GhostRider, my most esteemed blogger, I feel compelled to respond to your commentary (shown below) which is your response to an article I recently posted on this Blog. I have given you ‘author-rights’ on my Blog because you are an intelligent, well-read individual with a unique and often times “illuminating” perspective on just about every subject imaginable. Yet as usual, you and I tend to approach controversial issues from a completely different perspective.
First let me say that I have absolutely no qualms with your desire for peace. Attaining world peace is without a doubt one of the most important factors for the survival of our species. In fact, mankind may not make it to the next century if world peace in not achieved, and there is no denying that violence at any level is a destructive force. We both recognize that violent behavior provokes more violence and in doing so creates a “meme,” (*) to steal a term coined by Richard Dawkins. Once established, this meme is seemingly impossible to eradicate, as it is transferred from person to person and generation to generation. Therefore in this regard, we both agree that attaining peace in the world, through the use of peace, should be our ultimate goal.
Let me also emphasize that Americans at large are very forgiving, in my opinion sometimes to a fault. For example, there are people on death row who have violently slaughtered innocent men, women and children and in the process have destroyed entire families. Yet countless individuals such as yourself feel that these criminals’ lives should be spared, as if these people; 1) deserve to live and; 2) are ever going to contribute anything to society, whether locked up in a jail cell for life, or God forbid (as the saying goes) set free.
Yet there is a fundamental issue here that I believe you fail to recognize, and that is that while love, peace and forgiveness are all good, they can only be achieved if ALL sides share the same values, and herein is the problem. There is a radical segment within the Islamic world, and quite a significant one at that, whose intent is to destroy the United States and its allies. These religious zealots will stop at nothing to attain their goal, which is to disrupt our way of life, kill innocent people and ultimately destroy our society. Sure, we can attempt to befriend the very people who are trying to destroy us, as you seem to suggest, by using dialogue and other peaceful methods, but while this may sound politically correct it is quite obvious that these people cannot be reasoned with. Instead, we must deal with reality, and the reality is that there are people out there, millions of them in fact, who are willing to surrender their lives to promote their cause; something which relatively few Americans are willing to do.
As an analogy, just imagine that someone breaks into your home in the middle of the night with baseball bat in hand running toward you with the apparent intent to cave your head in. You have a couple of options: 1) ask the assailant to please stop, offer the individual a cup of coffee and calmly try to explain that crime doesn’t pay and that violence is not an option, or; 2) defend yourself through the use of force and in so doing use violence in an attempt to disarm and disable the perpetrator. I don’t know about you, but I know which of the two options I would choose as my best defense in that scenario.
Obviously the example above is a gross oversimplification of the issue at hand. Nevertheless, what I want to point out is that there are times when violence is basically the only choice one is given. Certainly in a perfect world all of us, as members of the human race, should be able to communicate with one another and resolve our differences amicably, using meaningful discourse instead of weapons. Unfortunately however, human beings are a complicated lot, and until such time as we learn to live together in harmony violence is inevitable.
You mention Bush… As far as I’m concerned, not unlike his Vice-President, Bush is also a Dick (pun intended). However, unless we want to make him a co-conspirator in 9/11, which is an altogether different subject for another day, I actually believe he was way too passive following the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. Had I been President, rather than use 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq as George W did, I would have put all my efforts into convincing Congress to attack Afghanistan with all our military might. In fact, forget about putting one soldier on the ground and in harm’s way. I would have lit up the night sky with rockets, including several BIG ones; similar to the ones that landed in Japanese soil during World War II. The result being that Afghanistan would no longer have mountains with caves for terrorists to operate from. In fact as President, I would have done everything possible to turn the country into a lake. This course of action would have sent a clear message to the entire world of the consequences to be paid by countries harboring terrorists should these terrorists attack the United States of America. How’s that for peace?
In closing, the controversy that the brain-dead pastor in Gainesville started by going public with his intent to burn the Quran was clearly wrong and therefore totally uncalled for. Yet what else can one expect from a half-senile religious fanatic? He was simply intending to carry out what his limited intelligence prescribed as “retaliation” for the proposed building of a mosque near ‘Ground Zero’ in New York City. It goes without saying that there was no need to further provoke yet another group of even crazier religious fanatics as these people are already motivated enough and on the offensive. Anyway, in the end, let’s not get carried away with all this talk about love, peace and forgiveness. Turning the other cheek, as ridiculously professed in the un-holy Bible, accomplishes nothing. There is no doubt that peace is the ideal approach, but unfortunate as it is and as previously stated, there are times when violence is the only recourse. It all depends on the hands we are dealt… TGO
(*) Meme: A unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other phenomena.
GhostRider previously wrote the following:
Not only religious leaders slammed plan to burn Qurans
Hey readers… GhostRider from http://ghostriderandfriends.wordpress.com/ghostrider-friends-come-to-life/ here – calling for peacemakers.
GTO, my beloved yet occasionally misguided friend, the story could not have had a more peaceful ending, could it have? Instead of the doing the wrong thing and give the world an example of a “legal” hate crime, Pastor Terry Jones has said, according to the Associated Press, that his church will “not today, not ever” burn a Quran, even if a mosque is built near ground zero.
I say, “peaceful ending,” if only for this one isolated Saturday night and the burning of the Quran’s debacle, which we knew had all the elements for innocent people to be hurt. I know that it wasn’t an ending because at the core of it all it is a conflict that has existed for many hundreds, if not more years, and it is one that will continue for a while. Luckily, it seems that in our own back yard, we have less haters, extremists, radicals, lunatics, wackos; than normal, sensible, compassionate, loving people, who will not let the dynamics of hate, retribution, revenge, rancor, vindictiveness or spitefulness rule their own spirit and actions.
As it played out it wasn’t only religious leaders that had slammed the, “fucked up” (in this blogger’s opinion) idea, of publicly burning Qurans. According to Jaweed Kaleem of The Miami Herald, politicians including Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, the Democratic candidate for governor, her Republican opponent Rick Scott, U.S. Democratic Rep. Alcee Hastings of Miramar, Florida Senate President Jeff Atwater, a Republican running for Florida CFO, and state senator Dan Gelber, a Democrat running for state attorney general, along with The Rabbinical Association of Greater Miami, the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida, the Anti-Defamation League and the Miami Coalition of Christians and Jews, all spoke out strongly against Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center, which became an international name — to the alarm of U.S. government officials — for its planned protest against the Islamic faith it calls “of the devil.”
Even Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan who denounced the church, said in a statement that the burning “. . . is a display of hatred and intolerance that is not in keeping with the values and spirit of our nation.” I say, “Right On” to that.
Like I said earlier, it isn’t the end and I know that. I also know that what this country needs to create (it falls on our shoulders since we are the most conscious even if our actions don’t always echo that consciousness) is a social movement of sorts. A peace movement seeking the end of war and achieving world peace is what we need. Now with Bush and his cronies, who were war mongers and created an atmosphere of fear gone, we have a chance of creating that peace movement. Our voices must scream for societies to operate harmoniously and without violent conflict. I know that this is a tall order – seeking peace – for the causes of the absence of peace include: social injustice, economic inequality, political and religious radicalism, acute racism, nationalism, even individual and societal insecurities, but fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity – it can’t be done – and the lack of peace can only hurt all of humanity.
To peace, I say Amen.
GhostRider
