That's the title of an hour-long video special report from KOMO in Seattle. The station's representative writes:
This show, that we've been working on for several months now, is really the third in a kind of trilogy.
The first was called "There But For the Grace of God..." It explored homelessness from the inside out in 2016.
The second was called, "Demon at the Door." It was about the hellish existence of heroin addiction.
This one is about everyone else.It's about citizens who don't feel safe taking their families into downtown Seattle. It's about parents who won't take their children into the public parks they pay for. It's about filth and degradation all around us. And theft and crime. It's about people who don't feel protected anymore, who don't feel like their voices are being heard.
There's more at the link.
You'll find the first two special reports at the links above. Here's the latest, third and final program in the series. It's an hour long, but it's well worth your time - because every city dominated by the hard-left, progressive, socialist wing of US politics is going to end up this way or even worse. If you don't believe me, do your own internet searches about Portland, OR or San Francisco, CA. You'll find Seattle has plenty of company.
That's sickening. All those who helped build Seattle, and who stayed there because of what it was, have been betrayed. There's no other way to describe it. The question is, do they have the will to do something about it? Or will they simply allow the tide of inept, incompetent, glorified socialist progressive dogma to roll over them and submerge them entirely?
I wish I could be more sure that they'll give the right answer to that question . . .
Peter
24 comments:
And Seattle controls King County, and therefore swings statewide elections whenever they feel like it.
I lived through the 2000 race where they a) had more ballots cast in several (many?) precincts than voters who lived there (this is after voters who voted in the wrong precinct had their votes transferred to the correct one) and b) kept on finding more and more ballots bast April 2001 to keep on adding to the democrat candidates.
Probably wouldn't have gone for Bush anyway in that election, though it would have been close, but the governor was leading by a comfortable margin before Seattle/King County started stepping in.
Moved away in 2008. Miss the place because it's beautiful, but it's now hideously expensive, and the traffic is far worse than where I ended up.
What exactly is the cause of homelessness in the first place? We have a good job market right now. Theoretically there should be NO homelessness at all.
Y'know... There is a lengthy screed to be written about this issue, and how the obliviots of the world like Peter have created much of these conditions.
This ain't the place for it, however. I seriously doubt that Peter is capable of the necessary self-examination and honesty to grasp that the root problem here is the "compassion" he feels for creatures like the homeless, the Muslims, and the primitives who took over South Africa from those nasty, nasty white men.
All the rest of us need to note is the essential inability to recognize reality, and avoid the consequences visited upon the rest of us in the name of this false "compassion" that enables the destruction of our social commons and public spaces. Thanks to "compassion", we're spending somewhere near a billion dollars a year on "homeless services" in the Seattle and King County region--And, to what benefit and effect? Why, we have ever more homeless taking advantage of our unwilling largesse, foisted off on us by the "compassionate".
Similar to how the "compassionate" brought in thousands of Muslims from dysfunctional societies like Somalia into the Minnesota heartlands, and then wonder why the results of that are so poor. OMG... Whyever are those Somali Muslims electing anti-Semites to Congress...? Shocking.
Also, similar to how the enthusiasts for putting the ANC into power in South Africa are now shocked, shocked I tell you, that they can't quite manage to run a modern civilized society. Give it another half-generation or so, and you'll get to see Zimbabwe writ considerably larger--Handwriting is on the wall; look at the plans to expropriate the productive farms of the whites, and the inability to keep Cape Town in water... Only a matter of time, and the path of South Africa will duplicate that of Zimbabwe and Venezuela. Also, shocking to the compassionate "good men" like Peter. Who could ever expect that such a thing could possibly happen...? My God, we gave them so much... Why can't they make it work...?
Thank the "compassionate"; they got us all this wunnerful, wunnerful "change". The net misery of world goes up every time we listen to these obliviots, because they cannot learn, will not learn, and indeed, don't want to. They'd rather warm their hands at the fires of their own self-involved "virtue", lit in the ruins of the civilizations built by others whose hands they stayed from performing acts of necessary self-preservation and common sense.
