Friday, August 11, 2006

Your Psychodollars at Work and the Tax on Liberal Fantasy

What’s the big story of the day? The foiled terror plot, right? I could write something about it, but I don’t want to repeat what so many others are saying, and saying better than I could say it anyway. What is so striking, as Dr. Sanity puts it, is that the “report is being discussed on the lefty blogs with the usual paranoia and smug self-righteousness of those in complete denial about 9/11 and the current war on terror.”

“More than anything--more than taking the Islamic fanatics seriously even when captured in the act of planning major attacks--they are afraid that any success anywhere in the war on terror reflects well on Bush (otherwise known as the "real" enemy of civilization). AND THEY CANNOT ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN, CAN THEY?”

As a matter of fact, yesterday there was a little survey on dailykos, asking their morally insane readers if the plot was “legit” or just “more drama from BushCo to keep us all afraid.” To even run such a poll speaks volumes about the mentality of these kooks--as if having an election to decide whether or not reality is real makes you a reasonable person. In other words, for the left, this is not a dispute between two competing versions of reality, but a dispute between the reluctant acceptance of reality vs. the full-fledged embrace of paranoid fantasy. At present the vote stands at about 50-50, but yesterday it was running three-quarters in favor of the delusional flight from reality.

It has become a cliche to suggest that these psychologically damaged hordes represent the future of the Democratic party. Rather, they represent the present of the Democratic party, and I find this much more frightening than the Islamo-fascists. First, if all human beings were equally psychologically mature and in touch with reality--not just here in America, but in Europe and a few other civilized places--we would be able to defeat the jihadis in about a week. The terrorists only thrive in the interstices created by the psychological denial of their enemies who refuse to believe that they have enemies. They live in the shadows thrown by the mental pathology of large elements of the West. Of course the jihadis are sick, but they are allowed to roam free for the same reason liberals emptied out the state mental hospitals in the 1970’s and created the “homeless” problem.

In many ways, the war on terror is a tax on fantasy--the price we pay for living in denial. After all, the plot that was foiled yesterday is nearly identical to the one that was thwarted in 1995, when Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed planned to blow up airliners over the Pacific Ocean. Was that plot legit, or just more drama from ClintonCo to keep us all afraid? Clearly it wasn’t the latter, because few people were afraid back then. Our psychological denial was running at over 90%, whereas now it is closer to 50%.

Much of the tension in the world derives not from anything visible in the horizontal world, but purely from the vertical world--the world of psychological and spiritual development. For example, there is no question that the dispute between the Palestinians and Israelis has nothing whatsoever to do with land that has been “colonized” but with the Arab psyche that has been colonized by vicious and genocidal mind parasites. The “disputed territory” is entirely in the Arab mind. If they wanted a state for Palestinians, they could have had it at any time since 1948. They could have it today. That’s not what they want. What they want is to act out their psychopathology (although “want” is misleading, for, in the absence of insight, they are compelled to act it out).

It is no different with the problems of America. Most of them are a result of the gulf between the psychologically mature and immature. Liberalism once was an ideology aimed at assisting the weak, but somewhere over 30 years back it became a doctrine of assisting and promoting weakness. Sounds like a subtle distinction, but it makes all the difference. For example, just as the terror problem could be solved tomorrow if Arabs adopted Israeli values, the problem, say, with black underachievement in America could be solved equally rapidly if blacks adopted Asian American values (which, by the way, the majority of blacks already try to do--it is only a vocal minority of professional victocrats such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who want to maintain the current plantation system, because that way they retain the title of Head Negro bestowed upon them by their white liberal masters).

Is it not obvious that the prison system is a tax on fatherlessness? I don’t have the statistics at hand, but I believe that over two thirds of violent criminals are from fatherless homes. In fact, a quick googling reveals that “Seventy-two percent of teen-age murderers, 70 percent of long-term prison inmates and 60 percent of rapists come from fatherless homes.”

