Dean's World

...comes from Martin Shoemaker:

Jeffrey, you answer me this: I'll volunteer to be waterboarded if you'll volunteer to be raped. Since you think both are torture, if I can take it, you can take it.

"Who Are The Mortacracies? Part VI—The Answer Who Are The Mortacracies? Part VI—The Answer"

Derek said:

Professor Rummel, 

I left similar comments over at your cross-post on Dean's World, but I'm not sure you read Dean's comments. So I am summarizing them here.

I agree that "mortalize" is the wrong word to use, particularly since its existing meaning is "to make mortal" rather than "to make dead." However, I think you have misapplied the -cide suffix, producing a word that produces confusion rather than clarity.

The Oxford English Dictionary notes that adding the -cide suffix forms "nouns with the sense ‘the killing of (the person, animal, etc., indicated by the initial element)’. This produces nouns such as the following:

 fratricide - the killing of a brother
 regicide - the killing of a king, queen, etc.
 pesticide - the killing of a pest/insect
 vaticide - the killing of a prophet
 ceticide - the killing of a whale
 suicide - the killing of oneself
 democide - the killing of the people (directly by government action)

Mortacide, as a word, does not fit with the collection of currently existing "-cides." Following the existing pattern, it conveys "the killing of mort (death)." I comprehend the benefit of having a term that replaces "death by government inaction, incompetence, or apathy." But I do not think that mortacide fills that need. Coining a word isn't helpful if you have to explain what it means every time you use it.

In fact, your description of mortacide as "corruption, misrule and violence that increases the mortality of the people" reads like a definition of mortocratic government, not of the resulting deaths themselves, which differs from the very direct "democide" - murder by government.

I had suggested, over on Dean's World, that you are seeking a term for the governmental equivalent of "manslaughter". Given the established use of "democide," would not "demoslaughter" be more appropriate to describe death by government incompetence, inaction or apathy?

However, the more I think about this terminology, the less I think that governments deserve the consideration of innocence that "demoslaughter" might convey. If government policies continue to kill people indirectly and the government does not act to stop it, this is "negligent democide," in my opinion, and should be labeled as such.

Thanks for your time.

RJR: If government places people in life threatening circumstances, as in a forced labor camp where the conditions are so bad the prisoners die in months, and the government knows this but still uses these prisons, I do call that democide. But what I am writing about is when the connection between deaths and actions or policies is so attenuated, as with life expectancy, as to be unknown, or unappreciated. I agree with you that mortacide is not a good term for this. It was the best I could think of at the time, but now your suggestion sent me back to the dictionary. I had not thought of manslaughter, which the dictionaries agree can mean to kill without "malice aforethought." Thus, in law, it is a lesser crime than is homicide or murder. So, your suggestion of "demoslaughter" is a good one. I was turned off by this at first because of the connotation of mass killing, and I have so used in describing, for example, the Japanese slaughter of Chinese during the Rape of Nanking. But, the denotation persuades me and so it will be: Democide for murder by government, and demoslaughter for death caused by government unintentionally (without malice aforethought). Thank you, indeed, Derek.

(See the rest here)

"Is Islam The Enemy?"

Anonymous said:

You are a narrow minded moron. European, American, and Israeli imperialism should go unanswered, and Muslims should shut up and be good & obedient slaves that say “yes-masta”. Screw you and those that preach your crap. The problem of course starts with you trying your snow-job of how you have no biases. You are not from Mars – get over it – you are a mortal with biases. Besides how un-democratic, America is built on the idea that people passionately debate different opinions and letting the people decide what makes the most sense for them. The real enemy are those that push un-American, oppressive, and imperialistic policies disguised in American and Israeli, military uniforms in the Muslim world. Those decades of oppression are now coming home to roost.

RJR: No, cross my heart, I didn't make this one up.

John said:

Dr. Rummel; I just discovered your blog via Dean's World. I really appreciate this thoughtful look at WHO the REAL enemy is. I have not yet read your other thoughts on the war on terrorism and perhaps you could refer me to relevant ones to what I'm about to talk about and ask about.

I have stated, at Dean's World and other blogs including my own ( www.evolutionarymiddleman.blogspot.com ) that while I strongly condemn the WAY the current administration is fighting the war, I'm not against it. I simply believe that this should always have been fought an entirely different way. Should we not recognize that this is unlike all the "traditional" wars we have fought in our country's past? Should we not be fighting a war expressly against "Islamofascists" and not against "Islamic COUNTRIES"? Should we not employ stealth, intelligence, technology, special forces, etc. to identify and engage (through covert ops) terrorist leaders, cells, supporters WHERE EVER WE FIND THEM and refrain from trying to conquer nations and build democracies?

