> I reject any and all responsibility for what
> just happened.
Then you will never know peace.
Me:
Perhaps. But I will know freedom. I value that a bit more. What is it
you value? Other than peace. There are 10,000 Americans who know a _type_
of peace today who shouldn't have to know it just yet. Not a price worth
paying.
> The "Blame America First" attitude which you have just
> provided such a striking example of will not make us any safer.
Shame on you -- shame on you! I did not say any such thing; quite the
opposite. Your ideology clearly is winning over anything else that might
be
in your heart and mind.
Me:
Me? You think I should feel ashamed? At this moment in our history, when
thousands of our fellow citizens lie murdered and you choose to talk about
_our_ responsibility for what happened, you say _I_ should be ashamed? How
do you even look at yourself in a mirror?
Nick again:
We will never understand how economic globalism affects our neighbors, how
American social, political and economic attitudes affect our neighbors, if
we aren't even willing to consider its flaws. Have you stopped for a
moment
to consider how our media, to name an enormous example, is regarded in
Islamic nations? How evil it appears to many religious people? The extent
to which what we regard as economic opportunity appears to be economic
oppression to poor communities?
I'm just waiting to hear you call me a traitor now, simply because I'm
willing to consider our relationship with our enemies in a way that
threatens your worship of capitalism. I respect and embrace it, but I sure
don't worship it. It is far from perfect, far from just and I consider
people who hold that illusion to be enemies of peace.
Nick
Me:
You accuse _me_ of letting my ideology get away from me when you're
spouting gibberish about my worship of capitalism? Did you notice anything
about the free market in my post? I'm not the one with an ideological
prism that leaves him with no sense of reality here. Nor whose ideological
prism so distorts his sense of _morality_ that he talks about the
responsibility of the victims after the greatest mass murder in American
history. Have you no sense of decency, now of all moments in history? So
our media is thought of as evil by Islamic nations. I don't know that they
do - I think many Islamic nations, were there a _single_ example of one
with a free press, would have a media well-nigh indistinguishable from our
own. But if they are offended by it, then they need to grow up and move
into the 21st century. That they get offended at our media imposes _zero_
moral responsibility upon me, and _zero_ obligation to change. Your
decision to blame the United States - however partly - for what happened
today offends me deeply. That imposes no obligation upon you to change.
If someone had you killed because your opinions offended them, you would
_still_ have had no moral obligation to change, and I neither understand,
nor have any sympathy for, the mentality that thinks likewise.
I reject entirely any sense of obligation for what happened here.
Thousands of American citizens innocently going about their daily lives
died yesterday. They died in fire and panic. We cannot even yet begin to
count the dead. And now, before even the dust settles, you tell us that we
bear responsibility for the international relations climate that resulted
in this. We do not. We are what we are. If others hate us because of
what we are - that's their moral fault, and we have the right to do
whatever we must to defend ourselves. If others hate us because we support
Israel, then that's their fault, and we can defend ourselves how we must.
But _we_ are not responsible for what happened yesterday. Only the
terrorists were.
In your world, Nick, I may be an enemy of peace. But in the real world,
there are innocent people who died yesterday. Our media may offend some
people who call themselves Islamic. I will not give up our freedom of the
press because of that, and I bear no moral responsibility for anything that
they do because they are offended. Anyone who could do what happened
yesterday has no moral standing to judge anything or anyone. Someone who
says that we should change _what we are_ because of what happened is doing
Bin Laden's work. So shame on you, Nick, for saying that the United States
has some responsibility for what happened yesterday. And even more, shame
for trying to score cheap debating points upon the bodies of the dead by
bringing in your fantasies of my "worship" of capitalism. So in a sense, I
am an enemy of your type of peace, I suppose. No peace without freedom.
No peace with terrorists. No peace until justice is done. We are at war
today.
Gautam
