With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going past them into the impossible.
October 27, 2009 - 11:51 a.m.
I hate not knowing what to write about. I am always overflowing with ideas when I'm not trying to write then I sit at the computer and forget all of them. I might end up giving just a survey of things on my mind rather than a coherent entry. We'll see how things develop.
This is going to sound strange but I'm happy that Obama is being indecisive about Afghanistan. It is a difficult situation and anyone who is confident they know what is right is fooling him or herself. I'd like to write more about it but I am finding it difficult to remain civil. I keep writing things then deleting them. I think I'll just have to deal with what is making it a hard call.
It is very easy to say that the Taliban is bad. They are. They are throwing acid in the faces of little girls because they are going to school. When they were in power girls were not educated. They provided a haven for Al Qaeda, the boundaries between them were not clear. They were one of the most oppressive regimes on earth.
The hard part is what if anything we can do to stop them. They are far more radical than the bulk of the Afghan people, why is there a danger of them winning? It's because to many it feels like there is no alternative. The current regime is corrupt and inept. That's the crux of the problem. Mussolini made the trains run on time and the Taliban provided stability. The real question is why it is so difficult to find an alternative. Why can't they find someone to run the country whose brother isn't a drug lord?
The deeper problem, one that is repeated in Iraq is why is it so difficult to establish a democracy. Don't people want to rule themselves? The thing is they don't. They don't want to make all the decisions. They don't want to take the time to think deeply about things. It happens here too. We elect a president based on who we would rather have a beer with. It works because there are so many checks and balances. There are enough people that are informed to stop the worst from happening. It may take a long time but eventually we throw the bums out.
In Afghanistan and Iraq people vote for the party that represents their ethnic group. Better a corrupt Pashtun than any Tajik. Better an incompetent Shiite than a Sunni. At least he'll stand up for us.
I don't have any answers. I am not informed enough myself to make these judgments. I'm glad that Obama realizes he isn't either and is working on learning more. Eventually he has to make a decision because doing nothing is also a course of action and no more likely to be right than the others. He also is open to changing his plan based on the facts. Not doing that was the hallmark of the Bush administration. You try something, if it works great. If new information comes in or it doesn't work you change what you're doing. Seems like common sense but it is uncommon. It's easier to have an ideology and never waver from it.
This wasn't a fun entry for you to read. I'll try and be more entertaining next time. I have nothing planned for today. Maybe I'll write another entry later.
Northeastern Comfort - October 31, 2009
Colbert Report Report - October 30, 2009
Lift Up Your Hands - October 29, 2009
57 Varieties - October 28, 2009
All Sales Are Final - October 27, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile October 27, 2009
