Yeah, I have a habit of coming up with really bad metaphors for things; it'd be a bit more accurate to say that Bob, Fred and Steve all used to live in the same place, and built bits and pieces of the house and the areas around it, and now Bob has decided he doesn't like Fred and Steve so much anymore, so they're not allowed to use the XBox and Fred's stuff has started being thrown out on the lawn by Bob with help from Bob's buddy Sam. But even that's a huge oversimplification.
I'm also extremely uncomfortable with the idea that the way to prevent another Holocaust is NOT just to get it through everyone's heads that you don't kill people for stupid crap like religion or ethnicity. You base that belief on anything else, and sooner or later it comes back to a guy pointing and going "That's Them, this is Us, and I think you know what We need to do with Them." Impossible task? Maybe. But giving people more ways to divvy up into Us and Them doesn't feel like an answer to me. (Then again, I am in no way an expert in, well, basically anything, and if anyone starts making policy decisions based on one loon on the Internet then they're even worse off than I am.)
Israel's there now, and trying to kick people out again would be even worse than the last time. It exists, it is a country, and I support the concept of a country that is a home for a historically disenfranchised people. But if the current example of that concept is a place where various atrocities are committed in the name of preserving said historically disenfranchised people, then I cannot consider myself a fan of said current example. I'm also not a fan of the United States as a political entity right now. We're pretending like everything is okay again, but we're still holding kids in semisecret prisons without trial, so really we haven't much cleaned up our act at all.
I've known for some time that it's almost a rule that if you're a liberal, you have to love Israel, but I just can't. It skeezes me out. It makes me feel bad that humanity just can't seem to learn the Stop Beating Up On That Guy Who's Littler Than You Are lesson. I'm aware that that's a lesson we may not ever learn, but that doesn't mean I have to support someone who's flouting it extra-crispy style. They can flout it over there without me. I'll be over here watching Star Trek or something.
Bah, I type too much. Short version: opinions differ, politics are sticky things, and if you get another reply to this comment from my robot friend, you should probably ignore most or all of what he says. He is a politics wonk with opinions similar to my own, and can be very vociferous about those opinions.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-08-08 04:36 pm (UTC)I'm also extremely uncomfortable with the idea that the way to prevent another Holocaust is NOT just to get it through everyone's heads that you don't kill people for stupid crap like religion or ethnicity. You base that belief on anything else, and sooner or later it comes back to a guy pointing and going "That's Them, this is Us, and I think you know what We need to do with Them." Impossible task? Maybe. But giving people more ways to divvy up into Us and Them doesn't feel like an answer to me. (Then again, I am in no way an expert in, well, basically anything, and if anyone starts making policy decisions based on one loon on the Internet then they're even worse off than I am.)
Israel's there now, and trying to kick people out again would be even worse than the last time. It exists, it is a country, and I support the concept of a country that is a home for a historically disenfranchised people. But if the current example of that concept is a place where various atrocities are committed in the name of preserving said historically disenfranchised people, then I cannot consider myself a fan of said current example. I'm also not a fan of the United States as a political entity right now. We're pretending like everything is okay again, but we're still holding kids in semisecret prisons without trial, so really we haven't much cleaned up our act at all.
I've known for some time that it's almost a rule that if you're a liberal, you have to love Israel, but I just can't. It skeezes me out. It makes me feel bad that humanity just can't seem to learn the Stop Beating Up On That Guy Who's Littler Than You Are lesson. I'm aware that that's a lesson we may not ever learn, but that doesn't mean I have to support someone who's flouting it extra-crispy style. They can flout it over there without me. I'll be over here watching Star Trek or something.
Bah, I type too much. Short version: opinions differ, politics are sticky things, and if you get another reply to this comment from my robot friend, you should probably ignore most or all of what he says. He is a politics wonk with opinions similar to my own, and can be very vociferous about those opinions.