Quotes of the Day
Dean
"So far we're waging the kindest, gentlest war in history. That could change, of course."
Yes, and I wish more people would recognize this irrefutable truth. It is extraordinary how restrained we have been--no large nation involved in any war in history has been so utterly restrained and careful. And no nation has been capable of wreaking as much damage without doing so.
Tom Friedman, who I often think of as something of a flake, speaks another important truth here:
Because there is no obvious target to retaliate against, and because there are not enough police to police every opening in an open society, either the Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit and denounce its own extremists - if it turns out that they are behind the London bombings - or the West is going to do it for them. And the West will do it in a rough, crude way - by simply shutting them out, denying them visas and making every Muslim in its midst guilty until proven innocent.
And because I think that would be a disaster, it is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst. If it does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim-Western relations everywhere. Only the Muslim world can root out that death cult. It takes a village. . . .
The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the madness of jihadist attacks. When Salman Rushdie wrote a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad, he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.
As I noted earlier today, we're seeing a little more of this all the time. To me it's something of a relief, but it's still not enough.
More here.
“Tom Friedman, who I often think of as something of a flake,…”
Yep. That nails it.
I have hopes for him: if he sees the light now and then, he may see it more and more over time. And because he has one foot in Flakeland, he has the attention of others who might also see the light because of him.
Seriously, now that Mr. Safire's gone, Mr. Friedman is the closest thing to a voice of reason I can find at the Times. He disappoints me far more than do Mr. Rich, Mr. Hrugman, or Ms. Dowd; but that's because I've given up and them, and I expect them to be completely insane. I still hope for sanity from Mr. Friedman.
That’s why Dean’s statement struck me as being dead nuts on.
IMO, Freidman is not a full fledged flake. But he is something of a flake. Sometimes. But then again, sometimes he seems very unflake-like too.
He's hard to describe in words.
Remember, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Earl Warren were both outstanding liberals. But they were the two civilian leaders in December 1941 and January 1942 who had the most to do with putting the Japanese in concentration camps (Excuse me, "relocation centers", for the politically correct.)
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Significant numbers of Americans are getting pissed, and the mood is growing. That was the not so hidden meaning of what Friedman was warning those people about.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
While outstanding liberals President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and (soon-to-be-Chief Justice) Earl Warren ordered and carried out the internment of Japanese, J. Edgar Hoover, not known as a liberal, to put it mildly, opposed the internment. But, anyway....
Arnold Harris is right. Even now, Muslims whine about how they are being "persecuted", even while they persecute "infidels" and Jews, homosexuals and "uppity" women. As Ayn Rand would say (in a Russian accent): "They ain't seen nothing yet." They are either 100% on our side or 100% on the side of the terrorists. And if they choose to be on the side of the terrorists, Americans are going to get more and ever more pissed. They had better watch their asses. Harsh, I know. That's the way it is. That's the way I am.
A computer program which scanned the internet and summarized commonly held opinions (both smart and dumb ones) would produce the same stuff.