On Existential Threats
I don't Think that Means What you Think it Means (Huckabee Edition)
“People are really worried about the future of the country,” he said. “We’re not as safe a nation. Islamic Jihad is a genuine threat to America. We have a president who I think could watch a western movie from the 50’s and when it was over, he couldn’t tell you who the good guys and the bad guys were. What we’re fighting is evil. This is not just a geopolitical force that would like a little more land. These are people who want to cut our heads off. They literally want to kill every last one of us. And not be able to recognize that existential threat and call it what it is, is inexplicable to me.”
This, it strikes me, is a ridiculous position that is, unfortunately, indicative of too much war on terror thinking.
First, western movies from the 50’s are a terrible analogy insofar as in those films there is a clear and easy delineation between good and evil (real life is not so simple). Anyone who thinks that geopolitics can be understood in these terms ought not be allowed near the levers of power. Note: George W. Bush saw the world this way and look at what that got us in Iraq.
Second, even if we stipulate (for the sake of discussion) the notion that ISIS wants to behead the entirety of the US population (a claim that is pure hyperbole in the first place), the notion that this is a real threat is absurd. Soviet nuclear missile were a true existential threat because they could, if properly utilized, end the existence of the United States. Setting aside the enormous issue of logistics for a moment, if every single member of ISIS showed up in the US armed with very sharp blades they could be repelled with a relative handful of soldiers armed with automatic weapons. In short: the ability of ISIS to threaten our existence, regardless of their wants and desires, is nil.
What is inexplicable to me is that anyone would use the concept of “existential threat” to apply to a group like ISIS (or, really, pretty much any current international issue). Quite frankly, anti-vaxxers are a bigger threat to US lives than is ISIS.
Of course, I have not been particularly impressed with Huckabee’s “analysis” of US politics in culture as represented by his new book, so the above is no surprise.
Similarly, it grates on my nerves that wherever and whenever the U.S. military is deployed overseas, no matter the reason, it is popular to credit it with “fighting for our freedom.”
Persons mouthing this phrase usually don’t go into detail on exactly who was going to come over here from Iraq or Afghanistan, conquer the United States (or any part of it), and take away Americans’ freedom.
It’s pretty simple actually. Frightened people are easily manipulated, and frightened people stay glued to their TV sets. Huckabee is the 21st century version of a traveling snake oil salesman.
My mother, who lived through the depression, WW II, and the cold war calls me about once a week to talk about “What a dangerous place the world is today.” She watches cable news obsessively, and never seems to take my advice when I say “Turn off the TV & read a book.”
@anjin-san: You are, of course, correct–I meant “inexplicable” from an intellectual point of view. I do understand the fear angle.
(my grandmother said a similar thing to me this week and she, too, watches a ton of cable news).
And I literally want to have sex with Giselle Bundchen.
You can’t just look at intentions, Huck. You have to consider capabilities….
I suspect that part of the problem is that our population is aging. Old people typically work less or not at all; their kids are out of the home, and ahead of them they see nothing but threats of illness, incapacity, weakness, dependency and death.
We are all hurtling toward death from the moment we are born, but we distract ourselves from this (genuinely existential) threat with work, sex, child-rearing, etc… Deprive a human of work, sex, child-rearing and take 60 or 70 years off the clock and your prospect narrows down to various unpleasant things.
I turned sixty and I can subtract so I did a bit of this myself, but I still have kids in the home, I work as hard as I ever did, and those things give me less time to sit around and stew over my inevitable demise. But if you take elderly people, remove bit by bit everything they had that was positive or ambitious or other-directed, and in many cases you degrade their intellectual faculties, you get a kind of existential panic. People can play on your fears, they can exploit them. That’s Huckabee’s hustle – frightening old people.
If you define America as a set of ideas, rather than just territory and people, then it begins to make sense to describe these as existential threats.
For instance, flying two planes into the World Trade Center caused America to panic and give up liberties left and right for the illusion of safety. New York City was transformed into a police state, with national guard in the subways, etc., and it never really got back to where it was before.
So, Huckabee is right. If ISIS were to start capturing and beheading people over here (I would recommend windowless white vans for beheading squads roving the heartland, by the way), they would provoke Americans into creating an existential threat to America — probably by supporting people like Huckabee.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I think your own intellectual honesty causes you to have problems understanding people that have none.
When you are older and more cynical it will all become clear 🙂
@Gustopher:
There’s a part of me that thinks Bin Laden destroyed America on 9.11. I keep telling it to shut up, but it won’t go away entirely.
@Gustopher: I’m with you on the first two paragraphs. I’d add that the concept of America, which requires a balance of freedom and right conduct, has become very dependent on international common ground, and any threat to that also may constitute an existential threat to America.
Bravo. If you sell bumper stickers that say this, I will buy one.
