Running in Circles

Running in Circles http://www.kaczmarowski.com/ Running around in time and space en-us Nucleus CMS v3.22 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.kaczmarowski.com//nucleus/nucleus2.gif Running in Circles http://www.kaczmarowski.com/ Welcome! http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=1 There is no honor in being perfectly adjusted
to a world gone mad
]]> 1. Welcome http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=1 Thu, 21 Jun 2007 21:10:00 +0000 Cynicism http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=66 No matter how cynical you become, it's impossible to keep up...

I was getting bored with my web (defined as those site I regularly visit). Everyone has a "my web". Everyone probably get bored with it from time to time. So anyway, I was getting bored so I went off to a random web site locator (http://www.randomwebsite.com/). Here's what it came up with: http://intellectualize.org/ At this site, the author provides the opinion quoted above. Brilliant.... ]]> 4. General Musings http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=66 Thu, 21 Jun 2007 21:04:57 +0000 Jack Bauer and Supreme Court Justice Opinions http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=65 "Jack Bauer Saved Los Angeles...He saved hundreds of thousands of lives."
-- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

Jack Bauer is a fictional character. Antonin Scalia's comments to a group of Canadian jurists during an open panel discussion regarding torture and terrorism law raised the issue of this character's continued and pernicious use of torture to "save hundreds of thousands of lives".

Nevermind that one of the most powerful jurists on the planet seems ready to excuse torture in extreme cases but this great mind of jurisprudence has staked his basic premise to a fictional act of terrorism in a television show. He went on to say, when questioned about the admissability of evidence gained during periods of torture "I don't care about holding people. I really don't", presumably meaning that even if he had to let the torture victim go after he got his evidence, that would be just fine with him. (I wonder if the parents of -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. -- Geneva Convention, Part 3, Article 17.

Apparently, Mr. Scalia has no interest in internationally binding treaties either....

Quotes attributed to Justice Scalia first appeared in the Globle and Mail, Saturday, June 16, 2007.]]> 5. No Shit News http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=65 Sat, 16 Jun 2007 13:46:01 +0000 Motivation and Honesty http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=64 Despair.com, a site that moves into and out of my consciousness every few years.

The beauty of Despair.com is not in its subversive approach to the "Politically Correct Culture of Corporate Conformity", but in its basic honesty; in its ability to lay bare the absurdity of our group-think culture.

Last note, I read a definition of "Political Correctness" that still makes me laugh...

"The politically correct would have us believe it is possible to pick up a turd from the clean end"]]> 1. Welcome http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=64 Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:29:08 +0000 Welcome to RadioFree Kacz http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=63 main page link .

Tools used in the making of this station:

Icecast 2.3.1 (open source broadcast server)
SpacialAudio SAM Broadcaster (for fee programming tool, very cool)
Audacity Audio Mixer (free audio mixer with LAME mp3 encoder)

]]> 1. Welcome http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=63 Tue, 8 May 2007 10:40:26 +0000 A Realistic Review of the Immigration Debate http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=61
1. Illegal immigration cause significant real-wage deflation which becomes more pronounced as one descends the economic ladder.

2. Illegal immigration increases the cost of social / civil programs to American taxpayers.

3. Illegal immigration is illegal and proposals to provide some sort of amnesty program for illegal immigrants is tantamount to condoning illegal activity and therefore would invite more illegal activity.

I'd like to address each of these in some brevity and then request that others riff off these ideas in a constructive manner.

A preface...

We are a nation of immigrants. My own forebears arrived on the shores of this country less than 100 years ago (1910 to be precise, or at least the Polish side). The argument that America is for Americans ignores our own history in this regard and taken to an extreme would require that anyone not here when the first Europeans arrived by wooden ship vacate the premises in favor of the children of those millions of idigenous peoples many of our American ancestors slaughtered on their way to Manifest Destiny. So my preference is to put this angle of any ensuing argument to rest.

On to the three arguments and some commentary...

Illegal immigration cause significant real-wage deflation which becomes more pronounced as one descends the economic ladder.
- A recent study by Harvard economists found that illegal Mexican immigrants undercut wages for U.S.-born high school dropouts by 8.2 percent from 1980 through 2000. That's 40 cents an hour (less) as a result of 20 years of Mexican migration.
  
  An offsetting set of stats indicates that the average cost of fresh and processed fruits and vegetables would rise by 2.5% if current rates of illegal immigration were stemmed. This would result in a decrease of the 8.2% affect on real-wages to approximately 7% affect on real wages.
- However, the severe drop in the value of minimum wage over that same period of time explains represents significantly higher deflationary pressure on real wages. The real-value of minimum wage compared to the average hourly wage has been slashed by over 40% since 1950. This drop cannot be attributed to illegal immigration but to legislative indifference (or more darkly, legislative catering to the demands of the employers who pay for elections).
- The massive shift from high-paying manufacturing jobs to low-paying service industry jobs explains another significant portion of real-wage deflation.
Consider these other random facts:
- The Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that with current trends, by 2020 the US will face a shortage of over 1 million healthcare professionals. It is likely therefore that within 15 years the majority of workers staffing hospitals and clinics will be foreign born.
- According to the Aspen Institute’s Domestic Strategy Group, the result of trends in job demand growth and labor pool contraction is a projected gap of 14 million skilled workers by 2020 and nearly 25 million total workers in the US alone.
- Over the next 30 years, the ratio of the number of workers to the number of social benefits recipients will shrink by 36% causing massive disruptions in the financial security of millions of Americans voting today.
  
