Ted Rall for May 10, 2010

If you leave the keys to the getaway car in the trunk’s lock that ain’t good either! And best to park in an area with 1,001 security cameras!

I’ll have a spam on rye, please.

These mid-east types care more about their pride than anything else, including their own families. Ridiculing their mistakes is entertaining, but it only strengthens their resolve to do it right the next time. See WTC II vs WTC I.

Jimmy Carrey is the ameripake jihadist in Is your fuse smoking or are you just happy to see me ?

Remember after the first WTC bombing the terrorist went back to the truck rental place to get his deposit back. That is how we caught him. That is also when we found out that there was going to be another attack. 1993.

“Actually, We let him go.. The TSA didn’t stop a Mislim, alas, they Strip-Search 80 year-old men and women”

I know right!? It’s never them. We should only go for the ones who’re causing terrorism… and that’s obviously just the Musl–

Jihad Jane

Andrew Stack III

Terrorists are our friends; if only we could sit down and have a double-latte with them…We could change their minds about us.

You’re right. Let’s just keep bombing their kids, wives, extended families and neighborhoods into bits. That’ll settle’em down and show’em who’s boss.

Why are the authorities so quick to reveal how they catch criminals? To educate them and let them be more effective in committing a crime?

building bridges He was living in Connecticut. We haven’t bombed his neighborhood in many years.

One of the weaknesses of liberals is they just don’t understand the concept of evil. There really are bad people with whom you cannot sit down and discuss the problem rationally. They just hate you and want to kill you. See Hitler.

“There really are bad people with whom you cannot sit down and discuss the problem rationally. They just hate you and want to kill you. See Hitler.”

Or far right wing evangelical Christians. Or far left wing, if you’re on the right, I suppose. :)

@libertarian1

Thank God for common sense! I am going to continue my campaign of justice. Here’s what I do: If they are wearing sunglasses and a bluetooth device I punch them in the face. Those people just can’t be trusted. Wait, did you mean people from CT are evil? I’m confused…

Side question: How far beyond your own personal liberties, does your libertarian viewpoint extend? Other people in your house? Other people in your state? Do fellow Americans get liberties? What do you mean by liberty, or is that a euphemism for something else?

Also: Thanks for the false dichotomy that all bad people are as bad as Hitler. See Mommar Qaddafi (sp) who kicked out Al-Qaeda in 1999. He’s not a perfect example because there is NO SUCH THING.

Jade: “Or far right wing evangelical Christians.”

As an avowed atheist I never got the impression that far right wing evangelical Christians wanted to kill me. Disagreed, maybe. Disliked probably but kill me, no.

killbill: Why are you so violent? Punching sunglassed, blue-toothed people is not a good way to make friends.

Function of government is to protect against force and fraud. Keep government out of the bedroom and out of the boardroom. Liberty means liberty but if someone is a wrongdoer they should be punished.

But from what you wrote above i will quote your own statement about you: confused.

Whoops, i should have said that paragraph is sarcasm. BTW the bomber specifically stated that drone attacks in places where he grew up motivated him to perpetrate his action. Source NPR show The Diane Rehm Show Friday.

But I wasn’t making friends, I was protecting liberties. And ironically so, with your argument. an argument I disagree with

Your gorgeously circular reasoning and vague references to liberty expose its limits. Doesn’t it also mean we have to protect the right of the KKK to demonstrate? The KKK, who hate and HAVE SUCCESSFULLY killed Americans for their freedoms? (whether you like it or not, black people are Americans with the liberty to vote)

Keep gov’t out of the boardroom?? You just said stop fraud, but then… WHOOPS my head exploded… [that was irony and hyperbole, my head didn’t actually explode]

You also realize that the discussion of people who are actively trying to kill Americans extends to the boards of Health Ins companies right? Kind of a low standard in my opinion, so either we should leave them alone or kill them. I really do enjoy the black/white world conservatives live in.

