Says a character in John Brunner’s great book “Stand on Zanzibar”.

It’s a book you ought to read, even if you don’t like SF.

One of the key features in the book is the prevalence of ‘muckers’ – individuals who just lose it in the face of whatever social/population/personal collapse they are facing, and decide to just kill whoever is at hand. Some of them go high-tech, and blow up bridges.

I think we’re there, and I’ll ask the question: where does madness end and organized terrorism begin?

Because I’ll bet that the LAX Limo Driver (I won’t immortalize his name) was on that cusp.

Avedon Carol, over at the Sideshow, dings me on the Pledge issue:

Armed Liberal made a fairly disappointing statement that pretty well underscores the point that it’s at least anti-social and probably unAmerican to insist on equal respect for your religious beliefs if they don’t happen to include public displays of piety on behalf of monotheism. And forced recitations in school of the Pledge in its current form goes a long way to teaching us that message from childhood.

I’m sorry she missed my point; in her defense, it was buried in the middle:

And in the other part, I think that including the ‘under God’ clause was an embarrassing artifact of late 50’s cultural rigidity. I’d like to see it removed. But I’d like to see it removed via a process which doesn’t drive a further wedge between the folks in the U.S. who are clinging to the symbols of a nonexistent former consensus, and those who feel alienated from that consensus.
We’re at a point in our history when we need to find the threads that bind us into a nation and a polity. Sadly, ‘win at any cost’ politicians (c.f. Gray ‘SkyBox’ Davis), and culture warriors of one stripe or another are happy to drive wedges, if they believe the fractures serve their short-term political interests.

It’s simple; if folks don’t want the ‘under God’ clause in the Pledge, remove it politically. Don’t get me started on the hijacking of political life in the West by the legal system…

Reading the Blogverse (or Blogosphere) this morning, I was thinking about what it is that makes me have such a hard time with sentiments like this one, from Nathan Newman (I’ll try and get to the AIDS issue soon…)

As Leo knows, unlike some on the left, I never said other tragedies, even those with American culpability, excused or even explained the attack in any way. In the weeks after 911, I was actually encouraged that the pain suffered by Americans seemed to be leading to a broader focus and sympathy for others suffering poverty and violence around the world– symbolized by the “why do they hate us” question, but looking even deeper in many commentaries.

Then my ex- emailed me a chain letter (she does that…) talking about the whole Toby Keith flap (he wrote the “Angry American” song, and was disinvited from an ABC televison celebration on the 4th of July):

Both KZLA and Keith have disappointed me with the song “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue.”
I have enjoyed many of the patriotic songs that have come about or come into popularity after September 11. Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You” never fails to make me cry with it’s message of love being our greatest weapon and I appreciate how much Aaron Tippin appreciates his country in “Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Flies.” Keith’s new song, however, is everything that is despised by the people who hate country: close-minded, narrow, and injected with far too much testosterone.
Keith is living in a world of black and white where we are right and they are wrong, but it is gray that is the color of compassion. It is the color of knowing that killing 5,000 innocent Americans to make your point is wrong, even while understanding the harm our American way of life and foreign policy has done to the “have nots” of the world. I can’t say that I think we should turn the other cheek to the attacks, but I also cannot say that I think our response has been a valid one. There is no easy answer in a gray world, but Toby Keith seems to think there is. He is not just advocating war, he is celebrating it!

And a light went on in my head…
We’re talking the Big Rematch. Rousseau v. Hobbes, in a cage match, with the heart of America as a prize.
As I remember it (all the books are, of course in boxes) Rousseau first argued that we all lived, naturally, peacefully, and in harmony with our own inner nature and that of the world. Then society, property, and science divided us. As I recall he later tempered this in ‘The Social Contract’; but his basic philosophical thrust was that realizing our inner natures was the highest human goal.
Hobbes, on the other hand, is famous for his quote that life in the state of nature was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. And that it was only through the imposition of social control, first in the form of feudal or tribal society and then in the form of national society that he considered to be ‘the Leviathan’, that we could lead our lives.
In one worldview, people are fundamentally good, and it is only through the wrong actions of governments and societies that they are led to do wrong.
In the other, people are fundamentally selfish and violent, and it is only through the restraint imposed by society that they can live together.
I want really badly to believe in one argument … but in reality, I know I believe the other.
I aspire to Fitzgerald’s position; of being able to contain two contradictory ideas at the same time…I’ll let you know if I get there.

