"We're the good guys, therefore everything we do is good" is, I would argue, a core and longstanding belief of a great many Americans.
The pointy-headed academics here are going to object to your use of the word "counterfactual" I think. Just wanted to give you a heads-up.
I saw Tucker Carlson the other day argue that American women and blacks do not face discrimination because it is ABSURD!!! to say that some Americans are racist and sexist.
"What's that, the bank took away your house? Last time I checked this was America, so I can only assume you are full of shit."
This is fun!
What's horrifying is less the fact that he said it--which is horrifying enough--but that people *applauded* at it. Aaarrrggghhh.
The upside of Sadie Hawkins Everydays: I'm thin, independently wealthy and adorned with long locks of luxurious hair in Bush's America. No wonder people keep voting for this guy!
1. ...of a great many Americans people.
"therefore religious moral people don't kill innocent people"
Is the changed statement more problematic for people here?
"Virtue Ethics" where acts are not right or wrong, but individuals are right or wrong, is hard for modern rationalists to understand, I think. Or hard for me to understand. Or if understood, hard to accept as valid, hard to rationalize. Kinda the point.
America is the land of the free. Therefore, there are no prisoners in America!
Idiots don't become President; therefore....
"We're the good guys, therefore everything we do is good" is, I would argue, a core and longstanding belief of a great many Americans.
I would say this is both true, and a failing.
9: I believe it is true of a great many people everywhere, but particularly true of some Americans.
Besides: Bad Guys murder the innocent, while Good Guys minimize the unfortunately unavoidable collateral damage (but don't count it).
Versions of virtue ethics with which I'm familiar (the basic Aristotle stuff from the Nicomachean Ethics) don't assign people to binary categories, they're multi-dimensional. But I guess you could have a binary virtue ethics.
I endorse BARACK OBAMA!
Southern California is sunny, therefore it didn't rain last week.
Americans are happy people, so we have no problems.
Anyone can grow up to be president, so your child will be president when he grows up.
Americans like hamburgers, so none of us are vegetarians.
This is as fun as the Jonah Goldberg game.
As a pointy-headed academic specifically versed in counterfactuals, I approve of this post.
object to your use of the word "counterfactual"
If I were going to defend Bush (why?), I'd say that in his statement "religious people do not murder the innocent", the word "murder" is probably supposed to be doing a lot of work. Sure, we kill some innocent people--though we do our best not to--but we don't murder them, which is why we're unlike those crazy terrorists. And I think he's taking this to be some sort of multicultural statement about true religion--it's not about murdering innocent people, no matter whether you're Christian or Islamic or Hindu. So if you're murdering innocents in the name of religion, you've missed the true spirit of the religion and you're disgracing your cause. I think that's something a lot of people would buy into--hence the applause.
17:Philosophical ethics is a small subset of ethics. Whether the fucked-up and incompetent incoherent stuff people do every moment (I should be walking the dogs or working on the sink right now) of their lives deserves to be called ethics is a question for philosophers.
Today I read comments at Ezra's by Obama supporters struggling with his recent "Harry & Louise" Health Care mailer. "Obama good, how could he do a bad thing" or "Obama did bad thing, how can he be good" Some settled on a "on-balance Obama"; some assumed incompetence.
What if Bush had died in a DUI when he was a hard-partying rich kid?
Brock, you're trying too hard. Do you really think people are actually *thinking* about what the man is saying?
If they are, what they're reacting to is the implication that The Terrorists (and by extension The Islamics) are not religious, because there's only one true religion.
Brock is certainly right in his reading of why this is an applausable statement. This post is premised on reading "religious people" as "religious people like us," whereas to a sympathetic audience is reads like "religious people who understand the spirit, not letter, of a religious system."
I really don't think that's necessarily fair, B. I think a lot of people on the right are swayed by the idea that Islam is a religion that does not necessarily have to include a mandate for violence, and I think that is what is conveyed to those people by tthis statement.
what they're reacting to is the implication that The Terrorists (and by extension The Islamics) are not religious, because there's only one true religion
But Bush has said many times that Islam is a legitimate and, at heart, peaceful religion. (He's taken a lot of flack on the far right for this.) Seems more likely he's saying something like "people who brazenly murder innocents are missing the true spirit of religion." It shouldn't be a surprise at this point that his delivery was entirely inarticulate.
10: I took your "'Virtue Ethics'" to refer to the thing studied by academic philosophers because you wrote it like it was a name of something.
Obama's mailer was obviously fucked up, indicates bad things about him, and won't stop me from voting for him on Tuesday.
26-28: No true Scotsman would murder an innocent.
"This post is premised on reading "religious people" as "religious people like us,"
Religious people like us kill lots and lots and lots of innocent people. We're pretty much the market leaders.
