Note, too, that in the case of Sgt. Bales (or any other cases of American violence against Muslims), people have little difficulty understanding the distinction between (a) discussing and trying to understand the underlying motives of the act (causation) and (b) defending the act (justification). But that same distinction completely evaporates when it comes to Muslim violence against Americans. Those who attempt to understand or explain the act — they’re responding to American violence in their country; they are traumatized and angry at the continuous deaths of Muslim children and innocent adults; they’ve calculated that striking at Americans is the ony way to deter further American aggression in their part of the world — are immediately accused of mitigating, justifying or even defending Terrorism.Othering is insidious.
Language Liberalism Freethought Birds Verbing Weirds Language only if you're expecting it to work in a simple way. This is a special case of the more general truth that Language Weirds. Only when a republic's life is in danger should a man uphold his government when it is in the wrong. There is no other time. The church says Earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence in a shadow than the church. If we can't find Heaven, there are always bluejays.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
One more thing
From Glen Greenwald:
Of course. And they are called Islamofascists and worse. Ever wonder why my profile reads "hook nosed camel f*cker"? A redneck gave me that title for protesting the invasion of Iraq, and I adopted it.
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