Than why even take note of their religion while professing it is their politics you are really truly concerned about, when the politics are indistinguishable form others who have a variety of religions or perhaps no religion at all ?
No, that’s horseshit. One can have dual loyalty to the US and Canada, and, absent a military conflict over Canada’s strategic reserves of whale blubber, no “treachery” is possible, as the interests of the two nations are largely identical.
Its not that I don’t understand your point. If the list of dual loyalists advising the president were Zionist catholics then the charges of dual loyalty would sound a bit thin, why would they have any loyatly at all to israel never mind a dual or conflicted loyalty to Israel. It is only when you assert that the dual loyalists are Jewish that people will start connecting dots, the use of the term dual loyalty doesn’t really go very far without the identification with jews right? Thats the argument, isn’t it?
Not necessarily. As noted above, many American fundamentalists are “Zionists” of a particularly fervent stripe, and not remotely Jewish by any stretch of the imagination.
No I didn’t miss it, nor did I miss that you were not going to offer any explanation. Since there is no change in your position, the same problems, which you have never really addressed - like why you took Tenet off the list earlier, or why it took so long to decide the whole thing was “hyperbole” when the criticism was immediate and ongoing.
No, I got that you just wanted to shorten the list, and thus that all of tghe criticisms remain. Totally got that!
You are welcome for my making your point that your views are rooted in anti-semitism. Perhaps you realize now that that rooting may be in form, if not in deed. If so, this won’t happen again, because it is easily correctable, as has been pointed out by me and others. I hope it is just an error of form and I look forward to your future posts that don’t get caught inadvertently in the forms and rhetoric of those you’d rather not be associated with due to their ugly anti-semitism.
Nope, they referenced such a use of the term in a different sense, e.g., in a specific book by another author.
We don’t have to just take their word for it, either: that book is available to check their statement. This is what the referenced book, Israeli sociologist Gabriel Sheffer’s Diaspora Politics: At Home Abroad, says in that sense:
ISTM that there is simply no sane way to read this use of the term “dual loyalties” in the sense you so vehemently insist upon, as “an accusation of violation of faith and confidence” and “an accusation of treachery”, much less as “the very denotation of treachery”.
What we have here is merely the author of a scholarly work using the term “dual loyalties” to describe a recognized sociological fact about how people feel when they self-identify with two different places. The term in this instance is not being put forth as any kind of accusation, as in “that old anti-Semitic canard”.
Rather, it is being used in a different sense, and Mearsheimer and Walt were quite justified in pointing that out.
Well, I understadn YOUR argument. I’m trying to understand not alice’s argument. He seems all bent out of shapre by the fact that these dual loyalists are identified by their Jewishness rather than by their dual loyalty (and more recently seems to think that noone has dual loyalties).
That’s a argument I suppose. There are a lot of arguments mixed up in this turbulent thread
I have a problem with the assertion of dual loyalty (what Finn is equating currently with “treachery” and I have equated with “treason”) in any case whatsoever, unless it is being made with supporting evidence. It is not a charge to be made lightly precisely because it is so serious.
And for the same reason of weighty seriousness, when tossed about lightly, it has the power to brand entire groups as disloyal, or potentially disloyal. The effect is,because the cost of treason is so high to all, that all in the group come under suspicion and cast out as Other,without any evidence at all.
Note this argument makes no reference to Judaism or Israel, that it is unemotional, and, without dispute in this thread.
The emotion comes when it is noted that Red’s original post (and I have not seen Red’s posts before so I give him the benefit of the doubt of being a first time poster here), whether he intended to or not, on the topic of American Jews and Israel, raised this argument, and by extension branded all American Jews as suspected traitors.
I can see where, if he didn’t mean to do that, having had it pointed out, he would revise the form of his original point - but scroll up a few messages, and you see he still stands by the original form and point. So, it is hard to see how, having been given plenty of opportunity to revise his point to not take this abhorrent form and having refused to do so, we can’t conclude his intent was to apply the argument above to American Jews.
No one here objects to him holding whatever political positions he has wrt Israel. That is his right. It is the way he plays politics that appears to be dirty in the way I just showed, and people do object to that. The stakes of the way he plays are far higher than the politics he is concerned about would otherwise require them to be.
I think he’s sensitive to the fact that they are the only civilians who have ever been executed for treason. Its like he thinks we are trying to smear all Jews with treason commited by two communists who happened to be jewish.