  Does illegal immigration deflate wages? Yes, but not nearly as significantly as any politician would have you believe. Is immigration causing the slow death of the lower-middle class and placing significant pressure on the lowest rungs of our economic ladder? Not really. Those effects can be laid at the doorstep of your local Congressperson and employer.
"Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I'm in Should I hate 'em for having our jobs today No I hate the men sent the jobs away" -- James McMurtry in the lyrics to "We Can't Make it Here Anymore"
Illegal immigration increases the cost of social / civil programs to American taxpayers.
- A recent study done in California contends that the average Hispanic immigrant household takes in $5000.00 more in state and federal and local services that they pay in taxes with the lion's share of this being spent on public education.
- An argument could be made that today's Hispanic children in today's public schools will be tomorrows consumers and tax payers. Education is either an investment in the future of America or it ain't.
Illegal immigration is illegal and proposals to provide some sort of amnesty program for illegal immigrants is tantamount to condoning illegal activity and therefore would invite more illegal activity.

This in my mind is the most compelling argument for stemming illegal immigration. Either we are a nation of laws or we are a nation goverened by corporate convenience.

Sure, this is a lot of data. What to do about it remains the question. I propose the following:

It does no good to sound-bite the argument into "America for Americans" or Lou-Dobbs the argument into "close the borders, illegal aliens are destroying our way of life". We need immigration and lots of it.
Simply providing amnesty for law breakers will only encourage more law breakers (although a growing economy and pletiful jobs is providing all the encouragement needed at the moment, thank you very much).
The way forward is I think four-fold:
- Provide tighter border security to slow the flow of illegal immigration.
- Put teeth into the enforcement of work-place rules governing the use of illegal immigration.
- Increase legal immigration significantly to attract and keep high-value skills.
- Strongly support and if necessary fund economic changes throughout Latin America that would encourage indigenous peoples to stay home. If the economy in Mexico worked for the average illegal immigrant, then the need or desire to leave would be lessened. The corollary to this approach has already been espoused in the "War on Terror" in which America chooses to take the fight to the source so the fight doesn't end up on the streets of American cities.

]]> 3. Personal thoughts on public issues http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=61 Thu, 15 Feb 2007 12:22:30 +0000 3 Frightening Numbers http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=53 "It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress" -- Mark Twain, 1894

2% - Average number of all Americans remanded to some type of correctional program (jail, prision, probation, etc.)
3.2% - Number of members of the House and Senate under criminal investigation this year alone
60% - The percentage of increased criminality within the House and Senate when compared to the population as a whole.

On the Department of Justice website, one can find some interesting reports and numbers. Taking a brief glance at the data, one can find that recent data reports that roughly 2% of the US population has been remanded to some sort of correctional program; jail, prison, probation or parole. Roughly 5.9M offenders 295M citizens (for the most recent year available).

What's interesting is to compare this level of public malfeasance with that of our national political bodies, the House of Representatives and the Senate. In these two august bodies of deliberation; these bastions of the best and brightest; the home of our national leaders; we find a strangely more bleak story. Consider just the most recent class of Representatives and Senate members (to say nothing of the lobbyists, staffers, or the White House) we find roughly 3.2% of this body indicted on criminal offenses, retired or resigned in disgrace under the pressure of criminal investigations.

The list just this year alone reads pretty well:
The Honorable Tom DeLay (Republican) (retired)
The Honorable Jerry Lewis (Republican)
The Honorable William Jefferson (Democrat)
The Honorable Harry Reid (Democrat)
The Honorable Bob Ney (Republican) (resigned)
The Honorable Cynthia McKinney (Democrat) (defeated)
The Honorable Alan Mollohan (Democrat)
The Honorable John Doolittle (Republican)
The Honorable Duke Cunningham (Republican) (resigned and in the can)
The Honorable Mark Foley (Republican) (resigned)
The Honorable Dennis Hastert (Republican)
The Honorable Curt Weldon (Republican)
The Honorable Jim Kolbe (Republican)
The Honorable Jim Gibbons (Republican)

Any reason you feel compelled to continue to support such a criminal group of politicians? While we continue to lose men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan; while American workers continue to lose ground economically; our leaders continue to act in criminal and criminally negligent ways. Maybe it's time for a real change. What do you think?