This all reminds me of one of Petey’s brain waves I wrote about a few months back, rebroadcast here for your reading pleasure.

*****

I was driving home from work yesterday, silently lost in my meditations, absorbed in the changeless realm that lies just above the afternoon commute, when Petey startled me from my reveries by blurting out, “psychodollars!”

Petey often operates in this abrupt and slightly cryptic manner, as if I could possibly know what he was talking about. The abruptness comes from having no recollection--or pretending to have no recollection--of what it’s like to cope with a sympathetic nervous system. I’ve told him that it took me forty years to finally be reasonably comfortable about being uncomfortable in my own skin, but he can’t relate.

Anyway, “go on,” I said. “Care to give me a hint?”

“Psychodollars. That’s the tax on fantasy--the price we pay for not having our calendar synchronized with the Arab Muslim world.”

“Go on. I’m listening.”

“You know my idea--geographical space is developmental time. Different cultures and sub-cultures reflect different levels of psychological development and maturity. If you fail to reach that level, then you are punished by your culture, either directly or indirectly. But if you surpass that level and become too mature, you also get whacked.”

“Are you talking about what liberals do to conservative blacks again?”

“No, I’m talking about the Middle East. Imagine a Palestinian who woke up one morning and didn’t have the paranoid delusion that Israel was responsible for all their problems. No, he says, we’ve created our own hideously dysfunctional culture, and only we can change it. He decides to publicize his thoughts, to write an editorial.”

“I know, I know, that would be his last editorial. It’s hard enough to write when you aren’t hanging upside down from a street lamp on the Boulevard of the Martyrs with your testicles missing and a couple of lumps obstructing your breathing. But what does this have to do with psychodollars?”

“I’m getting there. The Arab world is stuck in the wayback machine, mired in the dark ages, right? If every other country were in the same neuro-developmental time, then their oil would be worthless, because there’d be no advanced nation that would have any use for it. But because there are countries like us, from their 'psychological future,’ the petrodollars flow in, from the future to the past--from the cognitive first world to the cognitive third or fourth world.”

“I know about the petrodollars. What about the psychodollars?”

“Normally to get that kind of dough, you have to do something--achieve something, make something, know something, even BE something. But these are people who never had to go through the awkward historical phase of actually familiarizing themselves with the properties of matter or coping with the real world, much less mastering their own minds. So they’re rewarded for their backwardness and barbarity, and they even develop a superiority about it, just like the southern slave holders did in the US. They felt like they were superior to northerners, because they didn’t have to get their hands dirty or work at the ‘servile arts.’ They could just sit around reading Greek philosophy and pretending they were royalty. Slaves did all the work.”

“I'm still not sure where you’re going with this, Petey. It's almost time for Hugh Hewitt, and Lileks is going to be on. I think I'd rather listen to him.”

“Remember the garden of Eden? Some people get offended when I say this, but psychologically, you can interpret it as a fable of infancy. The omnipotent infant believes that he’s responsible for creating mommy and daddy--Adam & Eve. He’s got it all backwards. Adam and Eve created him, but he thinks that he created them. After all, he has a desire to be fed and held, and ‘boom,’ there they are, as if created by magic. Why shouldn’t he believe he created them? He doesn’t know any better. Then, when the parents challenge his omnipotence, he banishes them."

"The Islamists are like the baby. They don’t realize that we’re much older and more mature, and that we created and sustain them with our petrodollars. So they’re trying to banish us. From earth.”

“Hmm. I see what you mean. The war on terror is really just the giant sucking sound produced by the dynamic tension between the top and bottom floors of the psyche, to mix a few metaphors.”

