The Democrats put out a soothing, rational plan. But it is a not simple call to action, like a call to war is. People are generally not interested in a multitude of complex issues. I read about some of them, but I get tired of reading about the same old stuff all the time. Nothing ever seems to get resolved, or fixed, or get better. The environment continues to deteriorate, the corruption continues unabated, murderous tyrants continue to slaughter their own people. But some things are getting better, in a secular sense anyway. China and India are making progress by leaps and bounds, building factories and skyscrapers and computers and cars. I hate to say it, but I suspect the Communists have done more for China in the last 50 years than any other government has done for their people. They are evil tyrants, but what are you going to do? Start a nuclear war with them? I don't think that would be a very good idea right now.
The Republicans were selling a simple belief system along with a simple call to action. America is right, and all these tinpot dictators should be put out of business. Never mind the diplomats at the UN. We tried that in the Balkans. It didn't work too well.
The American plan in Iraq is not doing too well either. A better way, and maybe the only way, to fight a guerrilla war is with guerrillas. Bringing a big army to route a few terrorists from a city is causing us a great deal of grief, and I don't know that it is working all that well. I think a better approach would be to find some Iraqi's who agree with us on things like freedom, peace and cooperation. We train them up as special forces and turn them loose in Iraq to wage a war of extermination against the Jihadist's. At the same time, we would pull our forces out, thus eliminating one of the big targets of religious wackos.
Problem is, could we find any Iraqi's who are not fully imbued with a culture of hatred and revenge? And if we did, could we teach them to kill all those who oppose them?
Materialism is our god. If you practice this religion, you will have enough to eat, you can stay clean and warm, and you are not too likely to get killed by your neighbor. It takes a certain amount of sacrifice, some work, and the ability to plan ahead. It also takes some resources and a community of like minded individuals. Even the mountain men who first explored the Western US were dependent on the community. They carried rifles, rifles that were made by the community. Those rifles were what enabled them to survive out in the wilds.
Not every one believes as we do. Some otherwise rational people can appear to be completely deranged when the subject of a religious enemy comes up. What are you going to do about people like this? One minute you can be buying or selling food, and the next he is running out the door waving a gun screaming he is going to kill the heretics. It is unlikely you are going to change him. He has been brought up to hate this other group. It has probably been passed down from father to son for hundreds of years. The whole culture is steeped in it. Even if you could find a way to start changing their belief system, it will take several generations for this kind of thing to fade to the point where the majority will be willing to take action against such individuals, regardless of their allegiances.
Update December 2016 replaced missing picture.
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