The last ditch - a philosophical debate -

Submitted by Michel C. Zala (United States), Jan 19, 2007 at 14:49

Noah -
I. ISLAM, your enemy, in your own words:
They've always hated us. They hate anything that is not Islam, It is a global pandemic of violence and savagery. It is uncivilized, barbaric, unreasoning and unintelligent. The enemy is not interested in peaceful co-existence, They want a worldwide Islamic caliphate and nothing else, mythical creatures called "moderate muslims, congenital liars anyway, and mandated by their religion to lie to you, they are arrogant, but inevitably their true colors show. There is no reasoning with the enemy...they are uncivilized, fanatical savages with one-track minds. They do not respect treaties, promises, or agreements. They are mandated to lie to us, to subvert us, to convert us, and/or to destroy us. This threat makes the Nazis look like Mother Theresa by comparison.II. We, the Western World in your own words:
… denial of reality. People just can't handle reality, Our youth will be totally accepting of Islam, we will have Islamic influence far beyond what we have today (which is saying a lot!), and there will be many millions more of them. I would not mind a little moral clean up in this country, Christian style. We could use it! America is in a permanent downward spiral, and that armed revolution with the total overthrow of those in government and a return to true Constitutional law is the only hope we have>>> it's not going to happen. At least, not while we have Republicans and Democrats in charge and not while the average American spends 4-5 hours a day being mentally emasculated by television while their kids are spending 8 hours a day being indoctrinated and intellectually retarded by our "schools".Precisely, which is why it will not happen and why we are doomed.

III. You promote the following action:
"There can be no compromise on this, Nukes do a very thorough job of wiping people out and leveling infrastructure, I don't think we can afford to wait for it to "die of old age", via exective order or through martial law, You break their spirit, you make them believe that the only option they have is to surrender and stop fighting because no other action will work. You overwhelm them and crush their spirit. They have to be broken, like a horse is broken before being ride-able, I would seize mosques, madrassahs, and Islamic schools and businesses. Freeze all bank accounts and assets of Muslims. Then send in the troops to round them up like we did with the Japanese in WWII. If they resist, they die. It's that simple. And then we deport them back to whichever Islamic country they came from. End of story. No Islam in America. To hell with the ACLU. I'd deport them as well, since they're as much a threat as Islam itself, if not moreso!, a massive nuclear strike on Riyadh, Tehran, Mecca, Medina, Amman, and Cairo, followed by a ground invasion to mop up what's left and seize the oil. Muslims would be killed on sight, man woman or child. They'd know I meant business, and I would also immediately cut off all aid to all Muslim countries and triple our aid to Israel. they would be microchipped for identification (just like cattle), and they would be force to work at hard labor on the Great Wall of America for 10 years. They'd live on subsistence level rations and work 14hours a day. Free labor! With possibly 20 million illegals, we'd have the wall built in no time! :-)The Great Wall would be a mile-wide dead zone consisting of reinforced walls and fences in a concentric pattern, underground sensors, automated robots patrolling the area (with cameras and guns mounted, to kill anyone trying to get through). We would have pilotless drones flying overhead, which could kill anyone coming over illegally. Some areas would be mined. Other areas would be filled with water, a moat of sorts, with electrified plates so that if the camera detected someone trying to swim over, the plates would discharge and electrocute them. all they understand is force.... Force is all that will work. And now we have their poisonous and evil ideolgy infecting our prisoners, our children, and our society. Force...massive, unrelenting, unapologetic and brutal force...is the only effective tactic.

You made it very clear, where you come from. I feel it is not me who does not understand your perspective, it is you, not getting mine.

I am going to try another strategy in our debate .
I am going to try the philosophical approach, and will then try to logically deduct, why we have no other choice than to entertain compromise. (for the lack of a better expression)

Just taking statements out of your last 2 posts, I distill your position as follows:

IV You disqualify above action as not likely to happen because:
"will not happen ", : I never said that it would happen, only that it should happen. Indeed, must happen if we hope to survive.(I reference you across the board: We lack the will, determination, our political system is corrupt, too many relativists, legal system, pacifists, too much appeasement, indoctrination as to the peaceful nature of Islam, non-unified western world and on and on.....

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So far – I am sure, that you are with me, as I did nothing, but describe ( not qualify) your "platform" which is certainly shared by Susan, Infidel, Dhimmi, heck most of the contributors.

Now - Where is the smallest common denominator between our position?

A) I think we agree on the fact that I too would "dismiss" your strategy as " not gonna happen".
B) You and I want to help preserving the western culture, our way of life, our freedoms.

Logical Conclusion I am hence forced to draw from the entire Debate:

Purely philosophical. What you promote, will according to your own posts, will never happen, and you yourself consider us as "doomed".

I am by simple logical deduction forced to deplore that as a form of defeatism.

You conclude and mount evidence to the fact that the way of life as we knew it, our democracies are doomed to fail and be eradicated sooner or later. You say, your warning will never be heard and the West is on its demise, while, as opposed to you, I am not willing to concede defeat quite yet. As opposed to you, I consider our society still as basically strong with feasible means at their disposal to counteract any threat so ever.

What is better,
a) simply accept the above as a fact, continue to mount evidence of evil nature, continue to warn, continue to hate and in essence accepting, that we are doomed and that your "strategy" will never succeed,

or

b) applying fresh approaches, lateral outside the box thinking and find solutions with at least a slither of a chance for implementation.?