“Exactly! Psychodollars. That’s the money we have to pay as a result of having sent all those petrodollars to a bunch of infantile cultures that think they’re superior to us. It’s the billions of dollars it costs us to defend ourselves from the cultural pathologies of the Arab Middle East, flush with their own malicious psychodollars that they’ve converted from petrodollars. I’ll bet if you added up both sides, there would be something like one psychodollar for every petrodollar. Think of it--what’s the combined cost of homeland security, airline security for every single flight, port security, border security, support for Israel and bribes to any so-called 'moderate' elements in the Middle East, year in, year out, national defense, the war in Iraq, the cost to the economy as a result of 9-11. It’s all psychodollars--the extra money we have to pay for giving so many petrodollars to psychos who want to spread their pathology and pull the future back into the past.”

“Er, so what’s your solution, Petey?”

“That’s the easy part. Do the same thing with them that we do with our own infantile, anti-American citizens with superiority complexes and too much time on their hands. Just rename the whole area The University of the Middle East, make everyone a tenured professor, and let them work out their feelings by writing irrelevant books and attending dopey conferences. Now that’s a smart use of psychodollars. In fact, you could save even more money by combining the university system with the mental hospitals, and calling it a ‘looniversity bin!’"

"Ahh, that last part was a little joke. You can laugh.”

Petey vanished, leaving me to ponder what the actual solution might be.

52 comments:

Anonymous said...

i disagree with this entirely:

"In many ways, the war on terror is a tax on fantasy--the price we pay for living in denial. After all, the plot that was foiled yesterday is nearly identical to the one that was thwarted in 1995, when Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed planned to blow up airliners over the Pacific Ocean. Was that plot legit, or just more drama from ClintonCo to keep us all afraid? Clearly it wasn’t the latter, because few people were afraid back then. Our psychological denial was running at over 90%, whereas now it is closer to 50%."

this is gibberish:

"In many ways, the war on terror is a tax on fantasy--the price we pay for living in denial."

this is just idiotically wrong:

"Our psychological denial was running at over 90%, whereas now it is closer to 50%."

since for most jihadoterror was below the radar in 1993, it COULD NOT POSSIBLY/LOGICALLY be called denial. this is flat out wrong.

the story was a faint blip.

whereas now, jihadoterror is ionthye news everyday. everyday its horrors are reported from all over the world - horrors committed against all faiths -- even other muzzies.

so no there is more demial than then.

now, 70% of the dems and all of the post-modern left is in denial.

before they were in the dark - but due tolack of rep[ortage and not denial.

i think you are a jerk.

Gagdad Bob said...

For someone who only recently acquired the ability to speak, you express yourself remarkably clearly.

SC&A said...

It is the absolutism of the leftists that fuels the insanity.

They insist there is no absolutism, and consequently there is no 'real' evil, this fueling denial and detachment. Not even the Nazis were 'evil,' if you follow that logic.

Hizbollah- and much of the Arab world, openly espouse many of the most ugly Nazi ideals, openly and without apology, all in the name of God. Racism, bigotry and hate are not only realities- they are priorities. That's something I wrote about, today.

Good thing the left is there to remind us that Bush and Co, are the evil ones, and not the Arabs that can't even be bothered to hide their evil.

Even Hitler had enough sense to do that. Then again, he didn't have the Ameican left as an ally.

We're going to get stuck with one helluva bill until the left lightbulbs finally light up.

Lisa said...

Geez, anonymous really swayed me with his repetitive quotes and mind-numbing/blowing analysis.

I also want to add that you are probably a retarded poopy head too!;0)

Counter Mag said...

this is exactly the type of debate i would expect to be raging over on your end of things!

Van Harvey said...

Counter Mag,
Keep looking, I just know you'll find that Shift key someday!

Counter Mag said...

Van, you sadden me with your lack of enthusiasm.

Van Harvey said...

Counter Mag,
See! You did it! And on my name too, I'm touched!

Gagdad Bob said...

Maybe he's not shiftless after all.

Counter Mag said...

focus people,
there's a war on...
you're all so easily sidetracked
doc--isn't there a prescription for that?

Anonymous said...

