Leo Strauss and the Neo-Cons.

[Zeno]

Some interesting articles to read. There are three links below about 'Leo Strauss'. The first is 'unbias' information. The second link is from a conservative rag. The third link is written by a 'leftist' and is an attack on Leo Strauss and his 'followers'.

Information (http://home.earthlink.net/~karljahn/Strauss.htm)

frontpagemag, Conservative. (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=1233)


Attack on Leo Strauss (http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/drury_24_4.htm)


The articles are long and will take time to digest but, in my opinion, are worth it. If you read all three in the order that I posted them I think it will provide a stimulating read and discussion.

I am not advocating any position myself. Misanthropes have no positon, except that humanity is a waste of good material. /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

-Zeno

[Chris Alger]

Strauss was a bad-writing fascist whose central contribution to American political thought was his advocacy of deception and lying in public discourse. You find this interesting? Consider a central argument of his defender you cited. After asserting a chain of degeneration where modernity leads to nihilism, he writes: <ul type="square"> We see this problem repeated today in the multiculturalism that sanctions the importation into the West of Moslem fundamentalists whose foremost aim is the destruction of the Western society that makes that tolerance possible, and in an America so frightened of offending anyone that it refuses to carry out the basic duty of any normal state to guard its own borders. [/list] This is just boilerplate right-wing paranoia about Islamic manaics hiding behind every bedstead and immigration policy ("guarding borders") driven by PC rather than the economics of cheap labor. It boils down to the usual reacist, fascist sentiments: cultural tolerance is self-destructive, immigration is cultural pollution.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
You find this interesting?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. I find many things interesting. I find the bible interesting even thought it full of lies and blather.

The article that attacked Strauss was just as strident as the Conservative rag, in fact more so - At least in terms of the overt languague.

The paragraph you cited is a typical harangue by these types of writers. It is obviously bogus, but thanks for pointing it out to everyone. However, it was hardly the focus of the article.

-Zeno

[nicky g]

There is a long article on Strauss and the neocons in this month's Harper's. Not a hugely enlightening read but not a complete waste of time either. There's also quite an interesting article by a writer who spent a year on and off with some Iraqi resistance fighters near Ramadi.

[nicky g]

I forgot to mention, there was also a big Strauss-necon article and lots of subsequent discussion a while back OpenDemocracy (http://www.opendemocracy.net) ; should be easily searchable.

[Gamblor]

What is the point of a state, borders, government, and a United Nations if there is no immigration policy? Why do we bother with countries at all?

It is the right of the people to determine what their immigration policy is.

If a majority of free-voting citizens decide they want to shut the doors, that is their right. Your paranoia that somehow all conservative government is predicated upon totalitarian fascist end-goals would be mildly amusing, if you weren't shouting it from the rooftops to impressionable poker players. More importantly, name-calling is passe.

I, for one, understand that trying to sweep the threat of Islamic fundamentalism under the carpet is a bad bad mistake.

It's there, Chris. Only Muslims and more importantly, Arab Muslims who have been afforded a modern Western, contemporary, liberal education have been spared the fundamentalist's jihadist ideology.

Which, in my opinion, is the only real way to solve the conflict. Don't infiltrate the caves, infiltrate the schools.

[Chris Alger]

[ QUOTE ]
What is the point of a state, borders, government, and a United Nations if there is no immigration policy? Why do we bother with countries at all?

[/ QUOTE ]
The U.S. has an immigration policy. We hide it in our statutes, administrative rules, policy papers and pronouncements.

[ QUOTE ]
It is the right of the people to determine what their immigration policy is.

[/ QUOTE ]
Unless the people are Palestinian, in which case you believe their immigration policy, along with every other policy and indeed their whole country are "up for grabs" by any country with more guns, provided it's Israel.

[ QUOTE ]
I, for one, understand that trying to sweep the threat of Islamic fundamentalism under the carpet is a bad bad mistake.