]]> 4. General Musings http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=53 Sat, 28 Oct 2006 08:20:48 +0000 George Clooney Muses On Being Ruler of the World http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=51

"We'd place more value on vacation and travel" -- George Clooney on what he'd do as Ruler of the World

Well George, it's about time someone got down to the really important issues facing us all today. I mean, shit, if we could just have more vacation time and travel opportunities, life would be a big fucking bowl of really sweet, shiny cherries for all concerned.

Let's not deal with America's profilgate spending habits which are running the global financial system into the ground while propping up unsupportable growth in personal debt faster than "The Peacemaker" made it to $1.99 used video bin.

Let's not consider a healthcare system where costs are growing at twice the rate of inflation while average Americans watch their real incomes shrink while all the benefits of increased worker productivity accrue to the wealthy and the corporate.

Let's not consider our morally compromised position in the Middle East; participating in the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis in the name of Democracy while we prop up the very corrput political and economic systems that gave voice to the rage of militant Islam.

No, I'm with you, Clooney. It's better to make sure people can travel and have vacations than it is to work for freedom from fear, or promote economic security, or support political self-determination (as opposed to the "father knows best" kind of political determination we practice today throughout the world), or provide access to clean water or maybe even just get a little food to millions of stasrving children before their bedtimes.

Perhaps Mr. Clooney should stick to making movies that merely pretend to consider grave topics of international concern. At least the words pouring forth from his mouth on the silver screen would consist only of the drivel and drool of mindless and faceless Hollywood hacks; unatrributable to his own teflon persona of "America's Leading Man".

--To be fair, George did mention Darfur and "firing George Bush and his cronies" as other things he would support. I guess life ain't all fun and games even for Mr. Looney... ah, pardon me, Mr. Clooney.

-- No Shit

]]> 5. No Shit News http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=51 Wed, 18 Oct 2006 07:35:34 +0000 A Conversation Between Friends http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=50

This post extends a conversation between friends that began last week with some thoughts on Radical Islam and the West's approach. Conversation is good, if it leads to understanding. I think we're getting somewhere with this one...

My thoughts are in green and Friend's are in blue . Black is the original email conversation.

-----Original Message-----
From: Kacz [mailto:kacz@kaczmarowski.com]
Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 5:39 PM
To: undisclosed
Subject: A few random thoughts

I'm finally getting back to the question of clashes between civilizations. To the provocations entwined in Churchill's view of Islam (penned over 100 years ago at a time no one would call "enlightened") and of my own view of the challenges that face us as Americans in an undeniably unsettled world.

I think to begin, I would like to posit that the market on "fundamentalism" or "radicalism" is not cornered by those who follow Islam. If "fundamentalism" is characterized by a desire to return to, or achieve a "taken for granted" body of beliefs, a homogenity of moral or ethical cultural strictures; then the Christians of our time, of the late 19th and early 20th century; of the dark ages of Catholicism; of the Puritanical movement of the 16th through the 18th centuries are all "fundamentalist" in nature and have, at varying levels; had the same destructive force on the local population in which they were practiced.

I don't believe the starting point for violence is religious. Violence and domination are man's natural state. This is why there are three branches of government in the US. The founders understood that no one that is human can be trusted to rule independently. Religion tends to come in after the fact as a justification for domination of others. The crusades and the nazi movement both where "Christian". Meaning the dominant world view was a christian world view. Having said that, in both cases they were in violation that religion.

Well if we want to consider man's "natural" state, then we should consider any species struggle for propagation as the bottom-line driver. From a genetic point of view, it is not "natural" for man to pursue violence against other men unless locked in a struggle for resources. The use of violence to pursue power is simply another expression of the resource grab we are naturally engaged in.

However, my point regarding fundamentalism and relativism is that within the confines of the current conflict pitting the West with societies that have resources the West needs, the practice of fundamentalism:

it's bad if practiced by our enemies,

it's bad particularly if it gets between the West and its resources

it's good if practiced by white-shirt wearing Christians on their way to the local megachurch)

...and the practice of relativism:

it's bad if practiced by those who might want to question whether sparking off the deaths of 655,000 Iraqi's was a worthy price to pay in retribution for 9/11 against a people largely if not totally innocent of the carnage of 9/11

it's good if used to excuse these 655,000 deaths based on a "Christian" moral and ethical or "Democratic" political or societal point of view

...simply are smoke-screens for what is essentially a resource grab which, as part of a larger context, has seen the vast transfer of wealth from 2nd and 3rd world countries into consumer and governmental debt of the worlds largest and richest economy.

A resource grab that has consumed literally millions of lives and trillions of dollars; a resource grab that of necessity supports oligarchies whose policies cause massive disassociation with the political culture; provide breeding grounds for terrorism and international criminal organizations, actively encourage the fear of outsiders as a means of bolstering the oligarch's own wasted legacies.

A resource grab that ends with a global financial model where fully 75% of excess funds in the world accrue to a negative balance of payment in the US (essentially, poor countries are using their capital to fund our profligate spending habits instead of investing in their own populations. A good thing for the oligarchs and cronies, a very bad thing for everyone else).