Counter,
There is no debate, it's already settled, matter of fact reality in healthy minded individuals, just look around.
Were just hoping for the reality denying, suicidal morons to get a clue and catch up.
Come on man, we're waaaiiiiting. ;)

Lisa said...

Hitler also had the admiration and support of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem! At least the Muslims are consistent! They have also been quite clear about their intentions. The more things change the more they stay the same....

Anonymous said...

On Siggy's "Even Hitler had enough sense to do that. Then again, he didn't have the Ameican left as an ally."

Actually, he did have the American Left as an ally until he attacked Stalin. He then became evil incarnate overnight.


George Orwell didn't make up "Oceania Is REALLY At War With Eastasia!" out of nowhere. He based it on reversals of the Party Line during the Nazi-Soviet Pact and Germany's invasion of the USSR. One Communist agitator was said to have literally one-eightied in mid-sentence of his harangue when the new Party Line came through.

Anonymous said...

Siggles -

>>We're going to get stuck with one helluva bill until the left lightbulbs finally light up.<<

I don't think lefty lightbulbs are going to light up, not in this reality. Let the polarization finalize itself, I say. It's the time of the choosing, no more fence-straddling. Those with an eye on truth and transcendence will rise, those with an eye to darkness will continue to descend - ultimately, all to the good.

I'm definitely in an apocalyptic frame of mind these days.

Lisa said...

I have always loved the line, "where ever you go, there you are."

Steve said...

"Those with an eye on truth and transcendence will rise, those with an eye to darkness will continue to descend - ultimately, all to the good."

Those with "an eye on truth and transcendence" will rise to WHAT in a world in which those you label as having "an eye to darkness" gain increasing power to destroy us all? How is THAT "all to the good"?

"I'm definitely in an apocalyptic frame of mind these days."

What comes after the Apocalypse?

Anonymous said...

For your kind? Nothing. It's just like sound, dreamless sleep. Similar to your life.

Anonymous said...

"There are two great moments in life which are everything, and these are the present moment, when we are free to choose what we wish to be, and the moment of death, when we have no longer any choice and when the decision belongs to God."

To know the truth is to die a little. Apocalypse now, or apocalypse later. It's up to you.

Steve said...

"For your kind? Nothing. It's just like sound, dreamless sleep. Similar to your life."

What "kind" is that? And what about your kind?

Anonymous said...

narajuna -

>>Those with "an eye on truth and transcendence" will rise to WHAT in a world in which those you label as having "an eye to darkness" gain increasing power to destroy us all? How is THAT "all to the good"?<<

Oh, I'm not taking a pacifist view. We gotta fight 'em tooth 'n nail, so off with the kid gloves. It's all to the good that the battle lines are clearly demarcated, wouldn't you say?

>>What comes after the Apocalypse? <<

Redemption, for some.

Steve said...

How do you propose that we take off the "kid gloves" and "fight 'em tooth 'n nail," and what is your idea of "Redemption," Will?

Anonymous said...

Nags, actually, your questions seem to be lacking in sincerity, but what the hell . .

How do we fight 'em? You expect me to reveal the war strategy in public?? Oh, well, OK . . . for starters, let the Israelis go ahead full bore and wipe the Hezbollah scum out.

What's my idea of redemption? Same as Sri Aurobindo's, St Francis, Thomas Merton, St Teresa,Rumi, and a whole galaxy of spiritual all-stars. If that confounds you, get off your niggling, nagging ass and do some research.

Gagdad Bob said...

Will:

Don't do it!

(Unless you actually just happen to enjoy trying to milk a bull. In that case, go right ahead.)

Gagdad Bob said...

Too late.

Anonymous said...

Bob -

Gurdjieff used to hire a guy, a guy with naturally annoying qualities, to just hang around his students so as to test their spiritual forebearance. No one ever could resist the guy 100%.

I'll try harder.

Lisa said...