[/ QUOTE ]
Try argument instead of metaphor tossing. The original article posited, as a phenomenon of "liberalism," the supposed problem of tolerating Muslim minorities which include a sub-minority that wouldn't reciprocate if it could dictate state policy. How to treat such intolerant minorities is not a new phenomenon, but one that has been addressed in all sorts of societies, liberal, monarchical and autocratic, for centuries. The usual response has been to ignore it.

Therefore to call it a phenomenon of liberalism is wilfull ignorance. To suggest that Islamicists are approaching a seizure of power in the U.S. is insanely paranoid. To punish a powerless minority for harboring non-magnanimous desires amounts to punishing thought crimes. When this kind of thinking rises above simple stupidity it's called "fascist."

[Gamblor]

Unless the people are Palestinian, in which case you believe their immigration policy, along with every other policy and indeed their whole country are "up for grabs" by any country with more guns, provided it's Israel.

If you'll recall, the intended Palestinian immigration policy is simple: No Jews (and their damn settlements!).

No no, in 1967, it was up for grabs, now, the final borders are to be negotiated.

Would you care to describe for me the borders of the 1967 Palestinian state?

Perhaps the captain of their 1970 international soccer team?

Maybe the President of Palestine at the time of the Six Day War?

What is their currency?

[nicky g]

All countries have to begin somewhere; none has internationally recognised statehood going back to the beginning of time. All countries at the end of the colonial period were in a similiar situation to that of the Palestinians; that doesn't mean they were "up for grabs". The resident population should have the right of determining the country's status.

[Gamblor]

And yet, in the early days of Aliyah (the last two decades of the 19th and first two decades of the 20th centuries), the returning population was afforded no rights whatsoever, were subject to continuous terrorism and suppression by the leaders of the Arab communities, who, incidentally allied themselves with Hitler in the 1920s and 30s.

Only when the Arabs proved themselves unwilling to share was only theirs because the Jews were exiled, did Political Zionism (as opposed to real Zionism, the mere return to the Holy Land, surface in Basel.

[nicky g]

"Returning" after a short absence of 1800 years... The rights of people "returning" from all over the world to a place neither they nor their great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandparents had ever lived do not compare to the rights of a resident people emerging from colonial rule to self determination. Regardless, now that that has happend and those people rule 78% of the land they came for, they could be kind enough to allow the residents they displaced some measure of self-determination on the remaining 22%.

[Gamblor]

rights of people "returning" from all over the world to a place neither they nor their great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandparents had ever lived do not compare to the rights of a resident people emerging from colonial rule to self determination.

What makes the demands of the Arabs (considering Arafat himself was not even born in Israel) any more valid than the demands of the Jews?

Regardless, now that that has happend and those people rule 78% of the land they came for, they could be kind enough to allow the residents they displaced some measure of self-determination on the remaining 22%.

Have you ever been to Israel? Have you ever seen the "West Bank"? Are you aware that it's a 10 minute drive from the Mediteranean to Kalkilya? Are you aware of the danger to the citizens of Tel Aviv from genocidal maniacs this poses?

[Zeno]

I think if I started a thread on Bee pollen or the moons of Saturn- it would still somehow get twisted to the Isreal/Palestine/Jewish/Arab problem.

-Zeno

[nicky g]

"What makes the demands of the Arabs (considering Arafat himself was not even born in Israel) any more valid than the demands of the Jews?"

This started when you claimed the land was up for grabs prior to the establishment of Israel. It wasn't, it belonged to the people that lived there. The vast majority of those were Arabs.

As for now, the Israelis are well-established and whatever the rights and wrongs of the origins of the state their demands for where they live outweigh those of "the Arabs," notwithstanding certain reparatory obligations they have and subject to a negotiated settlement. Their demands for the Occupied Territories, whose populations are overwhelmingly Palestinian, and which don't belong to Israel and are illegally occupied and settled by it according to every government other than Israel itself, not to mention numerous UN resolutions, do not outweigh those of its longstanding resident population.

I can't believe you have the gall to talk about where people were born given that the people you claim had an equal right to the land along with its relavent population not only hadn't been born there, but nor had their ancestros going back 20 generations and more (or in many cases, ever).

