tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post1326172359178765571..comments2024-01-26T03:40:32.465-05:00Comments on Breath of the Beast: A Meeting on the Dark Side of the MoonYaacov Ben Moshehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711165551258127500noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post-13406230796788607672008-08-13T14:50:00.000-05:002008-08-13T14:50:00.000-05:00A mortal and spiritual pain accomponies the storie...A mortal and spiritual pain accomponies the stories of innocent life taken by murder; and the human heart does not have room within it for the bottomless saddness of the survivors. The rationale of such acts is maddening, but to concentrate only on the fervor that propels the murderer, and the logic that convinces him to act, is also madness. It is the act that demands immediate attention; the motivation can be addressed afterward.<BR/><BR/>Hitler may have killed himself but only because he was forced. Left to his own devices the whole of Europe would have been under Nazi rule before 1942 and Hitler would have died peacefully of old age with the fruits of his demonic labor firmly underfoot. Human nature dictates that the strong will survive even if they have to eat the weak, but it also drives us to protect ourselves against deadly threats provided that we do not convince ourselves that the threat is only a "difference of opinion" or some other such blather.<BR/><BR/>To ignore any deadly and murderous threat standing ready to destroy innocent life is to place one's neck on a chopping block.<BR/><BR/>Dan Patterson<BR/>Arrogant InfidelDan Pattersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18306436521768077821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post-4609842764558331562008-08-13T09:19:00.000-05:002008-08-13T09:19:00.000-05:00Well, that advances my understanding of the link b...Well, that advances my understanding of the link between the Islamists and the progressives. To add another idea, Norm Geras observed a couple of years ago that George Galloway was assigning the traditional Marxist role of the proletariat to the Islamists when he said that they were "the last best hope" of socialism. I would say that the psychological equivalent of 'assign' is 'project' which as an unconscious process allows progressives to not see the contradictions raised by the Islamist treatment of women or their penchant for beheading videos. Another unconscious (dark side of the moon) connection between the two systems of thought is that they are both millennial. (Whatever Obama may be or do if he becomes president, much of the hope projected on him by progressives is just that millennial species of hope.) <BR/><BR/>For me politics arises from the tension between the individual and the group. I did not know (and thank you for helping me understand more) "the first assumption of Judaism is that God gives the individual the responsibility to behave as best we can." I have long accepted that responsibility and recognized that what individuals do or fail to do matters. I think it is by painfully folding and refolding our shortcomings, like a Japanese sword maker, back into our individual lives that the group progresses.lgudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12774491337993415578noreply@blogger.com