I ran into an older, retired Israeli colleague who is a fine scholar in his field. We hadn’t met for 25 years and agreed to have coffee in a nearby Tel Aviv cafe. In the ensuing conversation I learned some key things about why current intellectual and political discussion is such a wreck.
The retired professor has read nothing I’ve written. He is on the left-wing politically, in the historic non-Communist sense, but his work has always been first-rate and untouched by any political slant. In addition, he has worked amicably with people of different views.
And that’s why I was dismayed by his first question: “Are you left-wing or right-wing?”
I sighed, partly because I hate this starting point of dividing people into two categories. A more appropriate question would have been: “what do you think of … ?” To classify someone is to decide in advance to agree or disagree with whatever they say. To ask someone their view makes it possible to listen and think about the quality of their ideas.
A scholar or analyst, whatever his personal views, should do work that is beyond politics.
Many years ago I wrote a scholarly article on American radical professors of the 1930s and 1940s. I was almost unable to find a single case in which anyone had even been accused of politicizing their academic work or classroom teaching. They viewed such behavior as inappropriate, and perhaps some were worried about how being outspoken might hurt their careers. At any rate, even during the McCarthy era people were pursued for their organizational memberships and not their classroom behavior.
Today, all those old issues of professional ethics have vanished. Professors may spend most of their time being propagandists: throw away scholarly standards and energetically persecute dissenters.
Back to my cafe meeting: if one puts people into a box, all that follows will either be banal agreement or total argument. If this encounter had been in an American context, the next hour or so might have been spent on endless consensus on how great or terrible Obama is. Alternatively, the discussion would have been characterized by a heated argument in which each person would not concede that the other had a single valid point to make. Either way, nobody probably would have learned anything new or need to exercise their brain.
So I gave my standard response:
The international issues I deal with have no “left” or “right” wing aspect to them. The important question is how one analyzes situations, issues, and events. They should be approached as objectively as possible with an honest attempt to be accurate, to produce evidence proving one’s assertions, and to follow where the facts lead.
Perhaps because he is a pre-politically correct person on the left, he completely understood my response and he correctly added an additional point: “And not to conceal things that don’t coincide with your thesis.”
A generation ago, this is how people thought.
You could hold totally different political views, but how you wrote history or taught about works of literature was something else entirely. Not everything people said was predictable, because they actually thought about things rather than merely apply a preexisting political standpoint. Academics across the political spectrum respected what some call the “scientific method” — I prefer “Enlightenment values.”
I continued:
Figuring out whether or not, say, the Muslim Brotherhood is a radical organization is not a matter of political viewpoint. One’s politics should be expressed by what one wants to achieve, not in one’s analysis of the situation.
Although I didn’t say so, an example I had in mind was this: I would like to see a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That puts me left-of-center in Israel. But my good-faith assessment of the Palestinian political scene (leadership, ideology, groups, public opinion, options) and of the regional situation is that overwhelming evidence claims this is impossible to achieve at this time. The evidence — and there is hardly any actual evidence — offered by those who argue otherwise is not persuasive.
Consequently, I draw policy conclusions from that analysis. No two-state solution is possible at this time. I then go on — I won’t go into this right now — to develop my view of the best policy response to the situation.
Instead, I asked him how he saw this methodological problem in which one’s politics determined whether the Brotherhood was radical or moderate. Here’s approximately what he said:
People on the right slant the facts to fit their political views while people on the left don’t.
After I questioned this, he altered his statement to “most people” in either case. I then asked for examples. He gave two and I will take them one at a time.
He continued:
Rightists say that [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is so extreme that you cannot talk to him. He is eager for war to wipe out Israel. You can’t talk to him so therefore war with Iran is necessary.
That’s a fascinating mixture of points from which I think we can learn a lot. Let’s dissect.
The opening point — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is so extreme that you cannot talk to him — is clearly correct, not wrong at all. What is needed, though, is to separate analysis from policy proposals and always to look for alternatives.
I think these are the two points that people don’t understand, and they are destroying any productive discussion of intellectual or political issues at present. So let me repeat them:
- Analysis should be separate from policy. If people conflate the idea that the Iranian regime is extremely radical, intransigent, and dangerous and thus no deal can be made — the perception of reality — with what should be done about it, people will reject the correct analysis because they don’t agree with the proposed response. Example: We must lie about Palestinian politics or we will damage the cause of peace; we must lie about revolutionary Islamism or we will provoke a war. Of course, lying is most likely to hurt peace or to lead to creating a crisis that will end in war.
- When moving from analysis to policy, one should think creatively and not just give a knee-jerk response. There are many alternatives to going to war with Iran. But an accurate assessment of the threat’s existence must be the starting point. Examine each issue and the needed policy response on an individual basis rather than impose an ideological template on it.
To prove how the above two points apply, let me go to his second example, which precisely paralleled the one on Iran:
The right-wing says that the Muslim Brotherhood is radical. Egypt is an enemy. Hence, the only response is a major military buildup.
Here we see the same two points. The Muslim Brotherhood is indeed radical. But that doesn’t make Egypt an enemy, at least certainly not right now. Equally, it does not foreclose other policy responses and a more sophisticated third alternative between pretending all is fine (even worse, supporting the Brotherhood!) and going to war next week.
Just got your book Israel An Introduction. Very succinct. Terrific for the uninitiated. Good read to combat the lies told on college campuses worldwide.
