- Joined
- Mar 27, 2018
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I'm back. My argument is that Israel is a brutal, foreign theocracy. You don't have to like the two American women in question to support them as AMERICANS. For this foreign theocracy, Israel, that accepts so much aid from America, to insult our representatives should be met with universal disdain from Americans. That aid comes from the tax dollars of THEIR constituents as well.
For the president and the conservatives to, time and again, give such preference to another nation is disgraceful.
Thank you, D_NATURED.
So if I understand your argument, no matter what another fellow American says or does to have deserved it, if that fellow American suffers some affront from a foreigner or foreign government I am duty-bound to take their side in the dispute over the foreigner no matter the circumstance? Like some kind of insular Sicilian family where, no matter how much we may personally think that a particular family member's toxic behavior and attitude are, we do not allow anyone outside our family to level criticism against them and we always take their side?
If that is the principle that you articulate and promote, do you apply this principle to Donald Trump? If he suffers any affront from foreign governments that your fellow progressives and liberals laud, do you wheel about on them suddenly and figuratively (or literally) slap them across the face and label them un-American for taking the side of dirty foreigners over our president who, despite his myriad faults, is still American? That seems rather "my country (or, more accurately, my countrymen) right or wrong" to me. If that is your attitude and how you have behaved, then I laud your consistent adherence to such a principle. But I do not see how such a principle is practical or practicable and seems to foster the same kind of naked toxic nationalism that one finds in countries like the People's Republic of China.
Because nowhere in the pledge of allegiance have I sworn to take the side of each and every American over a foreigner no matter what the context of the affront or the dispute. Neither Ilhan Omar nor Rashida Tlaib are my family. They are not my kith nor my kin. They owe me no love or support, nor do I owe them my love or support, and I have certainly never received love or support from them. They are two horrible people whose thoughts, feelings and views I utterly despise and who by all accounts hate the nation of Israel and would wish to see harm come to its people. No sovereign nation should be forced to suffer the presence of those foreign persons who despise it and associate with those who would wish to annihilate it.
Finally, responding to your first point last, Israel is not a theocracy in any meaningful sense of the word. It is a liberal parliamentary democracy. It is not ultimately ruled over by a council of clerics or religiously-ordained absolute monarchs as Iran or Saudi Arabia are. While Judaism is the state religion, that matters as much to me (and most Jews in Israel who are mainly secular or non-religious) as the fact that the United Kingdom is officially a Christian nation with the Queen being the head of the Anglican Church. If simply having an official state religion makes a country a theocracy to you, alright, then Israel is a Theocracy, as is the United Kingdom, Denmark and Norway. As far as brutality is concerned, I know of no other instance in history where a liberal democracy has suffered as much in the way of foreign invasion and terror and managed to respond with as much restraint as Israel has and still maintain its democratic character. Perhaps you can provide some examples?
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