@Gustopher:
Walt Kelly said it best 40+ years ago:
@DrDaveT: Indeed.
@michael reynolds:
Oh, as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
Are you sure Huckabee was talking about ISIS when he was talking about an existential treat? I see back in 2012 that he wrote “there is a clear realization that Iran’s nuclear program poses an existential threat.” Is it possible that his view of Islamic jihad is a bit broader than just ISIS?
@Another Mike: In fairness, he may have more than ISIS in his head, but “These are people who want to cut our heads off. They literally want to kill every last one of us.” sounds more like ISIS than Iran.
However, even the broadest possible interpretation, even a nuclear Iran, does not rise to an actual existential threat from an empirical point of view.
@DrDaveT:
The original Dylan.
Poetry is the one thing I never attempt. I suspect my wife could manage a bit if she tried, but the best I can do is parody. That’s not the way words work in my brain.
.
I get it Huck. They want to nip off our noggins.
You just want to shoot us if we don’t listen to your prophet.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/03/31/154984/mike-huckabee-david-barton/
@michael reynolds:
Indeed. I grew up listening to my parents’ Simon and Garfunkel albums, where I heard:
(Paul Simon, “A Simple Desultory Phillipic”).
Mom was an English teacher, so when I asked who Dylan Thomas was, she pointed me at “Fern Hill”. And “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”. And “The Force that Through the Green Fuse”. When I was older, I discovered for myself “Lament”, and “Altarwise by Owl-Light”, and a half-dozen others. And at every Christmas, we listened to the old Caedmon recording of Thomas himself reading “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”. To this day, my brothers and I will occasionally share an inside joke involving Ernie Jenkins (who likes fires), or Miss Prothero (who said the right thing — always), or parsnip wine (because it’s only once a year).
There are a handful of poets whose works I sometimes understand (and adore), but often don’t understand (but I realize the fault is mine). Thomas is one of those, along with Wallace Stevens and T. S. Eliot.
@DrDaveT:
I just picked up an early pressing of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, Thyme, sounds fantastic.
I also grew up listening to my Dad’s Simon & Garfunkel records, timeless stuff.
@anjin-san: Oh there’s little doubt Bin laden won.
funny how you past right over the meaning of his statement….
Good God professor …and you teach people? I would also like to take the time to finish up the converstion I last had with you …”he seems to have some special insight into the sitituion” …. no its called common sense
So how many jihadis does it take to cripple a city? All of them?…with swords? My understanding is that they use automatic weapons…lots of which were payed for with our tax dollars. The beheadings are for show. The actuall number isn’t much higher than 2-11 of them at a time. reference DC, boston, mumbai, paris, lodon,..etc….NY.
So when iran is finished weaponizing its Urianum and puts it in a small time “suitcase” bomb and renders LA & NY inhospitable are you going to say well it was just one jihadi and he forgot to bring his sword?
And on the Anti vaxxer comment.. you do realize …you are only having this conversation because the zero decided to let in 90 thousand un-vaccinated and disease carrying “children” across our borders right? http://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html
Its supper funny looking at that chart…lets start to use our common sense again shall we?
@Rafer Janders: ‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife,
@munchbox:
Well, we ALL know that the first thing refugee children do once they cross the border is to head to Disneyland!
But more to the point: refugee children crossing the border have HIGHER RATES OF VACCINATION than kids here. Sad, but true:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.IMM.MEAS
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/immigration-border-crisis/vectors-or-victims-docs-slam-rumors-migrants-carry-disease-n152216
http://www.texasobserver.org/disease-threat-immigrant-children-wildly-overstated/
(I know, I know – DNFTT. But as a pediatrician, I just can’t let that mendacious canard go unchecked.)
@munchbox: It is odd that your definition of “common sense” requires creating fantastic scenarios that are basically Tom Clancy novels.
(Also note: the beheading claim came from Huckabee to start with)
And dmhlt covered the measles/immigrant issue.
On that note: your simplistic reading of that CDC chart (and your conflation of correlation and causation) means that perhaps you could, in fact, use a few classes.
Also:
As terrible as those events are, if you think they make Huckabee’s point, then I think you do not understand what “existential” means.
So your rebuttal is to link to articles that are a year old?…makes sense. So as a pediatrician you’re saying that you actually vaccination less American children then the third world?
and to boot you link nbc ?…that’s funny because after all the times they have been caught lying and doctoring news reports means that the left finds them even more credible?…or even say less racially dividing even…#nbcblk Amber spent 10 years at NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams where she wrote, shot, and edited breaking news and feature stories. Read more at http://www.snopes.com/info/news/nbcblk.asp#8XQdJ5I6S5qREQsI.99
so to review…looking at your wordbank data and countries noted in your links….uh? that silly nbc…
year 10 11 12 13
Mexico 95 98 99 89
Guatemala 93 89 93 85
Honduras 98 95 93 89
Costa Rica 83 83 90 91
United St. 92 92 92 91
measles outbreaks per year…
2001- 2008 less then one hundred cases
2008-2015 5 years with 100-200 cases
with 2014 coming in at over 600 cases.
and if you don’t see the cause and effect
of 0’s immigration policy you’re willfully blind.
no the beheadings come from the Islamists.