Ultimately I don’t think that the religious wars of the past were driven by anything other than man’s natural tendency to dominate others and suppress freedom. The weird time we live in now, where freedom and human rights have emerged in a minority of the population only exist as long as we protect it. I personally think that a free society is preferable to the societies of the past and the rest of the world. I do think our society, with its flaws, is preferable to the Taliban. Therefore, I think it is warranted to do war on those that have declared war on us. Specifically, the Taliban and those in the Islamic world that would like a return to the califade of the past millennia.

You fail to offer in this argument the "freedom" for others to choose differently than you. Am I bothered (for example) by the plight of women in Taliban-like societies? Surely I am, but the bottom line is that these women have the right and responsibility to change their lives for themselves or at the very least clearly and resoundingly ask for outside help. To my knowledge, none of that has occurred and further to my knowledge, "freedom" is defined as "the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action". Don't you see how battling your ideas of "freedom" onto another society or culture is by definition an act against "freedom"?

I would point you to a quote by Leo Strauss; German-Jewish political philosopher:

"A nation may take another nation as a model, but no nation can presume to educate another nation which has traditions of its own. Such a presumption creates resentment, and you cannot educate people who resent you being their educator".

I would further posit that "relativism" is a form of fundamentalism; or perhaps more accurately they are two sides of the same coin and function much like matter and anti-matter in the old Star Trek series; mix them and say goodbye to the universe as we know it. If relativism says "let's agree to disagree" and fundamentalism says "you simply don't understand", there can be no bridge between them. Furthermore, if the outer edges of relativism were reached (the victim has her narrative and the rapist has his narrative and each are equally valid); or the outer reaches of fundamentalism (achieving compliance at the point of a gun and the threat of death) were reached, we would all be working out our self-actualized rim-jobs as we prepare to kiss our asses goodbye.

If by fundamentalism you mean a belief in right in wrong, a moral/practical law, or absolute truth, I think I can demonstrate that relativism is certainly false.

My definition of fundamentalism is the desire for a homogeneity of belief; a desire for a set of taken-for-granted beliefs. My point is that there can be no universally fundamental beliefs without a universally homogeneous experience; something that won't happen between countries separated by religion divides as wide as the gulf between Islam and Christianity; or separated by the econimic gulf that allows you and I to pay for a coffee at Starbucks what a man in Malawi makes during a month of back-breaking labor. Fundamentalism is neither universally achievable nor is it universally desirable.

my point related relativism is that it is neither useful as a defense against the barbarity of 9/11 or Iraqi beheadings nor is it useful as a defense against American led torture or the death of 655,000 Iraqis.

You did seem to link the gun with the fundamentalist view. I guess a moral certainty is a bad thing by that logic. Moral certainty that causes physical distress is, by that logic, a bad thing.

I will have to separate that issue, given that morally relative societies could just as easily be brutal because of the lack of moral certainty.

Agreed. Look at the moral relativism prevalent in our own society. It is just fine to justify the millions dead in Viet Nam while demanding the "resolution to long-standing humanitarian issues" of the 2,400 unaccounted for American military dead in Indochina (Richard Williamson, Asst. Secty of State, 1989). It is just fine to bemoan the 3000 who died on 9/11 while explaining away the 655,000 dead Iraqis as "casualties in the war on terror and the moral battle to bring Democracy to the Middle East".

I’m not sure I have the correct working definitions. It appears that you are saying that on one side you have the belief that truth is relative and on the other that it is absolute, and that any extreme is wrong.

I am warning against both relativism and fundamentalism as sides of the same coin which would serve to mask the fact that very bad things are being done using very flimsy excuses.

If that is the case, then it literally defies logic to believe that truth is relative. For if truth is relative, then the statement “truth is relative” is a truth statement or assertion. If this truth assertion is true, then it is false. Thus, relativism cannot be true without self contradiction- note it can be a true statement if stated as “relativism is false”. It may be said the humans do not know truth absolutely, as Plato clearly articulated, but the existence of absolute truth cannot be refuted. Any attempt to do so starts with the axiom that it exists. Even your eloquent preceding argument assumes it. It is the basis of argument.

Actually, you've just applied the Star Trek axiom used to defeat a world of robots programmed (problematically it appears) to believe what comes out of a human's mouth. "Every thing I say is a lie" and off went the lights in Harcourt Fenton Mudd's robotic paradise.

You may not have been extending your logic to encompass all truth, just religious truth. I would point out that my logic holds just as firmly when limited to the domain of religion. Religious assertions are either true or false for the same reason. They may all be false, but nonetheless it is nonsense to treat all truth claims equally.

Of course it is, but my point wasn't to launch into an esoteric discussion of what is truth but to consider that radicalism (fundamentalist or relativist) is the enemy here and this radicalism is employed to great effect by Americans on both sides of the political divide to the envy (and used as the model for) our enemies.

It is radically fundamentalist to believe the our way of life is universally acceptable and the point of a gun is all that is needed to bring that idea to the masses.

It is radically relativist to participate in the slaughter, maiming and torture of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis by chalking it all up to "good intentions" and "the global war on terror".