I think it's kinda cute! Every group has one, ya know!

Anonymous said...

You're right, Lisa. It's as if Nature, in her wise beneficence, provides a Really Annoying Guy to all groups, so as to further our spiritual progress.

In the family of my birth, *I* was that Really Annoying Guy.

Steve said...

"Nags, actually, your questions seem to be lacking in sincerity, but what the hell . . "

No, Will, my questions are sincere. Thank you for answering them. I ask questions to try to understand what people believe, instead of agreeing with or dismissing their beliefs before I understand them.

I suppose your answer is the same that most here would offer--"Wipe 'em out." I just wonder how Israel or the rest of us are ever going to accomplish that. Do you believe that military force alone can destroy enough of Hezbollah, al Queda, and other similar organizations to make us safe, or is something more, other, or else required? And if military force alone or along with other approaches is necessary, how should this force be applied? Should whole cities, towns, and villages from which Hezbollah is believed to operate be obliterated without warning, killing everyone there, no matter how many innocent men, women, and children are among them and no matter how the rest of the word reacts to this? Should we bomb and destroy Iran, Syria, North Korea, and maybe even Iraq by whatever means necessary, including using nukes? Is that what it means to take off the "kid gloves"?

"What's my idea of redemption? Same as Sri Aurobindo's, St Francis, Thomas Merton, St Teresa,Rumi, and a whole galaxy of spiritual all-stars."

They ALL had the same idea of redemption? Are you talking about redemption in this world and life, or in an afterlife? In other words, are you suggesting that this world and this life is likely lost to the forces of evil, so, even though we should fight evil on general principles, we should be preparing ourselves for the good life in the next life and not worrying about the repercussions of our attacks on evil in this life?

Gagdad Bob said...

Nagarjuna--

If you need a letter of recommendation for your local Gurdjieff study group, I will be happy to oblige.

Anonymous said...

must . . . not . . . milk . . . bull . . . . must . . . not . . .

ARRGHHHH!

Steve said...

Thank you for your gracious offer, Bob. But I would settle for earnest answers to my earnest questions.

I see a lot of discussion here about hating, fighting, and destroying evil and evildoers, and some of you even seem to believe in an approaching apocalypse of some kind or other. I'm just wondering if you have more specific ideas of how we should seek to vanquish evil, and what kind of apocalypse and aftermath you envision.

Anonymous said...

We have pretty modest aims. We just want to vanquish you before moving on to bigger problems.

Anonymous said...

Did I say "modest?"

Lisa said...

Stop seeing/looking so hard, then. Just use your common sense and you should be able to answer your own questions.

Steve said...

Lisa, thank you for your reply.

My sense, common or otherwise, is that we can't "wipe out" terrorism with hatred and military force, and that if we continue our present course, we will engender more rather than less terrorism, less rather than greater safety for ourselves and our loved ones, and that if there is any "redemption" to be had, it is here in this life and not in any life to come. I wonder what your "common sense" tells you.

Anonymous said...

Nagarjuna--

Why don't you just read Bob's book? They have used copies for only nine bucks. It will answer all your annoying questions, keep you occupied for a couple years, and help you get caught up with the rest of the class.

Anonymous said...

Hey, guys,
I know it's late, but if anyone could send up a few prayers for my family. Not a crisis, not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but something kind of important to us.
Thank you!
Sal

Lisa said...

Always the best to you and your family, Sal. Hope everything works out. Blessings and good night.

Anonymous said...

Incoming, Sal.

Anonymous said...

perhaps someone of a gurdieff bent could clarify if the first aa (annoyers anonymous) came out of the fountainebleu experience as a retreat from the spiritual lessons taught by 'the annoyer"


















'

Steve said...

Does Bob's book answer the questions I asked, or does it do what he does here and spin elaborate speculations about how stupid, infantile, or even evil liberals and "Islamofacists" are without detailing what "right" thinking people are supposed to do about it?

gumshoe said...

