Abandoned Forum

[The Esteemed Grim Norktus]

Pro-Lebanese activists are making hay over the statement of a Rabbinical council denying that there can be innocents among the enemies of Israel. There are certainly Jewish sects (mostly of an essentially apocalyptic nature) that would interpret this as 'law,' but I'd be as hesitatant to speak of it as 'Jewish law' as I would be to term the pronouncements and ideology of Hezbollah 'Arab law.'

The danger in focusing on this kind of thing is that it ignores the real issues involved. While the Israeli population is certainly more religious than American Jewry, it is by no means a radically orthodox nation - in law or demographic constitution. The issue isn't even radical Zionism: that's a dead ideology among Israeli Jews for the most part. The real problem is a sort of populist 'freedom' patriotism that equates democracy with morality (sort of how Calvinists once associated hard work and accumulated wealth with righteousness). In this worldview, when the democratic 'us' is 'attacked,' particularly by those who do not proclaim a democratic ideology, any response automatically becomes a 'moral' one. No matter how ferocious or asymmetrical the response is in comparison to the stimulus, it is always viewed in this context as 'limited' and 'restrained' because it takes place under the inherently moral auspices of democracy.

In truth, it is utopian egalitarianism as expressed through neoliberal democracy: the people in their voting masses are 'incapable' of electing leaders who would engage in an immoral war. This actually has totalitarian analogues - Stalinism and Maoism both posit an infallible (and inherently moral) 'popular Will' derived from Rousseau's idea of the 'general will': the Party is the Soul of the People and the leader is the Soul of the Party, thus the leader (Stalin or Mao) is heir to the collective moral infallibility of the People. We've seen this very ideology take root in the US post-9/11 (pushed, not surprisingly, by neoconservatives, many of whom are Jews, and many of whom were, drumroll please...Stalinists and Maoists during the 1960s), and we're watching the same phenomenon unfold in contemporary Israel.

The solution, of course, is simple: remove the morally, spiritually and intellectually unfit from the governing process and these problems go away. Hierarchy preserves ethicality. Superior people = superior decisions. Smash democracy! Fascism and eugenics NOW!

[nil]

There's a book call [url]The Wisdom of crowds[/url], which explains, quite convincingly, why democracy works.

In order for democracy to work, the crowds has to be "diversify" and "independent". Nationalism and certain ideologies are against diversity and independent opinions, that's why some democratic countries made some stupid decisions in the past few years. But in the long term, a democratic system usually "magically" fix itself, assuming the temporary bad decision doesn't deal a fatal blow to the system.

[Pimienta]

fascism isn't good. fascism is all about a superior race and every one else is evil

facism equates to nazis okay

nazis killed a lot of people because of their fascist beliefs

I totally disagree that fascism is the only way