Rattlesnake Logic

Got this in an email. What do you think?

Rattlesnake Logic....

After the Boston bombing the news media spent days and weeks
trying to determine why these men did what they did. They
want to know what America did(!) to make these brothers so
angry with us. They want to know why these men were
not arrested before they did something so terrible.
The media is in a tizzy about this new era of
homegrown radicals and about why and how they can live among
us and still hate us.

A friend of mine from Texas explained it all to me: “Here
in west Texas, I have rattlesnakes on my place, living among
us. I have killed a rattlesnake on the front porch.
I have killed a rattlesnake on the back porch. I
have killed rattlesnakes in the barn, in the shop and on the
driveway. In fact, I kill every rattlesnake I
encounter.

I kill rattlesnakes because I know a rattlesnake will bite
me and inject me with poison. I don’t stop to wonder
WHY a rattlesnake will bite me; I know it WILL bite me
because it's a rattlesnake and that's what
rattlesnakes do. I don’t try to reason with a
rattlesnake or have a "meaningful dialogue" with
it…I just kill it. I don’t try to get to know the
rattlesnake better so I can find a way to live with the
rattlesnakes and convince them not to bite me. I just
kill them. I don’t quiz a rattlesnake to see if I can find
out where the other snakes are, because (a) it won’t tell
me and (b) I already know they live on my place. So, I
just kill the rattlesnake and move on to the next one.

I don’t look for ways I might be able to change the
rattlesnake to a non-poisonous rat snake...I just
kill it. Oh, and on occasion, I accidentally kill a
rat snake because I thought it was a rattlesnake at the
time. Also, I know for every rattlesnake I kill, two
more are lurking out there in the brush. In my
lifetime I will never be able to rid my place of
rattlesnakes.


Do I fear them? Not really. Do I
respect what they can do to me and my family?
Yes!! And because of that respect, I give them the
fair justice they deserve....I kill them...
As a country,
we should start giving more thought to the fact that these
jihadists' are telling the world their goal is to kill
Americans and destroy our way of life. They have just
posted two graphic videos on the internet showing them
beheading Americans. They are serious. They are
exactly like rattlesnakes. It is high time for us to
start acting accordingly!

I love this country.
It's the damn government I'm afraid
of!

Look who's new in the White
House!

Arif Alikhan
Assistant Secretary for Policy
Development for the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security

Mohammed Elibiary
Homeland Security Adviser

Rashad Hussain
Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic
Conference(OIC)

Salam al-Marayati
Obama Adviser and founder of the Muslim Public Affairs
Council

and is its current executive
director

Imam Mohamed Magid-
Obama's Sharia Czar from the Islamic Society of North
America

Eboo Patel-
Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood
Partnerships

This is flat-out scary!

The foxes are
now officially living in the hen house...

Now ask me why I am very
concerned!

Do you feel OK with this?

How can this
happen, and when will we wake
up?
We are quiet while our Country is being drastically
changed!

IF YOU ARE NOT CONCERNED, JUST
DELETE THIS.

Go to bed tonight...sleep
well!

Otherwise, pass it on get the word out!

We've got to have some relief starting
with the 2014 Elections!

 

1. Story about, by a broad definition, deadly vermin.

2. Short bridging device implying part 1 is related to part 3.

3. List of people, none terrorists or criminals, mostly public officials, with ethnic names.

I hope no one is falling for this.

 

The Islamic religious extremism in the Middle East has far surpassed anything that the U.S. has seen or experienced since WWII. As one American general kept asking, "How is this going to end?"

 

Either way, Islamic Jidahists videotaping themselves chopping off the heads of civilians (aka infidels) is unlike anything that the U.S. military has had to deal with.

 

It's the globalization of Jihad that's new, not the acts themselves. The US military has been "dealing" with this since the Barbary Pirates. Black Jack Pershing fought the Moro starting in 1899.

 

Jihadists Crusaders

In WWII, the Imperial Japanese Army chopped off the heads of people and the German Nazi government authorized the euthanasia of people who were egregiously deemed to be unclean or impure, such as Jews. The twist for the 21st Century are the Jihadists with their Islamic religious agenda, which is uniquely intertwined with their "religious-political-military" push for world domination.

In WWII, the U.S. military fought political-military infrastructures, but in the 21st Century, a Jihadist "religious-political-military" machine is being battled. Extremists religious doctrines are the new twist for the 21st Century. You can call extremist Muslims the new "Jihadists Crusaders" who have vowed to fight for global domination of all peoples i.e. submit to Allah and his prophet Mohammad or die.

 

Sadly, though videotape may be, few brutalities are new. Several similar examples have been offered from international history. The U.S. has even had to deal with a practice of brutal, very pointedly publicized "to send a message," rogue executions that over the years killed thousands of Americans within the United States.

On the just side in these conflicts, "rooting out people with a certain kind of name," as the text the OP quotes seems to suggest, isn't a good idea.

 

I have a question for the moderation team.

Is a long story about literal deadly vermin followed shortly by a list of Americans with ethnic names – who are not terrorists or criminals, but who by bridging and implication are associated with terrorism and compared allegorically to the deadly vermin – in an original post here, unchallenged in that post beyond "What do you think?," consistent with DegreeInfo Terms of Service?

I know and I note that this content in the original post wasn't written by our SurfDoctor, but rather cut and pasted here from some other source. The question still stands. It's about these issues in the content of the post, not about the poster, whose contributions to this board I respect.

 

I believe Arif Alikhan, Mohammed Elibiary, Rashad Hussain, Salam al-Marayati, Mohamed Magid, and Eboo Patel, Americans and nothing close to extremists, are defamed in how they are invoked immediately after the deadly-vermin story and a short bridging device.

Further, there's a long and terrible human history of minority outgroups who are perceived as threatening being compared with vermin. If the "hateful" clause in the list above includes anything, shouldn't it include this?

My dispute is not with comparing people who threaten and do bad things, to deadly animals, though I don't think this is that helpful a guide to setting policy.

 

Jihadist Crusaders

Understood. In the Middle Ages, the Christian Crusaders were accused of forcibly marching into the Middle East with their agenda. Conversely, in the 21st Century, there are Jihadist Crusaders who are attempting to forcibly (violently) spread their Islamic religious dogmas throughout the world i.e. you will submit to Allah and his prophet Mohammad or die.

 

Further, before we go too far using the term "jihadists" for ISIS, maybe ISIS actually comes from a significantly different movement than those previously identified as jihadist.

This is exactly what a New York Times background piece says today. Emphasis added:

ISIS’ Harsh Brand of Islam Is Rooted in Austere Saudi Creed (David D. Kirkpatrick, The New York Times, September 24, 2014)

 

An excellent course called "The Global Jihadi Threat" can be taken from the Navel Postgraduate School at:
https://www.chds.us/
(then click on "open learning")