551. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247580 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 3:30 pm

Laurie,

Didn't you realise the the U.S. has already been conducting that very thing right around the world for a long time now

Oh, absolutely. THe problem is what's being exported. The US is good at exporting big macs, not so good at exporting ideology. That's what should be done.

Imagine flooding the airways with broadcasts from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish, Brigitte Gabriel and others. Here's an excellent article on the subject:

http://www.intellectualactivist.com/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=818

Hey, Christian missionaries and priests are doing sterling work in this area already - why not give them a hand? Why not get a piece of the action?

552. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247572 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 3:21 pm

Steve, cease your hysterics and endless whining. My position is the same as it always has been. You find it convenient to rephrase it and hide behind your abstractions so you can get all hysterical and throw your little tantrums. Sorry, not interested.

553. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247568 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 3:18 pm

Your conclusions are still a non sequitur, though.

Well, let's agree to disagree on that point. :-)

Can you help me with one thing though, because I really don't understand it. Whenever I broach the problems of Islam I tend to end up knee deep in complaints about my "conservativism" and being "right-wing". What I don't get is why this isn't a leftist agenda. I'm, as you've noticed, something of a 'social conservative'. When the Mullahs take over, I'll grow my beard out, get a couple of wives and keep my head down. It's the gays and the feminists who'll have a rougher time of it.

554. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247565 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 3:14 pm

Yada-yada. The most extreme thing I have suggested is making citizenship in the West contingent on renouncing Shariah, and thus to have the legal mechanisms to throw guys like Abu Hamza out.

As I said, I'd have thought that, with the first Shariah court now operational in Britain, you'd have more reasonable grounds for hysteria. Or is it the knowledge that your tantrums will have zero effect on the mujahideen?

555. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247559 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 3:07 pm

As I said, hysterics. You are able to sling names and whine a great deal, but never yet have I seen you contribute anything meaningful to a discussion on this subject; at least, not anything in the perscriptive department.

EDIT: Incidentally, with the first Shariah courts opening in Britain, I'd have throught there were more appropriate targets for your hysteria. But maybe that's just me.

556. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247554 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 3:01 pm

It is prosecution and expulsion and worse because people have certain ideas.

Hmmm - misquote and distort and then accuse me of being slimy? Honestly, steve, quit being such a hysteric.

I am not getting into another of these dull, boring arguments where you, steve, have trouble understanding that those who say they want Shariah are very unlikely to vote against it in a democratic referendum. That wasn't the point of discussion here, and I am not interested helping your hysterics.

557. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247548 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 2:58 pm

Why, decius, that's very big of you. Thanks.

Yeah, I've read that article of Pinker's before now, I just couldn't remember it.

558. Sharia courts operating in Britain

Comment #247543 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 2:53 pm

You know, back after 9/11 if you'd said that in seven years there'd by Shariah courts in Britain, people would have thought you'd flown the coop.

559. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247541 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 2:50 pm

He controls Iraq.

...

I think that the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani might have a few words to say about that. Seriously, in downtown Baghdad, whose word do you think carries greater clout?

The problems in Iraq - now brace yourself, this may come as a shock - are not caused by evil, BusHitler war-zombies huntin' and killin' brown folks, but by the fact that the Sunni and the Shia hate each other with an intensity that borders on madness and have been merilly slaughtering each other now that Saddam's gone. That slaughter is the result of Islam, not of the evil Bush's schemes.


EDIT: Anyway, you have my suggestions now.

560. Sharia courts operating in Britain

Comment #247535 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 2:44 pm

mord, thanks for pointing that out.

"Twenty years ago, paramilitary organizations were considered crazies. Now, I might want to join one."

If you find any good ones drop me a line, would you?

Back to you mord, it's not the morons, its the Muslims that are the problem.

561. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247534 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 2:43 pm

Wonderful. Both of the harpies of this site have returned in full force.

562. Sharia courts operating in Britain

Comment #247529 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 2:33 pm

nervous, I think your second amendment may help to slow that down somewhat.

In answer to your question, non-Muslims have no rights under Shariah.

