Being reasonable: logic or savagery

In reading the various opinions and stories about the London/Glasgow terror attempts/attacks I found this post by notjayhughes at Virginia Virtucon to be interesting.

Whatever your political perspective, I hope you realize this means the global war on terrorism is alive and well.  Whatever your opinion on the Iraq situation, you must realize Islamo-Fascism’s core objective.  It is a full, frontal assault on reason and civilization.

As beings of reason and logic, we must understand that those who choose to abandon reason must be dealt with in terms understandable. Those who freely abandon reason are animals.  We can expect them to respond to stimuli of two types:  pleasure or pain.  So unless we’re prepared to pleasure them, we must inflict pain.

Of course, some will opine how we, as beings of logic and reason, should act unreasonably and illogically, as to inflict suffering upon Islamo-Fascist animals.  The answer is simple.  As beings of logic, we can reason the time to act as savages for the purpose of self-preservation.  When we achieve our objective we have the faculties to lay down savagery and resume the mantle of reason, logic and civilized behavior. 

That second paragraph is crucial and it bears being emphasized. Too often members of our society refuse to recognize the reality they are confronted with, that being the fact that the terrorists who stand against us have elected to be unreasonable. They have decided to allow their anger and, yes, their hate to define their positions and their actions. There is no reasoning with people who refuse to be reasonable and continued attempts to do so after their refusal has become clear is no virtue.

Where I must part company with this author is the conclusion he draws that, when faced with this situation, beings of logic and reason can and should conclude that acting as a savage and laying aside their logic and reason is just fine. I contend that it’s not necessary to set aside my logic when I choose my course of action in dealing with terrorists. Yes, they are acting as animals. So does the neighbor’s dog. I don’t need to go all primal with the dog when it does something I don’t like. I just need to frame my response using a language the dog will understand.

As he wrote, animals respond to 2 stimuli, the negative one being pain (or the credible threat of pain). It is not necessary for me to lay aside my logic and reason to act in a manner that will bring a certain level of pain to my enemy, so long as I don’t permit myself to start inflicting pain merely because I want to inflict pain.

To refuse to frame my response in this language, however, is the truly illogical and unreasonable stance. Many of those who stand opposed to the GWOT do so not because they truly believe our enemies are right, they do so because they cannot bear to consider the notion that their political enemies (Bush and the GOP) might be right. There are those, however, who consider the concept of actually fighting to be just morally wrong in every circumstance and as something that can be avoided, every time, by talking about it. When you lack a common language, talking about it is illogical and, as I said, is not a virtue.

So, in the end, I agree with notjayhughes in his stance that dealing with our enemies requires that we make it more painful for them to continue than not. I just don’t see that as setting aside our faculties. I see it as applying them, reasonably and logically.