Oh look. Karl dissected my post and responded with his usual idiocy that I already exposed in a dozen other conversations prior to this one. Good for him.

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Im Not Mister Mxypltk said:
Who says we're right? We do?



Exactly. And you can't say that's wrong just because we think we're right.

Making attempts to look through the eyes of the Middle Easterners will only get you so far before your realize that you have to operate on your own views in the end.

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"Hmmm, I'm 8 years old and my family's been blown to bits. I shall now sit down and quietly analyze the difference between the two cultures."



Just because he would be so emotionally torn as to render the suggestion totally unlikely post-bombing scenario, that doesn't mean it's not good advice. If a person can't see past their blind rage well enough to stop and wonder if a suicide bombing (which will kill his own brethren as well as Americans) just might be the wrong approach, then how useful do they prove themselves to the rest of the world let alone their own country?

I fully realize that the only reason an 8 year old in the Mid East would have no fear or problem with going through with a suicide bombing is because that's how he was raised. But that, to me, is all the more reason to destroy the culture--So the atmosphere created it by it won't create anymore threatening fanatics.

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Did you understand the ways of war when you were a kid? Now picture yourself surrounded by rublle and body parts. Do you give a shit about the ways of war? You wouldn't be human if in that situation you said "Oh well, it's for the greater good -- carry on!" You're not taking the kid's perspective. You're still being yourself coldly analyzing his situation from the outside. I've noticed this is particularly hard for Americans to do.



Have you ever stopped to think that this is perhaps the best way to look at the situation? By having an overview that's not corrupted by extraneous elements?

No. I didn't fully understand war when I was 8. And I wouldn't assume that kid would either, but just because nobody bothered to teach him about it (which is very odd considering where he lives), that doesn't mean I should compromise my principles for the sake of his inability to grasp the true volume of the matter.

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Why does our honesty count more than theirs?



Are you saying it doesn't?

Mxy, you and I use absolutes all the time: You say America has committed crimes; I say countries are incapable of committing crimes based on the construct and nature of a country. And while we debated such things, I never heard you say, “I could be wrong,”* and I certainly don’t expect you to because that’s not what you believe. All of us must admit the possibility that we could be wrong about anything and everything, but that doesn’t mean that we have to, or should, re-distribute the amount of faith in our primary views for the sake of trying to empathize with our enemies’ views. It simply doesn’t make sense, the world can’t move it ANY direction if we all thought that way.


*That’s not say that you don’t think you could be proven wrong. I’m just saying that you wouldn’t pre-dispose yourself to such an idea.

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I don't believe that for a second. The world is made of perspectives.



That doesn’t mean one of them, or even a greater amount, isn’t correct.

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I have mine and I defend it, but I realize that it could easily be wrong.



But you don’t operate on the assumption that it’s not do you? That’s exactly what you’re asking me to do when you say I should look through the tainted eyes of an Middle Eastern child who’s family is a tragically unfortunate casualty. It’s enough that I don’t want that kind of thing to happen without being told that I have to stop fighting to make it so. If the West let those kind of things stop itself from having wars, it would have been destroyed decades before.

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If you invert that sentence it's still true.



Bullshit. Socrates and Aristotle both spent their entire lifetimes analyzing the status of reality, outlining all of its facets in an attempt to understand what it was composed of and how it got there. They spent countless hours approaching the idea of there being a God from both the positions of the theist and the atheist. They both came to the conclusion that there is a God and that monotheism is the most logically philosophical outlook. Obviously you think they’re wrong, but would you also call them close-minded for coming to an absolute conclusion even after their study?

My point being that it’s very possible to look at all sides of the situation and then take an absolute stand on the issue. One doesn’t need to stay away from taking sides to be open-minded in regards to the subject. Your assessment isn’t fair.

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That's not an option. The minute you do that, the whole fucking world goes to shit. War breeds war, one way or another. If you do that, you'll start a bigger war and, of course, your only solution will be dealing the same way with your new enemies.



That’s your opinion and you’re welcome to it.

If we destroyed the Middle East entirely and crumbled its infectious and radiant culture into pieces so as to make sure their brand of fanaticism was never encountered again…You’re right, it’s very possible that the rest of the world would then try to destroy us. Then again, the ME has been a problem for everyone in some form or another, even if they wouldn’t immediately realize it, it’s also possible that they wouldn’t do shit…Except call us imperialist and murdering bastards of course. I mean you do it all the time—As does the UN—As does China—As does Russia. Furthermore, each of those countries would probably cheer us on since they, and us, realize with the most clarity the ME is a world problem. Even after they’d be happy for their destruction, they’d still use it as an excuse to slander America and, if your worst case scenario holds true, attack us. In which case, I’d gladly fight them if it meant defending myself and my country against worldwide dishonesty.

In any event: The world didn’t do anything about Darfur, which involved the mass slaughter of innocent people in a culture that was more or less peaceful aside from the people who seized it. Assuming the world did anything to us if we decided to nuke the shit out of the ME, an area that undeniably harbors a hostile and violent populace and culture, what do you think that would say about the world’s integrity—About how it really feels towards America and its successes? Would you still be so willing to take up arms against us?

But before any of this, I want one thing and one thing only: A second American Civil War. One that destroys this ideological divide and then reunites the nation in whatever philosophy wins the battle (I don’t actually want people to die, but words just aren’t doing the trick anymore and true cultural change has proven to be unattainable any other way). That way, not only would we have one goal, but then we’d have a truly sincere empathy for what the rest of the world wants of us that we should tear each other apart. Other nations and propaganda machines have been working very hard to insert themselves into our culture so they could have a say in what we do and gain growing influence over certain Western populations so as to immobilize our ability to make decisions for ourselves. And guess what? They’ve been successful so far.

So you see Mxy, this is a lot more complicated then just having the world take revenge for a destroyed nation; it’s about bitterness…Towards the West.

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Look at what you wrote in your previous paragraph: How is that not a world war? With that kind of mentality, you're putting the whole word at risk, even if only on the long run.



It’s not America’s fault if the whole world overreacts to America’s retaliation against the ME’s long history of malevolence and belligerence towards us. In that rite, it’s pretty ironic, and pathetic, that America is the one who ends up saving the world from itself by chopping off the gangrene limb that is the Middle East.

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That's fucking nuts.



*shrug* I think it’s nuts that you’d take up arms against me rather than the Middle East.

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No, I'm serious. And I'm not writing out of anger. There's a lot of resentment against the US in the rest of the world. I thought it was just us (Latinamerica) until I started working in a cruise line and realized it's everywhere. As I said before, the general mood of a society has its way of being expressed in its most extreme form (see: "Death to fags" and "Fuck the troops" rallies in the US). If you do something as unthinkable as wiping out the Middle East, that general mood would grow and so would its maximum expression. If our governments don't decide to go to war with you, then I'm sure terrorist cells would be formed to do the same thing. I insist: it's never gonna end this way.



A reaction from terrorist cells is undeniable. But we shouldn’t live in fear of them.

As for the world…Well, let’s just say that I won’t be taking that bet. But if it does physically react to us, then I’ll remember Darfur and proceed to kill rest of the world off out of disgust.