[KevinTheOmnivore]

Originally Posted by mburbank

I say we share barbarity, but use different methodology. You say 'they' choose this. Maybe, to some degree. But then, we often 'choose' to use weapons that kill civillians after the fact, and weapon like Napalm and white phosphorus, whose aim is to be terrifying. I believe, strategically, we like the viceral nature of such weapons. When we employ 'shock and awe'. The brutality of the words isn't coincidental, it's intentional. A simililarity, NOT an equation.

Right, they have hair, and eat food and stuff. This is really substantive.

I think there is an obvious distinction between the way liberal democratic societies and repressive, totalitarian ones that we face. If you wish to talk about our similarities that's great, but you do a serious disservice to the discussin I think.

You have said that it is presumptuous to assume that liberal democracy is the best form of government, and that some other people ma yet devise something better (if you think I'm speaking for you again let me know, and I'll go dig the quote up). Maybe you're right, maybe on day we'll achieve this. But today, right now, observe the Westernized, liberal socities, and then observe the muslim world. on average, how is that working out for them? How often do democracies go to war with each other?

I think if we obeyed our own laws, the differnces between us would be a LOT clearer. I think we have the capacity to make the differnces a LOT clearer. You don't. I think it's something we should strive for with every fiber of our national being. That 'never will be' line sounds to my ear more equivative than anything I've said.

And I think it's still amazing that you have so much to say of the supposed ills of your own country, and yet so little of theirs. Perhaps a sense of perspective is too much to ask from you while in your Bush Rage, but it's never the less appropriate.

We have a foundation in secular law that allows us to question whether the actions of our president or our elected oficials stand up to legal boundaries. They, quite frequently, do not.

Okay, how about for my insert, I choose 'cynically funding the religous/paramilitary groups that believe all those things as a hedge against the soviets and other gulf oil interests?' That seems relevant to me. or 'supporting and arming brutal, repressive military strongmen and regimes."

Ok, good. This is going somewhere. So take this into account. Do we thus take no global action against rotten regimes at all, out of the fear of appearing hypcritical? Do we not make up for supporting these groups by drawing a distinction between right and wrong?

Do we establish a peaceful, democratic middle east, or cut and run and allow the terrorists to kill us all?

Thank goodness those aren't the choices.

Really? Well then, in the spirit of offering up ideas, what would you say are the alternatives?

I don't believe what we are doing has any chance of 'stopping' them. I do believe we are making more of them.

Ok, good. So America leaves Iraq= less terrorism in the world. America stops confonting regimes that support terrorism=less terrorism i the world. Is that accurate? Are we the only ones mass producing these terrorists, or do they have guilty liberal mass distribution elsewhere?

Beliefs like that have a way of spreading. I think it's the poisonous nature of that way of thinking that allows them to kill with such abandon. After all, we're the enemy, we're all evil and an affront to God, so it's okay, it's GOOD to butcher us. I don't want us to be like that. I don't think we need to be, and I don't think we should get any closer to that mindset.

We're nowhere near it, so don't worry so much.

I am arguing for us to be as different from the enemy as we can be. AND I think we can do a better job of 'stopping' the enemy by being MORE different. I think spending a lot of time thinking about how much better, more civilized, more human we are than the enemy and how whatever 'dark side' we go to it will never be as bad as those 'evil doers' only makes us more equivalent. And I want to be less equivalent. I hope I've clarified things.

Hmm....so if we be less and less like them we will suffer less terrorism, right?