permissiveness: the cause of terrorism

[brettk at unicacorp.com]

Hi Mat,

Jeet beat me to the punch in explaining who Jacoby is.  He is truly awful.

Anyway, I was channel surfing on the radio last night and happened upon
Laura Ingraham's talk show.  She made the same point about this guy's
parents, insinuating that they were vile liberals who purposely raised a
treasonous son.  What struck me was how conservatives usually try to pin
the "bad upbringing" argument on liberals and lefties, who supposedly argue
that criminals are just misunderstood or had bad childhoods.  Then they go
on to ridicule that viewpoint and say how we need to be tough on crime,
etc.  Apparently they can believe that upbringing and environment can be
important when political points are at stake.

Brett

                                                                                                                        

                    "Forstater, Mathew"                                                                                 

                    <ForstaterM at umkc.edu       To:     <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>                                       

                    >                          cc:                                                                      

                    Sent by:                   Subject:     permissiveness: the cause of terrorism                      

                    owner-lbo-talk at lists                                                                                

                    .panix.com                                                                                          

                                                                                                                        

                                                                                                                        

                    12/13/01 04:26 PM                                                                                   

                    Please respond to                                                                                   

                    lbo-talk                                                                                            

                                                                                                                        

                                                                                                                        

A Jeff Jacoby has an article in the Boston Globe, "Blame Lindh's
Permissive Parents."  According to Jacoby, it all started with Lindh's
parents letting him listen to hip-hop music (although later in the
article, Jacoby implies that it may have begun much earlier, when the
Lindh's named their son after John Lennon!).  From there it was all
downhill--he read Malcolm X's autobiography, converted to Islam, went to
the Middle East, and ended up in the Taliban.  Now that's some subtle
analysis of the relation of culture, politics, and social psychology
folks!  Actually, if we follow Jacoby's convoluted logic, we get quite a
different result.

1) How many kids have listended to hip-hop music in the last 20 years?
Multiple millions, no doubt.  How many joined the Taliban?  One that we
know of.

2) How many terrorists listened to hip-hop music growing up?  After all,
isn't hip-hop one of the symbols of decadent American culture that Osama
bin Laden's followers abhor?  It is likely that most of the parents of
children who became terrorists did not allow their children to listen to
hip-hop.

So, I guess Jacoby would have us all promote hip-hop listening to our
children.  That would seem to make the odds against our kids becoming
terrorists.

Who is this guy anyway? Does anybody know?

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/347/oped/Blame_Lindh_s_permissive_pare
nts+.shtml

Mat