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Brad Stroud Talks About Rantburg Some More

I just can't resist looking in on old Brad now and again. For a socialist moonbat he's actually not too bad of a guy, especially when compared to the rest of his peer group on the left side of the blogosphere.

Crusader (a Rantburger - see Rantburg Responds - Have I Been Pummeled?) wanted me to buy into the idea that it was acceptable to use the term “hellhole” because it really meant something positive: “The underlying principle that most on the right use to determine what is and what isn’t a “hellhole” is whether basic human rights (free speech, the right to vote, freedom of religion and freedom FROM religion) are afforded to its occupants (regardless of gender and race) and whether the government of the occupants was formed by free and fair democratic elections.” My view, however, is that one doesn’t enter into a discourse where one is expected to use “hellhole” or “troll” simply because someone’s come up with a nifty affirmative redefinition for an otherwise derogatory term especially since the term is meant to apply to entire nations (hellhole) or entire viewpoints (troll as a term for Arab perspectives).

Let us take Crusader’s point about rights, however, and apply it to Ze’ev’s comments. If we accept Ze’ve’s point that a Jewish State and its survival may indeed be incompatible with our western liberal ideas about how states ought to be - does that mean Israel is presently at risk of becoming a ‘hellhole”? What if being a “hellhole” is the means by which a Jewish State (a state of Jews run by Jews) can survive? Then how are the opponents of “hellholes” (and they mean Arab States if that is not yet clear) to feel about Israel? Or are we to accept the implications of Ze’ve’s point for Israel (but certainly then too for other States) that we might not wish to brandish all nations negatively just because they do not fit into our preconceived ideas of ideal nationhood? In short must the political nature of Israel’s Statehood match western preconceptions if the upshot of such is that it will cause a Jewish State to cease to exist? What if the only way for a Jewish State to exist entails a kind of racialist bias in terms of government decision making?
Posted by: Secret Master 2006-01-18
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=140161