And so the transition to Eurabia continues... Whose brilliant idea was it to have mass Muslim immigration in the first place, anyway? Oh, wait, the EU's - go figure.

563. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247525 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 2:22 pm

Sorry got carried away when you said GWB and Saddam were not morally equivalent or something like that

They're not, period. That isn't even open to discussion, that's a matter of stone-cold fact. THere is noone - noone - who lived under the heel of Saddamist Iraq who wouldn't have preferred Bush's America.


------------------------

Okay, fine here are some of my proposals: total end of all Muslim immigration to Infidel lands. A broad-based coalition of support, military and otherwise, between Infidels. A campaign of cultural imperialism. Ending the slave trade. Helping non-Arab Muslims realize that what they suffer, they do so because of the Arab Supremacism that's central to Islam. Doing everything possible to break apart and weaken the dar al-Islam internally. A moratorium on mosque building in the West, and any current mosque having to pass a clean bill of health on pain of being seized and torn down. Getting us off oil, or instead seizing the oil fields. etc. etc.

I have no doubt that this will just engender a huge repeat of cries of how fascist these policies are, but you asked for them and here they are.

564. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247524 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 2:18 pm

Again, please tell us specifically how we do this?

I have done so extensively elsewhere, and, to be honest, I am tired of repeating myself. That was not what was under discussion, nor was it being discussed when you raised this hugh and cry to start off with. Sorry, I ain't helping you to get out of that rhetorical pit.

565. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247518 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 2:09 pm

I was using "you" in the general sense to talk about your proposals

I'll take that comment, Titania, with a pinch of salt. The comments are there for anyone to read, and I think they're fairly clear.


Incidentally, why are you bringing Iraq into this? That wasn't what was being discussed at the time. I also think it's tangential to this current discussion. So what is it's relevance? You go straight from assuring me that you don't think I'm a fascist, just that my views are (actually a distinction I understand), to talking about Iraq. Seriously, what's the connection here?

566. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247517 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 2:05 pm

As for Andy's lecture, he said quite different things for what I can remember, but I will watch it again in case I missed something

Please do. He did describe rather accurately the restless violence of tribal life. He called it "con-specific violence", as I recall.

No, I can't remember those first names off the top of my hat. I could point you toward Hurgronje's history of the Acheh, just as another example, or to Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle or The Descent of Man. I think you'd find them edifying. All of them present a very unpleasant - and accurate - view of man in a primitive state.

567. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247511 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 2:01 pm

The problem with you is you do not see that GWB is no better

If you really believe this, then you've fallen prey to the 'forgetfulness' of which Lee Harris writes. I don't know whether or not you live in the US, but if you do, you do not live in fear that at any moment government thugs could kill you and your entire family. You aren't forced to applaud your loved ones executions.

The point isn't about Iraq, and that wasn't actually under discussion. My own view I that there's no such thing as a bad reason to destroy something like Saddam; what I think was stupid was this ridiculous idea that you can get democracy in a Muslim country. You can't.

He has created a training ground for al-Qaida.

Really? In a predominatly Shia country? Where the Shia have some harsh memories of what the Taliban did to the Hazara, and what Zarqawi did to them? Where their own militias have been hunting al-Qaeda goons like rats? Where even the local Sunnis hate them?

Unlikely. My view is simple: let the Sunni and the Shia rip each other apart; it'll drain resources away from the Jihad's other fronts.

I'll just focus in on this:

your crusade against Islam.

You say that as though this is a matter of personal choice for me. It isn't - nor is it for you. It isn't just 'my' fight, where you can sit on the sidelines. If the Jihadis get ahold of you, they'll kill you just as readily. Like it or not, we're in this one together, all of us kaffirs are in the same boat with respect to Islam. Either the world's infidels defeat and destroy Islam, or it will defeat and destroy us. There is no door three.

568. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247501 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 1:45 pm

Do me a favour, decius, here's how that entry goes on:

Gibbon lists the Roman conquest of Britain under Claudius and the conquests of Trajan as exceptions to this policy of moderation

and, more importantly,

Despite the term, the period was not without armed conflict, as Emperors frequently had to quell rebellions. Additionally, both border skirmishes and Roman wars of conquest happened during this period. Trajan embarked on a series of campaigns against the Parthians during his reign and Marcus Aurelius spent almost the entire last decade of his rule defending the frontiers of the Empire, especially against Germanic tribes.

In other words there was peace only where i could be enforced. It was Roman military might that laid down the law. Without that raw force ensuring peace, there'd have been just the endless cylces of war. I do believe that was rather my point.

The peace we curently enjoy, though it is coming to a close, is thanks to the Pax Americana (I could have sworn I mentioned that earlier...), the American dominance that arose in the aftermath of the Second World War.

could you indicate us any historian or scientist who bought into the Hobbesian myth of the Nature State?

Keeley and LeBlanc. Nicholas Wade. Andy Thomson, whose lecture you can watch here:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,1710,We-Few-We-Happy-Few-We-Band-of-Brothers,Andy-Thomson-Richard-Dawkins-Foundation

569. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247494 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 1:38 pm

See Comment 2586 by myself for what 'could be interpreted'.

What iritates me isn't so much the insults as the utter meaninglessness of the statements. I have challenged so many people to construct a rational explanaiton why my views are fascist or nazi-esque, rather than, say, being similar to he methods and policies used to destroy those movements. I have not heard a word of answer, and I very much doubt that I will.

I get tired of this inssuferable waste of time. I made the basic point that, as war is with us forever, we should fight it as well and as justly as is possible. For one example, I cited the Sudan. I maintain burning those goddamn slavers and genocidists of the face of the planet would be a service to humanit. I similarly supported wholeheartedly settling the Taliban's hash in Afghanistan (as I recall, you were against that). Now, what is your grand solution that doesn't involve that oldest of tools - war? How do you stop monsters like these without going out there and unleashing hell on them?

Just to take one example, if General Butt Naked gets up to his old antics, how would you be able to stop him short of total war?

570. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247481 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 1:29 pm

Fanusi, I never called YOU a Nazi or a fascist so please stop saying that I did.

Oh, really, Titania?

Fanusi, you appear to be advocating the use of force against people based on their religion and on what they think. If this is not fascism, I do not know what

...

How are your proposals any different than the Nazis? Whether you advocate the cleansing of the gene pool or the meme pool by violence and oppression, you are guilty of fascism in either case, and you betray Western values and you are no better than the mullahs or GWB or Saddam Hussein

Etc.

Now, I accept that anyone who can seriously equate Bush with Saddam is having trouble with moral distinctions, but you throw around these most approbrious accusations, and then wonder why I get ticked?

571. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247477 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 1:25 pm

*looks* So it is. Sorry about that. Now, will I hear an apology for all the slurs thrown at me?

Doubt it. Anyway, the point remains the same. Reason, as a tool of human interaction, is severely limited. There will always be those who don't give a damn and are willing to use force in order to get what they want. When you encounter them, when you encounter the Enemy you need to be prepared to fight. Tha means bein able to call on those capable of unleashing ruthlessness.

That's why war is eternal, and why pacifist fantasies about eradicating war only make it much worse. Take the current situation in the Sudan. Now there are some imperialist warmongerings such as myself who held, right from the outset, that the Janjaweed should have been stopped, that their bases should have been cluster bombed, their supplies burned, and every last one of the bastards hunted to the ends of the earth if necessary and killed.

We, however, didn't get a look in. No, it was dcided to go the path of debate, and discussion, and the UN and all that piffle. As a result, it's now too late. They're all dead.

This is why I say that only effect of denying the reality of war as part of the human condition is to make it infinetly worse.

572. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247468 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 1:16 pm

Incidentally, you brought up the queston of what I would do if I were President or PM - I outlined some policies earlier, when you had just finished going on about how naziesque I was. I have discussed my ideas at length elsewhere.

