121 responses to “Nailed the Sumbich”

1. 

   Mike Thornton

   02 May 2011

   You know Paul, it’s kind of like the dialog between Captain Willard and Colonel Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now”, when Kurtz says to Willard: “Are my methods unsound?” and Willard replies: “I don’t see any method at all”

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2. 

   Paul Emery

   02 May 2011

   Todd
   I was just trying to refresh you of the recent history of our terrorism on the Native Americans. By the 1875 the native population had been reduced to 2.5% of its original numbers and 97.5% of the native land base had been expropriated. Hundreds upon hundreds of native tribes with unique languages, learning, customs, and cultures had been eliminated from the face of the earth, most often without even the pretense of justice or law. I bring this up because we have little to stand on when it comes to setting an example of “nice” behavior. The Moslems hardly have a unique place in history when it comes to brutality and slaughter. Look at European colonialism and of course Nazi Germany when you do an inventory of slaughter and brutality. My question is why you are so obsessed on the Muslim cultures? There’s plenty of blood and plunder to go around.

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3. 

   Mike Thornton

   02 May 2011

   Todd doesn’t care about “justice or law”.
   Might makes right as far as he’s concerned and so I guess that means if the barbarian Muslim hordes do in fact conquer Western Civilization, that would mean they are a superior culture and we would have gotten what was coming to us, right Todd?

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4. 

   George Rebane

   02 May 2011

   Paul, it is difficult to referree such comment streams, and I am embarrassed. But if you look carefully, they are not really calling each other those names, but nominating them as possibilities for such use. Nevertheless, your point stands, and I’m puzzling on how to moderate emotional discussions.
   Mr Keachie, I have no idea what the numerical answer is to your inquiry. And I understand that the FBI is similarly disadvantaged. In Great Britain the fraction radicalized is in the 0.5-1% range. The number of Muslims there is about 2.5 million which gives the radicalized cohort size in the 12.5K to 25K range that Scotland Yard is worried about. The Yard has quoted numbers in the 15K range which ties with the percents.
   But I am still puzzled as to how knowing such numbers relates to the present topic. And please understand, I’m going along with this line of development only to again illustrate the divergence of thinking patterns between conservatives and liberals.

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5. 

   George Rebane

   02 May 2011

   Paul, re Muslims having a “unique place in history …”. It is a historical fact that the white man’s settlement of America decimated its indigenous population. It appears that in your argument we now have the next example of what I illuminated in this post.
   http://rebaneruminations.typepad.com/rebanes_ruminations/2011/05/sunk-costs-dont-count.html
   Am I correct in this assumption?

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6. 

   Douglas Keachie

   02 May 2011

   15,000 310,000,000
   15 to 310,000
   1 to roughly 20,000
   We win.

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7. 

   John Galt

   02 May 2011

   For the next two years, we might have more to fear from the Commicrats and the Marxicrats. Once we solve that problem in 2012, we’ll be better equiped to deal with the terrorist hiding amoungst us.

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8. 

   John Galt

   02 May 2011

   Paul, I’m curious why you care so much about what’s posted on this blog. It’s not that I don’t agree that there’s a lot of adolescent bantering. But it seems to really bother you. Just curious.
   George, perhaps you should enable replies to replies on your blog like Russ’s blo does. That way those that want to get side tracked into the sand pit can do so and the rest of us can just skip over them and try to keep the dialog on topic. Just a thought.

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9. 

   Greg Goodknight

   03 May 2011

   George,
   Keachie, a former SF public school teacher who, for some reason, retired early with fewer retirement benefits than he had hoped for, who has used perhaps 20 different sock puppets on The Union blog, seems to be having blog withdrawal with the current The Union blog shutdown and has chosen yours to pick some fights.
   How many here would be happy to have Keachie teaching their kids or grandkids?
   Keach, George has been pretty consistent in only using the ethnic slurs in question for those individuals who really are terrorists. It’s immaterial how many are not. I’ve known a number of American blacks who drop the N-word to label despicable people who happen to be their own ethnicity, and I’m quite sure they are clear in their minds just who it refers to.
   George, your ‘nuanced’ use of the ethnic terms in question are not helping your cause.

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10. 

    Greg Goodknight

    03 May 2011

    Listening this morning to NPR, as I often do, I was heartened to hear the following, courtesy of the transcripts which are already on their website:

    “Hilal Khashan, a professor of political studies at the American University of Beirut, says it’s not a coincidence that Arabs have moved away from seeking justice through violent means. He says the anti-colonial Arab nationalism that was born in the 1950s and ’60s, and then adopted by Islamist extremists to justify killing those seen as invaders or oppressors, is giving way to new ideas.
    Arabs, he says, are finally realizing something they didn’t acknowledge before.
    “Their own problems are their own making,” Khashan says. “They no longer identify their problems with Western colonialism and imperialism. They have come to terms with the fact that the devil is living among them.”
    That, Khashan says, means a single act of protest in a Tunisian village that sparked a revolution in January might well be the new paradigm.
    “When the young Tunisian man set himself on fire, he was not on a jihadist mission — he was delivering a ruthless statement to his country’s ruler that, ‘I am fed up with you; if you continue to humiliate me, I will kill myself,’ ” Khashan says.
    Sadly, Khashan says, too many Arabs wasted their lives on suicide bombings against American and Israeli interests, when “all they needed to get going was a single man delivering a powerful statement.”

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11. 

