We welcome and encourage honest debate here–heaven forbid I would call that “encouraging hatred”! Calling people “Bush-worshippers” is not honest debate, and that's the kind of thing I'm referring to.

I have never once, not once, seen or heard any conservative call a liberal “traitor” or “unamerican.” I have a lot of conservative friends and I often listen to conservative radio, and I have never heard this once. Maybe it's happened somewhere sometime, but it must be extremely rare if I've never heard or read it. On the other hand, I have personally heard more than one person call conservatives “Bush-worshippers” in the past couple of weeks alone. (See my post about this sort of thing here.

I believe the Arabs have some crazy ideas, but I do not know if your idea of a crazy Arab idea is the same as mine.

You can take a look at what I just posted here.

However, I will remind you that you yourself said that the Arabs have “false beliefs” and “ridiculous” and “disturbing” lies about the US, some of which are “downright silly”. In all fairness, you must admit that that is not exactly soft language!

You can let me know if you don't think it's deserving of that language. If you can't tell the difference between that and conservative positions, then we really have a problem.

The entirity of my argument has been subordinated to indignation over my two editorial comments.

My entire series of posts on conspiracy theories has been about this very subject–trying to convince people to not believe things like “the government brought down the WTC” because it makes one side fear and hate the other which leads to further things like the little girl putting “kill Bush” on her website (I believe I can safely say that represents hatred) which leads to lowered discourse and less of a chance of rational discussion. As I said in my above comment, I'm interested in ending that more than convincing anyone of my position. Naturally, since that has been the subject of my last several posts, that's what I'm going to comment on. This certainly wasn't all in response to you.

Hi Amy,

Am I correct in understanding you construe my comments as “encouraging hatred”? Interesting, and hard to believe. I know people who support the war, and I certainly do not hate them. While I may not agree with them, I understand that they must follow their own consciences. You had absolutely no basis for accusing me of encouraging hatred in myself towards others.

The idea that we must suppress honest debate in order to avoid “encouraging hatred” is a direct product of the political correctness movement and has the intention of censoring opinion.

“Hate” is a key word in the PC movement, because it is an emotion rather than an action, and therefore it is open to anyone's interpretation as to when it exists. The legislation and regulation of people's supposed emotions has no place in a free nation. It is strictly an ingenious device for suppressing particular ideas. It also strips people of the last vestige of privacy that they still have: the privacy and integrity of their emotions, and the sole right of the individual to define their emotional intent.

Regarding Iraq:
The reality is that experts and insiders with key advice to the Bush administration about the reality of a war with Iraq were widely dismissed. Some of them were accused of being “traitors” or “unamerican”. These things can be found in print.

I heard comments that people who did not support the war were supporting “terrorism”. I want you to understand that I consider that to be a personal threat against me. I opposed the war based on my personal convictions as a loyal American. If that makes me a supporter of “terror”, then what is next? Will I be put on a list, taken from my home in the middle of the night and flown to some unnamed location and interrogated as a traitor against America?

I will retract my statement that Americans treated Arabs as “idiots” by disregarding their advice, sensibilities and the realities of their political situation and overthrowing one of their sovereign nations. I will retract my comment that this was “arrogant”. However, I will remind you that you yourself said that the Arabs have “false beliefs” and “ridiculous” and “disturbing” lies about the US, some of which are “downright silly”. In all fairness, you must admit that that is not exactly soft language!

I believe the Arabs have some crazy ideas, but I do not know if your idea of a crazy Arab idea is the same as mine. Hopefully you will elaborate.

The entirity of my argument has been subordinated to indignation over my two editorial comments.

My opposition to the war is extraordinarily rational, and involves concerns about the best interests of the United States, the implications of starting pre-emptive wars, the realities of Middle Eastern culture and religion, the massive cost of war, the danger of regional instability and the staggering injuries and mortality that have resulted.

I may not be soft-spoken, but am I really irrational or uncivil?

2. What would be your moral compass on what dictators to go after? Would it be just those who pose as a direct threat to our national security? (which makes sense to me, but feels like it undermines moral authority AND it begs the question, what is a threat to our national security–pretty subjective question)

3. If in anything I have written (i did mention I would have used tamer words than Gordenhad) that hurt you, I apologize as I never intended for my methods to hurt you, though I would imagine in disagreement that may be the case. As you can imagine, there are certain topics that pique our blood. Internet allows for more room of uncivility…

What about Japan?