Wrong doing: ever hear of measured response? We should kill them because they ~want~ to kill “us”? He tried killing people in Times Square, so we should kill him. Draconian much?

which segues into lastly and, I should have brought this up before. Don’t say Hitler. Never say Hitler unless you mean Hitler. Hitler killed millions of actual living breathing people. Pol Pot did too, Any number of dictators in “the country” of Africa approach that standard. Anyone else, the commonality ends at their sociopathic nature. you blip on the lives of all of those people when you call pawns like this guy, on par with Hitler.

killbillvs007, stop being logical. You’ll just confuse people. As a radical leftie I have many libertarian ideals. I vehemently disagree with their economic ideals which are social Darwinism. That translates to survival of the richest.

That bomb saw not supposed to go off…it was just to scare us.

Are we going to bomb Connecticut now? :/

There are nuts in the World. Always have been.

“As an avowed atheist I never got the impression that far right wing evangelical Christians wanted to kill me. Disagreed, maybe. Disliked probably but kill me, no.”

You have not visited an abortion clinic lately, I take it (bomb threats, death threats, murder attempts, murder: e.g. Dr. Tiller). There’s a reason there’re only a couple of places left in the country a woman can go to get that perfectly legal operation anymore [regardless of whether or not we agree with it it’s their choice]. That and I don’t think they hate Atheists as much as they hate gays and trans people.I think a straight Atheist is further down on their hatred pole than a gay Christian.

Good responses, thank you.

KillBill: Of course the KKK can march, so can communists- they can even have their own party and candidates. Free speech, free press etc. Classic 1st Amendment.

If boardroom commits fraud- prosecute. If government commits fraud- prosecute. see NY and NJ government every day of the week. If terrorists commit force- prosecute etc etc

don’t start a discussion about health- it is very complex and unless intimately involved not easily comprehensible. Of all the subjects discussed here that is the only one I really know about.

measured response? seems reasonable. where was it denied?

I actually meant Hitler. You couldn’t sit down with him and reason. Many liberals actually think true evil doesn’t exist and if we would just stop sending drones the terrorism would stop.

Mattro; libertarianism re economics/business Not good just better than absolutely everything else. As soon as government enters see Greece. we will be there in a few years.

jade: abortion nuts- very very few. See above government function prevent force/fraud.

Of all the commenters here i probably am the only one who ever actually prescribed abortions. Never felt any personal fear.

There is evil, okay. Just like “There are hurricanes”. But if we just said “there are huricanes, end of story”. and never tried to find out what makes them tick, how they behave, we wouldn’t be able to see them coming and evacuate the places where hurricanes are expected.

I think we should study evil the same way.

I agree that there are evil people. I don’t think everyone who does something bad is ipso facto an evil person. I think there are people who mean well who do evil things. Such as most presidents.

“Of all the commenters here i probably am the only one who ever actually prescribed abortions. Never felt any personal fear.”

Do you actually perform them or just prescribe them? Abortion nuts like to plant bombs at the actual clinics where they’re performed not necessarily the doctors who prescribe them, because they don’t have access to that information (otherwise I’m sure they’d come for you, too). I abstained from mentioning the numerous transgender killings that occur daily in this country alone, or a case where a trans woman was shot leaving a party because the shooter presumed her to be [a gay man]. But regardless, sure, we can say that the number of people who are actually motivated to bomb clinics or threaten those who use the clinics with death, or kill LGBT people are low… but by contrast, so are Muslim terrorists. And a lot of the persistent violence is a cycle of revenge. Muslims in general are not “naturally evil.” If someone bombed my family because they were “collateral damage” to a terrorist target, I’d probably try to get revenge, too. I’ve seen a lot of statements that say “true followers of Islam are motivated by faith to violence because that’s what’s in the Koran.” They gloss over the incredible “justified” violence that’s in the Bible. There’re many non-violent Christians, and there’re many non-violent Muslims.

