Sunday, June 6, 2010

Blogblather on the 2nd comment by Undercurrent on the Jews


Billy Blogblather has left a new comment on your post "Second comment by Undercurrent on the Jews":

I have written in another venue, that for me you awaken memories of the late 50's and early 60's when the political right wing was all abuzz with the sky-is-falling Communist scare. Some people, I said (in different words) seem to need an enemy to focus on, else their lives have no center. And indeed I am probably just such a person. Why else am I here but to rant and rage? It makes me feel alive. That's sad, but that's true. Your position regarding radical Islamism is, I presume, shared by most of the world -- you're not very radical in this. What seems to me radical in your thinking is your apparent belief that all Islamism is or has become radicalized. You're arguments in defense of Israel, it seems to me, are not so much in defense of Israel as in opposition to anything Islamic. Islamism is your mew Communism. OK, then, that's your game and you seem to be enjoying it. Carry on, as Ritchie would say.

LAWRENCE RESPONDS TO BILLY BLOGBLATHER:
            You bring back memories to me as well: the days when Leftists were denying that the Communists had spies in government, spies in the scientific community feeding military secrets to Moscow, and arguing that the Rosenbergs were innocent.  Okay, you have dusted it off and applied it to the current Islamist threat. 
            In thinking about this implication of yours, you may be saying that there is no threat and that I (speaking for the non-Left-wing) have create the illusion that there is because I need a threat.
            Or you could be saying that there is a threat but my need for it is uncivilized -- much as Undercurrent said about Israel preventing supplies they considered useful for military purposes from being sent to the Palestinians.  Undercurrent thought the potential threat of Islamism less important than the "uncivilized" behavior of Israel.  So you could be saying something like that about me.
            But if there is an actual threat then my need for it wouldn't have brought it into existence.  And if this is the case then some other expression might be more pertinent to my actual need.  It might be more appropriate to say that inasmuch as there is an actual threat, I feel a need to defend my country.  And in regard to Israel, believing as I do that there is an actual threat, I sympathize with the steps they have taken to defend their country.

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