Were that the case, then I am sure you would be willing to show how, since you said there is no difference politically between the Jews in question and others, why this matters? Can Huckabee have dual loyalties? If so, then where in the diaspora is he? If not, than how do you reconcile that you said there is no difference in the politics between Jewish and non-Jewish pro-Israeli hawks?
Plus I am really still keen on you letting us know why you think it appropriate for any President to be limited at all on seeking advice from anyone he chooses? Because in the end that’s what you want, right, to limit the access to the President of people whose politics you don’t like?
I’m not the one bringing it up, as a matter of fact. I’m just recognizing the unavoidable fact that this particular position in politics is constantly being framed and promoted by its own adherents in the context of religious identity, whether we like it or not.
The rhetorical conflation of the American “Israel lobby” with “American Jews” as a group is not my idea. Where it’s really omnipresent is among supporters of the Israeli right. Correlation between the so-called “Jewish vote” and Israeli interests is taken for granted, as in this typical op-ed piece:
Is this article being anti-Semitic in harping on the so-called “Jewish vote”? Is it unwarrantably bringing up the question of religious identity in a matter of politics? Is it wrong for such an article to allege an intrinsic connection between “pro-Israel politics” and Jewish identity?
And if it’s not wrong, then how can we address these issues without recognizing that such connections between politics and religion are generally alleged and assumed in “pro-Israel politics”?
I think what he is saying is that, f you have actual evidence of a crime, even a crime as serious as the Rosenbergs, against a Jew, then make your case. He is willing to acknowledge a strong case even if the accused is Jewish. If you can’t make your case, or have no case to make, then drop the insinuations against individuals and an entire group, because well, there is a name for that sort of insinuation.
Exactly. I can’t tell if Damuri’s lack of comprehension is due to his sub-standard intellect or what, but it’s annoying.
He’s also taken to repeatedly making false statements about me in Great Debates after bragging extensively about how he’s got me on his ignore filter, so this seems like par for the course. Not unexpected, but still somewhat disappointing even from a someone like Damuri.
This is the point Kim, and honestly, I can’t figure out how you manage to avoid it so thoroughly, and repeatedly.
Again:
If the issue is politics, why not debate politics?
If the issue is a political view that you disagree with, why not point out the reasons why?
If you’re not trying to demonize Jews who dare to have the “wrong” politics, then why, absent a Rosenbergesque set of facts, do accusations of Jewish ethnic-based treachery even enter into the issue? How are they even possibly relevant without that set of Rosenbergesque facts? Julius Rosenberg wasn’t executed for having pro-Soviet views, or for potentially maybe letting communist sympathies influence his actions, but for actual actions which he actually undertook to undermine America’s position and enrich the Soviet’s military capabilities. But that didn’t make McCarthy’s with hunts acceptable. How are the anti-Jewish dual loyalty, ethnic-based treachery witch hunts any more acceptable?
If the goal isn’t to intimidate the “Bad Jews” into shutting the fuck up if they are uppity enough to disagree with certain people’s politics, then why are Jews singled out for charged of treachery while gentiles who hold the same politics are, likewise, held to be acting only out of bullying/coercion/persuasion via Jewish treachery?
What on Earth is the problem with arguing “Politician X holds Viewpoint Y, which I believe will have Effect Z. My Proposal A will have effects B, C and D which will be more beneficial for our nation than Politician X’s proposal, for reasons E, F and G.”
What possible use it is to, instead, argue “Politician X holds Viewpoint Y, this is possibly because he’s engaging in ethnic-based treachery”?
Seriously.
The Argument From Nuhn Uhnn! is still lame.
I pointed out why the modern charge of dual loyalty is an updating of the classical medieval trope. You’ve just offered a rote denial. That they found a Token Jew to sell their position isn’t particularly novel, either. You are aware that people like David Duke thrive on finding Jews to justify their claims? Dual Loyalty, Jewish Supremacism, whatever, Duke can trot out a fleet of Jews who quotes support (or seem to) his arguments.
When people accuse American Jews in politics of engaging in treachery by a violation of allegiance or of faith and confidence, that’s the accusation that’s being made. And again, quit your bullshit. The dual loyalty canard isn’t one that’s simply being applied to (most) random Jews, but Jews in American government who are being accused of violating their allegiance to America by putting another country’s agenda before our own and violating the faith and confidence that we place in our government to act in the interests of we the people.
