(My computer stinks This was posted days ago but never showed up. I try again)
As a practical matter, I don’t see how you can wage war on anything but nouns. Just sayin’. Americans fought a war or two against “Britain” which is a noun, thoughbeit a proper noun. Japanese “imperialism” is a noun, etc. “Socialism” is a noun too, as is “jihad”.
This war-on-nouns stuff started, I figure, with the “War On An Emotion”. That of course being “terror”. I agree that it is pretty silly to initiate a military war against an emotion like terror, among other things, because war itself can be pretty terrifying. Now if you wanted to wage war against happiness I suppose that would be a little easier. You may be able to bomb people out of their happiness.
So it comes down to the particular nouns that might be legitimate enemies against which we might legitimately wage war. More importantly, it comes down to those things that are worth protecting, even with deadly force when necessary. Those too are nouns. Life is a noun. Liberty is a noun. Property is a noun. It is far easier to be against something (Critical Theory) than to be for something. When we consider fighting wars, we need to keep that in mind. For what are we fighting?
For those who will say “Who is Dennis Prager?” I say that he is the one who said, “I prefer clarity to agreement”.
So let’s be clear. Only once that is accomplished can we decide on whether or not we agree.
I’ve heard that we can’t legitimately declare war against jihad (or rather, for liberty – the opposite of jihad)) because jihad isn’t a country. That makes waging war against it a logical impossibility, I guess is what we’re being told. OK. So they’re saying we can only wage war for or against real estate? An enemy can only take the form of real estate? See; I can play stupid word games too, and my stupid word games don’t help either.
Hint; liberty isn’t a country any more than jihad is a country. It’s a concept, and hopefully liberty is a movement. Jihad is a concept and certainly it is a movement, for caliphate (another concept). We fight and die for concepts. Life too, but the concept of liberty is an extension of the protection of life.
There was a War on Drugs before the War on Terror.
Still, you have some valid points.
The point being that all wars are all against nouns (chronology notwithstanding) so we have to be crystal clear on the particulars of the nouns against which we fight wars (or allow them to be fought).
Anyway, I didn’t hear the term “War on Nouns” until the WOT, which is more properly described, as Cooper put it, IIRC, as a War On An Emotion. Before that it was just the WAD, as far as I ever knew. Still earlier, it was the War on Poverty, which is an equally stupid concept. Almost as stupid as a War On War, or “All we are saying is give peace (with communist military expansionism) a chance”, and “Violence Never Solved Anything” but I digress.
A War on Jihad (a noun) is not only OK, but we have no choice unless we want global caliphate. Wars on substances are another matter, as they are simply wars on liberty. As such they fall into the same category as jihad, and should be opposed with as much vigor.
I ask everyone to acknowledge that the word “enemy” is also a noun, so if we can’t fight wars on nouns, we can never fight any enemy.
Say what you mean and mean what you say. That can’t be overstated. In our zeal to criticize The Enemy we often forget the basics.
(Whoa! Who is this The Enemy you speak of, Lyle? That’s pretty cryptic isn’t it, what with the upper case letters and all?
Yeah. That’s a collective term for Enemies of Liberty and Human Dignity [Republicans, Democrats, jihadists, public education, AlGore, et al]. You can call it “evil” too. That works equally well, and I’ll take the opportunity to remind everyone that “evil” is a noun too [are we getting the drill yet?])
it is even more basic than that. all wars, against for or otherwise, ultimately boil down to who you are the subject of. some believe you should be the subject of this king or that, or that religion or this, or a dictator, or a council, or a party, or an ideology, or (as i do) as the subject of none but yourself. so while the particular war itself may be for or against this or that, with the end goal of acquiring this or that, or killing those and them, ultimately the root cause is who or what will rule, and sometimes who in particular will be ruled.
our current war is not against “terrorists” or “jihadists,” those are the titles we give people who employ specific tactics and methodologies. what we are fighting is a sociopolitical religion, an all-encompassing ideology. this is a war of ideas and civilizations. its not just “those people” it is “that idea.” until we understand that as a people we will never be able to fight effectively, as we will never be able to correctly identify our real enemy.
“this is a war of ideas and civilizations. its not just “those people” it is “that idea.” until we understand that as a people we will never be able to fight effectively, as we will never be able to correctly identify our real enemy.”
Totally correct. I did say “jihad” and “caliphate” which are ideologies, or movements based on an ideology, rather than “jihadists” which are people. You nailed it.
There is a reason “we” cannot identify our enemy. It is because the left in general has too much on common with it. If the mainstream dialog becomes about the ideologies, that fact becomes more and more obvious. Hence, the Fort Hood shooting for example, had to be spun as “workplace violence” rather than what it was.
Read the demands of OBL and read the stuff coming out of the American left and the Occupy movement. Other than a few things like alcohol use and the treatment of homosexuals, there’s almost no difference. Even then, the concept of Prohibition is very much a statist idea, and I do not believe that the American left really cares about homosexuals beyond their usefulness as political tools, so even the few differences are smaller than they might at first appear.
As I’ve said several times before— clarity is pure poison to the left. The left cannot afford to talk about the ideologies that oppose America, verses America’s founding ideologies. Leftist ideology itself opposes America. It truly is the enemy within.