The sad thing is that if Bush had said, "Look, we don't do this shit, because we're free" and then had taken special steps to avoid doing this shit, I might be on board. It's the Ministry of Peace surrealism of saying "We love freedom and human rights unless you're some fucking ayrab who looked at our boys the wrong way in Afghanistan or Iraq that makes this all head-exploding in its crazyosity.
And this from near the end of the speech:
Ours is a fabulous country. We are a dedicated, compassionate people, aiming to lay the foundation of peace for generations to come.
Yay us!! And we have fabulous places where we can give speeches or get married ...as long as you yourself are fabulous that is.
30: again, there's a kill/murder slip in your comment. I think Bush is trying* to maintain a distinction here--there are legitimate casualties of war, and there are innocent people deliberately killed by terrorists.
*I'm not trying to imply that he actually had all this running through his head at the time, just that it's what he would say if pressed on the point. After consultation with his advisors.
[33 cont.] Unless by "religious people like us" you meant "non-religious people", being non-religious yourself. In which case I suppose you're right, at least in the 20th century. Probably not over the long haul of history though.
[/snark]
27, see 28. I can see why Bush would have said it, meaning "not all Muslims are terrorists." I'm having a harder time seeing why it would have gotten applause. And in any case, it obviously completely implies that we are religious, and we don't commit murder, which would be hilariously false if it weren't grotesquely and offensively false.
This is all part of a narrative Bush's speechwriters have been using since the dust cleared at Ground Zero: the Enemy are not truly Muslims (for Islam is a peaceful religion that does not endorse such killing) but nihilists, they believe in nothing, Lebowski, and tomorrow they will cut off your chonson. This was actually effective for a little while, but of course nobody of any persuasion (pro-Bush or otherwise) really takes it seriously anymore.
Unless by "religious people like us" you meant "non-religious people"
I meant Western Christians.
In any case, it's obvious what he meant by it. The point is that both the statement on its face *and* what he meant by it are bullshit.
But you're right in a sense; Mao and Stalin make for a pretty impressive tally all by themselves.
29:I took your "'Virtue Ethics'" to refer to the thing studied by academic philosophers because you wrote it like it was a name of something
"Virtue Ethics" is a moral tool used by laypersons, however incoherently, and studied by philosophers.
To say people do it badly is not to say they don't do it. I have never even met anyone who didn't do metaphysics.
||
Anybody want to discuss the proposed buy out of Yahoo by Microsoft?
|>
42:Yahoo is my home page that I use constantly, for headlines/articles, weather, sports scores, and Britny Spears. I don't know what to say about the aquisition, or what point there would be in saying anything, but I am concerned. It would take me a long time and much effort to switch to Google.
When TimeWarner bought my cable area from Comcast, I lost all the the On Demand Science Libraries. Gained a little system stability and better service. C'est le fucking capitalism.
42: It's an ideological struggle between those of us who love freedom and human rights and human dignity, and those who want to impose their dark vision on how people should live their lives.
I'm not trying to imply that he actually had all this running through his head at the time, just that it's what he would say if pressed on the point. After consultation with his advisors.
For all of his obvious and appalling intellectual faults, I think that he has a sophisticated understanding of the use of coded and otherwise ambiguous language. Which is not to say that he had all this running through his mind at the time, any more than you think calculatedly about your quotidian speech. What exactly did he mean? That's fundamentally unknowable, but the people in the room knew what he meant well enough.
I think the point of Bush's statement is being radically misunderstood here. He's not trying to exculpate individual Americans who are Christians, or the collective, largely religious group "the US army"; rather, he's trying to exculpate the religion Islam: "the true Islam does not endorse murder, thus I will not dignify the actions of murderous terrorists by recognizing them as part of a religious struggle." That's the claim. It's meant to be a nice, bring-us-all-together, claim.
Now, this is of course lunacy: there is now, and has been in the past, lots of religiously-motivated murder of innocents. Unless we want to make the "no true scotsman" claim about Osama, Torquemada and the rest.
My intuition (not instinct, obvs.) is to agree with baa here. This is why he (tries to, the slow-tongued clod) make clear that it's an ideological, not religious, conflict.
So the self-congratulation is for all non-fanatical religious people, not all Americans.
radically misunderstood here
"here" being the post or comments? 'cause I feel like your comment was kinda of pwned, especially the no true scotsman part.
It's an ideological struggle between those of us who love freedom and human rights and human dignity, and those who want to impose their dark vision on how people should live their lives.
That's the brilliance of it. It may sound on its face like a nice, bring-us-all-together claim, but in the context of seven years of speechifying, we know—and the rest of the people in the room knew—that by 'us' he means self-described Christian Republicans.
Fuck anyone who worships the Republican party. Oh yes, that's the god behind the curtain, I'm looking at you, megachurches.