This is an outstanding article. I appreciate it.
“People on the right slant the facts to fit their political views while people on the left don’t.”
Right. This is the mind of a bigot. I should know, I am one — and proud of it. I have absolutely no tolerance and nothing but contempt for the self-destructive policies and views of the Left. And — sorry, Mr. Rubin, I love your columns, but — I’m not convinced that people can remain unbiased when it comes to politics or religion. These are belief systems — brain structures. They’re very tangible. And to rewire things takes a lot of time and effort, something humans are not fond of. And when these beliefs are challenged: Grrrrrr!
But, hey, that’s me — the bigot.
Maybe you can’t, but you should try.
This article is saying that you’d be better off basing conclusions and opinions on facts.
When facts are being ignored, or distorted (as in the Muslims Brotherhood case), then your conclusions and opinions have little meaning and merit. Both for your self and everyone around you.
Don’t throw in the towel yet, RobertMN. Through imaginative literature we can see and perhaps in time discard the authoritarianism of our parents and other role models. Or perhaps not. I mulled it over here, as I speculated about Mark Twain’s own ambiguous rebellions here: http://clarespark.com/2012/01/21/huck-finn-and-the-well-whipped-child/.
It may be that no amount of therapy will yield a healthy person who is not afraid to seek the truth and act accordingly. I honestly do not know the answer.
I’m almost where you are. I sat across the table from old fashioned trade unionists, many of them communists, and then I sat across the table with the post-modernist leftist/communist that has come to dominate the Left today. The old communist I could do battle with all day and then have dinner and solve the World’s problems using shots of vodka as punctuation marks for half the night. He’d lie to you, but he knew you knew he was lying, so you could trust him and if he gave you his word, you could trust him; if you just thought he’d given you his word, you were about to get f**ked, but that was your fault.
The new ones, the young always college educated and usually highly trained ones are another matter altogether; they’re as close to truly evil as you can get even if you’re a secular sort of guy who doesn’t really believe in evil. You cannot do business with these people. You cannot trust these people. You cannot make a bargain with these people. They are going to destroy us, or we them; it is that simple. People need to awake to this.
I have to agree with you about the state of today’s academic left. Even those who think they have no ideology at American universities have been infected by their poisonous discourse and have accepted the tenets of their kneejerk diatribes. I remember when–in late 2008, in a conversation about the the housing bust and the sudden economic turmoil–I referenced the infamous New York Times article from 2003 about the Bush administration’s attempts to reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and he looked at me like I had said something truly terrible in daring to present a fact which reflected positively on Bush and poorly on the Democrats.
Resorting to facts doesn’t work with the postmodern left, because to acknowledge the existence of facts means to acknowledge the existence of knowledge outside of ideology–and that violates one of the central premises of their worldview.
You nailed it, Barry. Excellent article!
You made some good points here. Don’t forget about them! This is an important message to pj readers who will reject anything they perceive as liberal and resort to name calling. I can’t think of a more appropriate audience than your readers, Barry!
We are carpet-bombed with what I call expedited reasoning, or more precisely the pretense thereof. In this climate it is good to slow down enough to take the time to think, one logical step at a time. This is precisely where Barry Rubin and his PJ Media colleagues are so helpful. If we cannot extricate our thinking from the reflexive quick fire of the entrenched news establishment, we condemn ourselves to subservience, panic and confusion, all of which are unworthy of the American tradition.
The logic is impeccable, Barry.
However, your friend seems to be someone we might call a “classic liberal” or what I once wrote about in a response to a Roger Kimball article, the difference between a “liberal” and a “leftist”. (today, what I refer to in a broad sense…small c communist)
The leftist or small c communist will not play by your rules, Barry. They have no interest in your groundrules…or any rules. They lie, because “by any means necessary” is not merely a slogan. It’s a way of life.
One may spit on the Constitution, appoint “czars and czarinas” to circumvent representative governance, pass massive legislation in reconciliation in the dead of night, declare war without advice and consent, shut down energy resources to the detriment and harm of people, have the NLRB assault the free market by attacking a private company, make recess appointments when there is no recess, run guns to drug cartels to make a political theater against the second amendment, lie to Congress about the gun running, have racist policies in the DOJ, saying that the laws are only for one race…and do all this in the name of being “prorgressive”…as the final insult in the masquerade.
Those ARE the realities, Barry.
Divorcing them, however, from the political leftism that drives them is to deny the very raison d’etre for their existence.
Revolutionaries actions cannot be separated from their politics. Acts of treason, traitorism, sedition cannot be separated from their politics. They are fused together…the act and the politics behind them.
In those instances, I’m not sure if the general rules still apply. They may…but, it takes something extraordinary to adhere to them, I would think.
Yes, and those who insist on attempting to do so will one day wake up in a pool of their own blood.
If they wake up at all.
‘And that’s why I was dismayed by his first question: “Are you left-wing or right-wing?”’
Wouldn’t bother me any. I’m extreme right wing (in favor of individual freedom, opposed to totalitarian government), and I don’t mind saying so.
Heck, I’m so right wing, I’d be an anarchist, if I thought anarchy (absence of government) was a viable option.
I don’t see any reason to hide my feelings.
