« La liberté des uns s’arrête là où commence celle des autres.”
“One’s freedom stops where others’ freedom starts.”
I am a “middleroader”. I don’t go for extreme positions… except maybe for people who are cruel to animals or small children. For those individuals I am strongly in favor of public flogging and a prominent “scarlet letter” (preferably on the forehead).
Otherwise I am a mild-mannered person and expect reciprocity from others.
That’s why I am against any type of extremism, political, social or religious.
I have opinions but I will never coerce anybody into sharing them with me.
I am particularly weary of people who hold extreme views. Especially crusaders consumed with a single burning passion. I think that there is something scarily weird about them. An emotional void that needs to be filled with extreme rhetoric or violence.
Personally I don’t have a single obsession; I have varied interests and therefore my energy is split and diffused among all of them.
I certainly don’t want to bump off or decapitate anybody who beats me at pétanque.
I don’t like evangelism, Islamism, Judaism, absolutism, Biblicism, chauvinism, creationism, dogmatism, fascism… basically it seems, almost every word ending in “ism”.
Hoplophilia by the way (erotic interest in guns) is also on my no-no list.
Extremists remind me the Lilliputian quarrel over the practice of breaking eggs.
“Traditionally, Lilliputians broke boiled eggs on the larger end; a few generations ago, an Emperor of Lilliput, the Present Emperor’s great-grandfather, had decreed that all eggs be broken on the smaller end after his son cut himself breaking the egg on the larger end.
The differences between Big-Endians (those who broke their eggs at the larger end) and Little-Endians had given rise to “six rebellions… wherein one Emperor lost his life, and another his crown”.
How dopey can you get? Doesn’t this remind you of what’s happening in the Middle East?
My innovative solution for extremism is therapeutic sex.
Therapeutic sex is typically a process by which sexual contact and intimacy are used as therapeutic treatment for a variety of emotional or psychological issues.
It is no secret that most fanatics are sexually deprived.
Let western governments allocate some money and send battalions of patriotic “escorts” to the Middle East.
I guarantee that after a roll (maybe two or three) in the hay most fanatics would be less inclined to die for the dubious prospect of scores of virgins in the sky.
It would be less costly, less bloody and way more effective than thousands of “boots on the ground”.
Eh Washington, what do you think?
It works in prisons (conjugal visits), why wouldn’t it work in Jihadi-land?
Alain
PS: If you read this post in WordPress format and want to see it in its original format, click once on the title of the article (in blue).
Please watch my new photo album titled “A walk in the park”.
Hi Alain,
Is ‘Please watch my new photo album titled “A walk in the park”.’ supposed to have a link to your photo album? I want to see…..
Etienne
Hello Etienne,
There is no link. Go to Cochonnetmarin.com and click on “My photos” on the right of the page.