Two for the Price of One
Two posts I published at my own blog:
Kill… With Manners: The New York Times published a fascinating article about informal Jihadi rules of conduct, also known as “Jihad etiquette.” There are six basic rules. Two of them:
- You can kill bystanders without feeling a lot of guilt: This is the “let-God-sort-them-outâ€-line of thinking: in essence it means that God knows who of the bystanders deserved to die and who did not. Those who did not deserve to die will go to heaven (as martyrs), those who did deserve to die will go to hell.
- You may need to ask your parents for their consent.
To find out what the other four rules are, please read my post.
Failing Your Own Test: Katie Couric delivered a great commencement address at Williams College. She said (among other things): “The proliferation of celebrity magazines makes Lindsey Lohan’s latest stint in rehab seem more important than what’s happening in Darfur.”
The question is, does Couric live up to her own standards?
3 Responses to “Two for the Price of One”
In essence; you have to follow the rules of the Koran…unless they inconveniently forbid you from killing who you want to kill. You are a civilian…unless we want you to not be one to make it “ok” to kill you. Killing any innocent is fine, since innocents go to heaven anyway.
There has to be a certain level of insanity that goes with suicide killers of course. Fanaticism, of which Islam seems to have plentiful amounts, is a form of insanity. Under the effects of this insanity; the word of the authority figure ALWAYS makes sense, even if it’s utterly absurd. Religion, which requires a certain suspension of rational thought anyway, is especially vulnerable to this sort of manipulation. Certain absolute political systems that require a charismatic demi-god leader, like communism and fascism, are also vulnerable.
Not to defend Jihad or whatever, but is this really all that different from Western notions of collateral damage? You don’t hear a lot of remorse from any of the military, the hawks or our media about the 100s of thousands of Iraqis that we’ve killed since 1980s.
Re Couric living up to her standars, I would surmise, then, that only certified saints should be allowed to give inspirational messages.
If that rule is applied, we will be hearing few words of wisdom and will be the poorer for it.