Can you sense a little bitterness, here? I knew you could...
@Unknown:
Yeah, that's the theory. The reality is that when you pay people to bone-idle wastrels and enable their dysfunctional lives, you get more of both.
Theory and application don't guarantee results. We have plenty of both, from the oh-so-correct and ever-compassionate, and y'know what? We don't get the results they promise. Ever.
When the "rest of us" catch on to that fact, the "compassionate" are going to wind up in the mass graves right next to the wastrels they enabled, and upon whom they lavished our soon-to-run-out resources.
Thanks to these dipshits, we're pissing away the economic advantages nature gave the Pacific Northwest in this moment of geological time, and when the Gods of the Copybook Headings come calling again, likely in the form of the projected Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, I rather suspect that there is going to be a short, sharp shock resulting in a rather nasty comeuppance for all concerned.
Of course, men like Peter will indicate the appropriate horror and then demonstrate the failure to comprehend the natural outgrowth of the things they have spent lifetimes advocating for. It's what they do.
Seattle turns into a slum, predatory individuals with enough money influence politics to allow them to buy the property at much lower prices, the same individuals influence politics to allow them to rid the city of the problems, property values increase due to development, and Seattle becomes a valuable asset.
It's ironic how the ignorant are so easily manipulated with promises of free goods, and become useful tools. The warriors for change become pawns for those they despise.
Just like LA, San Diego, and Honolulu...
It isn't the "predatory" that are responsible; they're merely taking advantage of the chaos and destruction created by the obliviots. The cycle can be witnessed in any area where they "compassionate" bring in the homeless, who set up encampments to take advantage of the free food and other goodies the "compassionate" offer up, then the neighborhood takes a nose-dive into lawlessness and a spiral of destruction due to decent people getting tired of being accosted by drunks and other vagrants. Every one of these neighborhoods in Seattle that's gone to hell has had at the beginning of it all some delusional pastor or other "activist" who's signaled their virtue by spending the largesse of the public fisc, whether sourced from the tax dollar or the donation plate, and then set up the attractive nuisances of their little social do-gooder projects like the soup kitchens and shelters. Never mind the rest of the local public who has to live with people literally shitting on their front porches, or the businesses that fail because people don't want to go into them, having to step over the derelicts in their doorways that people like Peter prevent the cops from driving away... It's a vicious circle, and all in the name of giving someone a warm fuzzy about their wonderful self-virtue.
Sad fact is, it destroys the social fabric of the community when you attract these creatures, and it enables their self-destruction. It's like giving your drunk uncle a tab down at the local liquor store; he's only going to drink himself to death on your dime. In this case, however, the do-gooders use other people's resources to get their own endorphin fix, and they're enabling other's self-destruction by doing so. Many of these so-called homeless people are homeless by choice, because they'd rather be on the street than fix themselves and become productive citizens. By supporting their street lifestyles, you're actually helping destroy them--And, oh-by-the-way, destroying the public commons they're parasitizing.
The compassionate are, I am afraid, very much like cancer cells. Unaware, they gobble up resources and grow their little social organizations until they kill the host society. Seattle and King County are now spending around a billion dollars a year on "homeless services", and we don't see an iota of actual amelioration for this issue. Indeed, all we're getting is more and more of the problem. There is also zero recognition of what we're actually doing, so that nothing is getting fixed, or likely to be fixed.
But, you better believe there are going to be a lot of "compassionate" people making lots and lots of money from salaries working in what really ought to be termed "the homeless industry", and they're all getting their oh-so-politically-correct endorphin hits from "helping" Seattle into an open grave.
The sanctimony of the compassionate is what pisses me off, especially when they act so damn smug and superior about how we normal people "just don't understand...". Just like the "refugee" problems, the illegals, and all the rest of the bullshit these wunnerful, wunnerful people have foisted off on the rest of us over the years. They created this homeless problem, and they're making good careers out of serving it, as well as running up the endorphin hits from being such smug, superior pricks about it when the rest of us point out the failings of their policies and programs.
