with these liberals Baritone and Jordan Richardson? As much as they are not going to like this pointed out, they are proving Dave Black right when he says, “Liberals and liberalism beg to be ridiculed”.
71 - Christopher Rose
Franco, your attempts to play an honest broker whilst actually being incredibly ideologically loaded are entirely unpersuasive.
Ganging up with someone as aggressive and hateful (by their own admission, not my interpretation) as David Black pretty much removes any semblance of credibility from your words.
You appear to be one of these people who is bogged down in some odd little "we are right, you are wrong" argument rather than actually looking for inclusive solutions to real problems.
72 - Cindy D
...they are proving Dave Black right...
Franco,
By Black's logic (in another thread) as long as they have all the power, wealth and influence, those who abuse and destroy people are superior.
I mean, it's "science".
73 - Cannonshop
Black's logic is only surface deep. I almost wonder if he's not an operative for the other side, since he chooses the most aggressive tone he can find to promulgate ideas that failed more than fifty years ago-including ethnic/genetic superiority.
74 - bliffle
Ah, at last! All is clear to us now. Thank you cannon.
Dave Black is exposed as an agent provocateur, sent by The Libs to bring scorn and ridicule down on innocent conservatives!
75 - Lisa Solod Warren
Dan, you don't read nearly enough. There have been dozens and dozens of articles in Marie Claire, The Nation, and many other magazines condemning such things as honor killings.