From this article:

In 1992, I was recruited to the Hamas shock troops in the camp by a friend in the movement. Our task was to defend the organization against infiltration by undesirable elements and to wage war on corruption, negative social trends like theft, prostitution and drugs and, of course, on traitors.
As members of a cell, we attacked suspected collaborators with Israel, some of whom were put to death. In order to get the truth out of suspected collaborators when we interrogated them, we used to break their legs and arms with iron bars and chains and to stab them with knives. It was not cruelty for its own sake, but the way an underground organization has to operate in occupied territory.
…
Fatah is a good, positive organization, but mistaken in its ideology and deeds. I have brothers who support Fatah, and despite the great arguments between us, I love and respect them. Still you must understand that Fatah, in its concessions to Israel, its recognition of the state of Israel and its joining in the peace process, is totally unacceptable to me. You also realize that it was Fatah as the Palestinian Authority that arrested me for seven months.
…
As for the peace process, I personally am against it. It entails recognition of Israel, and that runs counter to Islam and Hamas. Even if [the Israelis] were to withdraw to the 1967 lines, give us Jerusalem and the right of return, we should not recognize Israel. All of Palestine, from the sea to the river, must constitute the Islamic Palestinian State.
I am not a murderer. A murderer is someone with a psychological problem; armed actions have a goal. Even if civilians are killed, it’s not because we like it or are bloodthirsty. It is a fact of life in a people’s struggle against a foreign occupier. A suicide bombing is the highest level of jihad and highlights the depth of our faith. The bombers are holy fighters who carry out one of the more important articles of Islam.
I always saw Israelis as murderers and as an occupying enemy who had inflicted pain on us, and who were still hurting us, and who must be expelled from our land by whatever means.

We had dinner last week with Dave Trowbridge, of Redwood Dragon and his talented and lovely partner; she asked a pointed question:”How do you let the heat out of this issue?” How do we stop growing terrorists?
Because I believe profoundly that we not only need to defend ourselves against them in the short term (which is best done by attacking them on their territory, rather than waiting for them to attack us on ours), but to somehow stop growing them (which unfortunately is possibly encouraged by attacking them on their territory). Tough problem.
Read the interview…

Posting will be very light in the next few days; today we must box all the books, bedding, and dishes; we’re on a mission!!
Spent the last two days watching Tenacious G run through an introductory handgun class for women taught by Lewis Awerbuck. It was a terrific class; I’ve never trained with him, but now would like to.
So we played for two days and now need to pay by working harder.
Lots of good comments to respond to; I’ll start catching up next week (as soon as the DSL is in at the new house). Or when my back gives out, I’ll take a break and respond to a few of them.
Had a great 4th, and am glad that I was wrong (in predicting a major terrorist action on the anniversary of the Battle of Hattas).

White House defends Bush handling of stock sale
Look, Bush is a corporate oligarch. He and his country-club blacklisting, inside trading, factory-job exporting buddies have played the US economy like a pinata for the last fifteen years.
But then again, Gore is too. And so are most of our millionare-occupied Senate.
That’s why they want to build SkyBoxes in the Capitol building…so the corporate sponsors can watch their teams play.

Howard Owens, in this article (what are these things, anyway? Posts? Articles? Blogs? Let me know…) titled ‘Where Are The Patriotic Muslims?’
Personally, I’ll guess that they are quietly being soldiers, sailors, airmen, police officers and firefighters.
But damn, it would be nice if the leaders in that community stood up and took a position other than ‘Islam is, of course, a religion of peace’.

