▪️It’s depressing that this is the state of things, but it’s what happens when moral relativism meets anti-America/West sentiment, both of which are prevalent today. It shouldn’t have to be said, but here’s a breakdown of why Bin Laden’s letter should not give anyone pause let alone praise:
▪️Bin Laden’s repeated uses of “us” and “our lands” is complete collectivism. By “us” he means Muslims, and “our lands” refers to the entire Middle East (and beyond) being a totalitarian Islamic state. His gripe with America is not simply that it uses violence, but that it “prevent[s] our people from establishing the Islamic Shariah.”
▪️This context is dropped by those who claim Bin Laden was simply using terrorism to respond to American aggression. If only America would leave them alone they’d be peaceful. No. Their entire worldview is to establish a totalitarian Islamic state, and views anything impeding that goal to be its enemy. It just so happens that Israel and the US are its greatest impediments.
▪️As with the Palestinians, when they speak of liberation they don’t mean protecting their citizen’s individual rights to property and liberty. They mean it in a collectivist sense, where “our lands” will be “liberated” and ruled by a militant theocracy. Thus, they are not fighting for freedom but brutal oppression.
▪️Which is apparent when you look at any governments they control. Places the Taliban, ISIS, Hamas, etc. had control were/are hellscapes. The notion that if they were simply left alone they would be bastions of peace or freedom is totally absurd.
▪️This makes their already tenuous claim that targeting civilians is justified even more evil. They are targeting civilians IN ORDER TO BRING ABOUT TYRANNY. This is where the moral relativism in trying to equivocate terrorism to Israel/US actions becomes so abhorrent.
▪️It’s similar to the Bolsheviks in Russia. When they came to power they spoke of liberating the workers from the evils of capitalism/western oppression, which greatly appealed to the anti-capitalist left, and why there was such support for the Soviets among intellectuals for decades. When in reality, “liberation” only meant tearing down any semblance of Western values and leaving hell on earth in its place.
▪️Those finding sudden agreement with Bin Laden’s letter should really read it carefully. At the end he says those who fail to meet ALL of his conditions will be at war with the Islamic nation. Only 3 of his 7 demands involve US military/diplomatic involvement. Most of the demands involve embracing Islam and Islamic Law. Short of that, you are their enemy.
▪️This doesn’t mean interventionist escapades like the Iraq War are wise or justified. It means that pretending Islamic terrorism is some sort of reasonable or expected response to American/Israeli aggression is woefully naive. It’s a well thought out ideology that has a specific goal, ignore it at your peril.
Here’s the text of the letter:
https://www.samaa.tv/208734571-osama-bin-laden-letter-to-america-resurfaces-after-21-years-read-here
▪️The left keeps using this meme but they don’t actually believe it. If you believe SNAP subsidizes companies to pay below a “living wage” this implies that if you take food stamps away they would suddenly pay a higher, “living” wage. So why not get rid of food stamps, then?!
▪️Except they know, and everyone knows, this isn’t true. Wages are set by supply and demand, not some mythical “living wage” metric. Absent food stamps there would actually be downward, not upward, pressure on wages, because the reality is food stamps subsidize the poor to not work as much as they might otherwise need to.
▪️Without SNAP, some low income people would need to work more hours to make ends meet, increasing the availability of low-skilled labor and lowering wages (all else being equal).
▪️Plus, we all know the left loves and supports food stamps. Which means, by this meme’s logic, they love to subsidize corporate profits. But they don’t really, they just think this ...
▪️Wait, this is the guy libertarians and the new right rave about being a great historian?! This sounds like a clueless meme from The Other 98%, except they wouldn’t add in the bizarre defense of feudal lords. Feudalism didn’t deprive peasants of their livelihoods for abstract goals? This is total fantasy.
▪️Amazon employs 1.55M, so this is less than 2% of their workforce, although these cuts will be to corporate, which employs 350k, so 8.5% of that. The CEO says there is an excess of bureaucracy at Amazon, and AI can automate certain repetitive tasks. Also, much of the cuts will be to HR, which is expected shrink by 15%, yay. Managers and HR are peasants now?
▪️I don’t know the inner workings of Amazon, and neither does Darryl, but this seems to be normal management practice to keep a company efficient and competitive. Given the immense size of Amazon the numbers look large, but far bigger shakeups happen all the time in the private sector. Apparently, under the new ...
▪️This statistic is just made up. The reality is that there hasn’t been a real study on this since 2013, when Pew did a poll. They found that Democrats were actually more than twice as likely as Republicans to report ever using food stamps (22% vs 10%).
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/07/12/the-politics-and-demographics-of-food-stamp-recipients/
▪️Obviously, those percentages could have changed over the past decade, but it’s very likely that Dems still receive more SNAP benefits. Certainly, without an actual study or poll the claim should be thrown out, as it wildly contradicts a previous study.
▪️The meme probably comes from a 2024 analysis by Social Explorer, which found that 78.7% of US counties with the largest increase in SNAP since 2010 voted for Trump in 2020. But that tells us nothing about the actual number of Republicans (or Democrats) who are receiving benefits, just county-wide trends.
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