imperialism is justice is god getting what he wants and damn any kids who get in the way

Native Americans shouldn't have defended themselves. They should have said, "here's the land, we'll just get out of your way, now." And as the Europeans pushed west, they should have said, "well, yes of course it's your land. You are superior. Your religion and your technological skill are just wow. You deserve it. And your willingness to push people off their land with your technological skill and justify it with your religion are superwow." So when the indigenous people, now and then, raided a European settlement built on land they'd claimed long before, well, let's just acknowledge that they were acting against the interests of God. They were the terrorists of their day. Europeans were entitled to the Americas, by God himself, on account of their demonstrably fine character, which they demonstrated, specifically, by never killing people or taking their land, or the opposite of that, or whatever, it doesn't matter, because they pulled the whole thing out of their collective arse.

Africans should have gladly offered themselves up as slaves when the Europeans came with ships. And when the Europeans came back for Africa's resources, the Africans should have joyfully helped in the wealth transfer. Because not-Europe was Shel Silverstein's "giving tree" and Europe was the boy who demanded it all, down to the stump. Resistance to God's will is evil. God will take all, and damn you if you get angry or resist. Ask Job. God will take all and you will like it. You will not resist. You will not defend yourself or your children or your right to hold onto anything at all. If you do, you're a terrorist.

The Nazis came and put the Jews, and many other unblessed ones, in death camps, among other acts of justice. And damn those Jews that resisted. That is not cool. The Germans were a unique race, better than all the rest, and their unique virtuousness was demonstrated by their superior technology and superior intellects, which were capable of justifying any possible action they might take. The Germans -- the white-looking, hetero, dickheaded ones anyway -- deserved everything and the Jews needed to move aside and let them have it. The Jews that resisted didn't value life the way Germans did. They spit in the face of God, those terrorists.

The Zionists came and took some of the Palestinians' land. Now they're taking more, and they deserve it, because they're superior, as you can tell from their actions. Their ability to combine force with its justification is spectacular as long as the application of force is going well, and it is, thanks.  And damn those who resist. The ones who fight back are the worst. They spit in the face of God, who is good, and can do anything he wants at any time. He can command you to kill your own son, as he did with Abraham, but because he's such a cool guy, as long as you obey him absolutely (but you really must do this first), he won't make you do it. Maybe. Depends on his mood, really. All who resist the will of God are terrorists. Do not fight back. Do not protect your family, unless God gives you permission, which he would totally do if he were the God you happened to pull out of your arse, but this is the God pulled out of theirs talking, so no, it's a no-go. You do not have permission. You may not keep weapons at a military facility because God will destroy it. You may not keep weapons within miles of any house, or any school. You may not have weapons, because that is resistance. And if you have weapons, God will destroy them. And God will destroy your houses and your schools. And fuck your kids if they happen to be there, in their own house, or in the school they were sent to for their safety. There's a term for having weapons in a densely populated open-air prison in defiance of God's will: human shields. You want to protect yourselves against God's wrath? How dare you, terrorists! It's your fault God had to do this to you. Why do you make him kill your children?

invitation to a war party

War Party B is enthusiastic about funding the massacre of civilians in Gaza. That War Party B is not War Party A is no argument in its favor. That would be a non sequitur. It only matters where you're forced to choose. You are not. Judge War Party B on its own merits.

War Party B is enthusiastic about funding the massacre of civilians in Gaza. That includes Nobel peace hero Obama, of course. You know how power (the boss) gives the orders and the person down the line does the thing? War Party B is power. They aren't the only ones responsible, but they're as responsible as anyone. They're not being pushed around by mean Rethuglicans, gosh I wish they had some backbone, or whatever. No one's dragging them from their mansions to their jobs in their fancy cars against their will. They have backbone, and they're using it to enthusiastically fund the massacre of civilians in Gaza.

If War Party A disappeared tomorrow, War Party B would splinter into two new factions, War Party C and War Party D, and one of them would be painted as effeminate cowards, and would respond that their rivals are always invading and killing the wrong non-life-valuing heathens for their own good at the wrong times, that they need to be smarter and less crass about the whole thing. And then a whole bunch of well-meaning (I use the term loosely) fools from Krugman to Chomsky will throw their weight, perhaps with reservations, behind one War Party or the other, and they'll push you to do the same.

note to democracy: please stop bringing so much joy to the world, thanks

(Crossposting from facebook, again. Two posts into one, actually.)

Hamas was democratically elected.* By western convention, this means it's totally cool if they have weapons of mass destruction, like say, Israel's or the U.S.'s nuke stockpiles, or simply, air-to-ground missiles (it's pretty massively destructive if it can blow up a wedding, no?). This because democracies are good and pure, whereas dictatorships and terrorists are evil. Because democracies never just invade countries on bogus premises. Democracies never blow up entire cities like Hiroshima or Nagasaki. So it's fine if democracies, exemplars of civilized decency that they are, have massive stockpiles of weapons. For example, the cutting edge weaponry amassed by the U.S. Defense (!) Department that accounts for half of the world's military spending. They've earned that by demonstrating their peacefulness over the past few centuries.