These radical behaviors consume resources better spent on finding and killing the real terrorists responsible for 9/11; better spent on systematically removing the underpinnings of international radicalism (economic and otherwise); and better spent on dealing with a financial system that is crashing under the weight of debt that could reach 100% of GDP within a short 8 years.

Now, certainly I agree that someone who is agnostic may remain religiously undecided. Tolerance is valued because it is one’s ability to tolerate error, or what one views as error. The relativist is in no position to be tolerant because there is no such thing as err. The Christian can be, while there are many examples of adherents failing miserably, tolerant. Atheist can certainly be, although they tend to have a real problem with nativity scenes J, tolerant. From my fundamentalist perspective, tolerance is a moral good absolutely. Those that are not tolerant of others are in error.

So you would tolerate anything but intolerance.

From the relativist perspective they cannot say with any logically consistency that tolerance is a Good that should be achieved.

Again, I am not arguing for relativism and against fundamentalism. I am arguing that both should be avoided at the edges and both are useful in the proper doses.

I argued early on that relativism taken to extreme would tolerate abhorrent behavior including the killing of innocent people. However, relativism as it relates to acceptance of ideals that are not your own is a useful way to approach the big-wide-world.

I argued early on that fundamentalism taken to extreme would tolerate the use of force to bring "wrong thinking people" around to the "right way of looking at the world". However, fundamentalism as it relates to the acceptance that one must follow their own fundamental beliefs at all times (I will not participate in the slaughter of 655,000 people or torture prisoners because it is fundamentally wrong to do so) is also a useful way to approach the big-wide-world.

I did not miss your point, I just think that one can be either fundamentalist (moral absolutist) or relativist and be nonetheless violent. If you are fundamentalist, then you need to justify your actions morally, if your are relativist you don’t.

Agreed, however justifying actions morally is by definition an exercise in relativism. Your morals are not mine, regardless of how many guns you point in my direction to make me think otherwise.

Whether your actions are moral or not is another question that requires an agreement on the moral standard first. This is not as difficult as some think. The reality is that there is broad and general agreement on most moral questions. When the evil perpetrators of 9/11 performed there attack they had to develop an elaborate logic to justify it. The people they killed on the plane and in the buildings were part of some grand conspiracy that led forced them to perform a violent act, and God would reward them for killing his enemies. Oh yes, and that there would be 70 virgins etc.. etc..

We agree that 9/11 was an immoral act. However, 3 immoral acts do not condone the behavior of the West in Iraq since then.

Now the real debate should be whether their justification is valid in order to determine the rightness of it. There is “agreement” that all things being equal the act was violence. Even the radicals know the killing is generally wrong unless there are specific circumstances that justify it.

This is to say that I reject the assertion that there is a valid "point of view" for someone who would use airplanes to kill innocent people. I furthermore reject that there is a valid "point of view" for someone who would willingly participate in the wholesale slaughter of 100,000 Iraqi non-combatants because we're at war with "Islamic Fundamentalism" and "our way of life is under siege".

I agree with you. However, I do think a valid argument that it was not “wholesale” could be persuasively made. It seems to me that we are making every effort within the context of war to minimize civilian casualties.

I am quite sure the children of dead parents will thank us for this kindness. The fact is I wrote this when the most reliable count of Iraqi dead was between 100,000 and 200,000. More recent reports put this number north of 600,000; of which it is estimated that 30% were caused by coalition forces. If we are truly trying to minimize collateral damage, we should try a bit fucking harder.

Typically, the moral responsibility for the deaths rests with those that hide amongst the population. I find it hard to argue that war is ever a good thing, even if for the best purpose. But I think the context of death and destruction that existed prior to the war should be considered. As you know I think we needed to go into Iraq for precisely the reason that the deaths that occurred because of Sadam were Britain and the US governments fault. Thus, the 100,000’s that Sadam killed we have specific responsibility to fix.

So you would argue that America is responsible for 100,000 dead in Iraq prior to the war and yet no retaliation would be morally acceptable by the indigenous population. You would further argue that the 100,000 deaths for which the coalition could be held accountable (using the http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673606694919/fulltext) or the 40,000 non-combatant casualties reported by the Iraqi government is a reasonable and fundamentally defensible cost of "paying the debt to Iraqi society" (irrespective of the fact that the Iraqis didn't attack us and there has been no credible link between the Iraqis and 9/11).

The same is not true of other problem areas like the Sudan. We, meaning the government of the United States and Britain, created the situation where dictators rule the area to ensure our interests where met.

This turned out to be a big mistake that is not only costing the lives of soldiers now, but also lives of Iraqis. It would be more profitable to discuss how we can better pay this debt to the people of the middle east, or execute the occupation more effectively. The only option that will minimize deaths of Iraqis would be to stay in my view. If we leave everyone knows what will happen. I understand you do not care about the Arabs and prefer we simple solve the big problem of Oil dependence. If so, let’s not argue the morality slaughter of non-combatants anymore.

