One of the articles I read a while back on fostering debate and elections at the local level in Iraq mentioned it was difficult to convince them that they could disagree with one another without using fists.

But when the light finally went on in their heads, they embraced debate with enthusiasm.

Got it on the third go round.

Fingers crossed that you’re right.

But man! do they love violence (at least a sizeable fraction of ‘em).

What I really meant to say (and it may have worked if I’d left it all notted up) was:

If Iraqis (and others) are allowed, and encouraged, to slug this out for themselves there is a chance it will take root and flourish.

I think I finally have that the way I intended.

If Iraqis (and others) are allowed, and encouraged, to slug this out for themselves there is not much chance it will take root and flourish.

Democracy has taken a long time to take hold and build. Even here we needed a decade and 3 or 4 presidents to arrive at the structure we want and that has evolved since then.

I would like to disagree that it can’t take hold in Iraq or any of the ME because it just won’t work for that culture and mindset. The best I can muster, however, is hope that it is otherwise rather than disagreement. The biggest contributing factor to my sense of hope is modern information flow. One of the things that kept democratic reform on such a slow fuse in the past (England’s transformation, after all, began in the 16th or 17th century or even much earlier depending on which part). It took forever for ideas to get distributed widely enough to gain traction and overcome autocratic ideas.

I’m hoping this can distribution of ideas can happen much more rapidly in the 21st century, even in Iraq and the ME. The first step is to permit distribution of ideas and counter-ideas regarding rights and forms of government and the relationship of religion (and tribes, I suppose) to government. If Iraqis (and others) are not allowed, and encouraged, to slug this out for themselves there is not much chance it will take root and flourish.

There is always great tension in thriving democracies until they head down the socialist highway where “unity of purpose” is valued over tensions. I think we make too much of the “devisiveness” here in the US. It is not the fact that we strongly disagree that is harming us, its the inability and/or unwillingness to disagree in a civil manner that is bringing us to grief. It is possible that this is a trend caused by an ideology (leftism) that has gotten badly wounded and is behaving like a wounded animal. Idunno.

Give the Iraqis and chance while keep muddling through (slapping the moonbats upside the head as we go).

I just don’t see it happening in Iraq, or anywhere else in that part of the world, soon.

“I would be more amused by the Howard Stern debacle if he wasn’t busily using the public airways to attempt to destroy Bush, whom he imagines did this too him (the fact that a Democrat commissioner appointed by Clinton started the action seems to be ignored. It’s Bush. Obviously. Somehow.) He’s convinced three of my friends that Bush did a great big bad thing somehow with this (and one of the friends was the host of the syndicated talk show I cohosted on).”

Valid points. Those who want to find some reason to be against Bush will find them. With everything going on in the country and world, I really don’t see how people expect, or suspect, that the president is worrying much one way or the other about dopey old Howard Stern. That’s one of those issues that gets delegated. Here, FCC, do your job, willya.

I had a former friend who became a berserko Bush Hater. Just foaming and unfathomable. Nothing happened in the entire world that wasn’t directly the fault of George W. Bush. NK got nukes – Bush did it. China dumping cheap lumber – Bush did it. Iranian mullahs rattling sabers – Bush’s fault. Some grocery store in Maine had to close – Bush’s fault. No kidding (every one of those are real examples from this one person, and I have more) – the wildfires in CA and CO last year, to his way of thinking, were Bush’s fault (I think that’s the point where I told him was a flaming lunatic and needed professional help). I just can’t relate to, or tolerate, that level of foaming insantity so, well, we’re no longer friends. Its a shame it sometimes has to come to that, but so be it.

I’m not quite sure where to go with this, but you strike me as a lot of fun I suspect we might need to settle on a common dictionary for some definitions.

“Knuckle, It’s neither possible nor a good idea ?”

I’m not sure it would be legally possible even if it were a good idea. I’m also not convinced it is a good idea primarily because I susbcribe to the “classical liberal” or “Jeffersonian” notions that:

“In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance.” –Thomas Jefferson to David Harding, 1824. ME 16:30

“I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.” –Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:278

Which, to a knucklehead, says “When in doubt, allow rather than ban.”

“What’s not a good idea about it. It serves no useful purpose except terrorist propaganda.”

I don’t know that I agree with that. I’ve heard plenty of “What a bunch of freakin’ savages!” type comments in response to these sorts of news items and pictues. I’d guess that it hardens the determination to defeat them for as many people as it makes somehow sympathetic to their cause.

“Surely beheadings have to be as out of taste as fornication and sodomy.”