Think about that when you hear "Hamas is hiding weapons under schools!" I haven't researched whether thus is true because democratically elected governments, again, by convention, have weapons. They use force to control territory. (Where do you keep your toothbrush? I keep mine by the sink but I understand if you have different habits.) Mind you, this democracy isn't launching aggressive wars and you might find it understandable that they'd want to keep some weapons around when one of the world's top forces of destruction is right outside the building...whoa, wait, strike that, now they're inside. Where does Israel hide its weapons? Often in urban areas, for one thing (human shields!), but mainly, they don't resort to hiding them under schools because they're virtuous and...nah, because their giant badass weapons aren't vulnerable to attacks by Hamas' relatively weak-sauce weapons.

*This article calls it "the radical Islamic movement Hamas." That's code for bad guys, if you were wondering. Whether they are or not is beside the point. You're meant to hate them. That's the point. Evidence is not required. You didn't even notice, they slipped it past you. Just root against them, like your most hated team. They say "terrorist" and show you a picture of a guy with a turban. Now you hate them. It's like the way you didn't notice how they make you walk to the back of the supermarket for the milk, and how you end up buying stuff you wouldn't have on the way. Or how you have positive associations with Ronald McDonald even though he's poisoning your kids. You don't even realize how it happened that you came to think Hamas = bad guys, Israel= good guys, but it did. That's how propaganda works.

You'll never come across the phrase "the radical Zionist Israeli government" in corporate-sponsored media, even when they've been the shot-callers, the aggressors, guilty of more terrorism, in the technical non-propagandistic sense of terrorizing civilian populations, by any objective measure, and when they're currently waging a holy war, if ever one has been waged.

Hamas terrorists provoke weapons in the vicinity of friendly Israeli visitors to fire in the vicinity of UN-run school, killing 16

Check this headline from the Jerusalem Post:
IDF: Terrorists opened fire from vicinity of UN-run Gaza school

Take out "from vicinity of" and replace with "on," because if you've invaded a country and you killed 16 civilians in a school, you're the terrorist. "Israeli terrorists opened fire on UN-run Gaza school." That's the story, whether Hamas is otherwise a terrorist group or not.

"A projectile struck a complex containing a UN school in Beit Hanun in northern Gaza on Thursday, killing at least 15 people [actually, at least 16] and wounding dozens more..." Apparently it fired itself. This would be hilarious if it weren't so fucked up. An invading army fires at one of the few supposedly safe places in the land they've occupied -- one of the places civilians are supposed to take cover when the occupiers are so kind as to warn the invadees to get out of their own neighborhood because they're about to blow it up -- killing 16 people, and the story is about the democratically elected government of the invaded land --TERRORISTS! -- firing at the occupiers. I mean supposedly firing at the occupiers, supposedly "in the vicinity of" the UN-run school.

let's focus on villainy avoidance, not proper victimly behavior

(Originally posted on facebook, i.e., for a general audience. Posted here with minor changes.)
If someone broke into my house, I'd try to get them to leave. If they didn't seem like much of a threat, I'd probably give them a chance to leave on their own before using force. If they gave me a good reason to let them stay, maybe I'd let them. If they gave me a good reason to give them some of my things, maybe I'd give them some. But if they insisted on taking my things by force without providing a reason I find acceptable, I'd use proportional force to try to get them to leave. If they posed a real physical threat to my family, I'd use any means necessary to stop them, up to and including lethal force. Now let's say I end up killing an intruder in my house, having exhausted other reasonable options. How would you judge me?

Taking it further, say a group of armed men enters my house and I simply can't kick them out. They set up in the living room and gradually take over more and more space. They take whatever they want. We barely have enough to survive. We deserve a better life than this. I have time to think about it, to premeditate my response. Now let's say I kill as many of them as I can, because it seems to be the least bad option left. Maybe you're a nice person who feels pity for those I killed. And you might think that now I'm as bad as them. Admittedly, I'd have degraded myself in the process, in some way sunk to their level. But if your first response is to talk about MY ethical failings in this situation, you've misread the context entirely. I did not create the (hypothetical) situation, I responded to it. I didn't deal myself this hand, they did.

The more rockets, the more money, the more F-16s, the more bought media coverage, the more power. The more power, the wider the range of choices. Rendered powerless, on the other hand, you can either submit or fight back. The option of living a decent, peaceful life has been taken off the table. I neither condone nor condemn -- I will not judge -- the one who responds to the invasion of her home or her land with lethal force. It's not even an ethical question, as ethics involves deciding between two or more reasonable options.

Another example. A menacing villain with a weapon gives you a choice -- he kills two innocents or your lover. A classic dilemma (that comes in various iterations), sure, but not an ethical one.

In the scenario, you're the good guy, a hero with his hands tied. This is just assumed. How do you stop the bad guy from doing the bad thing? What's the ethical thing to do? What do you do, well-meaning villain stopper? The answer is simple -- make sure you're not the one holding the gun, forcing bullshit ethical dilemmas on someone else. If you're doing that, stop. If you're not, you don't have an ethical dilemma. A decent ethics is one that works to avoid shitty hypotheticals.