10 Years Later

Tod Kelly

Tod is a writer from the Pacific Northwest. He is also serves as Executive Producer and host of both the 7 Deadly Sins Show at Portland's historic Mission Theatre and 7DS: Pants On Fire! at the White Eagle Hotel & Saloon. He is  a regular inactive for Marie Claire International and the Daily Beast, and is currently writing a book on the sudden rise of exorcisms in the United States. Follow him on Twitter.

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24 Responses

  1. Tom Van Dyke says:

    And it’s also true that a certain kind of social conservative has made a seamless transition from The Terrorists Are Evil to All Muslims Are Evil

    Unjustified. 13 attacks thwarted in NYC alone since 9-11. This is real.

    http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/arrested-york-city-synagogue-attack-plot-sting/story?id=13586174Report

    • Tod Kelly in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

      Tom, I don’t even know where to begin in resounding to this.

      How many muslims live in this country? How many live in NY? Is it 13?Report

      • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Tod Kelly says:

        Well, then begin, Tod, because I’m appalled at what I read here lately, pontifications that ignore so much reality. The threat is real, and the rest is just another charge of racism or whatever. “Social conservatives” are not as a whole hassling Muslims. Feh. farmer gets it.

        ,i>Two observations: the social conservative comment was gratuitous and not really true except among a statistically insignificant group of haters. The great majority of conservatives, social or otherwise, would say that Muslims aren’t necessarily evil, just theologically mistaken, but that radical Islam is counter to their Christian beliefs in what’s good and just. This can be debated, but conservatives as a whole don’t believe that all Muslims are evil. If you can show me a large, socially conservative organization or Christian religious sect which states this, then I will admit you are right.Report

        • Tod Kelly in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

          Tom – When did I call you a racist? Sometimes I think when you engage me you want to argue with a Generic Liberal, but that’s not who I am.

          Regarding Farmer, yeah… but may I point out that you were just the one that told me I was off base by suggesting my All Muslims Are Evil line was actually true and should be taken seriously?Report

          • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Tod Kelly says:

            I don’t take it seriously atall. The statement I highlighted is mere and mindless slander, Tod. It’s all grist for the mill.Report

            • Tod Kelly in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

              Then I apologize, as I must have read your initial comment wrong. Can I ask you to rephrase it?Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Tod Kelly says:

                Other commenters have expressed the same reservations about the OP, Tod, and more effectively. It’s not just me.Report

              • Tod Kelly in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                But Tom, I’m asking you. And not to challenge, but to find common ground. I have a hard time believing we are not pretty close on this and just talking past one another.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Tod Kelly says:

                Well, Mr. Farmer has encapsulated my primary objection far better than I.

                As for the civil liberties thing, condemnations of it seldom examine the possibility that the stringent measures may have saved us from some major shit. [They don’t tell us everything they thwarted; you keep the intel stream live as long as you can. I for one was unaware 13 attacks have been thwarted in NYC since 9-11. That’s a lot.]

                The current airport security regime seems asinine, but I must wonder if the whole circus hasn’t discouraged the bad guys from even trying. Prophylaxis seldom reveals its alternatives.

                As for the assertions on Iraq, I stopped litigating it around 2006 in the intertubes, for it serves no purpose. I do give you a full point [two!] for saying it was an understandable overreaction, rather than a bland and boilerplate condemnation of the sort that you limn well here.Report

              • Tod Kelly in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                Like most times when we clash sabers, I’m not entirely convinced we disagree on much. As I said to Mike, I don’t believe that all or even most social conservatives vilify Muslims. But as I also said to him, I don’t think doing so on socially conservative TV and radio stations would happen if there weren’t some place to get traction. This isn’t because social conservatives are social conservatives, it’s because they’re human, and this type of enemy finding and demonization is sadly a pretty human thing to do.

                Regarding your point on civil liberties, I agree, and suspect that neither you are I are in either the All or Nothing camps on this issue.