You put words into my mouth. I have never said I don't care about Arabs. I have said that it is the Arab's responsibility to govern themselves peacefully or not. Our unnatural influence on the governance of the Middle East has caused much of this trouble. That unnatural influence is direct result of the need for energy to power our economies. Remove the need for oil and you remove the need for unnaturally influencing the politics or societies of the Middle East. Then, as you suggest, the Middle East becomes another Sudan or Rwanda; devastatingly tragic but of no geo-political concern to the US. At that time, the "moral high ground" could be used as an excuse for intervention without the stench of a hundred years of hypocrisy and state-sponsored death hanging around to remind the local population just how democracy really acts.

I would like to mention that the concept that America can simply encourage Islam to "moderate" itself at the behest of the West or to change its ways in the face of obviously more modern thoughts on equality and economy are missing the point of those who fight modernity and westernization.

I agree that it is the biggest gamble I have ever seen a president take in history. It may certainly get worse and worse.

The point of the fury broiling in the Mideast is exactly that America and its allies refuse to understand that to demand the sort of cultural changes our way of life attempts to impose is to strike at the very heart of belief within Islam. In many off-handed and potentially unintended ways, we Americans are asking Muslims to abandon their faith and values for our faith and values. Where Islam prizes most highly piety and in fact believes infidels to be impious and therefore beneath Islam (concepts admittedly foreign to Westerners which carry morally or ethically repugnant baggage of inequality of women, lack of respect for personal or individual freedoms), Westerners prize most highly individuality and material progress (concepts admittedly foreign to Islam which in the mind of the Muslim carry morally or ethically repugnant baggage of lack of respect for God above all, lack of respect for the "Godly" order of family life and a lack of respect for stable community structure). If I were to strike at the very heart of your belief system, would you not react violently to protect your world view?

You do every time we meet, and I have not kicked your ass yet.

Actually, I have never taken out a gun and told you to change your beliefs. Nor have I caused to be put into place an economic or political system that is in direct opposition to your beliefs. I celebrate and applaud your beliefs because it is damn hard to hold on to any belief in this ass-backward world we live in.

I would not turn to violence because my world view is to love my enemies J. That is a direct command of Jesus. Therefore, if I were to respond to you with violence instead of argument and logic, I would be operating in my natural human state and be disobeying God. You are correct that Islam does not have the call to be kind to non-believers and not judge the world. I often question whether Islam has peace as a central belief. Christianity was teaching that there is no difference between man, woman, slave, free, in God’s sight 2000 years ago.

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. - 1 Tim. 2:11

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. - Eph 5:22, 23

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: - 1 Cor. 11: 8, 9

Let your women keep silence in the churches - 1 Cor 14: 34-35

I didn't write this stuff; the fathers of Christianity did.

Islam teaches to lie in wait for the infidel and war with the infidel etc… I guess my hope is that a tolerant culture can emerge, similar to Turkey. Turkey, demonstrates that it is possible. However, the parallel breaks down because it was only possible to move from a dictatorship to secular government. We are doing something that has never worked in the past trying to move from nothing to theocratic democracy.

It breaks down because Turkey was not compelled by occupying forces to move from dictatorship to secular government.

I am not say these things as an apologist, but instead point out that there is a difference in the wars we are fighting. America believes it is fighting an ideology and radical Islam believes it is fighting a war of religion. Until either America removes from its fight the language of conversion (politically and culturally); essentially drops its demands that the acceptance of Democratic ideology is the only way to win a just and lasting peace, Islam will continue to be radicalized in defense of its core belief structure.

Excellent point. I agree totally. Maybe a viceroy structure that slowly moves to a secular government, then to a democratic form of government. Maybe a hybrid monarchy model…

In the end, I would finally completely reject that Americans or Christians have a corner on access to the ear of "God" and point you to a quote: ..."each prays to the same God and each invokes His name against the other. The prayers of both cannot be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."

Yes, the quote is Lincoln's, from his 2nd inauguration. Yes the quote concerns the Civil War. However, the point quite clearly can be applied to the current rantings regarding the rightness of our cause and the evilness of the Muslim. God cannot be on both sides and indications are that he is tilting neither east or west in this fight.

Once again, you are mixing up religion with morality. I don’t think I ever called the war on terror a Christian war. If I did, I need to watch my alcohol consumption. The question of the righteousness of the cause has very little to do with whether or not you believe Jesus is the Son of God. It is more of a question of morality:

- Would the world be better with America defeated? If so, by what measure?

- Would the people of Iraq be better off without Saddam and free to self determine their government?

- Is it better to pull out of Iraq for America, and is it right morally to do so even if it makes things worse for the Iraqi people?

- Would such a pull out make us more or less safe?

- I can go on… but none of the questions I have asked are relevant to the truth claims of Jesus.