My logic is not that we need to remove every brutal dictator in the world; my logic is merely that it's not “arrogant” or “calling people idiots” to do so. If a brutal dictator threatens the security of our country, some steps need to be taken. Sometimes that means war, but not every time. Obviously we can't save the world.

As for specifics, I merely meant that I'm (usually) more interested in discussing larger ideas than the specifics about people in government, laws, etc.–unless those specifics illustrate a larger ideological idea…which maybe many of them do.

As for this conversation, I'm much less interested in convincing you and Gorhendad to embrace my ideas than I am in bringing a civility and rationality to the discussion by encouraging you and others to accord your fellow citizens the respect that assumes they have reasons for what they think that have nothing to do with being Bush-worshippers. Throwing that (and other names–e.g., “arrogant”) out there as the answer to political disagreements makes rational discourse impossible and encourages hatred (both in yourself and others) towards the people who disagree with you.

Here's some responses:

Just so I understand your position here, we need to be more understanding of, and not be so hard on, dictators who are forced to have governmental rape rooms, genocide, and human shredders because they have to control two or more opposing religious factions,

No. We do not need to be understanding of them. We need to understand the political realities of those states in which are currently held together through authoritarian dictators.

To depose a dictator who has been holding factions in check through the most extreme means imaginable? It is something to think very hard about. The key issue is whether the factions that will then vie for power will produce a kinder and more humane state than the original dictator.

Additionally, how many will suffer as civil war rages to decide who will rule? Upon what legal basis will the new state function? Sharia law is the legal basis for many laws in the Middle East. Will we “retrain” the Muslims in a Western legal system that is more suited to our tastes, but is foreign to their way of thinking? How?

If we want a democracy there, how will that work? If extremist Islamists are legally elected, will we let them institute Sharia law upon the whole nation? Will the Islamists in power be Sunni or Shiite? If the Sunni rule, how will Shiite Iran react to their brethen's lack of political standing? If the Islamists that rule are Shiite, how will Saudi Arabia react to their Sunni brethren living under Shiite religious rule? Who will protect those individuals who do not wish to live under laws based on the Koran? If the Kurds want to secede, will we allow that? Do we understand how allowing a Kurdish power base to grow in Iraq will affect our relationship with Turkey and Syria?

These are only a fraction of the questions that should have been answered before we deposed the reigning government of Iraq.

Now we have simply created a power vacuum and every radical in the Middle East has flocked in to Iraq to seize power.

but support of Israel (a democratic country that allows people of all religions and both genders to take part in the political process) is unacceptable? How do you reconcile your indulgence of the first and lack of understanding for the second? I'm not asking sarcastically.

I haven't really said anything about Israel yet. I'm waiting for you to open the topic for discussion!

To be fair to the people you disagree with, I come up with a different response when I ask myself who thinks the Arabs are idiots–those who think they can govern themselves without dictators with rape rooms keeping them under control by force, or those who think they are unable to do so?

I said that we, the Americans, treated Arab leaders and experts as if they didn't know what they were talking about when they said that factionalism and religious and ethnic discord would create civil war in Iraq. They know the realities of their region, we don't and we should have listened to them.

I am no more saying that Arabs are incapable of self-rule than I am saying that Yugoslavians were incapable of self-rule when communism fell there. Of course they are capable. However, there are certain pre-requisites for a Western style representative democracy. Self-rule requires a reasonably cohesive population that can agree upon the basics of law and government. Iraq does not have that kind of population. To the best of my knowledge, Iraq was created as a state to include warring factions in order to keep it weak and easy for outside influences to rule.

A democratic republic is a very fragile and difficult government to maintain. It takes hard work, and the right conditions. When Americans forget this fact, it will be doom for us.

India is just one example of a country with religious factions that hate each other that functions as a democracy. In your opinion, are they able to do this because they're not Arabs?

India has a fairly cohesive Hindu majority which seems to agree on basic elements of goverment. Democracy in India was preceded by the partitioning of Pakistan and the almost inconceivable migration of 14.5 million people in order to increase cultural and religious majorities in both states. It is probable that thousands or even millions of people died in this process.