•You have not visited an abortion clinic lately, I take it (bomb threats, death threats, murder attempts, murder: e.g. Dr. Tiller, the “doctor” who killed over one million unborn babies). There’s a reason there’re only a couple of places left in the country a woman can go to get that perfectly legal operation, uh, have a perfectly formed living baby salined (scalded to death) or dismembered limb by limb anymore [regardless of whether or not we agree with it it’s their choice to kill/murder their unborn child because it’s not convenient for it to live]. That and I don’t think they hate Atheists as much as they hate gays and trans people.I think a straight Atheist is further down on their hatred pole than a gay Christian which is an oxymoron in itself. Edited by Exactly

Did you know that babies most think are nothing but a blob feel pain when they are being killed? Yeah. Now it’s the law the “doctors” have to give them a sedative before they kill them. Isn’t it a great country we live in? Next, we’ll be able to kill our 2 year olds because it’s such a pain in the butt to find a sitter when we want to party. And those right-wing Christians don’t help by making us feel the guilt we should rightfully feel.

jade Your last paragraph chicken/egg. If tomorrow morning all Muslims said we hereafter will only use peaceful methods to obtain our goals do you really think any western country would initiate violence against them? The very second Muslims cease and desist violence, it would end.

But American music and TV would still be prevalent in Muslim countries. Women in Muslim countries would see the freedom we have and would want it also. It is not our violence that drives them but our culture. we won’t change that and they cannot accept the changes to their country that our culture will bring.

“Next, we’ll be able to kill our 2 year olds because it’s such a pain in the butt to find a sitter when we want to party”

Hey, it’s in the Bible. If they’re a perfectly obedient child they’ll do what they’re told until you get home, but if they’re disobedient the Bible says to kill them. Regardless of personal opinion the procedure is legal and it’s their body. Personally I’m of the opinion that if there weren’t such a strong push against sex ed. and contraceptives (more pharmacists withhold the pill than Viagra, for example) there’d be less abortions and both sides would be happy.

On TV5, yesteday. there was a topo on the Pill. They said it cut the abortion rate by half. Then again, it’s french tv, so I don’t expect you guys to believe it.

France has fewer abortions per capita than we do, and that’s with abortion being fully covered in their government provided insurance.

“Your last paragraph chicken/egg. If tomorrow morning all Muslims said we hereafter will only use peaceful methods to obtain our goals do you really think any western country would initiate violence against them?”

Do you honestly think all of the violence in the middle east is solely caused by Muslims?

^ 1 a : morally reprehensible : sinful, wicked b : arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct 2 a archaic : inferior b : causing discomfort or repulsion : offensive c : disagreeable 3 a : causing harm : pernicious b : marked by misfortune : unlucky

http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/evil

(I can copy and paste it… ;) )

“Evil” as descriptive adjective, OK. “Evil” as abstract noun, i.e. along the lines of “beauty” or “greed”, OK, I can accept that. “Evil” as concrete noun, as in a thing that exists apart from perceptions of it, like “electricity” or “snow”…uh uh. What is its nature? How is it measured? How is it detected? What is its source? What is the medium of its transmission? How does evil per se “cause” evil behavior or effects?

Jade: “Do you honestly think all of the violence in the middle east is solely caused by Muslims? ”

Initiated. Then there is the response and the counterresponse etc etc. I honestly believe that. No American president will initiate a war against a peaceful non aggressive Muslim country. Also think of the Muslim terrorism against Germany, Spain, England and India. India is not western just they occupy land.

EVIL–LIVE, when viewed in a mirror.

Sorta like a pizza played on 78…while high on acid.

Summer of ‘75, I read a t-shirt that proclaimed–LSD=Lie, Steal and Devour.

I figured the goon wearing that T was aspiring to be evil.

@Libertarian - Speaking of the counter-response stuff…. what about the Christian Crusades against the Muslims?

Libertarian; what about Iraq who, to date, showed no sign of WMDs?

There are no such things as good and evil. Just IS-ness.

“No American president will initiate a war against a peaceful non aggressive Muslim country.”

I hope your nap during 2001 - 2008 was pleasant.

“One of the weaknesses of liberals is they just don’t understand the concept of evil.” Talk about spam.

Lessee now, libertarians are evil. OK? OK.

Abortion may be legal but it still isn’t right. Unless you think killing another human being is right.

So, Jade, do you think those in the OT were wrong to kill their disobedient children?

