Wednesday, October 31, 2007
|
|
Erasing the Distinction Between Innocence and Evil
|
|
Posted by:
Michael Medved at
9:06 PM
|
On November 1st, HBO presented a new documentary called “To Die In Jerusalem: Two Daughters Lost in Conflict.” According to promotional materials, the film portrays two seventeen year old girls as they “die in a Jerusalem market, their mothers confront each other, revealing a microcosm of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the complexity of reconciliation.” Like the infamous Newsweek cover that inspired it, this documentary treats both girls – Palestinian Ayat al-Akhras and Israeli Rachel Levy – as victims of “faith or fate that brought each of them to the end of her life in such a tragic manner.” Appallingly, the filmmakers blur the distinction between murderer and victim, evil and innocence. The Israeli girl went to the market to buy Sabbath supplies; the Palestinian girl went there to murder strangers in a homicide bombing. The publicity for the film also downplays the security guard killed alongside the girls, and the thirty bystanders wounded in the blast. The real reason for the “complexity of reconciliation” is that the mother of the bomber, encouraged by a society that praises her murderous child as a heroine with posters and commemorations, now feels “hesitant pride” in her heinous act. Ignoring the gigantic moral gulf between crazed killer and blameless target doesn’t advance the cause of peace, but perpetuates the ignorance and blindness that faciliates continued terrorism.
|
|
The media loves to blur the lines betwwen good and evil. This HBO special is just another example of their hatred of all things good. I cancelled HBO years ago because of the filth they produce.
On a side note: does anyone else get the Hugh Hewitt Cruise ad on this page? The look on his face scares the hell outta me. It's kind of a "Larry Craig just scored in the stall" look. Very frightening. |
|
Yep! We ALL get to see his ad! *shrug*
|
|
|
...watches HBO anymore? Stands for Hezzbollah's (or Hamas') Box Office, doesn't it? |
|
I like Hugh, but that ad is disturbing on so many levels! What is with the annoying open mouthed smile? He seems to be saying, "Come on this cruise, so I can eat your children!"
They need to get rid of that pic. Glad I wasnt the only one it bugged. |
|
...that many people have rather simplistic views of good and evil. A 17-year-old girl raised in a radicalized Islamist environment would have no way of knowing what she was doing was good or evil. There is no question the act was evil. There is no question the environment which spawned her was evil. But for her to be evil, she would have to have knowledge that her act was evil, and I don't believe she had access to that knowledge.
I haven't seen the HBO show in question, but the question is valid. |
|
If you lie, you are a liar; if you steal, you are a thief; if you murder, you are a murderer.
But if nobody ever told you that lying is wrong or that stealing is wrong or that murder is wrong, we really can't be sure if you're a liar/thief/murderer... HA!
It's simple: If you murder my child, you're a murderer... and murder is evil --- does it really matter whether or not YOU'RE evil? |
|
bob says c/o Hugh Hewitt Cruise ad, "...the annoying open-mouthed smile...He seems to be sayn, come on this cruise so I can eat your children!"
LOL! |
|
Understand that I like Hugh, but that picture...
The caption under the ad says..."Sail with Hugh Hewitt to South America." Just fill in the rest. The Top Two so far are : Sail w/ Hugh Hewitt to South America so he can eat your children. And...Sail w/ Hugh Hewitt to South America so he can molest you in the bathroom stall.
Enter your own caption and win...absolutly nothn. |
|
Caption Entries:
"Sail with Hugh and find Mitt some new gardeners."
"I am actually short selling this company."
|
|
Stephen King!
I shut off HBO a few years ago as well and I will admit there was some good stuff on like Band of Brothers, but the other crap was bothering me to no end.
Not trying to 2nd guess HBO, but would the Palestinian mother agreed to work with HBO if her daughter was labeled an "evil" person? Just wondering. |
|
A 17 year old who is deranged and thought she was committing the ultimate sacrifice to secure freedom for her people blew herself up in a market. Her people consider her a hero. Medved and the Israelites consider her a Murderer.