RJR: The best place to go to see what blogs I've written is my topical archive. I also have a huge Q and A. I think you are misinformed about the War on Terror. The United States does recognize that this is unlike all the "traditional" wars we have fought in our country's past? And it is fighting a war expressly against "Islamofascists" and not against "Islamic COUNTRIES"? It does employ stealth, intelligence, technology, special forces, etc. to identify and engage (through covert ops) terrorist leaders, cells, supporters WHERE EVER found and it does refrain from trying to conquer nations to build democracies? The purpose of invading Afghanistan was to destroy the Taliban and their support for Al Quida. The invasion of Iraq was to topple Saddam. In neither case was the object to build democracy, any more than it was in the defeat of Japan and Germany in WWII. However, once you defeat the enemy and occupy his country, what do you do but try to democratize them so that they won't be enemies again.

(Continued here)

Steven Malcolm Anderson has died.

I am honestly too choked up to know what to say.

The black is for him.

* Update * The Queen is likewise upset.

One of the biggest bundles of fun we ever knew is gone. :-(

* Update 2 * I've gotten rid of the black background. Time to celebrate Steven's life.

We have recently begun a new Dean's World category: Best of Dean's World Comments.

I honestly believe that half of our daily readers here on Dean's World visit not because of my blatherings but because of comments left by others. Dean's World hosts the most diverse, informed, and thoughtful group of commenters in the blogosphere.

Did I just throw down a gauntlet? Perhaps I did. But I'll state it again: Dean's World hosts the most diverse, informed, and thoughtful group of commenters in the blogosphere. You disagree? I ask you to identify a challenger. I believe we make The McLaughlin Group look like a bunch of amateurs.

My standards for what it takes to keep a comment account here on Dean's World are both quite liberal and quite severe: you can say anything you want, on virtually any subject, so long as you do not A) attack my integrity, B) attack my family, or C) make a habit of derailing interesting conversations.

I freely admit that I am the sole arbiter of the above conditions, and that regulars to this establishment are cut more slack than others.

I will also say this: there are about two dozen people who have been banned from Dean's World in the last four years. I will not identify them by name, either now or in the future. But if you would like your account reinstated, you do not have to apologize to me for anything, or explain yourself in any way. All you have to do is shoot me a short note saying that you understand conditions A-C above. Nothing more needs to be said, ever.

All of the above conditions have been stated in the past, but not in formal fashion. Now they have been made explicit. In keeping with that, we have also started a new Dean's World category: "Best of Dean's World comments." We hope you will enjoy it.

From our thread on product placement in movies. --Dean

I wish I could side with you and John, Dean, because I think it's none of Nader's or the government's damn business.

But I do have to say that product placement is an insidious form of brainwashing. Or at least, it was for me. But only once.

Back in the 70s, Marvel introduced a new comic book hero: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire. Luke was a man falsely convicted of murder; and to win credit toward an early release, he participated in an experimental biomedical program. But a vindictive prison guard turned up the settings on the experiment, and it overloaded, leaving Luke with incredible strength and a super-strong hide. He injured the guard in escaping from the experiment; and rather than face the wrath of the guards, he broke jail, and went out to prove his innocence. And to pay his bills, he advertised himself as a superhero for hire.

Now I happened to luck onto Luke's first issues; and I thought he was just the coolest character out there. I was too young to understand that he was black, and so he wasn't supposed to be a role model for little white kids like me. He was aimed at the black youth market, not me. I didn't know, and I didn't care. For a long time, Superman, Batman, and Captain Marvel couldn't hold a candle to Luke Cage in my eyes. I wanted to be just like Luke.

And Luke lived right down the street from and often got food from the Orange Julius. Imagine my surprise when, later in life, I learned that that's an actual restaurant chain!

To this day, I can't pass by an Orange Julius without getting at least a drink. And every time I do, some little boy in the back of my head is envisioning himself as a big, mean-spirited black superhero with a heart of gold.

So sometimes, product placement really can tie a character and a product together in your head. Does that make it a matter for the government to intervene? Not a chance. But it explains why the companies do it.

From our thread on Malcolm X. --Dean

I remember the relatively innocent times in which Malcolm Little [aka Malcolm X] arose into the American consciouslness from the obsurity of the ghetto. I'm talking late 1950s.

He was so damned honest and straightforward. You almost had to respect that quality in him despite that he was hardwired all wrong for the country is he was living in, the religion he adopted, and much else.

One day, some liberal was flapping his or her mouth about him being an American. He must have gotten p*ssed at the stupidity of whatever comment he reacted to, because he replied:

"Being born in Omaha doesn't make me an American any more than being born in an oven makes a cat a biscuit."

He was at the top of the class of his junior high school. One day he told one of his teachers, whom he had previously respected, about his dreams of attending a law school. The teacher replied to him that law school was "no realistic goal for a n*gger."

For Malcolm, that incident was said to have marked the terminus of his efforts to make a life for himself as an American. Which was really too bad. We could all have profited from his wit, his honesty, his intelligence, his fearlessness, his straightforwardness. And above all, his integrity. Because all that he had.

I respected him, and I still do. In some fundamental way that I have difficulty explaining to anyone.

So I'm sorry about you, Malcolm. I wish I could have been there for you that day. And cut that teacher's f**king throat, right in your presence.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI