re: #153 CuriousLurker

There is a sizable percentage of our own population that sees our government as a corrupt and failing regime, as the comments at any right wing blog and the popularity of Fox News, the Tea Party, etc. will show. There are people working on the same narrative in Europe. I have no empirical evidence, but I’m pretty sure a government doesn’t have to to actually be corrupt & failing motivate people, it just has to be perceived to be so.

Define “healthy”, please.

And while you’re at it, please explain how we prevent the message of the counter-jihadists from reaching those who are “unhealthy” and therefore, buy your own definition, prone to allowing themselves to become evil.

First things first.

Why do you suppose all dysfunctional regimes have such huge state security apparatuses? Perhaps it is because they understand that given the cjance, people will abandon these regimes. No one really wants to be a part of the evil. That is as true of the Libyans, Tunisians and Egyptians as it was of the Poles, Czechs and East Germans.

Now, as to the right wing rhetoric.

Nutjobs are nut jobs. No one has a monopoly, not the right, left, Christians, Jews, Muslims or Hindus.

The right aren’t the only ones who speak in apocalyptic terms. Remember George Bush’s FEMA concentration camps? Recall how many were sure he would declare martial law in a matter of days? There are an equally sizable group of people on the left who share the same ‘government is corrupt’ ideas.

Nevertheless, the government here is a far cry from the governments of repressive regimes.

Also, who decides what are and are not acceptable ideologies?

If the right here is not acceptable, why should Hamas or the PA be accorded any credibility. Their politics are not exactly unknown (I use them for illustrative purposes only). Why should Merkel and Sarkozy be considered legitimate leaders?

We have seen ideological swings throughout history. That won’t change. Freedom is the key. Democracies do not wage war on each other.

Most people inherently want freedom. many will fight for freedom. Very, very few will commit deliberate acts of terror against innocents for freedom.

Terror is not brought on by poverty or by an influx of immigrants. Children are not shot because of multiculturalism and bombs are not planted because of an economic malaise. Planes aren’t flown into buildings so as to air political grievances.

All these things happen on the right and left because there are groups and individuals who want to seize and assert power.

They are fighting against the very things real people yearn for- real freedom. They don’t want to see religious freedoms, abortion rights, gay rights or universal human rights because those things are lessen control over populations.m This is true of any ideologies that are repressive, left or right. Those ideologies demand the marginalization (or worse) of those whose behavior they find offensive- usually administred in a cruel and brutal fashion.

People are inherently good. There are those who will go to great lengths to manipulate and change that but when all is said and done, people will reject evil.

Only values, born of dignity and the recognition that all men and women are of equal value, determines morality and codes of conduct. It is an ideology that drives people to exceed their potential for good.