That someone can make an argument that is then adopted to legitimate an unpalatable position is hardly news. Do you really need to be linked to how Bill Cosby’s statements have been used to denigrate blacks in America?
The Argument From Nuhn Uhnn! coupled with The Argument That Your Facts Don’t Matter And You’re Insane is, also, lame.
Yet again: violation of allegiance or of faith and confidence.
Loyalty to another nation equal to or ahead of your own home is a violation of your allegiance to your home. This is especially true for members of a government whose job is the protection of their own home. Equally, for members of a government to put another nation’s interests above their own violates the faith and confidence placed in them as members of that government.
This is basic. You have not touched on, let alone refuted this fact.
And the fact that you’ve ignored it three (four, more?) times now shows that you really have no response, at all, other than The Argument From Nuhn Uhnn!
If you can’t show how Dual Loyalty is not a violation of allegiance or of faith and confidence, then please at least admit it and retract your error.
Your apologia is slipping.
Are you really now claiming that when the Dual Loyalty canard is applied to American Jews in politics who have the ‘wrong’ political views, that it’s really because they self-identify as both Israeli and American?
Can you cite, say, a dozen such American Jews who’ve been accused?
Half a dozen?
Three?
Do you still not find it odd that we don’t, for example, require loyalty checks of white Anglo-Saxon protestants when dealing with European affairs, and don’t accuse them of Dual Loyalty?
Its tough enough to hit a target in the dark, now you’re telling me its a moving target?
The reason I am trying to identify the arguments is to see if we can clear away some of this clutter. There are all sorts of egos and kneejerk reactions floating around and its muddying the water.
I think you have a different more severe definition of dual loyalty than I do. I think that a lot of people have dual loyalties to America and some other country with which they identify.
It matters as an illustration of what’s wrong with FinnAgain’s excessive heavy-handedness in insisting that only his own interpretations and opinions are consonant with fact.
Yet again: violation of allegiance or of faith and confidence.
Loyalty to another nation equal to or ahead of your own home is a violation of your allegiance to your home. This is especially true for members of a government whose job is the protection of their own home. Equally, for members of a government to put another nation’s interests above their own violates the faith and confidence placed in them as members of that government.
This is basic. You have not touched on, let alone refuted this fact.
And the fact that you’ve ignored it three (four, more?) times now shows that you really have no response, at all, other than The Argument From Nuhn Uhnn!
If you can’t show how Dual Loyalty is not a violation of allegiance or of faith and confidence, then please at least admit it and retract your error.
It’s pretty clear that all you can do is pretend that, rather than the actual facts of the accusation and the actual definition of the word “treachery”, I’m substituting my opinion for facts. That’s why, naturally, you can’t or won’t address the actual facts. It’s about time that you address them. How is the type of dual loyalty that’s being alleged in US politicians not a violation of allegiance or of faith and confidence?
I don’t even know what the hell that means. Define your antecedents please.
I don’t see where in that article, the author states his goals are to limit the President’s access to advisors, which is what you have said of yourself. Can we stay focused on that?
I already gave you a list of ways, which you seem to have not acknowledged. Are you reading for comprehension and with a mind open to being persuaded that there is such a way, and then taking it to heart? Or are you just asking for rhetorical purposes?
Personally, I couldn’t care less about your particular concerns about Israel’s foreign policy, you are entitled to the same voice in the larger crowd as anyone else in politics.
Your goal of limiting the President’s access to advisors as a means of achieving your poltical goal strikes me as misguided, but if that’s how you want to make your effort, well, OK. Seems odd to accuse your opponents of treason while working to limit the President’s access to informatoin a priori, but even that is not what the main concern is.
The main concern is that, in trying to achieve the goal of limiting the President’s information, Redfury and by your support you, would attach by insinuation a question of loyalty on all Jews in America, as I explained a post or two earlier.
Now, maybe that is not your intent. But it is the effect, and having had it pointed out, are you prepared to adjust your tactics for achieving your (dubious to me, but still your right to try) goals regarding foreign policy and Israel?
Continually saying you would do the same for the Vatican (but not for Cuba!) or that someone published a book that holds the same views as you, or at least tries to blur the definitions to make your immediate words pretendingly ambiguous does not make yoru case better.
If you are sincere in wanting ways to achieve your goals without the anti-semitism charge, I gave you an outline of ways to do that earlier, and we can refine it, the next step is up to you. If you are only pretending that the words are ambiguous, but know that the real audience will get it, then drop the charade when your plan is pointed out to you.