"I suppose your answer is the same that most here would offer--"Wipe 'em out." I just wonder how Israel or the rest of us are ever going to accomplish that. Do you believe that military force alone can destroy enough of Hezbollah, al Queda, and other similar organizations to make us safe, or is something more, other, or else required? And if military force alone or along with other approaches is necessary, how should this force be applied? Should whole cities, towns, and villages from which Hezbollah is believed to operate be obliterated without warning, killing everyone there, no matter how many innocent men, women, and children are among them and no matter how the rest of the word reacts to this? Should we bomb and destroy Iran, Syria, North Korea, and maybe even Iraq by whatever means necessary, including using nukes? Is that what it means to take off the "kid gloves"?"

and i suppose,nagarjuuna,
you have no problems picturing the muslim world in a hair-shirt-state of self-torture,asking these very same questions.

"asking the right question"
IS better than a thousand answers,
but your feet aren't even on the planet,let alone in the ballpark.

enlighten us all on the Islamic
doctrines of Dar al Harb and Dar al Islam.

you can use Wiki if you need to.

Anonymous said...

Nagar,

Bob's book contains no political commentary but does contain the "potential" to explain alot about how he has come to his views concerning politics, history and current events. You might label it "spiritual antropology" encompassing many other disciplines as well.
I see that you use the yogic greeting namaste quite a bit. Namaste can be roughly defined as submission of oneself to another in complete humility. I've not seen you practice much of what you preach, particularly with readers, commenters and the author of this blog. You appear to me to come here with preconceived notions, knee jerk reactions and a closed mind. Perhaps you could pick up a copy of Bob's book, swallow a little pride and practice a little namaste. Otherwise you'll continue to be completely clueless as to what goes on here. Satisfaction GUARANTEED or all your misery refunded. You may again find yourself in the "love phase" of your love/hate relationship with Bob.
He's not such a bad guy, once you really get to know him. He comes to his opinions honestly and with ALOT of forethought and study. You may still disagree with him but I feel that a guy who works as hard as Bob deserves at least a small measure of respect.
After reading the book, you may even be so humble as to offer him and apology, though I won't be holding my breath on that one. ;)

Anonymous said...

I will keep you and your family in my prayer's.
May G-d's blessing be upon you and your family, Sal.

Anonymous said...

Nag wrote, "...no matter how many innocent men, women, and children are among them and no matter how the rest of the word reacts to this?"

Here is a man who draws counsel from the multitude; unable to consider that there have been times when the "rest of the world" was wrong about something, and it took a certain sort of strength to stand up and say, "the crazy people gotta go".

I hope Nags was asking this of the "rest of the world" when innocents died in the Towers. Or even just asking the I-F'ers what their idea of redemption was.... cuz killing us all is their idea of redemption. And they believe that killing us all is really possible, and really is the solution to THEIR dilemma, regardless of how many innocents die or what the "rest of the world" thinks.

You have to meet that sort of crazy with an equal vision, and equal strength of will. But the passive observers will have trouble seeing the difference during the heat of battle. Thus, every man stands alone in his heart as to what the solution is, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks.

Personally, the concept of redemption begs the idea of struggle, pain, and little deaths all along the path of our life. I am stubborn and do not change easily. It often takes a strong smack across the prow of my pride to redeem my course.

It sometimes takes violent crazies aiming airplanes at me to redeem my courage and sensibility.

At those times I don't need a yogi or a priest or a book. I get a gun, deal with the problem, and then wax philosophical about it all later in the luxurious and dearly-bought peace on earth.

Gagdad Bob said...

Joan--

You foresaw tomorrow's post. You really are Joan of Argghh.

Anonymous said...

Ah, precious prescience! Funny, but, my father didn't know it was hereditary...

Steve said...

