Eliminationist Rhetoric
Jan. 12th, 2006 03:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI complain about the way the Right speaks of the left.
Then I see things like this:
That, my friends is one of a line of products (coffee mugs to baseball caps, hoodies and softball shirts) all sporting the same thing. I look at that, and wonder where the idea that such a thing is acceptable to wear in public might come from. It's right up there with Liberal Hunting Permits
For more on that, see this piece of Orcinus.
People will defend this, say it's meant as a joke (never mind that when the tables are turned and someone on the Left tries to make a point in the same vein, and obviously; to me at least, in a satiric vein, the people who were saying Liberals ought to be strung up like, "strange fruit," are all of a sudden calling out the FBI (Dean Esmay which was a response to this. The contextual post of Sadly No can be seen here)
But it isn't, it's part and parcel of an environment of active hatred. One person, maybe a whack-job. A lot of people, might be a group of whack jobs, but when the people they are attacking make up a large group, and the people who have bully pulpits are some of those who do the inciting, and those who claim this is the fruit of a few bad apples don't take those bad apples to task, in fact continue to pay them large sums of money and give them access to the airwaves... then I must assume that, at the very least they don't care if one group is actively inciting another to go out and abuse the other. I might even be justified in thinking they wanted such a thing to happen.
Perhaps they think it will intimidate the oppostition. Perhaps they actually want (as Coulter said) some liberal to be killed, so the rest of us will know it can happen and shut up.
For a list of those who've said such things, and the things they've said (and this politicians in office, former politicians, religious leaders, pundits and and the like. These are names. People who can't really be brushed under the rug with, "nobody listens to them," because people do; and in the millions. Some of the people who listen to them think them worth electing as Representatives and Senators (one of my favorites, if that's the right word) is Phil Grahm saying, "We're going to keep building the party until we're hunting Democrats with dogs." and not in some back room, but in an interview with Mother Jones.
Or this gem from John Derbyshire, "Chelsea is a Clinton. She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of the past - I'm not arguing for despotism as a principle, but they sure knew how to deal with potential trouble - recognized that the families of objectionable citizens were a continuing threat. In Stalin's penal code it was a crime to be the wife or child of an 'enemy of the people.' The Nazis used the same principle, which they called Sippenhaft, 'clan liability.' In Imperial China, enemies of the state were punished 'to the ninth degree': that is, everyone in the offender's own generation would be killed and everyone related via four generations up, to the great-great-grandparents, and four generations down, to the great-great-grandchildren, would also be killed."
- National Review, 02-15-01
For more, go to Paperweight's Fair Shot
Then I see things like this:
That, my friends is one of a line of products (coffee mugs to baseball caps, hoodies and softball shirts) all sporting the same thing. I look at that, and wonder where the idea that such a thing is acceptable to wear in public might come from. It's right up there with Liberal Hunting Permits
For more on that, see this piece of Orcinus.
People will defend this, say it's meant as a joke (never mind that when the tables are turned and someone on the Left tries to make a point in the same vein, and obviously; to me at least, in a satiric vein, the people who were saying Liberals ought to be strung up like, "strange fruit," are all of a sudden calling out the FBI (Dean Esmay which was a response to this. The contextual post of Sadly No can be seen here)
But it isn't, it's part and parcel of an environment of active hatred. One person, maybe a whack-job. A lot of people, might be a group of whack jobs, but when the people they are attacking make up a large group, and the people who have bully pulpits are some of those who do the inciting, and those who claim this is the fruit of a few bad apples don't take those bad apples to task, in fact continue to pay them large sums of money and give them access to the airwaves... then I must assume that, at the very least they don't care if one group is actively inciting another to go out and abuse the other. I might even be justified in thinking they wanted such a thing to happen.
Perhaps they think it will intimidate the oppostition. Perhaps they actually want (as Coulter said) some liberal to be killed, so the rest of us will know it can happen and shut up.
For a list of those who've said such things, and the things they've said (and this politicians in office, former politicians, religious leaders, pundits and and the like. These are names. People who can't really be brushed under the rug with, "nobody listens to them," because people do; and in the millions. Some of the people who listen to them think them worth electing as Representatives and Senators (one of my favorites, if that's the right word) is Phil Grahm saying, "We're going to keep building the party until we're hunting Democrats with dogs." and not in some back room, but in an interview with Mother Jones.
