Hoe-Dee-Doo-Da-Day!!! Its MLK Day, yo...........

[adios]

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It is also important to point out, IMO, that Christian fundamentalists such as Wogga (who wants to pretend that "they're just one of the boys, really") are as dangerous as any other fundamentalists.

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Kind of like John Brown and other radical abolitionists from the pre-Civil War era who happened to be Christians fundamentalists.

[Cyrus]

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If it was Bush invading Iraq to distribute baby Jesus dolls to Iraqis then I would accept the "fundamentalists' clouded judgment" argument.

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I already explained that the operative word is "fundamentalist" and not "Christian". If it had been "Bayesian fundamentalists", you should expect a similarly closed mind - and similarly bad decisions. (Probably not as bad, but bad nevertheless. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, as Dan Quayle put it.)

Still, there are individuals, such as Wogga, who are potentially as dangerous as the next religious fanatic. That's what I warned young and foolish Zaxx about, in my post.

Caveat: I trust we are NOT operating here under the assumption that the decision to invade Iraq, even with the benefit of hindsight, was a good decision.


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Your argument STILL amounts to Bush's fundamentalist views leading him to invade Iraq for oil and give a big cut to Halliburton.

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Not "leading" him but being a great facilitator in deciding on invading.

People with white & black viewpoints (believe they) can rationalize everything in accordance to a human-made, pre-determined and unchangebale set of rules -- despite the objective impossibility of the task.

The GWB administration saw in Iraq a twin objective : Removing one Agent of Evil from the world (Saddam Hussein) and benefiting America's stance in the world, a stance that also involves domination over energy resources (viz. "Project for the American Century" for more of the apocalyptic line of thinking).

In the process and as a collateral benefit (I never claimed that helping out Halliburton on its own would suffice to attack Baghdad!), there is the rewards gained by "good citizens", such as the aforementioned American business corporations.

Crusaders (the original ones, some centuries ago) were starting off on a Holy Mission without being ironic or lying about it. Most of them were truly Christian Soldiers. But they didn't hesitate to plunder the lands they passed through to do the Lord's Command and to enrich themselves in the process.

And people were buying it.

[Cyrus]

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Cyrus saying fundamentalist Christians were as dangerous as Islamic fundamentalists is misleading since they're dangerous in different ways.

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No contest. I readily state that, here and now, Islamic fundamentalists are far more dangerous to the survival of the world and the health of the planet than any other kind of fundamentalists - and that includes followers of the Red Sox.

I also believe that the kind of fundamentalist leadership that America now has (is burdened with), will probably lead the world down a most perilous path. However, and because, luckily for us, there is no other superpower on the scene to "punish" America for its mistakes as surely as a champion poker player will be all over you for acting like a fool at the table, we should not expect that perilous path to be as immediately dangerous as the one posed by Islamic fundamentalism.

Alright?

Let me add here, to make you feel worse, that the flames of Islamic fundamentalism have been fanned by the American anti-communist fundamentalism of the Cold War era ("anything that's against our enemy is good" -- no, it ain't, you dufus) and by the one-dimensional view held by America of the situation in the Middle East for the past 50 years.

The latter is the result of such closed-mindedness as to be yet another fundamentalist trait: the refusal to objectively examine the stone cold facts of life-- among such facts being, for instance, America's interests in the Middle East region.

[Cyrus]

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...John Brown and other radical abolitionists from the pre-Civil War era who happened to be Christians fundamentalists.

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Those people did good by fighting slavery.

We should not forget, though, that it was an era of antagonistic fundamentalisms, if I can put it that way. It would be absurd to expect that a fully secular and wholy humanistic position would have been followed by a majority of Americans in the middle of the 19th century. Lincoln had to temper his speeches.

The questions to ask are these:

- After liberating ourselves from slavery, would we want the John Browns to regulate the rest of our ways of life?

- Do we need to resort now to John Brown-like fundamentalism to resolve our current problems or would that be an anachronism of the first order?

In the latter question, I don't think that the majority of Americans are very much against a "return to the good old values" of 19th century Christianity. (After all, it was against slavery too!)

[CORed]

Thank you so much for confirming my previous post.