Is this the example we want to follow for Iraq?

It may well turn out that the new government in Iraq fails to get on its feet and that the factions are too much. It may be that the people decide they would rather have a dictator than be free. It could very well be that they don't have the philosophical background to accept democracy.

This is not like losing a game of Monopoly. Thousands may die in the process of some new dictator or religious organization taking and establishing power. We, the Americans, will have created this situation by deposing an established dictator and allowing civil war and a most likely a new wave of terror and repression to entrench some new opportunist into power. Otherwise, we must establish a semi-colonial government and military to rule there.

That has happened throughout time. But for now, 67% (as I believe I heard from a recent poll) of the people of Iraq want us to remain to help them and their new government, and I don't think it's calling them idiots to give them a chance.

My sympathies are will the long-suffering people of Iraq. The reality is that we should have either planned the war and “peace” with REALITY in mind, or we should have tried milder diplomatic means of helping them.

I suppose we are now in a position in which we have to stay. The “chance”, as you call it, will and has, cost thousands of Americans their whole bodies, their well-being, their freedom from pain and their lives. The broken and dead keep on flying home to be tended and buried, all because of an ill-advised, impractical war that was based on outright lies told to the American public.

I'm not sure if the anti-Iraq war people (me included) believe that we need to “understand” and not be hard on those brutal dictators. Of course, we should understand before we wage any war–that would be a good common sense thing to do. it's definately a problem of conservatives who have pitted understanding against action. The fact is you cannot wage war without understanding all the ramifications of a situation. You have to understand the enemy before you destroy the enemy or else you get… Iraq (where the enemy seems to never be defeated!)

Second, democracy in nearly every case where it has succeeded was always organic and never imposed. The idea that we can get rid of dictators and impose democracy goes against the grain of human history. Is democracy good? yes. Is democracy better? yes. Do we impose it? no… Maybe I'm naiive, but when it comes to anything that is good (including the good news), imposing it on someone is dangerous.

Third, there are brutal dictators all over the world. Using your logic, we need to be in Sudan, North Korea, and Burma to name a few. Right? Unless of course the life of an Iraqi is worth more than a life of a person in Sudan–in that case, then, yes, we should get rid of Saddam and not the brutal dictators running Sudan!

Fourth, as a disclaimer, I should mention that I'm from the Middle East (including from Iraq).

Not to get into a discussion about specific politics (which was not the subject of this particular post or this blog in general), but to address the larger political ideas in your comment: Just so I understand your position here, we need to be more understanding of, and not be so hard on, dictators who are forced to have governmental rape rooms, genocide, and human shredders because they have to control two or more opposing religious factions, but support of Israel (a democratic country that allows people of all religions and both genders to take part in the political process) is unacceptable? How do you reconcile your indulgence of the first and lack of understanding for the second? I'm not asking sarcastically. I'm interested in hearing your reasons.

We assume that the Arabs are idiots who just need Americans to tell them what to do.

This seems inconsistent to me because it sounds like from your comment above that you “assume the Arabs are idiots who just need” a brutal dictator “to tell them what to do.”

To be fair to the people you disagree with, I come up with a different response when I ask myself who thinks the Arabs are idiots–those who think they can govern themselves without dictators with rape rooms keeping them under control by force, or those who think they are unable to do so? (The people who think they can govern without dictators may be wrong, but I have a hard time believing they think Arabs are idiots.) India is just one example of a country with religious factions that hate each other that functions as a democracy. In your opinion, are they able to do this because they're not Arabs?

It may well turn out that the new government in Iraq fails to get on its feet and that the factions are too much. It may be that the people decide they would rather have a dictator than be free. It could very well be that they don't have the philosophical background to accept democracy. That has happened throughout time. But for now, 67% (as I believe I heard from a recent poll) of the people of Iraq want us to remain to help them and their new government, and I don't think it's calling them idiots to give them a chance.

I would think it's far more condescending to believe that Arabs of different religious factions are completely incapable of living together in peace, so we should just leave them alone to be controlled by an evil dictator. Is the best result we can hope for really just a lack of outward struggle? Is that truly peace?