(Jolly Roger)
I did not get a chance earlier to outline my full opinion on international terrorism, of course, nor do I have one and neither do I have a coherent set of geo-political opinions. It scares me to try to link any of my opinions together, they are all of such odd shapes and sizes.
I have stated here several times that I am against the killing of American nationals by drone, without the due process that is afforded them by our Constitution. That the president has assumed this power, and that it has gone mainly unchallenged in the courts… well, I can only see this as a very, very bad thing.
I find the death of any innocent individual to be worthy of thoughtful consideration. It has never brought me happiness. When I have heard reports of terror cells being effectively targeted and destroyed, even when there were collateral deaths involved, I have thought to myself that is perhaps a good thing, as these people wish to disrupt my way of life, and they are willing to do so through death and threat of death, and through the use of terror as a tactic. Though it does trouble me that we are not able to assassinate more effectively, and then it bothers me that I feel that way.
Do I pause to consider that perhaps my government is likewise terrorizing people everywhere? Of course I do, but here comes the more important part: I prefer my way of life over theirs. If there is a commitment by one to end the other then I want my side to win. I want my side to do so as responsibly as possible, always, but do not ever think that I am so liberal that I want the religious mumblings of idiotic easterners or mid-easterners to replace the value system that I was educated to esteem. I want no exotic foreign religion to replace the idiotic one already well established here.
I don't. I just don't.
I regard the western ideas of enlightenment and romanticism, however much they may be in opposition to one another, well over and above the tenets and rantings of jihad, or other such regional jingoisms. Just as I don't want the religious right of America to have any more control over the political process than they already do through their right to vote. I resist stupidity, imaginary and otherwise, on its doorsteps: religion.
I would probably advocate surgical drone attacks on Christian citizens, or even entire churches, right here on U.S. soil, if I were the president and I needed to raise some tax cash through a property grab. Fuck, I would have teams of drones deployed, there would be entire HD video units to accompany the attack drones, just so that I could make sure to get good cross-cut coverage of all the Christians running for cover, like mayonnaise separating in in boiling water
That's one reason among many that I have never considered running for office. I would not want myself in that position, and the voting public would agree. I abuse the little power that was given to me through a Chase credit card.
My political leanings are nearly Caligula-esque. I oppose my own impulses, on moral and political and legal grounds. It's a tough thing to admit, but there it is. I would be forced to step down from office before the ballots were even collected. I have shamed myself.
It Takes a Nation of Minions to Scold Us Back.
Well, I digress, on multiple disconnected paths. I would not hurt anybody (unless they gave consent in advance of their chemical sleep). Most of you understand this, and some have felt it. I simply detest the religiously faithful. It is a well known leitmotif of this site. Those people who attacked the restaurants and concert venues in France did so because their imaginary friends had been informed by some very strict readings of an textual ideology, and they had an obligation to meet the imaginary at the point of the nether. I can only hope that the virgins awaiting them are all boys like them, and some of them must privately hope for the same.
Now, that is science. Fuck them, you see.
With these people, death does not bother me so much. Theirs, I mean. I don't celebrate death, but neither do I weep for those who arrange their lives around the principle of doing death or harm to others.
Fuck them, you see.
I know that our country has been very naughty all over the globe, bombing civilians into death or misery, only because they are unfortunate enough to live too close to terror cells. Or, even not being anywhere close sometimes. A school full of children nowhere near any known terror targets. I cringe at this, just as I do at the deaths of innocents attending a rock show who are gunned and bombed, and the rest run for their lives in fear and panic.
I have very mixed feelings about the "war on terror" but not as much when I watch the videos, a thing I try not to do, but such is the curious nature of the curious and morbid mind.
I am not so liberal that I am "against badness" and "for goodness." Few things are ever so simple, except maybe this: I prefer my way of life to theirs.
If this issue can be resolved by death then I want theirs, not mine.
I suppose that I am getting old, when I look at thoughts like that, spread across the page as if they once also lived.
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The reason that many are showing allegiance with Paris and France online, I presume, is that France more greatly participates in our meta-story. The history of our nations, as well as the many other nations of the western world, is and always has been inextricably bound up together. For this same reason westerners have traditionally sided with Israel and perceived the Palestinians to be ruthless, untrustworthy savages. Because: the Jewish story is the Christian story. That attitude is changing among some as injustices and bodies pile up, but it has taken an enormous amount of media coverage combined with liberal guilt to accomplish this magical transformation of allegiance.
Everybody wants to be righteous; or, when there is a lack of righteousness to be had they wish simply to feel right about things, etc.
Nobody wants a world with no one to denounce.
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I like France. I like French writers. French wines. Movies. Music. I like to visit France. I look forward to returning once again before Paris has been completely destroyed as an idea, if not also a place, overrun with worse ideas than those that it allowed. Without pausing or stuttering I could name ten, perhaps twenty, French writers that have affected me deeply. As for Islamic writers, I would be pressed to name a few. Leopold Weiss comes to mind. I am hesitant to call Kahlil Gibran Islamic… though neither (none) of these writers have ever gripped me the way that the French writers and poets have.
I own a copy of the Koran and have only ever flipped through it, though I have read some key passages several times, to make sure I grasped the full complexity of the nonsense. Conversion was never considered, though I was converted upon the very first reading of Rimbaud, Celine, and even Proust.
Balzac, Zola, Hugo, Baudelaire, Sartre, etc. As much or more than any of these, the expatriates that wrote their best work in France. Too many to list, really.
But this post is about one American, not the others.
People hate their governments much and so wish to express that disdain that they are willing to align themselves with the awfullest of people on the other side. Well, hooray, your iPhone lets you believe whatever your thumb can click on. While I would question your government, I would question the others even more fully. It is not a sin to question the motives of the enemy. It is a question to not question your own.
I no more wish a foreign theocracy upon us than I beg for the domestic kind. Yet, liberals hope to apologize the world into a more perfect place. Some of them do, anyway.
I am a liberal of the other kind.
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Well, I thought I would explain further while the boy naps. He is awake now and I must guard him from the onslaught. My earlier post generated a correction email from my favored aging anarchist, making sure that I still had my head screwed on straight, or as straightly as a Yank possibly can. I'm not certain that I do, but I didn't want an opportunity to write slip by while I struggled to still grip it amidst the bloody trigger fingers of the day.
(Is, is?)
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