I thought the guy was gay and atheist. And here he is talking like a fundamentalist Christian, saying that we serve Mammon and that we can’t think of anything besides fame and money. I get that the US government can’t understand the mideast very well, but why the political correctness that borders on apologetics just because he opposes war? It seems like he is just reading the lines of Islamist groups. Which makes me wonder if his opposition to war is based on his secret religious identity or funding, rather than rational or moral opposition to violence. IE: when Soviet Union was funding anti-war activity in the US and you had yahoos like jane fonda promoting communism, and not just opposing war.
It seems he has a deep-seated hatred of our culture that transcends his opposition to war. Making him as bad as those on the left.
If we do return to blasphemy laws and start cutting the heads off infidels, I wonder where we draw the line. Shouldn’t it be our culture at least, or do we have to take care of all of the others ones too? For instance, what should be the punishment for blaspheming against L. Ron Hubbard? More or less than Jesus?
Muslims don’t think that Jesus is son of God. So it is blasphemy to support Muhammad. And christians don’t think that Muhammad is a prophet. So it is blasphemy to say something nice about that. we have to hold that Jesus is the son of god, and not, at the same time?
No. What a ridiculous clobbering of Raimondo’s article. Here is his thesis sentence: “Libertarians, plagued by a militant atheism from the very outset, have stoutly ignored a key aspect of what motivates humans to act as they do, and this has crippled our ability to not only understand but to change the world.” That describes the Reason/Skeptic-crowd to a T.
Yeah, it’d be alot easier to agree or disagree if we knew the source of these thoughts.
If the OP is accurate, doesn’t he imply that Raimondo is self-loathing?
Most in the U.S. cannot.
The US government “gets” their culture very well. Significant amounts of government money (DIA; CIA, etc) is spent on anthrpological research. We jsut don’t care about thier culture. The point of getting to know them is to manipulate them.
Yes, conspiracy! CON SPIR A CY! CON SPIR A CY! CON SPIR A CY!
Also, I think it was from Molyneux, but he read a poll that said “aethists” and “rapists” are the two lowest trusted groups in the U.S. Sticking up for Xmasians might just be trying to win their favor to a degree.
What I mean about his condescension, and Christian fundamentalism. He almost reads like one of Pat Buchanan’s crankier diatribes.
“Having abandoned their own religion sometime in the last century or so, they just don’t understand why someone would get all hopped up over a little thing like blasphemy – after all, all one has to do is turn on the TV or view the latest Madonna music video and you’ll get a full dose of it.”
This is not just making a statement about our inability to understand. This sounds like his anger and condescension towards Americans. We are stupid heathens now who watch Madonna videos.
“where reporters are no different than the elites they cover in their militantly secular outlook.”
Like who exactly? He doesn’t say who these militant beret-wearing atheists in the media are. Most of the media is touting the politically correct line. Though admittedly most in the media are not religious, I would hardly call them militant nor solidly atheist. Our elites are not militantly secular either. Most of them are Christians, or they worship Molech at Bohemian grove (thanks Alex Jones). OR they may have no religion, but most of them at least pretend to rather having a Soviet-style atheism squads, like Raimondo seems to think.
Then we get more condescension and strawman from him:
Yes, I know, it’s hard to believe: how could any civilized person take seriously the impulse to achieve transcendence and find meaning in the universe besides the pursuit of pleasure, fame, and money? I mean, really! How primitive can you get? Didn’t that kind of superstition go out with corsets, free silver, and the horse and buggy?
This is just whiney sarcasm and he knows no one makes such stupid statements. And here is defending killing people, and uses the euphemism ‘taking seriously an impulse to achieve transcendence’. Sheesh. If only that held up in court. Not only that, but uses the above rationalization to say we are inferior.
A society in which blasphemy is impermissible is inconceivable to the warlords of Washington,
Could it be that their being ‘warlords’ is irrelevant to this incomprehension? And that it could be shared by non-elites, whether secular or religious. Nowhere here does he share with us the opinion of Christians who don’t want the state to cut the heads off non-Christians either. Which nearly all of them.
Here is another drive-by insult from closeted Christian fundamentalist. Oh noes gayz getting married. I like how equivacates each of them, so we know that marriage and divorce are equivalent to killing your baby. And of course to suggest how decadent and horrible he thinks our society is. And how great it is in Saudi Arabia.
He then goes on to say how the myriad Gods and goddess of the Roman empire is at least better than the ‘decadence that we aspire to’. But there is no connection between Gods and decadence or why any of that matters.
In the modern West, where the only god is Mammon, the riots over those Danish cartoons were “a round of silliness,”
Here we worship Mammon instead of political correctness. Mammon has apparently forbid massive property damage and murder. And that’s a bad thing, in his opinion.