Here’s where one of us is on some thin ice. It could just be me, but I find “fornication” a whole lot more “tasteful” than beheadings (not that I’ve ever attended a beheading or, for that matter, a fornication ;>) As for sodomy, I sure as hell don’t want any part of it, but I’ve heard tell that some people are right fond of it. Surely it can’t be as bad as beheading.

“We should be protected from anything this far over the top.”

I’ll have to go back to my original position. I’m not convinced the “public” needs “protecting” from this sort of “information”. Its over the top, no disagreement there, but I don’t see that the MSM or Uncle should just decide it can’t be aired.

“In fact, how often have you seen bodies falling to the sidewalk outside the burning Twin Trade Towers?”

Well, the towers were very close to home for me. I’ve seen the pictures and spoken with people who saw the actual bodies slamming into the sidewalk. The sound of it was apparently even more disturbing than the sight of it. I don’t need pictures to remind me of that day or that attack – it was close to home, it deeply effected people I know very closely. Wives, husbands, and children of people I was with that day were in the building or in transit to the building and it was many hours before their loved ones knew they were alive. I won’t forget, ever.

I watched the smoke drift down along the horizon. My wife and oldest daughter were placed “on call” to help deal with the thousands of injured that were expected (every local hospital was placed on “alert” to accept casualties) and anyone with emergency training and any affiliation with hospitals was requested to be ready to assist. The casualities never materialised because people either made it or didn’t.

I suspect some people would be well advised to track down those pictures and have a good look at them. It was an act of war, nothing else. Sorry to go on like that, but that’s how I feel about it. People shouldn’t be “protecting” from seeing what those animals did to their fellow citizens. But it wasn’t just the dead and the buildings. It was MUCH more profound than that – at least to me.

“We are being ‘protected’ from that view, and against our wishes, I might add. Also, we could inforce any such rule on practically any media outlet with a little persuading. Would you have an objection?”

Just the objections I’ve already outlined. I don’t think its legally possible (but I’m no lawyer nor do I play one on TV) and I don’t believe its the right thing for governnment to do.

The media themselves, however, are clearly engaged in “censorship” to suit their own purposes. I don’t know that the real reasons behind it are, I just speculate that they seem to believe we need to be “protected” from any images that might get us riled up and put us in our natural maddog bigots and murderers state, but that we need to see images of what we all have coming if we don’t stop harming the poor and oppressed exotics.

I would be more amused by the Howard Stern debacle if he wasn’t busily using the public airways to attempt to destroy Bush, whom he imagines did this too him (the fact that a Democrat commissioner appointed by Clinton started the action seems to be ignored. It’s Bush. Obviously. Somehow.) He’s convinced three of my friends that Bush did a great big bad thing somehow with this (and one of the friends was the host of the syndicated talk show I cohosted on).

I don’t get it. I don’t understand how the FCC let things get so out of hand for so long. When I worked as a broadcast engineer, our standards were such that Howard Stern would have been on a tape delay and half of it would have been bleeped. I’ve turned off the transmitter on a 100kW station before when the DJ left his mic on accidently while saying the wrong things.

It’s not like I can’t stand the language – I was in the Navy, where obscene and profane language is an art form (I’m convinced there is a secret test of that required to make the grade of Chief Petty Officer).

But as a former broadcaster and broadcast engineer (I still have the license to be the chief engineer of any radio or TV station in the nation), I don’t know how Howard Stern ever got anywhere. I don’t know how the engineers allowed it – in the old days it was their licenses at stake.

I heard that Howard filed a SLAP lawsuit against the guy while filed all the complaints. A real man of the people, that Howard. For those not familiiar, a SLAP lawsuit is one where someone with a lot of money harasses someone with little money.

It is possible for anyone to contest license renewal of radio stations, and to examine all of their records during some period (90 days?) before the renewal. Since without the licensee, a station owner has nothing but a pile of equipment (some of it programmed by me), challenging a license is a very powerful thing to do.

As to the beheadings… I think they should show them. If we are going to deal with violent people, we need to see what they really do. In the same way, I think we should have shown the video of the WTC jumpers hitting the ground.

As for sickos watching it – they’ll find it on the net anyway. But I think we could have a more serious discussion of this war that half of us know about if we show the actions of the enemy. We showed plenty of gore in World War II (see Victor at Sea). I think a lot of people who are viewing this war too abstractly might get a more accurate feeling about the reality of it if they saw the real action.

The Israelis, in frustration at the way the world ignored their suffering under suicide bomber attack, published raw video from a bus bombing. It is horrible – which is the whole point.

I wouldn’t WANT French troops anywhere near our operations because the only way they would be there is through bribery (I’m sure Kerry has some carrots he thinks will work) and bribed friends are no friends at all.