More, from alt.meditation.transcendental
From: mike@mtd.com (Mike Doughney)
Newsgroups: alt.meditation.transcendental
Subject: Re: OT: a war unlike any other
Date: 27 Mar 2003 04:27:11 GMT
Message-ID: <b5tuiv02qrd@enews3.newsguy.com>
In article <a2578468.0303261601.1e0b78fb@posting.google.com>,
Shemp McGurk
>mike@mtd.com (Mike Doughney) wrote in message
>news:<b5r91401113@enews2.newsguy.com>...
>
>[snip]
>
>> While it might be tempting to try and throw facts at Shemp and others
>> like him - unfortunately, that seems to include much of the
>> U.S. administration at the moment - I think we all know that this
>> changes nothing. The only thing that changes such peoples' conceptual
>> systems of thought, en masse, is when real, live, physical
>> consequences result.
>
>[snip]
>
>You mean like 4,000,000 people being slaughtered after the U.S. left
>Vietnam?
It's disturbing to watch you, and many others like you, fall off the
edge, and basically turn the world upside down into something that
basically makes no sense with little factoids like this that stand the
direction of time and causation on its head.
It's a cultural phenomenon that I've been used to seeing, usually in
certain Christian subcultures, but in the past year or so it seems to
have become all the rage, everywhere, right on up to the White House
and the War Department.
You insist that 4 million were "slaughtered" because the U.S. didn't
do anything, as if anything anyone is doing, anywhere on the planet,
is now, retroactively the responsibility of the United
States. Retroactively, since I heard no one make the argument at the
time, and with the possible exception of a few fringe wingnuts, nor at
any time until recently when this little expedition into Iraq needed
to be justified.
I spent a few years observing a group called Operation Rescue. Ever
heard of them? They make exactly the same argument: that "baybees" are
dying by the millions, because America does nothing.
Well, guess what. We aren't responsible for what goes on after we
fail, turn tail and leave. In the same way we can't be responsible for
what happens to each and every fetus that's completely dependent on a
woman; indeed, no one should be responsible other than that woman.
Our federal government has become Operation Rescue, and that's because
the rescue metaphor becomes a very strong metaphor, for some, to take
action. Action is more important than the justification, which is in
both cases paper-thin to nonexistent.
>So, yes, I agree with you that the ONLY thing that will change people
>like me's minds is when real, live, physical consequences result...and
>I am trying to DIRECTLY deal with these proven realities within the
>context of the current debate.
The rescue metaphor is so strong that you can't see the point, you
dumbass. I was referring to physical consequences to yourself, not to
anybody else that you label from afar as "proven realities." At this
rate, the day will come when you go crawling on your belly back up to
Canada is not very far away, after the U.S. becomes unlivable as a
direct result of the consequences of this little "rescue mission"
which in even just the past few days is becoming, obviously, nothing
of the sort.