Saddam literally killed 100,000 of his own people and then threatened to use WMD. He boasted he did everything in his power to make us believe he had those weapons. Those were not the actions of a peaceful leader who had no evil intent.

@DrCanuck - I can’t copy & paste thought. No make me think with my brain.

“Abortion may be legal but it still isn’t right. Unless you think killing another human being is right.”

I don’t. But I also don’t think second-class citizenship is right, either. But people seem to think that’s Okay. Regardless, it’s not my decision. While if I could have children I would gladly (I cannot), it’s not my decision to tell a mother what she can and can’t do with her body. It’s not illegal for a woman to smoke or drink while with child either, you know. I mean cause if you really want to get hissy, it shouldn’t be illegal to even smoke around a pregnant woman. And to what extreme does that go? In one state they either made/tried to make it illegal to have a miscarriage. So now a misplaced period is a felony. Is masturbating killing children? Is not getting pregnant every cycle killing children? It’s not my place to decide.

“So, Jade, do you think those in the OT were wrong to kill their disobedient children?”

That’d be questioning the Bible and that’d be “evil.” (See, DrCanuck, full circle!)

Evil is based on the eye of the beholder. When the Nazis were sending Jews off to their deaths the Nazis were getting rid of an “evil” people. Like wise when the Japanese attacked pearl harbor the Americans were nuking “evil” people.

Its all dependent on what society or society’s leaders deem to be moral or immoral i.e. the war on drugs. Some people (like Radish) have no problem with drugs and puppy (as well as the Nixon administration) have a problem with it.

Dr. Canuck: “So, fritzoid and Radish, evil is simply a description of behaviour and can’t be considered a cause of behaviour?”

That’s more or less how I see it. There is psychopathy. There is sociopathy. There is the universal human temptation towards self-serving behavior, regardless of whether it’s at the expense of others. “Evil” as a free-floating, independently existing “force”, a “motiveless malignity”, a cause which produces effects, is the stuff of fairy tales.

There have been human “monsters”, but they have been human nonetheless, and their actions have been human actions caused by human impulses. (Notice I say nothing of reasonable, sane, or rational impulses; human beings are fully capable of being unreasonable, irrational, and insane without outside help.)

Exactly, not exactly. An abortion doesn’t kill a human being (unless it’s done with unsterilized instruments by an unskilled abortionist in a back room or something). A fetus, an embryo, a fertilized egg - these are not human beings. They have genetic structure which is the same as what human beings have, but they don’t have the neural or cognitive development which make people “people”. A lobster thrown in a pot of boiling water or a cow being slaughtered according to ritual law has vastly more awareness and experiences more pain than all but the most extreme late-term abortions. (And I’m speaking as a joyful carnivore.)

Shooting an abortion provider, however, unquestionably involves the deliberate killing of a human being. So does capital punishment, for that matter, or war. Even shooting someone in self-defense is the killing of a human being.

What’s so special about human beings? (Please don’t give me a religion-based answer.) Does asking that question make me “evil”?

sirromsirrom, how are you defining “special”? Does asking that question make me a ‘philosopher’? :-)

What a piece of work is a man: how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable: in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals: And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? No, man delights not me. Nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so…

Radish, to say “Evil is self-destructive” is wishful thinking. All too often, “evil” deeds work out perfectly well for the dirty deed doer. That the wicked oftimes prosper in life is why so many are convinced that they (the wicked) will get their comeuppance after death…

In the corrupted currents of this world Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice, And oft ‘tis seen the wicked prize itself Buys out the law: but ‘tis not so above; There is no shuffling…

Claudius was sickened by what he did to gain his crown and queen (he poisoned his brother, Hamlet’s father), but I would imagine that he’s the exception rather than the rule (aside from being fictional).

What does an “evil” man/person, or “illegal immigrant” look like? I’ve known (and arrested) “mean” and “bad” people. I’ve learned that some folks do display actions, postures, and eye movements that show they are liars, cheats, or just “nasty folks”. It is disconcerting however that the most “evil” man I ever arrested (multiple homicide warrants, bank robbery, kidnapping, a real “prince”) was well, dressed, polite, and except for a look in his eye, and well, the Browning automatic on his car seat he would have shot me with (my actions, AND my partner’s shotgun got his attention), quite “normal and personable”.