Jesus did not teach a new morality. The golden rule has always been known in our hearts. He was certainly eloquent in his moral teachings, but I have not seen a new morality taught by Jesus. Crazy people are the one’s that offer new morality. The real question is not religious for us (the US). It is a practical matter of self interest, safety, and morality. If we are certain that our purpose is good and we are using violence, I think history is a good measure of how many times wars are fought and the foes believe God to be on their side. Thus, humility is warranted. War is evil in itself, and a symptom of a fallen world where the sons of Adam strive against each other.

Your pessimism is supported biblically more than mine idealism regarding our chances for improvement in the Middleeast. Speaking of the father of the Arab nations, Ishmael:

He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone's hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward [a] all his brothers."

Genesis 16:12

Thus, I think it an extreme long shotJ.

There is no value in demonizing a population of humans who believe differently from you or I. There is no value in dehumanizing the suffering we inflict on the world with a defense that essentially whines "but he started it" and there is no future in continuing to support the very institutions that offer convenient excuses for the fury and hopelessness which leads men to acts of utter barbarism.

I agree. Once you humanize them, are we not obligated to help them?

No more so than we are obligated to help the Sudanese, and again, if by help you mean "invade and kill 40,000 to 655,000 with no plan to stabilize or leave the country", then I couldn't disagree more.

You (and my friend Chris; whom I've included here) have mentioned that Germany and Japan are good examples of how America can remake societies at the point of a gun. I could not disagree more. While the wars were fought to the doors of power in each country, winning the war was accomplished by removing those circumstances that gave rise to the xenophobia and aggression that welled up in "the man on the street" in both Germany and Japan. Economics and a sensitivity to local culture (Germany the only western culture that still considers a citizen a German by birth alone whereas Japan was allowed to retain its monarchy played the largest roles in pacifying these two warlike countries.

Populations with their core belief structure intact and jobs to do and possessions to defend don't go looking for trouble. We can support economic and some political reform, but only as far as the nations or cultures allow it to go within the strictures of their underlying shared morality.

Funny.. Most of the “free” countries I can think followed a military defeat of someone. Freedom is not free is a saying for reason. Europe may not survive as a free society(s), or the US for that matter. The norm of this world and history testifies that the strong dominate the weak. This I believe is wrong and evil. Unfortunately it is normal. Thus, it requires extraordinary action to maintain relative freedom. Like war.

I agree that victims are the most dangerous of all people. I think many evils are justified from a victim status. This is not to say that it is wrong. When a country attacks you, all of the events that follow in the war that follows are usually accepted to be the responsibility of the attacker. “He through the first punch” is usually a justification for knocking someone out.

Iraq did not attack the US. Saudis did, as directed by interlopers hiding among the taliban in Afghanistan. Your argument would work if we had attacked Saudi Arabia (too much oil and too many US-denominated notes in country) or spent our hard-earned tax dollars to actually kill the perpetrators in Afghanistan (and then promptly left the country alone as history shows us that no one rules the Afghans for long).

I can’t see that the aggression of WWI by Germany and a response of defense by Europe and America, followed by economic problems that are a consequence of going to war in the first place, makes anyone but Germany culpable. WWII grew out of circumstances, but any rational German could have seen the ruin coming. Those circumstances where not anyone but Germany’s fault. Having said that, we saw that millions of victim Germans would just lead to another war so the Marshall plan followed. Good idea that sounds very similar to the plan in Iraq. It may fail for the reasons you mention, but I would rather try and fail than assume failure at the outset.

This argument would work better if we were actually engaged in something like the Marshall Plan in Iraq. We are not, but that is the subject for another conversation.

Chris, you're one of my most cherished friends. We don't often agree, but we have always respected each other's opinion. Thank you!

[snipped ending. Chris can post his final thoughts should he so choose]

kacz ]]> 4. General Musings http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=50 Sun, 15 Oct 2006 12:29:10 +0000 An Open Letter: The Beginnings of a Way Forward With Radical Islam http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=49 quote begins thusly:

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy."

...and it doesn't get much more flattering from there. I presume the point that was this friend was trying to make was that what is done in the name of fighting radical Islam is morally right and can be aligned with an ethical world view given the obvious decadence of the Islamic world view.

Here is an open letter in response to this assertion, and to Mr. Churchill's 116 year old wrongheaded views:

Steve:

I'm finally getting back to the question you pose regarding our current clash between civilizations; to the provocations entwined in Churchill's view of Islam (penned over 100 years ago at a time no one would call "enlightened") and to my own view of the challenges that face us as Americans in an undeniably unsettled world.

I think to begin, I would like to posit that the market on "fundamentalism" or "radicalism" is not cornered by those who follow Islam. If "fundamentalism" is characterized by a desire to return to a "taken-for-granted" body of beliefs, a desire to achieve or impose a set of (locally) homogeneous moral or ethical cultural strictures; then there are plenty of fundamentalist examples in our own history. The Christian Right or "moral majority" (which is neither strictly moral nor in the majority except when one considers the majority of flapping lips driven by vapid or bankrupt ideals) of our time; the Christian fundamentalists of late 19th and early 20th century; the dark ages of the Church; the Puritanical movement of the 16th through the 18th centuries are all "fundamentalist" in nature and have, at varying levels had the same negative impact on the local population in which they were practiced.