I have lost all sympathy and compassion for their causes. All of it. I started out as a "decent white person", sympathetic with all the right things. I was "raised well". Thing is, the cognitive dissonance has caught up, and I now recognize the chaos and destruction these "compassionates" have delivered unto the rest of us. Time was, I could wander through most of the Seattle and Portland metro areas as a kid, in relative safety, enjoying the cultural sites and scenes. Now? LOL... Have fun. Hope you're carrying a gun, because you're probably going to need one.
'S a funny thing; I didn't used to be the reactionary hateful racist mysogynistic cynical bastard that I am. I used to be a true believer in the cause, thinking that peace and harmony would be ours, if only we were all enlightened enough to follow and espouse the principles men like Peter faithfully mouth. Unfortunately, I live in the real world, and I pay attention to the realities of life, and I've learned that precisely none of that shit worked out the way they promised us. NONE OF IT.
And, instead of learning from the failures of it all, these bastards insist on moving on to other healthy parts of the organism that is our nation, and continuing their inimical activities, oblivious to the effect on the regions they've left behind. In a sane world, Californians would have to live in the nightmare world they and their lovely policies created, instead of moving to Oregon and Washington with the same rank idiotic programs. One wonders where they'll go, once the entire nation has been thoroughly Californicated. You make a mess, you should have to live in it, instead of escaping it to spread your folly.
@takirks:
"Y'know... There is a lengthy screed to be written about this issue, and how the obliviots of the world like Peter have created much of these conditions.
This ain't the place for it, however. I seriously doubt that Peter is capable of the necessary self-examination and honesty to grasp that the root problem here is the "compassion" he feels for creatures like the homeless, the Muslims, and the primitives who took over South Africa from those nasty, nasty white men.
All the rest of us need to note is the essential inability to recognize reality, and avoid the consequences visited upon the rest of us in the name of this false "compassion"..."
I'm sorry you think I'm that kind of idiot. I probably won't be able to say anything much to change your mind, but in sheer self-defense, let me point out:
1. You can't work for many years in the most insalubrious parts of Africa without developing a very practical, pragmatic approach to helping others. It's about as far from the liberal/progressive "compassion fascist" approach as it's possible to be. If it doesn't work, you don't do it. Period. Practical results matter, because impractical, pie-in-the-sky, castles-in-the-air approaches kill people - possibly including you. It teaches a very down-to-earth approach.
2. I spent a couple of years working with the homeless as part of a church project in Cape Town, during my last years at high school. Again, we had a very hard-nosed approach. Anyone trying to come to the shelter drunk or high was turned away. Any attempt to bring in drugs or alcohol was stopped (by searching the individual and his belongings). There was zero tolerance for unsocial or anti-social behavior. We'd seen (the hard way) what happened to shelters who ignored those strict disciplinary measures. The priest in charge of our mission would have none of it. I learned a lot from him.
3. As a prison chaplain, I had to deal with (literally) hundreds of inmates who shared many of the characteristics of the homeless in Seattle and elsewhere. They spent years practicing how to "game the system", and were very good at it. I wasn't taken in, and developed a very strict approach that would give no privileges or "extras" except in return for demonstrated, sustained change. I was "conned" far too often to be complacent about it. Every day was a learning experience. I won't go into it here, but I've written about it at length in my memoir of prison chaplaincy, which you'll find linked in the sidebar of my blog (if you're interested).
A bleeding-heart liberal or socially conscious progressive I am not, most emphatically. I think you misjudge me.
Seattle has a homeless problem primarily because the have zoned and regulated affordable housing out of existence. Pile high taxes atop strangling regulation and high permit fees then go into OMG we need more money to fix the problem we caused.
I have to wonder how long the guy who did this will have his job, and those of his crew and the station manager. I'm sure he's been designated persona non grata.
Well, I watched that third episode all the way through. Quite fascinating. Surprised at how often the narrator hits the hard points without flinching. Not what I'm used to hearing from a documentary.
Rhode Island with a possible solution, huh?
