In taking on VDH’s questions you responded to his first with a firm negative. When tackling the second of his question you avoided answering it do to an assumption that VDH would find fault in whatever that answer might be. To the final question, you chose to redefine the words, Civil War, in an effort to avoid confronting another hypocrisy that many of us swallow in our enthusiasm for this American sectarian conflict of ideas between the current crop of hawks and doves. This hypocrisy is that we stop using established definitions of words if doing so is accurate and yet won’t support our argument.

In my own response to analysis of your comments I have the following to say. Whatever the Edwards campaign might have done, if “Christian” had replaced “Muslim”, VDH has never been anti-Islam. His criticism has been of any ideology that wishes to corrupt the greatest principles of Western Civilization; individualism, responsibility, consensual cooperation and ownership of what you produce. These ideas are not unique to Western Civilization but how we realize these principles in action is unique. When VDH sees these ideas compromised by anyone he is critical. If it’s greatest detractors happen to be Europeans, Leftists and Muslims, so be it. I have broadly responded to your criticisms of the first two questions. For the question regarding a civil war in the PA, the fact is that factions in the PA government are killing each other, as well as the family members of their enemies. In a country as large and populous as Iraq the war between factions takes place in many locations. Relative to the size of the PA, the same density of destruction is occurring. The fact that Israel’s defensive response to the murderous policies of the PA against Israeli citizens is a contributing factor to this Palestinian Civil War does not change the meaning of this conflict or the word we use to describe it.

I’m curious as to what you have studied to make your mumbo-jumbo so much less wrong then the well-established history of Western Civilization that you characterize as, “the shit you {VDH} pawn off to the rubes”. I suppose that only rubes would buy his “faux-histories”, and perhaps see value in comparing examples from history to current events. We may even see the root causes of some of the most destructive disagreements we have today, if we study the thoughts and actions of those who lived when such conflicts began. Meanwhile you, VDH’s intellectual equal, have no need for such restrictions on your worldview, as historical study has a habit of presenting us with such trivial irritants as actual events. You feel further burdened by analysis of these events by the various great thinkers of the past. Their profound insights get in the way of convincing the whole world to be guided by the momentary whims of an anonymous intellectual toilet.

Kurt: No. Instead of sarcasm, can you provide any specifics?

Eh, dude, free markets. I mean, you guys sold them missiles, right?

To quote Alkidamas, “Remember that men, all of them I’m afraid, are fickle sorts”

We can start here:

Q: If one were to substitute “Muslim” for “Christian” in the rants of the Edwards bloggers, would there have been any hesitation about firing them?

A: No. Based on your written opinions, you would have cheered any anti-Islamic rantings from Liberal bloggers, but the Edwards campaign would’ve fired them anyway. Intolerance and all.

Q: If Austrian sniper rifles really were recently sold to Iran, brought into Iraq, and used to kill Americans., what would Europeans think if American sniper weaponry were sold, under our government’s auspices, to those supplying the Basque separatists to kill Spaniards? Why no outcry from the Euro-left about the continent’s amoral propensity to sell the Iranian thugocracy about anything it wants?

A: Seeking a rhetorical answer from some made-up lefty Euro-type seems below your pay-grade, no? Whatever they might say would be the object of your next tirade. Shooting down made up straw men; well, you know the saying.

Q: “Hamas and Fatah have different uniforms. They have two conflicting ideologies and clear antithetical agendas. And now they are killing one another. Why is this not a “civil war,” but the senseless sectarian violence in Iraq is?”

A: Because it’s taking place on a tiny strip of land that is under siege by a neighboring military force. Iraq is in a low-level civil war. The Difference? Population. There are 26 million people that inhabit Iraq, anyone out the there have the figures on Gaza and the West Bank?

Being wrong, about almost everything, seems to be the best career move in the world these days. I’m personally amazed at how all of your historical mumbojumbo, you know, that shit you pawn off to the rubes as “knowledge”, actually still sells. I may stupid, but at least I’m the intellectual toilet you are.

God Bless me for that.

I was reading the Associated Press’ report today on the gunman in the Utah Mall shooting. http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usmall155094735feb15,0,5515486.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-print

The AP suggests he went on a murder spree because he was traumatized by surviving a massacre in the Balkans when he was three. Are they kidding?

How many Jewish concentration camp survivors have gone on murder sprees in the last 60 years? Any at all?

Right at the end of the article they quote his mom: “We’re Muslims, but we’re not terrorists.”

Ahhhhhh, the payoff. I beleieve Mohammed Atta’s dad had the same reaction. As did the families of the London bombers. No pattern here.

Hell, maybe he was just a troubled kid. But what is the AP doing writing this kid’s rampage off to a wartime childhood before the investigation has gone anywhere?

It is the worst combination of PC idiocy and a therapeutic culture gone mad.