Raimondo is correct that the foreign policy is the reason for their anger. But does not simply suggest that we stop the foreign policy. He however goes into an irrelevant tangent about militant atheism. That should have zero to do with that policy. In reality, neither Christianity nor atheism have any role to play in that region nor in our response. The only role to play at this time is to get our people out of those countries. We don’t have to like what they do. The Murray Rothbard thing is completely out of context. Murray would not support religious statism, nor was he a relativist, but promoted natural rights that were used by many Christians. However, he was not afraid to criticize various religious groups.
I cannot believe people are getting all bent out of shape over this. He is criticising society. Deal with it. He is not promoting “religious tyranny” you losers.
Like I said before, we do understand them. We don’t care.
I didn’t see him suggest that at all. It sounded to me like a large part of his point was to make the case that all this violence was about the movie…
“they just don’t understand why someone would get all hopped up over a little thing like blasphemy”
“Even as the protests spread, they insist it just can’t be about what Muslim protesters say it’s about: it’s all just a “flimsy” excuse, as Reason magazine editor Matt Welch told…”
“Like Welch, the magazine claims the protests are about something other than what the protesters themselves say they’re about.”
“Forget the video, we’re told: it’s not about that.”
Where the hell does he even link foreign policy? Are we just supposed to assume he’s bitching about foreign policy because it’s an article on AntiWar.com?
Sounds to me like he’s making the case that it all really is about the movie, and blasphemy. I mean, that is essentially the title and his intro.
And yeah, I honestly don’t really get what he’s calling for here. If all he wanted to say was “secular people should probably pay a bit more attention to what motivates religious people and maybe they’d have an easier time getting along”…then he didn’t need to go on with an article that long. And it certainly didn’t need to go on and on with all the straw men and condescention and sarcasm.
And it really does seem like he’s all but outright making an excuse for the reactions to the film. [Oh NOES! Did John James just accuse Mr.Antiwar.com of making excuses for violence??!! That’s like saying the Cookie Monster claimed cookies are nasty!] Yes, come at me with your knee-jerk defense of anyone friendly with Rockwell and any bullshit they spout.
Among the things that I got from that article was a sense that “hey, maybe you idiot secularists should take a second and understand where these people are coming from. Heaven forbid you try to see things from the perspective of stupid rubes who believe in moronic concepts like sanctity and blasphemy.”
I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware reverence for sanctity and aversion to blasphemy included cutting people’s heads off.
And obviously some people (i.e. those who made and promoted the film to Muslims) do know exactly what motivates such people, as Raimondo so aptly yet indirectly points out throughout the article.
If his whole problem is just with clueless politicians and journalists who just “don’t understand” religious fervor, join the club. There are ignorant people in the world. What else is new. But I don’t quite see how them not understanding why something like blasphemy is so important to people makes a difference in how one should react to the violence that has been perpetrated for apparently no other reason than being religiously offended (again, as Raimondo was so adamant about reiterating.)
Just what exactly is he calling for anyway?
If he’s not defending the violence (which I would certainly hope not) then what the hell is he advocating? That we shouldn’t be so confused as to why it would take place? If that’s all he’s saying, then why does it sound more like he’s suggesting everyone should “be more careful”, and “watch what they say”, so as not to offend anything sacred to anyone who might ascribe to some religion (or at least be more sympathetic when they are so overcome with disgust and protective ardor that they literally murder people)…while simultaneously insulting anyone who doesn’t agree with that notion?
I’m not sure why you’re proclaiming that here. Raimondo’s the one that suggests you’re an idiot condescending asshole for not understanding the religious folk.
He is criticizing it in a stupid, tedious and whiney way. And trying to get points from Christian and Muslim readers by pandering to them.
It could be an advertisement for Murray’s books in the middle of a bad article, but it seems pointless. Why write something at all?
He is sad that mean and stupid old Westerners react intolerantly to something on tv. Because we lost the religion and blasphemy laws that apparently prevented hydra of gay marriage, divorce, and abortion.
“No, it’s not just about the video: there’s America’s relationship with the Arab world to consider, and specifically with Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and many of the other countries where rioters are burning our flag and assaulting our embassies. In Libya, we installed their present government and are keeping them on life support through “foreign aid” and “democracy promotion” grants. In Yemen, we’re bombing them: in Egypt, we’re trying to influence their elections, and they’re on the take from us to the tune of over a billion every year. We are, in short, at the center of their world — and yet not of it, indeed distinctly alien to it.”
I was using “we” as the “U.S. government.” The U.S governmet studies the shit outta their cultural trends and beliefs. The U.S. government policy is what it is because…the U.S. government don’t care.
Have you people watched that video? I didn’t even get it (I suspect if one is familiar with the Bible it would have made more sense). It is like a 70’s B-movie and is so bland in its condescension of Mohommad that “it insists on itself” and fails in my opinion to even be offending. It is hard for me to believe that the video really has anything to do with the violence. It was a Christian/Jewish group that was trying to get attention. Never give the people who are doing things soley for attention attention.