It really boils down to the glass half full or empty. For example, I consider the post of the Muslim Soldier as positive and or promising at least, while you guys dismiss it from the get go. In my book people like him give me reason to hope.

And here is the core of our debate from a the aforementioned different angle:

As opposed to you, I have yet to lose any remaining hope, even though the mountain of factual evidence could easily lead any logical pragmatic person to deep depression.

For once, allow me to speak up as representative of the "Relativist Faction", a silent group of moderate people across demarcation lines of culture, religion, background, ethnics, gender or creed:

We believe that our society is much stronger and resistant to any form of fanatics, than you give her credit for.
We believe in the fundamental superiority of a system, which is based upon democracy, freedom and free pursuit of one's individual happiness.
We will rigorously defend above, when we are threatened.
We believe to have character and inner strength to allow to be measured and questioned and to question and measure ourselves. We do not give a sh…, what the other side does. We only intend to control, what we can control: ourselves and our reactions to any frame condition.

You deny us any will to "reform" .

I, on the other hand, believe that some Willpower could in fact be regained for a much needed reform of our own "decadency " , as a basis for successful perseverance against any threat.

You believe ISLAM to be that one major all-encompassing threat.

We believe aspects, shades of ISLAM to be one of many such threats.

You believe that we will fail, whereas I believe that we have at least a chance to survive.

Lastly, I see and understand our debate as proof for my view, whereas brutally logically deducted, you must see this debate as solely philosophical with no chance of any positive outcome.

Highly ironic once again, our entire debate boils down to one key word: F A I T H.

I started up with it and wIll conclude with it: If we lose faith in ourselves, our system, culture, our achievements and in brutal consequence in our future, we will lose hope, drive, energy and finally any sense of self. We will simply disappear as just another footnote in history. We'll fall apart and all the fight was for nothing.

I am not there yet, to accept that.

Are you? Really? Again logically deducted, you promote most radical actions, yet state at the same time, that it will not happen, hence that we are doomed - - - - or defeated. You make a strong argument for all this yelling and stamping of your feet (warning) not having any effect and not going to have any either. Thus defeat being the only logical consequence. Do you see, where I am going with this logic?

I do not feel that you are willing to accept our demise just yet. Your passion speaks for itself.

Hence, my only suggestion remains to resolve the impasse, you and I, reps of a fundamentally different stream, must come together and find pragmatic compromise. If you indeed want to help preserve our way of life (like me), we must assist in finding strategies with a chance for reality, even, if they do not go far enough for you. We both agree that No platform, a majority of people across creed, culture or gender can not buy in, will carry in our system.

Thus - we do not have a choice but to find that platform somehow. It is the essence of what we as the western culture stand for. It's precisely, what we are all about.

Noah – to use the model of modern conflict resolution – we do not have a choice here. I think we both agree that a resolution is needed, heck prerequisite. If you in this "negotiation" effort can absolutely not get 100% of what you want, are you then willing to accept a "partial" victory, ? No matter the other side - just our own platform considered - if you are absolutely not willing to entertain any form of compromise, there is no use for you to even sit down in the first place. You'd be wasting your time.

Needless to say, that on the Muslim side the same applies. This ain't a choice between right and wrong. We are way beyond that point. The only choice we have is to either sit down (analogy) and work - or walk away.

Walking away is conceding, that there is zero resolution. Sitting down (Just an analogy) m a y have a chance. Not more - not less. The first will bring about a doomsday scenario you so often describe.
So - what do we have to loose to entertain my second way? Nothing.

If you always do, what you always did, you will always get, what you always got.

When will this fundamental historical reference ever penetrate:

Hatred, exclusion and fanatism has not led one single autocratic regime or system or culture to survive in the long run. It has precisely led to the demise of every single such empire in history. While the system of a true Democracy can not be seen as "Empire", it nevertheless will fail, if it makes the very same mistake. Every form of (violent) revolution had a tendency to bring back the exact same principles it originally tried to overthrow, is another historical sad fact so many experts have pointed out.The only exception: Democracy in its purest definition of the word

Now – see my point? Is this logic of mine to apply exactly those means and values to preserve her,
really so absurd?
To dismiss my position as naïve, cumbajah, mumbo jumbo and so on does not respect it as an effort with a lot of pragmatic reasoning and logical rationale.

While I may never get more than an inch in factual concession from you guys, at least accept my position to have its own logic. I follow down a different causal chain than you – If you do not agree with me on anything, concede at least that.

Having tried to take a route, Plato or Aristotle would be proud of, I decided to grow a nice long white beard.
I pray to God, Allah, Buddha combined to lend me the wisdom to never let emotions get the better of me again. It is hard though, opening today's newspapers, or this blog for that matter, not to get angry and frustrated.

I can not blame you for your emotions – but I am saddened by, where they take you.

Nothing I wrote, nothing I said, had any effect. No voices rose up en masse in support, even though I still feel that many readers were indeed silently nodding. It isn't good enough though to remain silent, as my voice will now fade too in admitted resignation.

To circle back to where we originally started from, Daniel Pipes did rightfully take a hard look at us passive self-loathing people – The voices of fanatism overpower the voices of moderation once again with the next tragedy around the corner. How many more can we afford as a species?

We, the human species, are one mother of a sick patient and maybe just a faulty experiement. Could it be, that euthanasia must be accepted as the only conclusion?

Maybe that is the answer, why God has walked away in utter disgust. He gave that planet an angry kick and since then we are circling around the sun, a hell which will eventually consume us all.

There you go – now I am depressed too. J

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