The problem is that people don’t have the same definitions of the terms. When you say you are right-wing, a leftist might not have any idea that you are talking about being in favor of individual freedom. Today’s leftists think that all totalitarians are right-wing. Today many people use “fascist” as a synonym for “right-wing” and have no idea that the Nazi party was left-wing, or that they were called National Socialists.
When you say “I’m right-wing,” today’s post-modern leftist forms an image along the lines of “favors big business over workers, racist, mean, selfish, anti-abortion, anti-woman, violent gun-lover, backwards Bible Belt fundamentalist, unfairly blames poor people for their lot in life, doesn’t believe in a social safety net, warmonger who wants to waste money on more missiles and only cares about rich people.”
I recently tried and failed to have a conversation with a leftist I know–not unlike Mr. Rubin’s story, someone I knew in the past and recently caught up with after 25 years. I was shocked at how difficult it was to have even a basic conversation about principles. Every time I said one tiny little thing–beginning with something similar to your thing above, that I am in favor of individual liberty as opposed to state control–my interloquitor would add in seventeen more things he just “knows” every right-winger believes and immediately mix them together with the thing I said. It became impossible.
Mr. Rubin’s point is that if you can avert the stereotype long enough to get into a real conversation, you might be able to get somewhere.
He has not said you ought to hide your views or your feelings.
Barry I tend to agree with you article except for a few issues here and there such as this quote: “The opening point — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is so extreme that you cannot talk to him — is clearly correct, not wrong at all”
If one understands Iran he is not the most powerful person there and that would be like saying Joe Biden is crazy and it’s a waste to talk to him. Of course it would be a waste as he is not the power in the US.
Like I said small nit.
Barry I tend to agree with your article except for a few issues here and there such as this quote: “The opening point — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is so extreme that you cannot talk to him — is clearly correct, not wrong at all”
If one understands Iran he is not the most powerful person there and that would be like saying Joe Biden is crazy and it’s a waste to talk to him. Of course it would be a waste as he is not the power in the US.
Like I said small nit.
Ah Barry, my deepest sympathies. I have written several history books and often get this question. My standard response is: I am conservative on crime and government spending, moderate on defense and foreign policy and liberal on human rights and the environment. I share your views on the Muslim Brotherhood, and have written about it since the 1980′s, particularly denouncing its early relationship with the propaganda and intelligence services of Nazi Germany. I most emphatically agree that there are neutral standards of ethics and evidence which must be applied whether I am in court or the classroom. Left, right, center are irrelevant to objectivity. The standards have slipped, haven’t they?
Mr. Loftus.
It is great to hear from you. I have read several of your excellent books, and I am very glad that you are still around.
Why not just say you’re a pragmatic rationalist vulnerable to observation and common sense and leave it at that?
How fortuitous to run into a living, breathing straw man.
I always answer the question…
I am a Classically Liberal Christian European Conservative.
Good article. Seems ever since Kant just what the facts are have been problematic though. Drunks never seem to know they’re drunk and fish don’t seem to know they’re wet, and apparently we still can’t deduce from those facts that its better to be sober or dry.
When confronted with data that conflicts with pre-existing beleifs, most people will find some way of denying that data over changing the beleif. The more closely held, the stronger the beleif, the more will be done to disregard the data.
It can be the nature of dictatorships, the dangers of nuclear power, or beleif in the supernature.
It’s one of the reasons I always say ‘Federalist.’ I took a bunch of political quizzes and found I am a ‘staunch conservative,’ a ‘social liberal/fiscal conservative,’ an ‘extreme libertarian,’ a ‘moderate libertarian,’ and a ‘moderate conservative.’
So which is it? None of the above. I believe what I believe and it’s quite consistent with how I perceive the world and in all cases I believe I’m factually correct; my belief is based on reality so far as I can understand it, and has nothing to do with a team that demands I believe a certain way. The simple fact is I believe in freedom, which requires self-government. I don’t smoke, never tried a single puff; don’t believe it should be illegal. I’ll govern my own health thank you. If I want a toilet that flushes 3.5 gallons instead of 2.6, then I’m willing to pay the extra cost of the water. There shouldn’t be a law.
Sometimes that puts me on strange teams, sometimes I’m right in the mainstream. And you know what? Everyone else does the same thing, just with diffrent perspectives and priorities. Nobody agrees fully with any political party or description. However you can certainly make generalization based on particular opinions people express. If one claims not to believe in honor or integrity, then it is foolish to trust that person, even if you’re on his team. If one claims to believe in honor and integrity but then lies his tail off–guess what? Fool to trust him, even if he’s the leader of your team.
We really need federalism–extreme diffusion of power. Even communism works if you keep it small-scale. There’s a perfect example of how to do it in “The Village.” Then all the whiny types who weep into their champagne for the poor and downtrodden can live in a pretty little commune and quit bugging the rest of us.
#16, I like your attitude
I think Mr. Rubin is correct. i lived for almost 40 years in a neighborhood where I knew only one family’s political leaning….when the husband ran for a county office. I changed my affiliation so I could vote for him in the primary. I also knew no one’s political views at my workplace.
In recent years there seems to have been a shift in attitude toward political views and people are labeled with them. Those on the far right or left will not concede that there is another view and call those who think differently vile names. There seems to be little polite discussion about politics…..it’s just a free-for-all. Unfortunately the media has adopted that attitude and really undermines society. One can no longer just mute a political ad, politics are carried on throughout the programming.
