Jimmy and Hamas Gang
Last week in Palestine, after overseeing a Hamas victory during federal elections former American President Jimmy Carter once again demonstrated the shallowness of leftwing thinking when he stated "[I believe the electoral victory will have a moderating effect on their ideology]"
Carter believes granting a terrorist group that’s ideology is bent on genocide political powers will be beneficial in the long wrong. He believes pragmatic appeasement is the best process to achieving peace—that appeasing evil is the best way to achieve peace.
So I ask this question—what is the compromise between terror and freedom? Does Carter think the goal is to have Hamas agree to fewer suicide bombers? There can be no compromise with the ideology of genocide. You either believe in the mass murder of Jews or you don’t. You cannot "somewhat" believe in it— you cannot somewhat commit a terrorist attack— you either do or you don’t.
And who does appeasement and endless compromise benefit? It sure isn’t the Jews. In exchange for Arabs temporarily ceasing to blow up their citizens Israel will relinquish more land. What did Israel gain? A brief period of stability before the suicide attacks begin again in pursuit of the next boarder. In fact compromise never benefits the Just. Because the Just is always relinquishing the good (a rightfully gained value—whether it be freedom or property) in exchange for the attacker reducing the amount of evil he will commit. The Just has gained no value. If a mugger demands money it is of no benefit for the victim to affably compromise half of his money.
-Give me your wallet.
-I can only give you half
-Well then you have to agree to not inform the police
-Deal
The victim has relinquished half of his money and the right to persecute his attacker in return the oppressor has gained money which he has no right to and found safety from the law. There can be no compromise between principles. Principles are either/or choices—freedom and slavery—the rational and irrational—honesty and dishonesty.
Carter has once again demonstrated the shallowness of leftwing thinking.
posted by angryroughneck @ 9:26 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Well said!
Weren't Hitler, Mugaybabi? and Mussolini all voted in. Democracy is no sure way to peace. Charters that limit gov power is what is needed
Brilliant Joe! Just what I would have said!
-Hitler
Joe, you should read over your comments before you post them; you'd save yourself a lot of embarassment that way. See, maybe then you wouldn't come off as an absurdity that NO ONE takes seriously. Your comments are nonsense and incoherent and you reveal yourself to be a petty, misinformed child. I'm delighted that you're now squealing like an injured pig because the BIG BAD SCARY Tories are in power. How frightening for your sensitive self. BOO!
Hah I love the last anonymous comment. When "Joe squeels like a pig" I can picture it myself. OOhh the bad tories that want to restore individual rights. And Joe ridicules the anonymous like he has made his identity known? BOO!
Hamas's victory baffled a lot of commentators. A couple of well-known observations make it less mystifying. One, the "natural ruling party" of Palestine--Fatah--was corrupt and unaccountable, ciphoning millions of dollars away from the Palestinian people; and two, Hamas has been building schools and homes and providing clean water for people. As much as we would like to think that people as poor as they are in this part of the middle east vote for an "ideology," the fact is that "ideology" (at least how you construe the word in your blog) is a throw-away term the leisure classes use when all of their most basic needs are met. It is what allows the most vociferous and least engaged to trumpet their opinions. Here it is clear that most Palestinians voted the way they did because they hate starving.
Moreover, Western democracies are clearly not assuming the "pragmatic appeasement" strategy you suggest they are in dealing with Hamas. In fact, Western governments have explicitly stated that much-needed aid will be withheld from the new Hamas-led government if they do not forgoe their stated goal of driving Israel into the sea. And rightfully so.
Carter's personal views about the matter are possibly as stupid as you say But they are also irrelevant to this issue. The fact is that several groups, having sought the legitimacy that only democratic processes can confer on their existence, have explicitly renounced their violent and anti-democratic goals (the IRA being the most obvious). Maybe he's not that crazy.
But you did something with this post that is uncharacteristic of your blog in general---you failed to make any constructive suggestions about how to proceed. What are the "principles" you refer to, what is the "either/or" that must be chosen between, and how should these decisions be applied in practice? How can the breadth and depth of "rightwing" thinking, a corrective to shallow "leftwing" thinking, be applied to the problems stemming from Hamas's democratic victory?
I APPRECIATED THE COMMENT AND POSTED ON IT.
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