Wednesday, June 21, 2006

The Suicide Bomb Morality The Suicide Bomb Morality

RealClearPolitics - Articles - The Suicide Bomb Morality:
The Palestinians show us a society based on sacrifice in its purest, most fanatical form. It is a society built around a single moral model: the suicide bomber, who is lionized on billboards, on television, in popular songs...

For the great mass of Palestinians this worship of sacrifice is sincere. By rejecting every chance at peace and coexistence with Israel--breaking every truce and turning down every peace offer--they have lost everything and gained nothing. Taking the suicide bomber as their moral model, the Palestinians seek to emulate his fate: in their lust to destroy Israel, they are willing to accept the utter destruction and collapse of their own society...

The contrast to America--a nation founded on the right to "the pursuit of happiness"--is even more vivid. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in 1832, he reported that the moral doctrine of "self-interest properly understood"--not hedonism, but a version of rational, benevolent self-interest--was "universally accepted": "You hear it as much from the poor as from the rich."

The distinctive model for American culture is not the suicide bomber but the "self-made man": the entrepreneur who achieves prosperity by hard work and ingenuity. Implicitly, we recognize that the proper business of life is not sacrifice but achievement. This is the actual code by which most Americans live.

Labels:

6:35 AM Display: Full / Chopped / Footer

Display: Full / Chopped / None

Display: Full / Footer / None

Display: Chopped / Footer / None