THose not on the ‘far’ right or left of course NEVER call anyone names or label them, right?
I hope you can detect the sarcasm?
It’s important to distinguish that part of thinking which can be done as “objective” judgment, and that which is truly and unavoidably “political” or at least concerned with “subjectivity”, or the ongoing articulation of freedom and equality. To say that the questions Barry Rubin writes about are beyond left and right is not true in some respects. But dispassionate academic judgment is indeed possible when, like in a properly-ordered court of law, facts are carefully identified within (and without contesting) the received and accepted paradigms for understanding reality. And, perhaps one might hypothesize – though it’s not a sure thing – that in a culture that truly maximized freedom and equality through maximizing local self-rule and legal/academic judgment, what we think of as “political” left/right competion over control of a centralized authority would be sidelined.
But the postmodern left, while it takes things to inane extremes, is not, in the first place, wrong to question the modernist cult of objectivity that assumes human (not natural) reality is simply transparent to some supposedly “objective” referential language. It’s not. Human social reality is a historical and linguistic “construct”, from which “facts” about the human cannot be independently determined. No one can stand outside society and observe it “objectively”, or pass judgment that humankind “naturally” prefers one kind of socioeconomic order instead of one radically different.
The left goes crazy because its response to this revelation is to develop a left-Nietzchean belief in a will to power as the determining force of history. The left ignores the reality that reality is constructed through processes of exchange and mediated conflict that no single will, no conspiracy of knowledge and power, no determining socioeconomic strata, alone controls. Our shared human reality/rivalry achieves, at times, a socially-constructed transcendence in a way we can’t retrospectively explain in any formulaic way, as if historical causality were akin to laws of physics, but should respect as something in which everyone, to some degree, has had a stake and turn in stirring the pot (this respect for a collective achievement of transcedence that no one controls is the basis for dispassionate judgment according to the received paradigm or model of transcendence): the emergence of transcendence from immanence is a mysterious social process no one controls and its exact genesis cannot be pinpointed in retrospect: we can only talk about how it is paradigmatically represented (in religion, art, covenants, etc.) and what that paradigm reveals to us about heretofore untold possibilities in social organization and freedom. And, going forward, no amount of wishful or magical thinking will allow transcendent reality to become something our politcally-correct discourse alone can determine by force of collective will. One cannot ignore all kinds of other concerns and players – that’s what is conventionally meant as “reality”.
I think I agree with you, but would have liked it more had you not been vying for the Solway award.
Well, if you agree with me then you know that clarity, control, power, corruption are the end of the process, not the beginnings of anything where we might like to think we are trying to make a sign that will yet require others to sign off, transform, and tell us just what it is we are doing.
Or, in short, since the post-modern Left does not believe in the objective existence of facts, they feel free to make up (or conversely, deny) any facts they like as part of their will to power.
Thank you nadine. Clear and concise.
The root issue perhaps?
Does the world exist as an objective discoverable reality outside of our minds… OR… Does reality exist as a mental construct and we are each entitled to our preferred architecture?
When asked if I am Right or Left, I say that I voted for Jesse Ventura as Governor of Minnesota, and was very satisfied with him. He wasn’t that interested in spending money, and he wasn’t that interested in peering through bedroom windows.
The one thing I remember him most fondly for? The state had a budget surplus, and everybody was asking what we should do with it. “Send it back to the taxpayers,” he said. And so he did. He was smart enough to know that if you left a pile of money where legislators could get at it, it would be gone in a flash, and beyond.
That alone, I suspect, would lead most far-left to start cursing me for a rightist.
Truth? Whose version?
Not Eric Holder’s.
Assuming you believe that objective reality exist outside of the mind and is discoverable then we should chose the version that most closely approximates that reality.
The trouble is that most of today’s hardcore leftists would never grant the assumption that there can be any discussion of an objective reality which is not somehow situated in ideology.
Kurt,
I would consider ideology a perfectly fair starting point to discover truth. Of course all ideologies are not created equal and one may provide a basis of understanding better than another. If the quest is to “look out and discover” as opposed to “look in and construct” then i think progress is possible.
The analysis of politics in terms of “right” and “left” comes from the 19th century revolutionaries, including Karl Marx, who saw themselves as the heirs of the Jacobins in the French Revolution. The seating arrangements in the National Assembly of the French Revolution were in a semicircle. The Jacobins, led by Maximilien Robespierre, sat on the far left, while the monarchists and clericals sat on the far right. This led to describing politics in terms of the left going around to the far right.
It is a useless account. Plato’s account in The Republic and Aristotle’s account in the Politics are far more accurate; In the Republic, the account in Book 8 is in terms of the role of wisdom. The Ideal State is ruled by the Wise, but since only the gods are wise, the closest we can get is the rule of the lovers of wisdom (the philosophers) who know that they are ignorant. Then comes the rule of those who regard honor as the greatest good, the warriors like Napoleon, called in Greek the timocrats; then comes the rule of the lovers of gain, the oligarchs; then the lovers of liberty, unrestrained by love of wisdom, the democrats; then finally the lovers of power, the tyrants. (In The Laws, Plato gives a different account.)
