My Missing Dog

[musashi]

As a child I had a good dog that could do tricks and was friendly to everyone she met. One day a neighborhood kid came into my yard and took the dog.

After a few days, I figured out the situation and the dog’s location. I went to the kid’s house and told his parents that their son had taken my dog. The parents were irresponsible, as you might imagine; they raised a pet thief. They said, “We’re sorry we can’t control our child he just lives here.” I left the house empty handed.

The next day I waited for that kid to come out of his house. I beat him down good. That night his run down house got a few more rocks through the windows. The day after that I beat him down again with a stick. That night my dog made it back into my yard.

• Isn’t this story similar to the current crisis in Israel? Except of course with people instead of pets.
  
  Was it wrong for me to act in my own interest?
  
  Doesn’t the pet thief’s action open him to any manner of reprisal? At what point does the reprisal become “disproportionate”?
  
  Doesn’t that line from Men In Black ring true here? “Don’t start none, won’t be none !” In the mean streets, this type of situation is settled everyday. The greater force prevails.

[Raaz Satik]

Masashi I realize that you are probably trying to encourage intellectual conversation but I think your choice of parody here is in bad taste. The current Middle Eastern crisis is not something to be joked about whatever your political (or economic) or religious beliefs.

Respectfully,
Raaz

[musashi]

Sorry no attempt at humor there. Definitely not an appeal for levity. The vignette was an analogy to bring a larger conflict into a smaller arena. This is a vastly complex issue. One way to approach it is through induction, breaking it into smaller parts exploring and identifying the underlying flawed assumptions. If we can examine our beliefs, and identify their failings we can change our minds.

Interesting point though, regarding respect…

Does this situation warrant respect?

And what constitutes respect? Is silence respectful?

There is great human tragedy unfolding in the Middle East, some people even claim the third Great War germinates. Does the absence of contemplation serve us?

Ya know an argument could be made that respect and tolerance have brought us to this precipice. One the one hand we have a “multi-cultural” world governing body, which is paralyzed to act because they respect each other’s sovereignty and influence too much to compromise and act in a united fashion.

All the while we have a constellation of theocratic despots persuing the literal interpretation of a book that is 1400 years old. There is less than zero respect from the religious fanatics instigating this conflict. Remember Hezbollah and the legitimately elected Palestinian government Hamas refuse to acknowledge the existence of Israel, and have sworn to destroy it.

The Palestinian electorate and the Lebanese government are much like the parent’s in that vignette. Do the parents of a pet-thief, which turn a blind eye even with direct evidence of injustice, deserve respect? In my story you might claim that the bad parents are the source of original sin. They didn’t directly commit the crime, but they had ample opportunity to prevent it and a duty to facilitate correction.

And let’s not forget Israel. Clearly they have gone beyond the pale. Their actions have killed hundreds of people in the last few weeks. As I originally questioned, is that right? Certainly not respectful. I relate to Israel’s position the best. I’ve been in so many fights in my life. Typically the cleanest fights for me are the ones where a provocation to violence has been made, and then I hammer the guy out in less than 10 seconds. In that instance neither person is seriously injured, and one party comes away with true respect of the greater force. There are no rematches. Everyone knows who the boss is. I have made life long and loyal friends after conflicts like this. If you are gonna fight do it fast and do it ferocious.

Conversely some of the ugliest fights I’ve had took what felt like hours. Both guys are turned into hamburger. Both guys ways end up at the emergency room. And the spirit carried away by both parties is “He’s not so tough. Damn he will pay for all the junk he did to me. I’ll get him the next time.” Of course my pugilism is just a microcosm of a greater conflict, but I think the logic has legs. Did our respect for all parties in this conflict prolong it and exacerbate it? Would it be better just to let them fight it out quickly? Even if it means one side is effectively destroyed. At least the looser will know who is boss.

BTW back onto pugilism again… If someone swears that they are going to destroy me. It is on. Right now, and its not over until one of us is over. I’ve seen death threats shrugged off in the past, only to be fulfilled. You never leave an enemy in your wake. If it was me, Hezbollah and Hamas would not get out of the bar.

[DaBagBoy Rizster]

I'm new here but it's an interesting and very difficult subject. Maybe I'm biting off more than I can chew by taking a different viewpoint. Let me start by saying I'm torn. And that I fully support Israel's "right to exist" and retaliate in any form they see fit, as Masashi outlined.

But since this thread is hardly going to change the world for the sake of argument let me carry the mantle for a moment for the Hezbollah (yech, I don't even like saying that).

With all due respect to continue the analogy....I think it was an Arab dog, that was taken long ago by Animal Control (maybe you adopted it at the pound) and the Arabs really want it back, and never wanted Animal Control to take it in the first place.

