But there are two different codes of honor, generally. The Jacksonian code of honor which says that if you treat me honorably, I will treat you honorably, but if you mess with me, I’ll stab you in the back nine ways to sunday.

The other kind says, “we will treat anyone with honor, regardless of how crazy, evil, or vindictive they are towards me or my own”.

America as a whole has both kinds, more or less. The Geneva Conventions in WWII, honor played a big part in how Americans treated German and Japanese POWs.

The Arab honor is not either of the two Americans believe in and adhere to. The Arab honor says, “lie to your enemies if they are powerful, then stab them in the back”. While the American honor says “if your enemy is too powerful, then you must negotiate in good faith and surrender in order to protect your family from being killed needlesslly”. Arabs will surrender, but unless you keep their families hostage, the moment you turn your back on them, they will stab you in the back. There is no concept of prisoner parole based upon word of honor in the Arab culture. No Chivalry either, if you notice how they treat their women. The code of chivalry, knights honor, duty, liege lord, feudal relationships, affected Western and American culture more than most people realize.

Look at Japan, another nation with a lot of feudal based history, they value honor as well. But the Arabs were either a bunch of city-states fighting amongst themselves, or an Empire united under the Grand Caliphate master Mohammed or some such. There was no real feudal system going on there. Either absolute monarchy, or sectarian strife and clan warfare (raids, kidnappings, etc).

The Jewish thing is… well, it is Jewish.

If you get anti-Americanism in Hollywood, Danny, then the Jewish kind is easy to understand.

No, humans don’t have a suicide gene. The problem is, as I said with the Darwin Award Bookworm post, is civilization. When you become too civilized, you become “unhinged” from reality and nature. So you know that common sense nature evolved in us, by killing off the stupid, so that anyone without the common sense would become uncommon? Well when civilization gets up high enough on the level, we go beyond nature’s limitations. So nature no longer can affect the human race by natural selection. This means that a lot of those genetic desires and triggers, are going to go haywire, because the environment has changed so dramatically.

Back when humanity was under nature’s care, anyone that tried to attack his or her tribe in order to become a traitor in the enemy camp, would get eviscerated if caught and then probably gotten rid of after the enemy camp has won. That not only decreased the gene pool of traitors, but it also triggered stimuli that affected human behavior in not doing things that are destructive for themselves and their team.

However, when civilization becomes democratic and free, then people start to be able to do things and not suffer the consequences for their actions. So you have a military that protects Hollywood crack, but Theo Van Gogh who supported the US military’s mission of liberating Arab women, got killed cause he didn’t get that protection. So you have created this Artificial system of rewards and punishments, independent of nature. Hollywood gets rewarded for self-destructive behavior, Theo gets punished for liberal democratic behavior.

What I mean by that is, is that it is uneven. We are beyond nature, and yet not all humans are living in America and under American protection. This causes the same friction that two plates of the earth’s crust would do when they rub against each other.

Because societies like Israel and America are so robust and safe, the self-destructive elements in those societies can accrue temporary power by betraying the nation that protects them, and yet not suffer the consequences of being without that protection (what happened to Theo).

It is two plates grinding against each other, eventually something will break either way, but in the meanwhile, you are going to see stuff like that.

The more the Israelis kowtow in public and “apologize”, the more they are going to die, regardless of any appeasement plans the political elite could cook up. I’ll try appeasement any day of the millenium, I’m an open minded guy. Which is why I’m glad Israel and France and Spain, and Co, have paved the way for appeasement. That way, I can learn from them, instead of doing it myself.

I agree with you. Further, I’ve been finding subtle and not-so-subtle digs at “rednecks”, “fundies”, and other comments sneering at White Southern Christians extremely unfunny for years. I completely sympathize with you on this.