Aristotle divides the different kinds of constitution into those under the the rule of law and those that are not; and then into how many rule, the many, the few, or the one. The Jacobins and their heirs, the Left, are under those who think they are wise – the Sophists – and who have infinite greed, so they are supporters of tyranny. Socialism, which treats the state as God to be omnipotent in running the economy, is tyranny, so beloved of the Left. (There are, of course, democratic socialists.)
Those of the Left who call their opponents “Right wing” are simply abdicating any semblance of reasoning.
those called “the Right” are not monarchists nor clericals. In the United States, such individuals are frequently those who value liberty (with wisdom), like John Locke.
Barry Rubin is right – those who want to categorize him as “left” or “right” are anti-rational. I disagree with him that the solution to the Arab Muslim enmity towards Israel is to have two states – the Arab Muslims already have many states. The so-called “Palestinians” were invented by Egypt under Gamal Nasser and the Soviet Union in 1964 in Cairo, where they invented the “Palestine Liberation Organization” (P.L.O.) with all the phony history and propaganda that followed. (“Palestine” had always meant the “land of the Jews” or “the Holy Land” (since Jesus was a Jew), from the time that the Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed Judea “Palestina” after defeating the last Jewish rebellion under Bar Kochba in 135 A.D., and “Palestinian” meant “Jew.” That is why Great Britain got the Palestine Mandate after World War I to be the “homeland of the Jews.”)
But my disagreement with Barry Rubin is not about whether he is “left” or “right.” It is about facts and reasoning about them.
Since your “facts” are wrong I would assume you to have a totally different view could I prove them wrong. Let’s not quibble, no amount of facts or logic will make you back off your view of Palestinians as “invented” so why even use facts and logic in the first place?
Saying the Palestinians were “invented” is like saying Palestinian Jews were invented from 1917 to 1947 because a larger military power prevented them from having a state. The Palestinian Arabs were prevented from making a country for 400 years by the Ottoman Empire – this does not make them “invented.”
It was war again that stopped the Palestinian Arabs from having a state in 1948 as they rolled the military dice and lost rather than settling for a state on half the territory. Losing a civil war doesn’t make them “invented” even if they were at fault for indulging in civil war. Having a bigger gun doesn’t confer legitimacy by law and reason but by force. Using an argument consisting of law and reason that is in fact the result of force makes no sense whatsoever; take away that winning force and suddenly law and reason and who is and who isn’t “invented” slides away.
What makes the Palestinians invented is that before 1967 nobody regarded them as a separate nation, including themselves. Even the borders of Palestine did not exist before the British finished drawing them in 1922. There was no Ottoman vilayet or sanjak called Palestine, and the Arabs of the region identified themselves by town or clan or tribe.
Just because Europeans had a name for the region does not mean it was a country. I can draw the borders of the Connecticut River Valley for you on a map; does that make it a country?
Didn’t say it was a country; said it couldn’t be one because it was prevented from existing, which is different. If the Palestinian Arabs had won the civil war, there would be a Palestine – that would then be “invented?” Would Zion be invented? Does having a country 3,000 years ago make that country eternally there no matter what? Isn’t that the same thought the Muslims have about Palestine being an eternal waqf? There is not reason or logic behind this “invented” claim but only a side chosen. That side’s reason and logic has boundaries as uncertain and shifting as a non-existent country. It is “invented” logic: logic invented to serve an agenda, which is to say, no logic at all. What logic moves the goalposts to serve whatever you say “logic” is at the time?
Using that logic, United States of America exists “only” because the French and the British, the Mexicans and the Native Americans lost the wars they fought with those who considered America their “homeland.” We didn’t all sit down and apply logic and reason and fairness to resolve our differences, therefore the US, like Israel, is not a “legitimate” country. I’m sure the descendants of Santa Ana and Sitting Bull would agree.
Put it this way: The Palestinians and their Arab supporters resorted to war in order to undo the Israel/Palestine situation. They set the rules. The rules were: “If we win, Israel ceases to exist; if we lose, Israel continues to exist.” They lost, so by their own rules Israel continues to exist. Certain Palestinians today, and their enablers, continue to play by these rules with rocket attacks and suicide bombings. They continue to lose and Israel continues to exist.
It could be argued that the Zionists started the wars. OK, but the same rules apply. Zionists win, Israel exists; Zionists lose, Israel is no more. Zionists won. Israel is still there. QED.
It might seem awful to you, but I think that anyone who turns to the gun to resolve a dispute MUST accept the verdict of the gun. The alternative is eternal warfare – which is much worse for “civilization” than acceding to an act of perceived injustice.
Anyway, the Palestinians WERE given a country. They rejected it to help neighboring arab countries attack Israel> Their rejection is not Israel’s fault.
The Palestinians are a people with a negative national purpose. The destruction of the Jewish state. Thus, they can be defined as the anti-Jewish people. Their existence is the result of a reaction to Israel, if Israel didnt exist, neither would the Palestinian people
Communists ( including those with a small “c”), fascists, leftists, extreme right/left wing, religious nuts, evangelicals, socialists, revolutionaries, etc, etc, etc….these are all labels for people that don’t agree with the person posting response or article.
It is far easier to label and dismiss someone than explain position, reasoning, logic, summary and conclusion.
For example Palestine can be traced back to the writings (the histories) of Herodotus in the 5th Century BC, where he writes of a province named Palaistine. Aristotle refers to Palestine in his Meterology, referring specifically to the Dead Sea in Palestine. Pliny the elder, Plutarch, and many others write of Palestine through successive centuries.