Then I will direct my question to Peter, since the rest of you seem to be responding in the form of polemic.
Peter, what do you consider to be the root cause of the current homeless problem we are having (I live in the Portland/Vancouver area)? I just read earlier that ex-cons are starting to work as long-haul truck drivers. I got to tell you, if I was down on my luck I would consider long haul trucking to be a VASTLY superior alternative to living on the streets, which brings me back to my original comment. Given the current job market, homelessness should theoretically be non-existent. Obviously it is not. Why is that?
I mean, I could understand it if we were having a massive depression like the 1930's. We are not. So why do we have such a homeless problem? If its mental illness, it begs the further question of why mental illness is more widespread than, say, 30 years ago. Such would suggest a biochemical cause.
Any thoughts?
@kurt9: I think it's three primary reasons: drug addiction, mental instability, and social alienation. They often interact, so that one problem may lead to or grow into another.
As to why it's increasing, remember that our population is increasing. The USA now has about 328 million people. Fifty years ago, it had about 210 million. (Source: http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/ ) If the population goes up by 50%, the odds are pretty good that the homeless population will increase by a similar proportion.
I'm no expert, and don't pretend to be. On the other hand, I don't think many of the self-proclaimed "experts" know any more than we do.
Why is this more of a problem? IMHO...
First, they are Starting to use ex-cons as truck drivers. They are wanting only the best, a semi is a big capital expense and not something you want some druggie piloting. <5% qualify for that program. That leaves 95% out in the cold. It's still very hard for felons to get decent jobs.
Second, the greatest common denominator of all these folks is... a broken home. Even an unhappy marriage is better than divorce for the children, and many of the homeless never had a father in their lives to speak of. No fault divorce, aid to single mothers, and the many other laws in this same vein, along with the cultural changes, are destroying us.
Third, we have abandoned Jesus Christ for secular humanism. We 'normalize' sin, and wonder at the rising tide of despair. We call evil good, but words do not change what is. Our culture sneers at faith, drives it from any public gathering, abuses those who dare speak praise of Him. "If it feels good, do it." What a contemptible lie!
The United States is no longer under God. If we do not return to the churches (and if those churches do not return to the Word of the Lord), we will not have much longer as a nation.
The USA now has about 330 million people living on its soil, but we still only have 200 million white people. And we shut down the asylums that used to house our crazies. And we "mainstream" the retards. And we give drugs to addicts. And we have government policies to destroy families. What should we expect?
I have seen the homeless situation up close in Seattle. It was over twenty years ago but even then you would see communities in the highway right of way. You had to look for them then.
You have a % who are petty crooks,the mentally ill, urban campers who actually like the life of camping out in the city backspaces. It's a bit exciting rummaging through abandoned homes and appropriating from vacant property. The drunks don't like the provided overnight facilities because they find them dirty(?) and dangerous- from the other "campers".
The growth is from one thing- acceptance. Forty years ago a bum got rapped with a night stick and was told to go away. Now they are asked if they need anything.
I think it's three primary reasons: drug addiction, mental instability, and social alienation. They often interact, so that one problem may lead to or grow into another.
Two of these three factors are purely volitional. So, discussion should focus on the one that's not, mental illness. If our population has increased 50% over the last 50 years, then the number of mentally ill should have also increased by the same amount. However, the homeless problem has appeared to have increased much more than that over the past 30 years. Could it be that mental illness is increasing as a percentage of population over the past 30 years? If so, it would have to be an environmental biochemical cause.
Y'know... I actually like you, Peter. You are almost certainly a better man than I am, in some ways. In others, you're a blithering idiot, which is why reading what you write on this site has an unfortunate tendency to piss me off. You're essentially blind to a lot of things that I see quite clearly, and you persist in framing issues in terms of an entirely inoperable morality that's only ever existed in the fantasies of the men who indoctrinated you so thoroughly.
Fact is, the world does not actually work the way you think it does, and the framing you place on much of what you post on here is sadly delusional. You persist in thinking that the essence of humanity is inherent and heritable, when the cold reality is that it manifestly is not. Because of that delusion, you persist in framing things in terms of a moral code that is neither universal nor absolute, and are entirely blind to the actual effects of what you espouse.