My take on Middle East history is that the Jewish had been leaving Israel for hundreds of years and losing a long battle for the area in 1947, when the UN stepped in and created dividing the nation into Arab and Jewish segments (essentially creating a civil war) .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_UN_Partition_Plan

The UN (and most recently the USA) has nearly always supported Israel in no small part as a sort of "payback" for the Holocaust, with which of course the Arabs had no role. The UN even went so far as to give a minority of the population (33%) the reigns of government for the newly created state, and gave the Arabs (67%) no role whatsoever in ‘self-determination.” Also those percentages of course don’t include the region (Syria, Lebanon, Iran, etc...etc…

In a sense the UN set up and continues to support a system not unlike Apartheid. I firmly believe that without that support and backing for the past 60 years Israel would have long ago left that bar or at least they would not have maintained “ownership” over the place.

Clearly some of the Arab leaders and nations have shown more “war-like” tendencies, they don’t seem to be “nice” peace loving people. I believe part of this is a result of the affronts mentioned above, a long history of conquests and tribalism, and a slow or non-existent adoption of diplomacy, and slower adoption of 20th century western concepts of peace.

Peace out
DaBagBoy

[musashi]

Great post Rizster

Well researched and clearly prior ownership is where the “stolen dog” vignette breaks down. We should also consider the pre-WWII Jewish land purchases, much smaller than the current Israeli state. And the point that several groups claim this isthmus of arable land as their traditional homeland.

And this brings us back to the problem of King Solomon, two mothers’ claiming the same child. The UN tried cutting the land in half. Yet the two sides continue to fight. Perhaps even Solomon couldn't fix this situation.

[Shazam0]

agreed musashi. We are not talking about two groups suddenly and violently raising arms against each other in very deadly conflicts like for example the north and south america did in the the US's civil war. It is rather difficult to find an accurate analogy that dipicts the complexity of isreal and lebanon and thier current conflict. I find the stolen dog anactode flawed on many levels.

I know the reason for the anactode was to simply and "boil down" the complexity of the situation facing Isreal and all nations involved in the afore mentioned conflict, so i do not care to point out how it is not complex enough of a analogy.

I remember being a troubled teenager. At that time my world was volitile and at times i became quite hostile with those who would later be my closest friends. Point is i was just that way, and time mellowed me out a lot. I veiw the middle east countries as groups that are volitile. Almost as if the ppl there will never be content to live in peace. Unlike me in my teen years these ppl are fighting for reasons they would willingly die for. I do not mean to belittle the fanatical belief or patriotism they hold. I just dont think the belief that the ppl in the middle hold to will ever allow them to live with each other. I honestly cannot imagine isreal without the formidible army they have like for example the proud nation of the bahamas.

So i'd say its more like in the west before we became states of the union and your dog was stolen so you went and killed the kid and then his friend came and shot your dog, then you shot the kids friend, who's brother shot you, and your brother shot the dudes friend and then your brother was shot by some dude, and then your freindly neighbor shot that guy, and then someone was caught in a gun fight down the street and then there was peace for a day or two then some idiot slept with someones wife or did some horrible act worthy of imediate and terrible justice and a whole new chain of deaths started up again....

I honestly do not see Isreal ever living in peace for any considerable length of time (~30+ years, or long enough for adults to say "i have never lived during a time where my country was attacking or being attacked).

[musashi]

So I’d say its more like in the west before we became states of the union and your dog was stolen so you went and killed the kid and then his friend came and shot your dog, then you shot the kids friend, who's brother shot you, and your brother shot the dudes friend and then your brother was shot by some dude, and then your friendly neighbor shot that guy, and then someone was caught in a gun fight down the street and then there was peace for a day or two then some idiot slept with someone’s wife or did some horrible act worthy of immediate and terrible justice and a whole new chain of deaths started up again....

Yes this is how the situation goes, has gone without objective standards to judge the merits of societies and cultures.

Ayn Rand’s essay on capitalism brings a new argument for us. She writes about evaluating societies individually, but I think we can stretch the thought to cover two conflicting societies.

There are only two fundamental questions that determine the nature of any social system.

• 1 Does a social system recognize individual rights?
  2 Does the system ban physical force from relationships?

The answer to the second question is the practical implementation of the answer of the first.

Ayn’s idea makes it cut and dried, and obviates all that back and forth turmoil that Shaz has woven up for us. In any conflict we determine which side has the better social system for the recognition of individual rights. Then we simply kill the bad side until they accept non-aggression as a society.

The approach sounds brutally succinct, but provides a fast and complete answer to the problem.

So let’s lay it out and compare the two-sides

• The dog owner was not violating any laws and respecting individual rights up until a reaction was called for.
• The dog thief stole the pet to start things off. So (from the limited information in the story) for this conflict, the dog thief respects individual rights less.
• The parents of the dog thief refused to act in support of individual rights, instead acting antithetically.