In Hebrew Peleshet is Palestine, referenced more than 200 times in the Old testament.
This is part of the History of the Middle East and cannot be changed to accommodate political views, these are historical accounts. Regardless of my views on solution to Israel / Palestine, i cannot ignore history.
The “peleshet” were the Greeks who fled after the Dorians invaded Greece. The Egyptians named them peleshet (sea people) and later as Philistines when they set up shop in Gaza.
The Arabs you refer to as Palestinians came after the Muslim conquests around the 7th Century after Christ.
Then why does DNA taken from Jews whose surnames suggest bloodlines going back to Kohanim (Cohens) and that now show more affiliation with particular Palestinian, Druze than Israeli Jews of certain (Sephardic or Ashkenasi???) lineages?
The usual English translation for Peleshet is Philistia. Herodotus was rather confused about the borders between Phoenicia, Syria, Arabia and Egypt; for instance, he doesn’t know about the Sinai Penninsula and puts Arabia next to the Nile.
If we want to be honest and accurate and rest on the strength of our argument then let’s stop circulating the myth that Gaza and Iran were “one-vote, one-time” in order to discredit what’s going on in Egypt and the Arab Spring in general. If one has a point to make rest on it instead of using scare tactics that separate “real” democracy from “fake” democracy; democracy is a process not a side you’re on.
Since when are naked power grabs such as armed coups and civil wars like Iran and Gaza an example of a vote and democracy gone awry?
If Egyptians agree by vote to have sharia as the source of their constitution rather than Judeo-Christian values and to dislike Israel it is still a democracy, just not one we agree with.
America does business with the Saudis everyday including allying themselves with those Saudis against Iraq and who has a worse plan for world domination or hates Israel worse than Saudi Wahabbis? The Muslim Brotherhood will not have the power those Saudis have since Saudi Arabia is a kingdom. America will deal with the MB and be forced to recognize the democratic vote which brought the MB into the halls of parliament. Unlike SA there are many other players and factors in Egypt besides the MB and will be dealt with as well.
“There are those who say that the U.S. government has a huge deficit that’s only growing. Entitlements are unsustainable. Tax increases won’t even begin to cover it. But I don’t want to admit that is true (especially because conservatives are saying it and I hate those people!). So I will instead insist that everything is fine, we don’t really have to make any major changes, and all we have to do is raise taxes on the rich.”
Ah, yes, here we see dishonesty exemplified in the caricature of those who do not agree with Mr. Rubin. Let’s unpack.
“There are those who say that the U.S. government has a huge deficit that’s only growing.”
“Those who say” are of course wrong: the deficit is stuck at about $1.3 trillion, not appreciably growing. (see http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/10/obamas-2011-deficit-same-as-2010-13-trillion/1)
Notice how Mr. Rubin doesn’t make the false claim himself, but slips it in under “Those who say..”
But let’s agree that we have large deficits, and that our national debt is growing. That is true. It was true under both Reagan and Bush, when deficits were not needed to make up for lack of demand, and it’s true under Obama, when deficits are temporarily needed to make up for lack of demand. Rubin fails to differentiate.
And notice the issue chosen: the deficit. Mr. Rubin prefers not to deal with the fact of unemployment, and the misery it brings to millions.
“Entitlements are unsustainable.” Typical obfuscation. Social Security is sustainable if the top cut off rate of payroll taxes is raised – the cut off should have been indexed to inflation. Medicare is going up because the cost of health care generally is rising too fast. It’s not an entitlement issue – it’s a cost of healthcare issue. As Mr. Rubin well knows, if our health care costs were comparable to other first world countries (who BTW have better health outcomes than does the US), then we could look forward to budget surpluses. But Mr. Rubin won’t tell you that – he has an agenda to pursue, despite his protestations to the contrary.
“Tax increases won’t even begin to cover it.” Tax increases will of course be a start on reducing the deficit, but getting back to unemployment: right now we should be increasing our debt while we can borrow at essential zero interest. (A very low rate that is comparable to the inflation rate.) We should be putting people back to work on the infrastructure and new technologies that will grow the economy in the future; a growing economy will produce the tax revenue to pay down what we borrow now. (Think of it like a business borrowing to invest in the equipment and manpower that will result in future profits, and the ability to pay back loans.)
Once we are back to full employment, the larger workforce will mean an increase in revenue to pay back the loans. Yes, tax rates will need to be increased as well. But if we can control healthcare costs (example of Canada, anyone?), taxes could increase less. (And let’s not have any piffle about higher tax rates reducing incentives: the Eisenhower tax rates didn’t slow the economy – we had healthy growth with a top marginal rate of 91%, while we made a huge public investment in the interstate highway system.)
“But I don’t want to admit that is true” Well -yes – it isn’t true – see above.
“(especially because conservatives are saying it…”
No – people say it isn’t true because it isn’t true. Rubin may want to pretend that it’s true (even though, as noted before, he’s careful not to actually say so himself), but the reason for saying it’s not true is referring to the facts.
“..and I hate those people!).”
Ah, projection here, I suspect. There’s no reason not to agree with conservatives when they say something that’s true. If only they would more often….
“So I will instead insist that everything is fine, ” No – 25 million unemployed or underemployed is not fine. Why impute beliefs to others that they do not in fact hold? Well, a simple answer is plain dishonesty.