In this thread, however, I was discussing with root the nature of in-group/out-group feeling and how that visceral sense of in-group loyalty is essential to the preservation of any society, long term. I find this a very interesting, if troubling, subject. I was then promptly drowned in cries of 'fascist' and 'nazi' and how I was an advocate for tyranny (none of which claims had a shred of substantiation, btw). Do you understand why I get a little cranky?

573. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247464 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 1:10 pm

Titania,

Where did I say force is not necessary for civilization?

Well, here:

we do not think force is required or justified.

Comment #246869 by Titania on September 13, 2008 at 12:35 pm

I can always back up what I say.

574. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247459 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 1:05 pm

Hmmm - I point out that even the paragons of civilization can't escape the necessity for ruthlessness, and you, decius conclude that I mean that ruthlessness is their defining characteristic.

Call me when you want an intellectually honest debate.

BTW, I think you'd find quite a few historians who'd dispute that 'centuries of peace' guff...

575. Have We Ever Faced An Enemy More Stupid Than Muslim Terrorists?

Comment #247457 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 1:00 pm

Here is Hurgronje, one of the greatest scholars of Islam, writing almost a century ago:

This tolerance seems irreconcilable with the prescriptions of the Mohammedan law concerning the attitude towards the adherents of other religions. For, according to this law, which as a whole claims divine authority, the whole world of man is to be subjected to the Mohammedan community and is also, as far as possible, to be incorporated by it in a spiritual sense. That this aim may be attained, the community of the faithful is to do jihâd, i.e., carry on a holy war against all that are still living outside the circle of its authority. The leadership in the jihâd, the determination of time, place, and means, is one of the chief duties of the head of the community, the Caliph, the successor of Mohammed as supreme governor, supreme judge, and supreme commander of all the Moslims. As the interests of Islâm in his opinion require it, he is to carry on this war with more or less energy or even temporarily to desist from it. Under no circumstances may he agree to a suspension of the offensive against a nation of unbelievers for more than ten years. Provided they subject themselves to the Mohammedan state authority and are satisfied with the position of subjects without civic rights, adherents of the Jewish and of the Christian religion, and of such religions as obtain equal recognition with those, are granted the exercise of their religion, though with certain restrictions. In the case of real heathens subjection must be accompanied by conversion.

576. Have We Ever Faced An Enemy More Stupid Than Muslim Terrorists?

Comment #247454 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 12:57 pm

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...

Jihadis however are motivated by ideology and (often legitimate) moral outrage towards the West and their corrupt puppets.

No. Wrong. Incorrect. F-minus. The Jihadi is motivated by a hatred of the kafir. That is his motivation, the beginning and the end of it.

This is why Muslims are killing Christians in Indonesia, animists in africa, Hindus in the subcontinent, Sikhs in the same, jews all over the place, etc. etc.

577. Have We Ever Faced An Enemy More Stupid Than Muslim Terrorists?

Comment #247451 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 12:55 pm

Feeling pleasantly grumpy at the moment, so:

You can't kill everyone with a "behead those who insult Islam sign" can you?

Wanna bet?

If her poems were read by more people, more of them would realise that Islam is not peace like you have

True - but there's plenty of material out there that anyone who honestly wonders about Islam can get access to. The main problem is the abject cravenness of our elites in discussing what Islam is and what it preaches, and what it has always meant for Infidels in all times and places. It isn't the lack of jihadi jennies' poems.

I am interested in how others would define the line.

Simple: if the threat is credible. If some heavy metal band goes on about sacrificing entire nations to Satan or whatever, noone takes that seriously because it's never happened and there's no chance of it happening.

On the other hand, when a Muslim calls for beheadings, is it credible? Has it happened before? To ask the question is to answer it.

Incitement to murder. Treason in a time of war. I'll remain pretty unreconstructed about this.

578. Have We Ever Faced An Enemy More Stupid Than Muslim Terrorists?

Comment #247394 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 11:27 am

Just because you call for people to be beheaded isn't on its own incitement

... words fail me.

Driving conversations underground

These guys aren't interested in conversation. These guys aren't interested in debate. They are interested in Jihad, Jihad in the cause of Allah.

There's nothing to discuss. It's win or loose in this fight. There is no door 3.

579. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247373 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 11:07 am

I'm getting tired of this and I really don't have the time anymore.

Athens slaughtered of every combat-age man and boy on the island of Melos, and enslaved every woman and girl there. The Romans would crucify entire tribes, or 'decimate' others. The various republics of Italy were known for internal strife and war.

Yes, Rome was more civilized than the Vandals, and Athens more than Sparta, but they still used ruthlessness as a weapon to defend themselves. Thus proving my point to begin with: that, if you want a civilized state, you still need to be able to use ruthlessness as a weapon of defence.

580. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247361 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 10:52 am

The idea that we have young men to protect society is nothing new.
Its called the army and police force.

Why yes, Nairb, yes it is. Now please explain to me why everyone has been ducking that conclusion? You may recal Titania saying force wasn't necessary for civilization.

The idea that society gets more likely to fall to violence as it progresses is disproved by the facts of the society around us.

You mean the same society that is colliding headfirst with seventh century nutcases just at the moment we thought 'the End of History' had arrived? That society, yes?

581. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247359 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 10:46 am

Good question. Unfortunael for this cheap and facile comment, actual scientists in this field report that the kind of life lived by hunter gatherers involves lots and lots of really nasty war.

I'd love to see how you fit General Butt Naked into your picture.

582. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247353 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 10:39 am

Prehistory is the Mesolithic (at the end of the Pleistocene), we have already seen that warfare wasn't the defining characteristic.

We have seen no such thing. All the evidence points the other way, whether it's archaeological or from what we know of primitive societies that exist now or existed within living memory.

583. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247337 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 10:19 am

...

Yes... Over time... And what then is the state of man in pre-history? Well, by your own statement they'll have been smaller and more disorganized, yes?

In other words in a state of tribal war. Continual, bloody, murderous war.

584. Have We Ever Faced An Enemy More Stupid Than Muslim Terrorists?

Comment #247336 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 10:17 am

Fanusi, do you think she has the right to write and publish such poems? Do you think prosecution in this instance was legal, justified?

Hmmm... let's see now, she was inciting murder - I do believe that's a punishable crime. She was also giving aid and assistance to the counry's enemy in a time of war. That's called 'treason'. During the Second World War the Quislings and Lord Haw-Haw were properly tried for treason for pulling stunts like this. Also she was taking 'equipment' to terrorists.

So, yes, not only do I think she should have been prosecuted, I think she should swing for this. Hemp fandango.

585. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247327 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 10:12 am

I don't deny that warfare has always been with us

Okay, then what are we arguing about? That's what I have been saying all along.

Where I disagree is this:

The modern view, though, is that - even in our remote past as hunter-gatherers in the Pleistocene - cooperation culture and social structures (regardless how embryonic) have been our defining characteristics.

Of course. That's why I said - well, read post 2553. Tribal structures - I presume that's what you mean by 'embryonic' - have always been with us. It's between those tribes that things get Hobbesian and nasty.

That was what I was saying right from the start.

586. Have We Ever Faced An Enemy More Stupid Than Muslim Terrorists?

Comment #247323 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 10:10 am

javb222, it'll work for some. But only some. I like to think Ali Sina is right when he says that if the truth about Islam is told loudly and continuously, 90% of Muslims will apostasize.

The rest though - there we have a problem.

587. Sharia courts operating in Britain

Comment #247321 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 10:08 am

Hmmm - it's happening faster than I thought. I wonder whether I'll have th chance to finish my Ph.D. before I have to wear a blue ribbon?

A wise person once said: Immigration. Multiculturalism. Democracy. Pick any two.

588. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247311 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 9:56 am

GoatBoy who the heck are the Gordon Highlanders?

My point was addressing the question: how can you have an army to defend your society from would-be tyrants without having the army become tyranical itself?

589. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247308 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 9:50 am

Decius, okay, then I'll ask you: when would you say we should draw the line betwen the state of civilization and the state of tribal war?

Unless you are going to say that the state of tribal war never existed, the exact date becomes a bit irellevant.