Kevin Reybould, of Lean Left comments (and blogs):

[quoting me]”, I’m firmly on this team, and I think that thinking folks of all stripes should be as well.”
The problem a lot of us have is that this statement is very often used (and I am not saying you do this) as an excuse to demonize the “other team” (Raymond’s notion that the West is somehow less violent than the Islamic world is a joke, and bad logic. It ignores every other factor that shapes a society and the decisions it makes in favor of the one factor that differentiates the given society from ours) and to paper over or ignore our side’s contribution to the problems.
Many of the things that people broadly criticize the Islamic world for are things that we help create. We are the largest supporter of Egypt, we are the largest customer of Saudi Arabia, we are the nation that overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran. Those actions have the consequence of suppressing democratic forces in the Arab world. In a very real sense, the West has chosen to back those who would make the Qu’ran a book of war.
That is what is so infuriating about pieces like Raymond’s, and the whole notion that the Arab world is just inherently violent. Not only is it bigotry, it is exceedingly dangerous bigotry. By ignoring our own actions, and steps we can take to correct the consequences of those actions, we merely run in place. Killing terrorists is not enough – we must try and make a world where terrorists can gain no foothold. We cannot do that by hiding behind comforting illusions.

I think I disagree. I say “I think” because I’m consciously withholding a decision on a core set of issues here. I’m not 100% convinced that we are at war with the Islamic world; I am sure that a group within that world is trying to foment a war. But we’re at a crucial point where we will either decide that there are elements in the Islamic world to make peace with…because they themselves step forward…or not.
There are two places where I’ll expand, though: Yes, the “other team” is more violent than we are…in the sense that our violence is contained, managed as tightly as an encompassing legal system and bureaucracy can make it. We can turn it on and off like a switch. The violence in the Islamist (and possibly the Islamic) world is ingrained in the daily lives of people who, as a celebration of a wedding, try and fire a live mortar, and who routinely celebrate by firing guns into the air.
Yes, we have often chosen our commercial interests over the “will of the people”, in places all over the globe. And ultimately what makes me a liberal is that I share the belief in humanity’s ultimate perfectibility. But I don’t think simply “declaring democracy” and withdrawing is going to work.
I’m just not certain that we’re anywhere near there yet, and that simply, as Fly Over Country so eloquently put it:

Some people, and I mean liberal in the current defintion, think they can dream up the way it supposed to be, snap their fingers, and the whole world will be remade over in their image. Fishing allows me to not fall into that mindset. Fishing, like hunting, allows me to plug in on the ground floor of a market economy and begin to piece together the relationship between what I get from the grocery store and the forces it took to get it there. Running cattle offers the same sort of insight, only it is a lot more messy and the potential for getting hurt is exponentially bigger. But, that is for another time.

When it’s democracy time, countries develop democracy. It is not a plant that can simply be transplanted onto violent tribal roots.

Jeff Cooper (the law professor) responds to my comment about removing settlements with a reasonable post:

Given the continuing suicide bombings, this isn’t an appropriate time for large-scale removal of settlements, as any such action would likely be seen as proof that terrorism works. And the settlements present a practical political problem for Sharon, whose governing coalition depends in part on those who support the settlements. At some point, though, it’s going to have to be made clear—both as a carrot to the Palestinians and as a message of reality to the Israeli far right—that the majority of the settlements ultimately will have to be dismantled.

I agree that it would be a mistake to reward murder-bombings through a meaningful reduction in Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza; in fact I think the reoccupation is a Good Idea.
But in part, I negotiate for a living, and one principle I’ve found to work well in contentious negotiations (like the ones we’re going through right now on the house we will buy on Tuesday) is to periodically show the other side a little daylight. Show them that they can in fact get something if they cooperate.
Now I remain unconvinced, as I’ve said earlier, that there is anyone to negotiate with on the Palestinian side. But if I’m wrong, and there is, the question is how to show them some daylight without giving up anything material. And it looks to me like the Israelis have done exactly that.