“we don’t really have to make any major changes,” I’ve already suggested some changes.
“and all we have to do is raise taxes on the rich.” Not ALL we have to do, and Rubin knows that no-one believes that. Again – he’s being disingenuous in setting up his false argument.
So there you have it. A few words from the reality based community.
And now back to your regular programming…
“So there you have it. A few words from the reality based community.”
That part was really funny.
Thank you for the “reply from the reality based community”. It suggests there is hope. If your approach to dialog were the norm we could make serious progress.
Just taking up where you left off with your justification for extraordinary deficit spending (fills in for lack of demand). It suggests that you believe the economy was cruising along at a “proper” level until some perturbation caused a reduced demand. Government then borrows (or prints) until the economy returns to the “proper” level and then surpluses reduce the accumulated debt.
Is that a fair summary?
Excellent commentary. Best Ive read nearly 2 days I’ve spent at this site, either recoiling in stunned amaxement by so much blatant dishonesty regarding what left, liberals, Democrats and others actually do, say and believe. Or in close, trying to determine whether so many readers could truly be lacking the critical reasoning skills to detect them…or maybe just didnt care whether it was true or not just as long as the message conveyed things consistent with the general tone of most such sites that will say anything it took to kill the messenger of news exposing the hatred and fear at the foundation of right-wiug policies in search of something to justify the miltary they love but was created to fight a superpower conflict, and whose funding could be used now for many. many other things more important than appeasing AIPAC, Pentagon staffers, and so many whose careers have ceased to relevant in a post-cold war world.
So I wonder if sites like this are Jewish Agency efforts to disparage anyone daring to expose Isarel’s founding as probably the last manifestation of a period when European colonialists felt their own superiority was so obvious that if any of the “savages” whose land they appropriated appeared unhappy about it, they were prepared to do whatever it took to make sure they knew that in fiture they must always seek to please “Bouanah”.
Unfortuntely for Palestine’s Arab population, international prohibitions against these now barbaric kinds of territorial aggresions came too late to save them from the Hagganah terrorists. Einstein tried to wan us about M. Begin’s fascist beliefs and how he had repackaged himself as a Leumi or”Freedom Party” victim of fascism himself, though Einstien also this was posturing meant to fool world media.
I hope you remember some of this the next time you write about Ron Paul….
FANTASTIC article!!!!!!! Such a great refreshing analysis, a real eye opener.
The author wrote: “To ask someone [his] view makes it possible to listen and think about the quality of [his] ideas.”
I completely disagree IF the questioner is asking in good faith. It is a useful piece of information that helps to understand the answer the questioner receives. In addition, it helps him understand the underlying assumptions of the person answering.
As soon as someone labels you they negate you. I get it all the time oh he is a right winger. No facts will changed their minds.
Another pet peeve is the pro Israel label. How about the pro truth label.
The problem with all this is human nature.
Most people start out with a premise( some based on fact others on opinions) ex Bush is evil. Anything that adds to your premise you will weight heavily, anything that takes away from your premise will have less weight.
Personally it has taken over a decade to find writers that are honest and accurate, and not that I always agree with them, but I do trust their facts.
But there are so many stories in the Naked City. Does my true story trump your true story? Just consider what the “facts” are about the Iraq War, something which is much more finite in scope than many of the other issues to be considered. What are the facts about why we entered the war, what we accomplished, what we lost, and what would have happened had we not invaded? There are so many damned facts and unknowns that everyone picks and chooses the ones which they consider most relevant and probably which support their point-of-view.
We know that we have lost a lot of jobs to China and the world AND that we can buy a lot of amazing stuff at reasonable prices. How do we unpack what that means? Could we put up with things costing x% more to create y% more jobs? OK, we will let the market decide, but so many of the conditions of the market are variables over which we have or could have SOME control.
I love how impulsive many can be. Some people who would never buy foreign cars 20 years ago, now claim that they will never buy a car from Government Motors. All-righteee.
would like to see a two-state solution, but that it’s not possible now. Very true.
My question is, if not now, when?
Nobody can say exactly when in time, so a reasonable, conditional answer, set in an unknowable future time, might be: when the Palestinians really and truly decide to accept Israel’s existence and live in peace side by side with her.
And in the meantime, what? A provisional existence for Israel as a penned-in pariah nation until the Palestinians, and, let’s be realistic, all the genocidal maniacs in the region besides, decide to suffer a Zionist entity in their midst.
In other words, never. It’s a pipe dream, and I suggest you quit indulging in it. The best policy response is first of all to face this hard fact, and keep it in mind.
Barry, I agree with some above who say that it is impossible to separate out the two parts of a problem into, a) a situation (I.e. the truth), and b) a solution, so as to remove politics from an agreement on the truth, before seeking solutions that will involve personal politics. In the post-modern world students have been taught that there is no objective truth, and that what you think is the truth is no more valuable than anyone else’s (their) version of the truth. In the post-modern world view, all truths rely on politics and are not universal.
