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Cry Me A Riverbend II

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Big Pharoah Becomes A Great Statanist

Recounting a conversation with co-workers in which they proposed that the U.S. was behind the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, he says:

"Well, thanks, you just made me a worshipper of America. I stopped believing in God. Because if what you are saying is true, then America was in fact capable of convincing thousands of Sunni youth from outside Iraq to not just kill Shias but to die in the process as well. Definitely America has supernatural power in order to be able to convince such a huge number of suicide bombers and therefore the statue of liberty and the casinos of Vegas are God. America Akbar!"

I suspect there those of you out there with an annoying tendency to apply logic to these things. You are probably wondering how it is in America's interest, after spending lots of money and blood on a democratic government and installing "puppets", to now spoil everything by stirring up a civil war. Oh, you silly superstitious logicians! Let me clue you into a recent conversation that America, the Great Satan, had with an Arab:

Arab: "But, Great Satan! How does stirring up chaos and civil war in Iraq help your ingenius evil plan to steal Iraq's oil? No one can get oil out of Iraq in all that mayhem!"

Great Satan: "Ha ha ha! Silly Arab! Don't you understand anything? I don't care if another drop of oil comes out of the Middle East. At any time, I can just have my oil companies and car companies start making those cars that run on cooking oil. I could have done that a long time ago, but I kept the designs away from the public because that would have been "good" and I don't do good. I never do good and I never let good things happen. If something good happens it is either a trick of mine or an Arab did it and I cover it up. Don't you get it? Causing trouble is FUN! Fun, fun, fun, fun, FUN!"

That's the reason I attacked Pearl Harbor and blamed the peaceful Japanese and why I caused 9-11 and blamed that famous pacifist Osama Bin Laden. Why do you think I faked the landing on the Moon? Because tricking people is FUN. Remember when Columbus "discovered" America? Even that was faked. There's no North and South American continents and there never were. If you sail West, you you'll arrive at mini-mart in Karaikal, India. (We've been calling the people Columbus found "Indians" but you gullible people never caught on. ha ha!)"

I'm not going to say who was behind that original hoax, but I will say that those Muhammed cartoons nearly blew the lid off the whole thing. I guess I got a little carried away in the thrill of it all. So I blew up the shrine to distract everyone. See? I'm always doing stuff to distract people. (You noticed, I'm sure, people all over the Muslim world stopped protesting anything as soon as they heard about it and went back to drinking tea.)"

Arab: "Wow. That's amazing!"

Great Satan: "That's nothing. Someday I'll tell you how I faked the discovery of electricity!"

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Sunday, February 19, 2006

The Basic Rules For Deserving and Receiving Apologies

A Primer On Apologies and Culpability

Here is a truly ignorant statment about the Muslem Cartoon Protests:

Both the Danish newspaper and the protesting Muslims are wrong.

Maybe this is true, or maybe not. I don't think the newspaper was wrong considering the context as described by the editor. Even if you think publishing the cartoons was wrong, it is simply not true that they are EQUALLY wrong.

Even if you think that the Danish newspaper owed Muslims an apology on the morning after the cartoons were published, the newspaper does NOT owe Muslims an apology anymore.

Let me explain the basic rules of owing and receiving apologies:

  1. If you are offended, you have the RIGHT to ASK for an apology. You do not have the right to RECIEVE an apology. True apologies can only be freely given.
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  2. If you go ape, that is, if you freak out in an outrageously offensive manner totally out of proportion to the offence, then you might even POISON the ability for you and those sharing your cause to RECEIVE an *honest* apology.

    When that happens, the only apology you can possibly receive will have all the intrinsic meaning of the soothing words a cop gives to someone threatening to jump off a ledge. It is just words meant to calm down a maniac. It will never be an true apology after that.
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  3. Furthermore, if you act that way, then you no longer even DESERVE an apology. You deserve only REBUKE instead. And that is all Muslims as a whole deserve anymore. Why? Because their leaders and spokesmen have failed to rebuke the outrageous behavior of Muslims.

    Christians call this "excommunicating". It means essentially, "throwing someone out of your community" and an excommunicated party is consigned to Hell (unless he gets a chance to repent and be accepted back into the community).

    Muslim leaders haven't done this with the outrageous behavior of the protestors, or the murder-suicide bombers or others who murder in the name of Islam. They haven't stated the obvious, that martyr is killed for his Faith. He does not kill himself. They have not repudiated the belief that Paradise awaits those who offer such a repugnant sacrifice to Allah...or even declared that such an act does not weigh in their favor. Instead, the Islamic leaders and the public faces of Islam have excused and justified those actions. Consequently, Islam's banner has been hijacked by the whoever is willing to act the most insanely and brutally in order to attract the attention of cameras.

    So, now when reasonable Muslims ask for an apology, it is like asking for money from someone while there is a big guy with a black mask and hunting knife behind him who is your friend. You may not be doing anything threatening, but the threat is there anyway.
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  4. However, simply being Muslim at an individual level does not cause your owe an apology for the maniacs protesting the cartoons. If you have always repudiated beheaders and other killers who claim to share your religion, you stand with the rest of the reasonable world: neither owing or deserving an apology.

Now you know.