Yes, we can tell some people are bad, some advertise it with tats, etc., but pure evil can masquerade as many things, including “faith”.

Right – and if you have no concept of it, and nobody you interact with does either, then it doesn’t exist anymore, and everything you do is just some action or other, with whatever consequences arise as a result of that action.

I know that no society could function without some sort of artificially imposed set of rules, based on some sort of “morality,” but that doesn’t negate the truth, that there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Just remember that people used to fight to the death to see who was more superior.

”there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

Seems to me I’ve heard that somewhere before, sirrom… ;-)

WarBush, what do you mean “used to”…?

The devil can quote Hamlet for his purpose…. (~_^)

’Tis the sport to have the enginer hoist with his own petard, eh?

Wait… Which of us is the devil in your formulation, sirrom?

Of course, it really makes no difference. Hamlet is the repository of all Wisdom, the one true Poem Unlimited (I disagree with Bloom on many points, but not that one). Within its lines you’ll find every idea, for good or for ill, to which the human imagination is capable of giving shape.

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy, but they’re all there in Hamlet. The play’s the thing!

Saddam should have been toppled after he used those weapons. That is, in the 1980s. Even better, we shouldn’t have sold it to him.

But if he wasn’t worth toppling in 1991, don’t try to make me believe was in 2003.

fritzoid: I’m not a real devil; I just play one on comment pages.

My two favorite Shakespeare quotes are from Macbeth and King Lear, respectively: the Tomorrow and tomorrow speech and the Ripeness is all lines. But Hamlet is a more interesting play, fer shure.

My favorite:

Get thee to a nunnery; Why, wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us.

It’s great for picking up ladies. And the related (but far more succinct):

Use every man after his desert, and who would ‘scape whipping?

That’s even better, if you want to pick up that kind of lady.

Never, never, never, never, never.

(Well, hardly ever…)

Gibbon! Very nice. (Full disclosure: I couldn’t hack Gibbon myself; I recognized the reference second-hand.)

I had a flash this evening (over my third pint of Guinness):

“I never met a man I didn’t like” is perfect iambic pentameter.

Make of that what you Will.

Sorry, no Gibbon there, nor intended: Never… is Lear (King, not Edward or Norman), a perfect trochaic pentameter; the other line is W.S. Gilbert (H.M.S. Pinafore). I never even tried to read Gibbon (should I say rather “I declined”?), though I’ve got my father’s old six-volume set a foot away from me right now.

I’m off track here (I didn’t stop after the third pint…) The reference I detected wasn’t Gibbon at all. In an article from “The Journal of Irreproducible Results” on the history of footnotes (“Vide-Infra”, in the 1983 “Best off…” collection), the author (Tim Healy) cited a footnote in the book “Applied Physiology” (Samson Wright) as notable. The text read “Never occurs”“, and the footnote to the line read “What, never? Well, hardly ever.” (Now that I’m home, I checked the book.) If Wright was nodding to Gilbert and Sullivan it’s news to me, but I have no cause to doubt you. Don’t know where I came up with Gibbon…

Recognized the “Never, never, …” line from “The Shakespeare Wars”. I guess one of the (two) canonical texts only uses three “Never”s, and the book’s author was strongly in favor of five. (Lear’s frankly not one of my favorites, on the whole.)

The G&S quote would be instantly recognizable to anybody of a certain age, when it was one of the most common school play productions.

http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/muhammad-cartoonist-lars-vilks-attacked-during-college-lecture/19473427?icid=main|htmlws-main-n|dl1|link6|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fworld%2Farticle%2Fmuhammad-cartoonist-lars-vilks-attacked-during-college-lecture%2F19473427

Muhammed walking into a gay bar is funny, as I’m sure Salman Rushdie would agree. Any religion that has Gabriel as errand boy, whether of Muhammed or Mormonism, which is only a consonant dissimilar from Moron, is suspect.