Peter, I draw your attention to your post:
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2019/03/new-zealand-ethics-morality-and-reality.html
In it, you decry violence directed against the sainted Muslims of New Zealand, who recently suffered what their co-religionists have inflicted innumerable times on all too many other people whose only sin was that they were not Muslim.
From what happened in New Zealand, I take the lesson that you will reap as you sow.
You, however, take the same incident and feel the need to piously pronounce at length about how we all need to practice the Golden Rule, ad nauseum. Which is, perhaps, an operable thing, between like communities of goodwill and similar background. Between assholes like a lot of Muslim fanatics and the rest of us? Ain't g'wan t'work, laddy-buck... You see an opportunity to put the "Golden Rule" into effect, and they see instead a weakness that mandates an attack.
I don't see one iota of any self-awareness on your part of how mindlessly destructive your mentality is, in that it militates against the victims of Muslim atrocities from delivering educational retribution upon the (only somewhat...) innocent co-religionists of the Muslims who attacked them in the name of their faith. Such retribution is indeed direly unfair, but that's the way the world really works: You only put a stop to those things that hurt you, and when the vast majority of Islam feels no pain for what their fanatic co-religionists do, in turn, they feel no need to reel them in or even decry what they do in a meaningful and effective way. Some few do, which you will no doubt piously point to as exemplars, but the fact is, the vast majority do not--Or, we would not see the blood we do, everywhere that Islam impinges on the non-Islamic "infidel". Dar-al-Harb vs. the Dar-i-Islami, don'chaknow?
Thanks to people like you, the average "moderate Muslim" can say to himself "Well, *I'll* never suffer any repercussions because of what those wonderful holy warriors do in the name of my faith, because those wunnerful, wunnerful men like Peter will be there to stay the hands of those who would visit upon me what my co-religionists visited upon their innocents...". So, many of them don't do a damn thing about the violent ones, and quietly keep donating to their terrorist causes, 'cos that's what pious Muslims do--They have little coin jars at their convenience stores, so that good Muslims can donate to support organizations like al Qaeda and other terrorists that fight the good fight, killing and maiming the infidel. Those coin jars were still up on the counters in Saudi Arabia, as late as 2004, and the money was still being pipelined to the terrorists.
That's Islam, baby--Christians donate to the March of Dimes to fight muscular dystrophy; Muslims donate to the PLO so that little Jewish boys and girls can be blown the fuck up.
"If so, it would have to be an environmental biochemical cause."
This might be a factor.
One overlooked is that a higher percentage of the illegals are mental cases, externally or self driven to arrive here. Castro cleaned out his criminals and crazies back in the 80's, and it doesn't take much thought to imagine other countries have done something similar, in a lower level sort of way.
The San Jose area has such a huge number of homeless/campers that most of the stores that use shopping carts are instituting the system that locks wheels if taken beyond the parking lot. When driving the freeways, one can see lots of them litering the shoulders, stuffed into the bushes. That large number of campers seems somewhat recent, as I don't recall seeing hardly any back when I patrolled them in the early 00's. Now, blue tarps and tents are commonly seen, if you look beyond the first layer of greenery. Not just individual camps, but encampments, are everywhere. I wonder if they might be more visible to a drone, and if the local cities are making any effort to learn the numbers involved?
Actually, I'm now wondering if the cities are making efforts to assist them in camping. I've seen work crews removing brush and trimming trees, and bigger camps appearing as a result.
Notice that the majority of this group gravitate to the warm states that have lots of Leftists giving freebies out via the various levels of guvment. I'm kind of surprised there are any in OR/WA, due to their weather. Do they commute seasonally?
@takirks: You have the right to your opinion. I have a different one, based on my own life experience. I should also point out that mine has been shaped and formed by some of the most militant of Muslims, namely mujahideen coming back from Afghanistan in the 1980's - the people who started Al Qaeda. I had more than a couple of tense encounters with them, including violence. I've also lived and worked among Muslims, and traveled in some of their countries. I'm hardly blind to reality here.