Joan, when I talk about how the rest of the world will react, I'm suggesting that each nation--including Israel and the USA--is part of this world, and that what it does for good or ill can have good or ill repercussions not only for others but also for itself. If it bombs Beirut or Iran or Syria back to the Stone Age, it could sow karmic seeds of disaster for the entire world, including itself. I don't believe that I'm being a liberal nutcase in suggesting this.

On the other hand, I readily acknowledge that Islamicist terrorism is evil and that we must find effective ways to deal with it. However, I think it will take more than bullets and bombs to do it and that overreliance on either or both is likely to result in more harm than good for all concerned.

My questions yesterday concerned how you think your hatred of "Islamofacist" terrorists should be translated into real world action, and what are the likely results of this action.

"At those times I don't need a yogi or a priest or a book. I get a gun, deal with the problem, and then wax philosophical about it all later in the luxurious and dearly-bought peace on earth."

Maybe you need a priest AND a gun to ensure that you're using your gun rightly.

Anonymous said...

Well, Nag, you asked and I answered. It may not look right to you, a possibly passive observer with the luxury of an uninterrupted life and the tortured affectations it brings.

But, I'm not tortured with thoughts that I'm going to save the world with right thinking. I got truly free when I realized I couldn't even save myself, no matter how "right" I got my thinking.

So, I revert to my simplistic, instinctual survival skills, because I believe that the Feminine is the goddess of survival. Gotta go with my homie-girl on this point.

Inaction often hides behind a screen of intellectual reticence and fears what others may think, not wanting to be the first to comment on a blog-thread or a geo-political reality.

Real law says that action brings reaction, equal and opposite.

Steve said...

Hoarhey, I posted a reply to you Friday, but it was deleted. I hope this one will be allowed to remain, because I believe that your thoughtful comments deserve a reply.

First, I understand "Namaste" to mean "“I honor the Spirit in you which is also in me.” But it's true that I haven't always honored the "Spirit" of those with whom I disagree here and elsewhere. I'm trying to do better, and I believe that I'm making progress.

Second, my mind is far more open to Bob's ideas and to those of his commentators than you realize, and those ideas have expanded my perspective more than you will probably ever know.

Third, I respect Bob's erudition, intelligence, eloquence, and profundity, and I certainly don't hate him as a person. I also respect the intelligence, learnedness, eloquence, and passion of people such as yourself who comment here. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here.

Thank you for your comments. I DO appreciate them.

Namaste,
Steve

Steve said...

Joan, I appreciate your answer. I appreciate it and I understand it, because when I'm afraid or angry, I feel the same way as you. Bring out the big guns and blow 'em away.

However, once again, I don't believe that the big guns will blow away enough of the terrorists or their weapons to stop them from harming us. We need to find other ways instead of guns and bombs, or in addition to them. For if you're right about "real law" resulting in equal and opposite reactions, then won't violence be met with equal and opposite violence?

Thank you for your comments, Joan.

Anonymous said...

"There are two kinds of hatred, one legitimate and one illegitimate: the first derives from a love that is the victim of an injustice, such as the love of God crying for vengeance, and this is the very foundation of all holy anger; the second kind is unjust hatred, or hatred that is not limited inwardly by the underlying love which is its raison d’etre and which justifies.

There is a Divine Anger and thus also a human “holy anger.” It is true that from a certain point of view, one must hate the sin and not the sinner; but this point of view is relative, and does not prevent one from being sometimes forced, as a matter of proportion, to despise the sinner to the extent that he identifies himself with his sin.

We once heard it said that whoever is incapable of contempt is likewise incapable of veneration; this is perfectly true, on condition that the evaluation is correct and that the contempt does not exceed the limits of its sufficient reason, subjectively as well as objectively. Just contempt is both a weapon and a means of protection.

Just contempt is necessarily combined with a measure of indifference, otherwise one would lack detachment and also that fund of generosity without which anger cannot be holy. Serene anger is a possibility, and even a necessity, because in hating an evil, we do not cease love God."

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