Or this gem from John Derbyshire, "Chelsea is a Clinton. She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of the past - I'm not arguing for despotism as a principle, but they sure knew how to deal with potential trouble - recognized that the families of objectionable citizens were a continuing threat. In Stalin's penal code it was a crime to be the wife or child of an 'enemy of the people.' The Nazis used the same principle, which they called Sippenhaft, 'clan liability.' In Imperial China, enemies of the state were punished 'to the ninth degree': that is, everyone in the offender's own generation would be killed and everyone related via four generations up, to the great-great-grandparents, and four generations down, to the great-great-grandchildren, would also be killed."
- National Review, 02-15-01
For more, go to Paperweight's Fair Shot
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Re: OT: Brigadier Aywin-Foster's article
Date: 2006-01-14 05:03 pm (UTC)Re: OT: Brigadier Aywin-Foster's article
Date: 2006-01-14 06:43 pm (UTC)Have also been thinking about what killslowly said about American culture, and it suddenly struck me that it was a British officer making the original critique. I love the English but, sorry to say, I wouldn't really call them the most culturally sensitive people in Europe. The former squaddies I have met have been, almost to a man, supremacists of 'Englishness' or 'Scottishness' if not of race, and this is generally the image of the British Army I get from the Brits I know.
So if the British Army is able to behave with greater cultural sensitivity in a counterinsurgency environment than the American, it must be something in the training or culture of the British Army that is overriding the inclination of many of the soldiers, because it certainly isn't due to a greater 'multicultural' outlook of the British soldiers themselves.
Re: OT: Brigadier Aywin-Foster's article
Date: 2006-01-17 04:59 am (UTC)Re: OT: Brigadier Aywin-Foster's article
Date: 2006-01-17 10:26 pm (UTC)They have, however, from N. Ireland, and a dedication to peace-keeping missions, developed a decent doctrine for handling things like this.
They also, though it sounds odd, perhaps, have a higher willingness to accept casualties, which means they are willing to go out in ways which make them seem more personable (wearing berets and walking, rather than helmets and riding).
But they also do things like break into jails to bust out guys who were breaking local laws, so they are far from perfect.
TK
Re: OT: Brigadier Aywin-Foster's article
Date: 2006-01-19 02:04 am (UTC)When we were not properly supported by our unit, the Brits opened up their arms (and mess hall particularly) to my team, and we were well fed.
But the British Army is composed of human being, just like any other service.
The British have a complex very similar to the U.S. Marine Corps. They have a long tradition, high values, and honorable service. These components, when added with time and suffering, tend to make people think they are elite, better than the rest. Sometimes its true, but for the most part its not. It is also a complex shared by the European Community (EU). They are older, wiser, more educated, diplomatic blah, blah, blah. We Americans are arrogant, impulsive, cowboys and religious.
They have their good guys, they have their mediocre ones and they have their bad apples. This is human nature and it will never change. Utopia is not around the corner and until then, we will have to work with what chance and environment places within our grasps.
Terry mentions the willingness to accept more casualties. I think the British Army has a more "romantic" way of looking at conflict and war. I hate to use that word, thinking that it is outdated and crude. Our own officers probably had more of a willingness to accept more casualties, when it was a gentleman's call (or duty) to lead the destitute and ignorant masses into the fray (kind of like today?).
Now, we are less willing (or less romantic) because people are not that stupid anymore. Granted, I assume many of you will take a bullet for a friend, or jump on top of a grenade to protect the team, but other than that, we are very selfish, we like our skin and bones and we tend to think about surviving.
Commanding officers sometimes have to make a tough decision when leading their elements. "Should I commit a platoon to certain slaugther, while I maneuver the rest of the company in a flanking formation to annihilate the enemy". Granted, if he/she succeeds, he gets a medal or two. If he fails, he might die, but I can guarantee that many of his troops will die too.
Wow. I forgot where I was going with this.
Yeah. People are people, no matter where they are from. And people also have a centrist view on things, a ethnocentric way of understanding things, so it will take time for the US to learn how to deal with other cultures. Remember: European countries might be more successful, because they had to deal with their colonies. When you are (or were) an imperialist/expansionist kingdom, you had better learn how to deal with the natives.