I would further posit that "relativism" is a form of fundamentalism; or perhaps more accurately they are two sides of the same coin and function much like matter and anti-matter in the old Star Trek series; mix them and say goodbye to the universe as we know it. If relativism says "let's agree to disagree" and fundamentalism says "you simply don't understand", there can be no bridge between them. Furthermore, if the outer edges of relativism were reached (the 16 year old boy has has his narrative and the Congressman has his narrative and each are equally valid); or the outer reaches of fundamentalism were reached (achieving compliance at the point of a gun and the threat of death) on a wide enough scale we would all be working out our self-actualized rim-jobs as we prepare to kiss our asses goodbye.

I start here to be clear that neither a fundamentalist view nor a relativist view can hold a valid or workable response to the current struggle between America (or more accuratele "the West") and Radicalizeed Islam.

This is to say that I reject the assertion that there is a valid "point of view" for someone who would use airplanes to kill innocent people. I furthermore reject that there is a valid "point of view" for someone who would willingly participate in the wholesale slaughter of tens of thousands of Iraqi non-combatants under the excuse that "we're at war with Islamic Fundamentalism" or "our way of life is under siege".

The thought that America can simply encourage Islam to "moderate" itself at the behest of the West (given enough money or enough televisions and air conditioners or through the application of enough gun-barrel democracy) and come to appreciate our obviously more modern thoughts on equality and political expression and familial culture and economy is hopelessly naieve and misses the point entirely of those who fight modernity and westernization.

It occurs to me that the point of the fury broiling in the Middle East is precisely that the west (led by America and its allies) refuses to understand that to demand the sort of cultural changes we blithely attempt to impose throughout the Middle East is to strike at the very heart of belief within Islam. In many off-handed and potentially unintended ways, we Americans are asking Muslims to abandon their faith and values for our faith and values. Where Islam prizes most highly piety and in fact believes infidels to be impious and therefore beneath Islam (concepts admittedly foreign to Westerners which carry, in our world view, some morally or ethically repugnant baggage such as the inequality of women and the lack of respect for personal or individual freedoms), Westerners prize most highly individuality and material progress (concepts admittedly foreign to Islam which in the mind of the Muslim carry morally or ethically repugnant baggage such as a demonstrated lack of respect for God above commerce, lack of respect for the "Godly" order of family life and a lack of respect for stable community structure). The West simply doesn't get that imposing its value structure on those who follow Islam might strike at the very heart of its belief system and is shocked when the reaction is a violent attempt to protect an Islamic world view?

I am not saying these things as an apologist for heinous acts of barbaric men, but instead to point out that there is a fundamental difference between the wars we are fighting. America believes it is fighting an ideology (radical Islam's hatred of modernity) and radical Islam believes it is fighting a war of religion (jihad and the battle against the impious interloper on native lands). Until either America removes from its fight the language of conversion (politically and culturally) and essentially drops its demands that the acceptance of Democratic ideology is the only way to win a just and lasting peace, portions of Islam will continue to be radicalized in defense of its core belief structure.

Finally, I would completely reject that Americans or Christians have a corner on access to the ear of God and point you to a quote:

..."each prays to the same God and each invokes His name against the other. The prayers of both cannot be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."

Yes, the quote is Lincoln's, from his 2nd inauguration address. Yes the quote concerns the Civil War. However, the point quite clearly can be applied to the current rantings regarding the rightness of our cause and the evilness of Islam (as expressed by Churchill's words to which you sent me a link). God cannot be on both sides at once and indications are that he is tilting neither east nor west in this fight.

There is no value in demonizing a population of humans who believe differently from you or I. There is no value in dehumanizing the suffering we inflict on the world with a defense that essentially whines "but they started it" and there is no future in continuing to support the very institutions (partnerships between the politically corrupt and dictatorial and the business of oil extraction) that offer convenient excuses for the fury and hopelessness which leads men to acts of utter barbarism.

You (and my friend Chris whom I've included here in this distribution list) have mentioned that Germany and Japan are good examples of how America can remake societies at the point of a gun. I could not disagree more. While WWII was fought to the very doors of power in each country, winning the peace was accomplished by removing those circumstances that gave rise to the xenophobia and aggression that welled up in "the man on the street" in both Germany and Japan. Economics and a sensitivity to local culture (an understading that Germany was to retain its ethnic German center or Japan would retain its emperor) played large roles in pacifying these two countries. Populations jobs to do and possessions to defend AND with their core belief structure intact don't go looking for trouble. We can support economic and some political reform, but only as far as the nations or cultures allow it to go within the strictures of their underlying shared morality.

In the end, safety from radicalism cannot and will not be accomplished through hate or violence or a refusal to understand that, yes, the Muslims love their children too and Muslims pray to a God they revere.

kacz

]]> 3. Personal thoughts on public issues http://www.kaczmarowski.com/index.php?itemid=49 Mon, 9 Oct 2006 08:30:55 +0000