Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window - Steve Wozniak

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Now THIS is a discussion topic!  Rod Dreher, formerly of National Review, has penned a column listing the ideas he had on 9/11 which have been changed, if not reversed, by the current disaster in the Middle East.  Here’s his list.

1. Having been absolutely certain that the war was the right thing to have done, and that we would prevail easily, I am no longer confident that I can discern when emotion is affecting my judgment unduly.

2. I no longer implicitly trust governmental institutions, including the military—neither in their honesty nor their competence.

3. I no longer believe the Republican Party is superior in foreign policy judgment to the Democrats.

4. I no longer have confidence in the ability of our military, or any military, to solve deep cultural and civilizational problems through force alone. I mean, I thought nothing could stand in the way of the strongest military fielded since the days of ancient Rome. No more.

5. I have a far greater appreciation for how rare and fragile liberal democracy is, and a corresponding revulsion at the American assumption that it’s the natural state of mankind. Which is to say, the war has made me rethink my ideas about human nature, and I’m far more pessimistic now than I ever was.

I’ll gladly agree with all five of these.  Here are my additions.

1.  I no longer believe that freedom is as generally understood a concept as I once did

2.  When two or more groups who hate each other have been oppressed by the same tyrant, this does not engender a feeling of kinship among the oppressed parties.

3.  The third world is the third world for a reason. 

4.  People who are ruled by thugs and dictators and tyrants probably have no idea how to function any other way.  My friend rides a motorcycle, and on the top of his helmet is a sticker, saying that if he is in an accident to please not remove the helmet, as it may be the only thing holding his skull together.  Saddam was the helmet holding Iraq’s skull together, and we came along and tore it off like a Band-Aid.

5.  Rudyard Kipling was far more on the money with White Man’s Burden than I would have liked to have believed.

6.  I no longer believe the saying, “We don’t do that, we’re America.  Tinpot dictatorships pull stunts like that.” (Thank you, George W. Bush, for that.)

7.  There are some societies for whom a benevolent dictator is, at least in the short term, the best solution for stability and relative peace.

8.  Never, ever, trust an Arab politician.

9.  Israel is even less responsible for its problems than I had previously assumed, and I was staunchly pro-Israel to begin with.

10.  Islam, by and large, is not compatible with the modern world, and will remain this way until such a time as they undergo the kind of reformation that Christianity did.  And Christianity, at least the flavor preferred by the fundamentalist right, is only a stone’s throw away from being just as barbaric.

I’m sure there’s more, but these are 10.  Leave your comments, flames, “Lee has BDS,” “Lee is a Christ-punching leftist,” “Lee wants the terrists to win,” or your own lists, below.

Update: Here’s a couple more.

11.  I have come to realize that civilization is a far more tenuous institution than we grasp.  All it takes is a major event, be it an act of God such as a hurricane destroying a city, or an act of man such as our pathetic planning for post-war Iraq, and even the most civilized of societies can turn on itself in an instant.  I live in Los Angeles, a major city full of every different ethnicity imaginable.  When the big one hits, how long do you think it will be until this place is a war zone?  (Thank God for the Second Amendment!)

12.  The only thing you really have in this world is your reputation.  The damage inflicted on this nation’s reputation by this president is going to take statesman of legendary proportions to repair.

13.  There are entirely too many among us for whom claiming the mantle of being right is far more important than actually being so.