By Ayn’s perspective the outcome was appropriate. We had the gradual escalation of force as a direct response to the abrogation of the rights of the individual. In this instance the party in the wrong did not require annihilation before they came to their senses, but the total destruction of an evil entity really does not matter does it?

[ForumAdmin]

I think your analogy wrongly oversimplifies the situation.

Secondly, the UN has not been a becon of support for Israel since the 50s. The UN regional commitees are dominated by Arabs. As a matter of fact, Israel is the only full member to not be in any regional commitee as the Arabs have kept them out (else they walk out of the UN). This is also true for many other committees and sub-UN organizations.

You need to research even farther back than the UN's partition to realize how poorly it was done and why. When the British began discussing the issue of partition, they actually came up with the greatest idea. Unfortunately, this is also ultimately why they lost control of Palestine. The idea of partitioning along ethnic lines and then giving Jerusalem to the UN as an Open City was floated. Both sides hated this of course, and lead to Jewish terrorism against local British leadership. The US' was a major backer of the final partition for reasons which conspiracy theorists still argue over. I blame the Truman administration more than the UN for the way Israel was created.

I feel sorry for Lebanon. They are victims of their multiculturalism and ZERO international support. The UN can pass all of the resolutions it wants - unless it actually supports the force necessary to back them up, you will ultimately get situations like these. Hez. has been allowed to grow for 5+ years now unchecked. The Lebanese govt, only recently free from Syrian control, has had no say on this issue. And now without Syrian influence (though this can be argued to some extent) they could do something about Hez. they are unable to. Given how nicely Lebanon has enjoyed its peace, it's hard for them to willingly walk into civil war again - which disarming Hez. without insane international support would surely do.

Think of the Lebanese govt as being held at ransom to some extent, by the Shiite population who support Hez. Mind that in most of Lebanon's mondern history the Shiite's have been the outcasts of society. Hez. gave them the power to be equals with Suuni and Christian. Separating Hez. from the idea of Shiite prosperity, equality, and influence in Lebanon is impossible.

If you haven't noticed that more of the immediate middle eastern problems involve Shiites, you're on the right track. Mind that these people are well aware of their minority status in Islam - they are largely written of f by Suuni's as backward, radical, and infidels. Iraq and Iran are the only countries who hold a Shiite majority.

Well, now they're emboldened and striking out. Suuni's terrorism against the US has zero connection to the Shiite's local battle for dominance and respect after many generations of abuse by everyone else - Suuni, Christian, Jew.

Everyone is being radicalized though, mostly thanks to the US. Last year more suicide bombings occured in Iraq than all of the previous suicide terrorist attacks combined up until then. For those of you who watch Fox, I'm sorry to say that you might start hearing about Iraq being in a civil war soon - because everyone is trying to avoid the "c" word. It's just the last nail in the "Mission Accomplished" coffin for those neocon hold-outs.

Israel is fighting a tough enemy, and by itself. This is where the US *SHOULD* be going to the UN to get more support and international troops in southern Lebanon to finally rid the world of Hez. the proper way. But we've spent our political capital and the credit cards are maxed. Now Israel has to fight what should be a large international battle by itself - and it will probably lose because of it.

Meanwhile in all of this, what should be the two largest concerns and the focus of US foreign policy - Iran and North Korea - are ignored. Even if we could focus on them, what could we do? The entire DoD is bogged down in the middle east fighting a meaningless war in a vein to save American face and create a lasting legacy for this Administration so they are not remembered for their fanciful war conquests like another fellow Texan - LBJ.

[musashi]

Great post Yosh

I totally agree about the plight of the Lebanese people. Darrell Isa’s op/ed piece last weekend in the US papers helped to describe the Lebanese plight as well. It is a sad deal.

This is the direct result of the lack of a world government, not that I want a world government. There were UN mandates to disarm Hezbollah, yet the UN never enforced its mandate. Yet when it comes right down to it those guys in the blue helmets never discharge their weapons. The UN is military force is gutless. The UN is corrupt. The UN dilutes and binds up the few powerful nations, by giving equal voice to all member countries. All nations have equal voice regardless of each country’s record for the support of individual human rights. Oh sure the super powers have greater influence in the Security Council, but it is equally moribund.

Another possible outcome might be Israel’s full attack on Hezbollah through all of Lebanon. Iran has been rattling the sword, perhaps they push Syria into the fight. If Hezbollah cannot sufficiently reinforce, perhaps Iran attacks Iraq (and the US), directly on it’s western boarder between Kurdistan and Baghdad. The whole thing could get interesting very quickly.