I think Raimondo is just trying to compare the people over there (who do have blasphemy laws) to the people over here who can barely comprehend them. And the ambassador killed was gay, so to him it might be a different level of offending. He may have associated it with that, who knows? His expression of religious values there and here is also comparable (although they are the same here that they are there so it wouldn’t make sense for him to do so thus we have ‘blasphemy’).
He is pointing out that the laws were purposeful and peole obviously don’t have restraint or respect enough to not offend people and live according to the principle the law enforced, but without the law itself..
As somebody who supported Obama in bombing Libya you should be covering your head in shame in some dark corner, not blathering here about men many times better than yourself.
He’s commenting on the decadent lifestyles of the West and their apathy and disdain for people with less consumerist lifestyles (though that disdain is very well likely to be purely coincidental with foreign policy for other reasons).
This one? “Raimondo’s the one that suggests you’re an idiot condescending asshole for not understanding the religious folk.”
No, it doesn’t. I know he’s not talking about me. I don’t have to “like” thier religious values to “respect” or “understand” them. Frankly, I respect anyone who actually sticks to thier religious values whatever they may be (I might still consider them a lunatic, but one doesn’t preclude the other). He is talking about the people who take offense to what he is saying… He is talking to the ones that don’t notice the rampant consumerism and materialism that pervades everything in the U.S. and don’t see how their life embodies it and their government flaunts it.
I hope this was not directed at me. I don’t support anything that our military does. I merely think the maneuverings are intersting considering what the “voting public” is told about the issues…
Ohmigod you people have absolutely no reading comprehension, whatsoever!
I don’t know about Raimondo’s religious identity but I can tell you for certain he’s no religious fundamentalist. I know the difference, I was raised Christian fundamentalist, having only found my way out of it four years ago or so.
But we are. And our lack of religious context has played an integral role in this. What you don’t understand is that the cultural context of religion provides a memetic defense against outlandish and injurious moral and social ideas, it can even defend against malformed metaphysics and philosophy.
Religious fundamentalist leaders understand this, even within the US. Fundamentalist religions act as “memetic enclaves” within the wider culture and they shelter their adherents from much of the erosive effects of unfiltered American culture. Of course, to a one they engage in all kinds of manipulative bullshit of their own. Pick your poison, I guess.
I think the list of exceptions would be much shorter.
Atheist and secularist are not synonymous. There are a lot of religious secularists. They have their private religion and they insist that you keep yours private, too. Meanwhile, their religious leaders are busy infiltrating the “secular” power structure. Yes, I’m looking at you, Vatican.
Actually, he’s merely returning the acidic sarcasm of the Reason/Skeptic crowd… giving them a dose of their own medicine. The modern secularists are not merely critics of bad and false religious teachings, in the tradition of the Higher Criticism or the liberal philosophers. They are cultural sanitizers, fanatics.
You’re entirely missing his point. I’ll translate it for you to see if you can get the point: “A society in which immodest public dressing is prohibited is incomprehensible to the pornographers of Southern California.” To those who hold nothing sacred, the offense of Muslims at gratuitous, salacious caricatures of the things they hold sacred is baffling. That’s his point. It’s not advocacy of Islam or even religion, per se. It’s just a criticism of the moral nihilism of the American establishment and its soulless inability to comprehend the idea of holding something sacred, even something so obviously sacred as human life or our natural environment.
I doubt Raimondo has a problem with gays living together and even wearing a ring and calling it marriage or even religious organizations such as the Anglicans or ELCA blessing gay marriages. What I suspect he has a problem with (because I also have a problem with it) is the idea of conflating marriage with the state-licensed monstrosity whose only reason for existence is its tax advantages and then gay couples wanting to get in on the tax-break action. What an obscenity.
Wow, I don’t think there’s anything I can say that will fix this train-wreck of miscomprehension.
He’s making no connection between belief in gods (or God) and morality. Rather, he’s pointing out that at least the Roman imperialists - soulless, blood-sucking tyrants that they were - had the good sense to respect the sacred things of their subjects. If nothing else, do it out of a sense of self-interest. But DC is so completely self-absorbed into its alternate reality and disconnected from the real world in which its colonial subjects live that it can’t even bring itself to act in its own self-interest. Even the Romans - debauched as they were - could manage that.
I feel like I’m holding a third-grader’s hand, here… I find it difficult to believe you are genuinely misunderstanding this, the meaning is quite plain.
American culture has devolved to a crass and embarrassingingly shallow materialism. Raimondo is dead on, here.
You’re absolutely clueless. This movie was most likely a CIA/Mossad/MI6 stunt. Raimondo’s a journalist, so he’s constrained from speculating. I’m not. But he sees through the ruse and he’s pointing out that either this was a cynical manipulation of Muslims on the part of the vampiric war-mongers or the DC establishment is completely out-of-touch with reality in its insular, little secular enclave, sanitized of all expression of genuine, religious sentiment. Or both. Both, in my book.
Good God, man. Religious statism?? Are you serious?