Your statement that Egypt is now politically dominated by (non-moderate) Islamists is seen by them (your opponents) to be worth less than their view of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and Salafists harbouring some residual anger against the USA due to its previous support of Mubarak and that their avowed support for Shari’a is as a result of repressed religion under Mubarak. Their view is that both the MB and Salafists are actually really moderate deep down inside, and I’m sure that three of their reasons for thinking so are the fact that they (MB etc): i) are not foaming at the mouth threatening the USA (right now), ii) they seem like rational people when they talk to them, and iii) are like everyone else: that deep down inside they are rational and reasonable beings like every culture is. As rational beings, when the Islamists say they want all Jews and homosexuals dead, it is treated as exaggeration instead of a truly held belief. As a result you never get to agree on what the truth is, as your opponents believe that the truth is both malleable and inherently dependent on your politics. As many of the people who disagree with you harbour anger against the Western World (and specifically the USA), the MB’s anger against the USA is, to some, further evidence of their rationality as aligns with your opponents’ own world view.
Without even agreement on what the problem is, it makes any solution so much harder, if not impossible. If there is no percieved problem, you will not get any support for any solution, regardless of how good it is.
Well put Bill.
Given that state of affairs where can we go next. The key phrase is “In the post-modern world students have been taught that there is no objective truth …”. As you have shown the net of that teaching is intellectual gridlock and reduction to decision making by power. Are they so wedded to their “truth” that they would actually embrace a barbaric approach or are they simply riding that which works for the moment?
when they say they want to kill you they want to kill you that’s all
As an intelligent, well-educated person with many diverse interests, many self-taught albeit to a level that sees others with formal degrees in same apparently willing to defer to my own understanding of some areas of it. They range from hard sciences (mycology, botany) to social sciences like my recent studies on cognitive “styles” leading to adoption of political beliefs that are typical of either right or left. And I imagine the reason you were asked about political perspectuve is that scientists have compiled several decades worth of data showing their is indeed very clear differences in how the sides process information they encounter in the environment that then virtually compels their adoption of conservatuve, right wing views that give a person the sense of order, regularity, and certainty they need to feel free of fears brought on by ambiguity, uncertainty and surprises. Those concerns for a non-con left-liberal eg. lack the relevence it had for most adopting conservative beliefs (RWA-SDO from here). Order and regularity for them will be more likely to impart a sense of restriction, not freedomn, or worries they may be “in a rut” due all that regularity.
RWA-SDOs tend to see the world as basically hostile but for a few “in-group” people they ae willing to trust. leftiusts otoh tend to see the world as a place where social cooperation, mutual support and protection could flourish but for the competiveness, distrust and exaggerated fears many RWAs have over non-traditional or unfamiloar customs, sexual practices, religious beliefs, etc.
However these same behaviors are seen by RWAs raised in foreign laws and traditions to also be threats morality, the religion or national security even. Unfortunately academia and government legislators remain unaware of this situation and its obvious potential to escalate into an inter-RWA cycle of saber-rattling then warfare. And all because a small percentage of the pop. (around 20% typically of any culture) finds threatening things that simply are not, but whose unfamiliarity creates a discomfort most try to justify as an ACTUAL threat that others (meaning leftist) fail or deliberately refuse to recognize as being. And the fact that RWAs also choose careers in policing, prisons or military far more than anyone else also means they are in a position to force conformity by media outlets, legislators etc. by claiming those who dont are unpatriotic, weak-minded, or flat out traitors in league with the group they claim as threats that in fact was often their own need to rationalize the fear they did feel due an over-stimulated amygdala (responsibke for fight or flight, mating competition) brain scans show as common among those espousing conservative beliefs, in contrast to others who initiate the anterior cingulate most people use to supress anti-social or irrational acts that would often follow if they didnt.
That region also depends on successfully transitioning away from the dependence and almost completely deferential relationship with parents/adults hardwired into children, but which loses importance as we socialize with others, a critical period of further brain growth and the development of cognitive complexity, empathy, and social maturity.
Those who don’t remain feeling a need for safety and security, threats outside the gate, and dependence on the wisdom and strength of people who display power and wealth. Those persons, needless to say, almost always adopt conservative views as adults. And in a classic catch-22, this reduced cognituve developemnt also makes it seemingly impossible for them to use the high level of objectivity, abstraction processing to do an honest review of the reasons they defend status quo systems that retain what they know now, no matter how obvious the need for social reforms may be. They are the “banality of evil” seen at Nuremberg at wars end. Study after study, result after result continues to add yet more evidence of their willingness to ignore reality if doing so threatens a belief important to them. Hence AGW is rejected because of what that means about their belief that capitalism can do no wrong if we would “just let the financial elite do what [power] it does best….feed and protect us from harm!”
Data confirming an extremely deferential attitude towards power and authority is replicated repeatedly for incredulous cons who insist deceit by liberal profs is responsible for it all. Of course thats the same rationalization they use for media stories painting their leaders in a bad light as well. Fear, paranoia, hoarding for security, “FIGHT” outsiders if less powerful than them (as in Germany on Jews, US on blacks, recently Mexicans), or “Flight” if capable of defending themselves.
The “Dominance/Submission Authoritarian Embrace” coined by Adorno and others social scientists engaged in trying to determine what (and who) led to so many “regular” Germans carrying out the Holocaust.
My programmer is trying to persuade me to move to .net from PHP. I have always disliked the idea because of the expenses. But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using Movable-type on a variety of websites for about a year and am worried about switching to another platform. I have heard fantastic things about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can transfer all my wordpress content into it? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Greets, Just so you know your WordPress widget section doesn’t quite load right in Opera on my iPad. Take care!
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