@munchbox: You remind me why you are not worth engaging with.
must google Search Results (oh I see what it is now….)
ex·is·ten·tial
ˌeɡzəˈsten(t)SH(ə)l/
adjective
adjective: existential
of or relating to existence.
Philosophy
concerned with existence, especially human existence as viewed in the theories of existentialism.
Logic
(of a proposition) affirming or implying the existence of a thing.
yes that’s right ….its seems to be a reoccurring problem with some people…
LOL what you don’t like to be confronted with anything but groupthink?
good day to then sir
Of course when your hero Huckleberry the Huckster Huckabee threatens to shoot American Citizens unless they listen to David Barton it’s a Sunday School picnic.
yeah….discussing things ie. this blog and comment section with any other ideas but what the group condones.
@munchbox: It has nothing to do with agreement or disagreement. You don’t know how to have a conversation and you certainly do not know how to use and deploy evidence.
You are feel to discuss what you like. I do not see any bans being put into place. However, again, you don’t want to discuss, you wan to be snarky and/or simply belligerent.
Some example:
-Linking to a CDC story and then declaring it to be proof that immigrants are responsible for the measles outbreak is not an argument, nor is it proper use of evidence. You might as well say that the Seattle Seahawks won in the Super Bowl in 2014, measles cases went up in 2014, ergo, the Seahawks cause measles (so thank goodness they didn’t win this year).
-Cutting and pasting a definition of “existential” and then linking to a story about Obama is not an argument, nor a deployment of evidence. It is, like many of your comments, a non sequitur.
-And, of course, since you start your comment with me above by being insulting, I am not sure why you think I should, in turn, treat you like an honest interlocutor who is simply interested in a conversation.
@munchbox:
And I’d add to what Steven says, that you’ve been caught at least once cutting and pasting things and presenting them as your own without attribution.
…well we are only up to hundred cases already….
sorry you feel insulated …let me get you an everybody gets a trophy award.
…and on a side note i would have preferred getting measles then seeing the pats win.
….rolls eyes looking at you TM
@munchbox: Well, I thought the whole point of our 270 million privately owned firearms was “self-protection.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/15/what-makes-americas-gun-culture-totally-unique-in-the-world-as-demonstrated-in-four-charts/
And actually, those 90 thousand refugee kids fleeing the violence created by our “War on Drugs” in their countries, plus the residue of 1980s civil wars based on anti-communism, have a higher vaccination rates then U.S. children due to all the anti-vaccine propaganda and conspiracy theories. http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/15511/conservatives-resort-to-lying-about-child-refugees-vaccination-rates-wanting-to-deport-them
You Movement Conservatives really are mole people.
@munchbox: You’re an absolute nutcase..
Iran would never do what you said. Lets humor your crazy delusions for a minute.. Guess what the response would be? The complete destruction of Iran and they know it…
You should be worried about Pakistan, the former soviet blocks and Russia as those countries have HORRIBLE control over their nuclear stockpiles. If a dirty bomb does get set off that’s where the materials are most likely to come from.
I teach this stuff, and existential threat doesn’t have anything to do with extinction, survival, genocide, or any other variations of meaning from the related word “existence.” The phrase came about via the Copenhagen school (in the field of international relations) to describe a type of alarmism whereby certain “hard” threats can muster emergency measures and throwing out the rule book. It’s the reaction by those threatened which makes it existential.
I see the sock puppet known as munchbox has ruined another thread.
michael reynolds:
Yes, our dear friend munchbox is a brazen, unapologetic plagiarist. Link. Funny how dishonesty, ignorance and conservative beliefs tend to coincide as a package.
Steven L. Taylor:
Reminds me of Lisa Simpson’s tiger-repellent rock.
Another Mike:
A nice example of quoting out of context. He said this:
The words you quoted were not a claim that “Iran’s nuclear program poses an existential threat” to the US. Huck might be nutty enough to think that, but you did not give us an example of him saying that. You only pretended to.
@michael reynolds: Especially if you spend all your waking time listening to Fox News.
To Huckabee, “existential” just means “bad”. I believe I’ve made the observation before that a great deal of modern conservative thought depends on sloppy language.
Speaking of which, @Pinky: what is
supposed to mean?
@munchbox:
Nothing saddens me more, when I think of the average American intellect, than the fact that somehow it’s totally different if it’s beheadings. On TV. If those same people had been shot in the back of the head off-camera, America’s reaction would be totally different. (If they’d been killed in car accidents on America’s highways, the reaction would continue to be nonexistent.)