Today American war hero Paul Tibbets Jr. Died, he was the man who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. He was responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, he did not sacrifice himself he lived a long happy life in prosperous America. I wonder what the Japanese think of him. |
|
Your comments show your ignorance. Imperial Japan was just as evil if not more evil as Nazi Germany. The Germans were ruled by a minority that suppressed the country. Japan, however, had a belief system centuries old that worshiped their emperor and viewed the rest of the world as inferior. You really need to do some research into the atrocities committed by the Japanese. Topics such as the Rape of Nanking and the construction of the Burma Railway (Bridge over the River Kwai) are two examples of the atrocities committed by the Japanese. The abuses of Prisoners of War are well documented. Read the Great Raid to see what the Japanese did to US POWs in the Philippines. The entire culture of Imperial Japan was set to wage a war-of-attrition. Many of the Bushido Generals wanted to continue the war even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These attacks, which killed less people than all the bombing of Tokyo, were moral acts of war against an evil aggressor determined to wage war.
The same moral confusion that you demonstrate blinds people to the difference between an evil society that brainwashes pre-pubescent children to commit vile acts of violence and the worship death (shahid) and a society which promotes life. |
|
If you are unable to draw clear distinctions in the realm of debate, nobody will ever reach you.
|
|
All credible historians are unanimous in their belief that dropping nuclear weapons on Japan SAVED lives. Not only were more deadly struggles like Midway and Iwo Jima (where more US soldiers died in a few days than have died in 4 years in Iraq) averted, there is strong evidence that Japan was only months away from being able to launch their own nuclear weapon
That is what war is all about. The media likes to count the dead, but they are ignoring the multitudes more that are saved by those deaths. |
|
I have not watched HBO since the days it put forth some fairly good movies. So you know that has to be a long, long time ago.
This whole question is very disturbing. The commenter who wrote that the bomber did not realize she was doing anything wrong has a valid argument.
On the other hand, one might argue that humans may instinctively know it is wrong to kill other humans.
Neither question can be answered -- at least not by me.
If our job is to educate the people whose main aim in life is to destroy Jews and Americans to the extent that they conclude it is wrong to kill, we have a long way to go. We'd better get at it if we expect our education of the ignorant to work.
|
|
This was, no doubt, a horrific evil act and in no way be justified by anyone wanting to live in a civilized world. But is it reasonable to ask what measures this girl and her family supporters should have taken to "fight back" and get publicity for their grievences?
Was it concieved as an act of vengence,fighting back or just pure evil? Except for the totally deranged, there has to be some underlying reason
that cause people to do things like this.
|
|
I think a documentary on HBO and Hollywood is warranted: "To die in America". Values and common sense have hit an all-time low. As to the Arab (not Palestinian) girl not being evil because of her background, wrong, wrong, wrong. By that reasoning, a Nazi who was raised since youth to be a Nazi, would be an ''innocent.'' Individuals are responsible for their actions. Period. Evil is evil, no excuses.
Free Ramos and Compean |
|
|
The question and the parallels are valid. In a war where people are used as weapons you have explore what forces are at work to make a person defy natural instincts and kill in such a violent manner. Not to look at these questions make one as narrow minded as the people who live in these closed societies. |
|
We already know the answer to the question as to what makes people ignore their natural instinct for self preservation and destroy themselves in order to murder others. The answer is the Koran which exalts those who behave in this manner in order to kill all those who will not submit to Islam. Does the murderer regard herself as evil? Of course not. Her religion teaches her that she is a hero. Does that fact make her less evil? I don't think so. She has been trained to be evil and she is just that. I don't think that evil depends on how you define yourself.
The "Human Rights" council of the United Nations, which is controlled by Muslims, defines evil as anything that is Israeli and excludes from consideration for condemnation anything that is Muslim. According to this doctrine of virtue, Jews have no right to defend themselves any where in the world. Islam is a violent evil doctrine and we ignore that fact at our peril. The evil doers are not the fringe. They are the mainstream adherents.
To MAVTEK:You are completely correct. Thank you for pointing out the truth with such clarity.
|
|
|
It occurs to me that my sarcastic words of praise to MAVTEK may be taken seriously. Genuine Kudos to DVangura and the rest who have learned their history lessons well. |
|
Please disregard the verbal barbs being thrown your way. Although I find your points misguided (DVangura did a wonderful job rebutting your argument,) it was still worth a moment's consideration.
C'mon people, there is a difference between honest; albeit faulty, argument (see Mavtek's above) and illegitimate garbage (anything written by van, phylo, lilly, jetpilot, hal, and the rest of the not-so-merry band of idiots who (dis)grace this board with their presence.)
As for HBO's presentation, let us not forget for the leftist superficial need to look 'clever' by being counterintuitive. 'Look you simpletons on how complicated the world really is. Bask in my nuance.' Little do they know, this exercise has the same mental heft as your average sarcastic remark. |
|
|
|