590. Have We Ever Faced An Enemy More Stupid Than Muslim Terrorists?

Comment #247306 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 9:48 am

Titania,

We have to find ways to reach across the divide to these deluded people and bring them the light of peace and reason.

What if they don't want it? What if they're happy being psychotic lunatics?

Come on, you can't even convince me of your p.o.v. How are you going to manage to convince jihadi-jack and his ten little shahids?

I have a slightly more basic approach to this lot.

591. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247289 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 8:59 am

decius,

Western civilisation will do, so we will have the transition clearly defined by a date or a century or an event.

I'd go with the start of ancient greek civilization, just to be traditional. The civilizing process is an incremental one, so it's hard to draw an exact line.

However, you can't deny that we have escaped that ghastly state, despite regressions.


EDIT: And just in case you think we haven't, or that there was nothing to escape, here's a bit more about Gen. Butt Naked:

Liberia's right next door to Sierra Leone, and has the same sort of history. Both were started up as places to settle freed slaves. Sierra Leone was a British project and Liberia was American, but otherwise it's the same story: freed slaves set up little towns on the coast, make the inland tribes into slaves, then the whole thing dissolves into massacres, with "armies" of M-16-totin' 13-year-old boys in dresses, killing and fucking, in that order, anybody they can catch.

General Butt Naked was like the Patton of these guys, the Robert E. Lee of Liberia. Instead of wearing wigs and high heels like most Liberian "army" kids, he started a wild new fashion: he just didn't wear anything at all. Here's the item, just the way the reader sent it:

"Liberia: Joshua Blahyi - formerly known as General Butt Naked and leader of the Butt Naked Battalion in Liberia's recent civil war - says that he now regrets the drunken murderous rampages he led his troops on, and says that he was a 'slave to Satan.' Speaking to the press from his new Soul-Winning Evangelical Ministry in Monrovia, General Butt Naked told reporters that at the age of 11 he had a telephone call from the Devil who demanded nudity on the battlefield, acts of indecency and regular human sacrifices to ensure his protection. 'So, before leading my troops into battle, we would get drunk and drugged up, sacrifice a local teenager, drink their blood, then strip down to our shoes and go into battle wearing colourful wigs and carrying dainty purses we'd looted from civilians. We'd slaughter anyone we saw, chop their heads off and use them as soccer balls. We were nude, fearless, drunk and homicidal. We killed hundreds of people -- so many I lost count. But in June last year God telephoned me and told me that I was not the hero I considered myself to be, so I stopped and became a preacher.'"

Just try imagining one of the General's military campaigns. It makes you realize how tame movies really are, even the ones that say they're all "dark" and daring. I've seen a lot of war movies, but none of them ever even tried to show anything this fucked up.

Imagine a movie of General Butt's "army" hitting a village. They grab a kid off a trail to the village, rip him up and drink his blood, then get naked. They're already high on who knows what mix of drugs and booze, probably screeching like parrots. Oh, wait -- I forgot about the purses and wigs. So they're in drag, naked, dripping blood from their mouths, and boom! they're sprinting into your village. The killing isn't even the fun part for them. That's just a day at the office for these guys. It's the big soccer game they're up for. So they get their pangas out and chop off a few dozen heads and start kickin' them around. Yellow flag!

Compared to that, Apocalypse Now is about as "dark" as Alf.

592. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247287 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 8:55 am

GoatBoy,

Up to a point, anyway: till another tribe comes over the hill with a bunch of spears and their warpaint on, say. It's certainly an interesting topic.

Pretty much. My disagreement with Hobbes is that the state of nature isn't all individuals at war with each other so much as different tribes in continually bloody conflict with each other.

593. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247286 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 8:52 am

Fanusi,
You may see a paradox, I see a non sequitor.
On what basis do you say there is a greater incentive for war when reason and commerce triumphs

Nairb, the paradox is as follows: there are always some who are, shall we say, deviant nutcases. Now, the more peaceful and commerce driven people in general become, the richer the pickings are for anyone who resurrects the old ways, and, much more importantly, the chance that they'll be opposed is less. That's why all these insane philosophies, communism, fascism, Islam & so forth go on about the West's 'decadence'. What they mean is that we would far rather trade and talk things out than go to war. Which is true, of course. But the problem is that that is always seen as weakness by those who like using war.

594. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247283 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 8:44 am

You didn't answer. When did we get out from the State of Nature?

decius, tell me who you mean by 'we' and I'll answer. There's quite alot of people who are still living in that state. Here's a little excerpt from an article I was reading a while back:

In January, the East African's Charles Onyango-Obbo wrote a column musing on the resurgence of cannibalism, after the UN had reported that Ugandan-backed rebels in the Congo were making their victims' relatives eat the body parts of their loved ones. 'It also makes the point,' he continued, 'that while colonialism is bad, the coloniser who arrives by plane, vehicle, or ship is better â€" because he will have to build an airport, road, or harbour â€" than the one who, like the Ugandan army, arrived and withdrew from most of eastern Congo on foot.'

Apparently, death is the least of the worries for that neck of the woods:

Army, rebel and tribal fighters, some believing the pygmies are less than human or that eating their flesh would give them magic power, have been pursuing the pygmies in forests, killing them and eating their flesh, activists said

There's also some guy called "General Butt Naked" who has some similar prediliction.

Then there's the Sudan where another couple of million bodies have just been piled up, hundreds of thousands of women raped, men sold into slavery - the usual stuff. Now there were ways of stopping that, but that would have meant war, y'know, bombs dropped on people. Bullets in the head. That kind of stuff. Things which people here seem to deplore.

595. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247279 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 8:31 am

We have pointed out to you Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, the fall of the Berlin Wall, economic trade with former "enemies" that has resulted in decades long peace and prosperity for many countries. Peaceful means do work with enough thought, work and the cultivation of popular support. It is possible to change the moral zeitgeist through peaceful measures.

Well, let's take this turn by turn shall we? Nelson Mandela's ANC had a little habit called "necklacing", you may want to look it up. There's a broader point though - he only succeeded because Aparheid, as disgusting as it was, was a relatively minor evil. Mandela could never have succeeded against Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Hussain, or for that matter, Qaddafi. It's also worth noting that, thanks to the failure of law enforcement in the New South Africa, there are murder rates currently as high as those of Iraq and far higher rape rates (a hundred and sixty a day).

Then there's Ghandi, the Hindu sectarian who wanted to see everyone tied in perpetuity to the caste of their birth, whose advice to the Jews of Germany was that they should all commit suicide, and also advocated that India should not resist the Japanese army that was at their doorstep.

Martin Luther King ended having to give his life for the cause he believed in, and again he was only able to succeed because the society he was fighting wasn't one of the major evils in human history.

The fall of the Berlin Wall only happened because the US had a very large stick which prevented the Soviets from gobbling up all of Europe. Hence the 'sixty years of peace' that Europe has, supposedly, enjoyed, are a load of hoey. It's just that America did the fighting on their behalf.

Now, I have said that we can ammeliorate war and we can fight it less, and these are all good things, but I think the idea that we can get rid of it permanently is a pipe dream and a dangerous one at that.

I cannot disagree with you that almost any peaceful measures would not have worked with the Nazis. (I have a headache so pardon the weird syntax of that last sentence.)

Thanks, and that was my point to begin with. Precisely because people were wedded to the idea that you could negotiate with these maniacs, we ended with a hideous war.

I get it that you want us to respond to your arguments but you throw a match on the flames of our dispute when you advocate going merry hell on people, cutting of heads and phosphorus bombing of towns, etc.

Technically I didn't advocate it - I merely pointed out that the alternative was to be ruled by the first gang willing to use those tactics. Sure, the Allies in the Second World war could have disdaned those tactics. Admitedly, we'd know be living in the Thousand Year Reich, but the option did exist.

That is the problem and the paradox. It isn't nice or pleasant, but it's the reality.

596. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247275 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 8:17 am

Switching tacks again, I notice.

The available science, history and archaeology show, quite clearely, that the state of primitive man is one of continual war.