Why? I have no idea, but it can’t be healthy.
@DrDaveT: You really don’t see the fundamental differences between being shot in the head and having the head hacked off with a knife? In front of a camera vs. off-camera?
I mean besides the obvious–one is instant and painless, the other not–there’s a great psychological difference between the two and one can be entirely “healthy” and still be affected more by one than the other.
@Mikey:
No, I don’t. Seriously. Dead is dead. And the difference in pain is small — it’s not like the difference between being beheaded and being tortured to death (or at all), which is a very real difference.
Only if you invent one. Which I gather is exactly what they want you to do.
Seriously; I don’t get it. Why am I supposed to get more upset about a YouTube beheading than a back-alley stabbing or an anonymous RPG?
@DrDaveT:
I know “dead is dead” but at the same time I can still understand why most people attach a greater level of negative context to seeing a head sawn off with a knife vs. the sound of a gunshot off-camera.
Of course this is why the terrorists use beheading–they know people will have a deep, visceral reaction to seeing the blood spraying from the cut neck and seeing the severed head held up like a trophy. There’s no need to invent the psychological difference.
@Mikey: The difference in actual death and pain depends on where the person is shot and with what bullet.
Getting your throat cut is a relatively quick death from your perspective as you lose consciousness quickly when the arteries are cut.
My mom treated a man who had attempted suicide with a 12 gauge shotgun to the head. He survived and went from partially paralyzed to fully paralyzed.
@Mikey:
I don’t think we’re really disagreeing here. I get that the psychological difference is real to most people. But it shouldn’t be. Once you’ve seen through the manipulative theater, the only facts that matter don’t care whether it was a beheading or any other fast death.
The role of our government and the news media should be to help us see through the manipulative theater to the tawdry reality, so that we can act sensibly. Instead, we get half of Congress foaming at the mouth (because Beheadings!) and the media drooling pruriently at the thought of the additional viewer eyeballs and ad revenue they can capture (because Beheadings!).
Good luck with that!
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00293/14803019_eddie_adam_293641b.jpg
@DrDaveT:
You’d hope so, but for many people it doesn’t work that way. Beheading affects people at a level they can’t really reach or control. There’s something so fundamental in the separation of the head from the body, something so qualitatively different from a gunshot, that just gets people in a place governed entirely by instinct.
It’s not surprising, then, that the terrorists exploit this. Our politicians exploiting it too…now that’s pretty sad.
It’s been done before.
Happy VD Day!
@DrDaveT its not different whether it’s beheading, being burned alive, shot, crucified, burned with acid, bombings, or tortured to death. It’s all the same when it comes to imperialistic Islam. The good professor thinks otherwise…he’s in denial about this. And singles out the fact that the huckster said behead us all….and passes over the first comment “Islamic Jihad is a genuine threat to America.”
I sure they would behead us all if it was possible but really any method of death will do. Including death by nuclear device which he also denies as a possibility.
@munchbox: The good professor is asking for prudence (and accuracy) in language alongside an understanding of probability.
American are far more threatened today by traffic than they are by”Islamic Jihad” at least if we mean threatened by death.
And while ISIS and other groups threaten US national security interests, they do not threaten the existence of the United States.
Again: you use speculation as though it is evidence. That is not how legitimate argumentation works.
Glad to see that you always fall on the side of see no islam here.
when an islamist threatens you it always means death.
The dead and injuried I’m sure beg to differ with you about that.
Lets see….
the DC snipers
the TWO attacks on the world trade center
the two dead NYC cops
the nyc hatcheted cop
the Boston bombing
the Foot Hood shooting.
the woman beheaded in Oklahoma
…
also glad you think the seahawks are a bigger threat then illegal immigrants when it comes to eradicated diseases. Funny though that the rate of vaccination in the US has remained steady over the past decade and so have cases of outbreaks….wait for it….until 2008-2015. What changed then? What has caused this difference? Also please do tell the audience why that all these outbreaks are mostly concentrated in areas know to be havens of illegals?
Link:
LOL! junkie. more black people were killed in the murder capital of us too….the zero’s home town! in fact there have been more murders in just 2015 alone then by “right wingers”
but beside the fact that you have to qualify that argument the day after 9/11 that’s pretty lame.
you could add in the Oklahoma bombing in there too because I am sure that’s were you’ll be going next…. and you still don’t get anywhere close to the total killed by Islamic terror.
I bet you were really upset when Giuliani said this: “we had no domestic attacks under Bush.”
GOOD GOD JUNKIE! what is that supposed to even mean???
Something that you obviously lack the capacity to comprehend.
Oooh burn. You sure showed me. M u n c h b o x g r a d strikes again