Despite the Muslim Brotherhood's 80-plus-year record of assassinations, terrorism, and bigotry, Brookings Institution scholars talk as though the group remains an enigma. Read my article @ FrontPageMag on why the very people who regard the mixture of religion and politics in America as incipient fascism reflexively dismiss warnings about an Islamic takeover in Egypt.

Your article has an ad for "Sexy Arab Women".

Arafat was good at saying what westerners WANTED to hear, platitudes of peace and working with Israel, then going into a mosque and, in arabic, calling for Israel's destruction. The Shia call this Taquia, or, telling a lie when it is suitable, or when dealing with a stronger adversary. Islam is noted for telling the useful idiots of the west one thing in english, then saying the complete opposite in arabic. The tools of the media and certain think-tanks seem to have a blind spot for this. Then again, maybe they're just not as smart as they think they are.

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How do you deal with agencies and 'institutes' that consistently see the United States as a problem and everybody else in the world, good or bad, as misunderstood?

Nice to be able to sit and observe from our own prosperous and relatively safe perch and be so noble.

Generally, people who are members of a particular group or class are best suited to making critical judgments about the group or class. This extends to many different areas (science, language, history, art). If you still can't understand this, a rock guitarist would probably be more suited to reviewing a rock guitar solo than a medieval church historian (although the historian may also be an expert rock music critic).

The simple point that conservative simple stimulus response organisms fail to understand, as they fail to understand U.S. history, science, logic, critical thinking, ethics, and philosophy, is that an American is best suited to making ethical judgments and ana1yses about American politics and culture, and is much less suited to making similar pronouncements regarding foreign countries, where their knowledge of the foreign culture and history is probably very, very shallow. But the reflexive conservative bungler can't help themselves, America is always number 1 at everything, even though countless irrefutable metrics indicate otherwise.

If I follow your complex argument...you're just calling conservatives "stupid" right?

So let's see if I understand,if we follow your line of thinking PMA then no one can speak out about a particular country,culture or group that they don't don't belong to because they have no way of "really understanding it" and by extention holding judement of it.
For instance we couldn't say honor killings are bad because we don't belong to the culture that practises it and making such a pronoucment would be bigoted.
Or is it just conservatives who aren't allowed to make such judgements?

The funny thing about this reasoning is that if you apply it to history, for instance, then history can ONLY be taught through primary sources.*

Ridiculous. Only those whose objectivity can NEVER be assured can be trusted to give a critical opinion of a "particular group or class"? Do you think about this stuff before you write it, or are you too busy coming up with sexualized, degrading, put-downs for imaginary people you disagree with?

* I should say, however, that in some cases, I'm ok with that. While I was never an FDR fan, it was only after listening to a very large number of his speeches and radio addresses (check out archive.org) that I realized he's right up there with the greatest monsters of the 20th century.

So, if we extend the argument, then Obama is truly unqualified to pontificate on foreign issues?

Really PMA? You want to use that argument? Sounds like a bit of leftist bungling to me.

Homer,

Yes.

NR,

I'm asserting that Obushma is more qualified and will be able to render more well-informed critiques about his own country than about foreign countries. Obushma is also better suited to govern his own country than a foreign one, because he better understands its culture, legal code, and history. This is not a difficult concept to understand.

"a rock guitarist would probably be more suited to reviewing a rock guitar solo"

Really? It's a good thing for rock guitarists that ordinary folk review their work by buying records and paying to go to their concerts.

I would say that the popularity of every performance is a review.

The rest of that clap trap sounds like leftist elitism at it's finest.

Obushma...I like that.

Remember PMA, I'm just extending your argument. You claimed that Conservative are a bunch of ill informed bunglers yet overlook or ignore that the essence of your argument applies just as well to the left.

Example: Noam Chomsky ignored history (and reality) when he defended the Kmer Rouge Cambodian genocide as, "not the result of systematic slaughter and starvation organized by the state." He's also a linguist and "philosopher", and by your standard has no business talking of either politics or foreign policy.

Another example: Obama's C.V. is that of a "community organizer" and state senator with no actual experience running either a corporation or a government. By your standards, he should not be president. Hell, Sarah Palin's got a better resume, whatever you think of her.

Besides, on its face, your argument is as broad as it is ill thought out. It's a stereotype along the lines of "all Jews are misers" and "All Blacks are lazy." Neither is true, and shows the biases of the writer rather than the truth of the individual.

And really, if you had wanted clarity (as you claimed), you could have just said you think all Conservatives are stupid.

(scratches head)

So, explain how PMA is qualified to criticize conservatives?

This makes my head hurt.

There are liberals who are reasonable critics of conservatives and vice versa. I would argue that a conservative would be better qualified to criticize conservatism than a liberal. Former conservatives are quite good at it as well.

Again, not difficult at all to understand, unless you're being intellectually dishonest or deliberately obtuse.

Nice misdirection.

Nobody's arguing that you can't have an opinion on things outside your "realm of experience" (well, except you). Homer's just poking a little fun at the silliness of the, "only rock stars can comment on music etc." theory you've put forward.

As for me, I'm just pointing out that "easy to understand or not," your argument is intellectually dishonest (to borrow a phrase).

But for clarity's sake, I'm specifically talking about this:

" The simple point that conservative simple stimulus response organisms fail to understand, as they fail to understand U.S. history, science, logic, critical thinking, ethics, and philosophy..."

It's convoluted, not a simple point (unless you refine it down to "all conservatives are stupid" and also total bullshit.

However:

I would agree that your assertion that former (insert ideological bent here) are quite good at critiquing their previous masters.

ie. David Horowitz who went from radical left to very much right,or Hitchens, who pretty much did the same but in more of a Libertarian manner, or Arianna Huffington, who,while I pretty much do not agree with anything she says, also made the transition and flourished.

Finally, no one is being intellectually dishonest or obtuse, we're just holding you to your words and discussing.