Where you and I differ is that you insist on treating all Muslims as if they were (at least potentially) fundamentalist Islamic terrorists. I know, from personal experience, that the actual number of such terrorists is relatively low. There are perhaps ten to twenty times that number of sympathizers. The rest of Islam is rather like the rest of Christianity: they want to get on with their lives as peacefully as possible, without being bothered by extremists. Sadly, most of them live in cultures and countries where extremists have more influence and authority than in Western countries. They can therefore be bullied into silence, and into at least an external semblance of cooperation.
You also fail to account for a number of factors such as culture, education, etc. that are paramount in determining how anyone reacts to situations. I've traveled in well over 60 countries and territories, on military duty, on business, doing mission work, and what have you. I speak from pretty extensive experience, not just from theory or theology. (One of the funnier aspects of living near Lawdog is that when he and I start talking about Africa and its realities, everyone else either laughs or listens in utter disbelief at the sheer strangeness of that continent. He and I understand each other perfectly, because we've lived it. No-one who hasn't has any clue.)
I've written very extensively about some of my experiences in these pages; apartheid,, terrorism, faith and life, and so on. I believe what I wrote to be true. If my conclusions, based on that experience, are different from yours, that doesn't make either of us an idiot. You are absolutely free to disagree with it, on the basis of your own experience. However, I urge you to stop arguing from the particular to the general. Just because some Muslims are fundamentalist Islamic terrorists, or their sympathizers, doesn't mean that all Muslims can be labeled as such. Just because some Christians are fundamentalist nut-jobs (such as some (possibly all) members of the Westboro Baptist Church or the Dove World Outreach Center), or pedophiles (such as far too many Catholic priests and bishops), doesn't mean that all Christians are the same. "Some" does not and cannot equate to "all".
Continued below . . . /
Continued from above . . . /
I repeat my assertion that the individuals murdered and wounded in New Zealand were not, and are not, fundamentalist terrorists. As far as we know, none of them were criminals in the conventional sense, either. Why do so many people seem to think that they deserve what happened to them because they were Muslim? For the life of me, I can find no justice, no sense at all, in that assertion. It's simply indefensible. I don't think I'm apologizing for Islam by saying that, either. It's simply the truth of the matter, irrespective of race, religion, culture, or whatever. We aren't talking about broader geopolitical issues. We're talking about what happened to one group of people in one location at a particular time.
Sadly, the more fanatical among us will use that as a fulcrum to promote their own perspectives at the expense of the truth (e.g. President Erdogan in Turkey, to name but one prominent example). I write as I do to try to make people think, to help them realize that such efforts have nothing to do with the truth of what happened, and to help them understand that you cannot judge from the group to the individual, or from the individual to the group. The sins of one man are his own, not anybody else's. You can't judge another man for the first man's sins. In the same way, you can't condemn all members of a religion or culture for the sins of individual members of that religion or culture. It's simply, flat-out, wrong. Sadly, that hasn't stopped many people doing precisely that . . . which is why I continue to write as I do.
With that, I'm afraid we'll have to agree to differ.
Peter, let me explain something to you that you have apparently missed in all your blissninny eversogoodthink: That Golden Rule you prattle on so endlessly about? There's a fucking reciprocal to it, if it's to ever actually have effect here in the real world. The "Golden Rule" is not a one-way street, where you make endless excuses for what others do, while behaving as the perfect co-dependent victim for them. If the "Golden Rule" is to work as you envision, then the requirement exists that when you are punched in the gut, you punch right the hell back. Otherwise, what you wind up being is nothing more than a punching bag for the other side.
That's what you're actually advocating and cheerleading for, here: Everyone should turn the other cheek, but the Muslims of the world, who go to kneel in their mosques every Friday and parrot the chapter and verse of the Koran and mouth the Hadiths that demand they go forth and slay or convert the infidel? Oh, that's just fine for you and your fellow blissninnies. Let's give them an out, so that we can feel ever so superior, as our daughters are raped and our heads are cut off for the edification of the Faithful in YouTube videos.
For the "Golden Rule" to work, it requires more than just treating others as you wish to be treated; when you carry out the equation to its logical and just endpoint, you also need to reciprocate like action when those others don't treat you as you would be treated. Elsewise, there's no motivation for them ever to treat you as anything other than convenient victim and whipping boy for their pederastic baby-raping fantasies. Sometimes, you have to be the bad guy, Peter, or your fine morals aren't actually going to do more than comfort you as you kneel for the knife.
You apply unto those who wrong you precisely what they delivered unto you, or the Golden Rule doesn't actually, y'know... Work. That's the essential thing you've missed; it's not all just sweetness and light. You want to make a moral code like the "Golden Rule" work, then you have to do the necessary, and reciprocate when you are wronged. And, if you think that the murder cult of Islam hasn't wronged everyone else simply by existing, I would invite you to actually read some damn history, and then reflect on the set of facts that are recorded there: Nowhere has Islam ever coexisted peacefully with any other religion, other than as a means to an end, while Islam gathers strength to conquer there. Every nation that has taken in Muslims has wound up being forced to either fight them, or has been taken over from within. You can see that going on inside the Democratic Party, right now.
And, yet, you're sitting over here prattling on incessently about the "Golden Rule", and how we must understand our Muslim brothers...
News flash for ya, Peter: If I had a pederast for a brother, he'd be dead. The Muslims consider me and mine as enemies fit only for the slave collar, and unlike the German Jews of the Weimar Republic, I'm reading their texts, watching their actions, and taking them at their words. The fact that someone else did, and chose to reciprocate what the "moderate" Muslims of the world have preached for and enabled through "charitable donations" to forces like Boko Haram? Tough shit. Maybe if more people took the line I am, we might be able to teach those assholes something, and avoid the inevitable capitulation or genocide, whichever comes first.
@takirks: You're both right and wrong.
You're right in that the Golden Rule does, indeed, imply that if someone treats you badly, you're entitled to treat them similarly in return - although, from a Christian perspective, Jesus would have something to say about that. I've done that repeatedly in my own life. When people shot at me, I shot back. When people tried to kill me, I stopped them, even (if necessary) at the cost of killing them. That's why I'm still alive today.
However, you're wrong in the target of your retaliation. You're entitled to retaliate against the specific individuals, or specific group, that harmed you: but you're not, repeat, NOT entitled to retaliate against those who have never done you harm, and only share a common faith with those who did. That's not retaliation; that's committing a crime, doing evil, in and of itself. What did those individuals do to you, to deserve being treated like that?
In an earlier comment in this same thread, you said:
"I don't see one iota of any self-awareness on your part of how mindlessly destructive your mentality is, in that it militates against the victims of Muslim atrocities from delivering educational retribution upon the (only somewhat...) innocent co-religionists of the Muslims who attacked them in the name of their faith. Such retribution is indeed direly unfair, but that's the way the world really works: You only put a stop to those things that hurt you, and when the vast majority of Islam feels no pain for what their fanatic co-religionists do, in turn, they feel no need to reel them in or even decry what they do in a meaningful and effective way."
That's where you and I part moral and ethical ways. I believe it's wrong to deliberately target those who have done me no wrong. Sure, they may share a religion and/or culture with someone who has wronged me: but that doesn't make them responsible for what that person did. To punish them for the actions of someone else is blatantly outside any system of law or ethics or morality of which I'm aware. In boot camp (or the equivalent) many of us were taught that way: a mistake by one recruit led to the entire recruit platoon being punished, and then those who hadn't made the mistake "helped" the errant recruit to get better - fast. However, we're not dealing with that situation here. One joins the military by choice. One does not (at least at birth) join one's family or tribe or culture by choice.
You're talking, ultimately, about military retaliation: bombs, missiles, gunfire, and so on. How can you possibly justify using those against men, women and children who've never so much as lifted a finger against you?
I look forward to your answer.
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