The Dish

"It is critical that we understand that this new form of terrorism carries another more subtle, perhaps equally pernicious, risk. Because it might encourage a fear-driven and inappropriate response. By that I mean it can tempt us to abandon our values. I think it important to understand that this is one of its primary purposes…

London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, ‘soldiers’. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a ‘war on terror’, just as there can be no such thing as a ‘war on drugs’.

The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement," – Britain’s director of public prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald.

The Christianist knives are out:

"I think you have to look at where he stood on the issues and what he said publicly,"  Brownback said. ‚ÄòAt times he’s said different things on these issues. I think that’s all going to come out during a long campaign."

Brownback wouldn’t flatly say if Romney is a reliable conservative. He said, ‚ÄòWe’ll see and that will be for him to discuss. I do think when we get out on the campaign trail and when the campaign really gets fully engaged, there’s going to be a lot of discussion about where do people actually stand on the issues and where have they been and where are they now and how reliable are they to stay that way."

By reliable conservative, of course, they mean reliable Christianist. Romney is reliably pro-Romney, as his record amply demonstrates. Meanwhile, you can view anti-Romney activists at the March for Life in DC recently below; and an endorsement of Brownback.  If I were a social conservative, I’d rather have someone who agrees with me out of conviction than out of  expediency.

Well, you’ve asked me directly for my view, so here it is. At the risk of spoiling the illusion, the God Hates Fags video is, when you examine the site more closely, and watch the video more attentively, a brilliant piece of performance art. So brilliant it illuminates what it satirizes more deeply than any argument could.

Give me today to address his many good (and bad) points. But something strikes me reading the many emails you have sent. They fall into two categories: one batch lamenting his contradictions, intolerance and dogmatism; the other insisting that he has cleaned my clock in the argument. There are few emails taking a middle position, which suggests we are talking past each other. I’m going to try and amend that in my next post. It may be, however, that the very nature of the subject renders consensus or even clarity impossible. Those with faith and those without it actually read the dialogue differently. I think we can do better than that – and I hope to clarify more in my next installment.

He’s naming names.

The vice-president really does believe that he can somehow champion a party that declares that his daughter must be barred from any legal protections for her child and marriage and never be confronted with the contradiction. Sorry, Mr vice-president, but one day you will have to address how you can front a party dedicated to smearing, marginalizing and disenfranchising a member of your own family. Wolf Blitzer’s question is not out of line. Your hypocrisy is.

Dinesh is concerned that American popular culture is responsible for turning the Muslim world against the West. This may be what he’s thinking of: Dethklown from Metalocalypse. The song gets going at the 2:57 mark.

Worth reading:

Today in Iraq, American soldiers are risking their lives to save our lives at home. But our way of life puts peace, security, and survival ahead of conflict and danger. Thus it seems that the nobility of our soldiers is compromised because it is put in the service of mundane living for the folks back home – which is just what our soldiers gave up. Yet if we try to escape this incoherence by reminding ourselves that our way of life includes sacrifice for our way of life, then it seems we are sacrificing for the sake of sacrifice, endlessly.

This is but a sample of Rabieh’s reasoning. Her book is not a line-by-line commentary on Plato’s texts, but it does follow all the ins and outs of his arguments. If you want to learn about courage, or if you merely want to be impressed with what it takes to learn about courage, or to read Plato, this is the place to go. The toughness of courage is treated: The toughness to reject false hopes and to accept that certain evils are unavoidable. And also the magnificence of courage: the beauty of self-fulfillment that is greater than the nobility of self-denial or self-sacrifice. For self-sacrifice is in your interest if it makes you better. The paradox of sacrifice – for its own sake yet somehow for your own sake – is the theme of this excellent study.

One important distinction Mansfield also makes:

[C]ourage needs guidance from prudence to know when it is reasonable to make this sacrifice. It is noble to face risk, but must the risk not be worthwhile, requiring an exercise of prudence to see when to attack, when to retreat?

That is the question we are now debating. Without prudence, courage can easily become bravado or recklessness.

An interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali:

Marie Claire magazine: What do you say to Muslim women who fight for the right to wear the head scarf?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: I say that’s fine – unless you impose your personal choice on others. If you wear the veil, the message you convey is that you’re superior to women who do not, because you’re saying they are whores. You’re also saying men are incapable of sexual self-restraint, and that if they see women who are partly covered or not veiled, they will react like my grandmother’s he-goat.