[Joe Dees 1] As to what Palestinians seem to be worth to some of their relatives: I was incorrect concerning the amount of money Saddam Hussein offers the families of Palestinian suicide bombers; it is not 50k per, but half as much - 25k per, and this amount was only recently increased from 10k per. This of course means that, of the percentage of the 70+ Palestinian families of suicide bombers who encouraged their relatives (mostly children and young adults) to commit suicide bombings, they were doing so in the expectation of receiving only half as much from Saddam Hussein. Of course, they also receive aid from Hamas and from some Saudi-based Islamic charities.
[Hermit 2] Encourage? For the money? I really pity you.
[Joe Dees 7] I pity them, and a culture and religious ideology that makes such an action not only acceptable, but laudable to a majority of the Palestinian populace.
[Hermit 8] You haven't proven this, only asserted it. And we know what your assertions are worth.
[Hermit 2] How much money would you have to be offered for you to want to persuade your hypothetical children to commit suicide?
[Joe Dees 3] Unlike, apparently, scores of Palestinian parents, no amount would suffice.
[Hermit 4] If that is the case, why do you assume that this is the case for Palestinians?
[Joe Dees 7] Facts, evidence and recent history.
[Hermit 8] Then this should be easy to show. Where are the facts? What is the evidence?
[Joe Dees 7] It seems that since the Israelis have threatened expulsions of West Bank families of the suicide
bombers to Gaza (away from their families, communities and friends) and begun bulldozing their homes, that the economic incentives for urging such actions upon their children are less economically and socially attractive to them, and there has been a marked decrease in the suicide bombing rate since.
[Hermit 8] Yet the same was said after the military responses. And the same is said after each murder of a Palestinian leader by the Israelis. And the same was said when the Israelis imposed a blockade on the Palestinian people. Each time, in the long term, the result has been an increase in violence. Why is this time going to be different?
[Joe Dees 5] When economics and ideology unite, a noxious combination is produced.
[Hermit 6] So Joe, what combination of ideology and economics would it take to persuade you to send your hypothetical children off to commit suicide?
[Joe Dees 7] Having not been raised in that ideology, the actions of these parents towards their own children, profit or no, is incomprehensible to me, but nevertheless obviously present.
[Hermit 8] Yet it is not evident to me or many others that this is caused by ideology at all. Nor is it obvious to me or many others that the parents are encouraging this. Perhaps you would like to explain what makes this obvious to you. Were Thomas and Susan Klebold and Wayne and Katherine Harris ideologically motivated to encourage their children to act at Columbine? I agree that you appear to be suffering from incomprehension, but the confusion includes, I think, your attribution of cause.
[Joe Dees 7] Of course, in a culture that allows four wives and does not prectice birth control, there will be a surfeit of children, and with so many per household, perhaps the sacrifice of a single child here and there, as a small percentage of the household's children, is looked upon as an acceptable loss, when balanced against
the good that the money and aid subsequently received could provide for those remaining. And they can always make more. Since those dead children are, after all, according to that noxious ideology, Paradise-bound martyrs, the parents can perhaps rationalize the action as beneficial compassionate and merciful to all, and the sacrifice of the future martyr's earthly span in this vale of tears as a reasonable and expendable one to make that span easier for those (s)he leaves behind in it.
[Hermit 8] I don't think it takes a genius to describe anyone who can issue such a diatribe as matching the definition of a racist bigot to the last slur. So I'm not planning on venturing here.
---- This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=26096>
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