Q/A

Hmmm. WWLD? (What Would a Lefty Do?)

Q.  You're at the university Halloween Costume party.  Some raghead wannabe wears a suicide bomber costume hoping to pick up on Rachael Corrie-type chicks (pre-pancake, of course).  Some Iraqi War veteran takes offense, having lost buddies to like-dressed jihadi.  He claims PTSD, and starts beating the livin' snot out of said raghead wannabe whose only defense is to bleed profusely.  Do you, as a Lefty, support the stupid loser veteran suffering from Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld-induced PTSD, or do you support the raghead islamic fascist wannabe? 

A.  ?

Comments

[tblubrd]

Luckily, I don't have to answer that. As a conservative, I'd have just punched the lights out of the dumbass fascist and then told the "dean" who posed with him so happily to, well,... nevermind. This is a PG post.
Right?

[Lulu]

So.... you're describing a situation where there's one stupid person, and one supid/violent person.

I think I'd support the rag head...

[Diggs]

No, Lulu, you missed the point. Pretty easy to do, since it was also missed by a university president as well.
It's not a stupid person, it's a person imitating and glorifying suicide bombers. If you don't mind my asking, would you be just as supportive of the costume wearer if they came dressed as a child molester and got beat down by someone who had been molested as a child?

[Lulu]

Let me answer with a question:
Who's call is it to decide whether the person wears his costume in other to hurt people, or whether he wears it only because he's being thoughtless and because he thought it'd be "funny"?

Is it the Iraq veteran's call?

[Publius]

The reason this is a quandary for leftists is that for them, feelings trump everything else. Above all else, we must be sure to respect and not infringe in any way upon others' feelings. So the scenario you have posited here perfectly highlights the stalemate ensuing from the clash of two peoples' feelings. The assclown dressed as a jihadist might have his feelings hurt if you were to call him out on his disgusting display. But then you also have the veteran, who has feelings of his own about past experiences with suicide bombers. Hmm, what to do, . . . what to do, . . .. Thus we have Lulu's response, which is to answer the question with a futher question: "who is to decide whose feelings are more valid, more deserving of respect?"

For the left, we have no right to make judgments about other people's feelings, because ALL feelings are holy and sacrosanct. Better to do nothing at all than risk judging, or worse, hurting, someone's feelings. Sound familiar? Take this Leftist doctrine and translate it on a global scale: as in, better to take no direct action in the arab world rather than "turning them against us," or "inflaming the arab street?" Sure they may already hate us and they may already be attacking us and preparing to launch more attacks, but how can we judge them? Don't they have a right to their feelings? Don't they have a right to hate us? How can we pass judgment on their feelings?

Any reasonable person who knows right from wrong knows what is going on here, but for the left, there is no "right" and no "wrong." We cannot make value judgements even if we are sickened by the trivialization of suicide bombing.

Lulu's reponse is therefore very significant and revealing. It demonstrates one of the primary differences between the Left and the Right.

Publius

[Lulu]

Here's what the bible says:

38 You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' 39 But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also. 40 If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too. 41 If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles. 42 Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.

I'm not a practicing Christian myself, but I tend to agree with the guiding principles which Jesus lays out in this passage. Namely to forgive those who do you wrong, and to fight evil with good.

I know that you right wingers call this "pussyfooting", and you think that people with these beliefs are cowards... I do not think that this is the case. I think the principles are more along the lines of being "cautious", and I think that this cautiousness pays of in the long run, more than any guiding principle of retaliating swiftly against your enemies.

By the way, I think it's quite a paradox that a lot of conservatives pride themselves on being Christians at the same time as they totally ignore the bible when it comes to this fundamental principle. Wouldn't even you be inclined to think that this is a bit strange?

[tblubrd]

No lulu. I wouldn't think it strange. I'm not a Christian. But I am a conservative. And quoting biblical passages is about as relevant as quoting the koran. I think publius has called it correctly, which gets in your face a bit, but that's not hard on this subject. I agree with him and you have shown there's a huge difference between looking at this from the left and the right. I prefer the right - it's always makes sense even if it hurts their feelings.

[Diggs]

Lulu, I don't have a problem with stating that a veteran's feelings are more important to me than a college student raghead jihadi wannabe.
Always.
The difference between you and me is that when I was a college student, I met people like you who thought I had no right to wear my Army uniform on campus because to them it represented "the miltary machine" or whatever their current whine was (it didn't help that I'd tease them endlessly, but is sure was fun). These same people, people like you, Lulu, would turn around and support some jihadi's right to wear a terror costume.
Here's the bottom line for me, Lulu. Some dickhead comes to my door on Halloween dressed like that and to be honest, I won't be able to tell whether that's a costume, or a real jihadi trying to get payback for my three tours over here. If I have a weapon handy, I'll pump two rounds into his forehead to make sure he doesn't have the time to unsling his AK and shoot my family, or press a detonator. You might think that's extreme, I think it's why I've survived.
This guy wasn't just wearing an innocent costume, he purposefully designed a costume after the clothes and equipment worn by terrorists as they do their best to kill civilians in a public setting. If he got beat down by a veteran, maybe the veteran was just trying to save lives. I wouldn't fault them for taking action first, asking questions later.

[Lulu]

About the difference between the left and the right....

I think left leaning people generally are more cautious. In other words, they're more inclined to think before going to action. And as a result, they're more inclined to see dangers which right leaning people might not see.

And that I think is the core of the current conflict between the left and the right.

Because the left side spends more time analyzing the potential dangers which may exist, for instance in implementing an overly aggressive foreign policy (as in Iraq) or in going to war without proper international backing (or indeed backing within your own country), I think the left side ends up seeing a lot of "dangers" which the right side does not see.

Thus, you have the root of the stalemate; the left side pointing out possible dangers, and the right side not seeing them (because they haven't thought it through properly). So, as a result you end up with a situation where conservatives mistake liberal warnings for "pussyfooting", while they in reality are real dangers.

An other curiosity is the role which this misconception plays in a post-failure scenario. The conservatives then use the same rethorics. They claim that "no one saw the dangers". This is wrong. Someone saw the dangers, only that many people on the right did not understand that someone had seen them.

[Lulu]

As for your stance on the costume guy, Diggs.... I think you should consider the following:

In 99% of all similar cases, the halloween costume would be some kind of joke, and not meant as a real insult.

There have been zero cases of jihadists retaliating against Iraq veterans on US soil. In other words you'd be grossly overreacting if you were to assume or even THINK that the costume guy could be a real jihadist.

[Diggs]

Your last post proved your next to last post. Talk about a national defense based on existentialism! The WTC was there yesterday, there is no reason to believe it won't be there tomorrow! No one's ever attacked a building in the US with a plane before, so it would be a gross over reaction to assume that four hijacked planes will be flown into buildings in the US.
Good thing there weren't any Lefties in charge on Flight 93. They still would have been pontificating about the root causes of the Palestinian intifada as the ragheads flew the plane into the White House.

[Lulu]

The strange thing is how you manage to boast about your lack of brains and thinking abilities. You kind of try to make it into a positive that you act before you think.

And that's ludicrous.

Just look at where Bush's non-thinking got America, and it should give you an indication of why you should stop bragging about your own stupidness...

[Diggs]

Gee Lulu, I guess if I was as smart as you, I'd be able to find one single sentence in the above exchange where I brag about my own stupidness, but I can't.
Please help me out, will you? I'll stand by, awaiting your response.

[Lulu]

You brag about taking your soldiers mindset with you into civil society... And that's stupid.