49: Oh, there's no doubt --- there are some really clever sons of bitches behind that asshat.
46:Look, Bush grew up with Saudis, and I am certain that he has some category of "Good Muslims".
It's a syllogism, silly.
Religious people do not murder the innocent.
We are religious people.
Therefore, none of the people we have murdered were innocent.
This is going to end with Hitler in organic honey, I just know it.
Bush has said many times that Islam is a legitimate and, at heart, peaceful religion. (He's taken a lot of flack on the far right for this.)
He said this a lot shortly after 9-11, but it has been notably missing from his rhetoric of late. I don't think that's an accident. Before the GWOT stirred up the religious right's latent hatred of Islam, the guys like Grover Norquist thought that the GOP could bring conservative Muslims into the electoral fold, just as "family values" rhetoric had previously brought together mormons, catholics, and evangelical protestants. The thinking was that they might flip Michigan into the Republican column.
In the aftermath of 9-11, the dream still seemed possible. But muslim-Americans are pretty much out of reach for the GOP since the Iraq war and Bush's heavy-handed favoritism in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So you don't see many symbolic concessions toward Islamic sensibilities anymore.
heavy-handed favoritism nihilism in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Fixed that for you.
Knecht, are you suggesting that Bush's earlier position was motivated more by political calculations than by heartfelt conviction? That's a pretty heavy charge to levy.
58: Careful there, Landers. That sarcasm might be too subtle for some of this blog's Central Asian readers.
Muslims used to vote Republican by a rather broad margin. Not anymore.
||
Emerson & Wrongshore: David Addington is teaching an upcoming TASP (according to a friend who talked to Francis Fukuyama after a lecture). His topic? Presidential power. I think I want to withdraw the $25 I threw TA last summer.
|>
"As president of my eating club, am I empowered to unilaterally dictate who we kill and eat?"
unilaterally dictate whom we kill and eat
[/w-lfs-n]
"Ours is a fabulous country. We are adedicatedfabulous, compassionate people, aiming to lay the foundation ofpeacefabulosity for generations to come."
Now that would've been awesome. E Pluribus Faboo.
We've already killed and eaten w-lfs-n, Knecht, so watch yourself with that grammar shit.
I somehow missed your comment washer, or I would've shouted out on "no true scotsman" comment. I did get the sense that the tone of the comments here was "Bush is trying to say how great the US is" rather than "Bush is trying to say how great Islam is." My point was that he was hamhandedly doing the later. (echoing Brock's point)
Talking with fellow wage-slaves earlier today:
Coworker: "I mean, I don't think that Bush really enjoys the fact that people are dying."
minneapolitan: "Yeah, but does he care?"
***
Talking to a long-lost anarchist compañero of mine this evening, I had to ask him to stop talking about war and racism, as it was making me maudlin and ill.
***
Talking to two anorexic women a couple of hours ago, I wished there was some way to express the pain and hoped-for solidarity I felt, but decided that it would just sound like trite bullshit anyway.
***
Getting off the bus half an hour ago, I hoped that the [basically uninjured] cyclist who had just been hit and was looking for someone with a cellphone to call the police wouldn't take it amiss that I didn't want to get involved.
***
Beginning all these sentences with gerunds, I wondered where my editing instincts have escaped to.
53: Look, Bush grew up with Saudis, other rich people and I am certain that he has some category of "Good Muslims" knows which side his bread is buttered on.
Ahh, much better.
I think I can endorse this 'Osama and Torquemada not scotsmen' position.
I don't know of any famous Scottish religious mass-murderers, but you do have to answer for CIA-funded psychological torture expert Ewen Cameron.
http://uscpublicdiplomacy.com/index.php/projects/africom
I don't think Bush much cares that people are dying, but I think it matters to him a lot that people he sees as his enemies are suffering. He has a history of enjoying brutality, both up close and personal when he gets to humiliate others and at a distance when he gets to enjoy others' degredation, and I don't think other people's pain matters to him except as a manifestation of their subjugation. Spencer Ackerman's recent article on CIA inquisitors just reinforces that - administration policy is terrible if you have getting reliable information as a high priority, but fantastic if you place great weight on seeing others broken. And this is very much of a muchness with a lot of other things the administration's done at Bush's pushing.
It's an applaudable statement because immediately after Bush finished speaking those sentences, he paused for a moment. Haven't you ever attended a political speech? If he had been reciting the phone book, and he paused briefly as he turned the page, there would have been a big burst of applause at that moment as well.
So the defense of Bush here seems to be that not even he could be dumb enough to forget about all the people who have been killed in the name of religion, so he's probably just using some extremely Orwellian language. "Islam is what I say it is. Religion itself is what we say it is. No one except for a terrorist would have any reason to disagree, right?"
I agree that this explanation is the most likely option, but I don't see it as a defense.