"Are you aware of the danger to the citizens of Tel Aviv from genocidal maniacs this poses? "

Yeah yeah so Israeli "security" concerns override the national rights of Palestinians forever, and conveniently also allow them to steal then its land and resources, and despite the 50 years of disastrous insecurity they've delivered.

That's as far as I go for this thread; you will never see that your positions are utterly ridiculous, self-contradictory, ad entirely motivated by some sort of misguided notion of national self interest rather than any sort of logical application of concepts of right or wrong, and there's no point getting into another endless discussion.

[elwoodblues]

I don't think there's any question about it.

[Gamblor]

It wasn't, it belonged to the people that lived there. The vast majority of those were Arabs.

This is the only thing I will address.

FACT: The Arab Imperialist conquerors stole Israel from the Romans after the Romans stole it from the Jews.

FACT: Zionism is NOT Colonialism and never was. Early Zionism was about working the land, and the Jewish immigrants worked land that they had legally purchased, mostly at exorbitant prices, from Arab landowners.

FACT: It is the Arabs who rejected Jewish immigration, and the Arabs who rejected the two-state solution, and the Arabs who demand the destruction of Israel.

FACT: The Jews never rejected Arab presence in Israel until the Arabs turned belligerent against Jewish presence. The Jews accepted the two-state solution on the basis of the UN resolution in question. The Jews never demanded the destruction of the Arab states across the middle east that expelled the Jews and forced them to Israel.

These are the facts, period.

[andyfox]

The damn Palestinians are trying to start a bee pollen industry in the West Bank but the damn Zionists are anti-bee. And anti-cee too. They base this on the location of the moons of Saturn, Sharon claiming that the Palestinians have hidden two of them within the rings, which, of course, Arafat denies.

[paland]

No offense, but virtually every thread that I read turns into this argument about the Jews and Palistines. Can you guys make your own thread please? Its gotten to the point to where I have no sympathy for either side. At least keep it off of the threads where the subject is not about this crap.

[Gamblor]

Its gotten to the point to where I have no sympathy for either side.

Sympathy isn't the issue, I just like to remind everyone that libel has been a fundamental part of a campaign against the Jews since 32 AD. At various times, people in positions of power (it used to be the Church until they realized Jews were never a threat; now it's Muslims) have had incentive to squash any Jewish right to self-determination. To this end, they fed the general public (who otherwise couldn't care less) "proof" that Jews, as a group, have killed Christ, drank the blood of Christian babies, and used Christians in the manufacture of ritual foods, and controlled the world money and media.

The newest one is that they slaughter Palestinians for sport and steal Arab land. Since nobody here has actually lived in Israel and studied the founding principles of Zionism at length, I took it upon myself to act as defense counsel.

At least keep it off of the threads where the subject is not about this crap.

Chris Alger on the right of a generic government to determine immigration policy (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&amp;Number=770928&amp;page=0&amp;view=co llapsed&amp;sb=5&amp;o=14&amp;vc=1)

[paland]

[ QUOTE ]
Sympathy isn't the issue

[/ QUOTE ]
No, the issue is; don't ruin threads with this kind crap.

[Gamblor]

Sympathy isn't the issue

don't ruin threads with this kind crap.

Then why did you mention that you don't have sympathy for either side?

You assumed both sides were looking for sympathy (a fair assumption to be sure), and by claiming that you don't have sympathy (nor should you), you were trying to get us to stop playing the sympathy card.

Unfortunately, nobody was looking for sympathy. This thread was in reference to Leo Strauss, a political philosopher who happens to be Jewish and relatively conservative, and thus earned the wrath, mud-slinging and name-calling of Chris Alger. Nonetheless, the thread was hijacked by one Chris Alger who couldn't resist bringing "Palestinian" immigration policy into the fray.

The Jews, once again, stand on the dock of international justice, and once again, I must represent the people of Israel alone on it - not that you should (or do) care.

Oh, and I don't consider the thread "ruined".