There's an interesting book called Before the Dawn. In it, the author's note minor details as the Iroquois taking their captives home to torture them to death. They also note:

"Had the same casualty rate been suffered by the population of the twentieth century, its war deaths would have totaled two billion people."

Hmmm...

Of course, those of us who had the benefit of actually learning things about primitive societies, and know what Shaka and Dingane got up to, find this utterly unsurprising.

597. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247270 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 8:10 am

Ah, thank you: so you concede, decius that the state of tribal life, which is our natural state, is one of continual nightmarish conflict? And whatever commerce etc. we might have enjoyed in that state was very rudimentary, to put it mildly?

Then what is difficult about my conclusion that our escape from that state of tribal war is something profoundly artificial?

Honestly, it's like pulling teeth, this conversation.

598. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247264 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 8:02 am

Stop dancing around the question, decius: were those tribes which were the normal state of our existence, continually at war or were they not? Answer that.

599. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247262 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 7:59 am

Update: Oh thank goodnes, GoatBoy, at last someone who can actually read comments.

--------

decius how about, instead of asking after my 'leanings' you address what I actually write.

And if the point is 'leanings', I really want an answer to this: Are you saying that Hobbes was wrong, that the natural state - i.e. the earliest state, and the one occupied by our species for most of its history - isn't one of bloody awful tribal war?

Is that what you're saying? Yes or no. Out with it.

600. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247260 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 7:54 am

Is there anyone here who is capable of actually reading a point?

I see titania up on a high horse posting Dulce et Decorum - as though I was advocating war, as though I hadn't said the following:

I'd love for you to be right, for there to be some way to avoid the eternal conflict

...

I think that war is forever, and will be with us as long as we remain humans. That being so, I think there are ways to fight it as little as possible and as decently possible

Etc. Funny how those little posts of mine don't seem to dent the pose. It is so much easier to get on a moral high horse and go on about positions that I don't hold, rather than actually engaging with what I wrote, isn't it?

I'm still waiting for your response to my earlier reply.

I will be 50 in October. I think Laurie has said he is 55 and Steve Z is around 48, if I recall correctly. Decius is probably, oh 21 ;), but wise beyond his years.

I may be wrong but those of us who have observed the carnage of the 20th century tend to view any call to more of the same in the name of whatever cause with great trepidation.

To understand why France and Germany were not more aggressive pre-WWII, you have to remember how many British and French lives were lost in WWI.

Think I don't know that? That was exactly the reason Hitler succeeded so well - it's a point I brought up, oh, five times so far? That whenever the desire for peace in general is strongest, the potential for those who want to use war to gt what they want, is highest? I do believe I've said that a few times.

Now, my actual point (do tell me if you're ever going to address that) was that it is a matter of historic fact that the Oberwehrmachtkommando was so horrified by Hitler's decision to move troops into the demilitarized Rheinland that, if there had been as much as a single French platoon standing in their way, the generals would have revolted and decapitated the regime, stopping Nazi ambitions then and there Then again, before Hitler annexed the Sudetenland, there were those generals who took an unbelievable risk and flew to London to say "We can decapitate the regime and put a stop to this right now - but you have to guarantee that if Hitler moves against Czechoslovakia means war." They were told "Forget it. We want peace, peace at any price."

Well, that went well didn't it? Fifty million dead.

That is why I say that all that the belief that war can be done away with ensures is that war becomes far more terrible and hideous. That is why I say that it is a hard, sad and adult truth to realize that war isn't an aberration, but the human condition.


Now there's decius who's saying... I'm not sure what:

The State of Nature is Hobbes's starting point. He argues against it in order to push his preconceived conclusions. It is by no means anything rooted in objective reality, since commerce, art, culture and community are concepts as old as mankind.

If I read this accurately, then it is saying that Hobbes is wrong, that the earliest state of humanity, and the state in which we existed for most of our history, wasn't one of total war and continual tribal conflict? Sorry, if you're saying that, then it's so wrong as to defy description.

Or are you asking why on earth someone would study that state, unless he were advocating a return to it? That's on a par with saying that noone studies the Third Reich without wanting to return to it, or Communism or whatever.