                Agreed on the airports, and obviously on the last bone you threw me. (Which was appreciated.)Report

    • Kim in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

      ya. and there’s dead christians, killed by christians that we haven’t stopped. At least two incidents since 9-11 (and those are just off the top of my head)Report

  2. MFarmer says:

    “And it’s also true that a certain kind of social conservative has made a seamless transition from The Terrorists Are Evil to All Muslims Are Evil and have been (I believe) shamelessly exploited by political and media powers, but let’s face it – that kind of person was going to find an Enemy with a hatred that could be exploited by those powers anyway. And it’s led to a significant pendulum swing-back in the civil liberties department, but I’ve been around long enough to know this debate has always been going on, and that swing would have happened eventually anyway. And I know that eventually it will come back this way again.”

    Two observations: the social conservative comment was gratuitous and not really true except among a statistically insignificant group of haters. The great majority of conservatives, social or otherwise, would say that Muslims aren’t necessarily evil, just theologically mistaken, but that radical Islam is counter to their Christian beliefs in what’s good and just. This can be debated, but conservatives as a whole don’t believe that all Muslims are evil. If you can show me a large, socially conservative organization or Christian religious sect which states this, then I will admit you are right.

    The second is your belief that things seem to operate in pendulum fashion, that if civil liberties are being violated, the societal pendulum will somehow automatically swing back to liberty. History is full of events in certain countries, regions, States, which signaled a major change and the pendulum effect wasn’t operational — from the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Empire to the current Middle East shows that major changes can overtake a people, due to the choices and actions of many individuals, and the changes can lead to long term loss of freedom.Report

    • Tod Kelly in reply to MFarmer says:

      Mike – Regarding this: ” the social conservative comment was gratuitous and not really true except among a statistically insignificant group of haters. The great majority of conservatives, social or otherwise, would say that Muslims aren’t necessarily evil, just theologically mistaken, but that radical Islam is counter to their Christian beliefs in what’s good and just.” I get where you are coming from this, and my desire to see each side as different sides of the same coin wants me to agree. But the fact is when I look at socially liberal media outlets, pundits and politicians, I don’t see them being pushed to decry Muslims in the way that I see their socially conservative counterparts. Seriously, if I told you that the host of a news network did a piece on how most Mosques were a hotbed of terrorist sympathizers biding their time to commit acts of violence or impose Sharia law, would you really even bother to ask “Oh? Which network?”

      Regarding the second part of that quote, I’d really like to agree with that as well, but just a minute before your post hit someone else (a pretty tame, sane and rational thinking social conservative) posted that I was wrong in suggesting All Muslims are Evil was a fallacy.

      Your point about the pendulum is also on the mark; however, you and I just have a (very) different opinion about where we are today on that spectrum.Report

  3. MFarmer says:

    Rod, I think there are many reasons to criticize social conservatives, and I’ve done so, but the tendency here to make hyperbolic claims regarding conservatives doesn’t ring true and weakens the overall message.Report

  4. MFarmer says:

    “Seriously, if I told you that the host of a news network did a piece on how most Mosques were a hotbed of terrorist sympathizers biding their time to commit acts of violence or impose Sharia law, would you really even bother to ask “Oh? Which network?””

    I don’t think like that — regardless of the media outlet, I would only ask if it’s true and if there’s any proof to substantiate the claim.Report

  5. J. Otto Pohl says:

    Since 9-11 many people claiming to be conservatives, especially the radically pro-Israeli neo-conservative movement have expressed opinions like this one:

    http://athens-and-jerusalem.blogspot.com/2008/03/gaza.html

    and

    http://athens-and-jerusalem.blogspot.com/2009/03/on-israeli-politics.html

    Support for ethnic cleanisng used to be an almost exclusively left wing policy. But, the Israelization of US politics combined with the rise of Likud have resulted in a lot people who identify themselves as “conservatives” joining the ranks of left wing socialists like David Ben Gurion.Report

  6. J. Otto Pohl says:

    In the years 1945-1950 almost all incidents of ethnic cleansing were done by left wing governments. The USSR under Stalin, the Polish and Czech forces that took power after the Nazi defeat, Tito in Yugoslavia, the Zionists under Ben Gurion in Palestine. Or are you claiming Stalin and Tito were right wingers?Report

    • Tom Van Dyke in reply to J. Otto Pohl says:

      Stop before you hurt yourself, JOtto. Stalin was a right-winger. Tito. Mao. Pol Pot. The Taliban. The Iranian mullahs, you name it. The Hutus, or the Tutsis, whichever ones did the doing, I forget. Robespierre. You don’t speak the language yet.Report