    Todd Juvinall

    03 May 2011

    I have been paying attention to the colonies and their days of independence since I was a kid. These countries were there for thousands of years and when the Europeans took them they were changed forever, or so we thought. The truth is they were killing and murdering themselves throughout their existence. When they became “free”, they resumed the killing. The same with the America’s. Paul and Thornton have some pastel view of the continent from before the evil “white man” came here. If they ever read history they would know the tribes were constantly at war and in the countries south of our present borders the tribes committed genocide for hundreds of years.
    But don’t le the facts of the “natives” get in the way of the liberals self hatred. I get a chuckle when I hear a liberal talk about the reverence the Indians had for nature. Well, they ran buffalo off of cliffs and started forest fires all the time but don’t let those facts get in the way of Pollyanna. The Aztecs and Incas cut the living hearts out of captured peoples as a almost daily routine. The Maya’s and other tribes were in constant warfare with each other and were equally brutal. So, when faux historic outrage is exhibited by people that don’t know squat I just shake my head and chastise the education system that produces these ignoramuses.

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12. 

    George Rebane

    03 May 2011

    GregG – thanks for turning on the ‘reply’ suggestion; I have been remiss. And also you bring up the utility of my continuing to use ‘raghead’, the ethnic slur I so meticulously fashioned and continue to use with great deliberation. Its biggest benefit so far has been to cull the readership for all to see, and that was really its first motivation. I have never held hopes that the left will be deterred by my words from its march to totalitarianism. But your continuing thoughts are welcomed.
    Todd – you make an independent and important point on what the state of the Americas when the Europeans arrived. The aggregate statistics about life on these continents are horrid indeed and no longer taught by left-dominated schools. It is easier to foster class warfare to reduce such history to 1) before the Europeans, the indigenous people lived a noble, peaceful life in harmony with nature, then 2) the Europeans came and killed almost all such people in their selfish rush to plunder the land and ruin the earth. Ergo, everything from Europe is bad and we must turn to other cultures, present and past, to find means for our salvation.

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13. 

    Todd Juvinall

    03 May 2011

    I think the rise of conservative victories in Europe and now Canada is tied to the concerns of Muslim’s moving into them and creating their own little worlds. The natives are restless.

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14. 

    George Rebane

    03 May 2011

    Agreed Todd, and it’s not only the Muslim incursions. Much has changed over the last years with regard to illegal aliens and ‘Mexifornia’ as noted by Victor Davis Hanson.
    http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_1_mexifornia.html

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15. 

    Todd Juvinall

    03 May 2011

    I once did a paper many ears ago where I stated the issue of zoning was an irrelevant issue with illegals. This was back when all the lefty’s were trying to make Nevada County over into their image. I was right especially when you travel the valley.

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16. 

    Paul Emery

    03 May 2011

    I made no attempt to glorify the Native American cultures that we dominated so I don’t know why you’re going there. Are you saying that we freed the Native Americans? I’m sure paying a bounty for their scalps was a gesture of freedom American style. Our techniques of conquest and exploitation were in essence no different than any culture throughout history.
    George, thanks your explanation of why you continue to use the characterization “raghead.” I somehow was under the impression that you were interested in entering a different arena of public dialogue with your incisive and sometimes surprisingly effective scripts much like William Buckley, William Kristol or even Pat Buchanan before he became senile. I personally was and still am very affected by the writing and ideas of Ron Paul. Your persistence in using such language definitely means that you will not be taken seriously not even by Conservative intellectuals. I accept reluctantly that you only intend to speak to your small but dedicated congregation that you can chest thump with. Too bad.

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17. 

    George Rebane

    04 May 2011

    Paul, thanks for the good words and thoughtful criticism. I introduced ‘raghead’ here to convey a very specific meaning which I went to some pains to explain. I don’t think that I have ever used it gratuitously, but only to emphasize my own emotion/feelings about individuals who subscribe to wanton murder of innocents in the name of attempting to destroy everything I hold dear. I will think more about what you said.
    But I would like to hear more about your condemnation that “chest thumping” is what we are doing here. Self-adulation is not the intent, but I’m sure it must seem that way from a (different ideological) distance.

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18. 

    Paul Emery

    04 May 2011

    You stated as your motivation for using “raghead” to describe radical militant Islam that its biggest benefit would be to “cull the readership for all to see” which means to me to eliminate opposing views that would find that language offensive. That means to me that the remaining participants would likely be of a common persuasion therefore the “chest thumping” analogy. Those who offer thoughtful opposition to your ideas are actually taking the time to consider what you are saying and many of those are successfully culled by your process.

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19. 

    George Rebane

    04 May 2011

    Paul, thanks for the catch. ‘Cull’ was probably the wrong word for me to use. You know me well enough that I want very much to invite and welcome thoughtful opposition to the ideas that I, and others of similar persuasion, promote in these pages.
    What I meant would be more akin to ‘tag’ readers who could/would not understand my careful qualification and use of ‘raghead’. To me such intellectual hurdles are a fairly reliable indication of the individual either having other agendas to promote and/or not capable of the finer dissection of ideas. The utility here being that it gives a warning not to spend too much effort in responding to such individuals. I hope that this clarifies a difficult point.

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20. 

    Douglas Keachie

    09 May 2011

    You are traveling, so you need more time to answer the question above?

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21. 

    George Rebane

    09 May 2011

    DouglasK – Managing three very voluminous comment streams each with multiple threads is a bit overwhelming. Could you please cite again the date/time of the comment containing your question? Thanks.

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